Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy

by P. Anastasia

“Do you need anything else, Brian? I can get you some extra pillows or whatever you want. I know it’s not as nice as the bed downstairs, but after everything that’s happened… I want to be sure you get some sleep.”

  She knew I didn’t sleep well when things got weird. Last time—after we’d come back from Vegas—I’d hardly slept at all for days. The most I had gotten in one night was the few hours with Alice on the couch, and even that had been near to nothing.

  Maybe it wasn’t right to ask, but I certainly wasn’t about to start sneaking around behind Jane’s back. The truth was, everything was easier with Alice beside me.

  “What are you afraid of, Jane?” I blurted, as a sudden urge to stop stifling my real feelings won control of my mouth.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  Alice slipped through the hallway across from the living room and then disappeared down into the basement. I knew she wouldn’t be able to hear our conversation from there.

  “If… Alice and I… If we stayed in a room together instead of—”

  “No.” She shook her head violently. “Absolutely not. No. I won’t have it. It’s wrong.”

  “What makes you think she and I haven’t—”

  “Shut up, Brian. Please. Just shut up.” She squeezed her eyes closed and turned away from me, biting her lower lip angrily.

  “Alice needs someone to protect her. Someone who knows what it’s like to have this freaking curse.”

  “And sleeping with her is going to change that?”

  “We’re beyond that, Jane. Besides, I’m not asking for your permission…”

  “Brian. No! You two aren’t married. I’m her mother and I don’t have to listen to anything you say. This has nothing to do with keeping Alice safe.”

  “It has everything to do with keeping Alice safe!” I stood up from the couch and clenched a fist unconsciously. Her eyes went wide at the gesture, and she gasped, offended. “Listen to me, Jane.” I lowered my voice and flexed open my fingers. “I know you’re worried. I know you’re scared for your daughter, but I need to be there. I need to be with her—close.”

  “Or what?” She shot out of her chair and glared.

  I knew I was on thin ice, but I didn’t care anymore. Jane couldn’t just throw me out. That might expose my fluorescence and, in turn, put her own daughter in danger. Either that, or social services would come asking questions.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Alice—about how anxious I became when she wasn’t there—when I couldn’t grasp her hand. Always on edge. Always alert. It was wearing me thin.

  “After we returned from Vegas,” I started, “I barely slept at all for days. Every time I tried, I ended up waking in a cold sweat, fearing for Alice—scared to death she might disappear or be hurt in the middle of the night and no one would even notice. I know there’s nothing I can do to stop the Saviors, but I need to be able to reach out and know she’s still there—that she’s safe. She needs me, too. To feel protected.”

  “I can protect her just fine, Brian!”

  “Really? Were you there when she hit the pavement in Las Vegas?”

  “What’s happened to you?” Jane scowled, narrowing her eyes at me. “Who are you?”

  “I’m the exact same person I’ve been since you met me, Jane. But I’m living a very different life. And so is your daughter.”

  There was a long awkward silence. Jane took a step back and the look on her face changed into something between confusion and fear. She fell back into her recliner, shaking her head. Her expression softened and her eyes started to water.

  “I… I don’t want to betray your trust in me, Jane. I’m only trying to be honest.”

  She remained quiet.

  I started to wonder if the next words out of her mouth would be a request for me to go. Somewhere. Anywhere. Just to get the hell out of her house. To leave her and her daughter alone.

  But this was Alice’s mother. Not mine.

  “I’ve never had to deal with a situation like this before,” she said, looking down at her hands in her lap. “The only thing I have to go on is what I learned from the mistakes I made when I was her age. I never thought I’d be arguing with a sixteen-year-old about how to care for my own daughter.”

  “I’m not trying to argue. You’re a good mother and you’ve done all you can for her. It’s time you trusted someone else with that responsibility for a change.”

  She fell silent again.

  I swallowed hard and watched her consider my words. She looked worried, defeated even. I hadn’t been trying to push her to the edge, but I had. I’d only wanted her to understand how I felt.

  “And you are absolutely right, Brian.” She looked me in the eye. “I can’t protect her like this. Not from them. You’re the only one she has when they take her. You and that girl, Kareena, who I don’t really trust.” Tears glistened on her cheeks and she sucked in a muffled breath. “I didn’t want to admit it, but I can’t protect my own daughter anymore.”

  “I will.”

  “I know you will, Brian,” she said, sniffling. “And that’s what hurts the most. Knowing you’ll probably do a better job of keeping her safe than I will.” She grabbed a tissue from the box on the coffee table and blew her nose.

  I felt a little relief in hearing her finally admit it.

  . . .

  Five minutes until midnight.

  Jane had gone to sleep a while ago. I lay stretched out on the couch, my head on a stack of pillows that weren’t nearly as comfortable as my own, staring at the textured ceiling. Silence filled the room, until the heater kicked on and the vent in the living room began to rattle.

  I pushed up from the couch and headed toward the basement door. My fingers grasped the knob and turned it slowly, so it wouldn’t squeak. The stairwell was dimly lit by soft yellow lights along the guardrail. At the base of the stairs, I entered the guest room just off to the side. The door had been left open. Alice was fast asleep on the bed, her fingers wrinkling up the edge of my pillow.

  I crept onto the bed and lay down on my side, facing her. She stirred for a moment and then nestled her head against the pillow. I brushed my fingertips over her cheek and her eyes eased open.

  “Happy New Year, Alice,” I whispered, and leaned over to kiss her. She exhaled a sigh and reached her hand out to stroke the side of my neck.

  “Happy New Year, Brian.”

  A single breath of her scent made my heart flutter. Her warm touch soothed my nerves. There beside her, I felt whole again.

  “You should probably go before Mom finds out,” Alice added, tickling the back of my neck with her nails. “I wish you could stay.”

  “Don’t worry about that, Alice. Just get some sleep,” I said, tugging the blanket up so it would cover her bare shoulder. I brushed her hair to the side and kissed her forehead. “I’ll be here.”

  Chapter 18

  First awake. First into the kitchen in the morning. I flipped the switch on the electric kettle and removed a few mugs from the cupboard, careful not to clink them together.

  Sam came wandering in shortly after, her fluffy teal slippers scuffing against the linoleum.

  “Hey. Good morning, Sam.” I opened up the refrigerator and took out a carton of eggs. I slid a loaf of bread off the counter and reached for a mixing bowl.

  “Any special requests before I start anything?” I asked and gestured toward the cupboard behind her. “Can you grab me the cooking oil out of there, please?”

  She shuffled through the cupboard and passed the jug of canola oil to me.

  “No,” she replied with a shrug. “Not really. Mind if I hang out and watch?”

  “No. Though, actually, I’ll need you to go knock on Jane’s door in a bit and see if she’s up. I’ll wake Alice in a little while if she doesn’t come up here on her own. That girl hibernates like a bear.” A wonderfully cuddly soft teddy bear. I grinned to myself as I cracked an egg on the side of the bowl. Fro
m the corner of my eye, I saw Sam anxiously twisting the hem of her shirt around her fingers. I dropped the eggshell into the trash and reached for another egg from the carton.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I wasn’t really trying to pry,” she replied in a hushed tone, “but I sort of heard you guys arguing last night. You and Jane.”

  “Oh? Well, please don’t tell Alice, okay? It was nothing and—”

  “I won’t.” She shook her head. “Besides, she’s right. I mean… you’re right.” She leaned against the counter. “Only you can protect Allie now. None of us can. Not if those freaks up there keep jerking you guys away from us. We’re kinda helpless, but I’m glad she’s not alone.”

  “Thanks, Sam. Thanks for understanding, too.” I tugged open a drawer, pulled out a fork and started whisking the eggs.

  “Just… don’t hurt her, okay?” Sam added.

  I paused and turned to look her in the eye.

  “She loves you a lot,” she continued. “I don’t want her to get a broken heart. I may not be there to comfort her.”

  “She won’t. Trust me, Sam.” I went back to stirring the eggs. They melded into a bright yellow-orange color. “I’ve never been so sure about anything in my entire life. I’ll do everything I can to make sure she doesn’t get hurt by anyone or anything—including myself.”

  “Thanks, Brian.” Sam came over and pressed her fingers gently against my forearm. “You are a good guy. I get what she sees in you.”

  I chuckled lightly and smirked. “I sort of recall you having some kind of thing for me, too, when I first started going to your school.”

  Sam’s eyes widened and her cheeks flushed pink. “Um… back then? Well, that was a while ago. Like, ages ago. I… don’t really…”

  “It’s alright, Sam. I’m just being stupid. Trying to lighten the mood, that’s all. Apparently I suck at that.”

  She cracked a smile and I kind of felt like an ass for embarrassing her.

  I pulled a stick of butter from the fridge.

  “Grab me the large frying pan from out of the cupboard below the counter, please. And then would you mind going to see if Jane’s up yet?”

  Sam rummaged around for the pan, making more noise than an elephant in a china shop. Pans banged and clanged against each other, making me grimace. If Jane and Alice hadn’t been awake before…

  Finally, Sam stretched out an arm and offered the pan to me. I heard Jane’s bedroom door creak open and took that as my cue to go wake Alice.

  . . .

  I shoveled the last piece of French toast into my mouth, the room so quiet I could hear myself chewing. Silverware clinking. Tea being sipped.

  Last night had shaken all of us.

  I wanted to have a word with the Saviors, but it wasn’t like we could pick and choose when to talk to them. They only brought us up there when they had something to say. We hadn’t seen them for months. Not since the baby had been taken away.

  They just worked their sick magic on us and forced us to do their dirty work. I was tired of it. Tired of how they were treating Alice, especially. The excursions left her burned out and depressed. How many more would there be?

  “I think we should stop,” I said, breaking the silence.

  Alice looked up at me from her plate. Sam shoveled another forkful of scrambled eggs into her mouth. Jane took a sip of her tea and focused on me.

  “Stop what?” Alice asked, laying her fork down on the napkin beside her plate. She’d eaten most of her food—more than she’d eaten in a while.

  “Whatever it is they want us to do—the Saviors. I think we should stop. Then they’ll have no choice but to talk to us again. Right?”

  Alice shrugged.

  “You don’t want to upset them,” said Jane. “We don’t know what they’re capable of.”

  “I’d like to think they aren’t violent,” I said. “We don’t know for sure yet, but it’s worth a shot to tell them no. We don’t want to be their guinea pigs anymore. They’ve gotta have more than enough people by now. We must have touched a few hundred. I say next time we get sent somewhere, let’s not start anyone, and we’ll see if that doesn’t provoke them into making some kind of move. If they’re as docile as I’m hoping they are, maybe it will do us some good to stand up to them.”

  I looked at Alice for a response, but she stared down at her empty plate.

  “Alice?”

  “Whatever it takes to get them to leave us alone,” she muttered. “I don’t care either way. I just want to get this over with. Maybe if we help them, they’ll eventually stop bothering us and we can get back to our normal lives.”

  “What about the baby? Is that going to be our normal life in a few years? If we have to raise that child, that’s eighteen years at least—not that our kid wouldn’t be worth living for, but no matter what we do, we’re going to be plagued by this for the rest of our lives.”

  “I get what you’re saying, Brian.” Alice looked up. “But I don’t want to start trouble.”

  “They’re the ones who started trouble,” I growled. “First with your mom and who knows how many others by now. And then with us. Having the audacity to force us into having a child. Now we have to steal things to get by because they don’t even give us any warning before they whisk us away to these random places. As far as I’m concerned, the Saviors have crossed the line, and I’m not going to deal with it anymore.”

  “Maybe Brian’s right,” Sam said, putting down her fork and looking over at Alice. “Maybe if you stop doing what they want you to do, they won’t want you anymore.”

  “Maybe.” Alice heaved a sigh. “But what if they choose others instead—maybe kids even younger than us—and the cycle continues? I don’t want to be responsible for that.”

  “You already are, Alice,” I said. “You’ve been starting people you don’t even know. Who knows the consequences of widespread infection? We don’t even know what this fluorescence is going to do to us in the long run, let alone hundreds of people and their descendants.”

  “Guys.” Jane lifted her hand. “Please. Do whatever you have to to get home in one piece, okay? I can’t lose my daughter. And I don’t want to lose you either, Brian. We need to be cautious of the decisions we make from this point on. Even so, we obviously don’t have the technological capabilities to compete with what the Saviors have, and there’s a possibility you could get hurt if you disobey.”

  “I told you before, Jane, that I’ll protect Alice at any cost, and I meant it.”

  . . .

  Sam went home after lunch.

  “Any plans for the rest of the day?” Jane asked, sliding our plates into the dishwasher rack. She washed her hands in the sink and dried them on a kitchen towel.

  “Not really.” I shrugged.

  “Alright. I’ll be in the living room if you need me.” She left the kitchen.

  I’d wanted to focus on my comic during Christmas break, but the stress from recent events had given me major artist’s block. Drawing usually helped me focus and kept me centered. Usually. It had been several weeks, but I hadn’t been able to finish my most recent panels from Staggered Hart.

  “Be right back,” I said to Alice, and excused myself to dart downstairs and grab the leather journal she’d given me last Christmas. This year, she and Jane had teamed up to buy me a set of inking pens—a graphic novelist’s best friend. Learning how to feather and cross-hatch properly with the inks would take time, but I had to start at some point.

  I jogged back upstairs and took a seat at the kitchen table. Alice sat beside me and rested her head on my shoulder as I riffled back and forth between unfinished sketches and full penciled panels.

  If it hadn’t been for Alice, I would never have pushed myself to improve throughout the year. Since we’d become friends, she’s been my muse. I’d finished the first comic in the series because she’d convinced me to believe in my dream of becoming a graphic novelist. Bef
ore her, I’d only had a messy book of half-sketches and an incoherent storyline.

  Now, I had something. Something great. Something tangible.

  “Are you going to ink and color these once you learn how? And then maybe… try to get it published?” Alice stared at me, admiration shimmering in her eyes.

  “Maybe. But I’m probably not good enough. I’ve got a long way to go. I should probably be learning other, more valuable life skills, but I just can’t stop drawing. It’s who I am.”

  Stress and fatigue had left me weak—susceptible to the debilitating disease that is self-doubt—an artist’s worst enemy. An art killer. But how do you make good art when you’ve got alien DNA pumping through your veins, changing the way you live?

  “Don’t you want to do more with your life, Brian? Really go places?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know anything. I’m an artist. I just draw shit.”

  “You don’t draw shit.” Alice stopped, realizing what she’d said, and then let out a nervous chuckle. I laughed, too. “What I meant to say was, your art is amazing. I saw that even before we had started dating, and you’ve improved so much since then. You’ve completed your first comic. You’re talented and I know you’ve got potential. You just have to keep your chin up. Keep trying and keep pushing forward no matter what.”

  “Even if aliens keep screwing with my life?”

  “Yes. Even if aliens keep screwing with our life, Brian.”

  Chapter 19

  New Year’s Eve replayed in my mind each night as I tried to sleep, clear as day—nearly touchable—like a vivid dream. Keeping me awake. Impossible. Unbelievable. But real. I almost didn’t believe it had happened, but four other people could vouch for my sanity.

  We returned to school Monday, more fatigued and less motivated than we had been before the holiday break. Classes seemed longer and teachers’ monologues drier than before. Plus, the ongoing threat of being abruptly sucked from this safe familiarity and thrown into a loud, foreign city was a total buzz kill.