“I should’ve reminded you not to take this way. It’s impossible for the next six blocks,” Theo says.
“Yeah, that’s super helpful right now, Theo,” Sapphira shoots over her shoulder as she merges again, checking her blind spot as she accelerates.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask, because burning fear is rising up my throat at the thought of the Wardens, and I need a distraction.
“The Grotto,” Theo answers, turning around. “Headquarters for the resistance.” He makes a ridiculous sweeping gesture with his hands that end in a salute. He’s making fun of me.
I roll my eyes. “A safe house?” I ask.
“Something like that,” Theo agrees as he faces forward.
I’ve been on the run for a long time, and I’ve seen the different ways Oddities have learned to survive. Safe houses are one of them. All the Oddities use their powers to protect each other and keep the house hidden. Freaks of a feather, I guess. I saw one in Portland operating out of an abandoned shoe factory, and the Oddities there passed themselves off as a construction crew for a solid six months. Once or twice, I’ve come across a kind, naive stranger who thinks I would be a good addition to the community, or whatever. I always turned them down, citing my lone-wolf tendencies, which is complete bull. I hate being alone. I hate the moments when my voice cracks and false starts because it’s been days since I talked to another human. I wish I could sink into a community like that. To have friends again. To be known right down to the shadows that are bone-adjacent. But my power is too dangerous.
“It’s where the cool kids live, darlin’,” Aldrick calls over his shoulder. “And with that mini-flood stunt, you just made the cut. Settle in, we’ll be there before you know it.”
They don’t know what they’re saying. They don’t know what I am.
“My name is Vesper,” I shoot back. “Spare me the darlin’ crap.” That’s the second time he’s called me that tonight. I’m so very done with it.
“Vesper?” Alanna sits up groggily, rubbing her forehead. “I hate Aldrick’s nicknames, but even I’d take darlin’ over Vesper.”
I bite my lip and lean back against the seat as Sapphira pulls past a rusted gate. A sign with scrawled pink spray paint is drilled over the entrance:
Abandon all hope,
ye dumbasses who venture past this point.
I’ll stay for the night, regroup, and get out of here tomorrow. As much as I’d hate to admit it, I’m exhausted. And judging by all my calls tonight? Consider me a dumbass.
I don’t remember the exact wording my father used to completely unravel my life that night. I was in such a state of shock that the words just hovered around me, refusing to sink in and take root until much later. But I remember the moment he told me I was a Harbinger.
I remember the moment when I screamed at him and asked him how he knew, how he could possibly be so calm about it.
I remember the moment he told me he used to be one, too.
I remember the way the floor tilted and how my breath burned with every inhale.
Tears rolled down my cheeks, filling the crease of my lips as I shut my mouth tight. He’d lied to me. He’d known for months what was happening and didn’t say anything.
“Used to?” I finally asked, hope flaring in my chest. “Can I get rid of it?”
The sorrow in his eyes doused it immediately. “No, Ves. You can’t.”
I sat there, letting the weight of the disappointment settle over me like concrete. Heavy. Sticky. Lethal.
My father reached for a notepad and a pen from his desk. His lawyer voice kicked in then, almost like he saw me fading and knew I needed an anchor.
“But you can learn how to control it.”
I looked up, an ember of something like hope on the tip of my tongue.
We said we were working on a project for AP English, but instead my father taught me about the shadowy world that existed in and underneath our own.
From him I learned there are different types of us. Dozens, at least. Maybe hundreds. They’re called clans. Each can do different things, and all started in different places on the map. Stoneskins in the Pacific Islands. Miasmas in Central America. Vertiasmas in Ethiopia. Oddities have always been there, he explained. You just had to know where to look.
I learned that Oddities have their own wars, their own myths—their own heroes and villains. Secret histories tucked between stones and buried in unmarked graves. They ran parallel to the world I thought I knew, slithering alongside the well-worn narratives we had all been taught in history class. I drank it all in, learning everything I could. Oddities helped Edison invent the light bulb. Shifters aided in a famous search-and-rescue mission in World War II.
And we had our own nightmares—our own monsters to fear in the shadow.
And then, one night as a storm rolled in, he told me about the Wardens.
No one knows when they arrived. It’s not like there was some secret ceremony where a dude pulled a cloak over his head and decided to give Oddities rules or else.
All we know is that some Oddities banded together and decided that in order to be able to live the lives we wish, we should stay quiet. Shadow-ridden.
It wasn’t a request.
It starts as a warning—a purple bud of aconite, or queen of poisons, on your door. Nailed right through the petals. We’ve seen you, it means.
You’re not given a second chance.
My father paced in front of his desk, covered with open books, as he explained it to me.
“The Wardens have a multitude of Oddities working for them, enforcing our silence, but the Rippers are the scariest—and most valuable, because what they do is dangerous. They can pull your power from you. Separate it from your bones, your DNA, and make you Baseline. Ripping certain powers can kill. A Ripper puts that part of you in a jar and takes it to the Rippers’ Athenaeum; they keep the power under lock and key.”
I thought I was scared by the lake, but this was worse.
Even now, I like to picture the stolen magic in mason jars, glowing like centerpieces at a rustic barn wedding. But that’s just because it’s less terrifying that way. In reality I think it’s much worse. That’s why my dad didn’t linger on the how or why of the Ripper’s Athenaeum. I got the gist. A library of all our bloody, most dangerous parts. Endless rows of raw power.
My dad pulled out the encyclopedias Carmen, Iris, and I used for the school projects that annoyingly didn’t allow for electronic resources. He opened them to different pages and turned them toward me on his desk.
“Pisa, 1347, when victims of the bubonic plague suddenly came to life.
Ning’an, China, 1840, where it was reported that a camp of Russian defectors disappeared in the space of two minutes. Three hundred tents, gone.” He turned the books so I could see the pages better.
“All these were Oddities?” I asked, running my hands over the pages. He nodded, his salt-and-pepper hair falling into his face. “I wanted to keep you shielded from this, Vesper. You and your sisters and brother. But since that’s no longer an option, then you need to know about this world. The best way to survive is to understand.”
“Carmen, Iris, Jack . . . ,” I started, but my dad looked down.
“No, Vesper. None of them are Oddities.” For some reason, that made me relieved. At least they wouldn’t have to go through this, too.