by Ryan Decaria
“I’m sorry.” Anika tried to mop up the tea and knocked over Xoese’s plastic cup.
“Don’t worry, dear,” Akwete said. “Happens all the time.”
“Ugh.” Hayden grabbed a handful of cookies. “Can we go?”
Despite not having adorned herself with makeup, jewelry, nail polish, or perfume, Hayden was six feet of perfection walking. Anika played with her hair, trying to fix the mess with significantly fewer clippies to work with after her gift to the girls. She gave up and scratched at the grass stain on her knee instead. She tried to smile, but she was simply inadequate in Hayden’s presence. Xoese hopped off Anika’s lap, exposing Anika’s lumpy middle. Anika wrapped her arms around herself.
The girls lined up by the door in order of height, with Xoese in the front, hands pressed together. “Please.”
“Fine.” Hayden got on her knees and the girls played with her hair, in turn, bouncing the perfect ringlets, weaving curls with their fingers, and flipping up the ends.
“Bye, girlies.” Hayden pulled open a colorful beaded curtain covering another doorway, but by the time Anika stood up, the line had reformed in front of her.
“Girls, let them be.” Akwete offered Hayden her hand. Hayden stared at Akwete’s slender fingers, hesitating. Anika had no idea what Jackie was thinking, trapped in a body so foreign, but the weight of it was evident in her emerald eyes. Akwete threw her arms around Hayden, pulling her into a bear hug. “You will be fine. Just remember who you are.”
The girls scattered around the room. Hayden led Anika through the dance studio to the back door. She skipped down the steps to a silver Audi and dropped into the driver’s seat. Anika ran a finger across the sleek surface before getting in.
“Their father works at the lab.” Hayden pulled out into the street, smooth and steady. “When he heard my plight, he agreed to help me if he could.”
“They’re wonderful.” Anika stared into the vanity mirror, attempting to fix her hair, which was a frenzied mess.
“I don’t know why they care so much.” Big beautiful tears filled Hayden’s emerald eyes. “I’m not worth the risk.”
Anika felt for her. Due to her dual nature, Hayden was hard to trust, but this didn’t seem like an act. “We haven’t given up on you. Not Hawking or Misty. Not me.”
Hayden hummed around a corner going the speed limit. “Doesn’t matter, though, does it? I’m still cut out of the loop.”
Anika put a hand on Hayden’s arm. “I’m sorry. I’m trying to convince them to trust you.”
“Yeah.” Hayden blinked tears away. “Well, I was the one who begged you to sneak into the lab. I didn’t tell you I worked there.” She tapped the steering wheel. “We need to figure out how to stop all this.”
Anika stared at Hayden’s perfectly manicured fingernails. She slid her own dirty nails under her legs. “I don’t know what you think we’re going to find out.”
“What about your mom? She’s been trying to take Dravovitch down for sixteen years. She’s gotta have something we can use, somewhere to start looking.”
Anika stared at her grubby sneakers, barely resisting the urge to try to tuck them under the seat. “I haven’t heard from her since the Olympiad.”
Hayden nodded. “Hey, we’re gaining allies. Maybe we can incite a mutiny.”
Intriguing. Trusting people who worked for her father was perhaps the most dangerous thing they could do. But what other leads did they have? Perhaps, if she could get a look at her father’s notes or get into his office…
But so far she’d been turned away in spite of her protests. He often carried a ledger around. Maybe, if she could get a peek at it, she’d have a clue where to look next.
“Did you at least find out something about the alligator?”
Hayden sneered at her. “Forget about the dang alligator. You gotta let that go. It wasn’t your fault and ain’t your problem.”
Anika studied her hands. The tiny cuts across all fingers she’d gotten from leaping away from the alligator had already healed, thanks to her father’s experiment on her blood. But Billie’s injuries wouldn’t heal so fast, and sooner or later, the gator would kill someone else.
Anika could relate to whatever the scientist did to the alligator. They both were experiments, but Anika couldn’t let that monster run loose.
“Look.” Hayden glared at her reflection in the rearview mirror. “I don’t know how to be this person. I’m a chubby black teenager with an inferiority complex and daddy issues. Everyone I care about is in danger in one way or another, and I’m trying to help them, but they look at me like I’m a stranger.”
Lightning flashed across the sky, followed by the boom of impending doom. Hayden was right—they were running out of time. With each lightning strike on the lab spires, her father’s machine was a little closer to full charge. Anika had no idea how long she had left, but it couldn’t be long.
Hayden glided into the laboratory parking lot, easing over the speed bump, and stopped in the spot farthest from the front doors. Anika hustled after Hayden. The weather spires still loomed above them but had lost their majesty over the last few weeks. At least in Anika’s eyes.
Her mother’s voice echoed around in her head.
Don’t get complacent.
“So.” Hayden grabbed the door handle. “Will you help get your dad off my back?”
Hayden distracted Dravovitch, which was exactly what Anika needed. Perhaps she could get at her father’s ledger after all. “Yes. Of course. But you have to do something for me.”
Hayden huffed. “What?”
“I’m going to need a diversion.”
Anika barged through the lobby doors as another lightning strike hit the laboratory’s steeples overhead. She imagined the bolt of electricity arcing down the building’s spine, through the building, and under the floor into the hidden cavern laboratory. Dravovitch’s machine waited in a special alcove for her. Anika took a deep breath and pushed her way inside.
“Wait.” Hayden hurried after her. “What kind of diversion?”
At the guard desk, Tony smiled as she approached. Tony worked evenings and took care of Gregory, the lumbering fellow who lived in the room behind the desk. Tony kept Gregory well, and Gregory sat at the desk when Tony needed to step away.
“Hello, Anika, my friend,” Tony said. “Aren’t you a drop of sunshine?”
His normal greeting nagged at her today. “Hello. How’s Gregory?”
Tony’s smile faded as he swiveled toward the back room. “About the same. Ever since the incident, he hasn’t been himself.”
Hayden strutted toward the scanner and Tony’s gaze flicked toward her. For a moment, his eyes widened in awe, but his brow narrowed the next, and he frowned to match the angle of his mustache. “Miss Hayden.”
“Tony.” She brushed past Anika and pressed her face against the new eye scanner. “If you check out my buttocks again, I’ll have you fired.”
Tony sneered as she sauntered through the security doors.
As far as Anika knew, Jackie had no quarrel with Tony. Hayden was an enigma. Something must have happened the night they broke into the lab. Hayden had helped the Mistys escape but had stayed behind to work her shift. She’d been moonlighting as a labcoat for weeks and didn’t want to blow her cover.
Anika felt around in her pockets for something to give Gregory, but they were empty. Usually, she brought a sleeve of Girl Scout cookies or a candy bar. Remembering the girls’ gift in exchange for her clippies, Anika pulled the toy lizard out of her hair and set it on the desk. “Tell Gregory I wish him well.”
Tony discovered his smile again as he picked up the lizard. “I’ll let him know.”
“Thanks.” Anika crossed to the eye scanner and pressed her face to the rubber guard. The scan completed, and the door opened. Anika marched through with the same nagging feeling that this time she wouldn’t get out again.
Every stinking time.
At the far end of the hallway,
Hayden scowled at her before entering the room where she worked. Try as she might, Hayden hadn’t been able to get farther into the lab and its secrets. Anika turned the other way and rushed to the infirmary. Hayden’s problem could wait a few minutes.
The reactions she got from the labcoats she passed ranged from apathetic to weary. She had a pretty good idea which labcoat belonged to which kid at her school. Linh’s parents were easy as the tiniest residents. Claire’s parents tried their best to avoid each other. Yoko’s parents were nearly joined at the hip, nearing nausea, and were the most boisterous. Anika liked them well enough but didn’t trust them one iota. Too friendly.
Before Anika could reach the infirmary, a woman grabbed her arm and yanked her into the stairwell. Coralynn Copeland, the head scientist of the physics wing and Blake’s mother, stared at her. She wore a blue blouse and navy slacks, black sneakers of practicality. Her name badge hung from her lab coat pocket, the picture of her younger self, pretty and conniving.
She leaned in, eyes intense. “He’s lost focus,” she whispered. “He’s leaning toward destruction rather than retrieval.”
The nonchalance in her voice was alarming, but the intent was there, masked behind a firm wall with her emotions.
Anika pulled her arm from Coralynn’s grip. “I’m sorry.”
“You have to help my husband,” she said. “You saved my son. I know you can save him, too.”
What did she expect her to do? “I don’t…”
“He’s given up.”
“Who?” Anika checked the eerily silent stairwell. “Dravovitch?”
“Yes. Your father is going to put George out of his misery.” Her voice was cold and calculating. “I need you to save my husband’s life.”
“Me?” Anika took a step backwards. “What can I do?”
She pointed a red nail at Anika. “When others fail, you find solutions. Pitting two silly boys against each other. Brilliant even. Risky.”
“Lucky.” Anika had to be meticulous. Coralynn was the type to leverage any information at her disposal.
Coralynn crossed her arms. “And you can do it again.”
Anika didn’t have time for this. She had to stop the alligator. Not to mention finding a way to make Dravovitch change his mind about using her in his experiment. Or she had to find a clean escape. “I can’t help you.”
“If you save George, I will help you.” Coralynn leaned in close to Anika’s ear, burying Anika’s face in her crispy hair. “I have vital information that could help you.”
Anika leaned away, but the stiff curls were still drowning her, and the motherly voice in Anika’s head was screaming not to trust a thing this woman said. Still, maybe she had the bits of intel Anika had been searching for.
“What kind of information?”
Coralynn stood upright and smiled, which was a first. Perhaps her first smile ever. A little Wicked Witch of the West mixed with a touch of Joker. Creepy.
She spoke softly, and the smile faded a millimeter with each word. “I cannot be specific, Anika. We seekers of secrets must earn trust and favors. Perhaps you know already?”
Anika opened her mouth, but snapped it shut again. Every time Anika visited the lab, Coralynn was slinking about, ordering people around, getting into their business. Oozing. Anika was perhaps her favorite target, prying into everything that had happened since coming to Moreau. Worse, she tried to catch Anika in contradictions in her stories, which made lying so much harder.
Anika spoke slowly, “I don’t know to which you are referring.”
“Help my husband.” Coralynn pursed her painted lips. “If you save him, I’ll help you in specific and important ways. We can leave it at that.”
Anika couldn’t shake the feeling somehow this conversation wasn’t safe, that someone was listening in. She scrutinized the nooks and crannies of the stairwell.
“Don’t worry about cameras or microphones, dear.” Coralynn smirked. “Dravovitch is more paranoid of them than you’ll ever be.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Anika studied the older woman’s face—no—her hands. Coralynn’s face was too plastic. Her hands. Ever since Anika had brought Blake back to the lab that night, she’d hovered over her son like those overbearing moms seeking sympathy. Something was off. Anika’s hands twitched, and she brought them together to cover the jerky movement. “But you need to get me every bit of information about George and his predicament.”
“Of course.”
“No.” Anika returned the finger point. “I mean everything you can dig up. I’m not going to risk my life blindly.”
“Fine.” Coralynn lifted her chin a few centimeters. “I will have a report delivered discreetly. I trust you will show the same courtesy.”
“Always.”
She spun and left Anika alone in the stairwell. Anika took a deep breath. She could still smell Coralynn’s perfume.
She shivered.
The conversation left her drained and conflicted. Like Blake, George had turned himself into a monstrous insect. No biggie, right? Just bring George home and all would be well. Dravovitch and a lab of scientists had been unsuccessful for three weeks. Anika was supposed to do it in a couple of days?
Anika wanted to help, for Blake’s sake. But his mother was perhaps more frightening than the alligator, and more treacherous. Chasing Blake’s father would throw a giant wrench into her plans. She couldn’t even do it, could she?
She did save Blake, though. Could she do it again?
Could she resist trying?
Anika so didn’t need another project. Still, if Coralynn actually delivered on her end of the deal, they might get one step closer to figuring out a way to defeat Anika’s dad and protect the other girls’ secrets.
Anika scratched her head, tried her best to re-flatten her hair, and left the stairwell. She peeked into the infirmary, scanning for Margery, her other half-sister and their father’s accomplice to his experiments. The lobby was empty, so Anika tiptoed to the hallway and peeked toward Margery’s office. A stocky nurse with Popeye calves and a limp hung a clipboard outside Blake’s room and wandered further into the infirmary. Anika tiptoed to Blake’s door and slipped inside.
Blake slept restlessly in his hospital bed, thick gauze over his eyes that made his sandy-blond hair stick up straight, and an oxygen mask over his nose. He looked worse today than when she last saw him. In spite of a dozen labcoats and medical professionals, the effects of George’s formula fluctuated wildly, giving Blake brief moments of insect-like attributes in his skin and eyes.
Anika sat next to Blake and gently squeezed his hand. For the last three weeks, Blake had been in and out of consciousness, mostly out. Still, she hadn’t seen the level of skin rippling for days that was currently crawling up Blake’s forearms. The scales appeared and disappeared in his skin.
Blake moaned.
Anika fought back the lump forming in her throat. He wasn’t even her boyfriend. She’d kissed him once, a moment he hadn’t remembered and likely never would. But, for now, Blake was hers to worry about.
His vitals were steady, and Margery was hopeful he would make a full recovery, but the labcoats had no clue as to the long-term effects.
Anika squeezed his hand again and left the infirmary. She made as little noise as possible closing his door. Margery strode out of her office, face in clipboard. Anika panicked, ducking into the opposite room.
Into Macy’s room.
The layout of this room was the same, a typical hospital room—TV, monitors, whiteboard, generic wardrobe, and an occupied hospital bed.
Anika backed up behind the door. She couldn’t help but stare at the body lying across the room. Macy was the FBI agent who had brought her to this insane town—Dravovitch’s minion and a miserable person. She had a dozen tubes and wires coming out of her face, arms, and legs, and was bandaged like a bad Universal monster movie. Her right hand was severed at the wrist.
The alligator had eaten it.
Towerin
g over Macy was gratifying, if perhaps a fleeting joy. Before Anika had let the alligator out of its cage and sicced the beast on her, Macy could have taken Anika down in seconds with all the muscles in her diminutive frame.
Anika stared at Macy through the dim light. A hundred ways of ending this particular problem lay around the room. Every day, Anika ran through a dozen scenarios where Macy didn’t make it. Still, the most frightening scenario was the one where Macy woke up. She’d let their precious Daddy know it was Anika who brought his laboratory and his machine to their proverbial knees.
In that eventuality, Dravovitch wouldn’t let Anika out of his sight. She would be a prisoner, awaiting execution. Death row.
Anika couldn’t let Macy wake up.
She also couldn’t bring herself to do anything about it. She couldn’t bring herself to kill again.
Anika waited until Margery entered Blake’s room before stumbling into the hallway and bolting for the stairs.
Anika bounded down the stairs flicking through the alerts on her phone. She stopped at the door to catch her breath. Most of her friends had sent her worried messages. The eight from Linh and nine from Billie were all angry. She flipped through a few:
Where are you? #gatorbait
What the flunk!
WWBD? Hint ain’t Beyonce!
Except for one:
Ew.
She owed them big time.
Pushing through, Anika crossed the hall to Hayden’s workroom and listened at her door. She could hear her father inside, talking about waffles.
Not flattering, Dad.
Anika grasped the door handle and flung the door open. Dravovitch leaned over Hayden as they examined a computer screen, except Hayden was slouching as far as possible to keep him from touching her. Both of them turned toward Anika, wide-eyed, as Anika burst into the room.