Kane's Fate Chapter 5

I scanned the room, but it didn’t look like anyone noticed the impending Westside Story action. The humans continued to eat their pizza and chat, and I realized there were way too many of them to risk a fight here.

Last time Seth had challenged me, I hadn’t been able to control my shift, and I didn’t count on having that control now either. He brought out every feeling of rage and prey drive in my system, and all I wanted to do was turn him into a pile of bloody shreds like I had the rapist in the alley.

I clenched my fists at my sides as Seth and his posse approached, and he looked me up and down with an amused smirk.

“What are you going to do, Turner?” he asked. “You don’t have any teachers here to hold me back.”

“Hold you back?” I nearly choked out a laugh. “No one even touched you. I didn’t even finish shifting yet when they broke it up.”

“Because you suck at shifting,” he shot back as a dark red tint colored his cheeks. “You might as well be an Inanis.”

“Come on, Kane,” Charlotte said and grabbed my arm. “We can just go somewhere else to eat.”

“Yeah, it’s fine, dude,” Auden muttered.

“Awww,” Seth mocked with a pout. “Your little ginger pets are afraid. Maybe you should run along, Turner.”

“No, we should be able to go wherever we want,” I growled. “And if you don’t like it, you can meet me in the alley and explain it to me.”

“Be careful what you wish for, Turner,” Seth chuckled with a glance at his buddies. “These guys actually know how to shift and fight. Who do you think taught me?”

“Well, if that’s who taught you, I don’t have anything to be worried about.” I narrowed my eyes as I quickly counted the group. I wasn’t sure what he’d told them, other than his laughable version of events that included needing teachers to keep him from kicking my ass, but they seemed to dislike me just as much as he did.

Hell, I wasn’t even sure why he didn’t like me.

“Then I guess we can teach you a lesson or two,” Seth grunted.

“Not here,” I said with a glance at the humans who finally seemed to pick up on the tension. “In the alley out back. And we’ll see who learns a lesson.”

Seth narrowed his dark eyes but motioned with his head for his friends to follow him outside, and they shoved past us while Charlotte and Auden looked at me with wide eyes.

“Are you insane?” Charlotte whispered once the group was outside. “Those guys are graduates.”

“Yeah, as in full-strength power,” Auden added. “There’s no way we’re ready for that fight.”

“I’m not dragging you guys into this,” I said with a frown. “I mouthed off. I’ll handle it.”

My blood pumped through my veins so loud I could hear it in my head, and my predatory instincts roared with the desire to fight my enemy.

I’d make him regret starting shit with me.

Part of me questioned this newfound bravery I had, but at the same time, it felt as natural as breathing. When something stood in my way, I knew I had to conquer it, and there wasn’t a soul on this planet who would tell me where I could or couldn’t go.

Before either of my friends could respond, I stormed out the door to follow Seth and his posse, but Auden and Charlotte were a step behind me when I rounded the corner into the dark alley, and a wave of power rushed through me like the one I experienced when I activated.

It was just like facing the rapist again, but this time, I knew what would happen and when to stop.

Hopefully.

“We’ll give you the chance to shift first,” Seth sneered. “In case it takes as long as it does in class.”

I narrowed my eyes and let my natural instincts take over. It had gotten easier to focus on my fera, but the adrenaline pumping through my veins helped me finish the transformation with an ease I could never find during class. I sensed my bones shift into the skeleton of the white tiger, and my teeth elongated and snapped together as I glared at Seth and his friends.

Once I stood before them in the full body of the white tiger, I growled deep in my chest and pawed the ground with my sharp claws. The sound of my claws against the concrete was eerie, and I waited for Seth and his buddies to make their move.

But his friends merely gaped at me with their jaws open nearly to their chests.

“Alright, guys,” Seth said with a sneer as greasy as his hair. “Let’s show him how it’s really done.”

“I-I don’t think so,” one of the older students said and shuddered. “You didn’t say he was a fucking tiger. He’s huge, dude.”

“Yeah, I got a bad feeling about this,” another one agreed as his eyes darted past me to search for an escape. “Let’s just go.”

The graduates started to slink past me and kept their bodies pressed to the brick wall of the alley as they fled toward the street.

“Are you serious?” Seth shrieked and grabbed one of his friends by the sleeve. “You aren’t scared of this wimp, are you?”

His friend ripped his arm out of Seth’s grasp and rushed after the others, who disappeared around the front of the pizza parlor without another word. Then Seth’s eyes returned to me and narrowed into slits as he clenched his fists.

“Still feeling as brave when it’s one-on-one?” Auden asked as he arched his eyebrow.

“I’m not scared,” Seth retorted as fur started to sprout from his skin, but the tremble in his hands suggested otherwise.

In fact, he was taking his sweet time to shift, even though I’d already seen firsthand how fast he normally was. It made me wonder what was holding him back now that we didn’t have any school staff to keep us from duking it out.

Then I heard the jangle of a cell phone, and Seth froze before he reached into his pocket and widened his dark brown eyes at the screen.

“Hello?” he answered in a low voice.

I could just make out a female voice on the other end of the line, but even with my enhanced hearing, I couldn’t hear what she said.

But she sounded angry.

“I’m fine,” he grunted and then paused. “I don’t want-- okay, fine. I’ll go.”

Seth shoved his phone back in his pocket and looked at me with seething anger. His fera’s fur returned into his skin, and he flexed his fingers and sighed.

“You got lucky this time, Turner,” he said. “But this shit isn’t over.”

With that, he sprinted past me and turned toward campus, and I watched him for a few seconds before I returned to my human form. It was getting easier to shift, but only when I thought I had to defend myself or someone else. I wasn’t sure how that would help me in the long run, so I mentally vowed to continue practicing.

“Well, that was a short fight,” Auden said with a grin. “Your animal form is sooo badass, though. Scared the grads right off.”

“Yeah, I wonder why they were so scared of it,” Charlotte murmured, and her pale-green eyes narrowed in thought. “I didn’t expect that.”

“Me either,” I agreed. “But Pearson said the white tiger is rare, like he’s never even seen one before. Plus, all that stuff the Divinity said about me defeating the darkness, maybe they’ve heard of it.”

“Oh, you think your heroic reputation has preceded you?” Auden smirked and punched me in the shoulder. “Come on, no one even knows what it means, not even your shifting professor. How are the graduates going to know?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “All I know is if they’re going to run off every time I shift, I won’t have to worry too much about fights at Meloria.”

“True,” Auden snickered.

We walked back into the pizzeria and ordered a large pepperoni and jalapeno pizza to go, and once it was ready, we grabbed the box and headed back to campus. The three of us ate our pizza as we walked, and even though I caught a few pining looks from Charlotte, we kept casual conversation as we made our way toward Meloria.

Once we arrived on campus, we meandered down the empty sidewalks until we reached the split that would take each of us to our dorms, and I took the nearly empty pizza box and said goodnight to my friends before we headed in our own directions.

As I walked into the building, I shoved the last slice of pizza into my mouth and caught a glimpse of Seth in the common room. He was texting furiously and only glanced up for a second when he saw me enter until he noticed the pizza box.

I locked eyes with him long enough to slowly put it in the trash in the kitchen before I sauntered to my room.

I wanted him to know he hadn’t done a damn thing to keep me and my friends from what we wanted. He hadn’t scared us, and we hadn’t come crawling back to campus with our legs between our tails. He was nothing.

Like clockwork, my phone rang as soon as I closed the door behind me, and I answered my mother’s phone call.

“Well, did you find anything on your Divinity issue?” she asked after our quick greetings.

“No, we went to a movie and had some pizza,” I answered as I kicked off my shoes and sat on the edge of my bed. “We’ve been reading every night and still haven’t figured out where it came from for sure. Only that a charmer and a seer had to work together to create it.”

“I don’t know of any seers who were family friends,” Mom hummed. “Do you, honey?”

“Nope,” my father’s voice rang out from the background. “We’ve always kept to ourselves.”

“Do you know any spells for helping a shifter shift better?” I half-joked.

“I thought you were getting the hang of it,” she said, and I could hear the frown in her voice. “Are you struggling?”

“Yes and no,” I answered honestly. “I’m getting better, but it’s like I can’t fully shift unless I’m prepping for a fight.”

“A fight?” my mother gasped, and my dad chuckled.

“Are you staying out of trouble then?” Dad wondered with amusement in his tone. “I’m used to asking our eldest son that question, not our youngest.”

“Well, no one has actually followed through with fighting me,” I said and immediately regretted it.

“You’re starting fights?” Mom shrieked and scarcely took a breath for the next thirty seconds. “You grow a few inches and get some muscles, and now you’re a bully? You’re bullying people and starting fights and scaring them away? How are you supposed to make friends or learn about shifting? Ohhh, no, I’m not even going to try to find a charm to help you shift easier if you’re using it like that! We raised you better than that, Kane Joseph Turner! I cannot--”

“Mom!” I interjected before she went into full meltdown mode. “I’m not the one starting the fights. It’s this other kid, Seth Weaver.”

“Weaver?” Dad echoed. “He goes to Meloria?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said with a frown. “Do you know him or something? Because he sure hates my guts.”

“We know his mother, sort of,” my mom hedged. “Anyway, that’s not the point. As long as you aren’t starting fights, I’ll see what I can find, but it won’t be easy. I don’t have much knowledge about shifters.”

“You’re basically a professional researcher,” I pointed out. “Surely, there’s something out there that would help me focus my energy the right way. I don’t want to shift just because I get anxious or flooded with adrenaline. I want to be able to shift when I want to.”

“We’ll see what we can find, honey,” she assured me. “In the meantime, have you talked to your professor?”

“Yeah, he’s worked with me,” I said. “But he’s pretty focused on the Divinity stuff, not to mention the Bellator. We start duels on Monday to get us prepped for the event.”

“Duels are so much fun,” my dad chimed in. “You hardly need to know many offensive charms-- oh, wait. Well, I guess you’ll probably want to focus on your secondary.”

“Yeah, haven’t found that yet either,” I grumbled.

“Don’t worry, son,” Dad said. “It took me a few months, even though your mom had hers about two weeks into the academy. You’ll get it.”

“Are you paying attention in meditation?” she asked.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “I keep getting close, but it feels like the closer I get to the light, the sooner it’s the end of class. I can never quite get to it.”

“The light?” My mom paused for a moment. “Well, that should be your first clue. Not everyone sees a light.”

“Wait, really?” I asked and rubbed my chin in thought. “Okay, I’ll keep trying. I think I’m going to practice for the duels tomorrow with my friends.”

“So, you do have friends!” she chirped with glee. “Tell me everything!”

“Mom, you’ll meet them at some point, I’m sure,” I laughed. “It’s almost midnight. I’m going to get some sleep.”

“Fine,” my mother sighed dramatically. “Just remember, we love you, and you’ll learn everything you need on your own time. Meloria is a great academy.”

“Love you, too,” I murmured.

We disconnected the call, and I plugged my phone into the charger before I brushed my teeth and got dressed for bed. Then I laid there for nearly half an hour until I gave up on sleep for a while.

I had too many thoughts racing through my head about shifting, the Divinity, being the light of hope, and finding my secondary. I didn’t have class tomorrow, so I could deal with a late night tonight.

I pulled the prophecy books from my backpack and spread them out on the bed along with my notebook. Then I grabbed my laptop and opened a search bar.

I had to find some kind of answer.

For the next few hours, I searched every Latin phrase in the books and wrote them down. I didn’t focus on the meaning yet, but I hoped it would all come together once I had some info in plain English.

The phrase “natura naturans” appeared several times in one of the books, and I quickly discovered it meant “nature doing what nature does.” The book went on to describe how nature and God form everything, and therefore, everything is exactly as natural as it’s supposed to be. The book was an odd combination of philosophy, science, and religion, and by the time I could hardly hold my eyes open anymore, I’d filled three notebook pages with translations, notes, and questions.

Was my ability to shift under pressure the way I was supposed to be?

Or did I need to give nature a little more time to make the shift more natural?

I’d hoped another Divinity would make its appearance once I touched more pages in the books, but I had no such luck. The hologram woman didn’t rise into the air to give me ethereal advice, and I was stuck with the nature naturing ideas populating my head.

My thoughts melted together until I felt like my brain was a pair of eggs in a frying pan, and I packed everything back up in my bag with a sigh. Then I turned on some PATD, laid back on my pillow, and let Brendon Urie’s voice soothe me into a deep sleep.

I woke up around ten the next morning, and I checked my phone to find texts from Auden and Charlotte asking if I was going to breakfast, deciding I wasn’t awake, and offering to send a rescue party an hour later.

I laughed as I created a group text and sent them a response.

I’m alive, just stayed up late reading the books. Pretty sure I missed breakfast.

I tossed my phone onto the bed and got up to brush my teeth, and when I returned, Auden had replied.

Nope, we’re still here. Endless waffles this morning.

I grinned and replied. See you in a few.

I hurried and got dressed in jeans and a t-shirt before I jogged through the empty common room toward the Medius.

I wasn’t about to miss out on endless waffles.

As I trotted around on the sidewalk, I noticed several groups of students on the quad. They all appeared to be practicing for the duels as charms flew back and forth, shifters went in and out of their fera, and random objects skittered across the ground between pushers. Even the connectors and seers seemed to be working on their secondaries, which I imagined would be the only way they could win a duel.

I walked into the cafeteria, picked up a tray and a stack of waffles, and headed for the table to join my friends. Then I doused the waffles in sweet maple syrup and forked a bite into my mouth with a groan.

“So good,” I said after I swallowed the bite.

“I had to eat three of them to get the jalapeno taste out of my mouth,” Charlotte grumbled while she tugged her reddish hair into a messy bun. “So, you didn’t find anything new in the books?”

“Just some stuff about how everything in nature is natural and from God,” I replied with a shrug. “So, either nature will make me better at what comes naturally to me, or I’m stuck this way because nature says so. Either way, still no clue about who made the Divinity.”

“That’s helpful,” Auden said as he scrunched up his face in annoyance, and he tugged on some of his ear piercings again like it was a nervous habit. “I guess we’ll have to keep looking.”

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “Maybe we aren’t meant to know who made it. Maybe it’s supposed to be a mystery.”

“I hate mysteries,” Charlotte muttered. “Besides, if it’s a mystery, then how do you know it’s something you’re supposed to do and not some dark magic trick?”

I let her words sink in for a moment as I chewed another bite of my waffles. I hadn’t considered that possibility. I’d assumed the Divinity was meant to lead me on some heroic path, but what if it was only to get into my head?

“I think we should just focus on the duels today,” I finally said. “All the Divinities in the world won’t matter if we get our asses kicked this week.”

“You weren’t afraid to fight Seth and his friends last night,” Auden pointed out. “They were way more scared of you.”

“I’m not scared of anyone in the duels,” I countered with a grin. “I just don’t want to be embarrassed.”

Auden and Charlotte nodded their agreement, and we finished up breakfast before we headed out onto the quad. There were even more students now than when I’d walked through earlier, and we finally found some space between the professors’ building and the charmers’ dorm.

While my pusher friends worked on their telekinetic abilities, I focused on shifting with a purpose. I turned my hand into a paw and back several times, and I was pleased to see my dagger-like claws with every attempt. I had at least one thing going for me when it came to shifting, but having these deadly weapons wouldn’t be the only thing I’d need in a duel, especially if I got paired with someone who already had their secondary ability.

“Charlotte, how did you find your secondary?” I asked suddenly.

The pushers paused as their cups floated in mid-air, and Charlotte turned toward me with a smile.

“It’s different for everyone,” she assured me. “What worked for me may not work for you.”

“I’m open to anything,” I said. “Try me.”

“Well, when I was meditating, my secondary was at the end of a rope,” Charlotte explained. “I kept pulling at it, but it seemed endless.”

“That’s exactly how mine feels, except it’s a tunnel,” I murmured. “I can never get to the end of it.”

“Right!” She grinned and then blushed and cleared her throat. “Anyway, I had to focus on bringing the end of the rope to me instead of me going toward it. I had to control its movement. After a few tries, I got it.”

“Okay, controlling the power at the end,” I said and pursed my lips. “I’ll give it a shot.”

I sat down and folded myself into the position we used for meditation class. Then I closed my eyes and looked for the light. I ignored the racing thoughts about shifting and the Divinity and searched for the tunnel. It didn’t take long to find it, and I felt the warmth of the light as it radiated through my body.

I stopped walking toward the light and summoned it to me.

Then my entire mindscape shifted as the light dimmed ahead of me.

“Shit!” I cursed as I jolted back to the present. “I think I did it wrong.”

“Well, you’ve been trying for a while,” Auden said with a glance at his watch. “It’s almost four.”

“What?” I blinked a few times. “I just started.”

“Nope,” Charlotte said and shook her head. “You’ve been in meditation for nearly three hours.”

“And now, we’re starving,” Auden added. “Can we go get some dinner and try some more tomorrow? I need to finish that history essay before Monday.”

“Yeah, sure,” I mumbled.

The rest of the evening seemed to pass me in a blur, and I couldn’t tell if I was still tired or had put myself in some kind of daze with my super long meditation. By the time I got back to the dorm, I didn’t even have the energy to flirt with Demi and Madison as they danced around the common room in their tight shirts and short shorts.

Instead, I went to my room, changed into sweats, and flopped onto the bed with a sigh. I didn’t even realize I’d fallen asleep until the sun shone through my window the next morning.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered. “What’s wrong with me?”

I got dressed and staggered into the common room, where Seth and Vic had just started to play on the game console.

“You look like shit, Turner,” Seth laughed as he glanced over his shoulder at me. “Having nightmares about getting your ass kicked?”

“Can’t have a nightmare about something that didn’t happen, asshat,” I retorted and then yawned. “You can keep dreaming, though.”

“Oh, so you’ve been practicing your shift for the duels,” he said with a smirk as greasy as his black hair. “And since you suck, you’re draining yourself. Good job. Keep that up, and it won’t matter who you get partnered with. You’ll look like an idiot in front of everyone.”

I rolled my eyes and continued on to the Medius for breakfast, but Seth’s words echoed in my head as I walked. He might have thought he was being a prick as usual but inadvertently gave me some advice. I’d spent most of the afternoon shifting and meditating yesterday, so I must have used up all my energy.

I had to take it in small doses instead of blowing through everything I had in just a few hours.

Auden and Charlotte caught up with me as I opened the Medius doors, and they both looked at me with shock written all over their faces. Their mouths hung open, and their eyes were wide, so I stopped and waited for the other shoe to drop.

“Did you even sleep?” Charlotte asked as she leaned in close to examine my face. “You look like a zombie… I mean, a hot one, but… um, yeah.”

“I slept like the dead, so a zombie is probably fitting,” I said with a shrug. “I think I used too much energy yesterday. I need to take it easy today.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Auden agreed, and his red hair flopped over his eye as he nodded. “We can just do a few things and then relax since it’s Sunday. Do you guys have an Xbox in your common room?”

“We do, but I don’t want to hear from Seth about inviting pushers over,” I muttered. “We can go to yours if you want. Your people seem to like me.”

“All the girls do, at least,” he said and rolled his green eyes with a sideways glance at Charlotte.

“Yeahhhh…” She blushed and scurried down the hall toward the cafeteria, and we chuckled to ourselves as we followed her to eat.

Conversation was minimal while we scarfed down breakfast.

“Hey, Kane,” a projector girl said as she stopped next to our table and tucked her blond hair behind her ear with a wink. “I heard about the pizza place. Let me know if you need any… tutoring.”

She slipped a napkin on the table in front of me with her name and number scribbled on the paper, and Auden shook his head in disbelief as she walked away.

“Seriously, how do you do it?” he asked. “You come in here looking like an extra from The Walking Dead, and that hot-ass girl just slips you her number like it’s no big deal?”

“I don’t know, man,” I chuckled. “I never got that kind of attention before. My whole life I’ve been a nerd and terrible with girls.”

“That’s rather adorable.” Charlotte eyed me with a look I couldn’t quite decode before she returned to her food.

We spent the next hour practicing our primary abilities for the duels, and then we headed to the pusher common room to relax. A few hours of Mortal Kombat and Call of Duty helped me relax, and I finally headed back to my own room at eight. After a quick shower and shave, I slid into bed feeling mostly relaxed, though a little stress remained.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the duels, and I needed to get plenty of rest instead of dwelling on tomorrow, so I sent a quick goodnight text to my mom and fell asleep a few minutes later.

The next morning, I woke up to my phone buzzing on the nightstand.

“Hello?” I asked in a groggy voice.

“Dude, you missed breakfast,” Auden urged me. “Class starts in five minutes.”

“Shit!” I cursed and threw off the blankets.

I rushed through my morning routine, grabbed a pack of Pop-Tarts from the kitchen, and sprinted across the quad to the classroom building. I skidded into the meditation class door just as the buzzer sounded, and Francis narrowed her eyes on me when I plopped onto my pillow and tried to catch my breath.

“I hope you’ll be able to relax enough to meditate, Kane,” she said with a frown. “Your secondary won’t find itself.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied.

It was easier to bring myself into my meditative state now than it had been the first week of class, and I made my way to the tunnel in a matter of seconds.

I hoped, anyway.

I needed time to pull the light toward me, and I fought the sense of dismay when it got dimmer with every tug.

Then it hit me.

To my eyes, the light dimmed, but in my body, I sensed it take its place. I consumed the light like a warm drink of coffee, and it burned through my veins. I had the light in me, and I could feel its warmth from the inside out.

But what did it mean?

“Alright!” Francis declared.

I snapped back to the present, and I started to ask her what the light meant when the classroom lights began to buzz and flicker.

“Ahhh, someone has found their secondary,” our professor said with a bright smile. “Who is it?”

No one spoke, and I decided it had to be me. I slowly raised my hand, but then one of the bulbs burst, and a shower of sparks scattered on the ground.

“Oh, my God!” Demi screamed as she leaped out of her desk. “What the hell?”

“Light manipulation,” Francis said with a nod. “Very good, Kane.”

“Wait, light manipulation?” I repeated as I looked up at the demolished light fixture. “What does that mean?”

“Your secondary ability is controlling light,” she explained. “At your current level, you can only move light which already exists. As your power grows, you will be able to create and destroy it as you choose.”

“Lame,” Seth muttered.

“What’s your secondary?” I asked with a smirk.

He pressed his mouth into a thin line and glared at me until the buzzer rang.

“The more you meditate, the sooner you’ll each find yours!” Francis called out over the noise of us preparing to leave.

Seth and Vic stormed out of the classroom ahead of us, while Demi and Madison gushed over my newfound ability.

“What are you going to do first?” Madison asked as she adjusted her mini-skirt and bit her lip. “I mean, you’re like the most powerful shifter in our class now.”

“True, but we’re not counting the whole blow up a light thing as your first thing,” Demi added. “What are you going to do first on purpose?”

“I don’t know,” I said with a grin. “I guess I’ll have to figure it out.”

We walked into our shifting class, and the tension between me and Seth returned like a dark cloud. He clenched his fists and scowled at me until I made it to my seat. I probably shouldn’t have sniped at him in meditation class, but for once, I was ahead of the game, and I was proud of myself and didn’t feel like letting that tool rain on my parade.

“I’m sure everyone spent the weekend preparing for the duels today,” Renzo said as he looked around the room. “And I do have some news before we proceed. You will be paired with someone in this room. The staff has decided you should face someone with similar abilities first before you move on to more difficult opponents.”

“So, what about those of us who haven’t found our secondaries yet?” Demi asked as she chewed her bottom lip with worry. “Will we just fight as feras?”

“That is an acceptable option,” the professor agreed. “Once this class is dismissed, you’ll go to the Medius and eat. From there, you’ll meet at the quad and find your duel partners.”

“Alright, so, do we just pick our partners?” Seth glanced over at Vic, and they bumped fists.

“No,” Renzo chuckled. “In fact, I won’t pick them either. Dean Canmore will decide who you will duel.”