Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy

by P. Anastasia

  “Shh.” Alice shushed me with a flattened hand and her gaze fixated on the podium in the center of the auditorium. Kareena had just been called and was sashaying across the stage in a navy blue cap and gown. The top of her cap had a rhinestone letter K glittering on it. She’d pretty much gotten over the whole David incident by now and moved on. Lucky.

  “Wow. That blue is not her color,” I said, shocked she’d be caught wearing something so horrible. I was honestly surprised she hadn’t stayed home instead.

  Alice snickered. “That’s not nice, Brian.”

  “Well?” I shrugged.

  Kareena had tied a sparkly beaded sash around her waist so she would stand out, but it made her look like a frumpy wizard instead of a runway model.

  “Okay. Maybe it isn’t the best, but it’s not like she picked the color.”

  Kareena looked up at us and waved, grinning like a thirteen-year-old girl at a boy-band concert.

  At me, not Alice.

  Alice hopped up out of her seat to wave back, flaunting a big toothy grin as if she’d thought Kareena had been waving at her. I felt bad, but shouldn’t have. It was Kareena, after all. The girl with the emotional depth of a mannequin.

  Alice sat down.

  “Wow. Really, Alice?”

  “I’m happy for her. Aren’t you?”

  “I’ll be happy when we’re both over eighteen. That’s all I want right now. I couldn’t care less about this.”

  She screwed up her face and narrowed her eyes at me.

  “Sorry.” In my defense, no amount of homework would get the Saviors off our backs. “Yes. I’m proud of her. To be honest, I’m surprised she graduated at all, considering how little she seemed to care about studying.”

  We met Kareena outside on the school lawn after the ceremony. She’d already taken off the hideous robe and had it draped over her arm. Her cap and crumpled up fake diploma were in her hands. Like everyone else who’d graduated that day, she’d get the real one in the mail in a few weeks.

  “So, you want to come over to my place and celebrate?” Kareena asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

  “Um. No. Not really.” I shook my head and tried not to grimace so obviously.

  “Aw, but Daddy said I could have whoever I wanted over.” She grinned at me again. I caught a glimpse of something glittering on her nose. A diamond stud in her left nostril.

  “Oh, you noticed?” she said, tilting her head to the side so the sun made the gem sparkle. “Graduation slash eighteenth birthday gift from me.” She giggled.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Did it hurt?” asked Alice, standing up on her toes to get a better look.

  “No,” Kareena replied matter-of-factly. “Well, yeah. It hurt like hell, actually, but it was tooootally worth it. It’s hot, right?” She bit her lip and looked to me for a reply.

  I shrugged. “Whatever.”

  Her lips thinned. “Fine,” she said, crossing her arms. “Be that way. Look, what’s your problem lately anyway, Brian? You barely dragged your ass out of the tenth grade and now you’re mad at the world!”

  “My problem? Really?” I raised my voice and clenched a fist unconsciously. “My problem is—”

  “Brian, no. Just drop it, please,” Alice said, stepping in front of me. “Please? Just let her have fun today.”

  Kareena scowled and turned away. “You guys suck. I can’t believe I got stuck with you two as friends because of this alien crap inside me. This is so unfair.”

  “How do you do it, Kareena?” I asked, my blood boiling. “How do you go about every day acting like nothing has happened? You pretend you’re not a part of something bigger, that you aren’t as susceptible to the risks as we are. How do you know they don’t have other plans for you, too?”

  She turned back and her expression melted into a frown.

  “You can’t let anyone have fun, can you?” she said. “Who made you king, anyway? You’re so goddamn selfish and you think everything is about you. Poor Brian. He’s got a bad heart. His motorcycle got trashed. Oh, poor Brian, his mom went mental.”

  “Shut up, Kareena!” I took a step closer. “Don’t you dare bring my mother into this. She’s got nothing to do with it.”

  “Yeah, right. You’re so sorry for yourself it makes me sick. All you do is complain and moan and groan about how rough your life is. Ever since that guy hurt you, you haven’t shut up about it. You’re just a whiney little brat. Well, you know what? He hurt me, too. And my life isn’t exactly going the way I’d like it to, either. I haven’t been able to have a boyfriend since this shit started and you… you at least have her. Hell, you get to live with your damn girlfriend. I can’t get close to another guy without feeling like my head’s gonna freaking explode.” She looked away, trying to hide the redness flushing her face.

  “You’re a real buzz kill, you know that?” she added with a huff. “Some of us want to move on. Some of us want to believe this shit’s temporary.” Kareena turned her back on me again and started walking away. “I’m not letting you ruin a good day for me, Brian. I’ve got friends waiting.”

  “Kareena, wait!” I called after her, but she flipped me a middle finger and then jogged off, disappearing into a crowd of other graduates.

  I hadn’t been trying to upset her. I had only wanted her to come to terms with reality. Was I wrong to be so worried?

  We weren’t normal teenagers anymore. If Alice and Kareena thought we were, they were lying to themselves.

  Chapter 25

  My surroundings began to materialize.

  Midday sky. Faded blue, muddled with puffs of white and grey. Long stretches of city sidewalk on both sides of an asphalt road, and industrial buildings as far as the eye could see. Transparent, blurry outlines of people appeared all around me.

  No blinding neon signs or blaring music, but the hellish, sticky heat overwhelmed me. I took in a deep breath of thick humidity and dirty air.

  “Alice?”

  I started off toward a nearby building made of huge grey cinderblocks. A large decorative brass emblem of a caduceus—a winged staff entwined with two snakes—loomed above the glass doors. A pharmaceutical industry building.

  I craned my neck back. Reaching up what looked like a hundred floors, mirrored glass windows reflected the sooty-blue sky. The skyscraper loomed over the rest of the street, taller than anything I’d ever seen.

  I bent over to rest my hands on my knees and groaned, exasperated by the scorching heat. I loosened my tie and rolled the sleeves of my dress shirt up to my elbows.

  They’d taken me straight from work this time, the Saviors.

  “Alice!” I called out. “Where are you!?”

  Sweat drizzled off my brow, stinging my eyes. I grimaced and wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. The roar of city traffic and disgruntled drivers honking at each other made it almost impossible to hear anything else. People at a nearby crosswalk raised their voices to combat the noise.

  The heat bore down on me, making it hard to breathe. I unbuttoned the top few buttons of my shirt and shrugged off my satin vest. It slid to the ground, and within seconds it materialized on the other plane. The small cursive embroidery that read “Jacques’” glittered in the light, catching the attention of a passerby. A woman stopped dead in her tracks just a foot away from me, looked down and tilted her head to the side. Then, she glanced back up—straight through me—and her eyes almost made contact with my own. Oblivious.

  “Brian!”

  I jerked my head toward the sound of the voice.

  “Alice?”

  She came running full speed around the block. I hurried to meet her.

  “I was worried about you,” she said, panting. “I yelled… but I didn’t hear anything.” She doubled over to catch her breath. “Then I heard you call my name and… I didn’t stop running until I found you.”

  “Thank God you’re okay. Any sign of Kareena or…?”

&n
bsp; “David?” She shook her head. “No. I was hoping we wouldn’t find him, actually.”

  “I kind of hoped we would.” I cupped my fist with my other hand.

  “What?” Her eyes widened and she straightened up. “Why?”

  “I already told you. He needs to be stopped.”

  “Yeah, but… I didn’t think you were serious.”

  “I don’t talk shit, Alice. You know that.”

  She swallowed hard. “Yeah. I know.”

  We walked along the sidewalk, avoiding people as much as we could. A group of kids came bounding toward us on skateboards. They blurred by and we narrowly avoided them by pressing ourselves flat up against the wall of the nearest building.

  Alice sighed. “I hate this,” she said.

  “Me, too. And this heat!” I plunged two fingers into my collar and pried it away from my neck. “We should get out of it.” I wiped my forehead again.

  “But we need to find Kareena.”

  “She’ll find us. Hopefully.”

  “Kareena!” Alice had cupped her hands to her face and shouted at the top of her lungs. The sharp pitch pierced my ears.

  “Keep it down! What if he hears you?”

  “We need to find her! Karee—”

  I grabbed Alice and covered her mouth with my hand. She grunted, struggling to push me away. I released her and she stumbled forward several steps.

  “Brian!?” She swerved around and glared. “What’s your problem!?”

  “Shh. We’ll find her, okay? I just don’t want him to find us first.”

  She huffed. “Don’t treat me like I’m useless.”

  “I never said you were useless.”

  She marched off in the direction I had come from and I bolted after her.

  We walked a few blocks and then circled back around toward where I had been dropped off originally. We turned a corner and Alice gasped. Kareena stood leaning against the wall of a building, her arms folded together.

  “Kareena!” Alice rushed ahead of me.

  Kareena cracked a weak, fatigued smile and took a step toward us. Her head dropped and she toppled over. I darted after her and barely caught her in my arms.

  “Hi,” she muttered, hardly able to lift her face.

  Heat exhaustion?

  “How long have you been waiting for us?” I asked. “Never mind. Let’s get inside.” I motioned toward the doors of the pharmaceutical company.

  “Wh-what about all of the infected?” Kareena murmured, resting a lot of weight on me as I helped her back to her feet.

  “Screw it for now. We need to rest.” I swept Kareena’s thick, disheveled hair back. “You need rest.”

  Alice pried her fingers between the sliding glass doors and forced them open.

  A burst of ice cold air shocked us. Goose bumps rose all over my skin and I shivered.

  Inside, we found a quiet, low-traffic corner and I helped Kareena down to the floor so she could sit.

  “How’d you know we would come here?” Alice asked, sitting down beside her and leaning against the glass curtain wall that ran around the entire perimeter of the ground floor.

  “I found Brian’s vest on the ground there.” She twisted around and pointed out the window. It was still there. Trampled on and kicked off to the side, but there.

  If only I’d been smart enough to have left it on purpose.

  “Smart girl,” I said, putting a hand onto her bare shoulder. Her skin felt hot and moist with sweat. “I’m glad we found you. I was… worried.”

  She smiled a genuine smile at me. My heart sank.

  I cared about her. But I didn’t care about her the way she hoped I would. It really got under my skin some days—how badly she wanted something more from me. Other times, it just made me feel terrible—like I was betraying her somehow—leading her on.

  But I wasn’t; my intentions to keep up a relationship with Alice were obvious, and they nearly always had been. Kareena needed to accept the truth.

  “Are you feeling better?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Thanks,” Kareena replied.

  “Good.” I glanced around the office building, watching out-of-focus men and women in dress suits hustling in all directions, briefcases in hand. Headset pieces slung over their ears—speaking to phantoms.

  A slender woman wearing a dress jacket and skirt came rushing past us; her hair had been pinned up into a tight bun and an earpiece was clasped over her ear. “What do you mean, one of the subjects had a seizure?” she said, furrowing her eyebrows and coming to a sudden halt right in front of us.

  Alice shrunk back against the wall. Kareena came to her feet.

  “That wasn’t even a side effect in the original trials!” she continued. “I’ll have President Greenmire get back to you.” The woman pressed the side of her earpiece and shook her head. “Liars. Seizures. He’s full of it.” She rolled her shoulders back and closed her eyes a moment while she tried to regain her composure.

  We waited quietly for her to move on, but she just stood there a while, staring out the window—through me—at the street. I swallowed hard when she took a step closer.

  “Damn.” The woman brought a hand up to her ear again and pressed the receiver. “This is Davis.” She turned away and rushed off down the hallway.

  I exhaled. Alice stood up beside me and wrapped her hands around mine.

  “I wonder what she was talking about,” she whispered.

  “I don’t know, but it’s none of our business.”

  Alice nodded. She turned to the side and gasped.

  “Brian!” Her grip on my hand tightened. “It’s him.”

  I veered around to look out the window behind us.

  “Shit! It is!”

  The three of us ducked. David had been walking down the sidewalk on the other side of the street.

  “He’s coming this way,” Kareena said, backing away from the window. “We have to go.”

  Yeah.

  We should have run as fast as we could in the other direction.

  “Brian! Where are you going!?” Kareena trotted after me, Alice close on her heels.

  “Stay here, you two,” I said, craning my neck back. “I’ll settle this.”

  “But—” Alice started.

  “I mean it,” I said, swerving around. “Stay here.” I glared, pointing firmly at them. “Please.”

  Alice looked down at her feet and nodded.

  “Don’t be a dumbass,” Kareena snapped, squinting and shaking her head at me.

  “I’ve got this,” I said reassuringly.

  Kareena crossed her arms.

  “Be careful, Brian!” Alice muttered.

  I’d already placed a hand on the glass doors.

  No turning back.

  They slid open. Hot, steamy air rushed against my skin and I scowled.

  “Hey!” David instantly made eye contact with me from the other side of the street. “I’ve been looking all over for you little shits. Where the hell have you been?”

  I clenched my fists.

  Breathe. Stay calm.

  “What do they have on you?” I asked, raising my voice and stepping forward just as David jogged up onto the sidewalk. “Why are you doing this for them? What’s in it for you?” From over David’s shoulder, I saw Kareena and Alice watching me intently from the window, their faces nearly pressed to the glass.

  “That’s none of your business,” he growled, baring his teeth in an angry sneer. “Where the hell’s your girlfriend? And the other one?”

  “We need to talk, David.” I shook fresh sweat from my brow.

  “Like hell we do.” David narrowed his eyes and took a step closer. “Now where are they?” Golden light sparked from beneath his shirt and a warm amber-yellow glow radiated from the center of his chest. He raised a fist.

  “Why don’t you fight like a real man?” I said, struggling to keep my voice from breaking. My heart raced. “Stop
relying on your powers. It only proves how much of a coward you really are.”

  “Shut up, kid! Unless you want me to hurt you again.”

  Another step closer.

  I held my ground. Shallow breaths. Knees tingling. My short fingernails pressing into the flesh of my palms. Stinging.

  He looked down his nose at me, his dark-brown, near-black eyes judging me—evaluating my strengths. My weaknesses.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” he said, so close to my face his hot, cigarette breath wafted into my nostrils. I turned my head to the side, but the scent lingered and I coughed.

  “Tell me where they are, or…”

  “Or you’ll what?” I sucked in a breath of muggy air and my eyes darted again toward the window.

  “Or I’ll… Wait a minute.” His eyes narrowed and he began to turn.

  Shit!

  I lunged after him.

  We hit the concrete with a thud, rolled off the curb and onto the street. I straddled his back and hooked an arm around his throat, taking advantage of the fact that he was winded. He arched and reached behind, twisting his fingers around my shirt. A forceful tug and I landed on the ground beside him.

  Then he came at me again. I kicked his outstretched arm away from me and wriggled out of reach, trying to scramble to my feet. My shoe caught in the storm drain and I fell forward over the curb, slamming into the pavement.

  Damn it!

  Black spots flashed before my eyes.

  I choked, the breath knocked from my lungs.

  David came up behind me and locked me against the ground on my stomach, pinning me at the waist with all of his weight. He yanked my arms behind my back and pressed a knee into my neck. I struggled to push him off, but his iron grasp drained my strength.

  A bolt of electric energy shot through me and my lungs seized. Crushing pain flooded every inch of flesh and tissue, twisting and knotting me up inside. I couldn’t breathe.

  My heart throbbed. Irregular. Pulsing up into my throat.

  Surroundings blurred.

  Sweat trickled into my mouth. Salty. Metallic.

  I coughed, spitting up bright red.

  My face burned with feverish heat, and then a headache exploded in my temples. My shoulders weakened and sharp waves of pain ripped across my sternum, crushing through my ribs.