Chapter One
A preteen girl sat in a class room, chewing on a stick of gum that was as pink as her hair and eyes. Surprisingly however, her odd coloring helped her blend in rather than stand out.
In a room full of kids with odd hair and eye colors, people with claws, scaly skin, wings, and some traits that made one wonder if there was any human in them at all (and perhaps there wasn't), the girl fit in perfectly.
Right now the multi-species class was jabbering idly, waiting for their teacher to arrive.
"Yeah right, there's no way" scoffed a voice from nearby.
The girl looked to her left and saw her classmate Gizmo, bickering with another student called Blaze.
"It's true!" said Gizmo angrily.
"Stealing a car? At the age of three? Come on, I wasn't born yesterday" said Blaze rolling his eyes.
At this statement Gizmo looked genuinely upset. He hated people underestimating his abilities. The girl looked at the boy and—upon feeling a twinge of pity for the often bullied child—decided to help him out. She spit out her gum and stuck it to the bottom of the desk before speaking.
"Blaze, the kid's freaking eight years old and he can build super computers, I don't think his story's all that out there" said the girl in a bored voice.
"Who asked you, Jinx?" Blaze snapped, hissing her name like a curse.
The pink haired girl rolled her eyes and shook her head.
Annoyed by the dismissal, Blaze pressed on. "You're pretty freaking dumb if you believe that he stole a car when he was three."
"You're just jealous, because the biggest thing you ever stole before Blood found you was a piece of candy. I heard that you even got arrested. What kind of loser gets arrested over a lollipop?" Jinx jeered.
"Oh shut up! It was my first theft!" snarled Blaze.
Jinx smirked.
"Okay fine, Miss Annoying, what was your first theft" he demanded.
Jinx thought about it, and it came to her. Suddenly, realistically, as though it were actually happening.
The young girl stumbled backward. Her brown hair was slightly charred and her pale skin was spattered with flecks of blood. Sick with fear, she reached behind her for something, anything, to hold on to—to brace herself on. Her surroundings failed her, and she fell to the floor.
Jinx inhaled quietly, barely aware of the two boys waiting for an answer, she tried not to panic.
She saw the figure step closer and scrambled back as quickly as she could, brushing a gun shell with one hand and a puddle of blood with the other. The horrified girl kept forcing herself away until she hit a wall. With no where left to go, she sat there, shaking violently.
A white haired man approached her, his orange, slit pupil eyes shining in the darkness as they observed the ten year old. He walked up to the bodies of the police officers. The child watched in horror as he stepped on her would-be-protectors, grinding their bodies into the dirt with his foot.
He looked at her as he did this and said…
Jinx knew what this was; it was a side effect of brother blood influencing her mind. She tried to calm herself down. Tried to remind herself that it was just a memory.
"You thought they could protect you?" He was clearly amused.
He came closer, step by step, until he was right in front of her.
It was hard enough to suppress the terrifying memories when she was unhindered by Blood's influence, but it had been only hours ago that he had broken into her mind, trying to implant feelings of loyalty to the Hive there. By attacking her mental defenses her thoughts and memories became harder to control. Near perfect images from her very accurate memory flooded her brain and her senses went haywire.
Was she really smelling pencil shavings and Blaze's deodorant, or was she smelling blood and burning flesh?
Was she seeing a classroom at Hive academy or was she seeing the apartment that was supposed to have been her safe-house?
Was she really hearing the boys arguing as they gave up on hearing her respond or was she hearing the movements of the white haired man that was present in her every nightmare?
The girl's heart pounded painfully as he crouched down in front of her and leaned in so close, she could feel him breathing.
"Such a foolish child you were, choosing to trust your worthless mother over me. Thinking you could hide from me." His tone was still light, but a dark look came over his face.
"But I am a kind man," he said, licking some of the officer's blood off of his wrist "so I'll give you one last chance; Come with me."
The girl sat frozen, her every instinct was screaming at her to get away.
Jinx clenched her hands into fists and forced the images away, trying to anchor herself in the present. It worked to some extent, she knew where she was again her senses were under control, but she was detached from it all, held back from the present by the memory that was playing in the back of her mind. She couldn't tune it out. She could only watch.
"Don't be foolish child" the man whispered. His breath on her face began to grow hot and smoke began to curl from his lips.
Something inside the girl rose up, an instinct to take action, to survive. It charged her entire being until her hands, pressed behind her back, glowed pink.
The man didn't notice the light; he himself was more intent on moving his clawed hand towards her face.
Suddenly, the very floor underneath them was destroyed in a deafening explosion. A gas pipe had exploded, and small fires now littered the child's surroundings.
The girl managed to cling to a floor board and stay where she was, but the man, the demon, wasn't as lucky. He fell into the room below and was covered in the flaming wreckage. But the girl knew instinctively that that wouldn't hold him for long.
The girl edged her way around the gaping hole in the floor and onto even ground.
She looked towards the door only to find that the floor in front of it was gone.
Thoughts slammed into her head and she frantically tried to sort them out.
'I'm trapped! I don't want to die! What do I do? What—Window! Window! Which one has a fire escape?' She was running, running, running, window, to window, to window.
'Not this one,' she thought frantically. 'Not this one, where is it? There it is! Window…I can't open it! I can't! It's stuck, it's too heavy! Oh help! Someone! He's coming, I know it! He's coming! Oh no! Wait. Hex it, hex it now!' she screamed in her head.
She held up her hand and summed up as much energy as she could before blasting the window. Glass exploded, wood went flying, and she was out and sprinting down the stairs before the window had even finished breaking.
'Go, go, go, run! RUN!' She silently urged her legs onwards, the momentum from descending the stairs rocketed her out of the alley way and into the street.
'Car!' She shrieked to herself as the sound of a horn cut through the cool evening air. She dodged through traffic and reached the side walk. One more miracle she had been granted, but she knew she needed many more to survive.
'Through the alley, go, go, go!' Tears trailed behind her as she flew across the cement, her hair flying, her expression wild as she sprinted away, crazed with fear, her thoughts only on one thing.
'Get away, don't stop, he'll find you. He'll know, and you'll die. Run, Run, Run!'
She raced across streets, through alleyways, down blocks, past buildings, houses, churches, across more streets. She only stopped when her body forced her to.
She sucked in air fearfully, knowing that she couldn't afford to slowdown. She had to keep moving, and she had to move fast. Walking at a quick pace and drawing in deep breaths, she looked around for something, anything that could help her in her situation. That's when she saw the bike. It was propped up on a rack. It was a bit big for her, but she knew that it might just save her. Moving quickly she hexed the lock and took it. She was just mounting it when a boy came running down the street.
"Hey! That's mine!" He was yelling.
"I'm sorry!" The girl shrieked hysterically, and she peddled away frantically before he could catch up. She didn't look back, but his upset, pleading tones followed her around the block.
She tore aimlessly through the town, completely lost, but too frightened to really care about anything except getting as far away from the man as possible. She eventually found a train station. Hexing the ticket machine was easy, and getting on the train was easier. Dazed, the girl found an empty corner of the train, collapsed into a seat, and slept away two hundred miles, until the very last stop was reached.
Jinx was back in the present again, the lesson had started. She cursed inwardly as she frantically tried to figure out what the class was doing.
It was strange, only moments before she had been frozen with the well remembered terror that had been the end of her childhood, but now she was just anxious to complete the assignment and please the teacher. She knew that these feelings were Brother Blood's doing. She knew that this was the result of the mental suggestion that he had implanted in her earlier, but the change in emotions was pleasant to her, even if it was forced. It hurt so much less to be a carefree lackey of the Hive.
It felt so much better to forget that this wasn't her, that she hated hanging out with people who would jump at the chance to stab her in the back. He made it to where she could forget that she hated it here. Brother Blood even came close to making her forget that she was trapped. That she had been trapped ever since she had unwittingly taken up residence on the streets of a city that was part of his territory. Ever since she had let him come near enough that he could enter her mind and help her dismiss her conscious when it begged her not to follow him.
Of course he didn't know how guilty she felt, even now: when she steals, lies, cheats, and hurts. What he does know is that he's got her hooked, with or without mind control. Blood doesn't know why, but she does. She knows that if he ever comes back that he will kill everyone close to her. That's where backstabbing friends come in handy. She knows that if he came after her then they would abandon her, and that's exactly what she wanted. And if they did decide to stick up for her and got hurt in the process—
It won't come to that. Jinx thought firmly. I'll be the leader; I'll be the best in class, better than everyone. I'll have a team of cowards and self serving children. I'll train them well; train them to protect themselves…even if it means abandoning me.