Ackerly shook his head violently, but when Nixie snapped her fingers, diminishing his airways, he instantly froze.
“I also have Smith and Floros here for you.” Nixie gestured grandly toward the teachers. “Both ex-Wackos—perfect bargaining material.”
“Wonderful,” Artemis cooed, admiring Nixie as if she were her new favorite daughter. For once, Eliana actually wished Nero were here. His girlfriend sucking up to this evil witch and betraying him in the process almost made her sympathize with the big brute. “Let’s bring the Wackos toward the gates to meet their old companions. Demira, if you would escort these primaries. William and I have a special place for them amongst the student army.”
Engrossed in their own haughtiness, Artemis and Nixie hadn’t noticed Lavisa take a step toward them. As they turned to face the Residence Tower, the yellow-haired girl hooked her foot around Nixie’s ankle, tripping her. When the Pixie Princess fell forward, Lavisa’s fist was there to greet her with an uppercut to the chin, flinging her body backward.
The orb around Eliana’s face dropped, drenching her in water that felt like ice seeping through her clothes with the midnight chill. All her friends had been liberated with Lavisa’s expert blows, and while Artemis could only splutter, Demira was actively livid.
Her metal links flew through the air, weaving within the crowd of soaked primaries like a flying snake. Lavisa ducked, avoiding a strike to the throat, but the chain wound back at her again, this time coiling around her wrist and yanking her forward. Lavisa used the momentum to roll on the pavement and then spring at Demira, tackling her to the ground.
Nixie had recovered by now, rubbing her jaw and struggling to adjust her vision as she staggered toward the brawling girls. Extending her hands, she discharged a stream of water, but her aim was awry, slamming Demira instead of Lavisa. The metal chain slipped off Lavisa’s wrist, clanking to the ground, as the turquoise-haired girl scrambled to her feet and wiped her wet face.
Using this mishap to her advantage, Lavisa side-kicked Demira in the stomach and then rounded toward Nixie, slapping her hands and kneeing her in the gut. With both girls doubled over and Artemis slipping back toward her husband for protection, Eliana scurried to Ackerly, silently ushering him away.
Not two steps were taken from the scene before his knees buckled and his hands flew to either side of his head as he groaned. His rattled thoughts flowed through her mind a moment before her eyes registered what was happening: Demira, though wounded, used her Affinity to bend the metal of his glasses inward, pressing on the sides of his head and piercing his temples.
Eliana instantly whirled around. Nixie and Lavisa fought fist to fist, the former using spurts of water to her advantage while the latter used her unnatural agility and speed. This left Demira unattended, teal eyes sparkling with malice at her target, unaware of the primary who proceeded to deck her from behind.
With Ackerly moaning and bleeding beside her, Eliana didn’t have time to watch Tray and Demira wrestle. Based on her yelps and his constant worries over accidentally killing the girl, he would have no problem winning this fight. Instead, Eliana propped Ackerly up with her arms, examining the holes that the sharply bowed metal of his glasses had produced. Blood trickled down his face, mixing with the remnants of Nixie’s water and dripping off his chin.
“I-I’m afraid to take the glasses off,” Eliana admitted, wincing apologetically when his weary green eyes peeked over at her. “I don’t want to make it worse.”
“Let me help him,” Floretta said as she and Than approached. Lavisa now had Nixie in a headlock, but Nixie had Lavisa’s whole head encased in water, and Tray had Demira pinned to the ground, but Demira had her chain looped tightly around Tray’s throat. The only reason both duels hadn’t come to a stalemate was because Hartman teleported around rapidly, kicking and punching the secondary girls with an “Ah—sorry!” every time. They grunted as their Affinities waned, neither able to counteract Hartman’s attacks with his unpredictable disappearances.
Artemis, Eliana realized, had vanished entirely. She wasn’t even by her husband and the army of students. If Artemis had a mind controlling Affinity, why hadn’t she interfered with Lavisa’s outburst? Was she saving her strength for the Wackos, or had they been wrong about her abilities?
“This isn’t the first time we’ve had an incident like this,” Floretta grumbled as she carefully pried Ackerly’s glasses from his face. Once they’d been removed, she shot a scowl in Demira’s direction. The girl had finally been subdued, her aqua hair splayed around her dazed face like a blanket of exotic waters. Tray stood above her, huffing and rubbing his throat, which bloomed with bruises from the force of her metal chain.
“Probably why she’s been eyeing me with bloodlust for weeks,” Ackerly mumbled, bringing his fingers to his bleeding forehead and grimacing. “Not a lot of people have glasses for her to bend like that…”
Panting, Tray ambled over to them, and Lavisa and Hartman appeared a moment later, having teleported from somewhere. When Eliana glanced beyond them, Demira and Nixie were gone.
“Teleported them up to their room,” Hartman assured her with a wink. “They’ll have a nice, long slumber in their beds while the rest of us fight the terrorists.”
Sensing Eliana’s puzzlement, Tray sent her a fuzzy mental recap of Hartman “sorry”-punching Nixie and then Lavisa elbowing her face in a way that stole her consciousness.
“I don’t want any of you to have to fight the Wackos.” Floretta’s lavender eyes flashed worriedly at the assembling students. “If I thought Danny would actually give up, I’d sacrifice myself to them, but…he won’t relent until he has Ashna.”
Even though he was half-blind, Eliana felt Ackerly plotting how he could find Ashna—how he could betray her in the same way she’d betrayed him.
“We need to find Ashna, then,” Tray concluded, ignoring Floretta’s look of protest. “Eliana, do you sense her anywhere?”
Eliana closed her eyes, probing the area for any signs of the glittering, rainbow wall that characterized Ashna’s mind. As she expanded the range of her search, though, she was met with the harrowing reality of their predicament, the sheer mass of it.
“The Wackos—they’re almost here. I-I feel them—so many—”
“They’re here already?” Tray demanded, scanning the gates beyond the Naturals Building. When Eliana followed his gaze, she was met with the physical sight of what her Affinity had sensed: lights materializing in the distance, a constellation far brighter than the stars.
“Danny’s never been one to follow traffic laws. He always has liked to speed… We need to buy some time,” Floretta said, marching toward the gates. Tray was at her heels, and Eliana followed with her friends, passing the gathered students and horror-struck William. He’d noticed the bright white death sentence, growing closer by the second, and his thoughts were plainly panicked. There was no trace of the man who had preached about how easily Periculand could defeat the Wackos.
“Danny won’t back down,” Floretta said as they passed the Naturals Building. The Regg soldiers formed a defensive wall behind the gate while the security officer, Ira Wright, barked orders to them from her post atop the fence. “He has an…explosive Affinity, and he thrives off its use. But if we can distract him long enough for Ashna to get into position, we might stand a chance.”
“We aren’t letting Ashna complete her mission,” Tray retorted stubbornly. Eliana understood his distrust, but if the girl wanted to thwart her brother and save Periculand, shouldn’t they let her? Adamant in his caution, Tray added, “I don’t trust any of you Wackos.”
“This is the only way,” Floretta said in her teacher’s voice. Tray was taller than her, but the reproach of an authority figure shrunk him to the size of a boy. “You have to trust us. We won’t let Periculand burn.”
Right after the words left her mouth, an explosion rocked the earth, throwing them asunder. Tray, Lavisa, and Floretta maintained their balance, but Eliana t
oppled over, her head, thankfully, collapsing on Than’s torso instead of the pavement. As the man politely assisted her into an upright position, Eliana saw an inferno had consumed the front gate of Periculand, knocking many of the soldiers to the ground. It blazed three stories high, and none of the Reggs’ extinguishers came close to quenching it.
“We really shouldn’t have knocked out Nixie,” Hartman said after teleporting to Eliana’s side. He must have instinctively disappeared at the shock of the explosion, but now he was here, reaching down to help her up.
She examined the scene of destruction, so heart-wrenchingly similar to the drawing she’d involuntarily scribbled. Reggs were strewn dead on the ground, and the young Affinities would be next. They would be next. Even once Eliana was fully upright, she couldn’t stop herself from clenching tightly to Hartman’s hand.
As the smoke and flames began to decrease, Lavisa and Tray assumed defensive positions. It was impossible to tell how close the vans were now, and Ira’s station above the fence had been destroyed, the poor woman either lying dead or severely injured in the grass. Tears rose in Eliana’s eyes, not just with her own emotions but also with the sorrow and dread that seeped from every soul around her.
The only relief from the heavily negative ambience was an increasingly palpable sense of giddiness, foreign to her mind and inappropriate for this situation. Its origin emerged from within the crackling fire: a man clothed in sleek black leather, his hair waving over his head with the same intensity as the conflagration at his back.
The mere sight of him caused Eliana’s knees buckled, and she had to cling to quivering Hartman for support.
His mind was as chaotic as the destruction he’d left in his wake. His eyes were two glowing orbs, full of wicked delight. His grin was even more terrifying than Nero’s—even more terrifying than Artemis’s or Angor’s or even Adara’s. He was worse than anything she’d ever drawn, and she had a feeling that if she tried to depict him on a page her hand would go straight to hell.
This was Danny. This was the Wacko leader. This was the man—the young man—who had extinguished lives with his explosive Affinity for the past few years.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he drawled, swaggering toward them, head held high. He was barely taller than Tray, barely taller than Floretta, but he exuded such might and authority that Eliana almost felt inclined to bow. “‘Why didn’t Danny incinerate this whole town with one flick of his finger?’ Or, ‘Why aren’t we withering from nuclear radiation?’
“Well, I won’t get into the specifics of it, but there are people I care about in this town, albeit few. I could eviscerate this entire town, and I could expose you all to nuclear radiation—I could bathe this whole world in it. But that isn’t my goal—no, no. Not unless you force it to be.”
He stalked closer, stopping once his face was clear to them and theirs to him. Eliana tried her hardest to remain still and confident, even when his blazing eyes studied her with intrigue. They were more beautiful than any piece of art—and far, far more deadly.
“But, I suppose my decisions rest in your hands now,” Danny mused, his gaze finally settling on the ex-Wacko, “my lovely Floretta.”
35
Wacko Attacko Pt. 2
“I’m not understanding why we have to make out hhhere,” Seth slurred as he followed Naira through the empty streets of Periculand. He wasn’t that drunk. He’d only drank Ashna’s magical alcohol nonstop for the past…three hours…or maybe four…
Regardless, he was a big boy; he could handle a little poison, even if it made his head pound and his legs wobble and his sight blur when he tried to glance over at Naira’s luscious bronze hair. She was like a rosy princess with those furrowed pinkish eyebrows and worried peachy eyes. Her princess dress might have been Seth’s dead roommate’s t-shirt and cargo pants, but she could make anything look beautiful.
Beautiful? When had he started thinking Naira was beautiful? When had he started thinking anyone was beautiful? He’d always considered Kiki “hot” and even Adara—his sister—wasn’t bad to look at, but neither was beautiful in his eyes.
Maybe it was his inebriated state of mind, or maybe it was her enticing nature—the open but mysterious way about her. Naira had proven to possess a much deeper personality than Kiki; in the past week he’d known her, he felt like he’d learned a new component of her character every moment. While his ex-girlfriend only liked popularity and prettiness, Naira liked volleyball and bacon and karaoke and sleeping without her pants on and reading comic books and—and, well, a lot of other stuff. They hadn’t talked about anything personal, of course; he didn’t know anything about her childhood or her family or what her life goals were, but he knew she was capable of tackling him in training, and for that he was certain he adored her—in a “you’re a stranger but we should be friends” kind of way.
Although, based on the fact that she currently held his hand, guiding him to a secluded alley in town, maybe it was more of a “you’re a stranger but we should date” kind of way.
He was probably moving too fast, though; Naira had whispered some rather seductive words in his ear after the Rosses broke up the party, and she had made it clear this venture was of the physically frisky kind, but they were barely acquaintances. Seth definitely didn’t have a problem with a casual hookup, but part of him had always wanted a real relationship, one rooted deeper than physical attraction. He wanted someone who would join him in his stupidity but then also listen seriously to his problems—and someone who he could do the same for in return.
Kiki hadn’t been that type of person. And Adara—not that he’d ever seriously considered dating Adara, but…she would easily engage in his stupidity but never put herself in a position vulnerable enough to be emotionally intimate. Even when she was irked she would never say why, and perhaps that remoteness was the only reason he’d never bothered to think of her as anything more.
Rambling drunken thoughts aside, Seth was intrigued to see where his excursion with Naira would lead. He just couldn’t determine why, exactly, she’d chosen to stop them in the road beside Periculand’s police station.
“Well, we couldn’t go up to our dorm,” she said, pushing him lightly against the white concrete building. His senses were duller than usual, but he really liked the way her hair glistened in the rays of the streetlight on the corner, even if it was a bit blinding. He also felt as though he should have been aware of something…like the fact that Adara was probably directly on the other side of this wall, but—no, that couldn’t have meant anything.
“The Rosses are bound to sweep the entire tower once they’re done punishing Nero.” Naira twirled a finger though his unkempt hair. “I think we’ve both been drinking a bit too much to pass a sobriety test.”
“Oh…true…” His sight swam in and out of focus, trying to hone in on her face and the cloudy night sky all at once. Pale freckles dotted her cheeks, and there were a few flecks of brown in her irises, remnants of their former, darker color. “So…are you gonna kiss me?”
Any enthusiasm lingering on her face dwindled into uncertainty as she stroked her hand along his jaw. “I should…but I don’t know if I want to.”
His brow wrinkled as he shifted his back against the wall. “Oh…I—”
“No, I don’t mean that.” Bristling slightly, she disentangled her hands from his head. “I do want to… I just want it to be real.”
“I-I-I can sober up.” Seth blinked rapidly, as if the alcohol in his system could simply excrete from his eyeballs. “I want it to be real, too.”
“No, it—wouldn’t matter if you were sober, Seth.” With a sigh, she raked a hand through her hair. “I would have to kiss you like this either way.”
His absolute confusion slowly cleared the haziness of his mind. He was suddenly very conscious of how close her body was to his, of the glimmer of remorse in her eyes. She appeared far too lucid for someone who’d drunk the night away alongside him. He wracked his brain, attempting to
remember if she’d actually guzzled down drinks or if he’d simply assumed she had.
“Why…do you have to kiss me?”
Exhaling again, she stepped back and glanced above his head to where a small, barred window resided: the window to Adara’s cell. “I guess if I tell you now you won’t remember tomorrow anyway…”
“Tell me what?” he asked, straightening with apprehension.
Guiltily, she peeked over at him and bit her lip. “That I’ve been lying to you for the past eight days.”
“A-about everything?”
“No, no, not about everything. Most of it was real, but…I was never a prisoner of the Wackos, Seth. I…am a Wacko. I’ll always be a Wacko, just not in the way you think.”
“You’re…a Wacko…” he repeated quietly, his brain feeling mushy again. He stumbled forward with the shock of it, and she swiftly grabbed his shoulders to prop him upright.
“Seth.” She moved her head into his line of sight. “I’m not evil, I swear. I want us to be on the same side. I want us to be friends. I was starting to think we were—or that we could be.”
“You’re a Wack—” A series of explosions overpowered his voice. One originated near Periculand’s front gate, and when Seth staggered away from the police station, he saw plumes of smoke wafting into the night sky, illuminated by a bright source of light beyond the shops.
The other had been the reason he staggered away from the police station—the reason the ground had shaken beneath his feet. Something had erupted on the opposite side of the police station, and when Seth peered out onto Periculand’s main street, he witnessed a hulking figure sprinting away from town toward campus. Even from this distance, he distinguished students, congregating at the base of the Residence Tower. While it could have been part of the Rosses’ punishment, Seth had a horrible feeling it was related to something much more dire.
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