Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy (49 page)

If I could take him now in his moment of weakness…

If I could…

“This is just a game to you,” Brian said, swatting my hand away.
“I’m not
that
desperate, Kareena. You can’t win this, so save your energy and drop it. I’m with Alice. Only Alice. Stop lying to yourself.” He stood up and turned to head toward the motel.

He had no idea what he was missing. Alice was nothing but a child.

How dare he treat me like such a…

“Have fun with your little girl!” I shouted after him.

He swerved back around and sneered. “Have fun being alone.” Then he turned his back on me again and marched off.

Bastard.

I clenched my teeth.

He’ll regret that.

Alice wouldn’t be able to satisfy his needs. Not like I could. Not for long.

He’d get tired of her sooner or later.

Then I’d have him.

Chapter 2

I
hate turquoise.
A hideous blend of blue and green.

Brian and I could make something amazing—a rocking, fiery purple. If I could only get to him. If I could just see the look on her face when his arm shimmered a different hue.

But it wouldn’t happen today. Not as long as he and Alice were still together mixing their own disgusting shade of color while I sat on my lonely ass in the motel parking lot staring at the pavement.

I’d throw up if I saw it again—
their
color. That damn vivid turquoise I’d seen coiling through their bodies the last time they’d slept together. They can’t hide it from me. I can see right through them. Literally. The way it bleeds into their veins, the fragments of mixed light staining their auras. Taunting me.

I pushed up off the pallet and looked around. The Saviors
had ripped me out of the police department and almost everything I owned was still back at my house. Extra clothes. Makeup. Jewelry. Aside from the diamond stud still piercing my left nostril, all I had on me was my wallet and a couple of bucks.

My clothes smelled like sweat. I felt like shit, and I
probably looked like it, too. No wonder Brian had turned me down.

The creepy old man at the front desk found me appetizing, though.

Perv
.

. . .

I had been wandering around the hick town for a while and all I’d gotten was flack from strangers. Nosey old women. Lumberjacks. Pastors. Conservative bastards just wouldn’t keep their judgmental eyes off me.

No, I wasn’t lost. And no, I wasn’t a hooker. But in this little town overrun by churches, I apparently needed to be saved by the Lord Savior Jesus Christ. And fast.

Inside, I was laughing. Laughing at how we had coincidentally been getting the complete opposite treatment from the ones
we
called
Saviors
—meddling aliens who didn’t seem to give a damn about our wellbeing.

I found my way back to the motel and sat in the grass near the fence line out back. There was wide-open pasture
for as far as I could see. The cows that had been there earlier
must have moved on because I couldn’t see them anymore. The silence was soothing and considering how crappy the motel A/C was, the cool grass was comforting in the sweltering summer heat.

A sudden sharp pain shot through my head. I flinched, grunting as my stomach tightened and my eyelids squeezed shut involuntarily. Colored light flushed through my eyes and I blinked uncontrollably as silver sparks flickered in and out of my vision, fading and pulsing. Distorting my line of sight.

A second wave jolted me and I doubled over, clutching my face in my hands. I sucked in a breath and gritted my
teeth hard against the ache. I gasped for breath and
tumbled forward onto my knees, thick blades of grass slicing into the tender skin of my palms.

I dropped my head and moaned. Tears welled. My cheeks
flared with heat. Then I heard a buzz—a high-pitched humming in the back of my head—a ringing in my
ears that blocked out everything else. A million
colors blinded me. I shielded my eyes with the back of my hand and looked
up to see the colors swirling and rippling.
Wild, like lightning.

They came together into a shape I couldn’t define. Tall.
Rounded. A multitude of hues dancing inside an oblong form
,
bouncing and ricocheting through themselves in tiny explosions of color. A silhouette created only by light.

The painful noise in my brain dampened just enough for me to gather my thoughts. I came to my feet and brushed the grass from my knees.

“Kareena,” a subtle, echoing voice sounded from the light. Ghostly and muffled as if it had manifested from some distant place.
From what I could tell, the being had no mouth and no
eyes. The sound simply resonated from waves of intense cascading light.

I gasped and stepped back. A rush of cold air swept over me and I shivered.

“Who…” I coughed, my mouth dry as paper. I cleared my throat and tried again. “
What
are you? And… how do you know my name?”

“We are what is inside you,” it replied, the voice tainted heavily by reverb. I squinted, straining to listen.

“What do you mean?” Pink fluorescence invaded my
vision and it revealed to me a beaming spark of
white thumping inside the thing like a heartbeat. Slow. Rhythmic.

“Fluorescence,” it replied, the fiery light of its silhouette stinging my eyes. Its core was so bright, I had to look upon it with soft focus.

“Fluorescence? You mean you’re…” My heart raced.

“Yes.” The shape
flickered. “We are the origin of that
which you now carry in your blood—
fluorescence
in its
ancient
, purest form.”

The brightness dimmed and I could almost focus on the wavering shape filled with sparkling arcs of color.
Almost
.

“I don’t want to be a part of this anymore,” I said, still
shielding my eyes with my hand. “We’ve been through enough
hell. I don’t want anything to do with you or the Saviors.”

“We are not part of what the Saviors have done, nor do we condone their negligence,” it continued, inflecting its words carefully. “We are very much aware of your plight and how they have used you against your will. The Saviors, in jeopardizing your race, have put many species at risk. By infecting you, they have created vulnerabilities and have allowed the disease to grow and mutate into something stronger—something that may poison the futures of
many
worlds.”

“Then why are you here?” I asked. “What do you want from me?”

“It is against our nature to interfere with other worlds, but a small number of our kind have grown very concerned.” The saturation of its colors grew deeper and more vibrant.

I swallowed hard.

“We have taken it upon ourselves to reach out. To… help you.”

“You can help us?” I stammered, stepping closer to the being. The phantom cold dissipated and the warmth of its energy suddenly overwhelmed me. It was a creepy, yet comforting type of warmth—like an unfamiliar embrace. Static made the tiny hairs on my body stand on end. “But how?”

“Stay away from the Saviors and you may have a chance for survival.”

Survival? Is this a matter of life and death now?

At the time, I had known what was going on around us was all sorts of wrong, but that it might
kill
us? No!

“But what can we do?” I replied, unable to focus on any one part of the being. “We can’t stop them from taking us.” Light kept moving around, sparking from edge to edge, causing the entire form to change color over and over.

“You are correct. You cannot stop them from interfering, but there are indirect ways in which you and the others can protect yourselves. We will do what we can to assist, but—” The being dissolved partially into nothingness and then faded briefly back into focus before fading out again. “There is very little time. This atmosphere is not ideal and we must go.”

God, I wanted to believe it, whatever it was. I wanted to believe it could help us somehow, but…

“How do I know we can trust you?” I asked. “That you’re telling the truth and not—”

“We are the reason you live,” it replied, its iridescent light softening to a comfortable glow, as its voice became a soothing, ethereal whisper. “We came before you. Before
them
. We are the foundation of that which your people call the soul. What moves you. What makes you alive. We are the Prism.”

I should have been scared, but I wasn’t. I knew in my
gut it spoke the truth. I knew
it because I felt no fear
. No sickening tangle of knots in my stomach. No nagging conscience
telling me to fight or flee. And—especially—no hatred building
inside me.

Not like it was with the Saviors. They terrified me. Cold, corpse-like and grey. Like death incarnate.

But this, Prism, burned with something else. Something familiar and sacred.

Life.

“Kareena, you and the others must leave. Find shelter elsewhere.”

“Where do we go from here? How do we get there?” I took another step toward it, my skin prickling from the heat. “There has to be more you can do! Please!?”

“Not yet. We apologize.” Its voice faded out and the light shrank away, sucked into the center until it collapsed upon itself and disappeared into nothing but a vanishing white sparkle.

I blinked a few times, trying to focus on my surroundings again. Everything looked washed out. Tinted pink. I
closed my eyes and took a deep breath, waiting for the myriad
of tiny black particles to fade from my vision. My headache returned, subtler than before.

“Kareena?”

I veered around and gasped. “Brian? How long have you been watching me?”

“Long enough to know you were talking to someone. Who?” He came closer and tilted his head. “Who was that?”

“You saw it, didn’t you? The colors. The light. It was right there in front of me. It was—”

“No. I didn’t see anyone. I saw you staring off toward the pasture like some
crazy person. Talking to yourself. Or—”

“Someone who can help us escape from the Saviors!” I blurted.

“What?” He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at me. “What
are you talking about? Kareena, if you’re screwing with me, I’ll—”

“I’m not lying, Brian. I swear to God, I’m not.” I reached out for his arm, but he jerked away.

“Stop it. Just stop.” He shook his head and scowled.

“Brian! Listen to me.” My voice cracked.

“No. This is about me and Alice, isn’t it?”

“No.” True, the color inside him had become a muddled green-blue, but this wasn’t about them right now. It was about us.
All
of us. “I’d show you, but it’s gone. Brian, there are others out there. Others who want to help us.”

“Really?” He stifled a chuckle of doubt. “Why should I believe you? How do I know you’re not putting on a show because of this jealously shit you’ve been pulling lately?”

“Because you have to, Brian. If you want to get out of this alive, if you want to save Alice and yourself from
whatever killed that man back at the diner, you’re going to have to believe me.”

Brian’s eyes widened. “You… you’re not screwing with me, are you?” he asked in a low, wavering voice.

“No.” I shook my head and reached out to touch his hand. He didn’t pull back this time. “No, I’m not.”

Chapter
3

A
ll I wanted was for Brian to trust me, but that was apparently asking for too much.

I set my hands onto the edge of the sink and lifted my face toward the mirror.
Dark circles? Already?
It had been less than a week since we’d left the hick town.

After a drawn out argument with Brian about our safety, I’d finally convinced him that we needed to trust the Prism. No one had put him in charge, and yet, it made him so damn upset just to agree with me, for once. He was so stubborn. Sometimes, I really wanted to knock some sense into
him, but it wasn’t worth busting a nail over. We’d been butting
heads since I was teleported to their motel in the first place.

I shook my head and heaved a sigh.

Crap motel.

Splotches of black and brown mold dotted the grout along the sink. The mirror had become permanently clouded and unreflective in some places, and the metal fixtures
had spots of brass showing through where the chrome finish
had dissolved.

I popped open a stick of red drugstore brand lipstick and brought it up to my lips. Lack of sleep made my hands unsteady.

There was a knock on my door and I jumped, smearing red wax on my chin.

Damn it.

“Just a minute,” I called, sticking my head out of the bathroom. I twisted down the lipstick, snapped the lid on, and then used a tissue to wipe the red mark off my face.

The Saviors hadn’t taken us recently, but we also hadn’t found what seemed to be a stable, safe place to stay, either. Most big hotels (hell, most self-respecting places in general) require a credit card or bank account on file in case things get damaged. Credit cards weren’t an option. Not while people were looking for us.

“Hey.” I opened the door to Brian and Alice. Brian had his backpack slung over one shoulder and Alice had a small
duffle bag hanging from her hands—both filled with supplies
we’d been gathering along the way.

“Ready to leave?” Brian asked without taking a step into my room.

“Yeah.” I grabbed a canvas bag from the coat closet doorknob and threaded my arm through the handle. “Let’s go.”

Because of the whole financial situation, we’d been confined to mostly dumps and dives that didn’t care much about our identities; places that just wanted cash in their hands.
That
we could give them. We had a good amount of money leftover from David’s escapade, so we just kept moving, farther and farther away from home. No particular goal in sight, but staying on the move simply felt like the right thing to do.