“Naretha said the Wacko leader wanted them dead,” Zeela reminded him. “If they were targets of the Wackos, they must have been more than just ordinary Reggs.”
“Maybe…it would be a good idea to go to Wacko Headquarters then—figure out why the leader wanted the Starks.”
Zeela’s eye brightened as her lips quirked upward. “So, you’ll come?”
His cheek twitched, but he knew she couldn’t see his uncertainty. “We’ll go back to the group and see what they want. If there are people who want to go to Periculand…”
“You don’t even know how to get there from here. The Wackos will know how to get there. They broke in, remember?”
“Considering that incident is the reason we’re here, I can’t really forget. C’mon.” He wrapped his arm around her to guide her back toward the others. Resting her head on his shoulder, she nestled into him, and he realized how utterly exhausted he was.
“I want a bed.”
“For?” she mused, tilting her head up to him.
“For sleeping…and possibly other activities…”
She opened her mouth, likely to make a frisky quip, but then dread washed over her face as her eye caught something in the distance. “There’s a group of people…coming for our group!”
Avner halted immediately, disentangling himself from her. Though the sound of the forest hadn’t altered, he believed in Zeela’s vision enough not to question her before breaking into a sprint.
Naretha wasn’t really surprised when Avner marched away in a temper tantrum. After only a few weeks of being acquainted with the kid, she was well aware of how self-righteously pissy he could get. He’d broken her out of jail with the intent of bringing her to Wacko Headquarters; at what point had he realized that plan didn’t align with his morals?
Danny would be pleased if she brought back a horde of new Affinities, but she doubted, despite the power of Avner’s Affinity, that her leader would want such an annoying little wimp associated with the rise of his empire. If Avner convinced Zeela to accompany him on his suicide mission to Periculand, though…
“Zeela’s not the type to blindly follow her boyfriend,” Jamad assured Naretha, as if reading her thoughts. She had watched Zeela trek after Avner through the woods with a bit too much concern, but it still irked her that Jamad read her so well.
Grunting, she flopped onto her back again. “No pun intended?”
“Well, no, that was a bit of a pun. I don’t think Z would have followed Avner if she was still completely blind—but I don’t think she’ll go with him back to Periculand anyway. She’ll come with us. Z and I have done everything together since we were kids.”
“Since you were kids? What do you consider yourself now?”
“Har, har, you’re hilarious.” Jamad’s sarcastic attitude fizzled when Avner and Zeela abruptly returned, the couple skidding to a stop before they would have stampeded over Naretha’s face.
“People are coming,” Avner panted, and she might have thought this was some ruse if Zeela’s lone eye weren’t staring into the distance with the same level of panic. With curses rolling off her tongue, Naretha sprung to her feet. “There’s only four of them, but if they’re Reggs…we need to run.”
“If they’re Reggs, we need to fight and kill them,” Jamad said as he stood.
“None of us are strong right now, J, and those suits—”
“Let’s move,” Zeela prompted, her eye still trained on their invisible opposition. “I’ll guide the group away from them, in case they’re coming from multiple angles.”
“I’ll stick behind to distract them,” Avner volunteered. None of the hastily scrambling Affinities seemed to value his bravery, but Naretha did groan.
“Dammit. That means I have to, or I’m gonna look like a weak pansy.” Shaking her right arm, which was partially numb and struggling to regain its functionality after that tranquilizer dart, she glanced toward Jamad. “Snowman?”
“Obviously I’m staying for the action.”
“All right, then. Everyone else, come now,” Zeela demanded as she motioned for the others to hurry ahead.
The elderly Affinities were so freaking slow, most bumbling past Naretha like a slushy river of uselessness. Why she would sacrifice herself for these blobs was beyond her. She considered using one as a human shield—especially when gunfire cracked through the air.
Bodies dropped, just like they had in that underground compound, and those fleeing screamed and cried as they stumbled through the trees. Naretha spared only a glance back to make sure Zeela hadn’t been shot before blasting salt crystals toward the attackers. Jamad and Avner joined with their Affinities, but the gunshots had been too jarring for any of them to hit a proper target. Salt collided with bark, ice froze a tree trunk, and lightning struck wood, sparking another fire.
The blaze illuminated the four figures darting toward them, none wearing Affinity-proof suits. That fact was seemingly all Jamad needed to know before he launched a stream of icicles at them. Though all four gunmen were stabbed, the brunt of the ice collided with the closest man, and he moaned with rage before collapsing into a pile of leaves.
There was no time for Naretha or Avner to build on that attack; gunfire had resumed, and it ripped through trees, forcing her to fall to her belly in an attempt to remain unscathed. Jamad had found a tree to hide behind, while incompetent Meredith, who hadn’t managed to run away, huddled behind a bush, sobbing into her knees. Naretha was about to signal a plan to Avner, lying on the ground only a few paces away, but his attention was focused beyond them—on Zeela, whose right arm had been grazed by a bullet.
“Zeela!” Hastily, he crawled through the leaves toward her. Wobbling, she wilted against the nearest tree, probably too dazed and shocked to hear his voice.
Knowing he would go to Zeela’s aid, Naretha prepared to defend them—but then a pair of stubby hands grabbed Avner and threw him against a tree, hindering his crawl.
Swearing under her breath, Naretha clambered across the ground until she reached Zeela. The girl’s eye rolled within its socket and blood oozed from her arm like a waterfall.
“You need to run now.” Naretha yanked her up. “They’re dragging the boys away. I’m gonna try to save them, but you need to—”
“No,” Zeela croaked, trembling. “I’m not leaving them.”
Naretha grabbed her jaw, silencing her. “The day we crashed the car into the river, I could have fled—I could have left you to drown and gone to Cleveland on my own. But I decided that day that I was going to protect you, and if you don’t run now, that decision will have been pointless. Go.”
Her words seemed to awaken her sense of rationality. The last time they’d been in this situation, Zeela hadn’t fought or fled when the Reggs imprisoned them, but this time, Naretha needed her to evade capture. This time, Naretha needed her to save them.
As Zeela disappeared into the darkness, Naretha allowed herself a moment to stand straight and exhale in relief. Her arm was still wonky, but she was determined to use all her might to destroy these assholes. Before she could spin and shower them with barrage of salt, though, one of the assailants was upon her, his empty hand at her throat and his gun at her forehead.
When her vision finally focused beyond the gun, she saw it was the same guy Jamad had knocked down with ice shards. His coat was thick enough that the sharp ice hadn’t punctured any organs, but blood seeped through the fabric and cuts littered the dark skin of his face. The only features Naretha really took note of were his mauve eyes and matching hair.
“Affinity,” she breathed, but he’d pivoted his head toward where his three companions had her three companions locked in similar positions. None of the attackers were particularly old, all likely in their twenties or thirties, but they were clearly skilled in combat. Naretha knew that, with how untrained Avner and Jamad were, and with how utterly useless Meredith was, they would stand no chance against the guns.
“This one’s female,” the man holdin
g Naretha announced.
“One female over here, too,” the woman atop Meredith replied.
“Should we kill the males?” the man restraining Avner asked. He was shorter and pudgier than the others, and his gun trembled slightly against Avner’s forehead. He was the weak link, Naretha decided, and possibly their ticket out of this situation.
“No, you idiot, they’re Affinities,” Naretha’s captor snapped. “We take them all.”
“Neither of these girls are the one he’s looking for,” the woman said with a knowing look.
“No one’s gonna catch her—you’ve heard the stories. We take these four back to the house. They must be worth something.”
“I’ve been told I have a personality worth a million bucks,” Jamad bragged, provoking his captor to tighten his grip.
“Who on this Earth could ever think such a thing?” Naretha droned, rolling her eyes when the man dug his gun into her forehead.
“Okay, so it was my dad, and given what he did, I don’t give a shit about his opinion anymore, but—”
“Enough,” the woman snarled as she hoisted Meredith upright. Tears smeared the girl’s face, and her hair was embedded with twigs, but luckily her sobbing had ceased. “Let’s get back to the road.”
Avner was the only captive who remained silent throughout the trek up to the highway. Meredith hiccupped every time she tripped over a root, Jamad yapped nervously about his hobbies and life goals, and Naretha grumbled at him to shut up. She was so annoyed by these teenagers that she was almost relieved when they reached the shoulder of the highway, where the kidnappers’ van resided.
Her satisfaction abated when she recognized the model of this black van—the model Ephraim Mayer had always preferred his subordinates to use.
“You’re Wackos,” Naretha said as Avner was thrown into the back of the van.
“That does seem to be our official name now,” the woman mumbled as she rounded the vehicle to take the driver’s seat.
A laugh escaped Naretha’s lips as vindictive glee settled. “I was wondering how long it would take for Danny to send out a search party to find me.”
The man with the pale purple hair whipped her around and threw her against the van’s side. “So, you are one of the females who recently escaped?”
“Escaped?” Naretha repeated, unfazed by the aggression. “Escaped Periculand, you mean?”
“No…escaped Headquarters.”
“Someone escaped Headquarters? A prisoner?”
“Three girls,” the woman affirmed from her seat in the van. “Broke out earlier this evening. That’s who we’ve been looking for.”
“But you escaped from Periculand,” the man pinning her down stated, his gaze suspicious. “Who are you?”
“You don’t recognize me?” she drawled with a pompous air. “My hair wasn’t that long before. If you truly are Wackos, you’re gonna eat nuclear waste when Danny finds out how poorly you’ve treated me.”
The man pointed his gun at her again as she reached for her shirt, but when she pulled it up to reveal the trail of pink salt crystals tattooed on the skin beneath her breasts, he staggered back in disbelief.
“Does she have a bomb?” the woman asked in alarm as the other men gathered around Naretha, guns raised.
“No.” The purple-eyed man swallowed as his companions lowered their weapons with the same amount of reverence. “Devika…she’s Naretha Salone. She’s Danny’s girlfriend.”
18
Investigation and Infatuation
Tray thought super strength would have made him immune to pain, but Nero’s unrelenting grip still sent pangs up his arm. Their pace back to the school’s campus was rushed, and though the older boy had said nothing, Tray noted the way his dark eyes peeked at the basket of booze with delight. Why the Reggs had allowed this underage brute to carry it was beyond him.
At this point, Tray didn’t really care about Nero’s intentions with the beer; his brain was working through the ways in which he could inconspicuously talk to Calder. With eight hours of training and four hours of work almost every day, Tray hadn’t had an opportunity to trade new information with his secret ally—especially since the Reggs now treated him and Nero like their personal guard dogs. Adara hadn’t been wrong about that.
Planning to “help” Calder deposit Seth in his room once they arrived at the Residence Tower, Tray let his mind and posture relax—until Nero unexpectedly jerked him along. Instead of stumbling and plummeting to the pavement, Tray took this opportunity to execute a more immediate plan by yanking back. The ease with which the weight succumbed to his will surprised him—and it surprised Nero as well, because he did nothing to stop the basket from flying out of his hands, bottles spilling onto the sidewalk.
“What the hell, Stark!” He shoved Tray violently before rushing to retrieve the rolling bottles. Seth was equally as panicked, his languid state converting into one of despair as he flopped to the ground to rescue the beer.
“What was that about, primie?” Calder demanded, stepping toward Tray with the aggression of a challenge. The water he summoned formed so quickly that Tray barely had time to feel a hint of fear.
“Don’t!” he blurted out, gawking at the orb suspended before his face.
Calder’s lips curled with malice, but the way he side-glanced at his master was enough to assure Tray that this was an act. “I’ll take care of him,” Calder told Nero. Even though his Affinity made him physically superior, Tray felt frail and powerless when the blue-haired boy snatched his arm and hauled him toward the Residence Tower.
“You’d better,” Nero grumbled from where he crawled around, gathering the beer bottles. Tray hoped the bully and his brother would bond enough over their love for booze that Seth wouldn’t receive a beating for his twin’s recklessness.
“Way to be subtle,” Calder muttered, his gaze fixed on the campus ahead. The three surrounding buildings appeared completely dormant, but a few windows were lit throughout the tower, indicating students were still awake. What could they possibly be doing at this late hour without being required to obtain knowledge? Normal teenagers weren’t intellectually advanced enough to study unprompted.
Calder pinched Tray’s arm then, dragging him out of his self-aggrandizing thoughts. “Focus, Stark.”
“I—am focused,” he stammered, shaking his arm lightly. “You can let go now.”
“No, I can’t. It won’t take long for Nero to follow us. He can’t think I’m showing you mercy. You’re lucky he’s not bright enough to realize what your little stunt was about.”
“He’s definitely catching on to the fact that you’ve been visiting Adara,” Tray retorted, remembering the warning Nero had given Adara upon their departure from the police station.
“I haven’t been visiting her.” Calder must have known how lame his voice sounded, because he quickly diverted the subject. “What have you discovered?”
“Not enough,” Tray admitted with a frustrated exhale. “Eliana hasn’t been able to gather anything from anyone’s mind. But…Nero should know Angor’s Affinity.”
Nearly halting in his tracks, Calder’s grip tightened on Tray’s arm. “Of course he should.” He rubbed his forehead in self-reprimand. “How the hell did I forget about that? Nero always used to get punished by Angor. He would never say what Periculy did to him, though…”
“Yeah, well, now he doesn’t remember. Either Angor blocked it with his mind controlling Affinity…or Artemis did. Even though Eliana’s fairly certain it’s the latter, I still can’t decide. Now that I’m thinking about it, though…it would be hard to torture someone with just a mind controlling Affinity.”
“Not too hard,” Calder said darkly, his face set in rumination. “I haven’t felt Artemis trying to control my mind, but I’m not sure it’s the type of thing one would notice…”
“We also think there’s a Wacko in town.”
“Well yeah, genius, there are three, if you didn’t just notice—”
&nb
sp; “No, someone who’s been here, feeding them information. Someone who gave them Hastings’s room number.”
Calder’s strides did falter this time, and his following swears rivaled Adara’s in vulgarity. “We’re screwed. Any leads?”
“No. If anything…I would think it was one of your groupies.”
He licked his lips, but the lack of a refute indicated he knew Tray was right. “I’ll consult my roommate tomorrow. If anyone here is a Wacko, he’ll know.” Tray wasn’t really sure what that meant, but he nodded regardless. “Any other cheery news, primie?” Calder asked, tugging him toward the tower’s glass doors with the newfound irritation their predicament had spurred.
“No, nothing—except I don’t think I missed us being allies these past two weeks,” Tray grunted, prying Calder’s fingers from his aching arm.
“We still are allies.” His tone was strong and firm, but his fingers were no match for super strength; by the time they reached the base of the tower, Tray had completely removed them. “Until this is over, we have to be.”
“Until what is over?” he questioned, but the way Calder violently shoved him into the lounge—a show for any late-night spectators—was answer enough.
Until the conflicts in this town were solved. Until the conflicts in this world were solved. Until Calder Mardurus could stop pretending to be a bad guy.
“This place is like a futuristic heaven,” the girl named Naira gushed as her eyes, like medium-hued pink carnations, roved Periculand’s buildings. Since Ackerly saw the campus every day, he spent most of their walk focused on the girl named Ashna. She’d covered her hair with her knit hat again, but he couldn’t pry the image of that mesmerizing rainbow from his mind. There was no flower he could compare it to—none that grew naturally, at least. He knew enough about girls to acknowledge that staring was creepy, but…it was so hard not to.
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