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under a stone arch.
“They’re like soccer players, but the ball is current.”
Again, Julia’s jaw dropped.
“I’m surprised you’re surprised. You can do something, can’t you? Wait, what can you do? I don’t think you ever told me.”
“Auras,” Julia answered. “I see auras.” And have prophetic dreams. And possibly order old men to shoot people. She remembered the desperation she’d ‘pushed’ at the old man who’d come onto his lawn at night to find a Nephilim scuffle. How she’d wanted him to shoot one of the Nephilim fighting Cayne, and he had. Had that been his own reaction, conveniently at the exact moment she’d needed it, or had she somehow made him do it?
Meredith interrupted her racing thoughts.
“That’s cool. What color’s mine?”
“I haven’t been…looking at them here. I tried in the van and, Nathan— he got pissed.”
“Oh, I bet he did. What color was his? Probably gray!”
Julia nodded, but her mind had moved on to something else. “So Nathan tracked me down because I’m a Candidate to be The One, and I’m here because I’m, what? Needed to save mankind?”
“Well, maybe. Could be I am. Or Drew, or one of the others. And we’re not saving mankind. We’re only saving Chosen.”
At the far end of the room, around a blue-green pit fire that was clearly made of not-your-typical-fire, Julia saw some people her age. “It’s their day,” Meredith said.
“Their day?”
“Well, night,” she amended. “It’s their night to hang out. The rest of us are stuck in our rooms, until our night. Or we’re supposed to be. Shh .” She rolled her eyes.
Julia scanned the all-gray crew, noting many different hair colors and skin tones; not surprising: There were Chosen all over the world, she figured. She cast her gaze away, looking for other tunnels, wondering where they kept their prisoners.
Again, she felt hopeless. She might never be able to find Cayne. Not in this massive place. And even if she did, how could she escape through hundreds or maybe thousands of people who thought they were at war with him?
Her chest ached with a horrible emptiness, and at the moment it grew sharp as a kitten’s claws, Meredith grabbed her hand.
“All right, tell me. Who is he?”   
Before Julia could answer (or ask what she meant), she spied Nathan’s solemn face, his hard shoulders, his black-brown eyes locked on Meredith from across the room.           
Meredith rubbed her cheek, hiding a big grin behind her hand.
“This is going to be fun.”
Chapter 5
     
 
“Meredith.” Nathan’s fists clenched against his stiff gray pants.
Meredith stood at mock attention. “ Yeeeesss , Great Shepherd.”
“For the last time—” Nathan bit his tongue—literally, she saw, then turned his attention to Julia. “That isn’t a rank,” he told her, as if he was relieving her fears.
“It’s our special title for him, because he’s so good at shepherding,” Meredith said.
Nathan’s lips twitched. His face turned crimson, and for a moment, Julia thought he might snap. Then he inhaled deeply, and his entire body slackened. “You need to go back to your room and change out of that…skirt.” His mouth curved disdainfully around the word, and as he said it, Julia saw his eyes scan the room; they narrowed, then boomeranged to Meredith.
“Now. Go right now.”
“I can’t. No, really. I have kitchen duty.”
“Go change your clothes, and then go to the kitchen. You won’t be preparing tonight. You’ll be cleaning.”
“Cleaning. Ugh.” She turned to Julia. Flashed a smile. “Worth it,” she mouthed.
As Meredith sauntered off, Julia caught an involuntary glimpse of Nathan’s aura. It flared off him, red and yellow, like a flame.
As quickly as the colors bloomed, he snuffed them out. She blocked her Sight before she saw his “real” aura—the base colors below a temporary feeling.
He didn’t say anything until Meredith was out of sight. Then: “I apologize for the way I acted