Chemistry (20 page)

“You look sad,” I say, and I can’t believe how simple I sound. It doesn’t bother me, though. Comforting another person is a simple thing to do, an easy thing. I just never realized it before. “Tell me what I can do to make you happy again.” My voice is hoarse, and I’m glad for it. One more mask between us. She won’t recognize me any time soon, and I can continue this charade for as long as I can stand it.

I take her hand and lead her back onto the dance floor. It’s a slow song this time, and she wraps her arms around my neck and lays her head on my shoulder. I know she doesn’t really want to dance. Right now she just needs to be held, to hide herself in someone’s arms so she can cry privately. I know this, and it amazes me. When did people become so easy to understand? Esmeralda is not like Valentine or me. She’s more like Gene. She needs warmth and companionship to survive. She needs a friend, but not just any friend. She needs someone who won’t use her and abandon her as soon as they get what they want. I can give that to her.

“Don’t worry,” I say, echoing her earlier words to me. “I’ll take care of you.”

Now the world is righted again. Now the order of things is as it should be. But it doesn’t last.

I feel something sharp tap me on the top of my head and turn to see Death himself standing behind me. It’s Sydney Clopin.

“Who are you?” He says to me again. “And why are you so interested in our little angel?”

“She’s not yours,” I say, but I omit the line that follows it in my head:
she’s mine.

“Tell me who you are,” he growls, “and I’ll tell you whether or not you’ve got a right to touch her. So who’s under the coward’s mask? Red Robin? Clever Jack?” He shoves his scythe between Esmeralda and me, and I am stunned at the venom in him. He thinks I’m on the soccer team. He’s sure of it, in fact. And I have no way to prove otherwise without losing everything.

Esmeralda tries to push the scythe back, but Sydney is determined.

“Or, René, if your name embarrasses you, you can just tell us your position, and we’ll take it from there.”

“Syd, cut it out,” Esmeralda says. Her eyes are still red from weeping, and Sydney notices with a slight, threatening nod.

“But that’s exactly what I’m trying to do,” he says. “Position, Tristan, if you please. Forward? Defense? Midfielder? Or are you that worthless goalie? I noticed the lot of you chose your masks carefully. But the CoM is not as stupid as you think we are.”

“Stop it!” Esmeralda pushes him back, but he won’t give an inch.

“This is for your own good, Em,” he says, without taking his eyes off me. “This is why you get yourself into the kind of trouble you do. You’re too trusting.”

I can feel another wave of the drug coming. I’m reeling from the joy of it. It’s almost too much. Sydney is still talking, but all I care about is the music of his voice.

Then the beautiful, swirling world finally erupts. A flash of orange and black streaks past me and knocks Sydney to the ground. At first, I struggle to comprehend it, but as the wave of ecstasy begins to ebb, I see Valentine standing over Sydney, his fists clenched, his mask thrown off. And I know the chaos I planted has finally come to fruition. It doesn’t matter whether I’ve changed my mind. It’s happening, and I can’t stop it.

More members of the CoM see the struggle and hurl themselves at Valentine. They are a family, indeed, and they won’t stand by and watch one of their own be brutalized.

Then I hear a voice behind me say, “It’s her again. See! I told you she was bad news, her and her whole goddamned trash parade.” And others from the soccer team join Valentine in his heroic but ultimately blind struggle. My best friend has no idea he’s fighting on the wrong side.

This is all my doing. I won’t try to deny that. Valentine knew only that someone at the prom planned to hurt Esmeralda. He had no idea which someone that was, and I didn’t tell him on purpose. I wanted him confused and paranoid. I wanted this explosion so I could get Esmeralda away from all of them without a struggle. This was my plan from the start.

This is why I hate myself. You may think I overstate the fact, but I can’t. Not really. I plan these things so carefully, but only after there’s no going back do I see how stupid my plans were. Even if they work out, it’s never for the best. My plan to keep Gene from experiencing more loss only spoiled him. My plan to shelter Valentine has turned him into a junkyard dog. Only Peter escaped relatively unscathed, and that’s because he backed out at the last minute. He had no loyalty to me, and that was his smartest move. I am toxic.

Valentine takes punches like they were houseflies bouncing off his skin. He plows into the crowd, a giant, unstoppable monster, swinging and spitting and using other people as projectiles. And the CoM, the beautiful Court of Miracles, is scattered and bleeding.

But none of this, absolutely none of it, prepares me for what I see next. And no amount of artificial ecstasy will erase the blood from my eyes. My brother—little Gene, the happy child, the young and promising, life-loving boy—bowls into the fray and crashes into Valentine with a determination I’ve never seen in him before. He’s defending his family: not the one that planned to adopt him and not the one he was born into, but the people he loved, the people who knew him and accepted him. Gene defends the Court of Miracles with everything he has, but he’s up against Valentine. And Valentine puts him into the ground effortlessly.

I will never forget the way they kick and trample my brother. Like he’s just a doll. Like he’s nothing. No one even sees him. I struggle to reach him, but the crowd presses me out. Gene is sprawled on the floor in jeans and a bloody T-shirt. His armor has come off in pieces, which spin in the whirlpool of violence along with his body.

“Gene!” I scream, but he doesn’t respond. “Help!” I try to alert the people around him. “It’s Gene!” But no one can hear. The chaos is too rampant.

I scrape and fight my way to him, losing my mask in the process. His face is blue by the time I reach him. He has stopped breathing. I try to crouch over him and perform some kind of CPR while guarding him from the fight, but I’m kicked in the face, knocked back, and pushed over again and again.

“Hold on, Gene.” I pull his arm and spin him around, crawling on my hands and knees to get him away from the fight. I finally manage to pull him under one of the large, round tables, but I know it’s too late. His heart has stopped. His breathing has stopped. And there’s no calling 911 or anyone else. Any authority on the boat is occupied with trying to stop the mob. My brother is lost to the world.

All I can do is hold him.

I can still hear the music over the crowd. The song that plays is a happy one—something about wishing on stars and falling in love. Somewhere else it’s an appropriate song. Somewhere else people are young and stargazing and sharing their dreams. But here my brother is dead in my arms. We’re huddled together in the middle of a masked war. I’m rocking him and wishing we were young again, living in the home we used to imagine for ourselves, with glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the bedroom ceiling. Our mother sings out of key in the living room and keeps us awake long past bedtime, and we pretend to be astronomers or explorers and tell each other stories about the high seas.

Oh, Gene, what happened? What happened to us?

I lay my brother down under the table and touch his forehead one last time. He’s gone. Valentine may have dealt the blow, but I know who really killed him… and for whom he really died. I’ve left her to the crowd, but she’s all I have left now. If she’s still alive. If the chaos hasn’t taken her, too.

I pull my cowl low over my face, and prepare to march myself the rest of the way to hell in order to keep her.

BOOK ELEVEN

Esmeralda is easy to find, thanks to Peter’s ingenious costume. The arch of her wings reaches just above the crowd, and I battle my way toward her. The pure fight in me is something I’ve never experienced before. I’ve felt anger, rage even, but I’ve never been so filled with raw adrenaline as I am now. I climb through the mob with nails and fists and a strength that is hardly mine. I’m high on the knowledge that I have nothing else to lose. Nothing at all. I’m fearless.

When I reach her, she’s almost buried under the chaos. Those idiots who fight for her would have killed her had I not found her first. I take her by the waist and lift her off her feet to pull her from the sea of arms and teeth and blood and sweat. She fights me at first, because she has her back to me and can’t see who has caught her.

“It’s me,” I shout into her ear. “Your friend, the monk. I’m getting you out of here.”

I set her on her own feet and grab her by the wrist. And then we run. We scramble through the obstacle course of tables and overturned chairs. I can’t believe my own agility. I am invincible. No one can touch me. I drag Esmeralda after me, out of the ballroom and into the foyer, past the people running toward the fray. We catch an elevator. I punch the number I want and wait until the door closes to let go of Esmeralda.

She’s shaking. I can see it in her hands, though I don’t dare look up at her face. My cowl is the only mask I have left, and I’m not willing to give up her trust just yet. I stare at her fingers. The feathers on the tips of her wings shudder with her hands, and I can see each downy strand sway as though it were under water. It’s so surreal it takes me a moment to realize Esmeralda is speaking to me.

“I said, who are you?” she repeats herself. “Why are you doing this?”

I ignore her question. “You and I were never in the ballroom. You saw nothing. You’re not a witness.”

She lifts her hands. She’s going to remove my cowl, but I catch her by the wrists.

“Who are you?” Her voice trembles now. She doesn’t trust me any more. She’s almost afraid of me, but I still can’t bring myself to show her my face.

“The team won’t find you,” I go on. “The authorities can’t question you. We spent all night in my private room. Remember that.”

“Private room?”

The elevator door opens, and I drag her down the hall, through the mauve and teal, past the pinkish lights that leave a trail along the walls as we race by them. Another wave of pleasure hits me, and I can barely mask my excitement. This will be the beginning of my real life, my birthday. I swear from this night on, I will not take life for granted. I will explore every corner of experience. I will taste every flavor, enjoy every pleasurable scent, listen to every variety of music. And I will learn to dance.

I open the door to my suite with a keycard and pull Esmeralda in after me. She resists a little at first, but I think she knows, deep down, there isn’t anywhere else to go.

I lock the door behind us, panting from the rush of it all. This is my moment of truth. I expect Esmeralda to question me more or lash out, but she doesn’t. She waits with her arms at her sides. She’s ready.

I push the cowl from my head.

My eyes have not adjusted to the darkness, so I can barely make out her expression. But I know she recognizes me. Her reaction is unexpected. Instead of rage and panic, instead of the fight I expect from her, she seems resigned. I hear her sigh and mutter, “I thought it might be you.”

For a moment, her words give me a little hope. She may have recognized me earlier, and yet she followed without a struggle. But the truth is I’m all she’s got right now. The chaos I created has delivered her to me, all wrapped up and decorated like Christmas.

“Listen,” I say abruptly. I want to get through this while I still have the courage—if this desperate insanity can be called courage. “Listen to me. Right now, you have to make a choice. Tonight can be the beginning of the rest of your life, or it can be the end. I’m serious. And your decision is going to change everything for me, too. There are people out there who want to hurt you; you know that. All I want to do is protect you, and I can. I know I can. That’s why… No one else will do what I’m about to do for you. Do you understand? Not even…” I can’t bring myself to say his name. “Not even your stupid team captain. But we’re not talking about him. Understand? Remember that. Because I’m not in my right mind, and I have no idea what I’ll do if you talk to me about him.”

Esmeralda says nothing.

My whole body quakes with agitation. I lean against the door, blocking the way out, and she stands a few feet from me, her angelic silhouette outlined by the light of the moon. I can’t stand not seeing her face, not being able to read her. I lunge at her, take her by the shoulders, and spin her around until she faces the window. Her expression destroys any notion I may have had that this will be easy. Because I swear I can see her lips curl at the corners. She’s smiling. She’s laughing at me.

“This is not a joke!” I shake her. “I’m trying to make you understand your situation. Stop smiling like that. If you had any idea… You wouldn’t laugh if you knew.” I start to fumble. I had it all worked out: what I would say to her, how I would convince her. I had this scene memorized, but now I’ve forgotten how it was supposed to go. “Where was I?” I say aloud before I realize I’ve done it. I am not in a state to be doing this. “Oh, yeah. Your situation.” I drag her to the balcony, open the door and pull her outside. “Do you hear that?”

The chaos above us is a symphony of screamed curses and toppling deck chairs. People are still fighting up there, outside the ballroom now. The violence has spread.

I squeeze her shoulders and whisper, “As soon as this ship docks, I guarantee the police will want to talk to witnesses. You can go with them and risk deportation, or you can take your chances with those bastards who kept you in the greenhouse.” Even I shudder to recall it.

On cue, as though the universe itself were conspiring to bring this event to an end, I hear Jack’s voice say, “The bitch has to be somewhere on this boat.”

“You see?” I hiss into Esmeralda’s ear. “They’re looking for you, and I hid you from them. I’m trying to protect you. I’m not lying about that. And I’m also not lying when I tell you I love you more deeply than you can imagine. You have no idea what you mean to me.”

She opens her mouth to speak, but I stop her with my hand. “Don’t… Don’t say anything if you’re just going to insult me. I’m done listening to that sort of thing.” Even as I speak, I realize it’s true. I’m done being dependable Claude. I’m done feeling that stinging hatred from the entire student body. I’m done with unhappiness and hopelessness and regret.