Chapter 52 Outcast Club

Chapter 52 Outcast Club
“I met someone else today. Well, I’ve been meeting him in the library. Chiro.”

Scarlet’s expression sobered instantly, her playful energy replaced by a flicker of genuine concern. “The Nephilim? Amaya, stay away from him. He’s bad news. Not ‘Ryker-bad,’ but ‘Juda-will-execute-you-both-on-the-spot-bad.’ He’s a pariah for a reason. Even the demons won’t touch him.”

“He’s my family, Scarlet,” I said, my voice firm, brooking no argument. “I felt it. We have a resonance. His angelic parent was related to my ancestors back in the human world. He’s not a pariah; he’s an outcast, just like us. He’s the only one who doesn’t treat me like a ticking time bomb or a trophy.”

I told her about the library, the locket, and the resonance. I told her how he helped me steal the Codex. Scarlet listened, her head tilted, her amber eyes tracking my every word. She was a survivor, and she recognized the same trait in my description of Chiro.

“A secret bloodline?” she whispered, a grin slowly spreading across her face. “That’s... that’s some high-level drama, even for this place. So he’s the reason you were sneaking around the restricted wing?”

“He’s the only one who treats me like a person, Scarlet. Not a prophecy. Not a pet. He wants to know who we are.”

Scarlet sighed, leaning back against the headboard and taking a long swig of her drink. “Well, if he’s family, then he’s pack. And if he’s packed, he can’t stay in that dusty library all by himself. He needs to join the club.”

“The club?”

“The Outcast Club,” Scarlet grinned, her sharp wit returning in full force. “We’ve got the human ghost-whisperer with a bratty attitude, the wolfless she-wolf with a drinking problem, and now the abomination Nephilim. We’re like the Breakfast Club, but with more apocalypse and much better hair. We’ll be the counter-culture of Salvation.”

“I don’t think Juda Gringer has a membership category for ‘Counter-Culture,’” I said, but the idea brought a genuine, warm smile to my face for the first time all day.

“Who cares what that old gargoyle thinks?” Scarlet clinked her mug against mine. “We’ll meet tomorrow night. I’ll bring the ‘Lumin,’ you bring the ‘abomination,’ and we’ll start planning our own version of the prophecy. One that doesn’t involve you being a human sacrifice. To the Outcasts?”

“To the Outcasts,” I agreed. For the first time, Salvation didn’t feel like a cage. It felt like a base of operations.

The ‘Advanced Aerial Maneuvers’ session was supposed to be a demonstration of angelic grace. For me, it was a demonstration of how much I hated heights and the people who forced me into them.

We were on the High Plateau, a flat expanse of rock that dropped off into a five-thousand-foot abyss filled with swirling, predatory mists. Professor Valerius stood at the edge, his expression as dead as a stone tablet. Seraphina and her clique were there, looking pristine in their white silks, their eyes fixed on me with a predatory glee that suggested they’d been practicing their ‘I told you so’ faces.

“The Catalyst will demonstrate the ‘Descent of Mercy,’” Valerius announced, his voice a monotone drone. “She will be tethered to a celestial anchor and dropped. She must use her focus to slow her fall and land within the marked circle at the base of the first ledge. Failure to focus will result in... significant deceleration trauma.”

I looked at the ‘tether’—a thin, shimmering cord of light that felt suspiciously fragile. Malik was watching from a distance, his face a mask of concern he couldn’t quite hide, his wings twitching beneath his tunic. Ryker was in the shadows, his hand on the hilt of his sword, looking ready to catch me if the tether snapped, or perhaps just ready to kill anyone who laughed.

I stepped into the harness, my heart doing a frantic tap-dance against my ribs. Seraphina walked past me, her shoulder brushing mine with enough force to make me wobble. “Good luck, human,” she whispered, her eyes dancing with ice. “Try not to make too much of a mess on the rocks below. It’s so hard to get blood out of moonstone.”

I felt a strange prickle on my skin—a psychic residue that smelled of Lyra’s rot and Kaelen’s aggression. It was a faint, oily shimmer on the tether. I didn’t have time to process it before Valerius gave the signal.

I was shoved.

The world vanished into a roar of wind and terror. I was falling, the abyss reaching up to swallow me. I reached for the tether, trying to visualize the ‘slowing’ and the ‘filing’ Malik had taught me, but the cord of light suddenly turned black. It didn’t just snap; it dissolved, the psychic rot I’d sensed earlier eating through the celestial energy like acid.

I wasn’t just falling; I was being executed.

“Amaya!” I heard Malik’s roar from above, a sound of pure, unadulterated terror that I’d never heard from the ‘Saint.’