by Jus Accardo
And it seemed to be speeding up.
Before I could stop him, Alex grabbed my hand, pulling me closer. Too fast, he reached up and pushed the shoulder of my dress to the side, face pale. The black lines had crept past my collarbone.
“What the hell is that, Dez?”
23
I was tempted to walk away, but knowing Alex, he’d run straight to Ginger just to piss me off. “Remember that night on the roof of your old building? When Able touched me? It’s some kind of poison.”
Alex looked like he was going to be sick. He opened and closed his mouth several times, doing his best imitation of a fish. “Daun,” he finally spat, twisting me toward the door. “We need to get back to the hotel.”
I pulled away from him. “Daun’s gone. ’Sides, don’t you think I already talked to her? She tried. There was nothing she could do.”
Some of the color returned to his face. “Jesus—the way you’ve been acting… For a second, I thought no one knew about this.”
“They don’t. The only one who knows is you. And well, Daun, but she’s gone, so that doesn’t matter.”
“Are you insane? Have you taken a good look at that thing?”
“It’s complicated, okay? There’s a cure.”
“Which you obviously don’t have.”
“Well, no. But I know there is one. That’s good enough for now.”
Alex could be a dick, but he was generally pretty sharp. “Your dad has it, doesn’t he?”
“Pretty much.”
“What happens if you don’t get it?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not sure.”
He slammed his foot down. Several people at the table next to us looked up. I recognized a few of them. All residents of the Sanctuary.
“You’re not sure? Are you kidding?”
“Dad wants me to believe that it’s going to kill me,” I admitted.
“You’re fucking certifiable, you know that? First, you let Kiernan go off with some guy who’s working for your father, now you’re hiding some killer rash? Lemme guess. He wants to trade that asshole for the cure.” Alex took a step back, realization sparking like a wildfire behind his eyes. “Holy shit, Dez. That’s why you haven’t told them. You’re protecting that freak. He doesn’t know, does he?”
“No. And it stays that way. Besides, it’s not about Kale anymore. Dad said he’d trade the cure if I turned myself over to him. Plus like I said, he wants me to believe it’s going to kill me. That doesn’t mean it’s true.”
Alex turned and started for the door. “This is crap.”
I rushed forward, jumping in front of him. “This is my choice.”
“You need to tell them. Tell Ginger. She can fix this.”
“What the hell? Now all of a sudden you’ve got this creepy blind faith in Ginger? Since when?” I took a deep breath and grabbed his arm, pulling back with all my strength. “Alex, I’m asking you—begging you—don’t say anything. Just give me a little more time. I need to figure this out.”
He pulled away. “Doesn’t look like you have a lot of time to think.”
“Think about what?” Kiernan came up behind us.
“Where’s Able?” I asked before Alex could answer.
She frowned. “He got a call and hadda bolt. Seemed funky, though. Like guy-code, ya know? Call me at such and such a time, and if things blow, I have an excuse to bail?”
“Might not be such a bad thing. Dez said the dude was freaky.” Alex turned to me. “Right?”
Kiernan frowned. “You didn’t like him?”
Great. Nice of Alex to put me on the spot. His way of forcing me to tell Kiernan, I guessed. Yeah? Well, no one was forcing my hand. I did things my way. On my own time. “It’s not that,” I said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “He was just—he was all over some chick at the bar when you ran to the bathroom.”
Kiernan’s eyes went wide. “Are you serious?”
I nodded, avoiding Alex’s heated stare. “I know, right? She left a little while ago. Bet that phone call was an excuse to bail because of her.”
“That bitch,” she cursed.
I felt horrible for breaking her heart like that, but better safe than sorry. I needed to be sure she wouldn’t try contacting him.
She threaded her arm around Alex’s waist. “You came alone, right? Be my date for the rest of the night?”
He looked like he wanted to say no. But with a smile I knew was totally fake, he said, “Looks like it’s my lucky night.”
“Wow. That’s a statement, Dez.” Jade came up behind us. The grin on her face made me want to shove her in front of a moving truck. Of course they’d come back now. Able was gone. The coast was clear. It was safe. Kale was beside her, and I couldn’t help noticing how his hand rested against the small of her back.
“Um,” Alex said, looking around. He took my hand and started dragging me toward the door. “I think we should leave. Now.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Kale. His expression was a mix of confusion and surprise. “When did you do that?”
“Do what?” I asked as Alex shoved me out the main door and into the hall. Dragging me to the end, we burst onto the outside steps and didn’t stop till we’d made it around the corner of the building.
Kiernan and the guys stared at me like I had three heads, and Jade was grinning like the mean girl in school when the class nerd trips in the middle of the hallway.
“Feel free to tell me what just happened.” I scanned their faces. Nothing. “Anyone?”
Kale reached for a strand of my hair, his head tilting to the left. “You dyed it?”
“Idiot,” Alex snapped before I could respond. “When do you think she had time to dye it? Between when you left to go suck face with the super slut here and the last song?”
Kale turned away from me and stepped to Alex. “I know exactly what that means, and if you say it again, I’ll touch you.”
“Sorry, dude,” Alex said, waving his hands. He flashed Kale a mock frown. “I don’t swing that—”
“Focus here, people!” I yelled.
“Dez,” Kiernan said, frowning. She reached up and pulled the clip in my hair free before I could stop her. “Your hair is, um, green.”
“Matches my dress perfectly,” Jade said with an evil grin. “I know I said it before, but really, you look good in green, Dez.”
I knotted my fingers through the ends of my hair and pulled them forward so I could see. Sure enough, the strands poking out were a really cool shade of emerald.
Alex looked smug. He didn’t know about my newly improved gift, so I was betting he thought this had something to do with Able’s poison. Because that made so much sense, right? Poison that turned your hair green? Moron… “So, any ideas how your hair changed color?”
I shot Kiernan a help me! expression, but she only shrugged, indicating I was on my own. “I—”
Alex folded his arms. “I’ve got a theory. Maybe—” A squeaky, chipped voice suddenly split the air, screaming for people everywhere to follow the sound of his voice and kill whoever was holding the phone.
Saved by Kiernan’s cell.
As she dug it out of her purse, Alex glared at me. He was seconds away from spilling. I could see it in his eyes. This was the kind of situation where I wished my gift was something more useful than mimicking.
Mind control would have been awesome.
“We gotta book,” Kiernan said, snapping her phone closed. She dropped it back in her purse and pointed toward the parking lot. “That was Rosie. Something’s wrong at the hotel.”
24
Thankfully Alex had come in his rental car—and alone. I’d suggested heading back inside to grab some of the others, but Kiernan insisted we didn’t have time. She was freaked by whatever Rosie had said on the phone. The entire way to the hotel, her eyes darted back and forth as she fiddled with the straps on her shoe. When we pulled up in front of the main doors and he killed the engine, everything was dark.
A
nd wrong.
From the car, we couldn’t see much. The only thing visible inside were the red emergency lights above the door.
“The hotel lost power!” Kiernan whined as she climbed from the backseat. She slammed the door closed and stomped her foot. “That was Rosie’s big drama?”
“What, exactly, did she say when she called?” I’d made sure to sit in the front seat. I didn’t trust myself to sit in the back with Jade and not strangle her. The entire walk to the car, she’d made snide comments about my hair—which was still a funky shade of green. If it wasn’t for the fact that everyone was watching, I’d have hauled off and decked her, not that it would have done any good. Kicking the ass of someone you couldn’t actually hurt was pretty pointless. But I was willing to give it my all. I was nothing if not determined.
Alex pocketed his keys and came around to the passenger side of the car.
Hands on hips, Kiernan said, “Not much. This is Rosie we’re talking about. Queen of the cryptic and annoying. She just said something was wrong and get back ASAP. She sounded scared though.”
“Something’s so not right about this.” I pulled off my shoes. Kiernan had convinced me to wear heels, and with my swimming head and unstable equilibrium, it’d been a miracle that I hadn’t face-planted yet. I wasn’t taking any chances. The heels fell to the pavement with a subtle clomp, and I started for the door, but Alex stopped me.
“Don’t you think you should wait out here?”
I looked around. Kale was glaring daggers at Alex, who was staring at me like I’d lost my mind. Jade was eye-humping Kale like a lovesick puppy while Kiernan looked ready to kick her ass.
Seriously. Worse-timed drama ever.
“Why the hell would I stay out here?”
“Maybe we should split up? A few of us go around to the back?” Kiernan turned to me. “Ginger gave you the compactor door key, right? You and I could try to get in that way while the others try the Dumpster door.”
“Yeah, but—”
“We stay together,” Kale said, taking the lead.
No one argued—including Alex. You couldn’t dispute the facts. And the facts were, Kale was trained for this kind of thing. Breaking and entering. Sneak attacks. All-around ninja stuff. Alex could name each member of every nineties alternative band ever formed. Kale could kick all their asses. It just was what it was.
We found the main doors open, which might have been simply odd anyplace else, but at the Sanctuary? It was freaking scary. Because Denazen was a constant threat, Ginger went to extreme lengths in regards to security, and I was pretty sure after the van thing, she’d beefed it up even more. The hotel was normally locked up tighter than Scrooge McDuck’s money pit.
Kale stopped just inside the door, staying perfectly still.
“What is it?” I whispered.
After a few moments passed, Kale said, “Something is wrong.”
“Wow,” Alex hissed. “Figured that out all on your own, did you?”
“Where is everyone?” Kiernan grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Because this is seriously squicky…”
Kiernan’s hand. That was it!
Although it irritated me to do it, I grabbed Alex’s hand. “As cheesy as this is gonna sound, everyone join hands.”
Alex looked from my face to our tangled fingers and smirked. “As much as I like this, I’m thinking now’s not the time to sing ‘Kumbaya.’”
Kale growled.
“Idiot. Kiernan can make us all invisible. We can move through the hotel and check things out without being seen.” I turned to Kiernan. “Right? Or is it too many people?”
She winked at me. Since coming to the Sanctuary, Kiernan’s ability had gotten a little stronger. When we’d first met over the summer, she could only blend in to her surroundings if she was still or moved slowly. Now she had much more range of motion.
“Nah. I’m awesome like that.” Everyone’s hands linked, there was the slighted hint of a ripple in the air, and Kiernan smiled. “We’re good to go.”
As we made our way through the lobby, around Rosie’s desk, and down the hall, I tried not to think about Kale holding Jade’s hand. It was out of necessity—that was all. There were more important things to focus on. Like the complete and total lack of light and the eerie silence that filled the air.
Part of me wanted to think we were overreacting. Just a power outage. Rosie had just called to ruin our night. We’d find her sitting in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and a magazine, and she’d say, Sorry. False alarm. Happened all the time. She lived to find new ways to annoy me. Kind of like the way I’d loved to piss Dad off. It was more than a hobby. It was a way of life.
Another part knew better.
We reached the end of the hall where it opened into the common room and froze. Thanks to the emergency lights lining the ceiling, we could see it was a wreck. The TV was on the floor, shattered—again. This was crazy. At this rate, we would singlehandedly keep Samsung in business! The coffee table was broken, too, splintered bits and pieces all over. The lounge chair was tipped on its side, and the couch was knocked up against the far wall, cushions strewn around the room like discarded toys. It looked ten times worse than when Kale and Alex went at it—and that was saying a lot.
Kale sighed. “Dez?”
I swallowed. The dark in his voice made me nervous. “Yeah?”
“Get back, please.”
And then hell broke loose.
Kale released Jade’s hand, which broke the connection to Kiernan, rendering him totally visible. Diving for something on the floor—one of the severed table legs—he swung up into the darkness. The bone-crunching thunk echoed through the room as the wood connected with something.
Someone.
Alex was the next to let go. This sucked for Jade since she had his other hand, and now that he was visible, so was she. The enemy wasted no time, reaching from the darkness to make a swipe for her. With a wave of Alex’s hand, the couch jumped forward, knocking into a dark figure. Jade screamed and jumped aside as he lost his battle with gravity and fell to the ground in front of us. The man tried climbing to his feet, but Kale was there in an instant with a perfectly aimed kick to the head. There was a grunt, and the guy went down like a hundred pounds of coffee.
Someone down the hall screamed. Seconds later, a loud boom shook the floor and rattled the large shelving unit against the wall. The cordless shimmied off the end table on the far side of the room. Everyone scattered.
I didn’t see which way Alex or Kiernan went, but Jade ran toward the kitchen. Kale, still wearing his gloves, grabbed my arm and took off back down the hall toward the lobby.
“It’s Denazen,” I spat, flattening myself against the wall. I was glad I’d left my shoes by the car.
Kale turned to me, eyebrows raised. “Of course.”
“Rhetorical,” I snapped. Peering around the corner, I pulled my arm from Kale’s grip and took a step into the main room.
“Wait,” he whispered.
I ignored him and crept around Rosie’s desk. The phone was in the corner by the television. Unfortunately, when I brought it to my ear, there was no dial tone. I set it back down, not bothering to return it to the dock. “Dead. They cut everything.”
“Procedure. The first thing that’s done before a raid.”
“This is bullshit,” I mumbled. “Our first date, and Dad has to screw it up. I seriously hate that man.”
“We’ll try—” Kale stopped. Tilting his head to the side, wisps of onyx hair slipping into his eyes, he turned away.
One minute he was standing there, statue still beside me, the next he was twisting as another figure lunged at us from behind. Graceful and quick, he dropped to the ground and whipped the table leg sideways. It collided with the man’s knee in a sickening crunch. In a fluid move, Kale’s right glove was off, and his fingers curled around the man’s throat.
But nothing happened.
For a split second, I thought, Huh. Go figure. Someone else li
ke me. What were the chances? But then I remembered…
“Jade.” Kale settled for slamming the agent’s head into the wall. The man crumbled to the floor, silent.
We scanned the room, but there was no sign of Jade. I was pretty sure if she were skulking under a desk or cowering behind a potted plant, she would have hopped out by now to lay a sloppy one on her big hero.
“Even when she’s not here, she’s in the damn way,” I mumbled.
Kale either didn’t hear me or ignored the comment. “She must be close.”
I shook my head and backed away a few steps. “I guess it would be bitchy of me to say let’s leave her here?”
The tiniest hint of a smile lifted the corner of his lips. “That would be a bad person move.”
“Depends on your perspective.”
A scream split the air, and the smile was gone, his expression darkening. “Jade,” he breathed and sprinted toward the kitchen.
I followed, trying to focus on the actual disaster of Denazen hitting us at home base rather than the fact that my boyfriend had just dashed off to save the girl who had a mad crush on him. It wasn’t easy.
We rounded the corner and saw another hooded figure moving toward the door. Jade was slung over his shoulder, unmoving. As the man spun to face us, her hair whipped and bounced like a Barbie doll’s, arms swinging daintily across his back. Like a damned fairy-tale damsel in distress. God. She was even annoying while unconscious. Somewhere in the world there had to be a law against that.
Kale sprang into action, charging the man like a runaway train. The guy dropped Jade and tried to sidestep the attack, but he was too late. Kale slammed into him, sending them both to the ground.
I took two steps forward, begrudgingly about to help Jade—even though a little voice was telling me to kick her body under a table and hope Kale forgot about her—when someone grabbed me from behind.
“Miss me, girly?”
That voice crept up my spine like an arctic chill, leaving goose bumps in its wake. One arm locked like a vice around my neck, Able used the other to clamp his hand down over my mouth as he jerked us sideways into the shadows. Out of Kale’s field of vision. A distraction. Jade was playing possum to get Kale out of the way. Again.
