Flicker & Burn: A Cold Fury Novel (20 page)

“Tell me, please. We’re family, SJ . . .”

But I couldn’t, it would be like uncaging a wild animal, like tossing grenades.

“Aren’t we . . . at the very least, aren’t we still friends?”

Yet she really did deserve the truth.

“Tell me, you little bitch, or you’ll
regret
it!” she hissed.

And then I remembered my mom, dad, and Lou, and almost of its own volition, my hand darted like a cobra, grabbing her by the collar and yanking her surgically perfect nose to my Sicilian one. Through clamped teeth, I said, “I don’t have
time
for regret.”

“I’m . . . warning you.” She gasped. “You won’t even see it coming . . .”

“Bring it,” I said, tossing her back into the seat and walking away as Margo drunkenly warned the other party guests, “Fasten your seat belts! It’s going to be a bumpy night!”

And I pushed through the door into fluorescent brightness, hearing my name called as I charged down the hallway. Max pulled me to a stop and said, “What was that? Were you and Heather fighting? It sounded like someone got hit.”

“I was applauding the movie with one hand and her face got in the way,” I said, shaking free. I was nearly gone, almost to the double doors that led to escape, when he called me again. I stopped but didn’t turn.

“There’s a party tomorrow night,” he said, the words drifting toward me. “I don’t like parties, but my cousin Mandi is having it. I don’t really like Mandi much either, but . . .” I could almost hear him shrug. “I said I’d go, and I try to do what I say. I want you to go too, Sara Jane. Show up and we’ll pretend like we’re meeting for the first time so we can start fresh, with no secrets between us. Okay?”

It was quiet, and when the weight of the question became too heavy, I turned.

The hallway was empty, only the lights buzzed, and Max had gone away.

As usual, he’d done the right thing for both of us, since he didn’t want to hear me say no, and I didn’t want to lie.

IN THE MONTHS FOLLOWING MY FAMILY’S
disappearance, I learned that the surest way to kill sorrow was by burying it.

After leaving Fep Prep and blowing off the rest of the school day, I threw myself into infiltrating Johnny’s mind. I needed what was locked inside, but even more, I needed to smother the despair from the scene between Max and me. Only an intense diversion would do it, which was waiting on the couch when I entered the Bird Cage Club. Johnny sat catatonically, looking at nothing. He paid no attention to the food I offered, but drank a steady stream of water, his hand reaching for the glass with a mind of its own. He sipped now, wiped carelessly at his lips, and mouthed something silently. When I leaned in and asked him to repeat it, the words blew past my ear like a dying breeze.

“I . . . vant go home,” he said in an accent like the one Lucky put on when imitating him.

“Where is home?”

Johnny turned toward the wall of windows and rose from the couch. Jagged shards of glass still hung in the window frames here and there, and he stared past them out at the city. “I vant go home . . . home . . .”

I stepped to his side, watching his eyes flick from building to building, first one, then another, desperately combing the landscape. His brow wrinkled and his nostrils flared as tears formed in a look of helpless frustration. It was a sensation I knew well, and a realization opened then like a slowly blooming flower—Johnny wasn’t uttering a constant plea for freedom. Instead, he was simply lost. On the church roof, and at the house where the Outfit guy snatched him, he’d been aimlessly searching for where he came from. I asked his real name and if he could recall family or friends, but he just kept scanning the steel canyons.

Sec-C had done its job, chewing away portions of his memory.

If he couldn’t recall the most important people in his life, how could I expect him to know anything about the most important people in mine?

His scrambled mind meant Lucky was right; I’d have to use cold fury if I hoped to learn anything. One eye was as red as Teardrop’s, which meant it was impenetrable; I hoped cold fury would affect Johnny’s blue eye and allow me access to his troubled mind. Standing so near, I realized now how bruised and filthy he was. Before doing anything else, I had to clean him up. Sitting him back on the couch, I removed his grimy hoodie and paused, staring at his pale arm and torso, each bearing a clue. The scars on Johnny’s left wrist were not new but precise and indelible, permanent reminders of having once tried to kill himself. It made me think of Chloe, adrift without Max, and also of the feelings that possessed me when I thought I was a natural-born killer. The scars fit with what I knew about people drawn to Sec-C, racked with loneliness and pain, desperate for a miracle to make them feel connected and whole.

His sweat-stained T-shirt told another story.

Of course Lucky and his guys hadn’t seen it; why bother to take off a disgusting hoodie just to kick someone’s butt?

The flag it bore was white and red, with a screeching bird inside a coat of arms, its emblem reading
Chicago-Polonia Soccer Club.
Most Chicagoans, even one my age, knew
Polonia
was another word for Poland, since so many Polish people emigrated from there to here. If so, it explained Johnny’s accent; Lucky, a paranoid old criminal who suspected Russian mobsters lurking around every corner, had mistakenly heard the Slavic sound of his enemies in Johnny’s voice.

It added up to a guy from one country who came to another, and who, for pitiful but unknown reasons, gave himself over to Sec-C.

Until he freed himself—before his transformation into a creature was complete—and escaped into the wilds of Chicago.

I drew his attention, held his gaze, and blinked the cold blue flame to life. The blue eye widened in terror as we both observed his worst fear—him, staring at his own image in a large mirror, confusedly touching the taut, bleached skin on his face, pulling back an eyelid and regarding with horrified awe the scarlet pupil staring back. I couldn’t tell where he was—the surrounding area was out of focus—but other people moved behind him, some fully formed creatures in black, others like Johnny, dazed, in street clothes. Slowly, an angular, hard-edged face pushed from the gloom, gazing at him in the mirror. It was Lou, reflecting all the calcification prisoners undergo to survive. He whispered to Johnny, “You’re halfway to becoming one of them. Soon you won’t remember anything, and after that you’ll just turn off . . . like a plug has been pulled. Unless you stop eating that frozen shit. Unless you run.” Lou’s eyes were dark and hollow, boring in on Johnny. “We have a savior. We have to wait for her.” His lips tightened into a mad grin that sent icy knife pricks down my spine.
“Run!”
Lou shrieked, and I fluttered my eyes, breaking the connection.

Tears streamed down Johnny’s face.

My heart pounded in my head, an excited drumbeat that said
He’s seen my brother! He knows where my family is being held!

I yanked him close and yelled, “That place—where is it?”

Cringing, he muttered, “Home . . . I vant go . . .”

“Tell me!” I barked, but cold fury was muted, half its strength—Johnny’s fear was visible through the blue eyes, but like the other creatures, the red one must’ve blocked the part of his brain that forced him to do as I ordered. The location of my family was right there, inside his nodding head. I just couldn’t make him tell me where it was.

“Oh, SJ! I’m ho-
ome
!” Doug’s voice rang out as he rose up the elevator. “And guess who’s
super
excited about the Cubs game
to-morr-o-o-ow
?” I looked at a clock above the control center, seeing that hours had passed and it was nearly midnight. He came dancing by, slowing as he spotted Johnny. “Hey, who’s your friend? I heard about your big breakup and—
whoa!
—are you off the Max train
already
? Hey, I know how it feels!
Choo-choo,
here comes the Sec-C express,
chooka-chooka!
”

“Doug, I need to talk to you.”

“Hey-hey, whatya say, Cubs are gonna win today . . . or tomorrow . . . whatever!” he sang, doing a sloppy pirouette.

“Doug!” I bellowed, freezing him in mid-spin. His eyes were wide and rose colored, his gaunt face bright with sweat. Sec-C was taking its toll, and it gave me a tinge of apprehension at telling him about Johnny. What I really wanted was to get between him and those deadly friends, but I couldn’t, not yet. My inability to draw information from Johnny meant that I definitely needed Doug for access to the Cubs game. And then guilt over the blatant exploitation of my friend burbled up in my gut again. Sec-C or not, I had no right to doubt his loyalty. When I had his attention, I told him all about Lucky, the sit-down, and the poor damaged kid whose fear reflected my family.

He nodded, listening closely, and said, “Super important question: the game tomorrow . . . do I wear my new red silk shirt or something less flashy? I have to look my Dastardly Doug best. That’s what my hockey player calls me . . . Dastardly Doug!”

“Did you hear anything I said? There, on the couch . . . do you see him, Doug?”

“Yeah, so?” he said, glancing quickly. “He’s a zombie. That’s what we call the losers who can’t handle Sec-C. They sit around and stare and then disappear to wherever his kind goes. None of my concern.”

“None of your concern,” I murmured, trying not to sound as disturbed as I felt. “Okay, well . . . at the least, we should make a plan for when trouble starts at the game.”

“You mean if,” he said. “These are cool people. No one wants trouble . . . we just want to par-
tay
! This Kone guy sounds like a major tool, but . . .”

“Doug,” I said in a flinty tone that at least momentarily drew his attention. “He’s not a
tool.
He’s the maniac who took my family. There
is
going to be trouble.”

“Well,” he said, nodding, “if that isn’t just so-o-o Sara Jane! It’s
my
turn to have fun,
my
turn to shine, and all you can think about is you and your little quest!”

“Knock it off, will you? This is no time to try and kick-start the electricity. Trust me, it’s barely beneath the surface. So, here’s what we should do . . .”

His head bobbed as he mocked me, saying, “Here’s what we should do-o-o!”

“I’m not kidding.”

“I’m not kidding either, because I’m Sara Jane Rispoli, and I
never
kid!” he brayed madly. “And I never laugh and I never joke and never, ever,
ever
have fun! Because why have fun when I can get punched in the face and then brood about it? Why have fun when I can lick my wounds while pondering the injustice of the universe? Chase, fight, whine,
repeat
! Chase, fight, whine,
repeat
! Jesus, you know what you are?” he announced, pointing an oddly bony finger at me. “You’re a bore!”

Coldly, feeling alone on Earth, I said, “I’m just trying to find my family.”

“
Screw
them, Sara Jane! You’re
never
going to find them! This whole thing has been a
fool’s
game!” Doug exploded. His pronouncement expanded between us, dangling in the air like iron balloons. His jaw slackened, showing those teeth and that tongue. Regret flashed across his face, and he stared at the floor for a moment before looking directly at me. “I’ve been consumed with
your
life and
your
problems, but now I care about
me
more. I want to become that slim, sensual thing I’ve dreamed of,” he said. “It’s becoming real, and nothing else matters. Not you. Not your family. Nothing.”

All I could do was absorb the words like a body blow. “It’s not you talking,” I said quietly. “It’s Sec-C, doing something terrible to your brain. You want to see what you’re becoming? Look . . . it’s sitting right there on the couch.”

Doug held out his arms crucifix style, a scarecrow billowing with loose padding and empty cloth. “No, Sara Jane. Look at
me.
Sec-C has made me almost normal sized for the first time in my life,” he said. “You don’t know what that means or how it feels.”

“But it’s not healthy. It’s hurting you.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “When you’re as overweight as I am—was . . . whatever—you’re two terrible things at once: a freak everyone stares at, always in the worst type of spotlight, and a complete outcast. They gape, but they won’t come near. They gasp sadly when you bend to tie a shoe, or look piteously when you yank a huge T-shirt over an exposed acre of belly, but they grimace if you dare to sit near them on the El. They stare, fascinated, as you sip a large coffee something with whipped cream, but act like you have the plague if your hand accidentally brushes theirs, like they’re going to catch your fatness . . .”

“Doug—”

“That’s the worst part . . . human contact doesn’t exist. It’s not natural, never being touched or caressed, and it hurts worse than being called some idiotic name. Even the people that quote-unquote love you are secretly repulsed and hug reluctantly, or only when it can’t be avoided. They think you’re a self-indulgent glutton, unworthy of affection, when really you’re trapped and smothering beneath a landslide of yourself.”

“I never thought that you were a glutton.”

“I know,” he said. “All you thought about was
you.
Well, this is
my
life now. This shrinking body, my growing group of friends, and yeah, Sec-C. And don’t tell me it’s the drug talking, because we’re one and the same. It’s me, and I’m it . . . I’m Sec-C. And I’ll do
anything
not to lose it.” He turned away, ignoring Harry whining at his feet, unzipped a backpack, and began throwing clothes inside. “There are other places where I can shower,” he mumbled.

“It’s after midnight.”

“So? My friends and me . . . our party never ends.”

“What about the Cubs game tomorrow?”

“What about it?”

“After all we’ve been through,” I said, standing over him while he sniffed shirts and rolled up socks, “do I really need to tell you how important it is? It could be the life or death of my family. I can’t get anything out of Johnny, so now all I have left is me. I’m trading myself to Juan Kone in exchange for my family’s freedom.”

He stood motionless but didn’t face me. “What if he doesn’t let them go?”

“I have to try. I’ve got nothing left. I need you to get me into that party suite.”

“But why?” he said, and then paused, tightening his jaw. “Why
this
way? Barging in on all of those people. Why do you have to . . . ?”

“Ruin it for you?” We stared at each other, and he knew what I would say, and then I did, softly. “I don’t care about ruining it for you, Doug. I don’t care about ruining fortunes, futures, or lives if it helps me find my family. If I cared, I couldn’t take action. You know that . . . you’ve always known it.”

Doug exhaled, jaw tightening, then rifled through the backpack and handed me a ticket. “That will get you into the game. The party is in suite sixteen. That’s all I can do,” he said, slinging the backpack. He went quickly to the elevator and pushed the button.

“So you’re leaving? For good?” I said.

“I think so. Probably.” He nodded, the back of his head rising and falling as the arthritic elevator announced its arrival. “Yeah. I’ll get my other stuff later.”

“What about remembering the chauffeur, Doug?”

He boarded the steel box and stared at the floor. “Forget him. That’s my advice.”

“Okay. Well, thanks . . . for all of your help.” The cables clunked as the elevator descended, and I crossed the floor, saying, “Wait! Not just for your help! For being my friend!” I reached the cage but he’d fallen away as I said, “My only friend,” hearing the words tumble into darkness. Something cold and insistent touched my leg, and Harry stuck his nose toward me with a disappointed look. “Only
human
friend,” I said, trudging back to Doug’s laptop. My gaze drifted to his Sec-C friends having an excited conversation, and I noticed an improbable name nestled quietly among the chatter: