Nerve

by Kirsten Krueger

  Hartman continued filming, standing outside their cell with the video camera in his hands, teleporting from place to place to avoid Fraco. The vice principal had tried to pry the camera from the boy’s grasp for at least twenty minutes, unsurprisingly to no avail since his greasiness inhibited him from gripping it. At one point he had succeeded in oiling the lens, no doubt resulting in poorer video quality, but as long as the public could hear how ridiculous the government’s claims were, the visuals didn’t matter. Whether or not the news station had cut them off was a mystery, but Adara sincerely hoped the world wasn’t deprived of her sardonic sass.

  “Mr. Corvis,” Fraco pleaded, blinking profusely. For a while, he’d used the consequence tactic, but given Hartman, who had grown up with Nero for a stepbrother, wasn’t even mildly intimidated, he’d resorted to the incentive approach. “If you give me the camera, I will pay for your meals.”

  “Indefinitely?” Hartman questioned, orange eyebrows rising with intrigue.

  “Well—”

  “If it’s indefinite, I can’t refuse.” He gave Adara a pathetic shrug.

  Dropping her hand, she groaned. “You are weak. If you give him that camera, Ginger, I will make you teleport in here and break me out.”

  “Oh, shit.” His head pivoted frantically between Adara and Fraco. “I can’t do that—I’ll be a fugitive! Sorry, Frakes, but I can’t take your—”

  “Oh, don’t believe her lies!” he cried, shooting a glare toward the jail cell. From the corner of her eye, Adara spied Angor’s satisfied smirk spreading wider. “She can’t make you do anything. Now, give me the camera before the Rosses—”

  “Before we what, Fraco?” a stern voice interjected, drawing all attention toward the doorway. Previously, Mitt had leaned on the doorframe, watching this whole scene unfold with the utmost amusement, but now he’d been pushed aside completely, making way for the two enraged Reggs.

  Artemis, who had been the one to speak, adorned her typical suit, her hair pulled into the tightest knot and her dark eyes boring into Fraco with contempt. William’s appearance was equally as authoritative, though his antipathy was clearly aimed at Adara and Angor rather than his vice principal. Regardless, at the sight of them, Fraco staggered back, bowing his head submissively.

  “I-I’m sorry—I—Mr. Corvis—the camera—”

  “Enough, Fraco,” William snapped, forcing the man to bolt upright in alarm. “The news shut this feed down before Stromer could spew more of her blasphemy.”

  “Dammit!” she swore as aggressively as she could. Unfortunately, the Rosses were not so easily frazzled, but Fraco jumped at the sound. “Now the world doesn’t know all the things I’ve never done! I was hoping it’d spark some sympathy since I’ve never gotten the chance to murder anyone and now I probably never—”

  “I don’t believe anyone in America will be sympathetic to you with your attitude,” Artemis interrupted, her inflection much less composed than usual. Even if the cussing didn’t perturb her, Adara’s display on the news had, and for that she allowed a devilish grin to consume her lips.

  “So unloving, Mommy,” she sang, provoking shock from the Rosses and tension from Angor. “No wonder you abandoned me and Av all those years—”

  “I thought we agreed we were going to be discreet about our knowledge,” Angor said through his teeth.

  “Screw discreet,” Adara droned, padding closer to the bars. The electricity was off today because of the interview, so she took this opportunity to stroke her fingers along the bars she’d melted, pretending to admire them. Really, the fact that she’d half liquefied this metal with heat terrified her, but she expelled the fearful thoughts as she met the Rosses’ eyes. “I want to talk about how you two are my freaking parents—oh, and how you also have the mind controlling Affinity that killed Hastings.”

  Artemis’s eyes slivered with the accusation. Adara heard Angor hastily removing himself from his metal slab behind her, but she kept her gaze locked with her mother’s.

  “She’s joking,” Angor said, positioning himself beside Adara as if his mere presence could undermine her.

  “I’m not.” She wrapped her hands around the melted bars and peered at the Reggs through them. “I want to let them know what we know so they can make an educated decision: let us go right now and we won’t tell the world the truth, or ignore this warning and suffer our wrath in court tomorrow.”

  Artemis took a step forward, scrutinizing Adara with heartless eyes. “What exactly do you know?”

  “Everything I just told you,” she said, removing one hand from the bars to wave it around, “and more. We won’t divulge all our information, of course. I can tell you two must be fond of surprises. It’s your choice if you want your secrets revealed in public or not.”

  The way Artemis’s gaze bored into her was unnatural. Adara’s face scrunched as she strained to conceal her mind; Angor had taught her how over the past weeks, but she feared this woman could tear down those walls without Adara noticing. She definitely didn’t feel anything, and she couldn’t decide if this was a good or bad sign, especially when Artemis’s face contorted into an ugly simper.

  “Say what you want tomorrow. We have nothing to hide.”

  Adara’s grip tightened around the bars. The Rosses did have something to hide—unless they no longer cared if it was hidden. For some reason, they would rather reveal their ability—and their wickedness—than allow Adara and Angor to walk free. Were the two prisoners really such a threat to someone who could control minds?

  “We have much planning to do at the courthouse,” Artemis announced to Mitt, who had reappeared in the doorway, looking sullen. “Please alert us if the prisoners try anything…shady.”

  Mitt nodded, but Adara could tell by the gleam in his silver eyes that he would have rather released the prisoners from jail than help these assholes.

  “Come along, Fraco,” Artemis said, prompting the vice principal to scurry after them.

  As the woman exited the corridor, she reached over to the electronic panel on the wall, and before Adara could process what she was doing, the bars’ electricity suddenly sparked to life, coursing through the metal and seeping into her skin.

  Her muscles contracted, forcing her arms to push away from the bars. She landed on her back and stared at the crayon depiction of the Pixie Prince, unsure if she felt pain. Though the shock was mildly dazing, it didn’t distort her thoughts enough to quench the fury budding in her chest.

  “You bitch!” she shrieked after them, pushing upright and crawling toward the humming bars. The Rosses had already disappeared, not bothering to glance back at her as they departed the police station. “First you abandoned me and now you’re damning me and you won’t even let me take a freakin’ shower even though Angor got one!”

  Mitt grimaced in the doorway, shifting awkwardly in place. Hartman vibrated in the hallway, the camera now limp at his side. Angor stood only a few paces from her, his lips in a tight line. It wasn’t until she staggered to her feet, taut and seething, that all three of their expressions twisted into dismay. Even in her blinding ire, Adara knew why: Her hands were aflame, blackening and hardening beneath the radiant fire.

  Hartman vanished in an instant, and Mitt ran into the front lobby, but Angor remained paralyzed within the range of her increasing inferno. She didn’t want to burn him; she wanted to burn Artemis and William for putting her here—for leaving her here—for giving up on her now like they had when she’d been a child.

  The ever-present ache of her worthlessness fueled this fire, feeding it to a point beyond control. Heat crept up her arms, morphing her flesh to simmering rock that threatened to light her clothes ablaze.

  Through the undulating glow of reds and oranges and yellows, she met Angor’s pink eyes, so dull compared to the colors bursting around her. The temperature wouldn’t affect her, but she could see him sweating, his skin growing feverishly red. Soon the flames would lick him. He would blacken and harden like her, but he wo
uldn’t survive it.

  She’d been wrong before; she would get the chance to murder someone, and as with Hastings’s death, it wouldn’t be the person who deserved it.

  Desperately, she fought against the bitterness that had gnawed at her for so many years. If only she had a docile Affinity like Ackerly’s, something that nourished rather than destroyed. Instead, she’d been gifted with a connection to the one element she loathed—and the one element capable of morphing that loathing into something even more grotesque, something even more unstable than she was.

  In her haze of suffering and turbulence, Adara abruptly stepped backward, her legs moving so mechanically that it confused her. Had she told herself to back away from Angor? It would have been logical, but she couldn’t recall consciously contriving the thought. She kept retreating until she was pressed against the opposite wall, her arms still scorching despite this display of control. Even from afar, she could see that Angor’s expression remained cool and collected, as if he’d expected her to back away—as if he’d forced her to back away.

  “You little—” she began to snarl but then Mitt raced through the doorway, a silver fire extinguisher in his hands. Before she could speak another word, the nozzle spewed water, drenching her and snuffing the flames. As the liquid seeped through her clothes to fill the crevices of her rocky flesh, the hardened skin slowly disintegrated into a dark ash that mixed with the water and dripped onto the floor.

  Still, her body remained rigid against the wall, all muscles frozen except those above her shoulders. She used the function of her face to spit into the puddles at her feet and then scowl at Angor.

  “You liar! I defended you—I believed you! But you’ve been the mind controller all along. You killed Hastings—”

  “What are you talking about, Stromer?” Mitt demanded through panting breaths.

  “Don’t you see what he’s doing to me?” she questioned, attempting to move her body with no success. Since Mitt couldn’t read her thought process, she jerked her head around, teetering her body but not softening any of her limbs in the slightest. “He is controlling me! He paralyzed me!”

  Mitt’s silver eyes bulged as they flew between Adara and Angor, the truth finally settling in. Dropping the fire extinguisher, he fumbled for a weapon but found he had none.

  Angor sighed dramatically. “If you two will please calm down, I can explain—”

  “To hell with your explanations, you deceitful douchebag! I should have killed you twice now!”

  “And yet you have not, because you know I’m innocent.”

  “No, both times I failed to kill you were because of forces out of my control—such as you prohibiting my movements,” she added, dipping her chin toward her petrified body. “Stop trying to convince me you’re innocent with your mind manipulation!”

  “Adara—”

  “You are so far from innocent that you actually seem innocent!” she shrilled as if he hadn’t said a word. “I don’t know how you’ve done it, but you have, and you need to die!”

  “Adara, if you would give me a moment—”

  “You don’t deserve a moment!” she barked, her thoughts so poignant, she could barely detect the exasperation on his face. “You don’t deserve shit! If you fell into a sewer, it would spit you out—that’s how disgusting you are!”

  “I feel as if you’re exaggerating now.”

  “I don’t give a damn about how you feel! If I woke up as you tomorrow, I would kill myself to do this world a service.”

  “Yes, well, that was unnecessary to state since you never will wake up as me.”

  “Keep him distracted, Stromer,” Mitt commanded as he started toward the door. “I need to alert the Rosses—”

  “That seems like a bad idea, Officer Telum,” Angor said, and the other man’s motor functions ceased. “The last thing we need is for Hastings’s true murderers to gather substantial evidence against me.”

  “Mitt!” Adara moaned, banging her head back against the wall. “Why would you announce you’re going to get help?”

  Rotating his head toward the cell, Mitt said, “I didn’t think he could immobilize two people at once.”

  “Well, you thought wrong, imbecile, and now we’re both stuck here with the most dangerous man on the planet,” she huffed, wishing she could relax her muscles and melt onto her metal slab and not deal with the fact that this scumbag had duped her.

  “I know you don’t mean it as a compliment, but I do enjoy the prospect of being intimidating after so many weeks of squalor.” Angor walked to his own bed and reclined on the metal. “Now, if you’ll promise to be peaceful, I’ll release you both and we can talk.”

  Adara plastered the fakest of smiles on her face. “And if you don’t go to hell right now, I’ll take you there myself.”

  “How, exactly, do you plan to do that?” Mitt asked, craning his neck as far back as he could to meet her eyes.

  “Don’t question me, Telum!”

  “If neither of you will shut up long enough to allow me to speak, then we’ll remain in this suspended state of uncertainty,” Angor said through an exhale. Panic ignited within her as he closed his eyes and folded his arms over his chest but didn’t bother to release her. “Wake me when you’re ready to hear the truth.”

  There wasn’t a set curfew in Periculand, but never had Tray, from his room on the third floor, heard such raucous noise emanating from the lounge after eleven.

  Since Olalla had gifted him with the Affinity-enhancing suits that afternoon, Tray had studied and tested them with a researcher’s precision. His and Seth’s were identical except for size, his twin’s a bit bigger than his own. Although Olalla had claimed they weren’t Affinity-proof, Tray had yet to find anything that could penetrate the fabric; sharp objects couldn’t tear it, water couldn’t seep through it, and even his super strength couldn’t pull it apart.

  Wildly intrigued, he’d gone as far as to try on it on, discovering it was supple and comfortable, albeit a little too tight in the groin region. Adara would certainly make some comments if she ever saw him in it. He’d have to wear shorts over the spandex, he decided. And then Adara would mock him for being a nerd. There was truly no way to win with her.

  It was as he was flexing in his new suit—not to admire his muscle mass, but to ensure the fabric was tough enough to handle his body in a state of flexion—when someone knocked on the door of his dormitory. Frazzled, he didn’t bother to take it off; he simply threw on his sweater over the white material and jumped into his jeans, concealing the secret suit from view entirely.

  Opening the door, he expected to find Ackerly and Ashna there, his roommate likely having lost his key in a pot of dirt or something of the sort, but instead, Lavisa Dispus leaned against the doorframe.

  “Stark,” she greeted blandly, surveying him with half-lidded yellow eyes. Despite the chilly weather, she wore a thin, black t-shirt, which made her skin look paler than usual by comparison, and he noted that her tattered wraps were secured around her hands, prepared for a fight.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Her lips twitched upward at his urgency. “Of course not. I only came up here to invite you to the party that’s going on downstairs.”

  Tray peered over her shoulder as if he might physically see the clamor wafting up the spiral staircase. “I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.”

  “Of course you can’t.” Upon patting his shoulder patronizingly, her eyes narrowed, like she’d felt the skin-tight suit beneath his sweater, but she didn’t comment on it before jerking her head toward the stairs. “Come see for yourself.”

  Glancing back at Seth’s suit, which lay exposed on his desk, Tray gritted his teeth and then hurried into the hall, closing the door behind him. “Is everyone downstairs?”

  “Everyone except Eliana,” Lavisa confirmed, strolling down the steps. “Kiki says she’s sulking in her room.”

  Tray paused on the stairs, peeking at the door to room 305. “Is she o
kay?”

  Lavisa shrugged. “Probably. I didn’t ask what was wrong. I don’t like to get involved in girl drama.”

  Resuming his pace, Tray caught up to her. “Aren’t you a girl, and therefore a contributor to ‘girl drama?’”

  “Not when I can avoid it. Besides, this isn’t just girl drama: it’s romantic girl drama. Very sensitive territory.”

  “What, are Kiki and Eliana fighting over a boy now?”

  Lavisa halted abruptly at the landing of the second floor and spun to face Tray, a whimsical expression dancing across her features. “You don’t know, do you? You’re that socially inept.”

  “Is it Nero?” Tray asked, his dread apparent in his tone. When she shook her head, he racked his brain—and then a nauseating thought dawned on him: Kiki, who had been his childhood bully, hadn’t bothered to utter one nasty remark to him in weeks, and until now, he’d had no explanation as to why. “Is it—” He swallowed, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Is it me?”

  Lavisa barked out laugh, the most jovial display of emotion he’d seen from her in weeks—or perhaps ever. Shaking her head once more, she began her descent again, musing to herself, “You’re the most conceited geek I’ve ever come across.”

  “It’s not me? Well, that’s certainly a relief. Seth would’ve beaten me up if Kiki had a crush on me—not to mention my…feelings for Eliana are only in the realms of friendship.”

  “Really?” Lavisa challenged as they approached the first floor. “I thought you had a crush on her.”

  “No. She’s too…quiet.”

  “Too quiet? And you’re what, a social butterfly?”

  “No, but if I’m going to bother with something as trivial as romance then I need someone who’s…less ambiguous—easier to read—blunt. I don’t have time to decipher silent cues and emotions.”