Toxic

by Jus Accardo

  He turned to her and winked. “Ready, Shanna?”

  She flashed him a flirty smile—disturbing considering the body she was currently wearing—and stepped out from behind the trees.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded in Dad’s deep, impersonal voice. The sound sent chills up and down my spine. It was a sound bite from my darkest nightmares.

  “We’ve got the telekinetic cornered inside, Sir,” the one by the door said. “We called for backup and transport.”

  “Backup? It’s a telekinetic, for Christ’s sake. Tranq him, and let’s move.”

  The man held out his tranquilizer gun. “We’re out of ammunition. He was evasive. Every time we enter the building, we’re assaulted with flying objects.”

  Mom-as-Dad growled. “Evasive? Your incompetence is unacceptable.”

  Man, she was good. Even though she’d spent the last seventeen years locked away at Denazen, she knew Dad better than I did. She had his mannerisms and tone nailed perfectly. Even his movements and the way he held himself. If I didn’t know it was her, I would have never seen the difference.

  “He’s wounded,” the one by the window piped up.

  The man by the door was quick to respond. “Bieder shot him, sir. We don’t know how serious it is, but he’s been in there for a while now.”

  The suit by the window—Bieder, if I had to guess—cringed.

  “You use a deadly weapon to take down a Six we can use and then can’t even move in and capture him?”

  “In my defense, he is a telekinetic,” Bieder said. “He’d already taken out Barnes and Farber.” He stepped up to Dad, holding out his cell phone. “Take a look at this, sir.”

  Mom-as-Dad reached for the phone. Her mimics weren’t the same as mine. Where I changed the structure of things on a molecular level, hers were illusions and nothing more. All it would take was the tiniest brush of his hands to undo the whole thing.

  Which is, of course, exactly what happened.

  “What the—”

  Mom swung as Kale jumped up and exploded from the brush. He charged forward like a speeding Mack truck and crossed the field to where she was. The guy by the door saw him coming and tried to take off, but one well-placed kick from Mom had him grounded. Dax made a beeline for the guy that had been on the cell as he tackled Mom to the dirt from behind.

  With everyone’s attention elsewhere, I ran like hell for the building and slipped inside. The air was musty, and there was a faint odor of chlorine.

  “Alex?” I called, poking my head around a tall stack of boxes. The building was more of an oversized shed and was dimly lit by the moonlight shining through the single, grime-covered window. Hard pressed for space, the park had stuffed an ungodly amount of junk inside, and the whole place was cluttered as hell. Three steps inside, I had to maneuver between two large shelving units covered in dusty boxes and sidestep a lawn mower that looked like it’d been sitting there since the sixties. Once past, I noticed dark puddles on the floor trailing to the back. “Crap. Alex?”

  I followed the trail and found him hunched in the corner, wedged behind a stack of plywood, eyes closed. He was bare-chested, having tied his T-shirt in a knot around his upper thigh to stanch the blood flow. I dove forward, grabbing the sides of his face.

  “Alex!” I snapped. “Open your eyes. If anyone is going to kill you, it’s going to be me!”

  The little voice in the back of my head was at war with the sick, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. This was Alex, my stomach said. Alex. While the little voice reminded me of what he’d done to Kale at Sumrun.

  What he’d done to me at Roudey’s.

  A groan and a flash of hazel. “Dez?”

  The sound of his voice lifted the two-ton weight that had settled on my shoulders. “What happened?”

  “Was worried they got you,” he said, eyes closing. “I saw—saw you and Kiernan go in. Backtracked to find you and…”

  “Is he okay?” Kale came up behind me. Jade was right on his tail—as usual.

  “I dunno,” I said. “It looks really bad.”

  Blood pooled beneath his leg, creeping outward in a small semicircle around him. His right side was covered, jeans and T-shirt soaked through.

  With clinical interest, Kale moved Alex’s hand—without vaporizing him since Ms. Annoying was present—from where it clutched his thigh. “The human body can lose much more blood before it begins to shut down. It appears the bullet missed the femoral artery. He’ll live.”

  “Don’t sound so excited,” Alex mumbled. His head lolled to the side as he opened his eyes a slit.

  Kale shrugged. “Disappointed. This would have been a convenient resolution to the problem.”

  Alex tilted his head, a tiny smirk on his face. “Problem?”

  Kale’s expression was stony. “You.”

  “Let’s get out of here before anyone else shows up,” Dax said, charging through the door. He brushed me aside and grabbed both Alex’s hands, hauling him to his feet. “Can you walk?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Alex glanced my way. Taking a deep breath, he nodded. “I can walk.”

  …

  By the time we made it back to the hotel and got Alex patched up and situated, it was Saturday morning. While everyone had been busy fussing over Alex—the bullet passed clean through, and the bleeding was finally under control—I’d slipped into the lobby and looked up Daun’s room number on Rosie’s computer. Coffee in hand, I went to find her.

  “Deznee,” she said with a smile. Stepping aside, she held the door open and waved me in. “It’s very early. Is everything okay?”

  “Oh.” Wow. I felt like an ass. With all the chaos and lingering adrenaline of the night’s activities, it had totally slipped my mind that it wasn’t even seven a.m. yet. Normal people were still sleeping. “I totally spaced on the time. I’m so, so sorry!”

  Daun only smiled and held the door open a bit wider. “Come in. Please.”

  This was a huge risk, but I was out of options. “I need to ask you something. A favor. But first I need to be sure what I say stays between us. No matter what.”

  If she was suspicious, it didn’t show. In fact, nothing showed with Daun. She was easygoing and mellow to the point that you wanted to check her pulse once in a while to be sure she was still alive. She rarely spoke and hardly ever mingled with the other hotel guests. “I’m leaving in two days. Whatever you say will leave with me.”

  “Leaving?”

  She smiled and ran a hand along the edge of her comforter. “It’s time to move on. What can I do for you?”

  I knew my first request was a no before I even asked. Mom and Ginger would have already thought of it. Still, in order to get it out of my head, I had to hear it for myself. “You know about the Supremacy project, right?”

  Understanding bloomed in her eyes. Frowning, she gave her head a slight shake. “I’m sorry. There is nothing I can do for you.”

  I nodded. Well, at least I knew for sure now. I’d never been one for what ifs. “I figured. Didn’t hurt to try, though. There’s something else.”

  She’d expected the Supremacy question. The fact that there was something else had caught her off guard. “Oh?”

  “This is where the secret part comes in.” I rose from the chair, cringing, and pulled aside the shoulder of my T-shirt. “Is there anything you can do for this?”

  She did her best to hide her surprise but failed. “What—”

  I fixed my shirt and sank back into the chair. The last few hours the pain had changed a little, and it was making me nervous. Now instead of a dull ache or stabbing sensation, it was hot and cold. One minute I had the chills, like I was standing in the middle of the Arctic shelf, and the next I was on fire. Every limb burning to the point I was sure I’d combust. Currently the chill was setting back in. I was starting to consider that Dad might be telling the truth.

  I wrapped my arms around my shoulders and sighed. “It’s some kind of poison. I did something st
upid, and one of Dad’s employees did this to me.”

  “This is from a Six?”

  I nodded.

  She stepped forward and brushed my shirt aside, placing her hand against my bare skin. Her touch was surprisingly cool, like the stethoscope at the doctor’s office, and I jumped a little on contact. “Stay still,” she whispered, closing her eyes.

  Several moments passed before she opened her eyes. “Give it to me straight, Doc,” I joked. I had to. The look in her eyes? So not encouraging.

  “I’m sorry, Dez. I can’t do anything for you.”

  “At all?”

  “This is beyond my abilities—and it’s serious. Possibly life threatening.”

  I felt like a balloon had popped inside my chest. As if mocking me, a rush of heat and a sharp pang skittered down my left arm to my fingers. Possibly life threatening? That was not something I wanted to hear. Standing, I said, “I understand. I had to at least try.”

  “May I ask why you aren’t telling the others?”

  “My dad’s got these two Sixes—one poisons with his touch and the other heals. He says he’ll give me the cure if I turn myself over to him.”

  She frowned. “And you’re afraid Kale will offer to go in your place?”

  Again I nodded. “I can’t let him go back there. Especially since it might be a moot point, anyway. So far all but one of the kids from the Supremacy project that hit eighteen are dead.” There. Dead. I’d finally said it out loud. It wasn’t even as hard as I thought it’d be.

  Dead. Dead. Dead. I was as good as dead.

  “Your situation is not an enviable one. My advice is to tell them.”

  “You won’t—”

  “No. But I believe you should. Maybe there is a path you’ve not thought of. An outside perspective might unveil an answer previously hidden to you.”

  “No offense, but you sound like a fortune cookie on crack.”

  “That,” she said with a smile, “is the first time anyone’s ever said that to me. I do believe I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.”

  18

  After leaving Daun, I refilled my coffee and went back to the room to crash. By eight thirty, I gave up and switched on the TV. Mom must have been watching it because it was turned to forty-two, the local access channel. Markus Clamp, a local journalist and conspiracy theorist, had a show she found enthralling for some reason.

  I was lucky enough to tune in right at the beginning of yesterday’s rerun.

  “I’m talking with Sid Fenton, boyfriend of the late Layne Phillips.”

  Markus Clamp might have been an über tool in my book, but for once he officially had my attention.

  On the screen, Sid squirmed in his seat.

  “I, like so many others, believe there’s more to this story than we’re being told. Tell me, Sid, was there anything odd in the days before Layne’s death?”

  Sid hesitated, and Markus went in for the kill.

  “Okay. You’re nervous, and I understand that. But you agreed to come on this show, so you must have something to add. Something you want the public to know.”

  “It wasn’t a random act of violence like the cops said,” Sid spat after a few moments. His expression had gone from nervous to pissed. “And it wasn’t drugs like her parents insisted. Yeah, Layne was messing around with some stuff, but she was going through something.”

  “I don’t suppose you care to elaborate?”

  Sid just glared at him.

  Markus nodded. “Fair enough. How about we try something a little different. I’ll say a word, and you tell me if it means anything to you and what. Sound good?”

  Sid could tell he was being set up, you could see it in his eyes, but he nodded anyway.

  I tucked my feet up and got more comfortable.

  “Gang.”

  Sid actually laughed. “No way. Layne wasn’t in a gang, and what happened wasn’t gang related. This is Parkview, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Unstable.”

  At this word, Sid faltered. “I wouldn’t say unstable. The last few months were hard for her, but she wasn’t as cracked out as her parents are making it seem. They tried to tell the cops she was into some weird shit. They tried to head shrink her. It was all bullshit.”

  “What about…Denazen.”

  On the screen Sid froze, and I almost toppled off the bed.

  Sid didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. The horror was written all over his face. And it didn’t escape Markus’s notice. “What is Denazen, Sid?”

  Sid recovered and straightened in his chair. “It’s that law firm that burned down at the beginning of the summer. What’s that got to do with Layne?”

  Markus gave him a knowing grin. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  Sid shifted in his seat.

  Markus leaned back. You could tell by the cat-that-inhaled-the-canary grin that he knew Sid was hiding something. Hell, anyone watching knew. Sid didn’t know crap about keeping a poker face. “I’ve got a source that says Layne mentioned keeping a diary to her parents. Maybe there’s something in there that could shed some light on things. Any chance you know where it is?”

  “Layne didn’t keep a diary,” Sid said quickly. “She thought they were lame.”

  “I think you’re lying, Sid. I think that diary is the key to connecting your dead girlfriend to Denazen. This source—”

  “Who?”

  Markus waggled a finger. “A good journalist never outs his source.”

  Sid stood. His face was bright red as he took a menacing step toward Markus. The vulture didn’t even flinch. “You’re a hack looking to cause trouble, not a journalist.” He flipped Markus off and stalked away from the camera. This wasn’t anything new. The few times I’d had the displeasure of catching bits of his show, I’d seen plenty of guests stalk off. In fact, it was pretty much his thing. Push people till they snapped and make fun of the resulting explosion.

  “Well, there you have it, folks. What really happened to Layne Phillips, and what does the Denazen Law Firm have to do with it?” Markus stood. “And where is that elusive diary?”

  The rest of what he was saying was drowned out by the little voice in my head. The one that frequently got me into more trouble than it helped me out of. A diary. If she wrote about Denazen, then maybe there was something useful in it. Something about Supremacy or the cure.

  It was a long shot. But I had to find out.

  …

  With some help from Google, I knew where I was going and was ready by ten. My mood wasn’t sunshine-y. I was sore, not to mention black and blue from my daring attempt to fly, and my shoulder wasn’t letting up. A deep ache that intensified each time I moved had set in to keep the constantly oscillating cold/hot wave company. On top of that, every once in a while a wave of nausea would hit. It never lasted long but made me think twice about attempting anything more than water. Even coffee seemed like a bad plan—and that was depressing.

  My current temperature was elevated by what felt like a thousand degrees. I’d peeled off my hoodie, stripping down to my tank even though the weatherman said it was only in the fifties. The constant back and forth was threatening to drive me insane.

  Rosie wasn’t at her desk, so there was no one to monitor the front door—which struck me as odd. Rosie never left the desk. But maybe this meant my luck was changing for the better. I was certainly due. I’d be able to slip out and be gone before anyone knew it.

  “I thought you’d be sleeping.”

  Or not.

  When I turned around, Kale was leaning against Rosie’s desk. An entirely new pain—an aching deep in my chest—washed over me.

  “Could say the same about you.” I looked around. It was just the two of us. “What, no shadow?”

  He pushed off the desk and crossed the lobby, stopping a safe distance away. “Where are you going?”

  “Why do you care?”The words spilled from my lips before I could think twice, and I blamed the pain in my shoulder. It w
as affecting the connection between my brain and my mouth. Mostly.

  His eyes went wide. “You’re angry. At me?”

  “No,” I said, stepping away. “Yes. Sort of.” Backing up to the door, I leaned against the cool glass. The heat was fading, cold settling in. I pulled the hoodie over my head and tugged the sleeves into place. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m not feeling great, and the whole thing with the party last night—”

  “Because I came with Jade.”

  “That, and you left. Without me.” The truth was, I was angry at him. I wanted to tell him what was going on. With Dad. With the twins. But I was afraid. If he’d been there with me, he would have found out by default, and there’d be no more hiding. The logic really wasn’t solid, I was blaming him for something he had no control over, but I didn’t care. Not right then, anyway.

  “Jade said—”

  I held my hand up and pushed off the door. “Do not finish that sentence.”

  “You threw her out a window?”

  My rational mind heard a simple question. My emotions, however, heard a bitter accusation, and I snapped. “I saved her ass—and mine!”

  His eyes narrowed. With careful, measured steps, he came a little closer. “From what?”

  I bit my tongue. Shit. Open mouth, insert entire damned leg. What the hell was wrong with me today? There was no way he’d let it go now.

  “Dez,” he said, inching closer. “Saved her from what? Tell me what happened last night. It has something to do with those Sixes in the park. That’s where you hit him, isn’t it? He was at the party?”

  I backed toward the door.

  “Dez.”

  “Yeah, he was there. I think the cops were called as a distraction so Denazen could slip in.”

  He blinked. “How would they even know we were there? It wasn’t one of Ginger’s parties.”

  “Exactly, Kale. Think about it. How did they know?” I waited. When he didn’t say anything, I continued. “Because someone told them.”

  “Someone?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “You think it was Jade?”

  “Duh.”

  He shook his head. “No. You’re wrong.”