“Can anyone tell us why Immortals are created?” he asked, changing the subject from the strict codes that made me angry just by thinking about them.
“To save the world,” Chris sneered, flashing his hands from side to side.
“That is the basic principle both Principias hold to. Of course, you’re saving inherently opposing entities depending on which side of the Immortal line you stand.”
I knew whichever side he stood on is where I would as well, but I was happy he stood on the one he did. Maybe it was because I’d so recently relinquished my own Mortality, but the idea of upsetting the lives of the remaining billions was wrong on so many levels.
“Which brings us to our next topic—how Immortals are created.”
“I believe you’ve got some new information on this topic,” Chris said, sounding smug. He turned his alabaster face, dotted with auburn freckles to me, and smiled the most disingenuous one I’d ever seen.
William shot him a look before continuing, not addressing whatever Chris had implied. “I take it you’ve all felt a foreign energy running through your bodies since Immortalization?”
“Ohhh yeah,” Annabelle emphasized, jacking her eyebrows for extra effect.
“Kind of hard to miss,” Chris muttered, focusing his attention on the ceiling.
“Mortals have their own kind of energy, although it’s infinitely different than what dwells within us. The energy that flows within an Immortal is what we use to change a dying Mortal—”
“Dying?” I interrupted the godlike professor, whose signature scent was wafting into my senses and creating a state of hypnosis. I shook my head, trying to clear it.
He watched my bewildered expression, and from his smile that looked too knowing for his own good, I guessed he knew what had created my stupor. “As different as Mortal’s energy is from ours, it is still strong. However, when one is dying, this energy is leaving their body in steady, tangible streams—leaving empty spaces for a superior substance to enter and eternally change them.”
He pushed back from the table and took a few steps back. “Vital organs are preserved, senses are heightened, muscles are melded into a steel-like substance, blood is turned into a fluid that is its own kind of fountain of youth. All these changes preparing the body for an eternity of service and, depending upon which creed you hold to, a service to the protection of mankind or the protection of Eden.”
“So any Immortal can create another Immortal?” I questioned, wondering if they would ever run out.
Chris rolled his eyes with such force I could hear his eyeballs rotating in his sockets. “And I thought I was uninformed.”
“Be nice. She just woke up yesterday, Chris,” Annabelle chided him. “And she hasn’t been around the endless gossip stream back where we’re staying.” She smiled one of acceptance at me before turning her fixed gaze back on our professor, who was watching me very carefully.
William’s eyes narrowed in concentration. When he answered, his words were careful. “No, only an experienced Immortal who has enough focus to be able to generate and compact their energy can be a part of the team that makes the transformation.”
I didn’t think before asking, growing more anxious with each wary word from his mouth. “There’s a team that is responsible for the transformations?”
This had been the question William wished I wouldn’t have asked. His distressed expression told me that.
“That’s how it used to be before boy wonder”—Chris interrupted, nodding his head at William—“decided to put that tradition to the test. I sure don’t see why,” Chris said, glancing over me, “doesn’t look like there’s any substance beneath that pretty exterior packaging—”
“Chris! That’s quite enough,” William interrupted, his whole body as rigid as a marble pillar.
“Oh, please. I’ve heard the rumors, and judging from your reaction . . .”—Chris looked pointedly at William and raised an eyebrow—“they’re true.”
I was drowning in the tension pouring from the two males at heads with one another, so when the library door shouted open, I jumped in my seat.
“I need to speak with you Mr. Winters,” a familiar voice said with implicit authority.
William pointed to us with his eyes, hinting to our new guest, but I knew it wasn’t only because he didn’t want to be interrupted in the middle of our class—he wasn’t eager to leave me behind with the topic of rumor circling the room.
“It’s urgent,” John added, sounding less than thrilled he needed to make this condition.
Two sets of eyes settled on me—one pair anxious, the other domineering. I melted under one set, and wriggled in my chair from the other. William excused himself, and he and John exited the library, taking both their emotion-filled stares with them.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
GIFTS
“What rumors are you talking about?” Annabelle threw out before I could ask, once our professor had exited the room. “What have I missed out on?” Her stop-the-press position of her hand made me feel I was in some bad junior high flashback; where overreactions were as abundant as the air used to voice them.
Chris smiled at me, but his eyes narrowed into evil slits. “What do you know of your creation story, Bryn?” he asked, leaning towards me. The lanky Immortal seemed curiously fascinated with this topic.
“What do you mean?” My eyes narrowed as well, but out of confusion.
He shook his head in a condescending manner. “You know, the events leading up to your date with Immortal destiny? For instance . . . I was in a head-on collision one fine Friday night, where my girlfriend of two years had just become my fiancé, when the drunk driver operating a MAC truck hit us going a mere seventy miles per hour.” He spoke levelly, almost coolly, but he couldn’t hide the anguish that spread through his eyes. “I was sure I was dead, but then I saw a group of men that appeared out of nowhere—all dressed in black. I remember being pulled from the car, and some strange sensation, and then I wake up here a week later—my Mortality and fiancé gone, and being told what my new purpose is in this life of Immortality.”
Chris cleared his throat, and with it, cleared the anguish in his eyes. They refilled with the trouble that swam in them before. “Do you recognize any difference in our last moments of Mortality?”
Again, I looked at Chris in confusion . . . there were plenty of differences in our stories. I wasn’t sure which one he was asking about.
The look he graced me with, led me to believe he thought I had the mental fortitude of a four year old. “How about I give you a hint . . .”—he scratched his head, while his eyes focused on the ceiling above—“to create an Immortal, it takes at least six, strong, senior Immortals. Anything less, and they’d be risking their eternal necks.”
Several things clicked together then: John’s comments of William’s asinine stunt, John’s admission of William being comatose just as I had for a week, William’s rage at Chris’s fetching comments moments ago . . .
Chris noticed the horror building in my face. “And the light-bulb went off.” He clucked the side of his mouth, making a popping noise.
“What the hell are you talking about Chris?” Annabelle asked impatiently, tossing her hair with less fanfare than she had for our professor.
“Our golden boy of a professor immortalized Bryn . . . on his own.”
Annabelle’s eyes widened. “On his own?” she repeated softly. “But he should have died—”
“Except he didn’t. It appears he’s the most capable Giver John’s seen. Not that the good professor knew it at the time, of course.”
I clutched the leather armrests in an attempt to center myself. “He could have died?” I whispered, barely recognizing I’d said the words.
“No . . . he would have died—that’s as sure as the needless air we breathe. It was only after the fact he learned he could Immortalize someone solo, although doing so nearly killed him.”
“Geez louise, Bryn. Do you know why Master William would do that?” Annabelle asked, sliding her chair closer to mine; probably eager for another smidgen of gossip.
“That’s a very good question,” Chris sneered, eyeing me as if I were Pandora’s Box. “Any ideas?”
My terror-filled eyes fell upon the door a moment before it swung open. William reentered, and his eyes met mine. I don’t know what he saw on my face, but the anxiety already on his grew more advanced.
“Class is excused for the day. We’ll reconvene at eight tomorrow,” he said urgently, without taking his eyes from me.
Chris leapt up and glided out of the library in two heartbeats, while Annabelle fumbled around with her backpack; stalling, most likely.
“See you tomorrow, Bryn,” she called out as she flitted past me and towards the exit. “Thank you, Master William. I’ll see you in the morning.”
From her accommodating tone, I’m sure her smile was equally so, but I didn’t see it. I couldn’t take my eyes from his. I looked into those pale blue eyes, marveling at how capable of showing emotion they were, and shuddered when I thought of them lifeless.
The door swung shut with a screech, and he was a blur until he came to a stop beside me. He crouched down and wrapped the arms that were not supposed to be so close, tightly around me. His face leaned into mine, and he inhaled. “It’s alright, Bryn—everything’s alright,” he soothed, rocking my body gently against his.
I shook my head vigorously, not ready to be soothed. “Why did you do that? Why did you risk so much for me?” I asked, sounding angrier than I’d intended, but I was angry . . . almost furiously so. I wasn’t, and would never be worth the loss of this man’s life.
He looked at me with a mixture of surprise and hurt. “I thought it would be obvious,” he whispered, looking down at our intertwined hands. His eyes moved back up to mine, and the intensity flowing in them took my breath away. “Your life is infinitely more important to me than my own . . . I would have no life if you were not in it. That’s why I made the choice to do what I did.”
His face became peaceful. “Besides, there’s no need to get all worked up about it. Everything worked out better than I could have imagined. You’re here, and I’m here . . . together, and soon enough we’ll both be free of this place,” he promised, before pulling me against his chest.
“But you could have died,” I muttered over his shoulder.
“But I didn’t,” he interjected. “It appears my gift is much stronger than we ever thought.” He ran his fingers from the top of my head down the entire length of my hair, further quieting the quaking running through my body.
“I’m not worth it, you know. You are so much more than I am . . . than I ever could be.” My voice quivered, but I continued, “What do you think I would have done when I woke up and found you next to me, lying dead on the beach? Huh?” I didn’t wait for a reply to my rhetorical question. “That I just would’ve marched back to OSU and continued on with my enthralling life? No . . . I would have curled up right next to you and waited for your fate to find me. Or maybe I just would’ve let the ocean finish what it’d started with me that night. That would have made it quicker.”