Nerve

by Kirsten Krueger

  “You—have two Affinities?” he questioned, nonplussed. “How…how is that even possible? They’re not even in the same class—”

  “I don’t have two Affinities. I…think I have infinite Affinities.”

  Ackerly blinked. “What…does that mean?”

  “It means that…I could probably do any of the things anyone in this town can do. If I practiced, I could probably grow all plants like you can. I probably could read minds, but…I just haven’t unlocked that part of me yet. I-I’m not completely certain how it all works. I just know I can grow flowers and inhibit pain and climb walls—”

  “Climb walls?”

  With a sigh and a wince, Ashna padded over to the nearest wall. After placing both hands on the glass, she gradually propelled herself upward, her hands sticking perfectly to the surface as she kicked with her feet. Once she reached the angle where the wall met the roof, she continued, her hands walking along the slanted glass as the rest of her body dangled. Craning her neck, she peered down at Ackerly as her feet swayed inches above his head.

  “Spider-Man,” he blurted in shell-shocked awe.

  Confused, she backtracked a few feet and then released her hands from the glass, plummeting to the ground. Paralyzed, Ackerly braced himself for the cracking of bones, but Ashna landed in a flawless crouch before standing.

  “Who’s Spider-Man?” she asked.

  “Uh—a comic book character. I, um, used to like comics…when I was a kid, of course. I’m over it now…obviously…”

  “Ah, a pop culture reference. I sometimes forget about the outside world, because I’ve spent so many years cooped up with the Wackos. I’m guessing Spider-Man can climb walls…like a spider?”

  “Yeah. There’s always controversy as to how he manages it with his suit on, but—um, I’m guessing, by scientific standards, you have similar properties to a spider?”

  “Similar, yeah. Spiders have micro-hairs that allow them to adhere to things, while my skin is a little more sticky—when I want it to be,” she added, coquettishly reaching for his forearm. Ackerly knew she was only demonstrating her ability, but still, when her skin made contact with his, a tingle spiked up his arm. “You feel it?”

  Thinking she meant the involuntary spark, Ackerly nodded instinctively, but then he realized she was probably referring to the stickiness. Yanking back gently to test it, Ackerly found that her hand went with him—and so did the rest of her body.

  When she crashed into him, her forehead hit his chin, and he was about to spew a million apologies before he noted the pain was absent, probably because they were still in physical contact. With her face only inches from his and her hand and his arm still intertwined, he glanced down at her and softly asked, “Do you ever feel pain?”

  “Only if I want to,” she whispered back, eyes bright and wide. At this proximity, he saw every hue in them—multiple shades of pink and orange and yellow and green and blue and purple. There wasn’t any red in them, but her shallow breaths perfuming his skin were too distracting for him to form an intelligible inquiry. “Sometimes pain can be a reminder of how pleasant other sensations are.”

  Ackerly swallowed thickly. “Did…that hurt?”

  At first, she seemed to think he meant their recent accident, but then she followed his gaze down to her throat. After relenting her grip on his arm and taking a step back, she touched the bruised ring around her neck. “The…collar that did this to me had the ability to obstruct my Affinities. So…yes, it hurt.”

  “They were…really cruel to you, huh? The Wackos, I mean.”

  “Not always, and not all of them. But generally, they… It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m not a prisoner anymore—at least not the same type of prisoner. The Rosses might be…suspicious, but they haven’t mistreated me the way the Wackos at—at the hideout did.”

  Ackerly gnawed at the inside of his cheek, conflicting information swirling through his brain. “I’m…a little confused. Naira said the Wacko leader’s dog attacked her when you escaped, but…you were at a hideout, not Headquarters. Wouldn’t the leader’s dog have been at Headquarters with its owner?”

  Expelling a breath, Ashna scrubbed her forehead. “That’s what—” She stopped when her vision landed on a point beyond Ackerly. “Are those…rainbow roses?” Spinning around, Ackerly indeed found a cluster of rainbow roses. Each flower harbored multiple colors, reflecting her hair perfectly. “I’ve never seen rainbow roses before. How did you grow them?” she questioned, entirely entranced.

  “Well…there’s no way to grow them naturally, so I had to grow white roses, and then I divided each stem into separate parts and placed them in different colored dyes… It wasn’t too hard.” She was in complete awe, though, now walking past him to examine them closely. “I…usually compare things to plants and flowers,” he explained, joining her as she caressed the rainbow petals. “Like the gazanias remind me of Adara, blue hibiscuses remind me of Eliana, parsnips remind me of Tray—”

  “Because they look bland and boring but they’re secretly sweet?” Ashna guessed with a sly grin.

  Ackerly let out an awkward laugh. “I don’t even know if Tray’s secretly sweet. I was thinking more because taproots are the strongest roots, and he’s strong… But, anyway, I couldn’t think of anything that reminded me of you, so…I decided to make rainbow roses.”

  Lashes low, Ashna glanced at him with a kittenish smirk. “You’re a real flirt, Ackerly. You know roses are said to be the prettiest flowers? I’m flattered.”

  Even if she was the flattered one, Ackerly was far more flustered. His brain felt mushy; he could barely even remember the pressing questions on his mind.

  “Ackerly, Ackerly!” His name jolted him out of his trance. So engrossed in ogling Ashna, he hadn’t heard Tray rush up the stairs and burst into the greenhouse. “Ackerly, Ashna is—” Stopping dead in the open doorway, Tray’s brown eyes traveled from Ackerly to Ashna and he blanched. “Here. I—was informed that Nero was beating you up,” he explained choppily, casting an apologetic look at her as he straightened his gray sweater. “Apparently that was a lie.”

  “Someone told you Nero was beating me up?” Ashna repeated flatly. “So, rather than going to save me, you ran to tell Ackerly?”

  Tray’s mouth opened as he grimaced. “Yes? Look, Ackerly, I have something urgent to tell you—alone. Can you come talk to me outside?”

  “I-I can’t just leave work—”

  “Your shift is over.” Tray marched through the greenhouse, oblivious to the lively vegetation. Though he grabbed Ackerly’s forearm in the same place Ashna had, the gesture was far less tender. “Let’s go. Urgent.”

  “I-I’m sorry,” he called to her over his shoulder as Tray hauled him away. “We’ll see you in the room tonight. F-feel free to hang out here as long as you want!”

  “Do you even have the authority to do that?” Tray griped, but Ackerly barely heard him; his attention was fixated on Ashna where she stood alone by the rainbow roses, abandoned. Even if she had a lot of secrets, Ackerly wanted to trust her. Tray never would, though, so he allowed his roommate to drag him out of the greenhouse and down the steps.

  “Who told you Nero was beating up Ashna?” Ackerly asked as they stalked through the shop. He was supposed to lock the place up when leaving, but Tray had no intention of waiting that long.

  “No one, Ackerly,” he retorted impatiently, swinging the front door open with such force that it nearly flew off the hinges. “I just had to make up a lame excuse to cover up the fact that I came here to talk to you about her.”

  “Wh-what about her?” he spluttered, trailing after Tray as he stomped across the white cobblestone streets.

  “Well,” he began with a dark, foreboding gleam to his eyes, “no one told me she was being pulverized, but I did receive some even worse information—some incriminating information.”

  “It…can’t be true.”

  “It can and it is,” Tray said as he and Ackerly approached the police
station’s front entrance. The late November wind flapped the Stark twin’s normally neat hair into his eyes, but his emotional stress prevented him from caring. “I just explained it to you: Eliana and Kiki found a note in Than’s office that explicitly implicates her as a Wacko. She’s here on an undercover mission, Ackerly, and once she completes it, the Wacko leader’s going to come here and destroy Periculand.”

  Ackerly continued shaking his head, wrapped up in his illogical denial. “But…Ashna said—”

  “She said what?” Tray demanded when he abruptly cut himself short.

  “N-nothing.”

  The lie was so blatant that Tray couldn’t repress his reaction of rage. “Said what?” he growled as he grabbed Ackerly’s shirt.

  Yelping at the aggression, he winced behind his glasses and squealed, “Please don’t punch me!”

  Tray instantly released him, internally fuming over his lack of self-control. He’d always been the stoic one—the rational one—but now that terrorists had infiltrated their town and potential murderers ruled it, he was breaking apart.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, mostly as a way to compose himself. With gentler force, Tray opened the police station’s door and let trembling Ackerly scurry in. The air was substantially warmer within, but Tray didn’t allow it to soothe his icy demeanor as he stomped up to the desk. “Officer Telum.”

  Mitt, reclining in his chair and playing handheld Yahtzee, languidly lifted his head. “Mr. Stark,” he greeted, saluting in mock formality. “I believe it’s been a whole two days since I last saw you.”

  “We don’t have time for you to complain about our arrival,” Tray snapped, and Ackerly recoiled. “We need to talk to Adara about the Wackos.”

  “I’m not sure I wanna let you do that.” Mitt placed his game on his desk. “When Mardurus came in here yesterday, he refused to tell her who the Wacko is, and she’s definitely been stewing about it. Giving her the details would ruin the fun.”

  “Trust me, I wouldn’t be here if I had a choice.” Tray’s eyes narrowed on the door to Adara. “But—wait, why was Calder here yesterday?”

  “To tantalize Adara?” Mitt offered with a shrug. “And use his creepy roommate to figure out if Periculy’s innocent or not. As far as I’m aware, no conclusion was made. Oh—except that the Rosses might be Adara’s parents.”

  “I’ve been saying that since they first showed up! Let me guess, Adara believed it the moment it spewed from her precious Pixie Prince’s mouth?”

  Hands splayed in innocence, Mitt stood. “Whoa, Stark. I’m sensing some jealousy.”

  “I’m not—I just—Can we see Adara…please?” he added in the calmest voice he could muster. The officer’s expression remained wary, but after a moment of contemplation, he nodded and opened the door.

  Puffing out an agitated breath, Tray stalked into the posterior chamber, Ackerly at his heels. In the cell to the right, Angor Periculy squatted repeatedly for his daily workout routine—a perturbing sight—while Adara seemed to have grown tired of physical exercise and was sprawled on her metal slab, looking as disgusting and lazy as she always had in Tray’s eyes.

  “Don’t bother me today, Weaponizer.” Massaging her temples, she screwed her eyes shut. “I feel like shit, okay?”

  “You look it, too,” Tray mumbled, apparently loud enough for her to have heard.

  Eyes bursting open, she sprang upright and stared at him. “What was that, Nerdworm?” she prompted, a diabolical grin spreading on her lips. “What do I look like?”

  “Don’t make me regret coming here with your childishness, Stromer.”

  “I’m not the childish one.” With a flippant wave, she hopped to her feet. “You’re the one who isn’t mature enough to say the word ‘shit.’”

  “I wouldn’t call cussing mature—”

  “Greenie,” she interjected, face brightening as she noticed him for the first time. Ackerly smiled nervously as he stepped beside Tray, clearly maintaining some distance between them. “Didn’t think you’d keep your promise to come back.”

  “It—it’s only been two days. Less, if you count the hours.”

  “This isn’t a social call.” Crossing his arms, Tray glared at Adara through the bars. “We’re here because we’ve confirmed that Than is the Wacko sympathizer.”

  Angor paused mid-squat. “Than Floros?”

  “The history teacher?” Adara said with equal incredulity. “The ancient dude who’s never even slept with a woman? You’re telling me he’s a Wacko? I don’t think I’ll believe it unless I hear it from his mouth.”

  “Essentially, we did,” Tray confirmed grimly. Angor stood straight, his expression wrought with skepticism. “Eliana and Kiki found a note in his office that he wrote, referring to the Wacko leader as if he knew him personally—and admitting that he’s helping the new girl, Ashna, with a mission for the Wackos.”

  “Ha!” Adara barked, throwing her head back. “The unicorn girl? She is a Wacko after all? Well, I don’t see that as shocking news. What did I tell you, Greenie? Pretty girls can tell lies…”

  “She isn’t lying,” Ackerly insisted with more zeal than he typically displayed. “Ashna gave up two Wacko locations. Why would she do that if she were one of them?”

  “To defer suspicion?” Adara suggested.

  “By getting her own people killed?”

  “She is on a mission, Ackerly,” Tray said, tapping his hands together for emphasis. “She is one of them.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “It’s confirmed!” Tray ran a hand through his disheveled hair in frustration. “Stromer, this is why we came here. You need to convince him he’s being irrational.”

  “Me?” Adara gasped, placing a hand on her chest as if she had won an award. “You want me to convince him he’s being irrational?”

  “I found him showing off his greenhouse to her. I think he’s infatuated.”

  “N-no,” Ackerly stuttered, cheeks reddening substantially. “I…was just being polite.”

  “You’ve fallen for the unicorn’s shimmery façade already, have you, Greenie?” Adara crooned with devilish intrigue. “You’ve known her for, what, two days? Less, if you count the hours.”

  “Stromer,” Tray exhaled as he pinched the bridge of his nose, “stop joking around. You’re the only person he’ll listen to.”

  “Well”—Adara’s chest inflated with haughtiness—“in that case, follow your dreams, Greenie. Even if this rainbow girl is a Wacko, she’ll probably be a good kisser—maybe an even better kisser if she’s an edgy terrorist.”

  “I-I never said I wanted to kiss her,” Ackerly stammered. Though Tray thought his roommate blind and illogical, he empathized with the intensity of his embarrassment. Not much rattled Tray Stark, but Adara Stromer’s crude quips never failed to stir humiliation in his gut.

  “You didn’t have to say it,” she said with a frisky wink. “It’s written in your blush, my friend. If we’re going to assume she’s a Wacko, we should also assume she’s been with a few guys, since, you know, anything’s rational at this point.” Tray rolled his eyes at the look she shot him, but he didn’t get to voice his input before she continued. “Since you won’t be her first kiss, you should probably practice first. As your best friend, I will sacrifice myself for your sake.”

  “Y-you want me to…to kiss you?” Ackerly questioned, dumbfounded.

  “I wouldn’t say want is the correct term…”

  “Enough with your antics, Stromer.”

  “I’m helping a friend, Nerdworm. It’s better than all the discouragement you’ve been giving him. Poor Greenie’s probably never even had a crush before!”

  “She is a terrorist—”

  “You can really help me?” Ackerly asked timidly, taking a step closer to the bars. Tray gaped at how easily he’d conceded to this madness, but his roommate refused to glance back in his direction. “I mean…I don’t know if I’ll kiss her, or if she would even want to kiss me, but…I don’t be
lieve she’s a Wacko, and if we ever did…I would want to be prepared.”

  “Telum”—Tray whipped toward the officer leaning in the doorway—“give me your baton.”

  Mitt made a show of patting his uniform before saying, “I don’t have one, Stark, and even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you. Would bashing your friend’s head in be better than letting him kiss Stromer?”

  “Yes, but I wasn’t planning to hit him, any—” Tray tore his eyes away from Mitt when a cry penetrated the air. In the time he’d argued with the officer, Adara had instructed Ackerly to approach the metal bars in order to kiss her through them. But, as everyone had so foolishly forgotten, the bars were electrified, so when Ackerly clumsily pressed his cheeks against the metal, a shock coursed through his skin, projecting him backward. The poor kid’s back smacked against the tiled floor, his glasses flying from his face.

  “Second time today…” Tray vaguely heard him mumble. He didn’t help Ackerly retrieve his glasses or get up; his virulent attention was fixed on Adara, who cackled like a witch within her cell. Clearly someone had remembered the bars’ electric properties.

  “I’m sorry—Ackerly,” Adara huffed through her cruel laughter. “When I get out of here—I’ll buy you some ice cream with Tray’s money.”

  Scowling, Tray finally bent down to hoist up Ackerly as the discombobulated boy fumbled to adjust his glasses. His cheeks were bright pink where they’d made contact with the bars, but luckily, the electrical current wasn’t strong enough to severely burn him—or kill him.

  “You’re despicable,” Tray snarled, despising the urge for violence swelling in him. He’d always combatted Adara with intelligence, but this time she’d managed to outsmart him. She’d been aware of a fact that he’d neglected, and now he wished he could break past the electric bars to punch that smug smile from her lips.

  “It was a prank, Nerdworm. I knew he wouldn’t get too hurt.” She rolled her eyes to meet Ackerly’s. “Are you okay, Greenie?” When he nodded, she added, “I hope that sparked some sense into you. Bet you don’t have any desire to kiss Wacko terrorists now.”