“I don’t think I have the desire to kiss anyone now,” he mumbled, fidgeting with his glasses.
“You’ve traumatized him—you could have seriously injured—”
“If you’re so worried about him, Stark, why didn’t you volunteer to give him kissing lessons?”
“I…wouldn’t know how,” he grumbled, avoiding her demonic eyes. He could still sense her wicked smirk permeating the room.
“Ah, right, I almost forgot we’re all a bunch of prudes here. Why don’t you go ask one of the Belvens for help, Greenie? I’m sure they’ve both had more than enough practice.”
“Ackerly clearly doesn’t care about what Kiki has to say,” Tray scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “She found evidence that Ashna’s a Wacko and he still won’t hear it.”
“That’s because Ackerly learned from the best,” Adara boasted, holding out her hands as if accepting praise. “My number one rule is ‘Don’t believe a word that flows from Kiki Belven’s mouth.’ Okay, maybe number two, after ‘Donuts are sacred and should be treated as such.’”
“Do you have any inkling as to what this mission could be?” Angor inquired, breaking out of the ruminating trance he’d been engulfed in throughout this entire exchange. “With Daniel in charge of the Wackos now…I suspect it will be something terribly dire.”
“This is why Ackerly’s horniness will come in handy, all puns intended,” Adara added with a bawdy grin. “If unicorn girl’s got a thing for him, and she doesn’t find him suspicious, he can use their budding romance to determine her motives.”
“I-I don’t want to use Ashna,” Ackerly said, flabbergasted. “If anything, I’ll just prove she’s innocent.”
“Good,” Adara said, clapping her hands together. “And you”—she aimed her pointer fingers at Tray—“should do something about Mr. ‘I Love Blenders More Than Sex.’”
Angor tilted his head contemplatively. “Mr. Floros always was a peculiar specimen…”
“You have super strength, Nerdworm. Use it to interrogate the shit out of Than and figure out what his plans are. Just because this town’s fallen to psychotic Reggs doesn’t mean I want to see it demolished. I do still live here, and with no hopes of escape.”
“If there were a method of escape, though, you would have been gone by now,” Tray said darkly.
“Oh, of course. I would have dug your graves for you first, though. It’s only respectful.”
Tray expelled a long breath, rubbing his face in exasperation. “Life with you in prison is exceedingly worse than I expected. Without you around to cause chaos, everyone else seems to have assumed the task. Artemis is a mind controlling murderer, Than’s a Wacko who’s working with three new Wackos to ruin our town, Kiki is somehow becoming a useful member of our investigative team, and to top it all off, I haven’t heard from my parents in over a month.”
“Aw,” Adara cooed, “now we know what’s got Trayby’s diaper in a bunch: He misses Mama and Dada. Well, kiddo, get used to it. They abandoned you, and you’ll probably never see them again. Unless, of course, they return in the form of villainous dictators and throw you in jail. That’s a possibility.”
“Someone’s bitter,” Mitt noted with raised eyebrows.
“Nah, I’d say the fantasies I have about slitting my parents’ throats far surpass petty bitterness.”
“I just don’t get why they would have written to me earlier in the year but now I haven’t received any letters since the election,” Tray said, too consumed by his own worry to care about Adara’s sadism.
Mitt cleared his throat, his previous nonchalance withering. “I…think I know why your parents haven’t been writing to you.”
Snapping his head in the officer’s direction, Tray blinked. “Why?”
Mitt shifted against the doorframe and swallowed. “Well, back in September, before I came here, we got a call that some guys in masks were creeping around your neighborhood. When we arrived at your house, we found your parents gone, but a group of Wackos was invading the place…searching for them. That was when the Wacko leader shot me…and then I accidentally projected the bullet back at him…and killed him.”
Adara’s jaw dropped before Tray’s. “The Wacko leader? You never said you killed the Wacko leader.”
“It—isn’t supposed to be public knowledge.” With a cough, his silver eyes slid toward the former principal. Angor was unaffected by this news; it shouldn’t have surprised Tray that the man knew these details, but why wouldn’t he have been informed that Wackos had tried to break into his own home?
“Why would the Wackos be searching for my parents?” Tray asked, shocked by the deadly calm in his own voice.
Angor folded his hands and sighed. “You’re likely aware that your father worked for a media company.”
Tray’s breath hitched at the word worked—past tense. “Y-yes, as an editor.”
“Publicly. Secretly, he wrote articles on the Wackos under a pseudonym. Through these articles, he revealed the violence of the Wackos, some of which the late leader, Ephraim, wanted to keep secret. Your mother, you likely know, was a scientist.”
Tray’s mouth was so dry that he could only nod.
“Her work was classified…because she was studying Affinity genetics. She was the analyst that examined blood samples for Periculand to determine which teenagers should be sent here. I worked closely with her for years—until this September, around the time that you arrived in Periculand. At that point, she and your father went off-grid, probably because they suspected the Wackos had discovered their identities. Their whereabouts are now lost, even to me.”
Though his knees wobbled, Tray fought to remain upright, fought to subdue the bile rising in his throat. “Th-that’s why they didn’t bother to say goodbye to us the day we left… They knew we’d end up safe in Periculand, so they were fleeing…from the Wackos.”
“Guess they never saw Seth’s note, even though it was written in permanent marker,” Adara said, her inflection hollow despite the sassy remark.
“I saw it,” Mitt chimed in weakly. “His handwriting is sad.”
“They must be at a safe house,” Ackerly encouraged. “With such dangerous professions…they must have had an escape plan.”
Tray shook his head, jaw clenched. He wanted to blame Angor for this: his mother had been working for him; the Principal had put her in danger. If he hadn’t required that Tray and Seth come here, they could have been with their parents, ensuring their safety.
Even as Tray thought these accusations, though, he knew they were empty. His mother had chosen to be a scientist—had chosen to work for Angor, just like his father had chosen to write negative pieces about the Wackos. They’d brought this fate upon themselves. Angor wasn’t to blame—nor was he to blame for Hastings’s death. This now was certain in Tray’s brain, and he knew he had two enemies he had to end: the Rosses and the Wackos.
The only problem was: how could he formulate strategies and accumulate data with this new weight bearing down on his mind—with the possibility that his parents could be dead?
Perhaps not for the first time, Tray Stark sincerely wished the demoness were free from her cage to endure this hell with him.
27
Rotten
Maddy was careful to avoid Danny’s girlfriend over the next two days. The woman had made it abundantly clear that she disliked the girl at the feast, and given she had the power to sway Danny’s actions, Maddy didn’t wish to provoke her further.
After the feast had ended, however, when Maddy retreated to Zach’s room, Naretha had attempted to corner her in the corridor and talk to her. Luckily, enough people clogged the hall that she’d been swept away with the crowd, but now, cooped up in Zach’s chambers with only her books as company, Maddy wondered what the Wacko leader’s girlfriend might have wanted to discuss.
Taking off that tight leather dress had been the most glorious sensation, and since the feast she’d happily sported a t-shirt and sweatpants that
she’d unearthed from Zach’s previous roommate’s drawers. Although still a little snugger than Maddy would have preferred, she was certainly relieved to wear something comfortable as she practiced her backbend that Wednesday evening. She was so engrossed with the mechanics of the movement and the extent of which she elongated her limbs that she didn’t notice Zach had slipped into the room until her eyes wandered toward his bed, against which he leaned.
Observing his form upside-down and sideways, it took her much longer than usual to absorb the classiness of his attire, the perfection of his dull gray hair, and the severe interest in his expression as he watched her slowly retract to her natural form. Pushing out of the arch and standing with grace, Maddy then pivoted to face him, her feet naturally poised in a finishing stance.
“Sorry.” She brushed a few wisps of orange hair from her face. “I didn’t realize you were in here. It must…disturb you.”
“That your hands made contact with the rancid floor?” he questioned, eyeing her fingers as if they harbored a disease.
Her lips curved mildly as she shook her head. “No, that I can stretch and bend so…unnaturally.”
Shrugging, Zach stood straight to tower over her stout height. “You can imagine I’ve seen plenty of odd Affinities, some much more unnatural than yours. One guy down the hall can grow ropes from his skin. Used to eat ropes as a kid and now he’s practically made of them.”
Maddy grimaced as she pictured someone peeling ropes from the fabric of their skin—or eating them. “That’s…freaky.”
“He’s not right in the head,” Zach said with an exasperated sigh. “A lot of the Wackos aren’t. My father found many of them in research facilities, like that kid.”
“Research facilities,” she echoed, shuddering. “My friends got stuck at one on the way here, didn’t they? They must be…”
She swallowed, trying not to think about how altered and affected Jamad, Zeela, and Avner must have been after such an experience—all endured in order to retrieve her. Now they were here but as prisoners, while she lounged in a comfy bed all day and read books.
“Is there any way we can release them from the cells?” she asked feebly, knowing the answer. Zach didn’t have to shake his head.
“I came here to see if you wanted to visit them.”
“O-of course,” she stammered as hope surged through her gut. “Now?”
Nodding, he beckoned for her to follow him toward the bedroom’s exit. “Danny’s out, and I doubt he’ll be back for quite some time. He went to visit one of our…sponsors, and I don’t foresee it going well.”
“Sponsors?” she repeated, stepping into the elevator when Zach opened the doors for her. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw he had paused in the threshold, scrutinizing her bare feet with distaste.
“Aren’t you going to put shoes on?”
“Oh—um—no?” Her eyes darted toward her feet, and she gave him a wincing smile. “I prefer the dirt and germs of the floor to shoes. They’re so constricting.”
He huffed a disgruntled breath but didn’t make any further comments before joining her in the elevator and sealing them within the silver walls. In such a confined space, she could smell his fresh, clean scent of lemongrass and lavender. It had been so poignant compared to her own odor when she’d been trapped in that little torture chamber, and though it had become familiar to her in harsh conditions, she’d learned to love the fragrance since she associated it with food and him—the only human she’d been granted access to for a month.
“The only reason we can afford to operate in this complex is because of our sponsors,” Zach explained, his words jolting her more than the motion of the elevator. “My father managed to procure a decent amount of money in his youth, but it was only enough to buy his own estate. Once his organization gained popularity, wealthy people—many of them Affinities—began to support his cause. With the money, he built this complex as a refuge for Affinities years before Periculy built his town. You can imagine he wasn’t too pleased when Periculand opened and Affinities became required to move there.
“My father was all about choice,” he continued, staring at the metal doors before him as if he could see his father’s image in the shimmery silver. “He didn’t want Affinities to be forced to do anything, and he didn’t want the government to regulate our existence. He gave Affinities a purpose here, and he paid them for their work. Danny still does, of course, but the tasks are far more…violent. Before, my father mostly worked on raiding research facilities and seeking out individual Affinities in need, but now…Danny’s extended his missions to murdering innocent civilians and causing violent mayhem.
“Some of the sponsors are starting to catch on. Two have dropped us, and I’m assuming tonight’s meeting will end in the same result—likely accompanied by the man or woman’s death. We have received a new sponsor recently, though, our highest paying one yet. Whoever he is, he’s thirsty for blood…”
The air chilled at the prospect of Danny murdering someone at this moment—and that there were people who supported his sadism. When the elevator doors parted to reveal the Wacko leader’s office, Maddy felt even more repulsed—especially when her vision locked onto Danny’s desk, upon which Naretha perched.
“Took you long enough,” she drawled, lithely standing from the desk and sauntering toward them. Maddy felt inclined to retreat into the elevator, but she kept her chin high as she trailed Zach to the center of the vast room. In the far corner, Danny’s little white dog, Shards, slept on a plush red cushion, and Maddy hoped their footsteps wouldn’t wake the nippy beast.
“Too busy banging to remember that I’m doing you a favor?” Naretha questioned once they stood before her. While Maddy’s face flushed at the insinuation, Zach was utterly unfazed.
“Have some decency, Naretha,” he snapped, wrinkling his nose at her outfit: a gray sports bra and black spandex shorts, similar attire to what Maddy would have worn to a gymnastics practice, though she highly doubted Naretha planned to engage in any acrobatics. Still, the woman pulled off the ensemble much better than Maddy ever would have; Naretha’s past three months of hell must have shredded some of her muscle mass, but she was still lean and toned, her abs as strong and defined as a gymnast’s.
“Is this bothering you, Zachary?” She motioned to her half-naked body.
“Zacchaeus, and obviously it’s bothering me. Just because you’re dating Danny doesn’t mean you can stroll around here so inappropriately clothed.”
“On the contrary, I think that’s exactly what it means,” she countered, her soft pink eyes flashing friskily. “Unless we have a dress code now?”
Zach’s lips formed a thin line of irritation. “Just open the door, Naretha.”
Gaze hardening, she stomped across the room to the door leading to the prison cells. After she belligerently punched a few numbers into the keypad, the threshold cleared, revealing the hall Maddy always encountered in her nightmares.
“Danny didn’t give you the code?” Maddy whispered to Zach, who peeked down at her from the corner of his eye.
“He…changed it once he released you. And he claimed I’m not trustworthy enough to know it now since I—since we—since I didn’t show as much contempt toward his last prisoner as he would have—”
Naretha’s aggressive cough cut off their conversation. “Here ya go.” She gestured toward the prison cells, sarcastically dramatic. “Have fun witnessing your friends in a state of decay.”
With apprehensive steps, Maddy approached her, mumbling a quiet “Thanks” as she passed. The woman’s smirk was too sardonic for her to feel this was a favor. Maddy didn’t miss the contemptuous glare Zach shot Naretha before they entered the dungeon corridor.
The lighting here was as bright as the upper levels, but the ambience was far darker, and Maddy couldn’t stop her eyes from darting toward that door at the end of the corridor, the one to her chamber of solitude.
“Stop looking like a lost puppy, Faddy,” Naretha barke
d from where she remained leaning in the doorway. “We’re not gonna throw you in one of these cells. You’re one of us now.”
As Zach muttered reprimands to Naretha, Maddy forced herself to look through the glass panels, where her friends dwelled. In the first cell on the right—where Josh had once been -encased—sat Avner, head tilted against the concrete wall and eyes peacefully closed. The lines of exhaustion and worry were set deep in his features, so different from the affable, carefree boy who had led JAMZ a few months ago. His grimy, neon yellow hair was as short as Naretha’s, and his body had thinned to the size he’d been when Maddy first met him at the age of fifteen.
“There isn’t even a bed for him,” Maddy breathed, mostly to herself.
The other two, who had been engaged in a nonverbal argument, heard, and Naretha added a rather scathing, “At least they have drains for their piss and shit to go down. We didn’t get that luxury in the Regg research facility.”
“Neither did I when I was in there,” Maddy said before she could stop herself. Naretha followed her nod toward the ominous end of the corridor, and her animosity dwindled into incredulity.
“Danny put you in there? What the hell did you do?”
“She didn’t do anything,” Zach said with a tinge of spite. “Danny was just angry that she wasn’t you.”
Swearing, Naretha rubbed her forehead. “Why didn’t he put Josh in there? Such a disappointment… At least Faddy’s friends broke me out of Periculand. Josh left me there.”
“Have you…” Zach coughed, “made him pay for that yet?”
“Don’t tempt me,” Naretha retorted blackly. “I’m behaving myself until I can determine where he stands with Danny now. Before these losers got thrown in prison”—she motioned toward the cells—“I planned to convince Snowman to freeze Josh’s balls off. Now I have to think of a new tactic. There’s not much I can do with my salt without killing—”
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