by Laura Winter
“Fool me once…” she mocked.
The chirping sputtered out as Finnley ripped the cords apart and tossed the device behind her. This must have been after the alarm got her caught in the library.
We followed Finnley through the hall of the school building as she skipped along, making a lot of noise as her shoes squeaked on the floor. She didn’t seem to care. Every few skips she would hold her hand back up to her head, seeing if the bleeding had stopped before wiping her hand on her jeans. Finally, she turned into a classroom.
Finnley had already started collecting all sorts of chemicals from the shelf of the lab when we got inside. As she surveyed her findings, she noticed something was missing. She spun around and walked up to the lab table at the front of the room. Her hand yanked at the locked cabinet a few times before she ripped the entire door off the table, sending the screws scattering across the floor. She laughed again, tossing the door to the side with ease.
Clara wobbled next to me as her grip tightened, her other hand shooting up to her temple. Finnley did the same thing in front of us, grimacing.
“Shut up. Shut up. Shut up,” Finnley growled, smacking the heel of her hand against her forehead.
Voices. The Cold Soul and Blue Soul fighting in her head. Clara could hear it, just like Finnley.
Finnley shouted into the empty room. “What other explosion do you want? If I do this for you, you need to get out of my head.”
The Cold Soul was trying to get Finnley to create a blue star explosion. They thought she could create the black hole herself. Finnley didn’t understand what the voices were really asking her to do.
We watched Finnley mix her concoction, referencing the notebook she had pulled out of her jeans pocket. It was the same one I had been holding back in her room. She measured out the last chemical before gathering her hair into a bun on top of her head. She stuck her pen through the tangled mess and shoved the notebook back in her pocket.
“No one is here to get hurt, that was our deal.” Finnley winced again. Clara did the same.
“No, stop.” Finnley’s arms shot around her head, squeezing hard. “Stop, please stop.”
Clara’s hand gripped mine tighter as she shoved her head into my chest. I didn’t let go of her hand but wrapped my left arm around her to hold her close. The headache outburst. The Cold Soul was going to use her outburst, thinking it would create a black hole. The shelves and lab equipment started to shake as Finnley dropped to her knees, clawing at her head. Everything in the room started to rattle, creaking and scraping noises echoing around us.
The last chemical sitting in a beaker shattered as Finnley screamed. A gas pipe burst out of the table and mixed with a small flame that seemed to come out of nowhere, igniting the explosion.
I expected to be blinded, even if we couldn’t feel the explosion, and dug my face into Clara’s hair. But the roaring sound of fire muffled and died down. I looked up.
Finnley was standing again, her arms in front of her as her hands created a shield around the explosion. She was struggling to keep it held together, trying to press tighter around the force. Every time she twitched from the headache, the explosion grew and spit flames out of her shield.
Clara looked up and watched as Finnley tried one last time to squish the fire, but the Cold Soul won. Her hand shot over the back of her head where she was bleeding and the fire engulfed the room.
As the building crumpled around us, Finnley sat down in the rubble, covered in dust but otherwise unaffected by the blast. She yanked out her pen and notebook and started furiously scribbling notes. Her thoughts echoed around us.
‘Explosion. Black hole. No. Blue Star. Screaming. Erased.’ People started running out of the other buildings but Finnley didn’t look up. ‘Go away, your thoughts are distracting me. I have to know what the voices are afraid of. I have to know who the boy is. The Cold Soul is upset we can trap it. We can make the voices go away.’
The old woman from The Assembly pushed through the crowd in her nightgown, stepping over the mess. She tried to yank Finnley up out of her seat but Finnley pulled her arm away and dropped her back against the ground, laughing into the sky like a crazy person. Clara and I fell back with her as the memory faded, staring back up at the stars in the clear night.
65
Clara
The back of my head was throbbing, sending aches down my shoulders and through my back. Finnley’s memory was painful. I could even feel the knot where she had fallen and hit her head on the sidewalk. Could I get a concussion from a memory?
I wasn’t quite ready to get up yet, but Nate clearly was. He pressed his lips into mine, his body resting gently on top of me. I kissed him back, sliding my arms around his waist to keep him close. As his hand slide around my neck to lift my head, pain shot through my spine. I lost my breath, choking from the pain, but Nate just dug his fingers harder into the back of my head, holding his face tighter against mine. Finally, I squirmed enough to throw him off of me.
He started laughing as I rolled over, gasping for breath. My head spun in pain as my hand shakily moved to the back of my head.
Soft and sticky.
I tried to look at my fingers but watched three of my hands dance in front of my face, my fingers stained with blue blood.
“Stop making out with that bitch.” It was my voice, but it didn’t come out of my mouth.
Nate kept laughing. “Oh, come on. It’s funny. It’s not like she can do anything.”
I scrambled back, trying not to throw up as the room kept spinning. As I pushed up off the ground, dizzy and stumbling, I crashed into a hard wall and fell back down.
“What the hell?”
My speech was slurred as I leaned against the wall, trying to use my other senses in between the throbs of pain in my head. The ground underneath my hands was rock. The wall I leaned against was rock too. I could smell the winter air, so we had to be outside. And there might have been an echo, but that could also be the headache. I focused my breathing and opened my eyes again.
Everything was blurry, but I could make out two figures, one squatting next to me and another standing behind it. As the closest one to me leaned forward, I started to make out Nate’s features. His green eyes hung inches from my face as he studied me.
“Told you she couldn’t do anything,” he said, leaning back to stand up as the other figure moved next to him.
My vision finally focused. The Cold Souls.
“Where’s Nate?” I groaned, feeling the weight of every word in my mouth.
“I’m right here, babe,” the Cold Soul Nate laughed.
“You should have hit her harder,” Finnley grumbled, crossing her arms as she glared at me.
I tried to push out against them with my power but missed completely. Rock cracked and showered dust to my left, a significant distance away from where I was aiming. But it finally revealed where we were; the cave at The Complex.
“Pathetic,” Finnley said. “We should have just killed you.” She leaned down, too close to my face. I slammed my forehead into her nose, feeling nausea punch every part of my body. As if that didn’t hurt me enough, Finnley screamed and threw my head back against the wall with her power. The crack echoed through my brain as pain vibrated down my spine again. Warm trails of bood started running down the back of my neck.
“Where’s my Nate?” I managed to slur the sentence together, fighting the tug of blackness around my vision. I couldn’t black out now.
“Still out. We’re keeping you alive long enough to get him to make a black hole. I want to watch the life slip out of you, slowly and painfully,” Finnley hissed, wiping the black blood dripping from her nose. “I’m sick of you.”
I heard a groan from across the way as Finnley smiled and turned around. I located Nate laying in the corner, slowly shifting as he woke up. Above him, all of the empty power sources remained planted in the wall, ready to be recharged. The Cold Soul Nate dropped down next to me, his hand wrapping around my mouth so I co
uldn’t yell. I couldn’t think straight enough to get my thoughts out to Nate either.
Finnley did what I assume the Cold Soul Nate did to me, pressing her lips into Nate’s as she wrapped her arms around his neck. I wiggled helplessly in my corner as Nate moved his hands over her shoulders. She must have been messing with his head because the room started to darken. With all four of our minds connected, I could feel her tricking Nate into using his power. He had no idea what he was doing.
The Cold Soul Nate shifted just enough for me to shift my chin away from his hand. I bit down with all of my strength, causing him to yelp and pull his hand away.
“Nate!”
My scream was hoarse but the room snapped out of darkness. Evil Nate tried to reach for me as I scrambled forward but my foot connected with his jaw. It wasn’t strong, but it was enough to stun him and knock him back.
Nate threw Finnley off of him but she kept herself from rolling. She popped back up as Nate jumped to his feet, eyes wide. He saw me crawling away from the Cold Soul and tried to make a dash for me.
“C!”
He slammed into an invisible wall and fell back. I was helpless too as the Cold Soul Nate wrapped his hand around my ankle, yanking me back across the rock. My hands slid, clawing at the ground to try to stop him. One of his hands snagged my arm, fingers digging into my skin as the other hand gripped my hair near the gash in my head. Searing pain shot through my body as he dropped me to my knees.
Nate pounded against his invisible cage as Finnley started laughing. “Oh, this is going to be so much fun.” She shoved Nate against the wall with her force. “We really thought taking your forms would help us create the black hole. Seems we need you after all, hot stuff.”
Finnley stepped closer, her fingers digging into Nate’s chest as she pushed him harder into the wall. I could feel her digging into his head as his face strained, the nagging pull growing in the back of my neck. Around us, blackness started to grow again, reaching out from Nate and growing up the walls.
“Nate, take their power!”
I inhaled and threw myself forward, launching the Evil Nate over me and into the wall across the way. My last push of energy sent Finnley flying away from Nate. He collapsed off the wall, scrambling toward me as the room returned to light again.
As Nate wrapped his arms around me, I felt our connection burst to life. The buzz was strong, coursing through my body and filling me with new energy. The Cold Souls stood, walking toward us as they cornered us into another wall. Our exit was blocked and we had no way out. All I could do was give Nate the rest of the energy I had left in me.
“I’m done with you,” Finnley growled, her green eyes blazing with rage as she focused on me. Her fist loaded back and I winced in preparation for the blow.
She punched forward… but nothing happened. Stunned, she threw her fist forward again, but no power left her body. Next to her, the Cold Soul Nate stumbled, trying to grip her as he fell to his knees. He pulled Finnley down with him, their eyes looking to the ground in horror as their shadows slid out of their bodies.
Next to me, Nate had his hand pressed into the ground, his other gripping my wrist tightly as I stood next to him. He was using our connection to pull in their power, but none of it was channeling into me.
“Nate, you have to give me some of the power,” I pleaded, wiggling my hand so I could try to hold his arm.
He grunted. “No. I’m not sticking the Cold Soul in you again.” He was still focused forward, watching Finnley and Evil Nate slide deeper into the darkness as they screamed and hissed.
“You can’t hold all of it!” I shouted over the final cries of the Cold Soul.
The rest of the power slid into him and he let go of my wrist. Nate pressed his forehead into the ground, his fingers digging into the rock below him as it cracked under his power. The Cold Soul was still trying to get out, and it was going to bring the entire cave down around us.
Blackness started to seep out of his fingers like water. Shit. The Cold Soul was trying to control him from the inside. The cave snapped into darkness in an instant, empty and hollow surrounding us.
“Nate!” I shouted, gripping his shoulders as I turned him to face me.
He refused to open his eyes. “I’m trying! You have to get out of here!” he grunted through the clenches of his jaw.
I pressed my forehead into his, trying to pull the power out of him like he had done once for me. I worked my way around the walls he had in his head, giving him my strength.
Nate, you and me. We are the Blue Star. We can contain it, just let me help you.
He opened his eyes, the blue locking with mine as he finally let me in. I moved my left hand down his arm, forcing my hand into his as I squeezed as hard as I could. Now I could feel his power expanding around us, but the tighter I held him, the more I could feel the edges of the blackness he was creating. I wrapped my energy around the black hole, tugging it back into us. The energy fought against me, but I was making progress. With every tug against the shadow, cold shivers of wind whipped through us. It grew around our hands, pulling, pushing, and stinging my skin as I refused to let go.
Until suddenly everything was still.
I was afraid to pull away from him. Our hands were still pressed together, and our faces couldn’t get any closer. Nate blinked, his left hand reaching up around my face and neck. His fingers slid across the blood that was still rolling down the back of my head. As he connected with the wound, my nerves cried out and I yelped. He tried to keep my head still, concerned about the gash on my head, but I was too focused on the wall of power sources across from us.
It worked. They were all lifeless on the wall. We had just stopped the Cold Souls.
I glanced down at our hands, seeing that my left hand was still gripping Nate’s right, our fingers turning white from how tightly we were holding each other. But I was going to need to let go soon because something cold was burning my hand.
We peeled our fingers apart, blue blood smearing from our palms as we saw the Cold Soul. Pressed into a perfectly smooth black marble, black smoke and light swirled, fighting against a blue light that got stronger and picked up speed. The blue twirled and swallowed the black light, finally resting into a still blue glow.
But we still had our scars. We still had the Blue Soul. We created the little marble from our power. This was the real Blue Star that contained the Cold Soul. The cage would constantly be exploding in a supernova and collapsing into a black hole, keeping the Cold Soul trapped.
Nate dropped to the ground in a loud exhale. The world around us might have returned to stillness, but my head was spinning again. I crumbled down, my face pressing into Nate’s chest as I closed my eyes. I could still feel the blood rolling out of my head and soaking his shirt underneath my face.
I love you. His words echoed in my head as his heartbeat took over my senses.
Always forever. I felt his hand rest over my back just before I lost consciousness.
66
Nate
Clara rolled over, stealing all the blankets as she woke me up shivering. Without the connection to the Cold Souls, we were no longer immune to the chill of winter. Even in my old sweatshirt and sweatpants, I could see her shivering under the covers. My layers weren’t doing much for the cold temperature.
Now that we stopped the Cold Souls and had nothing to worry about, our parents tried to enforce strict ‘no overnight guest’ rules since we were still just teenagers in high school. It worked for zero days because here she was, sleeping in my bed. She had climbed through my window in the middle of the night, and I had no idea how my parents didn’t hear her as she crashed to the ground laughing. She was Finnley-level psycho now that she didn’t have any worries in the world.
I pulled the blanket back over my head which brought Clara rolling over to face me underneath the covers. She groaned, hair matted over her face.
I’m not Finnley-level psycho. I’m just normal psycho.
You climbed
in my second story window in the middle of the night… again. I replied, brushing the hair out of her face as she squinted, struggling to wake up.
You didn’t seem to mind when I did it. Either time. She gave me a tired smile, leaning forward. Finnley-level psycho didn’t seem to care about morning breath as her hands wrapped around my face. She shivered as I slid my hands up her sweatshirt so I moved them back on top, dragging her body closer to mine to stay warm. Suddenly she pulled away, eyes wide, before scrambling off the bed.
Your mom.
Clara dove into the closet just as my mom walked in. I threw the blanket off my head and groaned. “Why can’t you ever let me sleep?” I asked, hoping she hadn’t just heard Clara crash into the back of my closet.
She shook her head. “It’s a Monday morning. You have school.”