“Always the lawyer,” Alex teases, smiling warmly at Marley.
“Kidnapped by who?” I ask, the simplest question rising out of the maelstrom of questions in my head.
“The Tall Man,” Marley says.
“Yeah, I figured that.” I roll my eyes. “But who is he?”
“Told me his name was Isaiah,” Alex says, “but I assume that’s a fake. I met him at a party a while back—I thought he was hitting on me at first but turned out he’d pegged me as a user from across the room.”
“User?” I ask, my mind still feeling sluggish and dull from Neon’s shock.
“Drugs,” Alex says blankly. “I do drugs.”
“Oh. Right,” I say, and Alex’s eyes narrow again, like he’s trying to puzzle me out.
“They helped,” he explains, “with the whole, you know, pyrotechnic show. Isaiah spotted me from across the party and started to sell me something. Said he had a new drug that’s stronger than anything you can get on the street. Said it would take the edge off and round all the sharp corners. And he was right. I didn’t have a flare-up for two weeks.”
“A flare-up?”
“What you just saw,” he says.
“It’s never been that bad, Alex,” Indah says. “When your ability got out of control before it’d be your finger, maybe the whole hand, never your entire body.”
“Yeah, okay, so it’s gotten worse.” He shrugs. “But for two whole blissful weeks, the only time any part of me was on fire was when I wanted it. And then it wasn’t enough.”
He pauses, swallowing and looking down at his hands, the flippancy gone. His face crumples and his voice is noticeably quieter when he speaks again.
“It was never enough. No matter what I do, the fire always comes back. Letting it out a little every day helps—heroin helps even more—but it always comes back, worse than ever. Isaiah found out about me, said he’d met other people like me, other Unusuals who wanted their ability gone. He said there was a way. A way for me to just be … normal. No fire, no flare-ups, no more drugs. Just Alex. So we made a time to meet, some shady back alley where he said we were going to meet his supplier, but he never showed. The next thing I know, I’m waking up in some dark room, my whole body on fire.”
Alex pauses, his words hanging in the air like knives over our heads. My eyes dart from person to person, not landing on anyone; I’m too afraid to make eye contact and see my own panic reflected in my friends’ expressions.
“I think they did something to me,” he continues, his voice thick with unshed tears. “It’s worse than ever before. What you saw, everything up in flames … that happens a lot now. Whatever they were trying to fix, they just broke it further.”
As he finishes, Indah starts rubbing her hand up and down his back as if he isn’t a dangerous explosion waiting to happen. I see a tear roll down Alex’s cheek and am surprised that it doesn’t heat into steam from contact with his skin. I’m terrified, sick to my stomach at the idea that there are people out there looking to hurt us, so I do what I always do—deflect the feeling with an ill-timed question.
“How does it work?” I ask.
“For fuck’s sake, Damien,” Marley hisses, “the guy just told you that he was kidnapped and experimented on and you want to know how he lights up?”
“It’s just a question,” I say defensively.
“It’s okay, Marley,” Alex says, wiping the tear from his face. “I’d be curious too. In fact, I am curious.”
He peers at me again, a silent challenge. I rise to it.
“They didn’t already tell you?” I lift my chin a bit, looking across at him with hooded eyes. I see his mouth twitch once before he responds.
“They gave me the gist,” he says. “And that Neon knocks you out.”
“Only temporarily,” I sneer.
“So when you haven’t just been hit with several thousand volts…”
“I can make people do what I want.” I grin. “Like your skeezy roommates.”
“Well, that’s not exactly how it works,” Marley says, ever the pedant.
“Whatever,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I make people want what I want. So the result is essentially the same. I wanted your roommates—well, former roommates—to leave and never come back, so they did.”
A lump forms in my throat as I finish talking. Will they come back? They’d be easy to deal with, to get rid of again, but I don’t think I could stand being reminded that my ability has an expiration date. That the people I make leave me are eventually in control of that choice again. And that They chose not to return.
“Pretty impressive,” Alex says, snapping me back to the present. “Sounds dangerous though.”
“It can be,” I preen. “But so can setting yourself on fire.”
“True,” he concedes. “Sorry about that, by the way. I hope I didn’t get you.”
I still feel warm, almost like I’ve got a sunburn, but that is just as likely a result of Neon as it is of being so close to Alex when he was on fire.
“I’m all right. You don’t seem any worse for wear though.”
It’s not strictly true—Alex looks terrible, malnourished and strung out. But his hair isn’t singed, his skin isn’t blistered. If anything, he looks … cold.
“Yeah, it doesn’t really have an effect on me,” Alex says, shrugging one shoulder. Indah’s hand stops rubbing his back, giving him a little push instead as she glares at him. He rolls his eyes and keeps talking.
“Okay, it has a huge effect on me. It’s super painful and I can’t control it well in the best of circumstances, so when I’m in a ton of pain it just gets worse and worse. But it doesn’t burn me,” he finishes.
I nod like I understand and shift uncomfortably on the couch, my muscles wincing in protest.
“Wait,” I say, the thought occurring, “Neon was able to knock you out and she rewires my ability for a couple hours. Can’t she just … make it stop?”
Neon sighs wearily, leaning back in her seat.
“We’ve tried,” she says. “So many times. It doesn’t do shit.”
“I don’t get it, why not?”
“We think it has something to do with the fact that both Neon’s and Blaze’s abilities are physical,” Indah says. “You and Marley have powers that don’t manifest physically—”
“Tell that to the very vivid audiovisual hallucinations,” Marley quips.
“Okay, yes, yours has an element outside of you, but it’s not like electricity or fire. You’re not creating something physical that can potentially harm other people. Neon can knock anyone out if she uses enough electricity—”
“Thanks, babe.”
“And she—you’re welcome—can rewire a mental ability by messing with the electrical impulses in your brains, but a physical ability involves too many different elements for her to be able to rewire it.”
“How do you know this?” I ask.
“It’s just a theory,” Indah says. “I mean, it’s not like we have a huge sample of people to pull from. But I do think there’s a difference. You all … feel different to me.”
“What do I feel like to you now?” Alex asks.
It takes me a moment to understand what Indah is talking about. And then I remember—she can sense us. Unusuals. She didn’t know I was one right away when we first met because I wanted to fly under the radar. I’ve never asked about how her non-ability ability works, and now seems like an inappropriate time.
“You feel like Alex,” Indah says soothingly, and if I wasn’t still thrumming with electricity, I’d be able to find out if she’s lying or not.
A heaviness is starting to weigh my eyelids down and I feel myself sink a fraction farther into the couch. The silence in the living room isn’t the tense quiet that appeared like air bubbles throughout this conversation but the weary hush of exhaustion. Indah starts to murmur softly in Alex’s ear, and the low tones of her voice pull my eyes completely closed and usher me into sleep.
* * *
Looking down at Alex sleeping fitfully in her lap, Indah is having a difficult time finding the feelings of relief and happiness she was expecting to feel when they found him. Of course she’s relieved, of course she’s happy that he’s back, but it’s drowned out by the screaming fear in her head. Alex doesn’t feel like Alex. Indah hates lying but she couldn’t bear to tell Alex that something is wrong, not after everything he had just told them.
It’s not just the way he looks—the fact that his hair has thinned, that he’s thinned, lost an unhealthy amount of weight, his skin hanging loosely off his bones. It’s not just that his voice is quieter and raspier than it ever has been. There’s something else, something intangible, that Indah knows only she can feel. She can help the other things—feed him, soothe his throat—but the way he feels, the way his ability feels to her, isn’t something she knows how to fix.
The light buzzing, that frothiness that she feels on the surface of her skin when she’s near an Unusual, is still there. But it’s sharp. It pokes and fits wrong and it doesn’t feel like Alex at all. It feels like something unknown, something dangerous.
Alex has always been dangerous, always prone to explode. But it’s a danger she knew how to handle. Indah has encountered too many dangers in the past few months, has been pulled out of her comfort zone too far. She wonders if she’ll ever feel safe again.
* * *
I wake up to the kind of chaos I’ve become accustomed to in the past few weeks. After Blaze settled in and recovered, he became the life of the party. The Unusuals have been adamant about his staying clean—Neon gives him cigarettes to curb the craving, Indah mixes him mocktails and talks him through his darker moments, and Marley reads him health reports about what heroin does to your body—but Blaze still goes out partying most nights. When he’s home, he’s boisterous and endlessly energetic. I’m glad that my friends have their friend back, but Christ, it’s exhausting.
There’s loud talking coming from the kitchen, and as I shuffle softly down the hall and into the shared space, I see the source: Indah, Marley, and Blaze are gathered around the kitchen island as Blaze flambés various food items.
“Robert!” Indah beams at me as I approach the trio, her smile bigger now that Blaze is back. “Good morning, sleepyhead.”
“What the hell are you all doing?” I grumble, scratching my head.
“Making lunch,” says Marley, grinning, also happier and more carefree than I’ve ever seen him. My stomach curdles with jealousy.
“Lunch?” I croak.
“It’s after noon, dude,” Blaze teases lightly, emphasizing his point by lighting an entire watermelon on fire.
“What’s your point?” I say, rubbing my eyes, annoyed by Blaze’s charming smile and easy rapport with my two friends. I know that they were his friends first, but I still resent his barging back into our lives and becoming the center of attention.
I open my eyes again to find three earnest stares pointed in my direction.
“Do you want some pancakes?” Marley asks, turning to the stove behind him. “The batter’s gone a bit clumpy but they should still be good.”
“I could cook something up for you,” Blaze says. “We’re making fruit skewers but I could go out and get anything you want.”
“That’s really okay…,” I say awkwardly.
“How about some coffee?” Indah offers, turning to the cabinet behind her to pull a mug down.
“Yeah, coffee would be good…”
The three of them bustle around the kitchen like busy worker bees trying to appease their queen. I’m a little surprised at how quickly and effectively my desire for them to pay attention to me took hold, especially given the fact that there are three of them and I’ve been conscious for about two minutes.
Blaze continues to sear fruit, which smells amazing and looks completely inedible. The small stream of fire coming from his right hand lights up the grin that’s plastered across his face. Despite our first meeting and his descriptions of the horrors of the past few months, Blaze seems remarkably in control.
“It’s easier to manage when I get to use it,” he explains suddenly, answering the question I didn’t have time to ask. “There’s never been a good place to do it before—other than Neon’s place—but now that we’ve got this huge kitchen all to ourselves…”
There’s a strong surge of flame as he laughs manically at the pineapple in his left hand that is now completely ablaze.
“Watch where you’re pointing that thing!” Marley yelps, taking a step back.
“It’s all right,” Blaze shouts back, the sound of the joint fires from the pineapple and his hand drowning him out. “I’ve got it totally under control.”
Except it rapidly becomes clear that he doesn’t. I want him to stop, to put out the fire on the fruit and close his hand, draw the flame back into himself, but nothing happens. Marley and Indah are practically out of the kitchen entirely now, moving toward me, and the three of us watch in terror as the fire licking Blaze’s fingers starts to crawl up his arm.
“Alex,” Indah says calmly, though I can hear a slight tremble in her voice. “Please put the fire out.”
“I can’t,” he gasps, and the fire climbs higher on his arm, starting to nip at his shoulder. The flames are reflected in his wide, terrified eyes.
“Yes you can, bud,” Marley pleads. “Just like we talked about, okay? Breathe deep, close your eyes, and imagine the fire just … going away.”
Marley’s voice sounds certain, like it always does, but I’m skeptical about the idea that meditation is going to solve this problem. Blaze seems skeptical too, because he doesn’t follow Marley’s instructions, instead looking at him with big eyes.
“No, I can’t do it.” He shakes his head and the fear starts to drain, leaving disappointment behind. “I’ve just got to let it run its course.”
He sighs, resigned, and stares at the flames engulfing his entire right arm. The three of us stand several feet away, the island between us and him, but I can still feel the warmth of the fire on my face. Blaze holds his arm out, careful not to light anything on the countertop on fire. The crackle of the flames fills the quiet between the four of us and I watch the light play on Blaze’s defeated face.
We stand still and silent for several minutes until, finally, the flames start to die. When they’ve crept back down to his wrist level, Blaze picks up a dish towel from the island and hits his hand a couple of times, precise and unflinching. With a few whacks of the towel, the flame goes out completely, and he flexes his unlit right hand a few times before putting down his arm and looking back at us.
“Sorry about that.”
“It’s okay, Alex,” Indah coos, her focus completely on Blaze again. “Are you okay?”
He just shrugs.
“Singed another fucking shirt,” he says, indicating the edge of his T-shirt sleeve, which is, in fact, lightly burnt.
“You can borrow one of mine,” Marley offers, voice shaky, his shoulders still up around his ears, his face white as a sheet.
“At least it didn’t hurt,” I say, looking between ghostly Marley and Blaze’s blank, unfeeling face and trying to contribute to the cheer-up.
“It did hurt,” he says flatly, turning on his heel and walking toward his room. I almost don’t hear what he says before he disappears into his room, but it makes me flinch even before the slam of the door.
“I’ve just gotten used to it.”
* * *
It keeps happening—Blaze going up in flames. The fire disrupts the natural rhythm of our days, makes everything about Blaze, his power, his problems. The spacious loft starts to feel claustrophobic, so I get back into the daily runs that kept me occupied when I was living in the Hills. At least now I don’t have to run alone, I think at first, coercing Marley into joining me, now that we don’t have looking for Blaze to bond us. But after exactly one run with Marley, watching him barely break a sweat as I’m panting alongside him, I decide that, actually, g
oing alone is probably best.
I’m in a park, running a loop, when I decide to find a place I can do some push-ups, Marley’s arms and broad chest at the top of my mind. Even though she’s in domestic bliss with Indah, I still sometimes catch Neon looking at Marley’s bulky form and think maybe if I beefed up a little bit, she might look at me that way.
As I step off the path and onto the grass, I see a group of a dozen people, sitting on yoga mats, eyes closed. A woman is sitting facing the group, her mouth moving. I’m too far to hear what she’s saying, but I’m captivated by the stillness of her shoulders, the serene look on her face. The whole scene is mesmerizing. I’ve never seen so many people stay so still, making it seem like time has stopped in their corner of the park.
I don’t know how much time actually does pass but suddenly the group is moving, everyone’s eyes opening as they stand up and start to roll up their mats. Before I have a chance to think about it, I’m walking over to the group and right up to the woman in the front, who is packing up as she smiles and waves to the various members of the group walking off.
“Um, excuse me,” I start, feeling clumsy. I can’t remember the last time I approached a stranger without a specific goal in mind. “What … what is this?”
The woman swivels to look at me and laughs softly, swinging her yoga mat over her shoulder.
“Meditation,” she says warmly, taking a step toward me. “We’re here every Monday and Friday morning.”
“Right.” I nod, pushing down the desire to roll my eyes. Marley has been trying to get Blaze to meditate, focus on staying calm—why is it that everything in my entire life right now seems to come back around to Blaze?
“You’re welcome to join us next time,” she continues. “It’s free.”
“Not really my thing,” I say as politely as possible, taking a small step back. I don’t really know what I was expecting, but I’m somehow disappointed all the same.
“What is your thing?” she asks gently, stopping me from walking away.
I look at the woman, her face open and patient, and try to figure out if she’s hitting on me. I would guess she’s about fifteen years older than me and I notice a wedding ring on the hand that’s wrapped around the shoulder strap of her mat. So why exactly is she talking to me? It must be me, wanting her attention, though I can’t think of why.
A Neon Darkness Page 16
