Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy

by P. Anastasia

  “People are dying! You’re going to kill us if you keep doing this. Is that what you want?”

  “We will find a cure,” he answered sternly, “at any cost.” The tone of his voice was more unaffected than ever.

  My jaw dropped and then I closed my mouth and swallowed hard. They didn’t give a damn. They didn’t care if they took the whole damn world down with them.

  The Prism were right.

  We were screwed.

  Chapter 21

  “How dare you lie to the Saviors about me,” Taylor hissed, the bitterness on his face sending my heart into panic mode. “Why did you do that?”

  “You’re being an ass. And I didn’t lie, either! They said it themselves; you don’t have to keep hurting me if I’m willing to help you!”

  “But you’re not!” he snarled through bared teeth, his sloping eyebrows accentuating his vile expression. “You say you are, but you’re not.”

  “Taylor, why are you so obsessed with starting people? Why can’t you admit that what you’re doing is wrong? That—”

  “You don’t get it, do you, Kareena?” he continued in a raspier voice. “This is about more than what the Saviors want. When they first put fluorescence inside me, I thought I was in trouble. I thought what they did to me was outrageous and it made me furious. But as time went on, I started to realize that my ability to start people was a gift. When I absorb someone’s energy, it does something to me. It makes me feel alive. Then I learned that there’s energy in everything. Whether I take it from you or not, I’ll thrive. It’s around us constantly. In the air. In the ground. We breathe it in. We consume it. We are made of it.” Subtle bursts of neon purple light emanated from his fingertips. Witnessing the external manifestation of his power sent chills up my spine. I took a step back.

  “If you can feel all of that energy,” I started, “then why do you keep wanting to take mine, too?”

  “That pretty pink light flowing through your veins is more potent than any of the rest,” he said, making a fist. The light danced across his knuckles, encircling his hand. “Starting people is a quick fix, but pure fluorescence is the real deal.”

  “What!?” I scowled in disgust. “So you’re getting high on fluorescence? Is that it? You’re using me like a drug to foster this sick craving of yours?”

  He put his open hands out to the sides and a ripple of purple light bubbled up through the floorboards, arcing and darting toward his palms as if he were channeling it like a receptor.

  The lights in the room shuttered on and off until Taylor made closed fists again and the bolts of light faded into his skin.

  “The Saviors gave me a gift they don’t have,” he said, raising his hands toward his chest. “One you don’t have, either. I can move energy—bend it to my will.” Purple sparks crackled between his hands and flickering color coursed through his entire body, no longer isolated to his right arm. “The Saviors can’t do that, but I can because I’m… different. And you, Kareena, you’re filled with the very basic form of this energy.”

  “It’s toxic, Taylor,” I huffed. “This shit is going to kill us all if we don’t do something about it.”

  “How do you know?” he asked, showing his teeth in a wicked grin. “How do you know it’s going to kill us… and not just, say, you?”

  The way the words rolled off his tongue made me cringe. A death threat? What the hell?

  He came closer and I staggered back, trying to keep my distance even though the room was quite small.

  “Do you know why we’re all different colors?”

  “No.”

  “Because they want diversity. They tried to match their genetic code to ours and it bonded with each of us differently. But they called me the Variant—the one they created by mixing different strains and colors.”

  “You’re a DNA cesspool!” I snapped. “That’s all you are!”

  “Maybe so, but what would happen if I were able to drain abilities from the others and not just you? How much fluorescence could I absorb if I chose not to stop even after you went unconscious?”

  My eyes widened at the thought. “You’re sick. They created you because they couldn’t control us. We were strong enough to fight back and you’re too weak!”

  “No!” He bolted toward me and caught me by the throat with both hands. I strained to breathe as he squeezed my airway.

  “Tay—lor.” I fought to pry his hands from my neck, but he squeezed harder. Fluorescence seeped out of him, threatening to poison me into submission.

  “I own you,” he sneered, bringing his face close to mine. “I don’t care what the Saviors say. As long as you’re with me, I own you.” His grasp tightened and I wriggled in resistance. Tiny flashes of light distorted my vision and I reached both of my hands up to grab his face.

  Immediately, he let up.

  I didn’t.

  I sucked a labored breath into my recovering windpipe. “Don’t you touch me, Taylor,” I wheezed through gritted teeth, my throat still tight. “Don’t you ever touch me like that again!” Hot pink light streamed down my arms and into my fingertips, pulsing into his head and invading his bloodstream, illuminating the outline of his skull from the inside out. His eye sockets blazed with colored light as he grimaced and gasped in agony. “How do you like it?” I bent down to stay locked onto him as he slipped onto his knees. “It doesn’t feel so good, does it?”

  Oh, but it felt good to me. Revenge for all the things I knew he’d done—and the things he may have done while I was unconscious.

  He clawed feebly at my hands and I tolerated the discomfort to watch him squirm. I wanted to break him. I wanted him to know just what it felt like to be helpless.

  “Kareena!” he howled in a wavering voice.

  I kept my fingers firmly planted around his head.

  What if I didn’t stop? What then?

  Vigorous heat radiated from my body. I’d never taken it so far before. So far that a line of sweat beaded up on my forehead and my skin tingled.

  Brilliant white light flashed beside me and a humming noise caught my attention. Another portal appeared, shards of white sparkles spinning around in a circle.

  “Kareena,” a soft, transcendent voice echoed through my head.

  Taylor was on all fours now, grunting while the pink light infiltrated the rest of his body, veins of color seeping down his shoulders and spine.

  “Kareena, you must not kill him,” the voice requested. It was the Prism.

  Jesus, I wanted to kill him! I really did. I didn’t even know if I could or not, but it might have been worth a shot to get him out of my life. He’d been nothing but hell since the Saviors forced me to stay with him. Then he grabbed me and…

  No one puts their hands on me like that.

  No one.

  The sparkling portal flashed brighter and the swirling rings spun faster.

  “Kareena, go! Leave him!” The Prism’s voice grew more thunderous in my head.

  Taylor was hunched over on the ground near my feet. I released his head and he fell forward onto my ankles. I shoved him away, turned, and dashed toward the portal. A rush of cold air hit me as I passed through.

  Weightlessness engulfed me and I screamed. There was no ground beneath my feet, and my first reaction was to kick my legs and flail my arms in a poor attempt to keep myself from falling.

  But as I levitated in the darkness, my body unmoving, I quickly realized the resistance did me no good. I hadn’t moved an inch—that I could tell—through the inky blue-blackness.

  Like the night sky long after dusk, tiny flecks of glittering dust came to life around me, fading in and out—glowing like pure white candlelight. The stars cast a dim ambience on my skin and reiterated the fact that I was still hanging in midair, my body suspended by an unseen force.

  I let my arms sink down to my sides. My hair drifted in a ghostly manner near my face as if moved by a gentle current. I took a deep breath and exhal
ed comfortably. The air was natural. Easy on my lungs. The temperature around me was tepid and mild. Surreal. I felt like a constellation suspended in the night sky—otherworldly.

  I lifted my hand and reached toward one of the sparkling lights, but my fingers passed straight through it. It was fixated and unmoving in its place as if hanging from invisible wire. The glow warmed and illuminated my skin.

  “Kareena,” a voice sounded from everywhere. I turned my head and saw nothing but more tiny stars glimmering for as far as I could see. Hundreds of sparkles began moving toward each other until they came together to form a single massive light. Branches of color bolted through the shape and I instantly recognized it.

  “Where am I?” I asked the Prism, resisting the innate urge to wriggle my dangling feet. I tried not to move my arms so much, but it felt necessary—as if “swimming” in the ethereal atmosphere was the only way to stay afloat within it.

  “We have brought you to our world in an effort to speak to you at greater length about your fight with the Saviors. Our atmosphere is better suited for this than your own.”

  “But I thought your kind didn’t want to get involved with us? I thought only a few of you—”

  “You are correct, Kareena,” the voice echoed, interrupting me. “It has, however, taken on much greater significance than we had originally believed and we had no choice but to inform the rest of our kind about your struggle. What the Saviors have done to the Variant is an unthinkable horror, which has endangered us all.”

  “I almost killed him,” I whispered, dropping my head. “Didn’t I?”

  “As a Seeker, you are capable of many things,” it replied, not fully answering my question. “We will attempt to find another way to solve the issue with the Variant. One that will allow him to live on without the infection corrupting his judgment.”

  “What if the Saviors start abducting us all again?” I asked. “Can you help the others, too, please?”

  “That is why we have brought you here,” it continued. “We have been able to create a token which can protect each of you from being taken again. You must distribute them to the others, however.”

  “Can’t you give them to them yourself? What if I touched them all and let them actually see you? They already think I’m crazy and—”

  “They cannot see us,” it said, glowing slightly brighter and then softening again as if emphasizing the words. “Even if you were to give them your sight temporarily, they are not bonded to the genetic code. Their eyes are incapable of viewing Prism essence. The consequences would be dire and irreversible. Blindness or worse. Do not ever subject the others to your touch while we are present.”

  Blindness? Worse?

  “Lift your hand,” it requested.

  I stretched my arm out in front of me, palm up.

  A flow of white trickled out of the Prism and a stream of twinkling smoke wandered through the air, curling toward me. I flinched as the icy aura touched my skin and coiled around my wrist. It solidified and came together in the shape of a thick bangle, which I instinctively brought my other hand across to touch. Smooth, supple snakeskin beneath my fingertips. Cool to touch, but soft and weightless against my skin.

  Inside the clear resin-like casing was a spiral of prismatic energy. I rotated my wrist and watched rainbow sparkles arc and ripple through the bracelet, bending and darting off the edges like wild, multi-colored fire.

  “The portals protect you for a day,” the Prism said. “But these will protect you indefinitely.”

  As if moved by invisible touch, my hand turned back over. Three small pearl-sized orbs appeared within my palm.

  “You must give them to the others so that they will be safe, as well.”

  “How do they use them?” I asked, closing my fingers around what felt like feathers in my palm.

  “Distribute them between the other Fluorescent Ones and the orbs will take liberty with the rest,” it replied. “We will send you back to the others now.”

  “Wait!” I kicked my feet but didn’t move at all in the air. “What are you going to do about Taylor? How are we going to stop him from starting more people?”

  “He is much too volatile at this time to confront. We will search for a way to contain his powers. Please do what you can to avoid him. In the meanwhile, you should attempt to relocate the Tracker. He may be in danger if the Saviors decide to search for him once they lose sight of you.”

  David? I felt a tinge of guilt for leaving him at the hotel, but how was I supposed to know everything would go south so quickly?

  “I’ll try. We don’t know anything about where he went, though.”

  “We will speak again soon.” The large mass of light burst into pieces, breaking off into hundreds of tiny stars that redistributed themselves all around. Then a line of white cracked in the air before me, and a shining portal split open. I was pulled through and a gush of cool air swept over me.

  Chapter 22

  I landed on concrete—more gently than I thought possible—and the portal sucked itself closed behind me. A cold breeze licked at my skin and I shivered, rubbing my bare arms briskly as I glanced around. The huge empty place appeared to be a parking garage aglow with sputtering fluorescent lights.

  “Hello?” I said in a barely audible tone. Thick columns of concrete held up the floor overhead. I staggered toward the edge of the lot where the floors separated and poked my head out over the side of the overhang to look down. The garage towered several stories over the empty darkened streets below.

  I turned around and stared at the hundreds of vacant parking spots marked with white lines. Graffiti paintings decorated the walls in loud colors that the flickering lamps brought to life in flashes of dying light. Some of them art, others slurs of hate and anger. All of them making me feel out of place—frightened.

  I heard a door hinge squealing and veered my head toward the sound. There was a small concrete room in the distance with lights on inside. An electrical room, or something like it. I could just see a cutout of a window and a door from where I was. I wanted to call out to whoever it was, but I couldn’t. My lips parted and nothing came out. Fear paralyzed me.

  I swallowed hard and made my way toward the room. A lamp crackled above me and I gasped, ducking. Then I heard the door again. This time, I was close enough to see it crack open. Soft blue light radiated from inside and my heart began to race.

  “Brian!” I called out to him. A silhouette came out of the room and the blue light got brighter, followed by a green aura behind it. “Alice!”

  I picked up speed and jogged over to meet them. Brian raised a flashlight toward me and I saw his eyes widen with surprise.

  “Kareena? You’re back!” He lowered the flashlight down to his side and clicked it off. “We were worried. Where did you go? What happened to you?”

  Alice poked her head out from behind him. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I’m fine. Your freak-of-a-brother, Taylor, tried to choke me.” I clenched my fists at the violent memory and felt the cool marble-like Prism orbs press into my palm. “Oh, but the Prism saved me and gave me these.” I put out my hand and unfolded my fingers.

  Brian’s and Alice’s eyes lit up with curiosity as they leaned in closer to watch the mesmerizing glow of the sparkling balls.

  “Oh, thank God you can see them,” I said, heaving a sigh of relief.

  “What the hell are those?” Brian asked, his eyebrows wrinkling together.

  “I don’t know, really, but they wanted me to give them to you.” I glanced at the iridescent band of light twirling around my own wrist. “They’re bracelets. I have one, too. Can you see it?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “The Prism told me they will keep the Saviors from abducting us. Just like the portal helped cloak me for a day when I first went through it. These are made of the same stuff, I guess.”

  “So, we free ourselves from the Saviors,” Brian started, co
cking an eyebrow, “only to become prisoners of the Prism instead?”

  “No.” I scoffed. “We protect our asses from the Saviors now before they kill us all, and then we worry about the Prism.”

  “Good point.” He took a deep breath and nodded. “Alright. I get it.”

  “Here.” I plucked one of the balls up between my thumb and index finger and handed it to Brian. “Take it.”

  He was hesitant to put out his hand but finally did.

  I dropped the ball into his open fingers and it combusted upon impact into a plume of metallic dust. Brian’s jaw dropped as he lost sight of the thing.

  “Where did it go!?” he asked, turning his hand over frantically.

  “It’s fine. It’s fine,” I assured him, taking hold of his hand while I watched the mist of light swirl around his wrist and solidify into the same kind of colorful bangle I, too, had. “It’s there. It’s on you, now.”

  “It… is?” He turned his hand over again and squinted. Then he reached his other hand across to touch his wrist. “I don’t… feel anything.”

  “I can see it on you. You can hardly feel them. Trust me, it’s there.”

  “If you say so.” He shrugged and continued to stare at his hand.

  “Here, Alice,” I said, turning toward her and holding out one of the orbs. She lifted her cupped hands up to meet mine and I released it into them. Like the first, this one also erupted into a cloud of colorful, metallic dust. It coiled around and took its shape on her petite wrist.

  “Is it… on me?” Alice asked, lifting her hand to eye level.

  “Yes. Do you want to see it?” I replied. Alice was the only person I hadn’t shared my vision with yet, and considering how mildly Taylor reacted to the brief spell of it I had first given him, I was convinced I could lend it gently to Alice, as well.

  “No, Alice,” Brian advised, raising his voice a little. “It… hurts.”

  “She’ll be fine,” I said reassuringly. “I’ll be gentle, I swear.”