Slayer (Slayer #1)

“You’re lucky you have a good one.”

“I meant your mum.”

I snort. “Well, you obviously don’t know her.”

“No, I don’t, I guess. But I’ve been alone with mine for three years. It was—” His face darkens, then he shakes it off. “I’m just saying . . . what I was trying to say earlier. That I’m glad to be back. I feel lucky to be back here with you. With all of you. The happiest times of my life were when I was training.”

Ugh, I do not want to soften toward him. But I think about what he said, and I wonder what he’s been through in the last few years, out there on his own with Eve. He’s probably lived through trauma I can’t begin to imagine.

“Well, some of us didn’t get to train. So let’s make up for that now.” I gesture meaningfully to the walls. I still wish that none of this were happening—that I didn’t have this simmering, powerful force inside me. It doesn’t escape my notice that I should be exhausted and instead my body feels . . . disappointed that I didn’t get to fight.

My mother took control away from me again with the hellhound. I don’t want that to happen anymore. I can use my power to be who I want to be.

And now a part of me wants to turn into the baddest, most kick-assingest Slayer ever. Then I can rub my prowess in my mother’s face.

So: priorities. Change this disaster into something okayish by training so I can take full advantage of whatever I am. And prove my mom wrong by doing so.

Leo positions himself in the center of a wide mat that takes up most of the floor. There’s a hint of stubble along his narrow jaw. His cheeks hide the dimples I know are there, lurking beneath the surface. The dark circles under his eyes are new, though. He gives me a gentle smile.

I want to hit him. Hard. I should have asked Artemis how she sprained Jade’s ankle.

I hate the violence coursing through my veins. But I still remember the way it felt that horrible poetry day, seeing Leo return to practice as though nothing had happened. I can’t reject his help, though. No matter how much I want to. So I steel myself and pretend like I’m not the kid crying on the balcony anymore. Because I’m not.

I’m a Slayer.

Leo finally clues in to my body language and stops smiling. “Your natural instincts and strength are already there. We can’t teach you those—and we don’t have to. But what we can teach you is technique. Drill into you the best ways to react, the best ways to hit, so that, combined with your inherent Slayer abilities, you’ll be as efficient and capable a fighter as possible. We’ll also focus on weapon training.”

Weapon training. Ugh, of course. I avoid them all except stakes. I guess that has to change now. As long as I’m going against my nature, I might as well choose the last thing I’d ever decide to pick up. I grab a wickedly heavy-looking set of nunchucks. “Sounds good.” I spin them experimentally, then faster. They blur in the air. I’m going to show Leo I’m not the innocent, weak little girl he remembers.

The last thing I see is one of the wooden clubs coming right for my face before everything goes black.

11

A GIRL PACES THE CRACKED linoleum floor of a tiny apartment. Her blue hair shimmers like it’s underwater, and I can’t hear what she’s saying, but I feel it—bright red pulses of anger, with an undercurrent of darkest black seething fear. There’s a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge stuck to the wall with a long, sharp knife.

“Buffy,” we whisper at the same time.

Then the girl’s in a warehouse, everything black except a light hanging over her head. She’s bound to a chair, her face bleeding. A woman licks the blood, smiling as her true face is revealed. Vampire.

“Dublin is ours, Cosmina,” she says, petting the girl’s head. “You know that.” She hits the light and it waves wildly, revealing a faded sign for O’Hannigan Ironworks, then swinging back to illuminate the girl’s blue hair.

The flash of blue turns into a blinding blue light that revolves into red, then blue again. A girl who looks impossibly strong and powerful—every muscle full, her core like a barrel of gunpowder—is handcuffed and put into the back of a police car. The police hold out a bag, puzzled by the stakes inside.

Red and blue and red, red, red; the Slayer’s anger flashes with the lights.

“Buffy,” we say together.

A flash of red makes me close my eyes, and when I open them, I see a figure sitting on the edge of a building rooftop. She’s small, like me, blond hair done in two buns on top of her head. Cute. Sweet. Maybe to combat all the things she’s done.

I can’t see her face, but I can see in her body—she’s sad. Exhausted.

And all around her, pulsing with my own heartbeat, I feel the fury of a thousand Slayers just like me. It licks the air, caressing me, swirling me closer and stoking the flame inside me higher and higher until I can’t understand how she can breathe, much less sit there without feeling it.

“Buffy,” we breathe in unison.

She looks up.

Before I can break away from the collective rage to tell her how I feel—how I hate her, how she ruined my life, how she’s selfish and doesn’t deserve anything she has, anything that was sacrificed for her—I’m pulled away. Walrus-faced Smythe lies snoring in bed. The darkness around him swirls, then takes form and settles, a blacker black, on top of his chest. He smiles, and his face is filled with longing so intense I feel icky just witnessing it. His breathing becomes labored. His eyes behind the lids roll wildly, but he doesn’t open them, doesn’t move.