Unfamiliar (Unfamiliar Series #1)

Chapter 16

It's dark when I walk across campus alone just before midnight. 

The silence is a welcome relief to the bustle during the afternoon as the watery darkness swallows me up. It's just myself and my struggling thoughts that continue to nag at me with an unrelenting force. 

Like that makes it any better. 

Still, at least I could be alone with my thoughts. 

Luckily nothing unusual happened and I got through my lectures with a minimum amount of people staring at me. I tried my best to stay awake and ignore the people who whispered about me when they thought I couldn't hear them. Though my eyes now feel swollen with exhaustion and all I want to do is go back to sleep.

But I still have to meet with the coven. I already forced myself to wake up ten minutes ago to get dressed.

The locket Eleanora had given me is tucked in my jean pocket and I pat it here and there to make sure that it's still there and that all of this is real. I stick to the shadows as I make it over to the gymnasium complex, the full moon above casting me in its light and guiding my path. There is an eerie weight to the night, but I dismiss it. 

I hesitate at the doors before I reach for the handle and open it.

The dusty air of the gymnasium washes over me, bringing with it the too fresh memory of unleashing my powers and confirming what I am.

I am a Blackwater. 

I step inside and let the door fall shut behind me as the hollow clang echoes in the dark. I can still hear the sound of dozens of familiars working together to rip the target apart. I shudder at the animalistic noises that are engraved in my mind, a chorus of chaos. 

The only lights on inside are the ones for the exit signs, a red one gleaming at me from across the gym and giving me a foreboding sense of warning.

I shake my head to free myself of the thought.

You're safe here, you're fine.

"Welcome, Kara," a voice suddenly says and I pinpoint it to be somewhere in the middle of the gym floor.

I suppress the urge to run and I stand up straighter, preparing myself for the possibility of a fight as I stare harder into the darkness of the gym. I can't see anything at all, just the exit sign over the door on the far side and the tiny pool of red light that it's casting.

I don't know exactly what to say, so I go with my best choice. 

"Hello?"

My voice echoes slightly within the rafters of the gym and reverberates into the darkness, like a stone that has been thrown into a pond. I can sense rather than see the other people who are walking across the gym towards me.

A light flickers on, a blue orb that reminds me too much of the memory of Cecilia being hunted as every nerve and muscle within me becomes fraught with tension. This is just a coven of teenagers, they can't possibly be hunting down Unfamiliars. I blink and focus on the face that is above the blue orb and I begin to make out the faint traceries of fingers cupping the orb.

It's Eleanora.

Her mouth splits into a wide grin, one that is relaxed and full of welcome.

I drop my shoulders at her expression. 

She's not here to kill you. 

"Kara Zen, you have been invited to join the Coven of Midnight, do you choose to accept?" she asks, her voice echoing hollowly around me and I almost feel like I'm surrounded by her.