Lumen (24 page)

Daniel now had two people after him, a lion with a bite and no venom, and a snake with no bite but enough venom to kill. It was in the split second when both Jasper and Charles exchanged glances that Daniel realised they would both rather go on the chopping block than have ‘scum’ continue to study at the Academy.

Daniel turned around, getting ready to catch some air when something hit him. Jasper’s claws were inside Daniel’s wing. He pulled his wing back, and batted the lion around his head. It hit him again, this time the claws sink into his skin and his blood is drawn. Daniel begins screeching a low pitched whine from the bottom of his vocal chords, and that's all that’s needed to drive someone insane, or an audience to the barn doors.

“Which one’s Daniel?” a new comer to the audience asked.

“The one being beaten up,” a girl replied.

By now, everyone else had stopped fighting to watch what was happening. They kept glancing from Enek to the fight,  and from his half-smile, it seemed he approved.

Daniel screeched once again, it made everyone flinch, except for Jasper and Charles. Jasper tried to roar back, tried to roar louder, but it was nothing in comparison to the power of Daniel’s voice. The snake hissed, lifting its head, bobbing and weaving, threatening to fire it’s toxins.

“Just shut him up,” someone shouted.

The snake jumped, throwing its all at Daniel and wrapping itself around his neck. Daniel went silent as he tried to peck at it. The snake had started to constrict, and only whimpers could be heard as he opened his beak to screech.

“Finish him!” someone starts to chant, and then they all start. “Finish him! Finish him!”

I’m finished, I’m finished! 
Daniel shouts at himself, hitching at breaths and flapping his wings aimlessly. Daniel dropped to his knees, whacking himself with his wings, trying to get a feel for the snake and his throat.

“Enough!” Enek said, waving a hand from the balcony.

The chanting stopped and everyone glared up at him.

“Go on, shoo,” he said, flicking his wrists and sending the barn doors swinging shut. “And you three, shift back!”

The snake became loose and dropped from around Daniel. Jasper and Charles were back to normal within the instant, while Daniel stayed on his hands and knees, choking as his exterior started to drip from him. There was a shared gasp between all the students, and then as they watched Daniel squirm up from the ground, they started to snigger.

“Out, all of you,” Enek said.

Everyone left, even Enek. Daniel was left alone on the floor of the barn, surrounded by clumps of feathers and the powdered mess of excess bones.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Daniel stayed in the barn for another ten minutes, he wandered around in his head, thinking about what had just happened. He’d almost been killed, his arms were properly bruised, yet he didn’t get a scratch on Charles or Jasper, and then he thought about how full of himself he was at the start.

“I’m going home,” he said aloud, “there’s nothing keeping me here now, is there?” he started rubbing the bruises on his arms. “And I need to find Jac, and I can probably go home and he can teach me what he knows. I can go to the libraries.”

“Sounds good,” Enek said from the balcony of the barn.

“Oh,” Daniel sighed, picking himself up from the floor. “I thought I was alone.”

“You know, people would kill family members to be at this school,” he said, walking down the steps. “And Reuben chose you, so you must be special.”

“I’m not special,” he said.

“Well, we’ve all heard the story of how you nearly died. That’s kind of special.”

“So, Reuben tells you everything?”

“No, not everything, he doesn’t tell us why he favours you over his nephew, and Jasper knows it as well, that’s why he’s acting out.”

“Okay. I think I’m gonna go, there’s nothing keeping me here. The classes that I go to, people talk about me in, teachers are constantly 
glaring
 at me and I already know what they’re talking about.”

“See, special.”

Daniel shook his head and walked out of the barn. In the bright day he could see the bruises on his arms, shining purple and blacks, popping up in welts. He held his hand over his eyes as they adjusted to the light.

“Oh, there he is, I thought he was going to die,” a passer-by whispered to his friend.

Great, I think they were betting on that as well, 
Daniel whinged.

He made his way to his room, walking as slow as he could, wanting to enjoy the day but not the company. He swiped his card to unlock his dorm room, something he hadn’t done in a while. His room was black from the drawn curtains. He flicked the lights on and the first thing he sees is Carlie, kneeling on his bed, glaring at him.

“No, go. What are you even doing here?” he asked, rolling his eyes.

She bit her lip and winked. “I’m here for 
you
, silly.”

“No, I don’t care. Leave!”

She huffed. “You’re no fun.” She climbed to her feet, throwing herself off his bed. “Y’know Jasper hates you right. So, how about you get back at him?” she asked, folding her arms.

“I don’t know what you do, but I know that you 
take 
from people, yeah, you 
take 
their energy,” Daniel said, “so what is it about me?”

“Exactly, you’re powerful, stronger than Jasper, heck, even Mark’s stronger than Jasper,” she said, “I should know, I’ve had Mark.”

He closed his eyes and nestled his fingers across the bridge of his nose. “You’re a whore. But you weren’t born a whore,” Daniel said, ushering her out of his room.

“Huh? I do it for the thrill, and just because I’ve had sex. It’s not scary. Besides, I wouldn’t want to take that 
precious
little seed from you,” she grinned, pushing a hand up to Daniel’s chest to feel his heart pounding.

“Yeah, I don’t care, just leave will you!” he slapped her hands from his chest.

“Are you hoping to,” she winked, “with that girl?”

“Who?” he asked, and then gulped. “Mia?”

“Mia?” she asked, and then smiled. “Soon, all your other ties will be gone, and then you’ll want me… in fact, you’ll want me more than I need you.”

Daniel frisked himself for his phone, but he didn’t have it. “Where’s it at?”

Carlie huffed and then left, running down the hallway.

He slammed the door shut and started throwing stuff up into the air. He threw his duvet on the floor, and then his pillow, searching around the frame of the bed to see if it had fallen into one of the crevices. He checked under his bed, and saw Jac’s duvets from before he’d been so violently confronted and shunned somewhere Daniel couldn’t connect with him.

A buzz came from the drawer of his bedside table. He yanked the drawer and there was his phone, glowing as the ‘low battery’ sign flashed. He sighed and picked it out, but there were no missed calls, no text messages or anything. He typed Mia’s name in and phoned her.

“Hey,” she answered.

He sighed. “You’re fine?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I think people know about you,” he said.

“Well yesterday you told me that people spotted us, it would be hard for them not to have caught me on your back. I mean, I was strangling you almost,” she chuckled.

Daniel pulled the grille of the phone away from his face. He was thinking of ways to word it, he told himself that he couldn’t come off as paranoid. He couldn’t. He pushed the phone back to his ear.

“I need you to stay at home, just be ill for a few days. I’ll try and see if you're in any harm. Don’t worry though, you’re probably not, but just to be safe,” he said.

“Okay then. Are you sure I should stay off?”

“Yeah, just pretend you're ill for a few days or something.”

“Fine, but you’re going to have to come back and see me. They’ll just have to take some more of your blood,” she laughed.

“I don’t know what he attempts to get from my blood. He was just really angry, and now I don’t understand why I was so angry when he was so nice to me when I started.”

“Teachers are like that, one minute you could be a good student in their good books and then next 
bam
 you’re being slammed into detention,” she huffed, “I need to go, dad’s just shouted me for dinner.”

“I’ll phone you later.” He ended the call and started to make his bed with a little peace of mind.

There was a knock on his door, and it was times like those he wished he had a peep-hole in there, but he didn’t and nobody did, he’d only ever seen them in some of the places on the Lowerlands, like Jac’s house even though his house was in the treetops. The knock came again, stern and solid.

“Who is it?” he asked, standing with his hand on the door handle.

“Lunch is being served,” a girl said.

He let his heart rest back behind his lungs, and he pulled on the door handle. The door whacked him in the face as Mark and Jasper barged in, and he heard a girl whimper her apologies.

“Again?” Jasper laughed.

“What?” Daniel asked, picking himself up from the ground.

“Coming onto Carlie like that, she doesn’t like 
scum
,” he said.

Daniel grinned, he thought that Jasper might as well have been ‘scum’ the way he let his girlfriend go around everyone, and he could see the humility in Mark’s eyes, because he knew that he wasn’t the best of friends.

Jasper swung for Daniel and he dropped to his knees. He then stumbled forward from the force and went to hit Daniel again and missed. Mark grinned, but when Jasper glared at him he hushed and joined in on the attack.

“I’m going to Reuben,” Daniel said as they both closed in on him.

“Go for it, he’s my uncle, he’ll probably praise me for scaring the runt,” Jasper laughed as his hands eased at his waist. “Besides, this is retaliation for your friend who wasn’t supposed to be here. You know how long it takes to heal?”

Daniel found his question funny. He knew how long it took to heal, everyone knew their own healing time, but not many people knew each other’s. Jasper swung his fist and caught Daniel at the temple—he flopped to his feet, his body poured like jelly, hitting the ground. Mark kicked him and then they both ran away.

“You’re both weak,” he shouted out at them, pushing his door shut. He hauled himself onto his, coughing and holding his stomach. “You’re both weak.”

Daniel found his phone and called Reuben, he told him about what had happened and Reuben reassured him that they would be dealt with severely, and they wouldn’t be allowed to go near him again, also, all of his meals from now on would be delivered to his room. Daniel sighed, he couldn’t help but think that this was just another way to keep him in his room.

He dropped his head to his pillow and closed his eyes. His eyes shot open, his spine became tighter, he pushed his chest out and let out a huge groan. Then the white noise ate into him, sending his eyes fluttering into the back of his head and his muscles contracting all over his body.

Seconds later, the noise stopped. Daniel’s body dropped back to his bed and he took his first breath, he clamped his hands over his head as though his skull was going to implode and then he pounded on his chest as it ached and tried to itch at his heart.

“
Can you hear me? Jeez, just—
” Jac’s voice came through, making Daniel’s eyes water and his ears popping.

“Yes! Yes! I can hear you!” he said, relieved at the cool prickle soothing his body.

“
Finally. You don’t know how long I’ve been trying to get through
.” Yet Daniel could have guessed, probably just as long as he’d been trying to get through. However, Jac wasn’t in a state of constant worry about whether there was a body lying in a ditch besides the mountains, not like Daniel had been worrying.

“What happened to you?” Daniel sat up in his bed, holding his head.

“
Where to start? I fell through several layers of trees and broke my arm, but I didn’t know I was still in the Upperlands until a man tried to kill me, he thought I was some bird or something, anyway, he saved me and then told me my way back to the Academy. Apparently he shares my same hate for Reuben or he would have killed me.
”

“Are you okay? Where are you now?”

“
I’m near the gates, but I should be inside by the morning. So what happened when I left?
”

“I went to see Mia.” Daniel took a deep breath. “And then I nearly exposed the island to the 
rest 
of the world, when I got back Reuben was real angry, he even took some of my blood.”

“
Blood? He took some of 
your
 blood?
”

“Yeah, he said that it was in case I did anything stupid. Why?”

“
Dammit, Daniel! You’re at the school of all that is knowledge and you don’t know the importance of blood yet?
”

Daniel ground his teeth together, he could feel the lecture coming on from Jac as his heart and head throbbed in consecutive beats. “Well, we touched upon it.”

“
Don’t you remember all those stories about people the people whose blood had been hexed? Do you remember the end, or the middle? Or the part where their power slowly started to kill them, and yes, in the end they died.
”

“That was just a horror story though.”

“
No, it wasn’t. I need to talk to you, now!
”

“You are.” Daniel frowned.

“
I knew you shouldn’t have gone to that school. I could have taught you, at home, in fact, you could have lived with me. I even asked Roan, but she didn’t approve. She told me that if the 
Academy
 didn’t want you then she wouldn’t have had much’ve a choice.
”

“But Jac, I’ve learnt so much here, and I know you know lots of stuff an’ all, but—”

“
At least I wouldn’t have tried to hurt you!
”

Daniel closed his eyes as a low hum vibrated in his head.

“
I really need to tell you something, face-to-face.
”

“I’m getting a bit of a headache, so I’ll speak to you in the morning… if you get passed the security.”