“Am I that easy to fool? I go how many years living in the same house as Dad, having no clue what he’s about or the horrible things he does. This is like the same thing all over again. Kiernan and I were tight. How did I not see this?”
“No one saw this,” Alex said.
“But my sister? How is that even possible?”
Alex sighed. “Well, when a man and a woman lo—”
One look and he shut up.
The chill started to fade, and I shed the hoodie. The heat was taking its place. Of the two, this was the worst. The chill eased some of the pain. Made everything feel somewhat numb. But the heat… The heat intensified everything. Each little throb, every single pang, all amplified. I gritted my teeth against the pain, and said, “I feel like Lois Lane. Completely oblivious.”
Alex glanced over his shoulder from his post by the front window. “Lois Lane?”
“Sure. I mean she was the poster child for clueless. Clark Kent and Superman—the same dude, only without the glasses! Come on.”
“Superman?” Kale asked.
“The ultimate comic book badass,” Alex answered, turning back to the window.
I snorted and tried to flex my fingers. They wouldn’t move. “Not even,” I managed. “He got his powers from being an alien. Total cop-out. Frank Castle—he was a badass comic book guy.”
Alex whirled around again. He looked annoyed. I should have known better. We’d had this debate a million times before. “The Punisher? Seriously? The guy was a pussy. When are you gonna get over that?”
Kale looked slightly annoyed. “This is what Jade meant? Your history?”
Alex gave a satisfied chuckle and went back to watching for Dax.
“Sort of,” I said as the heat faded. I pulled the discarded hoodie back over my head and welcomed the chill. Making sure my voice was loud enough, I finished with, “But don’t stress over it. Alex’s and my shared history doesn’t have any bearing on our future.”
Alex’s shoulders stiffened. Fingers curling in irritation, he said, “Let’s go. Dax is here.”
When we stepped outside, Dax was in the driveway, behind the wheel of a jet black Hummer. With frantic motions, he waved us over. “Hurry. I doubt Cross will send someone here, but let’s not take chances.”
Alex took the front seat, while Kale helped me into the back. “Dax! Did you steal this Hummer?”
He glared at me through his rearview mirror. “I should really be offended. Your mother asked me the same question.”
He threw the truck in reverse, and, with a surge of gas, we were flying into the darkness and down the road.
I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew, the Hummer was going down an unpaved driveway. When I glanced out the back window, I saw small pebbles bouncing through the trail of dust illuminated by the red gleam of the brake lights. It seemed to stretch forever into the night.
When we got to the end, a small log cabin came into view. “Where are we?”
“About ten miles outside town. We’re safe here. The house is in another name, so it’s not traceable to me.” Dax killed the engine and climbed out of the truck.
We followed. For a few moments, the only sound was wind whispering through rustling leaves and the slight slosh our shoes made as we stomped through the mud.
About ten feet from the house, Kale grabbed my arm and froze. He pulled me back and stepped between me and the bushes. “Someone is here.”
Dax waved him off. “It’s okay. Shanna?”
“We’re here,” Mom answered, stepping from the shadows around the side of the house. Behind her, Ginger hobbled forward, flanked by Jade, Paul and several others.
“Find the place okay?”
She nodded as he pulled a set of keys from his pocket. Holding open the door, Dax smiled. “Welcome home, guys.”
We stepped inside to a moderately furnished living room. To the right was a small eat-in kitchen. To the left was what looked like a small hallway. Judging from the outside, though, this couldn’t be more than two rooms.
“This is nice, but it looks kinda small for all of us. Not a whole lot bigger than your apartment.”
“It is. That’s why we’ll be staying downstairs. A little more room. Come on. Let’s get everyone settled so we can all catch a few hours of sleep.”
Dax started forward and disappeared around the corner, the rest of us trailing behind. In the first bedroom on the right, he opened the closet. He picked up several plastic bags that were sitting next to the door and tugged the sleeve of the only thing hanging in the closet—a bright yellow sweater.
Mischievous grin aimed at Mom, he said, “You’re gonna love this.”
Eyeing the small closet, she didn’t look too convinced.
A few seconds later, there was a clicking sound, and the closet disappeared. In its place was a large white elevator. “All aboard.”
Like Mom, Kale wasn’t thrilled about getting into the elevator, but Dax assured them it would be a short ride. We didn’t go down far. Two floors—possibly three. When the doors opened again, we stepped out into a much larger version of the upstairs living room.
“Someone slipped me something back at the party, didn’t they?” I whispered.
“I started this three years ago with a slight nudge from Ginger. Did most of the work myself.” Dax pointed down the hall to our right. “The common areas aren’t quite done yet, but the kitchen is complete and stocked, and the bedrooms are all finished. There’s some gym equipment in the room at the end of the hall if anyone needs to let off some steam, and the pool should be usable by the end of the week.”
“Pool?” Jade breathed.
“This is all very Bruce Wayne of you, Dax.” I scanned the room. There was a huge TV screen mounted on the wall across the room. Two large, fluffy beige couches and a matching chaise lounge were arranged in a semicircle around it. Shelves lined the entire wall closest to us, stacked with DVDs on one side and CDs on the other. Scanning the titles, I saw everything from The Smurfs to Reservoir Dogs. The CDs were the same. Everything from Disney tunes to Metallica.
Dax smiled. “We’ll talk in the morning. Right now I think everyone could use some sleep. The rooms are down there. Sticky notes on each of the doors to tell you whose is whose.” He turned to me as everyone filed into the hall. “You don’t look good. Is there anything I can get you?”
“Maybe some Advil or something. I just hurt everywhere, and it’s making it hard to concentrate.”
He nodded. “Go get yourself settled. I’ll see what I can find.”
Kale and I followed the dwindling crowd, finding both our rooms toward the end. I was sort of relieved to see just my name on the door. Sharing a room with Mom for the last few months had been hard.
Pushing open the door, I didn’t bother with the light. The thin strip coming in from the hall was enough to illuminate the way to the single bed across the room. Ten steps. That’s what it took to get from the door to the bed. Ten agonizing, forced steps. The pain was constant now. Not very intense, but exhausting. Sleeping in leather pants wasn’t one of the smartest things I’d ever done, but I didn’t have the energy to worry about it. Changing or mimicking was just too much work. The door closed, and a few moments later, soft footsteps crossed the room.
Kale pulled the blanket up around my shoulder. “I should go. You need to rest.”
I curled around the pillow, eyes closing despite my best efforts to keep them open. “You won’t stay?”
“I’ll be here until you fall asleep.”
I frowned into the darkness. An invisible hand was already tugging me under. “That won’t be long.”
If he replied, I never heard it because suddenly I was back at the construction site. I was really getting to hate this place. At least this time I ended up closer to the building in progress than the crane. The crane hurt to look at.
“I’m worried about you.”
Brandt-as-Sheltie was sitting on a large cinder block to my right. The
building next door to the construction site was in ruins. I couldn’t remember what it’d been, but I knew it was set for demolition in a few weeks. With all the debris and broken glass, I found it odd that Brandt—and I—were barefoot.
“I’m dying.” It sounded like I was complaining about something as trite as math homework. But at least I looked good. It’d been awhile since I’d really had a chance to go all out like this. Since this was a dream, I was positive my subconscious was trying to tell me something.
Instead of Meela’s horrible Marist sweatshirt, I had on my favorite eggplant-colored camisole and stonewashed jeans. I even had the set of necklaces Brandt gave me for my sixteenth birthday on, and my nails were done. An evil French, Kiernan had called it. Black with white tips.
“That thing on your shoulder?”
I nodded, fiddling with the long necklace. “I don’t think I’ve got much time left.”
“You’re in good hands. They’ll find a way through this.”
“I’m scared.” Brandt was the only person other than Kale that I’d admit it to. “There’s a way to fix it, but the fallout won’t be pretty.”
“You’ll manage. You always do.” He looked like he wanted to say more but turned away.
“I wish you were here with us. I’d feel better.”
Still facing away, his shoulders tensed. “I wanna come back to town, Dez, but I can’t. Not yet. I’m in the middle of something.”
His response stung a little. “In the middle of something? What are you up to, Brandt?”
When he turned back to face me, his mouth was open, lips moving, but no sound came out. Sighing, he pointed to the building. Mom was standing in front of the frame, two women I didn’t know on either side of her. A man moved to the first one, giving her an injection.
“Next stop,” Brandt said. The words came garbled and forced, but I could understand him. He pointed to a spot on the frame above Mom. The second floor. There was a man standing next to a barrel.
“I hate this cryptic crap.”
Everything blurred, and suddenly we were in an elevator. Brandt grabbed my hand and mashed it against one of the buttons repeatedly. When I looked, it wasn’t a floor number, but two words.
Next Level.
…
I opened my eyes to pitch black. Groping in the darkness, I finally found the lamp I’d caught a quick glimpse of before I crashed. The room was nice. Bigger than the one I’d stayed in at the Sanctuary and oddly more suited to my personality. The walls were dark gray, and the floor was carpeted in royal blue. I had to wonder if it was a funky coincidence, or if Ginger had a hand in it.
Sliding off the bed, I caught sight of a small note in front of the lamp. Two Advil sat on a paper towel. The note, in Kale’s sloppy writing, said, Dax left these. I felt slightly better than before but downed the pills, anyway, just to be safe.
A simple wooden dresser sat in the corner, drawers empty. Next to the bathroom, there was a closed door—a closet, I assumed. When I opened it, I was a little surprised.
Unlike the dresser drawers, the closet wasn’t quite empty. On one side, several pairs of jeans—size six—hung from hangers while a small collection of shirts hung from the other. Pulling one down, I smiled. Black stretch cotton tank with the Hot Topic logo on the bottom. Grabbing a pair of jeans, I took the tank and hurried to get out of the leather pants.
Once changed—and feeling much less chafed—I wandered into the hall. There was no way to tell for sure since I’d lost my cell again, but I didn’t think much time had passed.
There was a sound coming from several rooms down. A soft, constant tapping. When I followed it around the small bend in the hall, I saw it was Kale. He was focused intently on the large white punching bag hanging from the ceiling in what I guessed was the exercise room.
For a minute, all I could do was stare. He was like a demon possessed. Feral and deadly. Beautiful. It was a side I didn’t see often. His Denazen side, he’d called it once. All the rage and darkness channeled for the sake of one single goal. Survival.
Focused on the bag like it had personally been responsible for stealing his freedom, he let each blow scream a message in eerie clarity. Never again. He’d kill them all one by one if they ever got their hands on him—or he’d die trying. I’d never let that happen.
I was so lost in thought, I didn’t realize he’d seen me.
He steadied the bag and smiled. “You’re awake.”
I stepped inside the room. “How long was I out?”
“Not long. I’ve been in here for two hours.”
“You didn’t get any sleep?” I could see he was tired. Dark circles hung like rocks under his eyes, and his posture was just slightly stooped. All little things no one else would have picked up on. To me, though, they screamed.
He stiffened. “I can function effectively on no sleep.”
“This isn’t Denazen, Kale. No one expects you to function on no sleep.”
He slid down the wall. “You heard me talking to Jade earlier.”
“I wasn’t spying on you, I swear. If it’ll make you feel better, when you were telling her all that stuff about Denazen, I felt guilty.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Guilty?”
“You didn’t want me to know any of that stuff.”
“Jade asked me why. Did you hear my answer?”
Instead of answering his question, I sat down across from him and sighed. “My whole life, Brandt was there for me. He always had my back. No matter what. I needed to vent, he was there. I needed to cry, he was there. If I was being stupid or about to do something epically dumb, Brandt was there to stop me—or in some cases, drag my ass to the ER.” I nudged his sneaker with my bare foot. “And then I met you. You’re everything Brandt was—and more. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I will always bring you to the ER if you get hurt.”
I sighed. “I mean, you’re my best friend, Kale. My partner in crime. It’s you and me against everything else, remember? There’s nothing about my life that I don’t want to share with you, and I want you to feel the same way. I know I didn’t tell you about the poison, and I realize now how dumb that was. I was trying to protect you, and that was stupid. Jade was right about that. You don’t need protection—but neither do I. I won’t hide anything from you from now on, but you have to promise the same.”
He didn’t look convinced. “I love the way you look at me. There’s purity in it, and I don’t want to ruin it.”
“You couldn’t ruin it. There’s nothing you could have done—or would do that could make me change what I see when I look at you.”
“I think you underestimate Denazen.”
33
“I have something for you,” Kale said as we made our way down the hall toward the living room.
We’d talked for a little while, but in the end, we were both too antsy and headed off to see if anyone else shared our insomnia.
He pulled Kiernan’s cell from his pocket and held it out. “She dropped this.”
“Wow. I totally forgot about it.” I remembered Kiernan dropping it but had lost track of it after that.
“Shouldn’t you two be asleep?” Dax said, stepping out from one of the rooms.
“Too jittery,” I said, wiggling the fingers on my left hand. When I’d fallen asleep, they’d started to tingle. Now I could barely feel them. It was kind of a blessing. If they were numb, then I couldn’t feel the pain.
He sighed and pointed down the hall. “Everyone else is in the kitchen. Kale, can you give us a minute?”
Kale hesitated. He liked Dax just fine, but sometimes when he looked at the guy, I could almost swear he was hearing the angry things that were said when Dax first found out I was Marshall Cross’s daughter. I couldn’t blame Dax. Denazen had stolen his twin nieces, and he would have done just about anything to get them back.
After a few seconds, Kale nodded and disappeared around the corner.
“I need to talk to you
.” Dax leaned against the wall. “You might have noticed—”
“If this is about Mom, then no worries. You’re both adults.”
He nodded. “No. I know—but there’s a slight age difference. I didn’t want it to be weird for you or anything.”
“I dunno. Might be weird if I didn’t have a crap ton of other things to worry about.”
He folded his arms. “You were really going to turn yourself in, weren’t you?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. Silence would confirm his suspicion as easily as talking would allow him to see my intentions. Lose-lose.
“Come on. We’ve already got a plan in the works. No one is going back to Denazen.”
When we entered the kitchen, I saw Kale and I weren’t the only ones who couldn’t sleep. Ginger was at the table between two younger guys—both with their shirts on for once. Mom was sitting at the center island, a Coke in one hand and a cigarette in the other, while Alex sat across from her twirling napkins in the air just above their heads.
Kale was standing in the doorway. “You’re okay?”
“Right as acid rain.”
His forehead furrowed, but he didn’t ask.
“Whatever the plan is,” I said, turning to the rest of them. “We need to do it soon.” I held out my arm and tried not to gag. The spidery black lines were now almost to my wrist. I’d looked in the mirror before leaving my room and saw they’d also passed my neck. Any minute now, they’d start creeping up the side.
“How fast can we rally the troops?” Mom asked. She was slightly pale.
“Call Cross,” Ginger said. “Arrange to meet him. Let him pick the place and time. He needs to think this is on his terms—that you’re desperate.”
I pulled out Kiernan’s phone and thumped it on the table. “I am desperate, so, not a stretch there.”
“Tell him your only stipulation is that he must bring Aubrey with him.”
“We’re a little short on manpower, Ginger.” Alex snapped his fingers and the napkins fluttered to the table. “Don’t you think Cross will bring back up?”
“Deznee is weak. He knows this. If she plays her part correctly, Cross will believe her to be scared and desperate. He won’t see this as a trap.”