Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy (22 page)

“Jane,” I interrupted, tucking my helmet under my arm. “Her name’s Jane. And, unlike you, she actually cares about her kid. She cares about me, too, for that matter.”

“Quit being a smartass.” She raised her arm,
threatening to swipe the back of her hand across my face. I didn’t flinch.
“Just because you’ve got a job and a motorcycle, doesn’t
make you king of anything.”

You don’t scare me.

“Mom, please.” I bit my tongue and took a deep breath to keep from saying something I’d regret.

She lowered her hand and pushed past me. “Actually, I don’t care where you go, or what you and your girlfriend do,” she said. “But I know you’ve been spending a lot of time with her—way too much for a boy your age, so you’d better watch yourself. If she ends up pregnant, I’ll disown your ass.”

Great timing…

“Thanks for the advice.” I clenched my fists. She was treading on thin ice. “Because I’m an idiot, right? You just have to tell me every little damn thing. You know what, why
don’t
you disown me? You and Dad never wanted me anyway.” I shimmied past her and into my room. I threw my helmet onto my bed and turned to close my door. “I know I’m not your perfect goddamn poster child. I’m sorry I was
born with a heart defect, but at least I was born with a heart.”

“Don’t you dare!” She raised her eyebrows.

I slammed the door shut and locked it. “Shut up.” I lowered my voice. “Just, shut up.” My demands were safely distorted by the door.

There was my mother, teetering on the ledge of sanity. Every day a gamble and every tomorrow threatening to send me spiraling into hell.

I wouldn’t let her drag me down into her misery. She’d been slipping for a while, and it had gotten progressively worse over the past few weeks. She acted as though her life was so hard.

Ever since Jane had lifted her ban on my seeing Alice, things had gotten better. Alice and I had been able to spend more time together. I felt responsible now that I’d gotten a job and started paying off my motorcycle.

Growing up would be a lot of work, but I was ready to face reality. To step up and be the man Alice needed me to be.

I thought about her all the time, and there were nights I desperately wanted her by my side, curled up safely in my arms beneath the bed sheets. But in the eyes of the law, we were kids. We couldn’t make all of the choices we wanted to. All the decisions we
needed
to.

The damn
Saviors
couldn’t wait. They’d
slammed
Alice and
me with the consequences of a decision we’d never made
—the decision to bring a child into the world.

As if having fluorescence inside us wasn’t enough to worry about.

And if my mother used the “little brown-haired girl” line one more time, I’d snap. I’d known Alice for no less than a year, yet she pretended to not even remember her name. Sometimes I thought it was the medication talking. Other days, I
knew
she purposely tuned me out.

The boy with the running mouth. The stranger who lived
in her home.

She and Dad had always hated me for things I had no control over. I wasn’t good enough for the military. Because of my arrhythmia, I wasn’t strong enough to run and play like other boys my age.

They couldn’t push me to the limits.

They couldn’t break me.

“Damn it!”

I slammed a fist into the wall, sending a cloud of drywall dust scattering across the floor, then recoiled from the hole, my hand trembling. Ivory knucklebones protruded, glossy and raw. Bloodied patches of torn skin wrinkled backward like wet paper mâché.

I grunted through gritted teeth, slurring and hissing as pain bolted through my arm.

Jesus.

Light brown showed through the indention in the wall.

A stud. A freaking stud.

Blood drizzled down my fingers, soaking the carpet near my dresser with a soggy patch of bright crimson. I cupped my wrist and lifted my arm above my head to try to slow the bleeding. Knuckles fractured, I couldn’t move my fingers. Sticky pink flesh peeled up around them. I bit my tongue. I couldn’t let Mom hear me. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of finding me in pain.

Hot white and blue sparked from the tips of my fingers and skittered up my arm, igniting the skin with electric blue light. Warmth washed over me and I exhaled a sigh of relief.
The pain quieted.
Frayed
edges of skin relaxed and sunk down
over the bones, stretching and smoothing across the wound like liquid flesh pouring over my hand.

The azure glow dimmed and faded completely into my skin. I turned over my hand, wiggling the fingers and rotating at the wrist to judge the range of motion. Normal.

I’d never broken a bone before, but I had twisted an ankle taking a fall from my skateboard years ago.

That was back when I was younger—a
normal
kid.

Being a teenager blows.

Chapter 2

M
y name is Brian. No last name, but Azure will do. If you insist.

I’m a Healer.

The blue light in me—the one that saved my fractured knuckles a trip to the ER—is alive. It’s a type of DNA known as fluorescence, and it was implanted in me not long ago by an alien race called the Saviors.

My girlfriend, Alice—also implanted with fluorescence—is the reason I’m still breathing. The reason I haven’t become a runaway and chosen to face the world on my own, struggling to keep police off my back. Life at home with my psychotic mother is hell and every day a nightmare to live through.

Frightening? Maybe. Not half as scary as being called away from work by my girlfriend’s mother because her daughter had had a nervous breakdown and wouldn’t talk to her. Why? Because she’d just found out she was carrying
my
child. This despite the fact that we’d never actually slept together.

Okay, so it wasn’t like we were saintly kids who’d never thought about sex, but Alice had insisted against it mostly out of fear of, well,
this
happening. I respected her decision but it’s hard being in a serious relationship at an age when your body is still working things out.

Age of consent.
What a joke. Mother nature doesn’t give
a damn about laws. All
she cares about is keeping the species alive. Raging hormones and all of the crazed internal shit wants us to slip up and do what nature intended.

We didn’t
and we still got screwed over.

The Saviors put it there, and now we’re the ones who have to deal with it. I couldn’t imagine what went through Alice’s head after she found out. I was petrified when she first told me. So furious, I had to step out and let off some steam. It wasn’t her fault.

It wasn’t my fault, either.

No matter who did this to her, I had to take on responsibility for it. Her father may have walked out on her, but I sure as hell wouldn’t. I needed to be there for her no matter what.

. . .

“Emancipation. Transfer of Guardianship.” Kareena—another fluorescent one—slid a stack of papers across the lunch table to me. “You’ve got a few options.”

Alice leaned in to share a look, sweeping her long brown hair back and out of the way of her food tray.

“Marriage?” I furrowed my brow. “Seriously?”

Sam—Alice’s
best friend—stuck out her tongue
and wrinkled her nose in response. She sat across from us in the cafeteria.

“Well, if your mom wants to get rid of you
that
badly.” Kareena shrugged.

She’d really done her homework. The only homework I’d ever seen her do, actually. It’d be a miracle if she graduated this year. Kareena acted like a bitch most of the time, but apparently she cared. A little.

Alice sunk down. I reached over and took her hand.

“Don’t worry, Alice. I think getting married is our
last
option.”

“I know.” She nodded.

“Besides, would it be
that
bad?” I looked into her bright blue eyes and smiled, brushing her hair behind her ear. “I mean, really?”

She looked down. “Well, no, but…”

Who was I kidding? Alice was fifteen, for God’s sake.

I understood why she was hesitant. It wasn’t that I couldn’t
see myself marrying her, but the thought of making that commitment in binding legalese in the middle of our sophomore year of high school jarred me. Someday. Just not today.

That, and Mom would never do me the favor of signing anything. The law states that each minor is required to have one parent present for a marriage like that to go through. Count my mom out.

Luckily, Kareena’s bigwig lawyer of a father had exposed
her to law despite her efforts to avoid it. I recalled seeing their massive library of law books when I’d perused her house, just before we’d found out she was one of us. It had filled an entire room to the ceiling. I remember because I couldn’t help but imagine what it must be like having the money to fill spare rooms with books alone.

“Emancipation then?” Kareena sifted a stapled packet out of the pile and plopped it on top. “It’s an option if you can prove you’re better off on your own.”

I didn’t think I was that well-off yet, but…

“However,” Kareena continued, “if there’s cause to believe your mother is negligent—which we all know she is—then it will be thrown out and picked up by social services first.”

Damn.

“This is ridiculous!” I groaned and covered my face with my hands. “I can’t keep dealing with her like this. She’s making me crazy. And I can’t keep expecting your mom to take me in when things go south.” I looked at Alice and took a sip of my soda. “She’s done so much already.”

The first time had been out of necessity, but I’d stayed over the other night, too, when Alice had told me the news. We’d slept on the couch—or at least tried. Leaving Alice alone then had felt wrong and, luckily, her mother hadn’t argued with me.

“I’ll look this stuff over later. Alice? Can you hang on to it for me?” I slid the stack over to her.

“Sure.” She gathered up the pile and shoved it into her book bag.

“Thanks.”

Kareena and Sam each went their own way and we headed
off to chemistry class.

“Are you feeling any better?” I asked Alice, reaching to take her hand. We hadn’t told the others about the pregnancy yet.

“Yeah.” She looked up at me and her gaze softened.
“Thanks to you. Having you there the other night calmed me down a lot. I’m still scared… but at least I have you.”

“You certainly do.” I squeezed her hand gently and smiled.

I love Alice so much, it sometimes makes my heart hurt.

. . .

I pulled my
motorcycle
up into the driveway and
squeezed
the
brake. Alice hopped off and I flicked down the
kickstand.
We slipped off our helmets and tucked them under our arms.

“It will be okay,” I said, taking her arm. “We’ll be okay, Alice.”

She swallowed hard and fumbled through her book bag for her house key, clearly preoccupied with the fear of telling her mother about the pregnancy.

We strolled up the driveway together and her mother, Jane, came to the door before Alice could find her key.

Jane smiled, a generous, toothy grin that was a little forced but still friendly. I tried my best to act natural and grin back. We walked past her and into the living room.

“Staying for dinner, Brian?” Jane asked.

“Sure. If it’s not too much trouble.” I flopped down onto the couch and Alice dropped down beside me, leaning back into my embrace.

“Don’t worry, okay?” I said, holding her close.

“I know.” She rested a hand on her belly and sighed. “But, I’m still scared. I can’t even believe it. I don’t want to believe it.”

“Believe what, Alice?” her mom asked, standing in the archway between the rooms.

“Oh. I-I, uh,” Alice stuttered.

“Tell her,” I said, nudging her gently, rubbing her arm with my hand. Goose bumps rose across her skin. “It will be okay. I promise.”

Alice gulped and her body trembled against mine.

“It’s okay, Alice,” I assured her again.

“Mom… I’m…”

“I know,” her mother interrupted softly.

Alice gasped. “You do?”

“Yes.” She looked at me and nodded. “Brian told me after you’d fallen asleep.”

“Oh.” Alice sunk down, reaching a hand up to fidget with her dolphin pendant.

“You don’t need to stress out about me and what I think.”
Her mother came over and sat on the coffee table in
front of us. “
Alice, honey, you’re
all I’ve got
. If those
monsters up there are going to mess with my little girl against her will, then with God as my witness, I will do everything I can to protect you and make you comfortable.”

“I don’t want this,” Alice said. “Brian and I…”

“I know,” her mom interrupted again. “He already told
me. You two never…” She cleared
her throat. “Slept together. And
unlike most parents of teens, I trust
you and have reason to believe you two have told me the truth.”

“I’m so scared, Mom.” Alice leaned forward to hug her mother.

I was scared, too. Scared of what was growing inside the girl I loved. Scared of how much or… how little of it was really ours.

Chapter 3

W
e tried to discuss options, but not knowing exactly what kind of baby it would be or whether or not it would have fluorescence inside it, too, made deciding on anything difficult. Abortion was something we had discussed, but it didn’t seem like a possibility worth pursuing. Odds were, if the Saviors had put it in her once, they wouldn’t hesitate to
do it again. Alice didn’t need any more pain. Physical or
psychological.