Toxic

by Jus Accardo

  It took me a second to realize it was the door.

  Taptaptap.

  Padding across the room, I saw Kiernan through the peephole. “’Sup?” I asked, pulling the door open.

  Bouncing past me, Kiernan threw herself onto Mom’s bed. “Whatcha doin’?” She looked around. “Your Mom still not back?”

  “Haven’t seen her at all today.”

  She kicked her feet onto the bed and tilted her head to the right. “So…?”

  “So what?”

  “You didn’t answer. Whatcha doin’ up here all alone?”

  “Homework.”

  Kiernan spread her arms and frowned. “Where are your books?”

  “I put them away when I heard the door.”

  Eyebrows raised, she said, “So, Pining 101?” Before I could manage a comeback, she was off the bed and had my sneakers in her hand. “Here. Put these on, and let’s go. Fast.”

  I obeyed, hopping from one foot to the other as I tried to keep my balance. “Why?”

  “’Cause you’re way too young to be sulking in your room over some guy.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Whatever. You need a pick-me-up. And I just so happen to know a great one.”

  “This is going to get us in trouble, isn’t it?”

  She hooked her arm through mine and flashed me an impish grin. “Only if we’re lucky.”

  13

  Kiernan was a girl after my own heart. Her pick-me-up turned out to be a party downtown. After she successfully snuck me out the back door by creating a diversion Rosie couldn’t ignore—telling her someone broke her television—we were on our way.

  The last house on Shannon Lane had been abandoned for over four months. Foreclosed and forgotten, it was the perfect place to throw a back-to-school bash. A dairy farm on one side and the edge of Memorial Park on the other meant there wasn’t anyone around to call the cops. At least, not for a while.

  When we arrived, I was surprised to see Luke, one of the people staying at the Sanctuary, perched on the bottom step, cigarette dangling from his lips and beer in hand. He’d come to the hotel during the summer after a group of Denazen agents raided his apartment. He was a nice guy, quiet, and had the ability to communicate with animals. It’d actually come in handy. The Sanctuary’s basement was currently vermin free as a result of Luke directing the mice elsewhere. Like, to the burger joint a block over.

  “Hey,” I said as we climbed the old Victorian’s steps. The wood creaked beneath my feet as I avoided a suspicious-looking puddle with pale white chunks at the base of the first step.

  He gave me a nod and took a swig from the bottle. “You’re not supposed to leave the hotel at night.”

  I looked around. When I didn’t recognize any of the other kids, I asked, “Is this a—”

  “Six bash? Hell, no. Ginger doesn’t do residential. This one’s all Nix.”

  “You came here instead of the usual party?” I could understand my reasons—I was under house arrest. But Luke? He loved using his ability. A few weeks ago, I’d heard all about how he’d called in the local wildlife for a makeshift petting zoo to keep some Six kids entertained.

  He shrugged. “Sometimes it’s interesting to see how the other half parties.” He looked from me to Kiernan and winked. “So where’s your usual cohort—not that I’m complaining about the present company…?”

  I opened my mouth to answer but didn’t get the chance.

  “Ah, there he is.” Luke whistled. “And who’s the hottie?”

  When I turned to see what the fuss was about, I nearly threw up. Waltzing up the path, arm in arm, were Kale and Jade.

  “Dez,” she said, saccharine smile firmly in place. “What are you doing here?”

  Kiernan, true to her I’ve got your back statement, elbowed me aside. “What is she doing here?” She turned to Kale and poked him hard in the chest. “Did you follow us?”

  Kale’s brow furrowed, obviously confused by Kiernan’s tone. He opened his mouth to answer, but Jade ran him over.

  “Follow you? We didn’t know you were here—whoever you are.”

  That’s right. Jade and Kiernan hadn’t met yet. Now didn’t seem like the ideal time for introductions, though. And if I had my way, Jade wouldn’t be staying in town long. I pushed past Kiernan, moving dangerously close to Kale. The words tumbled out before I could clamp my mouth shut. I knew how bad they sounded. How pathetic. But for some reason, I couldn’t stop. “If you didn’t follow me, why are you here?”

  Again Kale opened his mouth, and again Jade was kind enough to speak for him. Poor guy couldn’t get a word in. “Your friend Curd called to tell you about the party. I thought since I’m going to be here for a while, I should make some friends.”

  “Curd called the hotel?” I hadn’t spoken to Curd since Sumrun. When things went down, I thought it’d be best to steer clear of everyone until I knew things were safe. Curd had been hurt when I brought Kale to his house. It hadn’t been bad, but still. “He doesn’t even know where I’m staying.”

  “Oh, he still doesn’t.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “You left this in the conference room.”

  I patted my front pocket. When I found it empty, I snagged the cell from her hands. “You answered my phone?”

  She flashed an innocent smirk. “Was only trying to be helpful. When I told Kale about the party, he was kind enough to escort me.”

  “Escort you?” I glared at Kale. My head was starting to pound, and the ache in my shoulder intensified just a little. Things had to get worse before they got better, I told myself. The increase in pain only meant whatever it was, it was healing. With a deep breath, I said, “You snuck out of the hotel to bring this bitch to a party?”

  “That was wrong?” He looked genuinely confused. “But you snuck out? Jade wanted to see the party.”

  “Yeah, Dez,” Jade said in a singsong voice. “You snuck out. Why is it okay for you and not for Kale? You can’t control him. He’s a free agent.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it. Anything else I said would just give Jade more ammo. Turning, I stalked up the steps, past Luke and Kiernan, and into the house.

  Someone had gone a little crazy with the glow toys. The place was pitch black, but you could see the bobbing and thrashing forms outlined by glow jewelry and paint. Next to the entryway, a small Coleman lantern sat by a large cardboard box. There were a few glow bracelets left in the bottom, so I snatched them up and moved into the room.

  The thumping beat pounded as people bounced and shimmied in the center of the room. It made the headache a little worse, but I didn’t care. It was a nice distraction from the anger bubbling in my gut. Beyond the dance floor, the hallway was packed with neon-wrapped bodies. Squinting against the dark, I spied a couple kissing in the far corner. Even though a party raged all around them, their only focus was each other. Jealous, I turned away. Across the room, a large white cooler and a table full of pink drinks sat in the corner. Score.

  I downed one, then swiped another and headed to the dance floor. A drink in each hand, I made my way to the edge to wait for Kale. No way he’d let me just walk off.

  Only he did.

  Ten minutes and two drinks later, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned, expecting to see Kale, but found Curd, bright pink drink extended in greeting. “Dez, baby! Glad you got my message. Where ya been?” He threw his arms around me, drops of his drink splashing down the back of my shirt. It might have irritated me if I wasn’t so happy to see him.

  “Spent the summer with my aunt.” As far as everyone in my old life knew, my mom had died when I was born. Telling people I spent the summer with her might raise a few eyebrows. We’d agreed that if anyone asked, for now at least, Mom was my Aunt Sue.

  A couple walked by, each holding a drink. Curd reached out and snatched the one out of the guy’s hand. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re headed upstairs. You won’t need it.” Turning back to me, he said, “Some chick
started a rumor you were doing homeschooling. Say it ain’t so.”

  “’Fraid it is.”

  “Serious suck. You still with that guy? The weird one?”

  I hesitated for a second before tipping the cup up and downing the entire thing. “Curd! You gave me an empty cup.”

  He winked and held out his arm. “We can remedy that.”

  When Kiernan finally found me, Curd and I were sitting at the bottom of the stairs in the middle of an off-key duet of the Pine Man—a local tree-cutting service—jingle.

  “Been looking for ya,” she said, nudging herself between Curd and me.

  “We’ve been right here.” I poked Curd in the shoulder. “Kiernan, this is Curd. Curd and I go way back.”

  “Hey, baby.” Curd said. He was plastered. In the time we’d been sitting there, he’d collected quite a pile of plastic cups. He kept trying to wear them on his head, but they always fell off. “Love the hair. How wicked would it be if the carpet matched the drapes? We could go upstairs, and you could show me.”

  Kiernan stood and rolled her eyes. She was used to dealing with overzealous guys. Morgan, a Six that had briefly stayed at the hotel during the summer after she arrived, had insisted she was his soul mate. That was, until he met Lisa, a Six with the ability to mimic other people’s voices.

  “Or I could take Dez and leave.” She grabbed both my hands and pulled hard. Unsteady at first, I struggled to my feet as the room spun just a bit.

  He waggled his eyebrows and made another attempt at his cup-hat. It failed. “Gonna show her?”

  Kiernan winked and slipped her arm around my shoulder. “Of course.”

  “I think I’m in love!” Curd exclaimed, thumping a hand against his chest, over his heart.

  She grabbed my shoulders and pushed me up the stairs, giving Curd a final, dismissive glance. “Jesus, Dez. How many have you had?”

  A little wobbly, I missed the top step and almost went backward. Kiernan caught me in time. “Not that many, but I didn’t eat tonight.”

  She pushed open the first door we came to and shoved me inside. It was early, so no one had claimed the room yet. In a few hours, there’d be people going at it like rabbits in here despite the icky smell and army of dust soldiers gathering in the corners.

  “Why?”

  The muted beats of a new song started, and someone downstairs screamed. “I forgot?”

  “Forgot? Girl, you need to stop obsessing.”

  “What am I gonna do?” I leaned against the door and slid down to the dusty wood floor. There was a few pieces of furniture left in the room—a broken dresser and an old mattress on the floor on the other side of the room. It was dark, but it looked stained in several places and had springs poking through the side.

  “About what?” Kiernan joined me. “Jade? Or Kale?”

  I blew at a stray hair. My bangs had grown out over the summer. They were at that annoying in-between stage. Too long to leave alone and too short to do anything with. “Have you seen them? Is she sticking her tongue down his throat yet? Has she tried to hand him over to Denazen?”

  She sighed. “Of course not. She’s busy playing social butterfly. The worst thing she’s doing is dragging Kale around like a piece of meat.”

  “But he’s my piece of meat,” I whined as something loud crashed downstairs.

  Kiernan’s eyebrows rose.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “It’s fine, Dez. He’s totally not into it. If it’ll make you feel better, he started to come after you when you stormed off, but she wouldn’t let him.”

  “Wouldn’t let him?”

  “She sold him something about it being proper procedure to let the girl storm off. He totally bought it.”

  Proper procedure? Oh. She was good—using Kale’s lack of in-the-know against him—against me! “I hate her.” The pounding in my head surged, and a moment later, so did the throbbing in my shoulder. I made a decision. “And I have a confession to make.”

  “Please tell me it’s a juicy one and does not involve that walking pot factory from downstairs.”

  I flexed the fingers on my left hand. Sharp needles of pain shot up each one. “Curd? Um, no. It’s about my dad and Denazen.”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw her watching me. Oh, yeah. I had her attention. “Really…” Disappointment—and fear. When it came to Denazen, Kiernan was a little traumatized.

  I opened my mouth, but something slammed hard against the door. Kiernan and I both jumped about a foot into the air, as a second later, a guy with a blond goatee and spiky black hair poked his head through the door.

  “Fudge!” he screamed at the top of his lungs before slamming the door in his own face and continuing down the hall. He must have opened the door next to this one, because I heard him scream again.

  I sighed. “I saw him today—my dad.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Are you serious? Where? When? And you didn’t tell anyone?”

  I shook my head. My buzz was starting to clear, and for a second, I contemplated grabbing more of whatever that pink stuff had been. The clearer my head got, the more my shoulder hurt. “He showed up at the post office. And no. I didn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t—I was afraid because—”

  I trusted Kiernan and had started the conversation with the intention of telling her about my shoulder, but second thoughts were creeping in. I didn’t want her telling the wrong people—meaning anyone—in a misplaced attempt to help me. In the end I chickened out and settled for the least damaging thing. Supremacy.

  “The Supremacy kids are—well, they’re not doing well.” I couldn’t say it. Couldn’t tell her they were all dropping like flies. Or, more accurately, being dropped like flies. “Dad says they found a cure, and he’ll give it to me…if I turn myself over.”

  “Are you shitting me?” she said as someone downstairs let out an excited scream, followed by a chorus of insane laughter. A second later, a girl—her voice was slightly familiar—screamed for them to turn up the music.

  The new song started, and I found myself feeling a little bitter. It was one of my favorites to dance to. Instead I was up here in the dark. Hiding. It was a perfect example of how my life had changed over the last few months. “I wish.”

  She thought about it for a minute, then shook her head. Strands of wispy purple hair fluttered free from her braid. “No way.”

  “Huh?”

  “He’s totally playing you.”

  Maybe I hadn’t lost the buzz after all. “How is he playing me?”

  “How do you know there’s a cure? How do you know they’re even dying? And really, Dez. If he gave you the cure, you’d live, right? Why would he let you go free? Wasn’t the purpose of that Supremacy thing to make super soldiers or whatever?”

  She had a good point. A few of them, even. “I guess I don’t know there’s a cure for sure, but I do think they’re dying. There was this girl on the news. Layne Phillips.”

  “That’s the girl in Morristown that was found dead in her bedroom, right?”

  “I’m pretty sure she was Supremacy. Dad said they retired her.”

  “‘He said’? I’m gonna chalk this up as the alcohol, ’cause no way are you this dense.”

  As if on cue, someone downstairs screamed, “More beer!”

  “Huh?”

  She punched me lightly in the shoulder—thankfully the right one. “Think about it. Of course he said that. It got you thinking, right? Got you worried? Mission complete. He’s taking credit for some other whack job’s kill to freak you into doing what he wants. Totally classic bad guy move.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it. I didn’t believe it was a scare tactic for one second. Brandt had given me the name first, and my gut told me he was right.

  “Maybe,” I said, unwilling to give her the rest of the information. Brandt stayed out of conversations. It was safer for him. As far as the world was concerned, he was dead and buried, and if I had any say in it, it would stay that way.
/>   “What about that hippie chick? Have you tried her?”

  “Who?”

  “That Daun girl. The one that saved Kale. Maybe she could help you?”

  Holy crap. Daun. I’d never even considered going to her. Chances were she couldn’t do a damn thing about the Supremacy thing, but I bet she could help with Able’s poison! While I still didn’t believe it was fatal, it was painful. “You’re a genius,” I said, pulling her in for a hug.

  “And I’ve got killer hair, too.”

  I nodded to her long purple braid. “Kale would love this color. I was thinking about streaks.”

  Kiernan didn’t say anything. Instead, she pulled away, eyes wide.

  “What?” I looked behind me, worried we weren’t alone anymore. There were footsteps in the hall, and I could hear the faint sound of a girlish giggle, but it was just us in the room. “What’s wrong?”

  She was bouncing up and down like a two-year-old with a box of sugar cookies. “OhmyGod! That is so frigging cool! How come you didn’t tell me you could do that?”

  “Do what?”

  She grabbed my shoulders and twisted me toward the dust-covered mirror on the far wall. “That!” Someone knocked on the door. “Occupado!” Kiernan screamed, eyes still trained on me.

  Through the dust and dim lighting, I saw my reflection. Something wasn’t quite right. Leaning closer, I saw my hair, previously in its boring cow-brown incarnation, was now streaked with brilliant purple.

  “Um…”

  “That is so awesome. Think of the cash you’ll save on hair dye!”

  Kiernan continued to gush, and a block of ice formed in the pit of my stomach. Dad’s words echoed through my head.

  The first sign was a surge in their abilities. Several months before they were rendered completely irrational, they all showed signs of advancement.

  I thought back to the moss-green-shirt-turned-nail-polish. I’d mimicked it without touching it, but I’d been trying to do it. This time it’d happened completely on its own without so much as a head twinge or muscle cramp—exactly like the polish at Vince Winsted’s—and that scared the crap out of me.