by P. Anastasia
Brian looked uneasy even as Alice seemed to perk up.
“Can you show me?” she asked in an awed, child-like voice.
“Yes.” I tucked the last orb away into a pocket in my jeans and then lifted both of my open hands out toward the sides of Alice’s head. I noticed Brian tense up as I briefly pressed my fingertips against Alice’s temples. She closed her eyes and sucked in a breath as light penetrated her skin, making her hairline glow momentarily with a subtle pink hue.
“Look.” I took my hands away from her head.
“Oh my God!” Her eyes grew wide. “Oh my God!” She lifted her wrist up and turned it over, staring wide-eyed at the colorful light dancing around her skin. “It’s… it’s beautiful!” She swerved around. “Brian, you have to see this! It’s so beautiful. It’s like… fairy dust or… magic or… Oh. Ow.” She cringed and cupped her hand against her forehead. “Ugh.”
The headache had started already.
“Yeah,” Brian interrupted, putting his hand on Alice’s shoulder. “That’s the not so beautiful part.” Then he lifted his glowing blue hand toward her face and brushed his fingertips across her forehead.
“Oh my God, wow, though!” Alice continued, grinning from ear to ear now as she looked up into Brian’s eyes and then mine. “Is that what you see all the time?”
“Kind of. I mean, the stuff in you guys isn’t the same, but that’s sort of what the Prism look like to me.”
“I’d love to see them, too, someday,” she added, sighing. “They must be so… breathtaking.”
“Yeah. You can’t, though.” I shrugged. “They told me it would cause irreversible damage of some kind if one of you guys tried to look at them.”
“Oh…”
“Let’s scratch charades with the Prism off our to-do list then, shall we?” Brian said with a smirk.
His upbeat, slightly sarcastic tone made me smile.
Chapter 23
I propped my back up against the frigid concrete wall and pulled Brian’s jacket over my knees. He’d lent it to me to help stave off the cold that kept creeping up through the floors of the garage. It was nastier outside in the open though, and the bitterly cold wind gust whistled through the floors, taunting us even while we stayed huddled up in the safety of an enclosed maintenance room.
“I… wonder if my mom’s okay,” Alice murmured, leaning her head on Brian’s shoulder. The two of them sat with their backs pressed to the wall across from me. He reached for one of her hands and pulled it into his lap.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I’ve been thinking about Peter and everyone else who may be in danger.”
“And my parents, too,” I added, almost whispering.
We all sat there with our heads hung low, like little lost animals, forced to stay wherever we could find shelter. Brian had told me money was getting tight, and that they were trying to stretch it as far as they could, even if that meant staying in less conventional places for a night or two.
“I miss Sam,” Alice uttered in a mousey voice. Brian wrapped his arm around her and pulled her in close. I watched them cuddle and felt my heart sink.
I didn’t know Sam very well. She was Alice’s best friend and the first person to know about her fluorescence.
“We all miss someone,” I said, folding my hands together under Brian’s jacket to keep warm and looking away from them.
“What about David?” Alice asked.
“What?” I looked up. “What do you mean?”
“Do you… miss him?”
I twiddled my fingers. “Why would I miss him?” The question made me uncomfortable.
“I dunno,” she said, shrugging and looking off to the side. “He seemed really worried about you when you got hurt in that building. I thought maybe you liked him.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Just because we stayed in the same room for a couple of days doesn’t mean we hooked up.” I narrowed my eyes at her to make the lie seem more legit. The truth was none of her business.
“I didn’t mean that.” She grumbled. “I just thought maybe you two might have gotten along. Sorry. Forget I said anything. Geeze.”
Brian glared at me judgmentally and I rolled my eyes.
“We have more important things to worry about right now,” I said. “Like all of the damn people the Saviors are trying to infect. It started off as a few every dozen, but now it’s like fifty percent or something crazy. Everywhere I turn, there’s a sleeper. It’s… insane. And Taylor, well, he’s totally lost his mind. At first, he was like you, Alice, and he could start people. He sucked diseased fluorescence right out of people like some kind of anti-venom magnet, but then he started getting high on it or something. I don’t even know how to describe it. First, it was a quick fix, but now, he wants to come after both of you.”
“What?” Brian straightened up. “What do you mean, come after us? Like, kill us?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I don’t know what he’s capable of. He just said he wanted to see what would happen if he could drain fluorescence from you… without stopping.”
Brian forked a hand through his hair and sighed in disbelief. “You said you blacked out after he drained you, right?”
“Yes.”
“What the hell would happen if he didn’t let up after that?” he asked.
“I don’t want to know, Brian.” I hugged myself and shivered.
“Me neither,” Alice said with a faint whimper, nuzzling against him.
We didn’t have a lot of options, but we had to think of something.
“I know this isn’t what you want to hear, Brian,” I began, “but maybe if we could find David, we could use him to negotiate with Taylor. He’s powerful and maybe he can—”
“David’s unpredictable,” Brian snapped. “We don’t need him to survive.”
“I-I didn’t mean that,” I stuttered. “I just—”
“If you want him back so badly, you go look for him. I’m not going to risk getting one of us hurt or exposed going on some wild hunt for a guy who obviously doesn’t want shit to do with us.”
“He helped us a lot,” I added with a huff.
“Yeah, before you ditched us and took off with Taylor,” Brian growled beneath his breath.
“You’re just pissed you didn’t think of everything he did,” I added, raising my voice. “Stop being such a stubborn ass.”
“I thought you didn’t like him,” he sneered.
“Shut the hell up, Brian!” Under the cloak of his jacket on my lap, I made fists he couldn’t see. “Shut up.” His eyes widened and Alice cowered slightly. “In the last week, I have been through more shit than you can imagine. I don’t care how rough you and Alice think you have it, you have no idea what the hell I’ve been through or what your damn brother did to me. What if it was her, instead?” I took my hand out from under the warm jacket just long enough to point at Alice. “What if your precious little Alice was the one being tormented by him? What then?”
Brian snapped his mouth shut and kept it that way for the next several moments. Then Alice tipped her face up toward his ear and whispered something.
His eyes met mine briefly. He nodded and muttered something quietly back to her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking me in the eye again. “I’ve been acting like a jerk this whole time because I’m angry, stressed out, and… scared. I didn’t ask for any of this… but neither did you.” He bit his lip and dropped his head back against the wall, exhaling loudly. “Sorry,” he mumbled, again.
. . .
I lay there on the floor staring up at the ceiling, my head nestled into Brian’s crumpled-up leather coat. The subtle scent of him lingered on it, taunting me and comforting me at the same time. I watched him and Alice sleeping together on the floor a few feet away. She laid her head on his backpack and he lay behind her, his arm draped over her waist and his head sharing a small portion of the pack as if it were a p
illow.
Even after dealing with all of this hell—sleeping on the floor of some parking garage in the ghetto—Alice’s expression was a peaceful one.
Maybe it was because she felt safe with Brian. The same way I did.
Damn it. I don’t know why I couldn’t get over him. I just… couldn’t.
And when Taylor appeared, I thought maybe I had a chance—that my instincts to pursue Brian weren’t in fact mistaken, they were simply misplaced. But Taylor had nothing in common with Brian. Other than the fact that they looked a lot alike, I wasn’t attracted to anything else about him.
I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, squeezing my eyelids shut while they twitched anxiously. A train passed by outside, making the ground rumble beneath us. It reminded me of the tremor just before the earthquake that nearly took my life. I rolled over, readjusted the balled-up coat, and laid my head back down on it. My eyes shut and I tried to let my mind drift off.
Bright light hit my face and I lifted a hand to shield myself from the glare. I squinted and peeked through my separated fingers at the swirling light. A quick glance at Brian and Alice confirmed they were still asleep—unaware of the portal—so I pushed myself up off the floor and stood.
A queasy feeling roiled in my gut, but before I could step away, a hand reached out from the spinning light and grabbed me by the arm. I called out for help just as I was jerked through the portal.
The ground came at me fast and I scuffed my elbow against the gravel floor. I groaned in pain and pulled back against the hand that held me tightly.
“Where did you think you were going?” Taylor said, squeezing my arm so hard it was unbearable.
“You son-of-a—”
“Hey! You abandoned me. Your friends—the ones who made that portal for you—came and got you and you didn’t even say goodbye. But you know what? When you tried to fry my brain earlier, you gave me your sight for a few minutes. With it, I saw that portal spinning in the air just seconds after you went through it.” He smirked wickedly. “There was incredible energy radiating from it—calling for me. So I put out my hand, touched it, and… absorbed it.”
“How did you find me!?” I resisted again, but he dug his fingers into my wrist and I grimaced.
The swirling white door disappeared behind me.
“Funny you should ask. All I had to do was think about it—the portal—and the energy dripped right back out of my hands. I could barely see it without your sight, but I saw the other side just well enough to reach through… and take you back.”
A jolt of purple sparks shot into my body and I clenched my teeth.
“Wh-what do you want from me?” I stumbled onto all fours and coughed hard, my lungs straining to bring in air.
“I wanted you to help me find the others,” he said. “That’s all I wanted originally. Now it seems like I’m going to have to do that alone. And for that, I’ll need the rest of your power.”
Branches of vibrant violet light sprouted and rose up from the ground, surrounding me like broken pieces of a chain-link fence. I tried to move forward, but a spark bit me and I withdrew, yelping in pain.
“Let me go, Taylor! You’ve completely lost your mind.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged and lifted his hands up over my head, closing the coils of electricity over me—caging me like an animal.
“What the hell are you!?” I shifted and bumped an arm against the sparking wall. Current ripped through, leaving a black, cauterized scar across my bicep.
“I really don’t know, Kareena,” he replied, leaning down toward me. “But I’m more powerful than you are. That’s a fact. One you made the mistake of ignoring.”
A purple bolt licked at my face, stinging my cheek. I veered away and flinched. A whirring sound buzzed in my ears. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw another portal rip open in the air. I turned my head carefully inside the flickering cage to try to watch.
A yellow light appeared inside it and then David suddenly came bursting through.
“David!” I called out to him, bumping my shoulder on another line of purple fire and burning a hole in the cap of my sleeve. The pain made me wince.
“What’s happening? Where are we?” David asked, looking around.
“Nice,” Taylor said with a scoff, watching David approach. “If it isn’t your Mexican boyfriend coming to join the fiesta.”
“Shut up, Taylor,” David sneered, taking an offensive stance. “You don’t know shit about me!” He glanced at me and his brow wrinkled. “Kareena!” He took a step closer.
“Hey! She’s mine now,” Taylor shouted, coming between us. “You’ll be next if you don’t back off.”
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” David said, “but it’s wrong.” The amber glow sparked to life in his chest and I couldn’t stop my breaths from shuddering. I knew what Taylor could do, but David didn’t.
The electric wires surrounding me sputtered and popped and I hunched down lower to the ground to avoid the loose particles that flitted dangerously close to me.
David coiled his hands into fists and sneered. “Let her go,” he said, the fiery yellow fluorescence growing brighter. “Let her go, Taylor.”
“I don’t think so,” Taylor hissed. Then he stretched out his hands and a flash of purple burst from them, hitting David in the chest and sending him staggering back.
He’d caught him off guard.
David shot a confused glance at me and I shook my head.
“Be careful,” I mouthed through the bars of arcing fluorescence.
“Being one of us is one thing,” David said, “but using your powers against us, makes you one of them. Leave her alone. Let her go and we’ll forget any of this ever happened. We can just go our own separate ways.”
Taylor laughed callously. “Is he for real?” he asked, glancing at me. “What do you think you are? A hero? You’re just like the rest of them. You’re weak. They made me powerful for a reason.”
“I knew there was something wrong with you when I met you at the hotel,” David continued. “Your fluorescent aura is corrupted. It’s purple and then it’s black and grey and purple again. It’s out of control. I could hardly track you at all even when you were right there in front of me. Now I know it’s clearly done something to your head. The Saviors screwed all of our lives up. You don’t have to do this. You can just stop following them. It’s what I did.”
“This doesn’t have shit to do with the Saviors anymore!” Taylor yelled. “Not a single damn thing. This is about me now.”
David tipped his face down, narrowing his eyes. He pushed a hand out and yellow color skittered down toward his wrists. Taylor doubled over as David’s invisible pulse of energy choked the breath out of him.
“They sent me to control the others, you know,” David added, forcing more color through his body, which sent Taylor crumbling to his knees in pain. “They made me powerful, too.”
Taylor groaned and gasped for breath, pawing at the dirt and gravel beneath him and then cupping his head in his hands.
The cage holding me split open and disintegrated. I shot up and ran to David’s side.
“Are you okay?” he asked, looking me over swiftly.
“Yes.” I swallowed hard. “Be careful, please. Taylor’s really—”
“Resilient?” Taylor said beneath his breath, panting. His face came back up and a streak of crimson shimmered on his lips. He swiped it from his face with the back of his hand and came to his knees.
“David? What’s going on?” I asked, panicking. David’s fluorescence was still aglow in his chest, but Taylor was able to stand.
“I don’t know!” He held out both hands and amber fire lit up his veins again.
Taylor straightened up and brushed the dirt from his pants. “You can’t stop me,” he slurred, taking a wobbly step closer toward us. “You can’t. I’ll take out every one of you if I have to. Starting with you.” He gave me a nasty stare.
“And then I’ll drain you, too.” He looked at David. “And when I’m done…” He lumbered closer, spat blood on the ground, and wiped his mouth again. “I’ll come for Brian and his little girlfriend.”
David reached an arm out and gestured for me to get behind him.
“David, do something, please!” I said as I moved back. He flexed his hands and tried again. Bolts of yellow crackled beneath his skin toward his fingertips.
Taylor didn’t flinch.
A wave of searing violet lighting burst up from the ground and latched on to David’s body, tangling around his arms and legs and bringing him down to the ground. He grunted and squirmed as purple sparks nipped at his face and hands, leaving charred black dashes on his flesh.
“David!” I moved closer. A fleck of color ricocheted off him and hit my arm. I snapped back as it burned me like hot oil.
Taylor held out his hands and the cage started shrinking around David, burning him more and more until he finally cried out from the pain.
“Stop it!” I sucked up my courage and took a step closer. “Leave him alone, Taylor!”
“What are you going to do?” Taylor smirked and then closed a glowing fist, causing David to let out another stifled moan. The burning fluorescent cage had gaps in it in various places around David’s body. I hunched down behind him, held my breath, and reached through one, biting down to resist the urge to cry out as flickering sparks sizzled a band around the circumference of my wrist.
I jerked my hand back from his belt and out of the cage. Then I straightened my arm out toward Taylor, braced myself, and squeezed the trigger as hard as I could.
A piercing bang rang out and a loud buzzing sound made my head twinge.
The electric cage holding David collapsed and… so did its maker.
Chapter 24
I dropped the gun.
David coughed violently and struggled to sit up, slipping once until I reached over to help him up to his knees. His clothes were shredded and burned—his jeans covered in holes with singed edges still smoldering. He brought his face up. A dark brown line of burnt skin marred his left cheek.
