HEART OF THE CHOSEN (CASTE BOOK 1)

Chapter 12

The alley was deserted. Eric returned after having isolated himself for a moment to make a call.

“We’ll meet the others at a hotel not far from here. Are you okay?”

“No…not really, I…it all happened so fast, but…what just happened?!”

“Eve, it’s over now. We’ll get this straightened out, trust me.”

He hugged me tightly. Cheek against his chest, I listened to his heartbeat increase in pace as our embrace lasted. The warmth of his body against mine almost immediately calmed me down. However, tension awoke in the small of my back, spreading like a whirlwind of hot air through all my limbs. How was it possible at a time like this? Was it normal to feel such a fire when the frenzy of the fight is over? Despite this sordid alley, despite the attack on the train and in spite of Thomas. Thomas! His face suddenly appeared to me, and I instantly pulled back. I had gone mad.

“Eric…”

“Let’s go,” he said, as if nothing had happened.

Hadn’t he felt my burning? I didn’t doubt it because I was sure he felt the same emotion as me. What was happening to me?

We walked in silence for nearly twenty minutes before finally reaching a small hotel in Bexley. I was chilled. The receptionist seemed as friendly as a prison door. She hadn’t seemed disconcerted by our crumpled appearance and gave us the number of a room taken under the pseudonym of a certain Mr Stark.

I hadn’t dared to look up at Eric in the elevator leading to our floor. The memory of the kiss on the train still inflamed my lips, and my discomfort intensified heavily when I found myself face to face with Thomas.

The cramped room had cheap furniture that matched the threadbare bed covers. Thomas, who had his head buried in his hands, jumped up the second he saw me. He hugged me tightly as Sam stood behind him, his eyes filled with concern.

“Eve, are you hurt?”

“No, it’s better now.”

“What exactly happened?” Sam inquired.

I sat on the bed, staring blankly. My cousin sat down on the only available chair. Eric detailed the story of our misadventure. As he progressed through his story, Sam became tenser, a worried eye flickering in my direction whenever some strange phenomenon was mentioned. Thomas remained motionless, but I could feel his anger as he fought to contain it. When Eric finished, the three talked as if I was non-existent in the room.

“What are we going to do?”

“We have to hide her.”

“She can’t go back to your house anymore, Sam.”

“That, I know! But what are you planning to do?”

“We have to leave the area. I’m going to get some stuff. Sam, you should use your resources to find a quiet place where we can stay for a while. I will give you a description of the two individuals. Thomas has already given you that of the dead man in our parking lot.”

So Sam knew about him too! I didn’t understand anything, but they were aware of what was happening. Even if my flight the day before was the cause, I couldn’t bear to have people decide for me, especially without any knowledge of the facts.

“Can any of you tell me what’s going on?!”

Sam leaned towards me, and given the limited space in the room, sitting in his chair, he could hold my hands.

“We need to act fast, Eve. Eric and I will get what you need. Thomas will stay with you and explain, okay?”

I nodded, and Sam continued:

“I’ll have to leave for a while to establish a search based on what we know. I’ll leave you with them, Eve. You have to stay with them, okay?”

“Yes. Come back quickly.”

“Sure. Eve… I’m very proud of you, you know.”

Hearing this last sentence, I couldn’t hold back my tears. Sam hugged me one last time before getting up and leaving the room with Eric. Thomas then sat down in Sam’s place.

“I should have been there. I should never have left you! Can you ever forgive me?”

“For now, I just want to know who these men were,” I replied in a toneless voice.

Thomas took the hit. I had no desire to dwell on our relationship when so many questions remained unanswered. He didn’t insist and took a deep breath before starting.

“They’re definitely Order, like the guy in the parking lot.”

“What Order?”

“It’s a kind of secret society. According to Joseph, it may have formed more than a millennium ago, but there has never been any tangible proof of its existence. Almost all historians maintain that it’s pure legend.”

“Does it have a name, this Order?”

“Joseph called it The Order of the Chosen. They have been hiding for centuries, biding their time. Their ultimate goal is to reveal themselves when they have gathered all the means to usurp power.”

“But why?”

“They predict that one of them will one day be the catalyst for their rise because they are all caste. They consider themselves above mankind. But some members would no longer have supported staying in the shadows when their lineage wasn’t assured. Having become impatient, they would have decided to develop a strategy to accelerate the process of their seizure of power. Towards the beginning of the twentieth century, a man, convinced of their existence, and passionate about the occult sciences met certain members of the Order. They told him about the castes. That is how the Order contributed to the introduction of the Third Reich and the occult research that followed.”

“You want me to believe that those who tried to kill me started World War II! And what connection can I have with that?!”

“I don’t know exactly why they’re taking so many risks to test you, but Eve, the Order will use any means to achieve its ends. Their rapprochement with the Nazis was intended to serve their interests: to prepare for the advent of the caste: the elected. With their help, the Nazis founded a branch of Pseudo-scientific study of the occult named the Ahnenerbe. The Order, which had been researching their origins for centuries, guided the experiments. In more than a thousand years of existence, they have been able to list entire lineages of castes through the ages, aware that the abilities were transmitted from generation to generation. However, the legacy of the gift isn’t inescapable, so they set out to monitor each heir from adolescence. If he showed aptitude, then they recruited him by all possible means. The problem is that there have always been few castes. A number too insufficient to constitute a legion, of course. The only way was to create them. Then a rumour circulated around 1944, reporting that the Ahnenerbe had succeeded. But since the camp closed, there has been no testimony to this story, and the lab was destroyed before the Americans arrived in 1945. Now you know how far the Order will go to bring about its destiny.”

For a moment, I tried to collect my thoughts and understand each element of the scope of Thomas’ revelations. I couldn’t.

“But for me, who am I?”

“You’re the descendant of Isabelle Castellane, one of the first castes of this world from what we know. Joseph always thought she could have been the most powerful of them all if she had been past her twenties. She perished at the stake under the orders of the Inquisition, denounced as a witch. However, she took with her more than five hundred people, consuming everything within a radius of two kilometres by fire. It’s assumed that she may not have wanted this. Eve, your gifts are emerging, and maybe you have other abilities that haven’t revealed themselves yet. But your power is linked to your emotions. Who knows what Isabelle felt at the time of her death, her pain, her anger... A power as great as hers, if left unchecked, can be extremely dangerous. That’s why it was imperative to find you.”

“So you think I’m dangerous?”

“No, but revealing who you are would get you in a ton of trouble. And believe me, I found you just in time. It was Cedric Fabre who finally convinced us who you were.”

“You knew Cedric!”

“We met him a little before we enrolled in high school. During our investigation, we heard the rumour that you were completely nuts. We went to see Cedric and, eventually, he revealed that the day he first kissed you, he saw objects floating in the air, all within a three-foot radius of you. He had the greatest scare of his life and fled immediately. To explain his conduct, he found nothing better to do than spread a rumour, believing then that making you look crazy would convince him that he hadn’t gone crazy himself.”

“Did you kill Cedric!?”

“Of course not! Our only goal was to find you and find out the truth about the death of our parents. We’re not murderers, Eve!”

My anger had returned as quickly as my sadness had disappeared. In all this insane story, I was the only one to know nothing, to live the events without knowing the causes. I had the painful impression of being an insignificant cog in the immense mechanism of fate. My life was never going to be the same now. I was sure of that. I briefly thought about Olivia, and the tears came back to bathe my eyes.

“Did you ever care about me?”

“Everliegh! If you can only conceive what you represent in my eyes! I spent more than two long years looking for you all over the world.”

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

“You were so innocent, so free to just be…you. Was I going to tell you a secret so heavy that you would lose your openness forever? I knew you would find out someday what you really were. I don’t regret for a second what I did because having you in my arms was, for me, the most natural feeling. I was too afraid to lose you!”

“I… don’t know what to think anymore, about… all this. I don’t understand why I didn’t notice it!”

“You unconsciously control your ability. But it was only a matter of days before you realised it. As soon as the abilities appear, the progression quickens. These gifts are as natural for you as breathing air into your lungs.”

“On the train, I felt something. A simple thought managed to block the bullets, but if I hadn’t…”

“I don’t know how it works. You can command these abilities. It just saved your life.”

“And what are you and your brother, exactly?”

“We are endowed with strength and speed.”

“You said earlier that I might have other abilities.”

“It’s a possibility.”

The front door slammed open. Eric stood in the doorway, a military duffel bag on his back. He walked over to put his load in the corner of the room and stood in front of me.

“Eve, are you okay?”

“In all this, the hardest thing to believe is that Cedric’s murder was ordered because of me!”

I jumped up and locked myself in the bathroom. With the door closed, I let myself slide against the wall. Sitting, my forehead resting on my knees, I was crying. Will I ever wake up from this nightmare? How could I be linked to all these events? And yet… I could finally put my finger on what was wrong with me. A question suddenly crossed my mind. I returned to the room with puffy eyes but determined.

“How come the Order tried to kill rather than recruit me?”

“Who said they wanted to kill you?”

“Uh...well...shooting me sounds like an effective way, doesn’t it?”

“If you weren’t able to escape a shooting as a descendant of Isabelle Castellane, then you wouldn’t interest them,” Eric replied coldly. “I think they took the opportunity to test your skills and mine.”

“Have they ever tried to recruit you?”

“No. Our parents never declared our births. We were hidden all our lives. Sam did a good job of protecting you, but if they already knew you existed, they were bound to find you eventually. Now they got two for the price of one, it seems.”

I sat up on the bed. I so badly needed them to explain to me who I was. In a weary voice this time, I spoke to Thomas.

“If there are so few castes, how is it possible that the lines haven’t died out over time? A handful isn’t enough to last for centuries.”

The two brothers exchanged a strange look, the meaning of which I didn’t understand. Then, Thomas lowered his head, leaving the floor to Eric, who cleared his throat before addressing me.

“The castes attract each other.”

“But if they attract each other, how come you had such a hard time finding me?”

“Now that you have full possession of your powers, if you were walking in a crowded street in London and a caste was among the passers-by, you would feel it immediately. There’s a... s****l alchemy that occurs between castes.”

My eyes widened as I realised the meaning of his words. Everything was explained. My insatiable desire to touch, the difficulty in controlling my passion, this brutal feeling of desire and… my irrepressible attraction to Eric.

Thomas had looked up to stare at me, waiting for a reaction that wasn’t long in coming, by the way. I was getting angry again. I had been so stupid. Johnny was right; nothing was normal in our behaviour. What I believed to be the fruit of a great love was that of an inevitable… reflex.

“I want to go. I’m not going to stay hidden in this room all my life! If the Order wants to find me, where’s the last place they’ll look?”

Their silence was enough.

“Good, I’m going home!”

I slipped between Eric and the bed and headed for the front door. Neither made the slightest objection as I closed the door behind me.