Nerve

by Kirsten Krueger

  The ensuing silence stretched too long for her comfort. Gradually, she inclined her head to peek out at him. Instead of leaning his own head against the wall, he sat upright, staring at her. With his ocean blue hair unusually rumpled and his face vulnerably interested, she found herself straightening to study him, as well.

  “That was an intentional confession.”

  She pressed her lips together before saying a curt, “Yes.”

  His face twitched, and she felt hers twitch also, and the movements seemed out of place—involuntary—but perhaps they were both so engrossed in this moment of epiphany that they couldn’t quite control themselves.

  “The next step, you know, is to intentionally use it,” he said as if speaking to a child.

  “You know I’m lazy. Even one step a day seems excessive to me.”

  He snorted, biting his lip as he shook his head. “You know, I was actually hoping—naively—that your Affinity really was plants, like you claimed it was back when the Wackos broke in. Plants need water to survive, so you’d be subjugated to my abilities. Water and fire, though…”

  “We’ve always been enemies,” she said with a dismissive wave. “Now there’s just an innate reason behind it.”

  His jaw shifted, but he didn’t express an opinion before unfolding his limbs and standing. “The way I see it, Stromer, there are three options for the trial. You go with the flow, let Nero free you, and then you become one of his minions when this town switches over to Nero’s Dominion. Or you call him out for orchestrating the whole conspiracy at the trial, of which you have no concrete evidence, and then you and Periculy end up back in this cell with Nero and the Reggs as company across the hall.”

  He nodded toward the empty cell at his back, and Adara scrunched her nose at the thought of her three worst enemies occupying it.

  “Or you can claim you’re guilty, avoid Nero and the Reggs, and go to federal prison, which probably means experimentation,” he finished on such a bright, cheery note.

  “All of those sound horrible,” Adara said blandly.

  “Well, there’s a fourth option.”

  “Which is…”

  “You burn this building to the ground now and we siege the town.”

  Her eyebrows immediately shot up at his blunt offer. The building was concrete, of course, so literally burning it to the ground might prove impossible, but not every wall was impenetrable, and as shown with the two still-distorted bars of metal, she could melt them all if she desired—if she dared—if she mustered the control to destroy only inanimate objects and not accidentally tear through humans in the process.

  “Together?” she prompted, unwilling to admit the improbability of his proposition. “If you have the ability to drown anyone at will, why not just kill the Reggs and Nero yourself?”

  Irritation trickled onto his face. “I…don’t think I’m powerful enough to accomplish it alone.”

  “Oh? Are you admitting you need me?”

  Ignoring her inflated ego, Calder said, “Artemis hasn’t used her mind controlling powers on me yet—that I know of, at least. I don’t imagine if I tried to kill her she’d just let me. Drowning isn’t instantaneous; she’ll have time to fight back, and then I’ll be the dead one. Besides, Nixie can stop my Affinity with ease, and if I tried to kill her precious Nero, she would stop me.”

  Adara drummed her fingers along her chin. “I’m sensing some sibling tension here, Pixie Prince. If your sister has no problem fighting you, who’s to say she won’t obliterate me if I try to burn Nero alive?”

  “You…” He paused, expelling a bitter laugh. “I have a feeling no one can stop you if you create a fire big enough—not Nixie…not even me.”

  His acknowledgement should have swollen her pride, but the notion of her Affinity—her fire Affinity—becoming that outrageously out of hand terrified her. “Are you proposing, then, that I should stop the Reggs and Nero and the Wackos from demolishing this town by demolishing it myself?”

  “They destroy, they rebuild. We destroy, we rebuild. We need to be the ones in charge of this town—not the Wackos, not the Reggs, and sure as hell not Nero.”

  She pictured them lounging in Angor’s office, Adara’s feet propped on that glorious desk as she chomped on a donut, Calder sulking in some distant corner with a rain cloud over his head because she refused to share. It was, essentially, what she’d sought to attain since arriving at Periculand. Now she possessed the means to solidify that end, but…

  “I…can’t,” she ground out in frustration.

  “Because the thought of working alongside me is so repugnant?”

  “No, because the thought of fire burning my skin makes me want to vomit.” Untangling her legs, she stomped to her feet. “I don’t want this power. It—scares me.”

  Sympathy flashed over his face—or maybe empathy—but how could he possibly understand that all of her worst nightmares ended with her drowning in a pit of flames?

  “The fire can’t harm you, Stromer. Once you realize that…it gets easier. It’s just a matter of practice—and of knowing your abilities and your limits.”

  His eyes settled on a point beyond her, swirling with ideas. Without bothering to voice these plans, Calder flicked his hand upward, and from it spewed a generous amount of water, arching through the bars and landing flawlessly on Adara’s metal slab. When he lowered his hand, the contained sheet of water burst, drenching the bed and dripping to the floor at her feet.

  “Dry that with control and you won’t have to burn your way out; I’ll set you free right now.”

  The challenge—and his complacent little grin—made her want to riot, but seeing all that water and knowing she could evaporate it but couldn’t left her feeling as hollow and pitiful as ever. “This is bullshit,” she grumbled, slumping onto the wet slab and folding her hands over her chest like she was a corpse.

  “You’re giving up?” His disbelief, at least, restored a bit of her confidence.

  “Obviously—but I will have my revenge, Mardurus.”

  He hummed in disappointment. “And I’ll be waiting out here where you can’t reach me.”

  As he turned to go, she called, “For the record, I haven’t been staring at walls: I’ve been staring at you.” She pointed toward the ceiling, and he craned his neck to see what was plastered there. At the sight of his stick-figure self, his lips cracked into a classic smirk. “Can we talk about your terrible drawing skills?”

  “Oh,” he began, standing straight and fixing his shirt, “that wasn’t drawn by me. That masterpiece was a gift from Unicorn Fairy’s monstrous sidekick. I knew you’d appreciate it.”

  She glared up at the drawing, refusing to fall prey to his smug expression. “I would have appreciated it more if you’d hand-delivered it. You came all the way here and didn’t even say hello.”

  “I wasn’t aware you were so desperate to see me,” he said in a tone that implied he would have thought she was desperate to see him even if she weren’t.

  “You know I thrive off the mockery of others. Do you want me to rot in here?”

  “Your fate’s entirely in your hands, Stromer. See you in court.”

  Swallowing back the dissatisfaction of his parting words, Adara waited a full minute before peering at the doorway, wondering if he might still be there, watching her. But the door had shut, sealing her in this lonely chamber with only snoring Angor as company, and the unnatural heat of her skin had turned the water on her slab to steam, leaving the hideous drawing as the sole remnant of the Pixie Prince for her to cherish.

  29

  Truth-Tellers and Falsity-Feeders

  LAIRTYADSEUTEBYDAER

  That was the note Ackerly had discovered on the bathroom mirror Monday morning. Even in his groggy state, it had only taken a few seconds to decipher: TRIAL TUESDAY BE READY. He would have to teach Calder some trickier codes for the future.

  There wasn’t an opportunity for Ackerly or Tray to contact him that day; while the students and fa
culty engaged in the typical training session, Calder, Nero, and the Reggs buzzed around town, preparing for tomorrow’s trial. They hadn’t publicly announced it, but thanks to Calder’s little note, Ackerly and the primaries were aware, and Tray believed the Rosses would do all they could to ensure none of Adara’s friends attended.

  The pessimistic Stark twin spent the entirety of training that day plotting how they would sneak into the courtroom, proof that he was stressed and that, despite his constant denial, he cared about Adara’s freedom. Still, his redundant claim was that they needed to attend the trial not for his childhood friend but for Angor.

  “If Artemis is the mind controller, she’ll definitely use her Affinity to ensure Angor’s found guilty,” Tray had repeated so many times that it’d become his mantra. “We need to be there so we can finally establish the truth.”

  “And so we can ensure that Adara doesn’t go to federal prison,” Lavisa had added more than once. Each time she’d been dismissed by Tray, at which point she would slide his roommate a flat look of impatience.

  Ackerly had chosen not to involve himself with the bickering; most of the day he’d listened to Seth and Naira debate about whether chocolate candies were better than fruity candies. Ashna had been on Seth’s side, the fruity side, while Ackerly had been undecided. The conversation had really gone nowhere, even though they’d returned to it multiple times throughout the eight hours, but it had provided a distraction for Ackerly to avoid thinking about Adara and her impending doom.

  It was with this fear in mind that he decided he would go visit her once training concluded for the day. Upon exiting the gymnasium, however, his plans dissolved into the back of his brain when Ashna popped up beside him with a mischievous grin.

  “Ackerly,” she prompted, slowing his pace as the sea of students parted around them. While the other primaries exited the Physicals Building, Tray leading the pack with his determined gait, Ackerly paused near the entrance, turning to Ashna and being stunned, as always, by the glistening quality of her hair.

  “What’s—um—What’s up?” he asked, readjusting his glasses.

  Her smile shifted into coyness as she checked for signs of listeners. “Are you working today?”

  “N-no. Why?”

  Bouncing on her toes, she glanced back toward the gymnasium and said, “Then…lettuce go on a date.”

  “Le—da—joke? That—was a joke?”

  “The lettuce part was a lame pun, yes.” She bit her lip to contain a giggle. “But the rest… I just mean we should do something fun—and afterward we can visit Adara, if you want. You’ve all been so worried today… I wish there was more I could do.”

  “No, you—it’s Adara’s fault she’s in jail, kinda,” he explained, unsure of how to process this proposition. “But—yeah, we can do something fun…and then we can visit her. We’ll probably have to borrow Tray’s device to get past the Regg guards…but what did you have in mind first?”

  “I did some exploring the other day when I was supposed to be going to the ‘bathroom.’ C’mon, I’ll show you.”

  Pacing back toward the now vacant gymnasium, Ashna beckoned for Ackerly to follow, and upon straightening his sweatshirt as much as possible, he scurried after her.

  “Being confined to such a small place for so long makes this campus seem massive,” Ashna said, admiring the plain white walls as they continued past the gymnasium doors. When they reached the end of the corridor, Ashna entered the stairwell leading to the basement where, once upon a time, JAMZ had been held.

  “Yeah, I got lost a lot the first few weeks,” he admitted as they descended the steps. Faint lights illuminated the gray concrete walls and dull metallic stairs, giving the hall a much gloomier tinge than the floor above. As they approached the warehouse-like basement below, Ackerly was reminded of how the girl with hair too turquoise to compare to any natural flower had chased him, wielding a deadly metal chain.

  “I’d never been to a school before this one,” he continued as Ashna passed the entrance to the main room and opened the door to a storage closet. “It doesn’t really compare to your situation, but…”

  His words dissipated when she flipped the light-switch, brightening the room and revealing shelves stocked with various types of sports equipment: footballs, basketballs, roller skates—

  “Have you ever ridden a skateboard before?” Ashna asked, retrieving one of the orange skateboards. She tossed it in his direction, and he fumbled to steady it in his hands.

  “Uh…no…not really.”

  “Well”—she grabbed a skateboard of her own and shot him a playful smirk—“you’re about to learn.”

  Gathering a long, thin rope, Ashna strolled past him and disappeared through the doorway before he could protest. With a wince at the skateboard, he turned off the lights and trailed behind her into the vast basement. The orange mats that students had brawled on lay at the center of the floor, so Ashna kicked them to the side, providing ample space for them to skateboard. Ackerly’s gulp echoed throughout the empty room.

  “C’mere.” She summoned him forward with her hand, and with a shaky sigh, he joined her in the middle of the room. Repositioning the skateboard in his hands, she took the rope and looped it through the bottom, tying an intricate knot before tethering the same rope to her own board. “Just so you don’t get lost.”

  He chuckled, nervously but genuinely, as she set the two skateboards onto the concrete and then wiggled her eyebrows at him. “All you need to worry about is balancing on the board. I’ll deal with the rest. Okay?”

  “O-okay,” he said, stepping gingerly onto the board. In this lighting, it was a similar shade to orange alstroemeria, and comparing it to a flower was the only way to calm his jitters as he attempted to stabilize himself.

  “Don’t look so terrified. If you fall and crack your skull I’ll make sure you don’t feel it.”

  Blinking, he realized Ashna was now crouched on her own skateboard, her body angled toward his as she peered up at him. “That’s…reassuring…”

  “I’m joking, Ackerly. I won’t let you fall again,” she said with such sincerity and intensity that he almost toppled off the board even though it wasn’t moving. “Are you ready?”

  A mute nod was all the confirmation Ashna needed to set them into motion. Ackerly wasn’t sure how she planned direct the boards while in a squat, but then she pivoted and held one hand toward her skateboard. Like magic, the wheels began to spin, propelling it forward and dragging Ackerly’s along via the rope.

  “H-how…?”

  She glanced over her shoulder and squinted one eye up at him, her eyebrows set in concentration. “You’ve never heard of telekinesis?”

  “I—have.” He stared down at the concrete as it blurred by beneath his board. They were nearly to the doors now, and at this rapid pace, Ackerly was sure they’d collide with the metal. Just when he was about to open his mouth and suggest slowing down, Ashna twisted her outstretched hand and the wheels abruptly skidded to a stop.

  “Balance, Ackerly!” she encouraged, but the words were as futile as his attempts to heed the command. The jerking halt wrecked his stability, and without any hope of regaining it, he plummeted forward, collapsing on top of Ashna and throwing them both to the floor, where they rolled and tumbled in a tangle of limbs. By the time they finally stilled, Ackerly was pinned under her body while one of his legs was somehow draped over her back.

  Fidgeting to lower his leg, he looked up at her through his crookedly resting glasses. Her long hair obscured his vision from the rest of the gloomy basement, submerging him in a world of rainbow bliss. “I thought you said you wouldn’t let me fall,” he breathed, too shocked by his clumsy mishap—and the fact that she was pressed against him—to think through his words.

  “I wanted to see if you could do it yourself,” she answered, pushing upward to hover above him.

  “Clearly, I couldn’t,” he said, unable to contain an elated laugh when she giggled. Though her cheek
s had reddened, he knew she wasn’t nearly as flustered to be in this position, because by her telekinetic powers, his glasses shifted back into place.

  “Are you in pain?” she asked quietly, pulling some of her hair behind her ear.

  “No—no, I’m fine. Are you?” His eyes locked onto her throat, that permanent bruise staining her delicate skin.

  “I’m always fine,” she assured him, her eyes harboring a sheen that was far too sad to accurately reflect her statement. Rolling gracefully to the side, she propped herself up on her elbow, their faces still as close but bodies no longer in contact. “We’ll need to work on that, I guess. Sorry I didn’t stop you from falling. I could have, but…I’ve always hated when people try to do things for me—when they treat me like a child. I didn’t want you to feel that way.”

  “No, not at all.” He scrambled into a sitting position. “I know I’m not nearly as coordinated as—as anyone, really… I don’t mind a little help.”

  Smiling, she sat up to face him, crossing her legs so her knees grazed his. Since she’d arrived, she’d worn Adara’s green cargo pants, but Ackerly knew she wasn’t a Natural. He doubted she could be categorized into any class with the uniqueness of her abilities.

  “So…telekinesis,” he remarked through an impressed sigh. “That’s pretty…intense. Is that how you learned to skateboard? I mean—it must make it easier to balance…”

  “I learned to skateboard before I even knew I had a telekinetic Affinity.” Her joviality faded slightly as she stared down at her hands. “My…brother taught me how—he loved to skateboard and do anything generally dangerous.” A laugh escaped her throat but it was practically humorless. “We always used to skateboard together up and down our driveway, listening to our favorite band, Bleeding Brains.”

  “Bleeding Brains? That sounds…”

  “They’re hardcore, yeah,” she confirmed, chuckling softly. “My brother and I were always into crazy stuff. We had a lot of fun as kids.”