Flicker & Burn: A Cold Fury Novel

by T. M. Goeglein

  “About what?” Max said without looking at her. “Crap TV shows for kids?”

  Her angelic features darkened, but she smiled through it and turned away, saying quietly, “You two deserve each other.”

  I looked at Max, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. Doug was busy with his laptop, setting up the film, flitting like a hummingbird; there would be no opportunity to speak with him privately about Johnny. Usually we sit in the front row while Doug projects the film onto the screen behind the stage, but today I climbed to the last row of seats, trying to get as far away from the three of them as possible. Doug clambered onstage, made a sweaty steeple with his fingers, and said, “So, normally we just turn on the movie and watch, but today is special because we have a new member. Everyone, I give you the original Becky . . . Heather Richards!” He clomped his hands together, Max remained motionless and Heather did a faux curtsy while I tried not to puke. “Also, I know we never talk before a movie,” Doug said, “but this one is really special! It means a lot to me! It’s almost autobiographical, with the whole she’s-one-thing-that-blossoms-into-another theme! And so, without further ado . . . All About Eve!”

  He almost leaped to his laptop, his huge, flapping shirt making him look like a flying squirrel. The lights dimmed and for the next forty-five minutes, I watched a young, ambitious actress ingratiate herself to an older, more accomplished one, then imitate her, and then displace her and shoplift her fame. The younger woman, Eve, lies, cheats, and even attempts to steal the husband of the older actress, Margo. Doug’s underlying point seemed to be that he was determined to move into his own personal spotlight, and that was okay—I’d encouraged him to claim his own life—but the fact that he was doing it by using Sec-C was anything but okay. We’d reached a scene in which Margo was becoming loudly inebriated, realizing that Eve was encroaching on her career. I almost jumped out of my skin when Heather whispered, “Now that’s a realistic drunk.”

  I turned to where she perched one seat away from me, chewed back my nerves, and said, “Let me guess. You’re speaking from experience.”

  She nodded, and I saw a tiny azure star explode at the center of each pupil. “Real drunks tell it like it is. That’s why alcohol and drugs are called ‘truth serum.’ It’s the clean-and-sobers like you who tell the real lies.” I could smell her perfume and see her lips glistening with gloss, but her beauty was undercut by the sorrow in her voice. “You lied, SJ, by not telling me something. You withheld the truth from someone who trusted you . . . maybe too fast, but I did. And that’s worse.” All I could do was stare at her in flickering shadows. “What’s ghiaccio furioso?” she said, pronouncing it with a “juh” at the beginning, “cho” in the middle, “ozo” at the end, like someone who speaks Italian.

  I thought for a split second, saying, “Uncle Jack.”

  “I guess a cocktail of Remembra, whiskey, and Chicago unearthed something stuck in that sick old brain, because he was babbling about it today. I walked into his room searching for aspirin after talking to you on the phone and got a healthy dose of family history instead. I wasn’t going to come to school today, but I was just dying to have a little chat with you,” she said, just above a whisper, as Doug shushed her. In a faint, accusatory tone, she said, “He was pacing the room, tearing out his hair, saying how his father and brother had used it on him decades ago to force him to leave Chicago. ‘The fury in their blue eyes,’ he kept saying, over and over again, ‘was impossible to resist.’” Heather’s eyes glowed like sapphire pools filled with goldfish. Something crackled nearby, and I smelled the rich burn of electricity. “He said that power was in some of the Rispolis, the ones with blue eyes. That’s what’s tearing my brain apart and putting it back together, right?”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I whispered numbly.

  “But you do, SJ. You know all about it. Ghiaccio furioso . . . cold and furious, and completely in control of everyone,” she said. “It’s how I’ve felt in blips and flashes since the drugs drained from my brain.” She inhaled deeply, looked at the screen and back to me, washing the dim room with a cobalt shadow. “Since I can remember, I’ve been the center of attention. I was either being pursued by producer pervs, or used by my dad, or gobbled up by fans, or dissected by therapists. But you know what?” she said, focusing on me with luminous teeth. “I adored being the center of attention. In its freshest form, attention is pure, hundred-percent love, and it makes you a billion feet tall and able to do anything . . . kick down buildings, conquer audiences, trash hotel rooms, hook up with anyone you want when you want them, flip your son-of-a-bitch dad the bird, and wrap your whole damn family around your little finger! That’s love . . . I mean, that’s attention! It’s better than love because I don’t have to give it in return! It’s unfiltered power! I had it when I was Becky . . . with ghiaccio furioso at my command, I can have it as Heather!” She sat back, panting. On-screen, Margo lowered heavy eyelids and murmured, “I’ll admit I may have seen better days, but I’m still not to be had for the price of a cocktail, like a salted peanut.”

  Quietly, Heather said, “Me too and me neither. I’m a has-been, but I can be a still-am. I’ll go back to all of those producers in L.A. armed with ghiaccio furioso, back to my own dad who said my time was past, and regain my rightful place while making sure every one of them suffers like I did! I’ll own that town! Hell, I’ll own the world and crush anyone who tries to stop me! Who needs drugs when I have this!” She flipped her hair, which moved in a silken cascade. “Tell me how to use it on demand, whenever I want, instead of in fits and starts! Tell me what the crackles and shocks mean across my shoulders and inside my head!” she hissed. The terrible mistake I’d made by not telling her about cold fury at the very beginning was suddenly, painfully obvious. I’d realized that an overt display on her part could possibly attract the lethal attention of Juan Kone, but ruled by ceaseless concern for my family, I’d set her aside. I’d convinced myself that, like Max, she was safer in ignorance.

  Except she wasn’t like Max.

  She was like me, a carrier of enzyme GF, which had dangerously manifested itself.

  I should’ve helped shape her understanding of it, just as my dad should’ve helped me. How had I forgotten that sting of betrayal? But now the desire for power had rooted itself in Heather’s insecurities like an uncontrollable weed, smothering logic and reason. For her, the ability to not only punish those who’d hurt her but to neutralize anyone who stood in her way was the quest. I wanted to dole out revenge as well, to the people who’d hurt my family, but I didn’t want to own the world and was certain that anything I taught her about cold fury would hasten the course she was determined to follow. Quietly, eyes pinned on the screen, I said, “I can’t, because you’ll use it for . . . for . . .”

  “Who are you, Spider-Man?” She snorted. “Are you really going to say evil?”

  Her tone, offended and pleading seconds ago, now dripped with acid. In one day we’d gone from friends to frenemies, and I turned to her face, twisted into a mask of Gorgon freakishness—gray movie shadows quivering over a too-wide smile, eyebrows dancing on her forehead, her teensy nose like a vampire bat’s. “You’re right, I should’ve told you,” I whispered carefully. “But it’s too late now, and I won’t be responsible for helping you hurt anyone. What I will tell you, what you deserve to know, is that there are very bad people searching for it, and they’ll teach you exactly what evil means. Please, Heather, if you feel the power surging in public, on the streets of Chicago, don’t use it. They’re watching.” I rose to leave, but her hand clamped viselike on my wrist as she squinted through the gloom.

  “I see it now . . . you’re selfish! You don’t want anyone else to control ghiaccio furioso like you do! You want it all for yourself!”

  “You’re a fool,” I said, trying to free myself as she held tight. “I wish I didn’t have it at all.”

  “Tell me how to turn it on and off,” she said hoarsely, “or I’ll never leave yo
u alone. I’ll follow you, plague you, until . . .”

  Using my left hand, opening my fist into a hard, flat palm, I slapped her so fast that all she could do was sit back and gape. Her face crumpled into a mask of pain and abandonment, and I saw how badly I’d violated the bond that was between us.

  “Tell me, please. We’re family, SJ . . .”

  But I couldn’t, it would be like uncaging a wild animal, like tossing grenades.

  “Aren’t we . . . at the very least, aren’t we still friends?”

  Yet she really did deserve the truth.

  “Tell me, you little bitch, or you’ll regret it!” she hissed.

  And then I remembered my mom, dad, and Lou, and almost of its own volition, my hand darted like a cobra, grabbing her by the collar and yanking her surgically perfect nose to my Sicilian one. Through clamped teeth, I said, “I don’t have time for regret.”

  “I’m . . . warning you.” She gasped. “You won’t even see it coming . . .”

  “Bring it,” I said, tossing her back into the seat and walking away as Margo drunkenly warned the other party guests, “Fasten your seat belts! It’s going to be a bumpy night!”

  And I pushed through the door into fluorescent brightness, hearing my name called as I charged down the hallway. Max pulled me to a stop and said, “What was that? Were you and Heather fighting? It sounded like someone got hit.”

  “I was applauding the movie with one hand and her face got in the way,” I said, shaking free. I was nearly gone, almost to the double doors that led to escape, when he called me again. I stopped but didn’t turn.

  “There’s a party tomorrow night,” he said, the words drifting toward me. “I don’t like parties, but my cousin Mandi is having it. I don’t really like Mandi much either, but . . .” I could almost hear him shrug. “I said I’d go, and I try to do what I say. I want you to go too, Sara Jane. Show up and we’ll pretend like we’re meeting for the first time so we can start fresh, with no secrets between us. Okay?”

  It was quiet, and when the weight of the question became too heavy, I turned.

  The hallway was empty, only the lights buzzed, and Max had gone away.

  As usual, he’d done the right thing for both of us, since he didn’t want to hear me say no, and I didn’t want to lie.

  21

  IN THE MONTHS FOLLOWING MY FAMILY’S disappearance, I learned that the surest way to kill sorrow was by burying it.

  After leaving Fep Prep and blowing off the rest of the school day, I threw myself into infiltrating Johnny’s mind. I needed what was locked inside, but even more, I needed to smother the despair from the scene between Max and me. Only an intense diversion would do it, which was waiting on the couch when I entered the Bird Cage Club. Johnny sat catatonically, looking at nothing. He paid no attention to the food I offered, but drank a steady stream of water, his hand reaching for the glass with a mind of its own. He sipped now, wiped carelessly at his lips, and mouthed something silently. When I leaned in and asked him to repeat it, the words blew past my ear like a dying breeze.

  “I . . . vant go home,” he said in an accent like the one Lucky put on when imitating him.

  “Where is home?”

  Johnny turned toward the wall of windows and rose from the couch. Jagged shards of glass still hung in the window frames here and there, and he stared past them out at the city. “I vant go home . . . home . . .”

  I stepped to his side, watching his eyes flick from building to building, first one, then another, desperately combing the landscape. His brow wrinkled and his nostrils flared as tears formed in a look of helpless frustration. It was a sensation I knew well, and a realization opened then like a slowly blooming flower—Johnny wasn’t uttering a constant plea for freedom. Instead, he was simply lost. On the church roof, and at the house where the Outfit guy snatched him, he’d been aimlessly searching for where he came from. I asked his real name and if he could recall family or friends, but he just kept scanning the steel canyons.

  Sec-C had done its job, chewing away portions of his memory.

  If he couldn’t recall the most important people in his life, how could I expect him to know anything about the most important people in mine?

  His scrambled mind meant Lucky was right; I’d have to use cold fury if I hoped to learn anything. One eye was as red as Teardrop’s, which meant it was impenetrable; I hoped cold fury would affect Johnny’s blue eye and allow me access to his troubled mind. Standing so near, I realized now how bruised and filthy he was. Before doing anything else, I had to clean him up. Sitting him back on the couch, I removed his grimy hoodie and paused, staring at his pale arm and torso, each bearing a clue. The scars on Johnny’s left wrist were not new but precise and indelible, permanent reminders of having once tried to kill himself. It made me think of Chloe, adrift without Max, and also of the feelings that possessed me when I thought I was a natural-born killer. The scars fit with what I knew about people drawn to Sec-C, racked with loneliness and pain, desperate for a miracle to make them feel connected and whole.

  His sweat-stained T-shirt told another story.

  Of course Lucky and his guys hadn’t seen it; why bother to take off a disgusting hoodie just to kick someone’s butt?

  The flag it bore was white and red, with a screeching bird inside a coat of arms, its emblem reading Chicago-Polonia Soccer Club. Most Chicagoans, even one my age, knew Polonia was another word for Poland, since so many Polish people emigrated from there to here. If so, it explained Johnny’s accent; Lucky, a paranoid old criminal who suspected Russian mobsters lurking around every corner, had mistakenly heard the Slavic sound of his enemies in Johnny’s voice.

  It added up to a guy from one country who came to another, and who, for pitiful but unknown reasons, gave himself over to Sec-C.

  Until he freed himself—before his transformation into a creature was complete—and escaped into the wilds of Chicago.

  I drew his attention, held his gaze, and blinked the cold blue flame to life. The blue eye widened in terror as we both observed his worst fear—him, staring at his own image in a large mirror, confusedly touching the taut, bleached skin on his face, pulling back an eyelid and regarding with horrified awe the scarlet pupil staring back. I couldn’t tell where he was—the surrounding area was out of focus—but other people moved behind him, some fully formed creatures in black, others like Johnny, dazed, in street clothes. Slowly, an angular, hard-edged face pushed from the gloom, gazing at him in the mirror. It was Lou, reflecting all the calcification prisoners undergo to survive. He whispered to Johnny, “You’re halfway to becoming one of them. Soon you won’t remember anything, and after that you’ll just turn off . . . like a plug has been pulled. Unless you stop eating that frozen shit. Unless you run.” Lou’s eyes were dark and hollow, boring in on Johnny. “We have a savior. We have to wait for her.” His lips tightened into a mad grin that sent icy knife pricks down my spine. “Run!” Lou shrieked, and I fluttered my eyes, breaking the connection.

  Tears streamed down Johnny’s face.

  My heart pounded in my head, an excited drumbeat that said He’s seen my brother! He knows where my family is being held!

  I yanked him close and yelled, “That place—where is it?”

  Cringing, he muttered, “Home . . . I vant go . . .”

  “Tell me!” I barked, but cold fury was muted, half its strength—Johnny’s fear was visible through the blue eyes, but like the other creatures, the red one must’ve blocked the part of his brain that forced him to do as I ordered. The location of my family was right there, inside his nodding head. I just couldn’t make him tell me where it was.

  “Oh, SJ! I’m ho-ome!” Doug’s voice rang out as he rose up the elevator. “And guess who’s super excited about the Cubs game to-morr-o-o-ow?” I looked at a clock above the control center, seeing that hours had passed and it was nearly midnight. He came dancing by, slowing as he spotted Johnny. “Hey, who’s your friend? I heard about your big breakup and—whoa
!—are you off the Max train already? Hey, I know how it feels! Choo-choo, here comes the Sec-C express, chooka-chooka!”

  “Doug, I need to talk to you.”

  “Hey-hey, whatya say, Cubs are gonna win today . . . or tomorrow . . . whatever!” he sang, doing a sloppy pirouette.

  “Doug!” I bellowed, freezing him in mid-spin. His eyes were wide and rose colored, his gaunt face bright with sweat. Sec-C was taking its toll, and it gave me a tinge of apprehension at telling him about Johnny. What I really wanted was to get between him and those deadly friends, but I couldn’t, not yet. My inability to draw information from Johnny meant that I definitely needed Doug for access to the Cubs game. And then guilt over the blatant exploitation of my friend burbled up in my gut again. Sec-C or not, I had no right to doubt his loyalty. When I had his attention, I told him all about Lucky, the sit-down, and the poor damaged kid whose fear reflected my family.

  He nodded, listening closely, and said, “Super important question: the game tomorrow . . . do I wear my new red silk shirt or something less flashy? I have to look my Dastardly Doug best. That’s what my hockey player calls me . . . Dastardly Doug!”

  “Did you hear anything I said? There, on the couch . . . do you see him, Doug?”

  “Yeah, so?” he said, glancing quickly. “He’s a zombie. That’s what we call the losers who can’t handle Sec-C. They sit around and stare and then disappear to wherever his kind goes. None of my concern.”

  “None of your concern,” I murmured, trying not to sound as disturbed as I felt. “Okay, well . . . at the least, we should make a plan for when trouble starts at the game.”

  “You mean if,” he said. “These are cool people. No one wants trouble . . . we just want to par-tay! This Kone guy sounds like a major tool, but . . .”

  “Doug,” I said in a flinty tone that at least momentarily drew his attention. “He’s not a tool. He’s the maniac who took my family. There is going to be trouble.”