The Fate Of The Marked

Chapter Twenty

When I opened my eyes, I was laying face down on the ground. My head ached. Outside, it was getting dark. I pushed myself up and saw that I was still in the spare bedroom. There was a knock on the door, then it was pushed open.

"Elliot?" Jane asked. "Are you alright?"

She stepped inside and dropped a kitchen towel on the dresser. I stood and sat at the corner of the bed, head spinning.

"I slipped." I said.

It was becoming all too easy to lie. Jane took a seat beside me and nudged my knee with hers. I gave her a weak smile.

"When did you get back?" She asked.

"About an hour or so ago." I said. "I didn't want to bother you."

My headache grew and it felt as if someone were stabbing me in the temple with a knife. A dull knife. I gritted my teeth and resisted the urge to put my legs to my chest or lay down. I didn't want to tell Jane. I could heal it when she left.

"How was it?"

"All right." I said. "We walked around for a while."

We were silent for a while before Jane cleared her throat.

"Derek's going to be late coming home. I have a business dinner in an hour that I need to get to. Do you think you'll be okay until he gets home?" She said in a rush. "If you want, I can drop you off at the University. Derek shouldn't be too much later and we have a few things we need to talk about."

"I'll be fine." I said.

But there was a small knot forming in my stomach. I knew that the only thing that kept the Hunters from coming to get me was Jane and Derek's presence. But, then again, now would be the perfect time to put up the ruins. I didn't want to go out after dark.

"All right." She said reluctantly, standing. "Are you going to work on some of that homework?"

"Sure." I said. "I'm almost halfway done, anyway."

I walked Jane out to her car and went back inside as she pulled away. I didn't move from the window until she turned off the street and her headlights disappeared. I went back to the bedroom and dug around for the book.

The pages were old and cracking in places. I flipped through it gently before realizing that all the words were written in the same language as the rest of the manuscript, with a bit of Latin. I couldn't decipher it, but it seemed so familiar, as if I should know how to read it.

The hand motions were easy enough to understand. One of them, you flicked your wrist and turned your palm out. Energy jolted through my hand and the door slammed out against the wall.

I jumped.

The loud noise made my head pound all over again. I pressed my left palm against my temple and took a few deep breaths. My skin tingled for a moment and the pain faded. The normal fatigue didn't happen. I wondered if it was because of the marking.

The scar that made me a Marked One. I needed to find out what that meant, as soon as possible. I had heard it twice, and neither had sounded too happy when they said it.

When I did the same hand movement in reverse, the door was slammed shut. I did it over and over again, until I didn't even have to think about it. Then, I moved on to the second diagram. It was just clenching my hand and turning my fist up.

Nothing happened for a long second, then, there was a loud shatter down the hall. I raced out, book in hand, heart pounding, but there was no one there. Right by the stairs, the glass vase had shattered. I did the motion backwards a few times, but it didn't fix the glass. I sighed and swept it up.