Chapter 1

Present day

I tail her. The best friend. I call absolute bullshit that she’s not seen or heard from Malia, even though we interviewed her and wiped her memory afterwards – which is my speciality. I don’t trust her.

It’s what allowed me to keep an eye on Malia before she vanished. She has no recollection of kissing or even meeting me. Because I like to operate in the shadows. After we met and she ran off, I caught up with her one more time, and then wiped our interaction from her memory, even as it pained me to do so.

Which is both a blessing and a curse. Yes, there are some clues that point to Malia being the Star, but there’s also evidence that we’re the killers on campus, and that’s a load of shit. So I know not to believe or jump on every little fragment of ‘proof’ that falls into our laps.

I’m just not convinced. But there’s something going on, some mystery surrounding Malia, and I can’t shake the feeling in my gut that she’s tied to all of this, to all of us, somehow. So I’m playing hooky from my duties by taking time off to spy on her so-called bestie.

It sucks that none of us have the ability to read minds or extract the truth from people, but those are skills only our elders possess. I suspect that if we come through with this assignment, we’ll be heavily rewarded with additional gifts though. Vance especially. He has the makings to become an elder – right down to the patronising, assholeish persona at times.

Still, the memory wiping does come in handy, even on a campus where a large percentage of the population are aware of the supernatural world. How else could any university stay open with so many suspicious disappearances, deaths and murders, let alone one which caters to both supes and humans?

The best friend, Summer, catches the ferry to the mainland, which isn’t unusual. Plenty of students at SCU go to the mainland to party on the weekends, especially once they’ve exhausted the island’s somewhat limited nightlife. But she’s not dressed to party, and with the late hour approaching, I highly doubt she’s going shopping.

When we hit the dock in downtown Long Beach an hour later, it’s easy enough to tail her through the city. She takes off on foot, and she never once looks over her shoulder. Why would she? She doesn’t know we’re looking for Malia, and I get the feeling she’s going to lead me straight to her.

At long last.

Malia’s been gone two weeks now and one of us has been tailing Summer at virtually all times. So far she’s given us no leads. Nothing. It’s why Vance insisted we pull back and move on to other leads. As if we have any besides Summer.

Today feels different though. I just had this urge to check in on Summer one last time, and I’m sure it’s going to pay off. She moves with too much purpose to be someone out just to enjoy an evening stroll.

I follow her for about ten minutes towards East Village, stopping when she enters a hospital I’m unfamiliar with. There are close to twenty hospitals in the city so I certainly don’t know them all, but a quick search on my phone tells me that the St. Mary Medical Centre specialises in mental health treatment.

Malia’s in there, I just know it. She has to be. Where else could she be and why else would Summer – the girl with the seemingly picture-perfect life – be visiting here?

I don’t have long to wait to have my hunch confirmed. I remove my earbuds and switch off the music on my phone, cutting off the closing beats of ‘River Run’, to better concentrate.

Within twenty minutes, Summer exits the main hospital entrance with Malia in tow. Well, I guess it’s Malia. She looks nothing like the girl I met on the beach at the party, and my excitement at having found her is quickly doused by concern. Her hair is tied back, lank and greasy, and the once beautiful vibrant ombré is now faded to dull muted tones. She’s wearing oversized sweats which have to be hospital issued on account of the way they hang off her tiny frame. She looks slimmer than I remembered her; scrawny now. And she’s moving with sluggish, jerky, unnatural movements.

My pulse races as the pair of them pass me by without sparing me a glance, though of course neither of them should remember me even if they did happen to look my way.

It’s her eyes which scare me.

They’re completely lifeless and empty – the total opposite of what I remember from our one and only close interaction on the beach.

Summer says something to Malia which I don’t hear, and when Malia doesn’t respond, Summer shakes her head in exasperation. Hooking her arm through Malia’s, she takes off at a brisk pace, practically tugging her down the back streets returning toward the docks.

They’re hurrying to catch the next ferry which leaves in around twenty minutes. I guess they’re going back to Santa Catalina. Home. Which means I could stop following them and just pass the information back to the others, but curiosity gets the best of me. I want to be on that ferry. An hour with nothing to do but talk to each other? I’m bound to find some answers to the questions that are racing through my mind. Like, has Malia really been in a mental institution all this time? And if so, why?

I watch as they take their seats on the ferry, and to begin with I keep a casual distance, looking out over the water towards our destination. I’m close enough to eavesdrop on their conversation…if they were having one.

When we set sail, I causally select a seat on the row behind them so that I can continue to observe and listen in, but not a word passes their lips for the entire journey. It’s odd. Especially for the best friend; she’s always talking.

I can’t help but wonder what the hell happened to put Malia in the hospital in the first place, and what the fuck have they done to our supposed Star?

* * *

“How did it go?” Cove calls as soon as I step through the door, the sound of Metallica’s ‘Master of Puppets’ blasting from the speakers in welcome. I shake my head. This song isn’t too bad, but generally speaking, Bhodi has horrible taste in music. Still, it’s not their best song.

I have to shove aside my pang of disappointment at his question. It went well. I found her. I guess. It doesn’t matter that she sat beside her best – seemingly only – friend in the world for an entire hour and didn’t speak one word. Not a single word on the walk from the harbour, up the steep hill back to campus, or a word as they entered her dorm. She didn’t even listen to her music which Bhodi told me she almost always did before she vanished.

The only signs of life I saw were from the way she twitched and constantly looked over her shoulder, like she could sense someone or something following her.

“I found her,” I say, walking past them all sitting on the couch to grab myself a bottle of water from the fridge. Personally, I think the water that comes out of the tap is absolutely fine, but Vance is an entitled asshole who insists we all drink his special bottled shit, and it’s sort of become a habit now.

I twist off the cap, down more than half the contents of the bottle and walk to the lounge area where they’re all waiting, not so patiently, for me. I can see they all want to pounce and start firing questions at me, but they don’t. Their agitation shows clearly in their body language though.

“Well?” Bhodi eventually snaps. Should have known he’d cave first. I turn down the music.

“I followed Summer.”

“I thought we agreed—” Vance begins.

Yeah, we agreed to step back on the Summer detail. But my gut told me to follow Summer today and I’m not sorry that I did.

“I know what we said, but I had a feeling. You should be glad that I listened to it. Summer caught the ferry to the mainland, disappeared inside a mental hospital, came out a while later with Malia in tow.”

“What?” They all stare at me in astonishment.

“Yeah. She was an in-patient. I’d wager that she’s been there this whole time and wasn’t allowed any visitors. Hence Summer not going there before now. Malia’s been assigned to Summer’s care.”

“That’s odd.” The professor frowns.

“Yeah, I thought so too. But I saw the discharge papers poking out the top of Summer’s bag on the ferry home, so I had a quick look at them. Malia was being treated for substance-induced psychosis.”

“Psychosis?” The prof raises his brows.

“Yes.”

“Drug abuse?” His tone is incredulous.

“Apparently.”

“Bullshit.” His expression morphs to one of anger. It surprises me because he’s usually so good at schooling his emotions, but if Malia is discharged yet still under their care, it will cause us major setbacks.

“Yeah, my thoughts exactly.” I may not know Malia the best out of all of us but even I can tell she’s not the sort of girl to do drugs, and certainly not to the point that she suffers psychosis because of it.

I’m glad that the prof and I are on the same page with this. I’d been trying to figure out my arguments for Malia-Tarni’s defence on my way back here. Admittedly, I don’t have a lot to go on. We met once; I’m hardly a stellar character witness for her. And as much as the prof tells us to trust our gut with some things, I was sure he’d take some convincing to prove Malia’s diagnosis was bullshit.

“We need to get to the bottom of this,” he says, getting to his feet and looking over the others who still seem to be in various states of shock. He turns back to me. “Did you happen to see who her doctor was?”

“I didn’t. But there was a prescription made out for a shit-ton of meds. Like, more drugs than I’ve seen in a pharmacy.”

“So something isn’t right.”

“Exactly.” I wonder if I did the right thing coming here to report my findings. Maybe I should have stayed and kept an eye on Malia’s place. Or maybe even have approached her. But then, what would I say?

I shake myself out of my thoughts and turn my attention back to the conversation in the room. Bhodi says something about Malia seeming like a bit of a loner which reminds me there’s more to tell them.

“Also, the paperwork listed Summer’s parents as the first point of emergency contact, not Malia’s. That’s weird, right?” I ask for confirmation of the uneasy feeling in my gut.

“Definitely. Don’t both sets of parents live in the U.K?”

“I believe so. But Summer’s parents are SCU alumni,” I tell the prof.

“So they’re connected to the university. Supes?”

“Nothing in their records to suggest that.” I at least looked up that information while I was sitting on the boat with nothing better to do with my time.

“We need to dig deeper. Something isn’t adding up. Anything else you need to report, Reef?”

“Malia…wasn’t herself. She looked almost unrecognisable and she didn’t speak. Like, at all, for the entire hour-long journey, or all the way back to her room.”

“We have surveillance set up along her hall don’t we?”

“Yes. And in her room. But I’m wondering if it’s enough.”

“Good point,” the prof concedes. “I’ll scope out our options and get back to you. I want to balance this. If Malia is the Star then she will need our highest level of protection, but even if she’s not, there’s still a lot of mystery surrounding this girl and we need to keep an eye on her.”

“Why?” Bhodi pipes up.

“I doubt that it’s a coincidence that since Malia’s been gone, the campus killings have stopped.”

“Do you think she’s a suspect?” Cove asks, eyes wide and disbelieving. I’m with him. He’s wrong. Just because the murders stopped while she was gone doesn’t mean she’s to blame. I don’t think the prof is right there, at all.

“I’m not willing to rule anything out until we have solid proof she’s the Star.”

“What will that look like?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I need to speak to the elders I guess. Until then, the original plan still stands. Reef, you need to get close to Malia and see if the pull is there, somehow. Could be difficult. Bhodi you need to make amends and stop being a dick—”

“You’re one to talk!” he retorts angrily.

“And Cove, it sounds like Malia could use a friend right now.”

I turn to the prof and study him. “I can probably hack the hospital’s records to give us the full picture and a copy of her prescription, if it helps. Maybe she has an outpatient appointment or something I can drop in on.”

“Good idea. If she’s been admitted for anything psychosis-related, therapy outpatient appointments will be mandatory for a short period of time at least. See if you can swing her a group therapy class and tag along.”

“Will do. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to meet with the elders and present what we have so far, which is very little, and then take whatever advice they offer.”

“You’re going home?”

“This is our home, for the time being. But yes, I’m returning to Aerwyna.”

“Can we come?” Cove asks hesitatingly. I can hear the excitement and hope in his tone.

“No. You have your assignments here.”

“That’s not fair!” Bhodi whines.

“What’s not fair would be the eradication of our entire species if you left Malia unprotected and the Shikari came after her because she is the Star.”

“But—” he protests.

“Enough. Don’t you have essays to write or tests to study for?”

“You’re a real dick sometimes,” he mutters.

The prof smirks. He heads for the door, stopping only to look back over his shoulder and reply, “So I’ve been told.”