Morgan looked like he was trying to find the right words. “She was…okay. Considering. She looked a lot like you, darling. It was uncanny.”
“But she was uninjured? Healthy? At least relatively?”
Morgan didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
Garrett had remained silent up until that moment. But now he glanced uncomfortably at Dana, and then at Morgan. “Not to sound like a dick, but why would they keep Dana’s sister alive for so long? I mean, wouldn’t the constant bleeding thing get to be too much for her after years and years?”
Dana shot Garrett the evil eye. “When people say not to sound like a dick, it’s always followed by a dick comment. And you are a dick, by the way.”
From behind us, I heard Cal giggle quietly. “She says that with love in her heart, bro,” he told Garrett, and I was struck by the weirdness of Calvin attempting to soften Dana’s verbal blow.
“Garrett’s question is a good one,” Morgan said. “But a more pertinent variation is how could they keep her alive for so long? Obviously, anyone making money off these girls would want to keep them producing blood for as long as possible. The why of that’s a no-brainer. But a D-maker needs to balance those costs of keeping girls healthy with the need to scare them shitless through beatings or worse, in order to produce a purer product, right? Eventually, in the course of any one girl’s life, the cost of her medical expenses will become too high, and it’ll become simply good business to bleed her dry and start fresh with a new girl.”
The awfulness of murder being good business plunged us into a rather darkly grim silence.
“ORANGE CIRCLE BOULEVARD ORLANDO FLORIDA GAAAH!”
We all jumped—Cal’s voice was so unexpected and so loud.
Dana turned around first. “What are you screaming about, Scoot?”
But Calvin had covered his mouth, clearly startled, too.
“Five five four three,” I remembered. He’d done this before—just blurted out random information. Look what I can do…
“Wait a minute. That address sounds familiar.” Dana pointed at Garrett, but Calvin was already on top of it. He’d gone over to the one place in the room where we had enough cell service to access the Internet, and he’d typed the address into his phone.
“5546 Orange Circle Boulevard,” he reported, looking up at Dana, “is the Doggy Doo Good warehouse in Orlando. Ding.”
“So what’s 5543?” she asked.
He checked whatever map had come up on his phone, but shook his head. “I can’t tell. Looks like it might be another warehouse, but it’s not labeled.” He looked up. “It could be abandoned. One of the nearby buildings looks like it might’ve burned down—the jungle’s pretty much swallowed it up.”
“Jungle as in palm trees?” I asked, thinking about Sasha’s memory of hiding behind one.
“Looks like it from the satellite map,” Cal said.
Dana nodded, and I didn’t need telepathy to know what she was thinking. We’d have to go there ourselves and check it out. Although I could also tell that she wasn’t thinking reconnaissance. If she had her way, we’d kick down the doors and do a Rambo on everyone inside.
It made sense, in a desperate way. We were looking for Lacey, and Sasha saw Lacey in a place where dogs were barking. We knew they bred puppies at Doggy Doo Good, and blam, Cal blurts out an address that’s essentially next to the DDG warehouse in Orlando.
I wanted to go check it out, too. Or I would have if I weren’t so worried about Calvin.
He’d begun to pace—a sight I’d never seen before—or thought I would ever see, for that matter.
“Was there anything else you found out during your time with Sasha?” Dana asked Morgan.
“And I’d like to know,” I chimed in, “what you actually said to her or, I don’t know, did to her…? Because she was way less anxious when we left.” I looked at Dana. “It was amazing. Sasha was practically serene.”
Morgan answered me first. “I helped her process her memories,” he said. “And I even, well, I didn’t remove them, not exactly, but I softened the memories of things like that monster-man. I also enhanced her memories of when you came to set her free and of her return home to her parents. Now when she thinks about the ordeal, even if it’s triggered, the very first thing she’ll remember is being saved—and being safe and loved.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You paid for my services,” he reminded me, except we hadn’t. Paid. Not yet anyway. But if it was easier for him to think of his relationship with us in terms of payment plans and services rendered, that was okay with me. He might not want to admit it, but he was one of us now. Like it or not, we’d become friends. But he’d already turned back to Dana. “There was one more thing. A tattoo.”
Dana raised an eyebrow. “A tattoo?”
“It was actually an image that I recognized,” Morgan said, “and I was wondering if it was maybe yours, and Sasha saw it on you and somehow connected it to her ordeal. I tried to find a face—you know, of the person whose tattoo it was, but…” He shook his head.
“I have a lot of tats,” Dana said.
“I know,” Morgan said. “Believe me, darling, I noticed. It’s impressive for a G-T to have that much control over her self-healing abilities.”
Most Greater-Thans couldn’t keep tattoos. Their systems viewed them as injuries and “healed” them—and within hours of getting inked, they vanished. But Dana had taught her body not to do that. It was impressive.
“Describe it,” she ordered Morgan now.
“I can do better,” he said. “I’ll draw it. Anyone have a marker?” He looked at me, eyebrows up.
“Fresh out,” I said dryly. Really, he’d thought I’d carry around a marker?
“Here.” Calvin handed over his phone, open to his drawing app, and Morgan used his finger to draw two lines. It was an equal sign, and he put a greater-than sign, like this <, in front of it, and a less-than
sign, like this > after it, so it looked like this: <=>
And then he drew an oval entirely around it.
Dana was already shaking her head long before he finished. “No,” she said. “Nope. Not mine.”
“Anyone else?” Morgan looked around, stopping on me. “Angst-Boy, maybe?”
“His name is Milo, and no,” I said.
“It looks kind of like an eye,” Cal noted.
“It’s a symbol used by an underground Greater-Than rescue group called GTFU,” Morgan told us. “And that FU stands for exactly what you think it does. They’re based mainly out of Atlanta. I didn’t realize they had a cell here in southwest Florida.”
“Cell, like terrorist cell?” Cal asked.
“Yes, except they’re not terrorists,” Morgan told him. “Although they are badass. Their mission statement is to liberate girls from Destiny farms. They run a series of safe houses for G-Ts—like an underground railroad. I’ve camped out with them a time or two, with the group in Atlanta. Again, I didn’t know there was a local group. I mean, if there even is. For what it’s worth, all of the normies in GTFU have that tattoo.” He pointed to his picture. “The G-Ts tend to draw it on themselves with permanent marker.”
And that was why he thought I might have a marker. He’d thought we might be part of this regional G-T rescue group. It was kind of flattering, actually. Badass, he’d called them.
“If Sasha didn’t see this tat on one of you,” Morgan said, “then she saw it somewhere else.” He looked at Dana. “That’s good news. It’s actually possible that Lacey was rescued months ago.”
But Dana was already shaking her head. “No. If Lacey were free, she would have found me. You said it yourself. Months ago. At the very least, she would’ve contacted my dad’s lawyer and she would’ve contacted me.”
Dana’s and Lacey’s father was in prison—on death row—framed for the murder of hi
s daughter. Who wasn’t dead.
The sound of Calvin’s sneakers against the floor as he paced back and forth was worrying. Why couldn’t he stand still? Why, for that matter, hadn’t he sat down with us?
Morgan was looking over at him, too. “Hey, Calvin,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
Calvin froze, and I could sense the tension in him, even from over here. “I feel great,” he said. “But I probably shouldn’t’ve had that last cup of coffee. I’m a little jittery.”
“Too much caffeine can do that,” Morgan said, nodding. He turned back to Dana. “I was thinking that now might be a good time to take him over to Garrett’s dad’s office.”
“Whoa,” Cal said. “Whoa whoa whoa! I didn’t agree to do that detox thing!”
“I meant for a simple medical scan,” Morgan said.
But it was as if Cal didn’t hear him. “I’m not ready!” he insisted.
“Dude, no one’s saying you should attempt the detox right now,” Garrett spoke up, and Cal turned so that he was towering directly over him.
Cal’s body language was pure aggression—so much so that Garrett threw his hands up, arms crossed in front of his face, as if to brace for a blow.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he snarled at Garrett, and it was beyond weird, because he almost seemed like he was starting to glow. “With me dead, you’d have Dana for yourself.”
“What?” I scrambled to my feet. What happened to She says that with love in her heart, bro?
“Calvin!” Dana exclaimed, standing too. “What the hell?”
“Or maybe you just want me back in my wheelchair, rolling through school like a sitting duck, while you wait for the perfect moment to humiliate me?” Cal continued, and there was no doubt about it: he was glowing. Little sparks seemed to fall off him as he moved, fading before they hit the floor.
“I don’t,” Garrett said, his voice shaking. I could smell the fishy whiff of his fear. “Dude, we’re friends now. I wouldn’t. I’m just trying to help figure out a way to, you know, fix you.”
“Fix me?” Calvin’s eyes were molten lava as the sparks falling off him increased. “You wanna fix me?”
“Calvin!” Dana said again as Garrett said, “No, man, that’s not what I was… I meant, help you, help you! I want to help you!”
“Well, maybe I don’t want your help!” Calvin shouted as around us the entire movie theater lit up like a Christmas tree before exploding in a shower of sparks.
After that? Pitch-black.
Chapter Eighteen
“Is everyone okay?” Morgan’s voice rang out through the dark cinema.
Correction—it was more than dark. The blackness was thick—so much so that I was unable to see my hand as I held it directly in front of my face. “I’m good,” I said.
“Me, too, um…I guess?” Garrett answered.
Cal and Dana didn’t offer their two cents. But I could hear Cal’s ragged breathing and Dana’s quiet words to him, “You’re okay. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.” But he didn’t sound too good.
There was a gravelly scratching sound, and then a flickering light illuminated the room.
Morgan held a match in front of his chest, cupping a feeble little flame. Still, after that pitch-darkness, it was enough to make me need to squint as I turned to look for Cal.
He was hunched over against the side wall, with Dana kneeling beside him as he laboriously worked to catch his breath.
“Did he just joker?” Garrett asked.
“If he had, we’d all be dead,” Dana said as she helped Cal sit beside her, their backs braced against the wall.
“I don’t know what happened.” Cal tried to smile reassuringly, but he looked a little green, and I could see his fear in his eyes. “I’m sorry I snapped at you, dude,” he told Garrett. “I don’t know what came over me. It was weird, like I was outside of my body, watching it all happen. But I’m totally okay now. I just feel a little…breathless.”
Dana kept pressing her flashlight’s on button with her free hand—but the thing was dead.
Even the emergency exit signs in the theater had gone out entirely.
“Control of electrical currents is a powerful ability,” Morgan said, as he sat down on the other side of Calvin. He let go of the glowing match, and it hung there in the air, burning itself out as he lit another, and then another. They hovered just above his head, the small flames dancing and crackling quietly. “Right now, the current you can throw isn’t much stronger than a shock from static electricity. But that’s going to change with time. You’re going to have to learn to manage it. You can’t just go off like that.”
“I know,” Cal said. “God, I’m tired.”
“You just expended a lot of energy,” Dana told him. “Literally.”
“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay,” Dana interrupted. “Nobody’s angry. I’d just like to understand what triggered this, so we can make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“You said you felt jittery,” I chimed in. “You were pacing—you didn’t seem to want to sit.”
“Jittery and irritable,” Cal said and then shivered. “I’m still feeling…” His voice trailed off.
“Like what?” Dana pressed him.
“Okay. I’m going to sound crazy here,” Cal told us. “But…you know when you’re really really jonesin’ for chocolate peanut butter ice cream? Like, it’s the only thing you can think of, and everything else is kind of just a blur until you go have that big huge bowl of chocolaty awesomeness?”
I nodded. “I get cravings like that for s’mores sometimes.”
“Yeah!” Cal exclaimed fervently. “Perfect example. Skylar and her s’mores. She craves s’mores like nobody’s business. Well…that’s how I feel right now.”
Garrett raised one eyebrow. “Dude. You can’t stop thinking about chocolate peanut butter ice cream, so you almost tore my head off?”
Cal shook his head, clearly frustrated.
Morgan’s face was grim as he said, “It’s not ice cream he wants.”
Calvin nodded. “I don’t want ice cream,” he said, “but…I really really wish I had more…Destiny.”
Dana let out a little sound that was one part sigh and two parts pained moan. “This is the start of withdrawal.”
My stomach did a somersault.
“Wait. What?” Garrett said.
Cal frowned, too. “No. I mean, I can’t be. Not yet. It’s supposed to take at least a week for that to happen.” A pause. “Isn’t it?”
With the exception of Garrett, we had all done a fair amount of homework learning about Destiny. Cal and I had spent hours online, poring over D statistics, facts, and even myths. We’d wanted to know everything we could—even before Calvin had been injected. The more informed we were, the more we stood a chance at helping other people. People like Sasha and Jilly and Lacey. And, as silly as it sounded, I felt that I stood a greater chance of being able to keep myself safe, too.
One thing I knew for sure was that most people didn’t begin to withdraw from Destiny for at least seven days. But that was a rough number. Everyone was different. Plus…
“Your injuries,” Dana said, the realization hitting her at the same time it occurred to me. “Cal, maybe your body’s absorbing the D at a much faster rate because of the extent of your injuries.”
Morgan was the closest thing we had to a doctor, and he pursed his lips as Dana glanced at him for confirmation of her theory. “That’s entirely possible,” he said.
“So…what does that mean?” Cal barked out a laugh, but the sound was laced with fear. “I know it means that if I don’t get more Destiny, I’ll die, but…once it starts, does it happen fast? How worried should I be?”
“The symptoms become severe,” Morgan said. “The jittery
feeling will intensify. You’ll start to shake…”
“And puke,” Dana said. “Once you start with the puking, then we worry.”
“Yay?” Cal said.
“Why don’t we just buy more?” I blurted. I knew it was wrong. I knew that injecting Calvin with another dose of Destiny was just increasing the chances that we would all get hurt. Cal could joker at any moment, but odds of it happening would increase dramatically if—when—he shot up.
And as hopeful as I was that Morgan’s detox procedure would work, Cal’s words from last night echoed in my head. Assisted suicide. I agree to do it, knowing that I’mma die, but that at least I won’t die ugly, all jokering and nasty-ass sociopathic—killing you guys, too.
Was that really what it was—simply a way to control when and how Calvin died? Was that why Morgan had suggested it, so that no one else would get hurt when Cal inevitably jokered?
Two survivors out of thousands were terrible odds.
And right now, all I could think was that I wasn’t ready to lose Calvin. Not yet. “How much money do we have?” I asked. “Maybe if we pool what we’ve got…?”
“I’ve got fifty bucks on me,” Garrett spoke up first.
Dana reached into the pocket of her bomber jacket and pulled out a wad of bills. “I’ve got another forty.”
Morgan shook his head as he lit a few more matches to keep the room from going dark. He’d been doing that regularly while we talked. “I don’t carry cash. And I pretty much live hand-to-mouth.”
Also? We already owed him two grand, although this time he didn’t bring it up, and I knew from the way he refused to meet my gaze that I was right about him. Like it or not, he cared about us and was unwilling just to walk away from us now. I also knew to keep my mouth tightly shut and not let any words of thanks escape. It was better to just pretend he was in this for the money.
I dug in my own pockets and pulled out an old tube of lip balm, along with two grubby-looking quarters. I’d made absolutely zero money since I’d stopped babysitting Sasha. And while Mom allowed me access to a debit card, she rarely placed more than the equivalent of a few school lunches on it at a time. “Gee. I’m a huge help.”
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