Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy (59 page)

“No. That’s not it, Kareena.” Taylor made an attempt to grab my hand, but I yanked it out of his reach. “I can help people,” he added. “I can save them while the Saviors search for the cure. If I start people, I can keep them from dying. People who haven’t yet been started are the most susceptible to it, and if they don’t get cured quickly, who knows how long it will be before it starts harming the uninfected? It’s up to us to help them.”

“Help them!?” I stomped a foot, kicking up a small cloud
of dirt. “Stop trying to call it that! We wouldn’t even be in this mess if those thing
s up there knew what the hell they were doing in the first place. They came down here looking for a cure, and now they’re killing
us
instead! They’re going to take us down with them, and you want to be responsible for that?”

“Kareena, please… listen to me.” He reached for my hand
again.

“No!” I jerked it away a second time. “I won’t!”

“This is your last chance,” he sneered in a huskier voice, tipping his head down.

“Last chance? What are you doing? Threatening me? Screw you, Taylor!” I turned and started walking.

“Agh!”
Like a firework exploding in my face, an
immense flare of purple light blinded me and I doubled over.

“I said please, Kareena,” Taylor hissed, coming up from behind. “I asked politely, didn’t I?”

I was frozen in place, my legs so heavy, I couldn’t move. I tried to speak, but nothing came out.

“You didn’t really think that us meeting at that hotel was all just a magical little coincidence, did you?” he asked. “That being the brother of one of their very first chosen
ones didn’t somehow affect their decision to choose me, too.”

Molten heat poured through me and I gasped
for breath,
my entire body trembling uncontrollably
from the unbearable pain scorching my veins.

“I thought you were a lot smarter than this, Kareena,” he whispered, his airy breath right behind my ear. “We could do great things together. It’s still early in the game. You should reconsider which side you’re playing on.”

Purples and pinks flushed across my eyes, blurring my vision while fiery waves of energy rushed through my face.
Then Taylor wrapped his arms around me and all went black.

. . .

I awoke in a darkened room, my face nestled against a balled-up shirt that wasn’t my own.

“Taylor?” I sat up and a gush of nausea made me hold my stomach.
My head swelled with dizziness and I laid back down. My arms were weak. My head… so heavy. Pain blanketed
every inch of me.

I rolled onto my side and forced my eyes to stay open long
enough to adjust to the darkness. The window blinds had been drawn. I couldn’t recognize the empty place.

All I could remember was being with Taylor last night. I remembered him touching me, and his hungry eyes tearing into my soul, poisonous violet light choking the strength from me.

I remembered that much…

“Taylor?” I called to him again, but words were difficult to get out of my mouth. My lips and throat were so dry.

No reply.

Cold, empty air swelled in my lungs and I coughed on nothing.

Then my eyelids clamped down and I…

Chapter
16

D
aytime in the city. Street vendors, business people, and everyday Joes and Janes bustled past us, oblivious as always. My feet hurt from hours of walking in shoes totally not suited for it. I hugged the storefronts closely to avoid as many people as I could. Taylor stepped down off the curb to walk precariously near unyielding traffic. He was so absorbed in his own abilities he didn’t care about anything else.

I wanted to strike the conniving grin off his face, but I couldn’t. He was even more powerful than David. He could start people. He could suck diseased fluorescence out of them, and he could drain me, too.

He could draw the pink light straight from my body and use it to see sleepers if he wanted to. That’s what he had done to me at the baseball park, and it hurt like hell. It was
like someone shooting alcohol straight into my bloodstream.
It burned. Every hair on my body stood and the overwhelming pain made my stomach spasm.

“Keep pointing,” he commanded, glaring at me. His face looked much less like Brian’s now that I despised him.

A little girl
and
her mother. An elderly man. A businessman with a briefcase in one hand and a smartphone in
the other. Some kids—twins. They couldn’t have been more than nine or ten. So many freaking people. It was like the Saviors infected every other person they saw, and Taylor didn’t think twice before going after any one of them.

To protect myself, I had to do what he asked. At least until I could find a way out of his grasp. I hadn’t seen the Prism in two days. No sign of the others, either. It was just Taylor and me being shuttled to different cities every few hours, forced to start hundreds of people. A quick, careless press of his fingers to their shoulders was all it took for Taylor to start someone.

I kept my head down as we walked, carefully dodging people and avoiding their faces. I didn’t want to remember any of them. I didn’t want to remember the people I helped to damn.

“Don’t be so angry with me,” Taylor said, coming up beside me to reach for my wrist. He pulled me off to the side near a bike rack. “You’re bad company while you’re in this mood.”

“How can I
not
be angry with you?” I looked over his shoulder, praying now more than ever to see another familiar face. Brian. David. Alice, even. Wishful thinking. “You’re hurting innocent people. You could be destroying all of us.”

“Not all of us,” he said, brushing the backs of his fingers across my cheek. I turned my face away and scowled. “We’re the chosen ones. We’ll survive this. You of all people know we have something the sleepers don’t—
colored
light. It gives us power. It separates us from them. We’re immune to this evolution of the virus. That’s why it’s so important for us to go forward with the Saviors’ plans.”

One thing I hadn’t told Taylor was how David, too, had the twisted dark light crawling inside him. Now I knew what it meant. It meant we were all susceptible to the deadly infection going around. Considering how quickly that man from the diner had dropped dead, I could only assume that if I couldn’t get Taylor to remove the infection from David, he’d suffer the same fate.

“What makes you think it won’t come for us someday? How can you possibly know this disease won’t evolve again to take down all the humans and the Saviors? They’ve done it before, you know!”

He squinted suspiciously. “How do you know that? Who told you this?”

I gasped. “Uh. They did.” I couldn’t let him know about the Prism.

“The Saviors?”

“
Y-Yes. The Saviors. They told us when we first met them about
their unsuccessful attempts to find a cure. They’ve destroyed other planets and other species. You need to know the kind of evil you’re working for.”

“Evil?” He laughed. “There’s no such thing as evil. To believe in evil, you have to believe in good, and
that
I don’t.”

“What? But there are good people out there. People who help others and people who—”

“
Don’t give a shit,” he finished my sentence. “Do you really think I went into public relations because I liked people?”
He scoffed and leaned his weight against one of the curved steel pipes of the bike rack.
“Well, I didn’t. I went into PR so I could use the skills I had to make a damn living. I
manipulate people. I make them believe what I want them to believe because that’s what people pay me for. Just like I convinced you to like me when we first met.”

“Shut up,” I growled.

He laughed in my face. “You wanted to believe so badly that I was the sweet, hardworking brother of Brian you could wrap around your finger, when in fact, I was leading you to make exactly the decisions I required.”

My jaw started to hurt from being clenched. “I was making my own decisions. You didn’t—”

“You left with me, didn’t you? The guy you hardly knew—the poor coward you couldn’t help but find yourself attracted to.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Well?”

“Stop!” My fingernails dug into my palms as I squeezed my fists.

“The Saviors told me it would work. They told me you w
ere a—how do I put it nicely—promiscuous girl.” He smirked.
“They told me you pretty much threw yourself at Brian and the other guy you left at the hotel. It’s kind of a shame you won’t share that side of yourself with me.”

“Never!” I stepped back. “You’ve screwed yourself out of having a chance with me. I thought I could like you, Taylor, but I was wrong. You’re a—”

“Shut up and get back to work!” he snapped, pointing at a passing crowd. The purple light in his right arm flared up, flickering brightly beneath his skin.

I was so damn angry, I wanted to grab him by the head right then and there and blow his damn brains out with my light. But I’d learned the hard way what his fluorescence could do to me in return and I didn’t want to feel that again. That helplessness. That out-of-body-like drifting feeling I got when it burned through my veins. Excruciatingly slow, like poison, eating away at my insides.

I heaved a sigh and started walking, lifting a finger to point out the next sleeper I saw.

“Now, that’s a good girl,” Taylor said, reaching out to pat me on the shoulder.

Bastard.

. . .

A hand caressed my cheek and I opened my eyes.

“Brian?” I rolled over onto my back and looked wearily up into his eyes. “Brian, how did you find me?” He sat on the edge of the bed, near my side.

“Don’t worry about that,” he whispered, his voice warm
and serene. It immediately made my heart less heavy. “What’s
important is that you’re alive… and safe.”

An attempt to sit up made me lightheaded, so I stayed where I was. “I wouldn’t call being with Tay—”

“Don’t say it,” he interrupted, scooting closer. “You’re safe with me. I’ll protect you.”

“Thank you.” I peered around the room but couldn’t
sharply focus on any one thing. It was dim and I was fatigued. “
Where’s Alice?”

“Alice?” Brian repeated, wrinkling his brow and shaking his head as if he were put off by the thought. “Why are you worrying about
her
right now? This is about you, Kareena.” His fingers sifted through my
hair. I really tried hard to stifle a smile but
couldn’t stop the edges of my lips from curling.

I wanted Brian so much, it hurt. Every time I looked into his hazel eyes, I lost myself. The scent of his skin made me feel at peace. Protected. The thought of actually having him seemed like the only thing keeping me going anymore. Maybe I was part of the group, but I didn’t want to be. I only tolerated it because of him.

Being separated for only a few days felt like an eternity. He may have been Alice’s, but it wouldn’t stop me from trying. Or, from dreaming. He could change his mind any day. He could be mine eventually…

Maybe.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he continued. “I… missed you. A lot.” He massaged the back of my neck and leaned even closer. “I was worried I’d lost you.”

Lost me?

“Brian? Wh—”

“It’s okay,” he continued in his soothing voice. His reassuring smile made my heart flutter. Those eyes tearing into me, reaching into the depths of my soul with an unfamiliar sense of longing in them.

Why was he staring into my eyes like that? As if… he wanted me? I’d seen it enough times to know what it looked like in a man’s gaze. That carnal look of desire. Hunger.

But it couldn’t be.

It wasn’t possible. Was it?

“I missed you, too,” I muttered and tried once again to sit up. He stopped me with a kiss.

A wonderful, lovesick dizzy spell came over me and I exhaled a groan. I forked a hand through his soft hair and tugged him down on top of me.

The heat of his breaths mixing with mine invigorated me—filling me with a new sense of reason. I had so much to live for and so much to gain by fighting back against the Saviors.

I had
him
.

I had Brian.

His lips slid across my jaw line and down to my neck.

That was when I saw his fluorescence ignite to life, tinting me with a cool glow as the sparks of color emanated from his arm.

His…
right
arm…

Chapter
17

W
e were at a mall in some other city. The sixth or seventh place we’d been thrown
into during the last few days. I’d lost count because my memories were a blur. I don’t know if it was Taylor manipulating me with his fluorescence every night, or just me trying to block out all of the faces of the people we were putting in danger. Maybe it was both.

I walked ahead of Taylor, pointing out sleepers and trying
hard to pretend the entire thing was a dream. I’d wake up soon from the nightmare.

I would.
Right?

At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.

I pointed out another sleeper and Taylor jogged after her—a middle-aged woman with golden skin like mine. Indian.
Hispanic, perhaps. When the Saviors made us invisible, it was difficult to see much detail in people who hadn’t yet been started
.

My gaze swept from side to side as I searched for more infected people. Then I heard a feminine scream and turned around. Taylor was bent over, looking at his hands in disbelief. The dark-skinned woman was laid out on the tile floor in the walkway and a crowd was quickly gathering around her.

“What happened?” I asked, frantically making my way over to the victim. Her white light was swirling with black and brown streaks. “Why haven’t you started her!? Taylor!”