Nerve

by Kirsten Krueger

  “We’re friends of Avner Stromer,” Zeela added, hoping this would assuage the tension. “I know your sons, Seth and Tray. I went to school with them in Periculand.”

  A faint sigh of relief escaped the man’s throat. “They’re doing all right?”

  “They were when I left. Adara’s fine, too.”

  The man snorted, shaking his head. “Adara… I’m surprised she hasn’t landed herself in jail yet. Is she just as much of a troublemaker in Periculand?”

  “I don’t think she’s done anything illegal yet…”

  “Hm… Well, I’m Richard, and my wife, Linda, is sleeping back there. When that fire started, she broke her hand to free herself from her manacles. Either of you have a healing Affinity?” When they both shook their heads, he exhaled. “Well, we’ll find a hospital soon enough… Once we were both free, we hurried down here to activate the outdoor sprinkler system. It put out the fire quick enough to save us, but the path up the steps was blocked. We’ve been sending out distress signals for hours. I guess you got one?”

  “Distress signals?” Zeela repeated as panic crept in. “As in…people know you’re here? As in…the government might know you’re here?”

  “You should wake your wife,” Charlie urged, head turning toward the stairwell, as if Regg soldiers might charge through at any moment. “We should get going.”

  “We…wanted the government to know we’re here,” Richard insisted. He did react to their alarm, though, warily retreating to wake the woman named Linda. She slept atop one of the metal experimentation tables—probably the same one on which they’d carved out Zeela’s eye. The thought spiked her surging adrenaline to the point that she considered leaving the Starks just to get away from this place.

  “I don’t think you want the government to find you, considering they’re the ones who locked you up here in the first place,” Zeela explained as calmly as she could. “I’m not sure what the Reggs have against—”

  “The government doesn’t run this place,” Richard said, appalled that she would even imply such a thing. He sounded convinced of his own words, but Zeela knew they couldn’t be true.

  Who operated this place if not the government? Who would have the funds—and who would have such an interest in the abilities of Affinities other than the government that fought against them? But why would the government be after the Starks? Even if they had committed some crime, why place them here with Affinities, rather than in a real prison?

  A memory surfaced in her mind—one of Naretha mentioning the Wacko leader sought to apprehend the Starks. That didn’t make sense, though. The Wackos were terrorists, but their reason was to stop the government from running facilities like this. Why would Danny have one of his own? He had to be twisted, but Naretha, his girlfriend, had been here.

  Shaking the wild thoughts from her head, Zeela trained her vision on the Starks, who now approached the doorway. There was no way to sort out Linda’s features, but she was shorter than her husband, and Zeela picked out the broken bones in her hand and the weary sag of her shoulders. She didn’t bother to introduce herself or imagine what kind of horrified expressions the woman might be making at her lack of an eye; with a curt nod toward the stairwell, she began her ascent from the depths of this hell.

  Before they reached the second staircase leading to the ruins of the barn, however, Zeela sensed something was terribly wrong. Commotion sounded from above, and when she fixated her eye beyond the metal and dirt and rubble, she saw bodies running in chaos as a massive, bird-like creature swooped around in a vicious attack. Even after rubbing her eye in disbelief, she was met with the same outlandish reality.

  “There is some shit going on up there,” she said as Charlie stepped beside her. “I need you to peek up the stairwell and tell me what you see.”

  The man swallowed after a booming squawk reverberated through the earth. Tentatively, he mounted the stairs, and Zeela followed until they poked their heads above the barn’s debris. Without any objects to interfere with her sight, the scene still appeared as bizarre as before: Affinities fled across the open plain as a bird the size of a car plucked them from the ground and launched them into the air. Some survived; some didn’t. The violence was so distressing that she almost didn’t notice two figures slowly trudging through the ashes, careful to avoid the embers.

  One—a male, judging by his voice and body structure—swore when he stepped on a particularly large ember that melted some of the rubber sole of his shoe. The other, a female, snapped at him to be careful, and though neither of them sounded familiar, Zeela still whispered to Charlie, “Do you recognize them?”

  At the shake of his head, she motioned back toward the Starks to follow. These two strangers were clearly searching for the underground lair, and without Zeela’s more abstract sight capabilities, she couldn’t determine if they were friendly. The only chance they had of escaping unseen would be now, and if these people controlled that unfathomable winged creature, Zeela did not want to be seen.

  Unfortunately, it was hard for her to gauge how well the darkness of night veiled their appearance. She hoped that, as they gradually emerged from the stairwell, crouching low and using chunks of the fallen barn as cover, they would remain undiscovered. The strangers were so busy sifting through the debris that they probably wouldn’t have glanced in their direction—until Richard tripped on the lip of the staircase, flopping into the ash with a thud.

  Zeela and Charlie both froze at the unmistakable cocking of a gun.

  “Stop—don’t move!” the female’s voice barked as the two figures stalked toward them, disregarding the embers. The gun was hazy in Zeela’s vision, but she knew it wasn’t loaded with tranquilizing darts; these were real bullets, and if she was shot, she would die. If these people planned to haul her off to another research facility, though, wouldn’t death be better?

  Thankfully, she didn’t have to answer that morbid question, because Charlie wasn’t ready to die today. Raising his hands as if in surrender, he summoned the gun, ripping it out of the woman’s grasp. Once he had control of the weapon, Zeela didn’t have to see the strangers’ auras to feel the fear in the air.

  “Don’t make me shoot you,” he warned, his voice steady even though his body trembled. “I’ve been told I have impeccable aim.”

  “We don’t want violence,” the woman said carefully. “We just want the Starks. Give them to us, and we can part ways peacefully.”

  “You don’t want violence?” Zeela challenged, glimpsing past them at the carnage the monstrous bird was immersed in. “Is that not your pet?”

  “We were attacked by that group first,” she dismissed. “Didn’t even get a word out before they charged at us. This is self-defense you’re seeing.”

  “I wouldn’t call it a fair fight,” Zeela retorted dryly, examining the strangers’ bodies for some hint of their allegiance. With the gun, it seemed unlikely they were Affinities, but they weren’t wearing Affinity-proof suits. Could they be mercenaries hired by the government to track down the Starks—or hired by Danny to track down the Starks? None of it explained the supernatural bird.

  “I wouldn’t call thirty against three a fair fight, either. Give us the Starks and we’ll leave you unharmed.”

  “You don’t seem to be in a prime spot for negotiation,” Charlie observed, shifting the gun in his hands. “How about you stand still, so I don’t have to shoot you, and then we’ll walk away with the Starks? Deal?”

  The woman opened her mouth, but no noise emitted before Zeela’s ears were filled with the rumbling of an engine. Pivoting to the right, she found a vehicle bumbling through the field, heading straight for them.

  “No!” the unfamiliar man cried. “Someone’s stealing it!”

  “I told you, you should have stayed in the van,” the woman growled at him as she broke into a sprint toward the vehicle. At the sudden movement, Charlie instinctively began shooting, and screams riddled the air—mostly from Richard and the unfamiliar man. As C
harlie continued his assault, Zeela ushered the Starks away from the madness, but the vehicle had already drawn too close, wedging them between it and the strangers, who had taken cover behind a beam to avoid Charlie’s bullets.

  Given the driver was the sole occupant, Zeela was tempted to storm into the van and claim it as her own. When the driver rolled down the passenger’s side window to shout for them to enter, though, Zeela’s face broke into a grin. Even with the clamor erupting around her, she recognized that voice: Key Fingers.

  “Get in,” Zeela told the Starks after thrusting the van’s door open.

  Hesitantly, the couple approached, Richard helping his wife in even though he seemed to be the tenser of the two. Based on the way they both situated themselves as far from Key Fingers as possible, the crazy old woman didn’t help mitigate their anxiety. For Zeela, the only person she might have been more relieved to see driving the van was Avner.

  Yelling for Charlie to join them, she hopped into the passenger’s seat. The jostling of the van signaled his entrance through the back door, prompting Key Fingers to slam her foot on the gas pedal. Another yelp escaped Richard’s throat as the vehicle jolted forward, bumping and jerking along the uneven terrain.

  As the back door shut, sealing them within, Zeela vaguely heard the two strangers shouting while they ran to chase down the van that had once been theirs. Even driving on the rough grass, the vehicle outpaced them, and Key Fingers plunged on until the strangers were two specks in the distance. That bird, though… It was as far away as the humans, yet Zeela could still see it clearly, as if it were an ordinary bird hovering directly behind them.

  “Does anyone know what in the hell that beast was?” Key Fingers questioned.

  “Some kind of genetically-modified monster?” Charlie guessed through panting breaths. “I’ve never seen a bird that size.”

  “What did it look like?” Zeela asked, feeling a bit worthless for having to ask at all. Her vision had always been different, but with so many of her sight’s facets eliminated, along with one of her eyes, she felt as detached now as when she’d been blind.

  “It was…purple, I think,” Charlie said. “Must’ve been a falcon of some sort…”

  “I’m assuming falcons aren’t typically purple?”

  “You’d be surprised, girl,” Key Fingers said with a whimsical inflection. “I’ve seen plenty of purple animals while under the influence of drugs.”

  With raised eyebrows, Zeela peered back at Charlie and asked, “Do you think it could have been an Affinity shapeshifter?”

  The graveness of his response chilled her. “I know those two I shot at were Affinities. Hard to tell in the dark, but I think they had red and green hair. I don’t know how well you can see the details of this van, but…I’m pretty sure this thing belongs to the Wackos.”

  Zeela leaned her head against the back of her seat, absorbing the implication of his words. If the Wackos had known where the research facility was and that it had been destroyed, did that mean it belonged to them?

  This mission had begun with the intention of saving Maddy, but somehow she’d arrived at the point at which she needed to run as far away from Maddy—and the Wackos—as possible. Selfishly, she wanted to abandon the Starks and search for her friends, but she’d made her choice when she hadn’t been captured with Avner.

  She would deliver the Starks to safety, wherever safety was, and she would hope she didn’t fail them like she’d failed that ravaged group of Affinities.

  When Zach had said he hoped Maddy would find clothes that fit her style, he should have said he hoped she would find clothes that fit her at all. Whoever Zach’s old roommate had been was considerably thinner than Maddy, forcing her to mold her body into an unusual shape to slip on a dress. Even then she felt wildly uncomfortable, squirming and fidgeting as she exited Zach’s private bathroom to reenter his bedroom. When she found him standing beside his bed, clothed in an elegant suit that matched the gray of his hair and eyes, she almost quite literally melted into a blob.

  As he surveyed her, his lips curled in a way that implied he thought her just as unattractive as she felt. “I apologize that my…roommate doesn’t have the finest taste in clothes.” Gaze lingering on the black leather dress and knee-high boots, Zach cleared his throat and added, “You, uh, got taller.”

  Maddy peeked down at her lengthy legs, which she’d elongated so that she now stood nearly as tall as him. Since she didn’t often assume this height, it was odd to look directly into his eyes when, minutes ago, she’d had to tilt her head up at him. “I…wasn’t thin enough to fit otherwise.”

  Relief washed over Zach’s face, and Maddy must have creased her brow in response, because he hastily explained, “I was worried you might have chosen this appearance because you thought people would like it better.”

  “Do you…not like it better?”

  A smile trickled onto his lips, but he seemed to think whatever was on his mind was not worth voicing because, instead of answering, he motioned toward the door and mumbled, “Let’s get this over with.”

  Zach held open the door for her, but Maddy knew he only did so because he didn’t want her to infect the door handle. She nodded in gratitude nonetheless, sauntering into the hallway with her clunky boots. Most of the doors were wide open on this floor, permitting conversation between the Affinities flooding out of their bedrooms toward the elevator. A few dressed formally, like Zach, but the majority wore the same dark, punkish style as herself, alleviating her nerves. Maybe she’d actually blend in at this gathering of Wackos.

  While living in Periculand during the past three years, she’d grown accustomed to brightly-colored hair clogging a corridor. What struck her as unusual about this sight was that these people all smiled and laughed and joked, as if it were natural. This was common in Periculand, but she hadn’t expected it within a terrorist organization.

  “Do you know everyone?” Maddy whispered to Zach as they submerged into the crowd.

  “Most.” The boisterous cackle of a teenage girl walking ahead of them nearly overpowered his voice. Many of the Wackos were young, she noted, though there were a few middle-aged and elderly people sprinkled throughout.

  “The older members worked with my father for years,” Zach explained, eyeing the mass clustered before them with pensive eyes. His gait was slow, purposely removing them from the others—probably because he couldn’t handle standing so close to their germs. “The younger ones, for the most part, have joined over the past few years with the government’s increasing hostility and our rising…popularity.”

  “The Wackos have become rather notorious on the news… Who pays for all of this, though—and what’s the goal?”

  Zach pressed his lips together, waiting until the other Affinities piled into the elevator, leaving the two alone. With only the cool metallic walls and the harsh fluorescent lights filling their surroundings, he puffed out a breath. “Danny’s goal seems to be destruction—death, domination. Very different from the original objective, but…he has the support of the other…Wackos.”

  “Is that why he became leader instead of you at your father’s death?”

  His lips twitched, but no response emitted before the elevator doors parted, beckoning for their entry. Once sealed within, Maddy was convinced they would suffer the rest of the journey in silence, but then Zach, sounding as flustered as she’d ever heard him, said, “The position as leader was left to me upon my father’s death, but…Danny didn’t think I was fit for the role. He challenged me to a…physical duel, and clearly I had no chance. I failed…everyone.”

  Maddy was so distracted with sympathy that, when the elevator jolted upward, she stumbled into him, tripping over her dramatic boots and clinging to him for support. Disgusted by the physical contact, Zach shoved her off, and she slammed into the side of the elevator. Though her shoulder ached from the impact, the flame of humiliation rising in her cheeks was arguably more painful.

  “I-I’m sorry.” He reache
d out to right her but then recoiled. “I…didn’t mean to hurt you. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she assured him, though she avoided his gaze as she hugged her torso and stared at the silver doors. “You didn’t—I didn’t—” Biting her lip, she peeked over at him and found his usually unreadable face riddled with self-loathing.

  “I’m not fit to be a leader,” he mumbled, mostly to himself it seemed. “I’m barely even capable of touching another human being… My Affinity is useless in combat; the Reggs wouldn’t be threatened by the very notion of me as they are with Danny.”

  “Do you want the Reggs to fear you?”

  He grimaced, hesitating long enough that they reached their destination before he replied. Once again left thinking her questions would remain unanswered, Maddy was baffled when he jabbed the button to keep the doors sealed.

  “I want Affinities to be respected members of society,” he said, his finger still pressed against the button. “I want the Reggs to treat us fairly, and I want justice, but I don’t think violence is the way. We need diplomacy, and—and Danny’s a fine negotiator, until he doesn’t get his way. The Reggs have mistreated us too many times for him to end this in any way other than total domination. By the time he’s through, all Reggs will be dead or slaves. Only one person could contain his anger, and that person is gone.”

  “Your father?” Maddy guessed as he removed his finger from the button, allowing the doors to peel apart.

  “My father wouldn’t have been pleased with the way things have gone,” Zach conceded, his voice nearly drowned out by the commotion of the cafeteria. “But there’s nothing we can do about it now. C’mon, and try to stay quiet, if you can.” The warning was obvious as his gaze drifted across the room to where his brother sauntered around, laughing with other Wackos like a normal guy. “I can’t believe he’s actually wearing that ridiculous suit…”

  Danny’s bright red suit did look a little ridiculous surrounded by the neutral colors everyone else sported. On Aethelred, a red suit had always been charming and cordial, but Danny looked like Satan incarnate in his.