Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy (20 page)

I really thought she was screwing with us. We couldn’t
have been glowing right then and
there; a few other students straggling in the parking lot didn’t seem interested at all.

“We aren’t, Kareena,” I replied, craning my neck to take a second look at my shoulder to reconfirm. “Nope. Nothing there.”

She crossed her arms. “Ugh! Forget it. When somebody else sees it, you’ll know I’m not talking shit.”

Kareena shoved her books into her locker, rustling things around loudly on purpose, muttering to herself. Her locker was beside ours this year because she’d sweet-talked a junior boy into switching with her.

“I think she’s losing it,” I whispered to Brian, who silently mouthed his agreement.

“Look, I know you guys don’t, like, value my opinion,” she started, slamming her locker door shut and turning toward us with a huff. “But I’m not joking. I can see it.” She folded her arms and leaned her back up against her locker.

First day of the tenth grade. Kareena had lost it.

. . .

“You guys kinda suck as friends,” Kareena said, picking at her macaroni and cheese and exhaling loudly. She’d kept up her rant all through lunch.

“Don’t say something stupid like that.” Brian snatched the plastic fork out of her hand. “And stop playing with your food. It’s annoying.”

She put her elbows on the table and propped her head in her hands, groaning and looking away from him.

“Sorry, but if you can see it, why can’t everyone else?” Brian looked at Sam to make his point.

“I don’t know. Maybe you guys just can’t… Shit!” She pushed her tray forward.

“What?” I looked up from my brownie. Kareena’s eyes were locked onto someone sitting at another table. I couldn’t pinpoint who.

“What is it?” Brian stared in the same direction. “Who are you looking at?”

“That guy with the blonde hair and the red t-shirt. The one with the energy drink in his hand.”

“Haven’t seen him before,” Brian said. “I think he’s a freshman. I don’t know. A little young for you, don’t you think?”

“Damn it, Brian! Listen!” Kareena’s eyes widened and she shot up from the bench. “There’s something in him. He’s… glowing.”

I stood up, too, freaked out by her allegations. “Lower your voice, Kareena,” I hissed. The entire lunchroom didn’t need to hear us. “What do you mean you can see something in him?”

She stared, holding her breath, fixated like a cat stalking prey. He was talking to another student and hadn’t noticed the four of us gawking at him.

“It’s faint, but it’s, like, alive,” she continued, her voice cracking. “It’s a small ball of white light with some kind of black dust coiling around it. I think it’s sleeping. The glow keeps fading in and out like a heartbeat.”

“That got poetic real fast.” Brian exhaled. “Come on. This is all a little crazy, don’t you think?”

“No!” She swerved around. “Do you think I’m joking, Brian? I’m not.” She lunged at him, grabbing him by the sides of his face and pulling him closer. “Do I
look
like I’m joking?” Her nostrils flared.

“Ah!” Brian grimaced and forced her off him, blinking and shaking his head like he’d been blinded by a camera flash. “What did you do to me?” He grunted, holding his head in his hands, doubling over. “Damn it, Kareena! What did you…”

“Brian! Brian, are you okay?” He wouldn’t look at me.

His face came back up and his gaze shot across the room at
the boy in the red shirt. “Jesus. She’s right,” he said. “I can see it. And that girl behind him, too.”

“You’re right,” Kareena replied with a nod, her gaze locking onto someone else I couldn’t pick out.

Brian looked at me, his eyes skimming over my shoulder
and then across Kareena’s face. “I can see ours, too.” He bent over, groaning and rubbing his temples. “Ugh, my head.”

“Now you know how I feel,” Kareena sneered. “Migraines
are shit, aren’t they?”

“Brian?” I put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?” I rubbed his arm.

“Yeah.” He shook his head again and blinked several more times. “It’s going away. She’s telling the truth, Alice. Those other kids have it, too—whatever it is. It’s some kind of energy. I couldn’t tell much else. The vision faded too quickly.”

A few nearby students stared at us and I turned to confront them. “We’re fine,” I said, forcing a toothy grin at them. “Thanks for your concern. Feel free to go back to whatever it was you were doing.” They shrugged and looked away. One of them had the nerve to roll their eyes at me.

“I can still see it,” said Kareena. “Alice. You should go talk to them. See if you can figure anything out. Touch him, maybe. Do whatever it is you do.”

“What? No.” I shook my head. “I’m not going to just go up to some stranger and grab him.”

“Just say hi. Introduce yourself or something,” Kareena added with a shrug. “You’re a cute girl, that guy will be okay with it.”

Had Kareena just called me cute? How badly did she want me to do this?

“Don’t tell her what to do.” Brian tugged my hand, motioning for me to sit back down.

“I’m not.” Kareena scoffed. “I just think we need to
figure out if he’s one of us
or not. We could use more friends, you know?”

“I think you just want
a new boyfriend,” Brian grumbled.

“No. I’m serious. I thought the pasty crazies up there said Alice was supposed to be the ‘Starter’ or whatever. She apparently activated it in both of us. So… maybe she needs to go over there and touch him, too. Maybe that’s what they want us to do. The Sav—”

“Shh!” I gave her a dirty look. “Quiet.” I got up and stepped over the bench, careful not to get a leg tangled in my book bag strap. “I’ll do it.”

“You don’t have to.” Brian snagged the edge of my shirt.

“It’s okay. I’ll be fine.” I looked at Kareena, whose eyes were still locked on the guy. “The boy in the red shirt, right?”

“
With the sports logo on the pocket. Yes,” she confirmed.

I took a deep breath and exhaled, puffing out my cheeks.
“Okay.” I put on my best friendly smile and meandered over to the table a few rows across from ours.

“Hi. My name’s Alice,” I said, my voice shaking. “I’m… um…” I froze up. “Um.”

Think! Think!

“Yes?” The guy’s eyebrows furrowed. He set down his drink and screwed the plastic cap on top. “Can I help you, Alice?”

I felt like an idiot.

I offered my hand and smiled even bigger, forcing it so much it probably looked creepy. “I’m with the student government. I just wanted to say hello and welcome you to our school.”

“Uh… Thanks? But, I’ve been here for a year.”

“Oh? I’m sorry.” Even more of an idiot, now. “I didn’t know. They just told me…”

“It’s okay.” He grinned. “Don’t worry about it.” He leaned over to glance back at my table and then looked me in the eye again. “Weren’t you just sitting with him?”

“Yeah, she was.” Brian came up behind me.

“Hey! You’re the guy with the motorcycle, right? I saw you this morning. It’s real nice, man. It’s no wonder girls like to hang out with you.”

Okay.
I raised an eyebrow. Guess he thought Kareena, Sam and I were all…

Brian laughed. “Not really, but thanks. Name’s Brian.”

“Hi. This your girlfriend?”

I hated being the focus of a conversation.

“Yeah,” Brian replied, proudly.

“Alice.” I eagerly stretched out my hand toward the stranger again, holding my breath this time. He hesitated, his eyes darting from Brian’s to mine, contemplating if being friendly with the motorcycle guy’s girlfriend was a good idea. Brian sensed his misplaced concern and took a step back.

“I’ll go grab your stuff,” he said, heading back to our table.

“Adam.” The guy grinned, reaching up from the table to shake my hand.

Our palms touched and my heartbeat quickened. The hairs on the back of my neck perked up, my fingertips flushed with heat, and my skin prickled with goose bumps. Static flitted through my body.

I gasped.

Adam snapped back.

“Whoa!” His eyes widened and he stared at me, blinking. “What have you been doing, girl? You are electric.” He shook his hand. “Ow. You shocked the hell out of me.”

“I’m… sorry,” I said, backing away slowly.

“Wait. Where are you going?”

“I’m so sorry, Adam.”

Chapter 30

“
I
was right! There
are
others!” Kareena jabbed me in the shoulder and I recoiled from the prick of her sharp fingernail. “I told you I knew what I was seeing.”

“I’m sorry, Kareena,” I said, switching out one of my textbooks in my locker. “We didn’t know.”

“Did you feel anything?” she asked. “After you touched him, I mean?”

“It was about the same as when I touched you. A pulse of
energy and then he got shocked. I feel bad about it, really.”

“The light totally changed, though.” She flipped open a makeup compact and started reapplying her bright red lipstick.

“It did?”

“Yeah.” She snapped the lipstick closed and smacked her lips together. “It got super bright. It didn’t change color or anything but as soon as you touched him it exploded into
this, like, little ball of white fiery stuff. Kind of
creepy almost, but whatever.” She shrugged and tucked her makeup back into her purse.

The bell rang.

“We gotta get to class.” Brian reached for my book bag and slid it off my arm, shouldering it himself. “See you, Kareena. We can talk about it later.”

“Okay. Whatever.” She rolled her eyes and clicked off down the hall in the opposite direction.

“So what exactly did she do to you?” I asked, walking beside him. “It sounded like you were seeing things, too.”

“I was. It was like putting on a pair of really dark sunglasses. Everything got blurry. That’s why I started blinking like crazy. When things came back into focus, they seemed washed out, like the colors weren’t all there. That’s when I saw it—the light.”

I leaned in closer.

“It resonated in Adam’s chest, flickering like a dying flame. Weak, but moving—alive, I think. Sleeping. That was the first thing I thought of when I saw it. Doesn’t that sound crazy to you?” He paused and looked down at me.

“Yeah. Weird.”

“Definitely weird. But at the same time, wouldn’t it be good to have more people we could trust? More people who knew about…” his voice came down to a whisper, “the fluorescence?”

“Yes.”

“You have to admit, some little part of you got excited after you thought about it, right?”

I nodded.

“Then maybe… this is what you’re supposed to do. What we’re supposed to do. Find others like us and…”

“It felt wrong, though,” I interrupted, tangling my hands together nervously. “Touching him.”

“Hey, I’m not upset or jealous,” he added with a smirk. “Besides, did you see the look on his face when I told him you were my girlfriend?” He chuckled.

This wasn’t funny.

“Not about that, Brian.” I tugged on his belt. “I mean, what if he didn’t want this? What if what I did to Adam was wrong? They’ve hardly told us anything about it. How do we know it’s safe?”

Brian stopped and turned toward me. He cupped his hands around my shoulders and pressed them gently. “All I know
is, it made my heart better and it helped save
Kareena’s life. I’ve got no complaints.”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe we can do some good with this. Maybe we’re meant to.”

. . .

I tossed my book bag onto the couch and went into the kitchen. Brian had dropped me off after school. He would have stayed but had to be at work in an hour.

“How was your first day of tenth grade?” Mom asked, bent over the open oven door, checking on a pizza she was cooking. Cheese bubbled and the room smelled like garlic and oregano.

“It went fine, thanks.”

“That’s good. And how’s Brian doing?”

“He’s okay. His mom never apologized for anything, but he’s alright.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Alice. Guess not all kids are as privileged as you are, huh?” She grinned and closed the oven door. “Pizza will be done in about ten minutes.”

“Got it.” I took two clean plates out of the dishwasher and set them on the counter behind Mom. “Oh, I almost forgot.”

“Yes?”

“We may have found another few students like us.”

“With fluorescence in them?” She plucked several paper towels from the roll on the counter and started folding them in half.

“Yeah. Not like ours, but a variation of it. We just
learned Kareena can see it in other people and she can see ours, too, even when it seems inactive to us. Boy, did she freak out at
school today. I hope she’ll get used to it eventually. Her voice is
sooooo…”

“Oh, great. So they’re messing with more kids?” Mom shook her head and huffed an angry sigh. “Just in time to ruin dinner.”

“I’m sorry.” I
sat on a kitchen chair and clasped my hands
together on the table.

“No, it’s okay. I asked you to let me know. I wish they would find a cure and get it over with or die trying and leave us alone. One of the two.”

“Mom. That’s just mean. No one wants their
entire
civilization to disappear. What if there weren’t many of
us
left and someone was willing to help keep
us
alive? Would it be right if the entire human race just died?”

“When you put it that way. No… But I wish the Saviors would have considered getting some kind of consent before they started.” She laid the folded paper towels beside our plates at the table and set two coasters down. “We didn’t ask to be part of this. And I didn’t want you to be part of it, either. It’s hard enough being a teenager in love, but you and Brian can never have a normal relationship because of them. It’s not right. You’re only young once.”

“We’ve been okay so far.” I got up from the table and pushed in my chair. “We’re happy and we’ll get through this.” I pulled open a cupboard door and reached up, feeling a slight twinge inside, but ignoring it. My fingers wrapped around a tall glass and then I cringed, clenching my teeth.