Black and White (7 page)

Modified truth; every heroine’s secret weapon. And she hadn’t even learned that in class.

The look of pure hatred Dawnlighter shot her should have flayed all the skin from her bones.

Jet smiled at her. She tried to make it sweet, but it felt sickly. “What? Heroes tell the truth. Don’t they?”

She felt Night’s gaze heavy upon her. Summoning all of her courage, she looked into his eyes—for exactly a half second before she quickly stared back at her boots.

Night said, “Is this true, Dawnlighter?”

A long pause, filled with the sound of someone swallowing. Finally, the girl replied, “Sir, it’s true that Iridium started mouthing off to me.” She must have remembered that her posse was there, because her next words came faster, louder. “Iridium started the whole thing. Jet’s just saying it’s my fault because she and Iridium are roommates.”

“I see.” Night turned to face Iridium. “And you, Iridium? What do you have to say?”

Jet risked a glance at her roommate, who smiled—sweetly, Jet noticed; she had to learn how to pull that off. Looking right at Night, she said, “Sir, when Dawnlighter referred to Jet as a ‘dirty Shadow,’ I had to let her know that sort of language is inappropriate for heroes.”

Night’s eyes narrowed, and he whirled on Dawnlighter. “You will come with me. You, too, Iridium. We’re going to find the Soothsayer to determine the truth of your words.” He paused, and the air vibrated with menace. “I sincerely hope for your sake, Dawnlighter, that Iridium was lying.”

Jet watched all the color drain from Dawnlighter’s face. The girl whispered, “Yes, sir.”

The two girls followed Night—but Iridium glanced back over her shoulder and winked at Jet.

Jet’s lips twitched into a startled smile, one that she quickly forced down. So what that Iridium had stood by her side, or that she had gotten in trouble because of Jet? The girl probably would have done the same for anyone who’d gotten picked on. That was what heroes did: They defended the weak.

But if Jet dared hope that the two of them would ever go from roommates to friends, she was kidding herself.

I
ridium knew she had a problem when their self-defense instructor paired them off and she found herself face-to-face with Hornblower. Or, as Iridium and Jet had privately come to call him in the weeks since the Academy had been in session, the Boy Moron.

From the other end of the line, Jet gave her a sympathetic glance. She’d gotten the skinny kid who controlled plants and sort of looked like a spindly tree himself. “Lucky,” Iridium muttered to herself.

“Listen up!” their defense instructor bellowed. He was the size of a small mountain, but Iridium decided he would have been a lot scarier without the cyber leg and a metal pin in the arm on the same side. “My name is Erik Taft, but you will call me Lancer! I am here to teach you that all of
your powers and your so-called skills are nothing next to a gangster with a plasgun. Or a junkfreak with a Talon cutter. Or anyone, anywhere, who takes advantage of a moment of inattention from you!”

Iridium saw Jet wince. She wanted to tell her that Lancer was just trying to scare them, that her dad said he was a washout who’d gotten dropped by a gangbanger because he was busy posing for a reporter. But she couldn’t, so she stuck her tongue out at Hornblower instead.

“I’m gonna rip you apart,” he hissed.

“I’m soooo scared,” Iridium responded, flipping a finger at him.

“Two volunteers!” Lancer bellowed. “My nephew and his skinny partner. Front and center!”

Iridium was genuinely startled when Hornblower grabbed her by the sleeve of her uniform and jerked her to the mat at the head of the class. “You’re the coach’s nephew?” she said.

“The three Taft brothers are the triple terror of criminals everywhere,” Lancer rumbled, like two avalanches colliding.

“I heard one of you was a dud,” said Iridium. “No powers,” she elucidated, when Lancer turned the color of tomato sauce.

“Little lady,” he said, “assume the defensive position.” He clapped his nephew on the shoulder. “Hornblower, why don’t you demonstrate that move we practiced at home for the class?”

“Sir?” Jet stuck up her hand. “Shouldn’t the partners be equal in size for an effective demonstration of the technique?”

“What’s your name?” Lancer snapped.

“Jet, sir.”

“Jet, shut your Shadow mouth and let the class move along,” Lancer bellowed. “When I want any of your snot-nosed opinions, I’ll ask for them! Is that clear?”

“Yes, Lancer, sir,” the class chorused.

Then, without waiting for a signal, Hornblower lunged at Iridium. He was twice her size, and he moved fast for a stocky kid.

Iridium didn’t bother trying to use any of the physical techniques she and Abbie had practiced. She stuck out her hand, called her power, and strobed Hornblower in the face.

He fell to the ground, screaming and clawing at his skin as he rolled back and forth.

Lancer grabbed Iridium by the back of her collar. “What in Christo’s name was that?”

“He attacked me,” said Iridium calmly. “I defended myself. Was that not the point of this lesson?”

“You take a good look at this girl,” Lancer said loudly. “She is
not
a team player. The hero in this room who gets paired with her come Third Year is as unfortunate as my poor … underpowered … brother, Boxer. You mark my words.”

To Iridium he hissed, “Get your ass moving. You’re going to the Superintendent’s office.”

As she was dragged off the mat by her uniform, Hornblower moaned, “I’m gonna get you back for this, Iridium! I swear.” His face was lobster-colored from sunburn, and his eyes were watering.

“Next time you try and threaten me, don’t cry like a little girl,” said Iridium. “It cheapens the moment.”

“Move!” Lancer shouted, dragging her out of the classroom. Iridium saluted to the students at large and was gratified when she saw Jet smile.

J
et didn’t know she was screaming. Well, she didn’t know she was screaming in real life. In her dream, oh yeah, she was shrieking for all she was worth.

“Joannie,” the black thing that had once been her father said, “come out and give your papa a kiss.”

Jet … no, Joannie, she was Joannie, she was five and could barely make Shadow puppets on the walls … whimpered and shrank back to the farthest corner of her closet.

Outside the door, her father giggled. It was a wet, burbling sound that made Joannie think of the water in the big plastic jug whenever she pressed the button to fill her cup.
Glug glug
went the water;
glug glug
went Papa as he hic-cuped laughter. “Joannie,” he said, stretching her name into something terrifying. “Don’t you love your papa?”

Yes. But her real papa wouldn’t be scaring her like this. Her real papa wouldn’t have wrapped Mama in a black blanket and squeezed her until there was only a spill of bright, wet red on the ground and an empty thing that used to smile and laugh and call her “My precious Jet.”

“Go away,” she whispered to the monster that was her father.

“Joannnnnieeeee …”

“Go away!”

“You broke the rules, Joannie.”

She shivered, cradled her arms around her legs and rocked, wishing the floor would swallow her up. He was going to hurt her. He was going to rip open the door and grab her and shake her and squeeze her, no matter how much she cried for him to stop.

Stop
, her mama had screamed.
For the love of Jehovah, stop!

But he hadn’t, not even when Mama had used his private just-between-Blackout-and-Angelica names.
George
, her mama had shrieked,
please! Stop!

And then came the crunching sounds, like leaves in the autumn, caught underfoot.

“You’re a bad girl, Joannie. You broke the rules, didn’t you?”

She swallowed, felt hot stabs of guilt and shame in her belly and her heart.

“Come out, girl, and take your punishment like a good Squadron soldier. I won’t hurt you.”

She covered her ears, thinking,
Liar, liar, pants on fire …

The closet doorknob rattled. “Time to come out. Give Papa a hug.”

Like the way he’d hugged Mama, just before. Papa had wrapped bands of blackness around Angelica and squeezed. Maybe her mama had thought he was joking at first, and that was why she hadn’t fought until it was too
late. Maybe, even as the inky strips had squeezed Angelica like a hungry snake, maybe she thought he was just kidding, playing Bad Guys the way they did with Joannie. Because Angelica didn’t cry at first, not even when the black bands squeezed too much—she’d waited, with a patient smile, as if she knew that Blackout would stop and everything would be okay, because he would never hurt her, not really …

At least, that was what Joannie thought her mama had been thinking. That was what it had looked like to Joannie, who’d been standing in the kitchen, sneaking a third cookie before dinner. Sneaking, like a thief. Taking something that she knew she wasn’t supposed to have.

Papa had seen the crumbs on the floor. And that was when he’d gone all scary Shadow and had started yelling at her. And when Angelica tried to calm him down with her Light touch, like how she’d do for Joannie when Joannie was a baby and crying when the things in the dark whispered to her, that was when Blackout let the shadows out and made them hug Mama.

Wrapping her arms around her legs, keening softly, Joannie understood, deep in her soul, that this was all her fault. If she hadn’t been sneaking, stealing, this wouldn’t have happened.

“Joannie, are you going to make me come in there?”

She swallowed, said nothing.

“Here I come, Joannie. Here … I … come!”

That was what he’d said to her after he’d dropped Mama to the ground—empty, misshapen, broken. Bleeding. Joannie didn’t even really see Angelica’s body—she was too busy scrambling for the Panic Button next to the comlink on the wall. She skidded in a pool of thick, red wetness and banged her small fist against the big red button—the one thing she was told never, ever to do unless someone was hurt because the button was a Serious Thing, and if she did
it just for fun, she’d get into so much trouble that she’d never sit down for a whole week.

Remember
, Angelica had told her from the time she was little,
no touching the Panic Button unless it’s an Emergency.
She’d taught Joannie that “Emergency” meant they needed the heroes to come, fast.

She really needed the heroes to come, right now, and make everything okay. Make her papa not a monster and make her mama well again. Make her stop being so scared.

So she’d hit the button and run into her room and slammed the door, and she’d run into the closet and slammed that door, too, and she’d scampered to the very back and had hidden in the darkness, waiting for the nightmare to end.

There, in the darkness, with her mother’s blood staining the bottoms of her bare feet, the voices started to whisper to her.

lost so lost little girl lost little lamb

They sounded like part of the closet itself, like the walls had peeled away and stretched long and thin like rolls of paper and had crumpled into words pasted on the thick air. She pressed her hands against her ears and tried to listen only to the sounds of her heart thumping madly in her chest, of her ragged breaths, tried to convince herself that she was really very brave and not at all scared because she was supposed to grow up to be a hero …

… and then her father had found her.

“Here … I … come!”

The door ripped open, and Joannie screamed and screamed and screamed …

… and her father’s hand clamped onto her shoulder and she screamed louder, so loud that she almost didn’t hear Iridium’s panicked voice: “Jet! Wake up! It’s a nightmare, Jet. Listen to me—it’s a nightmare! Joannie, wake up!”

Jet stared owlishly at the girl on her bed, blinked as she took in the clear blue eyes, the thick black hair, the worried
set of the mouth. Recognition dawned, pushed through the fog of her dream. “Iri?”

“Yeah.”

She exhaled, slowly, and when she mopped her sweat-slick bangs away from her eyes, her hand trembled. As she took another shaky breath, she noticed that the room had every light panel on. “Where …” Her throat was raw, and she swallowed, tried to work some moisture into it before she spoke again. “Where’re my goggles?”

Iridium bent down, grabbed something from the carpet. “You mean these?” She dangled the ruined optiframes from a finger. “Looks like you tore them off in your sleep.”

“Oh.” Biting her lip, Jet felt her heart sink into her stomach. Without the special lenses, how would she shut out the darkness at night?

Iridium placed the goggles on Jet’s nightstand, right next to her clock. “Um. Until you get them fixed, you can, you know, keep the lights on overnight.” She sounded caught between worry and embarrassment.

“But …” Jet frowned, said, “but that’ll interfere with your sleep. And it’s against code.”

“Don’t worry about me—I’m happy in the light.” Iridium grinned wickedly. “And as for code, what the proctors don’t know won’t hurt us.”

“But it’s breaking the rules.”

Her father’s voice, smoky with insanity:
You broke the rules.

If Iridium noticed how the blood had drained from her face, she ignored it, instead stabbing a finger at Jet. “You want to sleep in the dark?”

She wrapped her arms around herself, shivered. Her voice a whisper, she said, “No.”