Destined

“I’m not going to mug you,” he said miserably. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Then what are you doing out here, and what have you messed up?”

“This is so not going the way it’s supposed to!”

“And kidnapping me won’t do you any good. I’m living here with my foster mom. She doesn’t have any money at all. Actually, since I’ve been working after school at the South BA Library down the street, I have more money than her. Uh, not that I have any of it with me at this second.”

“Kidnap you? No!” Then Erik doubled over, holding on to his gut. “Crap! Charon didn’t tell me it’d hurt if I didn’t do it.”

“Charon? Are you in a gang? Am I supposed to be an initiation sacrifice?”

“No!”

“Good, ’cause that would really suck.” She smiled in his general direction, and then started to turn back the way she’d come. “Okay, well, then. If that’s all. It was nice to meet you, Erik Night. Or at least I think that’s your name.”

With a huge effort, Erik straightened up enough to lift his hand again, palm out. “This is what I’m supposed to be doing.” In a voice that was suddenly filled with magick and mystery and purpose, Erik Night intoned the ancient Tracker words, “Shaylin Ruede! Night has Chosen thee! Thy death will be thy birth! Night calls to thee; harken to Her sweet voice. Your destiny awaits you at the House of Night!”

All of the heat that had been building in his gut, making him feel sick and confused and too hot shot out of his palm. He could actually see it! It smacked right into Shaylin’s forehead. She made a small, surprised, “Oh!” sound and dropped gracefully to the ground.

Okay, he knew he was supposed to be very vampyre-like and melt into the shadows and return to the House of Night, letting the fledgling find her own way there. Charon told him that’s how it was done. Or at least that’s how it was done in the modern world.

Erik thought about melting into the shadows. He even started to back away, and then Shaylin lifted her head. She’d fallen in the middle of a splotch of light, so her face was illuminated. She looked absolutely perfect! Her full pink lips tilted up in a surprised smile and she was blinking as if to clear her vision. If she hadn’t been blind he would have sworn she was staring at him with those huge black eyes. Her pale skin was flawless, and in the middle of her forehead her new Mark seemed to glow a bright, beautiful scarlet.

Scarlet?

The color jolted through him and he started to move to her saying, “Wait, no. That’s not right.” At the same time Shaylin said, “Ohmygod! I can see!”

Erik hurried over to her and then stood helplessly, not sure what to do, as she collected herself and got to her feet. She was a little wobbly, but she was blinking and staring all around them, a huge smile filling her pretty face.

“I can really see! Ohmygod! This is incredible!”

“This isn’t right. I’ve so messed this up.”

“I don’t care if you messed up or not—thank you so much! I can see!” she shouted and threw her arms around him, laughing and crying at the same time.

Erik kinda patted her back. She smelled sweet, like strawberries or maybe peaches—or some kind of fruit. And she felt really soft.

“Oh, god! Sorry.” She suddenly released him and took a step back. Her cheeks were pink and she wiped her eyes. Then those wet, dark eyes widened at something over his shoulder and he spun around, hands up and ready to knock the crap out of someone. “Oh, no. Sorry again.” Her fingers rested on his arm for just a second as she took a slow step past him. He looked down at her to see that she was gawking at a big, old oak. “It’s so beautiful!” With steps that were becoming surer with each stride, she walked to the tree and pressed her hand against it. Staring up into the branches, she said, “I had images in my mind. Things I remember from before I lost my sight, but this is so, so much better.” She wiped her eyes again and then her bright eyes came back to him, and they widened even more. “Oh, wow!”

In spite of the weirdness of everything, Erik couldn’t help smiling back at her with his hundred-watt movie star grin. “Yeah, before I was zapped into being a Tracker I was on the road to Hollywood.”

“No, I’m not wowing about how hot you are, even though you are hot. I suppose,” she said quickly, still staring at him.

“I am,” he assured her, reminding himself that she was probably in some kind of shock.

“Yeah, well, what I mean is that I can really see you.”

“Yeah, and?” Goddess, Shaylin Ruede, Marked or unMarked, was one strange girl.

“I lost my sight when I was a just a kid, right before my fifth birthday, but I seriously don’t remember being able to see the insides of people. And I think if that was common I’d at least have heard about it on the Internet.”

“How can you use the Internet if you’re blind?”

“Really? Are you really asking that? Like you don’t know about stuff for disabled people?”

“How could I? I’m not disabled,” Erik said.

“Again, really? That’s not what the inside of you says.”

“Shaylin, what the hell are you talking about?” Was she a crazy kid? Had his messing up the Tracker stuff made her not just a red fledgling, but a crazy red fledgling? Crap! He was in so much trouble!

“How do you know my name?”

“All Trackers know the name of the fledglings they’re sent to Mark.”

Shaylin touched her forehead. “Oh, wow! That’s right! I’m going to be a vampyre!”

“Well, if you live. Actually, I’m not sure what’s going on. You have a red Mark.”

“Red? I thought fledglings have blue Marks and, eventually, blue tattoos. You do.” She pointed at his tattoo, which framed his Clark Kent blue eyes like a mask.

“Yeah, well, you should have a blue tattoo. But you don’t. It’s red. And could we go back to the stuff you were saying about seeing inside me?”

“Oh, that. Yeah, it’s amazing. I can see you, and then I can also see all kinds of colors surrounding you. It’s like what’s inside you is glowing around you.” She shook her head, as if in wonder, staring even harder at him. Then she blinked, frowned, and blinked again. “Huh. That’s interesting.”

“Colors? That doesn’t make any sense.” He realized she was clamping her lips together, as if she didn’t want to say any more, which for some reason really annoyed him, so he asked, “What colors are around me?”

“Lots of pea green all mixed with something watery. It reminds me of the mushy peas some places try to give you when you order fish and chips, not that that makes any sense whatsoever.”

Erik shook his head. “None of this makes any sense. Why the hell do I have mushy pea color around me?”

“Oh, that’s the easy part. When I focus on it I can see what it means about you.” She closed her mouth then and shrugged. “Plus you have some little bright specks that show up once in a while, but I can’t tell what color they are and only a little of what they mean. Sounds crazy, right?”

“What does the pea green and the watery stuff say about me?”

“What do you think it says?”

“Why are you answering my question with a question?”

“Hey, you just answered my question with a question,” Shaylin said.

“I asked you first.”

“Does that really matter?” Shaylin asked.

“Yes,” he said, trying to keep a handle on his temper, even though she was annoying the living crap out of him. “What does the pea color mean?”

“Fine. It means you’ve never had to work very hard at getting what you want.”

He scowled at her.

She shrugged. “You’re the one who asked.”

“You don’t know shit about me.”

Shaylin suddenly looked pissed. “Oh, please! I don’t know why, but I do know I know what I’m seeing.”