Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy (43 page)

Nothing interesting on TV. Commercials. Soap operas. Talk shows. I located a news channel and stopped surfing. Maybe they’d mention something about the man from last night. I wondered if he’d made it… if the infection had killed him or…

If
I
had killed him…

A weather reporter came on. Sports were after that. I’d have to wait until the next hour to learn anything.

I grabbed my phone off the nightstand.

Twenty percent battery remaining.

Damn.

I didn’t have my charger. I’d have to conserve power until I could grab a new one. Assuming Jane didn’t shut off our service… or use it to track us.

I sent Kareena a quick text to let her know what was up and then shut off my phone.

We’d make do without it for now. The hotel room had one anyway.

“Are you okay?” I called. Alice had been in the bathroom for quite a while.

She didn’t reply.

“Alice?” I meandered over to the bathroom and knocked gently, pressing my ear to the door.

A faint moan. A heavy sniffle.

How long had she been crying?

“Can I come in?” I wrapped my fingers around the knob.

She sniffed again. I twisted the handle.

Alice sat on the edge of the bathtub, doubled over. Her face in her hands.

I took a step closer and knelt down in front of her, resting a hand on her knee. “Alice. Come on. We need to get something to eat.”

“We shouldn’t have run away,” she said, congested. “Mom
would have helped us.” She balled up a length of toilet
paper and blotted her cheeks. “She would have.”

“And she still can, but not like this. She can’t stop the Saviors from hurting us.”

“What are we supposed to do now?” Her blue eyes glared
at me with contempt. “Seriously, Brian. What now?” She tossed the wad of soggy paper into the garbage bin.

“I don’t know yet, but you saw that guy last night!
Something was wrong with him. What if those people at the diner think
we
had something to do with it? What then? We can’t go back home until…”

Another knock at the door.

I sighed and pushed
myself up off the floor. “Give me a sec,
Alice.” I marched out of the bathroom, impatiently unlocked
the front door and jerked it open.

“Yeah? What did you… No!” I gasped.

A lump formed in my throat.

I was staring down the barrel of a silver handgun.

“How the hell did you find us?” My eyes met David’s. The putrid scent of cigarettes had my lips wrinkling.

“I had a little help.” He shot a glance toward the sky and grinned, his yellowing teeth just showing.

“Brian?” Alice crept out of the bathroom, screamed and moved back against the wall.

“Stay back, Alice!” I lifted an arm slightly.

David forced the door open with his free hand and shoved
the muzzle of the gun against my forehead. Cold, hard metal against my temple. My knees trembled.

“Do they want us dead that badly?” I backed up a step, unintentionally allowing David across the threshold in the process. “That you have to resort to shooting us?”

Alice clambered to open the window in the back of the room, but it had been bolted shut.

David chuckled, amused by her sorry attempt.

“
People are always flinging themselves out the damn things,” he said with a smirk. “Can’t be too careful nowadays.”

“Don’t hurt her, please. I’m the one they want. I’m the one who’s been giving all the orders around here. Not her. Not Kareena.”

“Aw, they don’t want me to kill you. In fact, they told me
I wasn’t allowed to.” He lowered the gun away from my forehead
and I took a breath.

“Can you believe that shit?” He looked away for a split second. Too quickly for me to make a move. “But I don’t care what they say anymore. They can’t tell me what to do. They can’t boss me around. I only work for myself now.”

Himself?
But before he’d seemed so willing to do the Saviors’ bidding.

“David, listen to what you’re saying.” I took another step back and he lifted the gun toward me again. Toward my chest. I shuddered.

“I’m not going to let them turn everyone into freaks,” he growled. “I’m not going to let her infect anyone else.” He nodded toward Alice.

“No!”

I looked back. She had backed herself up against the wall
in a panic. David aimed the gun past me. At her. Her eyes shimmered with fear.

“I was going to shoot your ass first because you’ve been a thorn in my side from the beginning,” he said, sneering. “But I think I’ll shoot your girlfriend instead. How does that sound? Not so tough when it’s not your own blood on the line, huh?”

“You son-of-a-bitch! Leave her alone or I’ll—”

“What?” He swung the gun toward me again. “Come at me? We all know how that ends. Besides, I’d like to see her squirm. After what she did to me.” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and furrowed his eyebrows. “It hurt like hell.”

“She was only trying to protect me!” I sidestepped to block him from targeting Alice. “David, please. She never chose to be a part of this! We don’t deserve this.”

“Yeah? Well I don’t deserve everything those Saviors did to me, either. They told me they were gonna leave Lucy out of this. That if I followed orders, she’d be safe from this shit
they put in us.” Amber golden light sparked beneath his shirt.

Lucy?
Had they lied to him, too?

“
They lied to us all,” I said, raising my hands in surrender.
“Put the gun away, and we can talk this over. No one needs to get hurt.”

David sucked a breath in through his teeth.

“When your other girl tried to blow my brains out with that pink venom of hers, I started seeing things. Everyone
looked different.” He dragged a hand through his short, slick black hair. “All I could see were the different lights inside
us
all. The sight stayed with me for a while even after I’d been sent home. Long enough for me to see what they’d done to Lucy. Long enough to see that the bastards had already infected her!” He rammed the butt of the handgun into the wall, cracking the plaster.

Alice yelped.

“We’ve all been hurt.” I held out my empty, trembling hands. “If you give us a chance, we’ll explain everything to you. Maybe we can even help your… Lucy.”

“I don’t want to be part of this anymore.” He lowered the gun to his side and stared at the floor. “Hell. I never wanted to be part of this to begin with. They just…”

“Forced you to?”

“Yeah.” He eased his head up. Tired, bloodshot eyes met
mine for a moment and then he looked away. In that moment,
I caught a brief glimpse of the truth. Of his weakness and uncertainty.

The fears he harbored were reflections of my own.

We weren’t so different after all. We were fighting to do the same thing—to protect the ones we loved.

Chapter 28

D
avid tucked the gun into the back of his belt and bent over to rest his hands on his knees.

I backed away. Just in case.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, trying to stay calm. Still rattled by the vivid image of a gun pressed to my forehead. “I know we got off to a bad start, but we’re more than willing to talk if…”

David looked me in the eye and I flinched.

“I guess.” He pushed the door shut behind him and came
down the narrow hallway toward me, past the bathroom door.
“I feel like a dumbass.” He shrugged, looking away sheepishly. “I thought I was doing the right thing, but…”

“We all did. We wanted to help the Saviors—even believed we were doing something good, at first. But then they started making it clear that they had no concern for our own safety or feelings.” I straightened my shoulders and offered him my hand. “We can work together, David. You have a power we don’t—the power to fight back.”

“That’s not how I saw it yesterday. Not after your girls almost took me out.”

“They were protecting me,” I said matter-of-factly. “I didn’t know they were capable of all of that.”

“I know. I know.” He hesitated, staring at me—studying me for a moment—before finally reaching to grab my hand.

“You’ve got balls, kid,” he said, his powerful handshake catching me off guard. I grunted. “Standing up to me like that, with a pistol pointed straight at your brain. It’s no wonder you made it this far. You’ve been through some shit, haven’t ya?”

“I’ve got a history. Don’t we all?” I moved toward the writing desk beside the TV and pulled out the wooden chair. “Maybe I used to be a smartass when I was younger, but it’s not who I am anymore. Not since…” I turned. “Go ahead and sit down, Alice. You’ll be okay. Right?” I glanced at David. “She
will
be okay. Right, David?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” He held up empty hands. Black, thick-lined tribal tattoos decorated the centers of his palms. I couldn’t make out exactly what they were. “I put her away already.” He’d meant the gun.

Alice sat on the edge of the bed and I sat on the chair in front of the desk.

“Your, uh… accent. Where you from?” I asked.

“Staten Island.” David lingered in the hallway. He leaned back against the closet door and crossed his arms, propping a shoe against the door.

“New York? Wow. You’re a long way from home.”

“Uh-huh. The Saviors have the whole teleportation thing
down. Slowing down time. White light. Mind-blowing shit, but effective. I’ll give em’ that.”

“New… York?” Alice’s grasp wavered. “Brian.” She leaned
toward my ear. “What if… he was one of the…”

“Alice, no.” I raised my voice, craning my neck back. “Don’t.”

“What’s she talking about?” David cocked an eyebrow.

“Nothing.”

“No, tell me.” He reached behind his back for his gun. “Tell me what the hell she was about to say.”

“Okay. Okay!” I panicked. “Just don’t point that thing at us again, please.”

David rested his arm back down at his side.

“Alice and I were at the ball drop last year. We were sent there with the Seeker to start people. A lot of them. Nearly froze to death doing it, too, but we finished the job. Most of it.”

David shifted his weight against the door. “Most of it?”
he asked, squinting. He was difficult to read. Even his resting
expression had a tinge of anger in it.

“The light in Lucy. What did it look like?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” David glared at me as if it was stupidest
question
in the world. “
Like
…
white
. Glowing. It wasn’t anything
like ours. It was—hell, I don’t know how to describe it. I’m not a freaking poet.”

“Was it… breathing?” Alice cut in, leaning toward him.

“Breathing? Shit, I don’t know. How the hell does it breathe? It’s just light, right?”

“W
e think it’s more than light,” I said. “I don’t know how else it moves the way it does. Through us. Like it’s alive.”

“Damn.” David’s eyes widened. “All I know is it was bright as hell.”

Then she’d been started. I shot a worried glance at Alice.

“Brian.” Alice whimpered behind me. “What if…”

“
Calm down,” I replied. “David. Were you and Lucy there? That night?”

“No.”

I heaved a sigh of relief. “So it wasn’t us who started either of you then.”

“Are you trying to tell me
I
infected her?” David moved away from the door and bent down, leering, his face inches from mine. “How do I know you’re not lying—that you didn’t put that stuff in her?”

“We don’t infect people,” I corrected, trying hard not to shift in my seat. “We only start those who are already
infected. The ones with the dormant light inside them—sleepers.
Look, we’ve told you so much already, why don’t you answer some of our questions? Starting with Lucy. Who is she?”

He sunk back. Hesitant to answer at first.

“She’s my sister. My little sister. That’s all I’m gonna say.”

His sister?

“We never touched any kids,” Alice said quietly from behind me. “Not before you came along and forced us to.”

“Shiiit.” David’s eyes widened. His expression went straight. “That’s why they sent me after you. To start… kids.” He ran
a hand through his hair and hissed through his teeth. “Damn it! How could I have been so stupid?”

“What?” I perked up.

“I thought you two had something to do with her infection. But if you guys didn’t touch any kids before, well…”

“It wasn’t us,” Alice said firmly and stood up from the bed. “I remember every single child I’ve touched, and you were there for every one of them.”

“So how the hell do you explain it then?”

“Someone else started her,” I butted in. “The same way
someone else started you, David. The Saviors want us to start as
many people as possible who have dormant fluorescence, but apparently they have their own way of doing it that they’ve been keeping secret.”

My stomach rumbled. “Look, I know we’re all under a lot of pressure and stress right now, but can we talk about this more after we get something to eat?” I gestured toward the door. “We haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon.”

“Then let’s go.” David untucked his button-up shirt from his
dingy jeans and let the hem fall past his belt, concealing his handgun. “We can walk and talk.”

I tipped my head to the side. “Do you… have to take the gun with you? You could leave it.”

“
Hell no!” He shook his head adamantly. “She goes where I go.
Period
.”

“Alright. Alright. Just, try not to draw attention, okay? We just want to be normal for a little while.”

“Kid, we haven’t been normal since they put this stuff in us,” he added.

True. So true.

. . .

“So, are they going to get pissed at you for not doing your job?” I asked. We were walking along the sidewalk toward the convenience store at the end of the block. After what had happened last night, Alice and I didn’t feel comfortable sitting down inside a restaurant.