Nerve

by Kirsten Krueger

  “Hey…” Hartman greeted weakly, freckles buzzing with his nerves.

  Adara groaned. “Why would you help her, Ginger?”

  “She said she would get Nero to beat me up if I didn’t…”

  “What sway does she have with Nero? In his eyes, she’s an annoying little primie.”

  “Nero was just flirting with me at training,” Kiki boasted, lifting her chin.

  Adara’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, good for you—your dreams finally came true, as they always do.”

  “Yeah, except it wasn’t actually Nero.” Hartman snickered but shrank when Kiki glared daggers in his direction.

  “Shut up.”

  Adara glanced dully at Angor, who lounged on his metal slab, watching the scene unfold with intrigue. “This is the popular girl from my old school who rallied everyone else against me, if you were wondering. Really explains the unintelligence of today’s youth. If it wasn’t Nero, who was flirting with you? Someone unappealing, I hope.”

  “It—it was Nero—”

  “It was Lavisa’s brother, Ruse,” Hartman answered. He proceeded to teleport out of the doorway and out of sight when Kiki glowered at him.

  “Ha!” Adara clapped her hands together. “He was playing a prank on you.”

  The other girl’s lips pouted slightly as she mumbled, “Yes…”

  “This kid needs to be my best friend; his stunts are supreme. Tell him to come visit me.”

  “Ugh!” Kiki moaned at the ceiling. “You’re not helping me!”

  “Did you think I would help you?”

  “I thought…” She sniffed, refusing to meet Adara’s eyes. “I thought seeing you would make my life seem less pathetic. Instead, I just feel…silly.”

  Adara’s eyebrows perked up slyly. “Finally realized I’m better than you, Belven? Only took you about ten—”

  “You are not better than me,” she sneered. Mitt had to hide his mouth behind his hand to conceal his amusement. “You are in jail. You’re a criminal! You aren’t cool, and no one likes you.”

  “No? That’s odd—I’ve had quite a few people risk their asses to come visit me, including your ex-boyfriend. Seems they all like me. And I assume everyone knows I’m in jail and therefore knows of me, making me more popular than you.” Adara’s haughty eyebrow jump was enough to tighten Kiki’s jaw. “I’d say life is going swimmingly for me—but I don’t like the word swimmingly. Reminds me too much of the Pixie Prince, my natural enemy.”

  “Oh, Calder?” Kiki crooned, assuming a mischievous demeanor. “I hooked up with him after Hastings’s funeral.”

  Adara’s smugness plummeted as a sickeningly familiar sensation filled her gut. It was akin to when Seth had informed her of his first kiss with Kiki, except…almost worse.

  “Don’t look so suicidal, Stromer. She’s obviously lying.”

  Blinking once, Adara snapped out of her momentary paralysis as the Pixie Prince shoved past Mitt and sauntered into the room, flashing a cocky smirk. At the intimidating gleam of his eyes, all witty quips died on her tongue. His deep blue hair was contained in a flawless knot, and perhaps she’d dwindled into insanity after almost three weeks in this cell, but she actually felt a bit self-conscious about how unruly and repulsive her hair had become.

  “Obviously?” Kiki huffed, glancing at him with disdain. Standing beside one another, she was nearly his height, but he exuded far more maturity, especially now that her claim had been proven fraudulent. “Why wouldn’t you want to hook up with me?”

  Calder’s eyes remained on Adara, tantalizing and calculating, as he said, “I don’t think that requires explaining.” Adara thought it required explanation, but he changed the subject. “We found out who the Wacko is—or, more accurately, Colton found out who the Wacko is.”

  The question on her tongue was answered a moment later when a boy wiggled between Mitt and the doorway. His skin was even darker than the police officer’s, just as his forest-green hair and eyes were even darker than Calder’s cargo pants. Adara recalled Calder mentioning his roommate’s name was Colton, and though she’d never formally met the kid, she had seen him among Nero’s group—always quiet, always at a distance. Now he gazed around the cells as if seeing mosaics on the plain white walls.

  “Who’s the Wacko?” Adara asked, rather than addressing Colton’s weirdness.

  “Not gonna tell you,” Calder replied so swiftly that she barely processed his words. “Get up,” he ordered, focus shifting to Angor. The King’s face scrunched with bemusement, but he acquiesced and stood from his metal throne.

  “Who is the Wacko?” Adara repeated, stepping toward the bars.

  “Not gonna tell you. Don’t stand so close to her,” Calder said to Angor, motioning with his hand for the man to move farther from Adara. Though Angor heeded these commands, Adara prowled forward until only the humming electric bars separated her from Calder. He frowned at the fact that she’d also closed her proximity with Angor.

  “Why won’t you tell me?”

  “If I have to say I’m not going to tell you one more time, Stromer, I’ll drown you where you stand.”

  The hint of sadism in his eyes made Adara shuffle backward, crossing her arms childishly. “Harsh…” she grumbled, hating the way all of his attention was now honed in on Angor—which was ridiculous. There was no way she’d grown so sensitive—no way she craved positive interaction so intensely that she cared if Calder was seriously rude to her, rather than playfully offensive. “Why would you even announce it if you’re not gonna tell me?” she decided to ask, keeping her tone guarded.

  “To get you fiery,” he said with a wink.

  To her dismay, his desired reaction actualized: A hot wave of fury coursed through her, irrational but instinctive, enveloping her like a second skin. It wasn’t necessarily the wink that enraged her, but it had set her off, reminding her of the frustration building over these past weeks, the lingering sensation of warmth that had become as daunting as it was undesirable, and the reality of her situation—that none of her friends cared enough to save her from this prison. In fact, if she tallied up the statistics, the Pixie Prince had visited her more than anyone else. She’d never been one to give a damn about data or details, but to think that someone who was practically her enemy wanted to see her more than Seth…or…or even Tray…

  “You need to say what you’re seeing, Col, otherwise no one else knows what the hell is going on.”

  Calder’s words yanked Adara out of her furious haze. Fortunately, no physical flames had seeped from her skin, but her flesh was sweltering, and she noticed Calder pointedly avoiding eye contact, as if something unusual had happened with her irises.

  “Within the demoness dwells a volcano waiting to erupt,” Colton said ominously. “An Affinity for fire is woven in her DNA, but she shuns her biology because of the mysterious way in which it manifested.”

  “Well, then it’s confirmed.” A presumptuous grin spread on Calder’s face. “Your Affinity is fire, no matter how many times you attempt to deny it…Fire Demoness.”

  She was the one refusing to look at him now; all of her scrutiny aimed at Colton. “What exactly are you seeing?”

  “The Otherworld shows me the necessary knowledge. For instance, Adara Stromer, a profound sense of jealousy overcame you upon hearing Kiki Belven had fallen into the physical realms of lust with Calder Mardurus.”

  “Okay, now I know you’re full of shit,” Adara said, disregarding the pompous curve of Calder’s lips. “Nothing you’ve said so far has been remotely accurate.”

  “Colton’s never wrong,” the Pixie Prince sang in a way that made her squirm. “Now, I need you to tell me about Periculy. Innocent, or should I end him now?”

  “You’re gonna kill the King based on the strange assumptions of your roommate?” Adara questioned.

  “If my facts are correct, you nearly killed him based on your own assumptions, which are far less educated than Colton’s. If Colton is a god, you’re a useless pile of
ashes.”

  “Pile of ashes?”

  “Pile of ashes,” Calder repeated, eyeing the faint sheen of soot on her skin.

  “Fine, Deranged Deity.” Colton didn’t flinch at her demeaning nickname. “Tell us what you know about Angor.”

  “And make it quick,” Calder added with a cautious glance in Mitt’s direction. “We need to get back to training before anyone notices we skipped out.”

  Weaponizer’s hands flew up in innocence. “I won’t tell on you. I’m trying to stay off the Rosses’ radar after what went down last night.”

  “They got over the booze as soon as the freakin’ president-elect praised them for discovering a Wacko hideout.”

  “Those girls actually gave up Wacko locations? They really aren’t Wackos?” Adara asked. “Did the government find the headquarters?”

  Calder pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Overheard them say the location the girls gave was empty. The Wackos must have known they were gonna get invaded and evacuated.”

  “I can’t tell if this news pleases you or not,” Adara mused, stroking her chin. “If the Wackos die, that means your enemy, Ventura, wins. But you’ve never seemed like an advocate for terrorism.”

  “I think we’re screwed either way,” he answered flatly, not bothering to entertain her speculations. “Colton, anything?”

  “How did you two even get here?” Kiki piped up, finally over her earlier outrage. “I had to use the annoying teleporter to get past the guards, or they would have killed me.”

  “I don’t think they’ve been sanctioned to kill,” Calder said, watching his roommate watch Angor, “but we didn’t want to get caught, either. Colton’s Affinity includes the ability to show people the Otherworld. Those who haven’t practiced with him just see blackness, like turning out the lights.”

  Adara cocked her head to the side. “You can blind people? That sounds evil. Maybe I should call you Satan’s Seer instead.”

  Calder rolled his eyes, but Colton showed no emotion, his gaze still trained on Angor.

  “This relates to the story of The Betrayer and The Betrayed,” he said, his greenish eyebrows screwed in contemplation. “Angor Periculy was once a powerful man, but that power was stripped from him in more than one way—and all by the same person. The story has been skewed; an impenetrable drape has been placed over his memories, just as one has been placed over Adara’s. Was this nefarious fabric sewn by the same hands?” Everyone stared at him, waiting for an answer. All he said was a rather anticlimactic, “I cannot say.”

  Adara’s scowl deepened. “You can’t say, or you don’t know?”

  “I cannot say. The words are embedded in my tongue with no hope of escape.”

  “And I thought my roommate was weird…”

  “Eliana is not weird!” Kiki defended with far more vigor than Adara had expected. “She’s my best friend, I’ll have you know. Or…she will be, in the future.”

  Adara opened her mouth for a verbal jab, but Angor spoke first as he began to pace.

  “Whoever has blocked the origin of your Affinity, Adara, is likely the person who led to its formation. This person must have been involved in your childhood, which leaves only two rational conclusions. This person who gave you your fire Affinity killed your parents, or…they are one of your parents.”

  Adara was smart enough to have guessed this much, at least, but to hear someone say it aloud, and given the assumptions they’d already deduced… “If Artemis is the one with the mind controlling Affinity—the one who erased your memories—could that mean she’s also the one who killed my parents?”

  Angor paused his strides, lips drooping into a frown. “Or perhaps, with the physical traits you share, she could be your mother. It’s too soon to come to such verdicts, but we need to consider the possibility.”

  Adara attempted to feign an aura of nonchalance, but she knew they all saw right through it. Tray had suspected the Rosses were her parents, but that had been more of a random, unlikely guess. All of the pieces fit together now.

  “Inform Nerdworm.” Adara barely had to look into Calder’s eyes to know he understood her succinct command—or to know he was disgruntled that she was giving him commands at all. “And find a way to get Aethelred to touch Artemis. He’s a single man; he can get creative.”

  Calder’s eye roll evoked an actual laugh from Adara, and as he, Colton, and Kiki departed through the doorway, she swore she saw a laugh on his lips as well.

  23

  Family Friends

  Due to helicopters scouting the area, Naretha had been forced to pull the van into various wooded areas for brief periods of time to avoid discovery. The group of Affinities used these breaks to remove the two Regg soldiers from the roof, as well as retract the flashy spikes that would surely draw attention to their vehicle. Judging by the redness around her eyes, the Wacko named Devika took these opportunities to remove herself from the group and shed a few tears over her fallen brother. By the time they arrived in Cleveland, she’d declared that Vishal had been an “asshole” and that “he was probably better off dead.”

  Avner wasn’t quite sure what to think about that—or about any of these Wackos, for that matter. He’d expected all Wackos to be rough, nasty, heartless beings, and perhaps Devika’s conclusion made her seem callous, but Avner knew it was merely a defense mechanism. Adara likely would have made the same claims about Avner if he died as a way to deflect her grief. After getting to know Devika, Nate, and Kevin a little better throughout the prolonged ride to Cleveland, he had a hard time deeming them evil.

  Devika proved to be a skilled medic, and after patching up Nate’s gun wound, she moved onto Meredith’s stomach, sewing together the flesh that had been too torn to heal on its own. Jamad offered to use his ice Affinity to numb her while Devika worked, but Meredith claimed it didn’t hurt, and Avner wondered how much torture this poor girl had gone through to make her immune to pain.

  After what felt like a lifetime of weaving through Cleveland, attempting to ensure they weren’t being tracked, Naretha finally drove them out of the city toward Lake Erie, leaving the skyscrapers behind to enter a more residential area. Though Avner had lived in Ohio his whole life, he’d never visited the city or the lake. It was definitely ugly: a blanket of gray beneath the cloudy sky, so unlike the glorious pictures of sunny beaches and pristine blue water he’d assumed all lakes looked like. He still liked to watch the scenery pass through the tinted window, though, and given Meredith was the only one peering out with him, everyone else must have already seen these not-so-spectacular sights.

  “How much farther?” Jamad groaned, resting his head back against the window of the van. Avner and Meredith knelt on either side of him, ogling the lakeside mansions.

  Naretha threw her hand over her shoulder to pelt him with a pea-sized salt crystal. “Shut up.”

  Cursing, he rubbed his forehead and glared at her. “Have the rest of you been here before?” he asked the other Wackos. Nate was asleep, but Devika and Kevin both shook their heads.

  “Vishal went a few times… Its location was always a secret to outside Wackos during Ephraim’s rule,” Devika explained, glancing cautiously at Naretha to see if she would rebuke her. “Danny’s not as secretive.”

  “Because he knows he can incinerate anyone who tries to get near it,” Naretha grunted, eyes on the road ahead. Avner noticed her normally outrageous driving speed had dwindled to a crawl, but he was still surprised when they turned into one of the mansions’ driveways.

  “This—this is Wacko Headquarters? A house—in plain sight?” Avner stammered, staring out the window as they crept past the side of the inconspicuous brick house. It was less showy than many of the others but still ginormous and clearly owned by someone with considerable wealth—or, apparently, a terrorist organization.

  Naretha snorted. “This is the vacation home of a Wacko whose name I won’t divulge. We don’t just hang out on the back patio, Sparky. Be patient and you’ll see.�
�

  Though he’d never admit it, Avner was as intrigued by the Wackos’ main hideout as Jamad appeared to be, but he kept his mouth shut as Naretha parked the van in the small lot behind the house. A gaudy patio rested adjacent to the pavement, topped by an oversized balcony that must have extended off the master bedroom.

  “It’s a real shame you don’t use the patio,” Jamad crooned to Naretha, who ignored him as she turned off the engine.

  Silence ensued. Even when they filed out of the van and regrouped on the pavement, the yard’s ambience was so…peaceful. A flat plot of grass extended beyond the driveway and the patio, and though most of the shrubbery was dormant, a garden had been planted around the perimeter of what Avner realized was an in-ground pool.

  “Damn, you Wackos are living in luxury,” Jamad said with a whistle as he surveyed the backyard.

  “We’re not permitted to touch anything above ground,” Naretha snapped as she slammed the van door shut. When she rounded the back to join them, she eyed the neighboring houses with suspicion.

  “This pool looks like it’s below ground to me,” Jamad said. “Can I swim in it, or…”

  “Only you would want to swim outdoors in November,” she grumbled as she shoved past him. “Let’s move.”

  Avner opened his mouth to ask if any of the neighbors would notice the vehicle, but then it began to sink. The entire block of pavement beneath the van descended, leaving a large chasm of darkness in the ground beside them.

  Jamad pointed at the hole. “I assume that’s supposed to be happening?”

  Naretha grunted but didn’t bother replying before stalking down the stone path that wound through the yard past the pool. The other three Wackos followed readily, but Avner and Jamad walked slower to help Meredith stagger along.

  As they strolled through the yard, Avner absorbed every little detail, hoping he’d remember enough to expose the Wackos’ location once they escaped it. The entire concept was crooked. He had witnessed what the government did to Wackos when they were discovered and should have been empathetic to them at this point. But even if they seemed innocent, he knew they were terrorists, and even if he didn’t have a personal grudge against them, he knew their imprisonment would bring peace to American society. Plus, if he, Jamad, and Zeela were criminals now, perhaps this knowledge could buy them absolution.