Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy (66 page)

“What is it?” I asked, turning toward him.

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yes.” I smiled reassuringly and took his hand. The black
lines
of burnt skin on his knuckles made my heart si
nk. Hopefully it wasn’t too late for Brian to heal him. “I’m sure. You’ll be fine. Brian’s… changed. Trust me, please?”

“Okay.” He squeezed my hand and a nervous grin flashed
on his lips. “I’ll try.”

“Thanks.”

We walked across the parking garage and just before we got too close to the maintenance room, I let go of David’s hand. He shot me an understanding smile and I walked up ahead of him to see if the others were inside still.

“Brian? Alice?” I called to them. A few seconds later, the knob on the door jiggled and the door swung open.

“You’re back!?” Brian came out first and jogged toward me. “Are you… wait…” He froze. “Is that…?”

“It’s me,” David said, moving out from behind the shadows.

“Oh. I never thought I’d be happy to see you, but I am.” Brian’s brow wrinkled. “What happened to you?” He walked up to David and stared in shock at the burn marks all over his body. “Shit. What caused all of this?”

“Your brother,” I said. “Can you heal David?” I looked into Brian’s eyes. “Please?”

“Yeah. Of course.” Brian quickly lifted up his hand. Vivid
blue was lighting up his veins and wafting up through his skin already. “Can I?” he asked, holding out his glowing azure hand toward David.

“Sure,” David consented and looked off to the side.

Brian
wrapped his fingers around David’s
wrist and concentrated. Blue veins of light crept through his hand and onto David’s skin, making its way across his
arm, healing the burns one by one. A streak of blue flitted across his cheek, fading
the line of seared skin. David looked down at his hands and then craned his neck to look at his shoulder and down his arm.

“Thanks,” he said with a small, grateful smile at Brian. “Her, too,” he added, motioning toward me.

I tucked the arm with the band of burnt skin on it behind
my back and pushed my other shoulder forward, turning so he could see the thick dash marking my bicep. Brian looked me in the eye and I nodded in consent. A quick brush of his hand across my arm sent a warm trickle of blue fluorescence darting over the mark, instantly healing the burn. I smiled and Brian tipped his head in understanding.

“So,” he said, stepping back. “What are we going to do about Taylor? What if he comes looking for us?’

“He’s not a threat to us anymore,” David replied, tilting his head down and looking Brian straight in the eye.

Brian’s eyebrows came together and his lips separated in a breath of surprise. “Wh-what… happened to him?” he stammered.

“Does it matter?” David replied, still looking Brian fiercely in the eye.

“N-no.” He shrugged. “I-I guess not. I just—”

“Then don’t worry about it,” David interjected. “I’ve taken
ca
re of it and all you need to know is that he won’t be getting
in our way again.”

Brian fell silent. It seemed like the true meaning behind David’s words had sunk in. He swallowed hard. Alice came up behind him and wrapped her hands around his arm.

“
We need rest,” she whispered. “Let’s go back to the room and let them talk.”

Brian acknowledged her request with a nod. He glanced at me and then David.

“You guys be careful, okay? Come join us whenever you’re ready.” He looked at David and swallowed hard, thinning his lips for a moment as he mustered up the nerve
to say what he said next. “I mean you too, David. You’re… one of us now.”

I watched David’s unchanging expression, expecting him
to smile, but he didn’t.

“Thank you,” he replied.

B
rian and Alice turned and headed back toward
the main
tenance room.

Once they closed the door, I turned to David and took a step closer to him, looking up into his eyes.

“Thank you for taking the heat back there for what happened
to Taylor. Thanks for not telling them the truth.”

“You don’t need to thank me,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Really. Now you tell me why you didn’t let Brian heal your other burn.” He gestured to the thick ridge of jagged black skin decorating my right wrist.

“We all have our scars, right?” I answered, repeating the very same words he had said to me not too long ago. “Now I have my own. And it has a story, too. One I’ll never forget.”

His brow wrinkled at first and then he nodded in understanding.

“Look, David.” I unconsciously reached for his hand and grasped it tightly in mine. “I know I treated you like shit back there at the hotel, and for that, I’m sorry. Forgive me, please. I’ll do whatever it takes to prov
e myself to you and—”

“You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone, Kareena. Not Brian. Not Taylor. Not even me. But now that Taylor’s gone, we have to keep moving. We have to keep doing what we know is right. Whatever the Prism needs us to do.”

I suddenly remembered what the Prism had given me and released David’s hand so I could reach into my pocket and rummage around for the small energy pearl. I bumped David’s Libertad at the same time and scooped them both up into my grasp.

“Give me your hand, please,” I said, separating the pearl and coin into different palms and only revealing the tiny glowing orb to him.

“What is it?” he asked, lifting his wrist.

“It will protect you from the Saviors.” I dropped the ball onto his skin and it shattered into prismatic dust. Within seconds, it curled around his wrist and took the shape of a sparkling bangle full of chaotic light and color.

“I can’t really see it anymore,” he said, “but I can see a faint aura of light there around my wrist.”

“That’s all you need to see,” I said. “It’s the same energy they used in the portals. It somehow keeps the Saviors from abducting us. And I know what you’re thinking—that we’re just becoming slaves to another race of aliens
instead, but—”

“I trust you,” he said.

“Y-you do?”

He nodded.

I didn’t think he trusted me that much. Especially not after how I betrayed him so quickly and… abandoned him.

I squeezed my fingers and felt the cool touch of his silve
r coin.

“Oh. That reminds me.” I unfolded my fingers and lifted the coin up for him to see. “You should have this back.”

“No. Keep it.” David replied, crossing his arms.

“But, I did something horrible and I don’t think it’s right
to let something so important to you be blackened with… murder.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time it’s seen blood,” he said, uncrossing his arms. “And, besides, you’re safe, right? So… maybe it did you some good.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “So are you and Brian going to be okay? I mean, get along? I know he’s been grinding your nerves a lot lately, and I just want us to try to be friends. Until all of this is over with.”

“Kareena?”

“Yes?”

“You said it yourself, you have nothing here. You’re alone
and you feel like you don’t belong. Well, so do I. And I’m not going to stand here and ask you to give up who you are or commit to something you’re not comfortable with, but I am going to tell you what I think the truth is.”

He locked eyes with me as he continued. “I believe that you think you’ve got your entire life in the palm of your hand—that you’ve got everything under control and the entire world bows down to every one of your whims.”

“What? That’s ridiculous.” I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “I—”

“But
really,” he interrupted, “you’re afraid of being
abandoned because the world doesn’t revolve around you and you can’t do everything on your own. You’re afraid to admit
it. Not only your fear of being alone, but of being hurt. That’s
why you can’t make up your mind about what you want.
Brian. Me. Taylor. Someone else tomorrow, no doubt. But the
truth of the matter is, you’re lost and
confused and you don’t know how to live
your life without other people in it who want nothing more than to worship you and carry you wherever
you want to go.”

“That’s not true…” The words barely came out of my mouth.

“It is.” He put his hands on my shoulders and leaned closer to me. “It’s the truth and you know it. I said I’d come back with you and the others, but I’m not going to be part of a lie. I know I said things didn’t have to get messy between us when all of this began, and I stand by my words. But what we started back there—what you keep pretending we didn’t—that was the start of something else. Something bigger.

You can keep denying it, or you can tell me what you really think. I’m more than willing to stay here and fight this fight until the end, regardless of how you feel about me o
r whether we
ever
even look at each other again. But I won’t
risk my life in ignorance. I need to know the truth. We need to set things straight.”

His fingers slid down my arms and he awaited a response.

“The truth?” I started and then swallowed hard. “The truth is I don’t need
a man to make me feel valuable or to give me a reason to live. I don’t, and no woman should. I’ve
always tried to be independent and although, yeah, I like having guys around, I don’t need one to survive. I don’t need anyone. But, at the same time, I was so blinded by my infatuation with Brian, I couldn’t see what it was doing to me.”

David listened intently.

“But today, shit hit the fan and I realized I did need someone,” I added. “I… needed you.”

“That’s the truth, then?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then that’s all I needed to hear,” he replied softly, a small beam of admiration coiling the corner of his lips.

A weight suddenly lifted from my heart.

But the satisfaction couldn’t last.

I looked upon the dark brown and black lines crackling through the light inside David’s chest. “David.” I took a deep breath. “There’s… something else.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“Remember back when I told you about the darkness I saw discoloring your fluorescence?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “What about it?”

“Well, I can’t pretend not to see it anymore… and I won’t let you pretend it’s not there.”

“I knew something wasn’t right,” he whispered.

“Y-you did?”

“Yes,” he continued. “I know what it means, too. Things haven’t been right for a while and I had a feeling something was… wrong. Whatever it is, it’s killing me. I have no idea how much time I have and you know I’m not one to ask for help, but I’d be a fool to think I didn’t need yours now.”

Chapter 1

T
he
ghoulish ash-colored thing watched me
intently, sizing me up with its shallow grey eyes. Sleek white hair fell past its bony shoulders, and although its small, sloped nose and familiar facial features made it look human, it was anything but.

I reached for my gun, grasping the grip feebly, but relinquished the idea because my limbs were weak and heavy.

“What do you want from me?” I asked, trying to raise my voice. It was nearly impossible. I coughed, my lungs straining to take in air.

“Well?” I asked again, wheezing. “What do you—”

“We have an assignment for you,” it said, its intonation robotic and stale. The thing approached me and reached out a hand.

I took a step back. “Don’t come near me!” My hands were fists. The thing sure as hell wasn’t going to touch me. “Whatever you are, I want you to put me back where I was. I don’t want any part of whatever it is you’re doing. Leave me alone!”

“Your kind refer to us as the Saviors,” it continued,
cutting into me with its stiff, judgmental gaze. “We are searching
for a cure for a virus that is destroying our species. Humans have genetically compatible DNA, which we can bind with our own in an effort to develop such a cure.”

Saviors?

“This is crazy,” I said, scanning over more of the things standing behind the speaking one. “I’m not letting you do
anything to me.” I took another step back and grunted
. Something stopped me—a wall I couldn’t see.

“It is too late for that,” the thing continued, approaching.

I was ready to take a swing at it, but something inside warned me to stay cool. I didn’t need an alien pissed off at me.

“We have an offer for you,” it added. “We are aware of the one you call Lucy. Your—”

“Don’t you lay a goddamn hand on her!” I lunged at the
thing, but an invisible blow to the chest propelled me backward.
I hit the ground. Hard. Lost my breath. I struggled to come to my feet.

“You cannot tell us who to choose,” it said coldly.

I coughed hard and wiped my lips with the back of my hand. A splash of blood colored my knuckles.
What the hell?
“What did you do to me?”

It forced a flattened hand out and a burst of fiery heat welled in my chest. I looked down and saw sparks of yellow light radiating from my sternum up to my collarbone.