When the Stars Align

I Jump Off the Roof

"How is that even possible?" I ask astonished.

He shrugs. "No one knows. This has never happened before. The Étoiles have had suspicions ever since you were born, that's why we kept an eye on you. We needed proof. When I saw that you could see me at the bar, but none of your friends could, it was all that we needed. Humans can't see us, but since you could, you're clearly not fully human. Your dad knew since he had you dye your hair, but he didn't tell anyone, not even your mom. Once the Obscurités found out what you were, they wanted answers to what made you. They wanted to try to find out what combination of genes made you, and eventually what made pure Obscurités. If they could find the answer, they could make as many of their own as they wanted. They were willing to do anything to find it."

He took a deep breath before continuing. Talking more slowly, he said, "They were the ones that took your father. They experimented on him until it killed him. They left his body in the streets and staged it as a murder."

All the color drained out of my face.

"Nova, I'm so, so sorry," he said.

"And I'm supposed to be one of these Obscurités?" I say slowly, the gears turning in my head.

"Genetically? Yes, but you also have Étoile in your genes. The girl that I killed the other day was genetically Obscurité, but she chose to be Obscurité on the inside too. You can choose which one you want to be on the inside," he said reassuringly.

He put two fingers under my chin, lifting my head up so we were looking into each other's eyes. "Don't let labels define you, okay?"

I nodded. Our faces were inches apart. All of the sudden, a tall, blond boy busted through the door. We both sprang apart from each other.

"I knew it!" the blonde boy started yelling.

His eyes were an eccentric blue. A boy with black hair and green eyes followed him along with a blonde haired girl with brown eyes.

"We tried to stop him," the girl said to Will.

"I'm Brendan, by the way," he said nodding in my direction. "Will, why wouldn't you tell me?"

"No offense Brendan, but I didn't tell you because your mouth is the size of a watermelon," Will said.

"That's not true. I swear, I'm not going to tell a soul," Brendan reassured him. "Except for maybe Alex."

Brendan disappeared down the hall.

"Nice to finally meet you, Nova," the boy said sticking out his hand. "I'm Josh."

I shook it. It could tell it was the same boy that Will had been talking to earlier, and I assumed that the girl was the same too.

She reached out her hand. "Avery."

"Great. Alex has the biggest mouth in the whole hotel other than Brendan," Will said.

"You could go somewhere, give things time to cool down here," Avery said to Will.

"I'm not going to run from my problems, Avery. Besides, where would I go?" Will asked.

She wasn't sure how to respond to this.

"What's the big deal that I'm here? Why would he get in trouble for that? I'm Étoile I guess aren't I?" I asked curiously.

"But you're Obscurité too. Everyone thinks that you're unpredictable, that you could turn on us at any time. There are some people like us that don't believe it of course, but then there are people like the Chancellor. There's things that you can do that no one else can," Avery said.

I stood up grabbing my phone off the nightstand and slipping my shoes on.

"I should probably go," I announced.

"No, you should stay," Will said using that pleading voice again.

"I have to, my mom's probably freaking out. Besides, if I'm not here, they don't have any proof that you did something wrong, so maybe you won't get into trouble," I said.

Will took my phone out of my hand and put his, Avery's, and Josh's number in my contacts.

"If you need anything at all, contact one of us, okay? Be careful. We believe in you," he said.

Will opened the window and climbed out and onto the roof. He paused to turn around and give me a hand. I took it and climbed out onto the roof. We inched our way down to the edge. We were 8 stories up. There was a huge lake beneath us. The water glittered in the sun.

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

I paused a beat before nodding, and it was the truth, I did trust him.

"You have to jump," he said over the wind.

"Are you crazy?" I exclaimed.

"I control the air, remember? Trust me," he said.

I took a deep breath and jumped. There was a moment of free fall before I slowed down, almost like I had released a parachute. I soared over the lake to a patch of grass where my feet touched the ground lightly. I looked up in time to see Will climb back inside and close the window. I got of there as quick as I could before someone spotted me.