The head of training, a guy named Ridley, stops introducing me as another trainee and starts calling me his assistant.
I’m surprised when, during my fifth month at the Legion, Slade suggests a trip back to the Academy.
“Lucinda’s been asking to see you,” he says. “But it’s up to you to decide whether or not you’re ready.”
“In another week,” I say, since I’m learning to listen to my limits, and I need to prepare mentally for a trip back to the place that holds my best and worst memories.
It takes me more than a week to feel ready.
Two weeks later, I exit the Legion’s Realm for the first time since I was brought here.
The trip to the Academy happens in a Legion-owned vehicle that drops Slade and me outside St. Michael Cemetery. We check for observers and passing vehicles before I place my hand on the plaque at the front entrance that will allow us to enter the Academy’s Realm.
The Academy appears in the distance, and I pause in shock before I shake myself and step inside the boundary.
The road leading into Bloodwing is now paved with bright pebbles and lined with bushes bearing flowers of all colors. The fence and rose bushes are gone.
Up ahead, a giant oak has grown in the front yard, a child’s swing attached to its strongest branch.
Two children, both about eight years old, swing back and forth, chatting loudly.
Flower-covered vines creep up across the front of the building. The windows have been widened to let the light in, and colorful curtains are visible, floating in the breeze.
Lucinda appears in the wide doors at the entrance, a gentle smile on her face. Her long, straight caramel-brown hair is tied in a loose braid that rests across one shoulder, and she’s wearing a linen dress.
She hurries down the front steps, slowing when she reaches me. “Striker, you made it.”
She reaches for my hands, taking them in hers, her brown eyes clear and calm and unafraid.
Slade gives her a quick greeting in the form of a nod. “I’ll be inside. Has Alison baked again?”
Lucinda casts him a crooked smile. “Can you smell the cookies? Get in quick. They’re almost gone.”
I stare at Lucinda, taking in her calm eyes and her serene expression. “What… Lucinda… This place…”
“It’s a home now, Striker. A place where we’re safe. What it should have been from the start.” She gestures to the children on the swing. “With the Guardian’s help, we’re identifying Unknowns early. If their families are willing to support them, we leave them where they are with the offer to give help if needed, but we extract the ones who are in danger.”
“I’ve never met Catherine,” I say. “That’s the Guardian’s name, isn’t it? Catherine?”
“No.” Lucinda pauses as she leads me up the stairs. “That was the Guardian before this one. Hunter Cassidy is the new Guardian. She took over a little while ago now.” Lucinda winks at me. “I don’t know how Hunter does it, but that woman has eyes everywhere.”
Lucinda draws me inside the building, taking me on a tour of each level, showing me the new library, the quiet rooms, and a loud room in which music blares as soon as she opens the door, but it’s soundproof when she shuts it.
“That’s the teens’ retreat,” she shouts. “We won’t go in there.”
Upstairs, I find dorms filled with beds covered in bright blankets. There are paintings on the walls and—I grin—mirrors.
“We still have to share the shower rooms, but there are individual cubicles now,” she says.
She hesitates at the base of the steps leading up to the attic. “I wasn’t sure what to do with upstairs.”
She chews her lip as she leads me up there, saying, “I left your room as it was because… I guess I hoped that maybe one day you’d come back and tell me how you’d like it. But I made Peyton’s room the way I thought it should have been.”
I walk past my room, knowing I need to avoid its painful memories, but I pause outside Peyton’s room.
It now contains a well-made bed with blue cushions on it. A plush chair sits in the corner with a small table beside it. The window is open, and pastel blue curtains billow gently in the breeze.
Lucinda’s right. It’s tranquil. Like Peyton deserved.
