III

"Aw, ew."

It was pouring. The torrential downpour temporarily distracted me from the task at hand, a welcome but irritating interruption. My hair was dripping only seconds after Ben and I left the comfort of the black car.

It was a weird sensation, having wet hair. In the time-defying realm of Headquarters, Guardians never needed to shower. Some did purely out of habit, but it wasn't necessary.

Clean is a permanent condition when you're half-dead.

But now my hair was absolutely soaked--as it hadn't been for months--clinging to my thin red shirt with a tenacity I had almost forgotten it to be capable of. I supposed that now, in this world, I would have to resume all of the tedious human habits from before...

"You kids here to see Miss Ashling?"

The male voice startled me, capturing my attention from the sight of Sam driving away. Ben and I eyed the man with instant suspicion--a smart Guardian's first reaction--but relaxed a bit when we realized that he was every bit as harmless as the worms on the sidewalk.

"Are you?" he asked again, growing impatient. Ben and I dropped our scrutinizing stares and focused on speaking normally.

"Yes, sir. We're the... Um, we're..." Ben glanced at me wildly through the corner of his eye, trying to remember what the paperwork had said.

The paperwork! Shoot, it was still in the car. We'd have to get it from Sam tonight.

"We're the foreign exchange students," I supplied in a artificially bubbly voice. "From... Canada."

He gave us a brief, bewildered expression--making my nervous heart race even faster--but then sighed and beckoned for us to join him beneath his giant umbrella. Ben and I grabbed the bags we'd brought with us and followed him into the house.

I was shocked that the lie had worked. I was pretty sure, no, positive that Canada and Michigan didn't have an exchange program. Honestly, what would be the point?

But the man had swallowed it in its entirety, and I was not about to argue the point. He led us up two flights of stairs and down a winding hall, opening a door on his left without questioning the movement. Would I ever know this enormous house as well as he did?

Well, I sure hoped we had that much time...

After gesturing that we proceed through another door at the end of another hall, he smiled vaguely and nodded his head. He might have intended it to be a kind gesture, but in the eyes of two terrified neophytes, it was purely menacing.

Ben and I crossed the threshold slowly, cautiously, our keen senses searching the room for any potential threat. Nothing. Not even another human presence.

Except the girl that stood before us.

"Oh my god, you came!" she shrieked, clearly excited to see us. But we couldn't focus on her reaction, because the entire world had suddenly become a very, very different place.

Colors were amplified and sound had new meaning. Millions of thoughts flowed through my head all at once, materializing in the air. I could see everything I felt... Every concept I'd once considered abstract had suddenly turned concrete.

I looked at Benji, and noticed that he, too, could see his own emotions, tangible as the bags still in our hands. Purples and greens and yellows and pinks swirled around us both, capturing the very essence of our two souls. We could see everything the other was experiencing, too.

The revolving had begun; I knew, instinctively, that this was it. This girl was our Subject, and our mission was clear. Protect her or die trying. Do whatever it takes, and nothing less.

As quickly as the colors had begun, they faded, slipping into the shadows of my vision until I could only sense their presence. Every single emotion in the room--every thought, every desire--was as obvious to me as the colors on the flowered wallpaper.

How odd.

"And Ally said you wouldn't show. She said that if you didn't get a letter back within two weeks, you'd been rejected from the program. I can't wait to prove her wrong..." the girl continued, oblivious to the metamorphosis that had just occurred in front of her face.

"So do you have a cool accent or something? Funny remarks to make about how weird America is? Come on, there's gotta be something that you don't have in Ireland..."

Ireland? The word sent Ben's brain into a panic. I could see what he was thinking, and it was definitely an amber shade of anxiety.

This was going to take some getting used to, all the twisted lying and vibrant colors and strange men with umbrellas. How long was this world going to last for us?

Part of me--the sane, moral part--wanted it to last ninety years, until Ashling was old enough to pass on peacefully. But the tiny part of me that craved the comfort of routine was begging the clouds to separate and swallow this girl whole, just to end the awkward golden feeling of apprehension that bounced around the room.

If the threats to my Subject's life didn't get me, the confusion certainly would.