His voice was so sad. I wanted to reach out and hold him. We made a great pair. The universe had seen fit to screw us both over—big time. “That’s why you ran away?”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t something I planned. After that conversation with Sue, I started thinking. Started to question things. Prisoner. A single word changed everything. I looked at things more carefully. They gave me an assignment yesterday. It started out like every other. I was given my target’s name and driven to the kill location. I was escorted to the scene and left to enter, do my job, and return. No questions asked.”
“What happened?”
He turned back to me, and the muscles in his jaw tightened. “When I entered the house, she was alone. Asleep in her bed. I was confused at first—she wasn’t what I expected. I hesitated. It must have taken too long, because they sent someone in to check on me. When he confirmed that she was the target, I ran.”
“What made you hesitate?”
His eyes squeezed closed. Shaking his head, he said, “She was a child—no more than seven or eight. Helpless.” He opened his eyes. “Innocent. There was no crime someone that young could commit to be deserving of punishment.”
“Jesus.”
“I ran. Then I found you.” He looked away. “Sue told me once, if I should ever find myself on the outside with no place to go, I should find the Reaper.”
“The Reaper?”
“Yes. She said he would be able to help.”
“Who is he? How can he help?”
Kale shrugged. “I only know he is like us—like Sue and me. A Six. She said he was revered among our kind. Powerful.”
I was about to ask him if he’d thought further then running away from Denazen, but a high pitched, alien-themed hum sounded from my back pocket. Kale tensed, backing away. “It’s okay. It’s only my cell.” I pulled it out, expecting to see Dad’s number.
“Brandt?”
“Dez? Where the hell are you? It’s three a.m.! Your Dad called the house. He said you ran off with some dangerous guy? He’s worried for you.”
I snorted. “Trust me, Brandt. He ain’t worried for me.” As much as I hated to drag my cousin into this, we needed help. “Listen, I’ve got a major favor to ask. Can you meet me tomorrow at noon—at the Graveyard? Bring some of your clothes. Long-sleeved stuff. And a pair of gloves. And something for me to change into. I’m gross.”
There was a pause. “Dez, you’re scaring me. What the hell is up? Why don’t you just go home?”
“I can’t really say.”
Another pause. “Are you okay? Where are you? Are you alone?”
How much to say? Could someplace like Denazen trace cell phones? “I’m okay,” I answered finally. I wanted to add, for now, but I knew that’d only worry him. “I’m not alone, but I can’t tell you where I am. Not right now.”
“Okay,” he said cautiously. “What else do you need?”
I thought about it and realized I was starving. I’d found Kale on my way home from the party. Party equaled no wallet. No wallet meant no cash. No cash meant serious case of the munchies. “Some water, definitely. Maybe something to nom? Some spare cash if you’ve got it, too. I’ll totally pay you back.”
“Done and done. You gonna be okay till then?”
“Gonna have to be,” I sighed. We’d lay low until morning. It’d be easy to stay off the radar for a few hours.
Or would it? Curd’s place was close, but there were a hundred other houses between his and mine. He’d never been to the house and Dad had never met him. How the hell had Denazen found us so fast?
My fingers tightened around the cell. Duh. GPS. What a moron.
“Don’t try calling me back. I’m ditching the phone. And whatever you do, don’t tell anyone you talked to me. Not your Dad, and especially not mine.” Without waiting, I pushed end.
“I can’t believe I’m going to do this,” I said to myself. Looking down at the phone, I only hesitated a moment before throwing it at the tree behind me. The cell crashed into the trunk, shattering into several large pieces, and falling to the ground. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”
§
We killed the rest of the night and early next day by trying to lay low—which wasn’t as easy as one would think. Kale, though cautious, was amazed by almost everything thing he saw. Everything from skateboards and takeout food to the outfits people wore was a brand new experience for him. He especially liked how people in the outside world dressed—namely, the girls. He really liked their short skirts and high, spiky shoes.
The morning slipped away without incident. We hadn’t had any further run-ins with the men from Denazen, leading me to believe I’d been right. They’d been tracking my phone. Without it, we could stay off the grid. For a little while, at least.
The Graveyard was an old junkyard on the edge of town we used for partying. Usually, even in the daylight hours, kids could be found hanging out. Avoiding the home scene, ditching school—when it was in session—and winding down after work. This early, it was a ghost town.
We made our way around the back to the rip in the fence and slipped through. Brad Henshaw, the owner, died two years ago, leaving the place in limbo. The rumor was his daughter, a plastic surgeon in the city, had yet to take the time out of her busy schedule to come up and deal with the property. This meant we were free to come and go as we pleased, some nights partying till dawn. We were never really loud, not that there was anything much in the area, and we didn’t hurt anything, so the cops pretty much left us alone.
At the very back of the lot, there was a collection of old vans that had been dragged, cut, and fit together like a makeshift fort. This was where everyone usually met. We made it within ten feet when movement inside caught my eye. I stopped mid-stride.
“It’s cool,” Brandt called. He stepped from the van into the sunlight. Setting his board down, he ran a hand through his wild, sandy blond hair and nodded. He had on the same jeans he’d worn to the party last night. I knew because of the ink stain above the right knee and the huge gaping hole in the left. He kept saying he was going to toss them, yet he never did. I couldn’t understand why guys found it acceptable to wear things more than once without running them through the wash. At least he’d changed his T-shirt. “It’s only me.”
I fell forward, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. “Thank you so much for coming.”
“Like I wouldn’t,” he said, pulling away. His eyes widened when he spotted Kale. “This is the dangerous guy?”
Kale regarded him with the same cool, but sad, expression he’d given me last night right before he tried to kill me. “I’m not dangerous to her.”
“My uncle seems to think you are. If you hurt my cousin, I’ll kick your ass from here to Jersey. You what, in a gang or something?”
“A gang? Seriously, Brandt. Less TV from now on, okay?” I inhaled. “I ran into Kale on the way home from the party last night. Some guys were chasing him.”
Brandt folded his arms and nudged the skateboard at his feet. He always had to be touching the damn thing. Like a security blanket with wheels. “Okay…”
“So I bring him back to my place figuring, hey, this’ll piss Dad off something fierce, only I didn’t get the reaction I was hoping for. He knew Kale. Like, knew the guys chasing him down.”
Brandt didn’t respond. Instead, he backed away and reached into the van. A moment later, he pulled out a small purple duffle and a plastic bag. Tossing the duffle at Kale’s feet, he said, “There are clothes for you in here, and what little cash I could scrounge up last minute. Get the hell out of Dodge. Fast.”
Kale picked up the duffle.
Holding out the plastic bag to me, he said, “These are yours. This morning I snuck into your room. I was planning to get some of your own things and bail. The last time I gave
you one of my unclean shirts to wear you spazzed. But when I got there, I heard voices.”
“Voices?”
He shook his head. “Didn’t see who it was, but I sure as hell heard enough. They said some really tweaked-out shit.”
A lump of ice formed in my stomach. “What’d you hear?”
“Your Dad’s a bad dude. Like, really bad. I heard him saying something about disposing of bodies.” He grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Bodies, Dez—as in dead people. Corpses! Something about the old dump site being full. Then he mentioned you. Something about finding you and bringing you in. Then they left.”
I felt kind of sick. Maybe he’d misunderstood something. Dump site could mean garbage. Bodies could mean…okay, I had nothing for that one. “That all?”
Brandt hesitated. “No… When he left, he didn’t lock his office. Didn’t have long, but I managed to dig up some information.” He nudged the board again, flipping it over and resting his right foot on top.
“What did you find?”
“Your Dad’s into some crazy shit. That law firm he works for? Denazen? Yeah, so not a law firm, Dez. They’re something else. They use Sixes—that’s what they call people with weird abilities—as weapons, rented out to the highest bidder. Political scuffles, personal vendettas, hell, even the mob. Assassins. They use these people as assassins.”
“I can’t believe you went snooping. What if he came back?”
His expression melted into pure mischief. Lips tilted up, exposing a single dimple. That smile drove girls crazy. “I’ve got Dad’s nose for digging up news. I didn’t endure every father-son career day at the newspaper for nothing, you know. Picked up plenty of mad stealthing skills.”
Uncle Mark was an investigative reporter at the Parkview Daily News. If there was deeply hidden dirt to find, he’d find it. I stored the thought away for later use. I had no intentions of dragging anyone else into this unless I had no other choice.
“This is not happening,” I whispered. “What about my mom? She’s alive. Did you find anything about her?”
His eyes widened. “Your mom’s alive? What makes you think that?”
“She is alive.” Kale reinforced. “She is a prisoner of Denazen, like I was.”
Brandt’s eyes went wide and he opened his mouth, but I cut him off. “What about the Reaper? Did you come across anything about him?”
“Nothing on a Reaper, but I didn’t have a lot of time. Pretty much skimmed the papers on his desk. Trust me, after what I’d heard, your Dad is the last person I want to see.” He sighed. “We should head back to my place. We’ll tell my Dad. He’ll figure out what to do.”
“No-can-do. Kale is, um, kinda different.”
Brandt folded his arms. Shuffling, he switched feet, placing the left one atop the skateboard and rolling it back and forth. “Define different.”
“Kale’s important to that place. He’s one of those Sixes. I can’t let Dad find him.”
“This isn’t a game, Dez.”
Why did everyone think I thought that, for Christ sake? “I know!”
“This is bigger than you and me. Bigger than pissing your Dad off. You just met the guy. Why bury yourself in trouble for a stranger?”
“First off, he knows about Denazen and he knows Mom. I’ll need all the help I can get if there’s any chance to get her out.” I took a step forward. “Second, he was a prisoner at Denazen. They used him to kill people.”
He paled. “Kill people?”
“My skin is deadly to anything it touches,” Kale confirmed as he took my hand.
Brandt stared, horrified. The skateboard stilled under his foot. “Then how come he’s touching you? How is he touching you?”
“I seem to be immune.”
“You seem to be immune,” he repeated. “Don’t you get it? They’ll think you’re one of them, too!”
“I can’t touch other Sixes,” Kale said, voice pained. “They had me try. Over and over again. I killed them all. Every time, I killed them.”
Brandt whirled on Kale, shooting him a deadly glare. “Back off, dickhead.”
“I’m not leaving him,” I said, standing my ground.
“This is stupid, Dez.” he snapped, even though I could see from his expression he knew it wouldn’t change my mind. “Come back to the house and we’ll figure this out.”
“I can’t. Gotta see this through.”
He pulled out a pen. Snatching my hand, he began to write on my palm. “Go here and ask for this Misha Vaugn chick—but be careful. I don’t know who she is, or what she does, but her name was in a file on the desk that said main targets. If she’s one of these people, maybe she can help you. Stay off the grid, Dez. I don’t want to have to storm this place to drag your ass out.”
That was Brandt. Always had my back. I pulled him into a quick hug, then turned back to Kale. “We should get moving. See if you can find anything else out about that place—but be careful.”
He nodded and took a step back.
We made it halfway to the edge of the lot before Brandt cursed. “Crap. Wait, I’ll go with—”
Shouting rose in the distance.
We scattered. No time. We were on our own.
5
Kale and I made it into town safely. For all we knew, it wasn’t Denazen back at the Graveyard, but no sense in taking chances. This thing was getting bigger by the minute, and the more I found out, the more I wondered how far Dad would go to get Kale back. And what he’d do to me.
The address Brandt gave me was an old hotel about five blocks from the Graveyard. By the time we got there, it was coming up on four p.m. and I was ready to drop. Usually, functioning on little to no sleep wasn’t an issue, but the last twenty-four hours had been hell. The woman at the front desk, an overweight brunette wearing way too much perfume, greeted us with a weary smile.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t rent rooms to minors.” Her eyes traveled over us once, then twice. She gave a curt, dismissive nod and went back to her magazine.
“We’re not here to rent a room.” I stepped up to the desk, leaning over. “We’re looking for Misha Vaugn.”
“Have you washed your socks?” the woman asked, standing. She smoothed her pleated skirt and straightened her dark purple blouse, waiting for our answer.
Confused, I could only stare. Kale answered for me.
“I’m not wearing any.” He looked down at his borrowed Timberlands, a worried look on his face. “Is that going to be a problem?”
The woman stammered, obviously not expecting the answer he gave. Huh. Maybe she was one of those people creeped out by bare feet. Or possibly a germaphobe. Either way, the sock thing seemed to be important. “Wait here.” She disappeared through a door behind the desk.
Kale watched her go, curiosity evident in his eyes. “What is this place?”
“It’s a hotel. People come here to sleep.”
“Sleep? But it’s so quiet.” Confused, he turned and walked away from the desk, inspecting the magazines fanned out across the nearest coffee table. He picked one up and began flipping through it.
I wandered away from the desk, settling down on the couch beside him. “It’s not quiet at Denazen?”
“Quiet,” he repeated, and tugged at the hem of his borrowed green T-shirt. After a moment, he shook his head. “No it’s hardly ever quiet.”
There was no elaboration, and I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know. What my dad had done to these people—my mom, Kale—was criminal. Locked away from the real world and brainwashed to think it was for his safety, Kale had lived his entire life in captivity. Like an animal. Watching him sit across from me, alternating between flipping through a magazine and glancing at the door every few minutes, caused an ache in my chest.
My mental roller coaster was inter
rupted by the slamming of a door. Tired and on edge, I jumped to my feet. Kale was up and standing, ready before I could blink. With his arms crossed and his legs braced apart, he looked ready to take on the world. It was actually kind of impressive. If the situation were reversed, I wasn’t sure I’d be handling things as smoothly.
A woman with an obviously fake smile approached from behind the desk. She wore no makeup, blonde hair twisted in a tight bun atop her head. Her crisp white, button-down blouse was tucked neatly into her dark blue jeans. Oh, yeah. This chick was wound tight.
Kale stayed where he was. “You are Misha Vaugn?”
The woman rounded the desk, hand extended toward him. “I’m—”
He backpedaled, tripping over the small coffee table and landing across the couch.
The woman watched in confusion, hand hanging in mid-air. She wasn’t smiling anymore. “Is something wrong?”
I stepped up and took her hand. “I’m Dez, and that’s Kale. We’re looking for Misha Vaugn.”
“So I’ve heard.” Her gaze lingered on me for a moment before returning to Kale, who was getting to his feet. “What’s wrong with him?”
Kale scanned the room, and after a moment, found what he’d been searching for. He approached a small potted tree in the corner of the room. A single finger to the tip of one of the leaves was all it took.
After several seconds, the leaf dried and disintegrated. The dryness spread like a disease—down the trunk, and out to the rest of the leaves. They browned and shriveled, falling away one by one, and collecting in piles of dust at the bottom.