If everyone’s the same, then how can someone be considered perfect when there’s no imperfection to compare them to?
What am I doing thinking that way? I shake the thoughts out of my head and walk to the stucco building the guards pointed to, people clearing out of my way until I have open land in front of me. When I reach the door, I can hear voices giggling from inside, which makes me feel just a little bit better.
I open the door and walk inside, immediately startled. Maci is sitting inside with about a dozen other children while, at the front of the small room, is a young woman with blondish hair streaked with blue that matches her pants. She has black boots on and a white button-up shirt. She’s telling some kind of story to the children about something called ponies and a lot of rainbows.
The room is actually pretty colorful; the walls this alarming shade of green and covered with pieces of paper that have drawings on them.
The children are all smiling at her as they listen to the story, and in the middle of the crowd, is a red headed girl. Maci. She looks like she’s enjoying herself. When she turns in my direction, she jumps up from her seat, smiling.
“You’re here!” she exclaims, running over and wrapping her arms around me. The rest of the children follow her, looking equally as happy. I’m shocked when they circle around me, joining in the hug Maci offers me.
I’m instantly reminded why I need to save the world again.
Chapter 19
The young woman in the room tells the children that they need to sit back down. I look up at her, expecting to see her eyes filled with hate like the rest of the people in the colony, so I’m surprised when she smiles at me with kindness in her eyes.
Maci grabs my hand and pulls me towards the door. “Come on, Kayla. We need to talk.”
She leads me outside the door and around to the back of the building. There’s an alleyway that is surrounded by walls and the only way out is the way we came in. Then Maci lets go of my hand and starts humming as she skips around in a circle.
“Why did you bring me out here?” I ask her as I look around the empty alley.
“Because I am supposed to.” She shrugs as she kicks at some pebbles on the ground.
As usual, I’m confused at what she’s talking about. “Can you tell me why you’re supposed to?”
“Not yet,” she says. “But soon.”
I sigh. I wish she could just tell us what we’re supposed to do instead of letting us know she knows. Things would be so much simpler. “What were you doing back in that building?”
She stops skipping and her eyes light up with excitement. “That was a school. They teach the children how to read there.”
“They teach people to read here?” I ask, stunned.
She nods her head with enthusiasm. “They teach lots of things Kayla. It’s different from our colony where the Highers are always controlling things and hiding things.”
“I don’t doubt that,” I tell her. “Since they don’t have Highers here.”
The sound of yelling suddenly interrupts us. I wonder if this is why Maci brought me back here, to hear something. The yelling is coming from around the corner, in front of the building. I start to take off to see what the commotion is about, but Maci grabs my arm and draws me back.
“You need to stay here,” she tells me. I shake my head, worried it’s the army or something, and then I begin to pull away. “Kayla, listen to me,” Maci says. “You have to stay here. They’re yelling because of you.”
I listen to the yells and suddenly I comprehend what she is telling me. They want to lock me away because they’re afraid of me.
“They don’t hate you,” she says sadly. “They just don’t understand you. They don’t know how important you are.”
“I hope you’re right,” I mutter, trying to block out the hateful words from the street, but it’s hard.
“I am,” she says simply.
The yelling continues for a while and then their voices suddenly fade. I hear Mathew speak, telling everyone to quiet down.
“We can go out now,” Maci whispers quietly, motioning me to go.
I cautiously make my way back to the front of the building and find Mathew standing on top of the steps of the building. Sylas is standing beside him with his hood remaining over his head because there’s still sunlight. The people in the crowd are all staring at Sylas as if he is some sort of a monster. I can tell by the look in their eyes what they’re feeling. Fear. They want to kill Sylas. And possibly me.
This is bad.
Mathew is trying to calm them down, but the colony members are still uneasy. I take a deep breath and start to walk towards Mathew and Sylas. When I step out from the corner, many people turn in my direction and the crowd begins to murmur again. I ignore their angry looks and walk with my chin held high up the steps and beside Sylas. He glances at me and then discreetly moves his hand over and slips his fingers through mine.
“Everyone needs to calm down. Sylas and Kayla are not responsible for what happened. I wasn’t attacked by them.” Mathew’s voice echoes over the crowd. I wonder what the hell he’s talking about. “Sylas is the one who saved me from Aiden. He went up against his own brother to protect me,” Mathew explains and my eyes widen in shock.
What did I miss?
Sylas must sense my panic because he squeezes my hand, and even though I hate to admit it, it slightly calms me down. Mathew steps down to the bottom of the stairway and into the crowd of people. He immediately gets bombarded with questions about what happened; where the other one is, what he’s going to do about the problem. They look at us every time they say problem and it irks me to my very core.
“What is going on?” I whisper, leaning in towards Sylas.
“I guess Aiden put thoughts into people’s heads and made them do things,” he whispers back. “He tried to get me to attack Mathew, but was surprised when I didn’t respond. When his little gift didn’t work on me, he tried to get me to tell him why. I honestly have no idea why it didn’t work on me, but the next thing I knew, he bit me... He was able to see my thoughts.” He swallows hard with his head bowed down. “He knows that you changed me back, Kayla.”
I notice there are a few drops of blood on his jacket; however the wound on his neck has started to heal, barely two specks.
“And it gets worse,” Sylas continues. “His bite made me black out for a few minutes and that’s when he attacked Mathew. I managed to pull him off before he bit him and then he ran off… with the papers.” He pauses, shaking his head at himself. “I don’t get it… I used to be so much strong than him, but felt so helpless… he took out the guards, too…” He shakes his head again and tips his chin up, keeping his eyes angled from the sun. “He’s different. Stronger than anything I’ve ever come across. I think he might really be working for the Highers.”