Not cool.
~*~
Evazee tilted her head sideways. She squinted her eyes and stretched them wide. The strange, silvery, feather-shaped marking was still there. How could she not have seen it before? She had to admit, it was rather pretty.
She ran her fingers over it. Flush with her skin, it felt cool yet hot at the same time, the surface smooth as buffed chrome. As her fingers brushed over it, the tips began to burn. An image flashed in her mind—a thousand words, all bright with LifeLight, queuing to rush out. She pulled her hand away.
It would be easy to write it off as something dished up by her imagination. But in the tips of her fingers, she could feel the spark of the energy that the Light brought with it. Maybe she was having one of those visions she’d read about in her Bible. She snorted at the thought. What a silly idea.
It was near midnight, and she was the only one awake in her home. She’d left Runt, who was still recovering, at TrisTessa’s house. TrisTessa had offered Eva a spare bed, but she’d opted to come home. A dull ache had settled at the base of her skull, yet there was so much she needed to think through. Now that she was here, all alone in her awake-ness, fingers tingling in a weird way, she was beginning to regret her decision.
Picking up a pile of unfolded laundry off her dresser chair, she dumped it on the floor and sat down. Rifling through the notebooks stacked off to one side, she picked out the maroon one and opened it. Maroon held all her poetry. She wrote friendship quotes in the blue one, scribbled ideas for stories went in the green, journaled her thoughts in the velvety black one. Tonight felt maroony.
Picking up a pen, Eva surrendered to the queue of words at her fingertips. Not thinking deeply, she wrote. Words became sentences. Sentences formed paragraphs and when she looked again, she’d filled three pages.
She closed her eyes and started praying. For Runt and TrisTessa. For Kai. Only You can help, Jesus.
Music thumped through her body. Discordant, louder than it needed to be. Notes jostling and bumping their way through a song she didn’t recognise.
Eva opened her eyes to find herself in a club of sorts. The air hung thick and sour. How long could one hold one’s breath before passing out? Finding herself in strange places like this was nothing new to Eva. The thought that this might be more than a dream though, was new and disturbing.
Eva was alone at the back of the room, sitting at a round wooden table. The other tables were all occupied by a rowdy crowd who seemed to like the music as much as she hated it. It came from a band on stage who contorted themselves around their instruments, thrashing away. It was a good thing instruments couldn’t bleed, because these would be dead from blood loss.
The lead singer belted out a note that knotted every nerve down her spine. He cut off just as Eva thought her head might pop. Her gaze swept across the crowd.
A girl, no older than Eva, sat on a table with her legs crossed. There were six guys crowded around. Some of them draped over their chairs as though their spines had melted, others twitched and fidgeted as if they had hot chili running through their veins. The girl held a bottle in her hand, and was dispensing pills, pocketing money from each guy who took one. Addiction seemed to be the in thing in this place. Eva frowned. What was she doing here?
“Oh aren’t you a beauty?” A guy, hair gelled into a spiked Mohawk and none too steady on his feet, leaned against the wall next to Eva. His gaze slid over her in a way that made her want to punch him. No wait. He was looking through her. His attention focused on a young lady whose eyes were clouded over in a drugged haze.
Eva was weighing whether to move off, or teach him a lesson in respect when a pure note rang out from a plucked guitar string. It was followed by another, then still more until guitar music swirled all around like a soothing cream on sunburnt skin.
The guy with the hairdo had lost all interest in the girl next to her. He was staring toward the stage, his back to the wall, but his feet were slowly sliding out from beneath him. He’d probably keep going until the floor stopped him.
She dismissed him and pushed forward, closer to the stage, intrigued by the lone guitarist. Through the lights and smoke, there was something familiar about the way he carried himself. Closer now, she saw the spiky hair. It looked like Kai, but the Kai she knew was unsure of himself. There was no lack of confidence in the boy on stage. He held the room in the palm of his hand.
Closer still, she could see the line of his jaw, the silvery mark on his temple. There was no doubt about it—this was Kai.
She kept walking. The silvery mark on her chest pulsed in time to the music. Her fingertips tingled and grew hot. Placing her hand over the feather, Eva felt a build up of something in her belly. Words lit up in her mind, a tag cloud of thoughts.
Key change.
Words fell into order and formed lines, stanzas.
A complete song.
By the time Evazee reached the front of the room, her heart beat so fast, she had to let out what had built up inside.
Kai glanced up from his guitar. He saw her and frowned.
Their gazes locked.
She began to sing, whispering the words that burned in her belly. A torrent rush of hot light swirled from her as she sang. She’d picked up on the tune coming from Kai and her voice soared, the two sounds blending in mid-air with an explosive burst of Life as she sang the SpiritWords that danced through her.
Their song cascaded through a crescendo, and down the other side, slowing to a trickle of notes that held their own in absolute gentleness. This was a side of him she’d never seen.
He knelt down, leaned in close, fingers still drawing life from the strings. “Get out of here, Zee.” His whisper was harsh, like being slapped with solid ice.
“But that was amazing. Wasn’t it? I’ve never experienced that before...”
His gaze slid from hers and widened at something behind her. “Girl, run. Get out!”
Eva turned to see what he was staring at.
A man had come into the room. His long coat hung down to his boots, and his silvery hair was tied at the nape of his neck with a narrow strip of leather. His pale eyes swept the room, looking for something. He was fascinating, mesmerising.
Kai grabbed at her shoulder and tried to push her down, but his fingers passed straight through her. All the colour had drained from his face. “Snap out of it!”
He would have shoved Eva down if he could have. Instead, he waved at her, looking like a twit.
Her foot slipped out from under her, and she fell hard. As her knee connected with the floor, pain shot through her leg, up into her skull.
The noise shut off and immediately she was back inside her room at home. Once again, she had seen into the other realm as she’d prayed, only this time—she hadn’t been taken to the strange place with purple trees. Tonight had been right on her doorstep.
Eva dug in a drawer for her jeans and boots. She knew exactly where Kai was.
And she was going to get him back.
21
Kai blinked hard, clearing his eyes. It was Shasta, the same pale man who’d sucked light out of the cave, the same one who was hunting him. Apart from that, Kai had just watched Zee appear and vanish in front of him. Back in purple tree country, that would be completely normal. Here in real life though, it didn’t make sense. His brain hurt just thinking about it. Before, the two places had been distinct, separate. Whatever line had divided them seemed to be thinning.
Shasta moved through the space, eyes raking over every small detail. He drifted to a shadowy part of the room, hidden beneath the overhanging balcony. He blended in but for his eyes, which glowed faintly. Then those winked out too.
Kai dropped his head, focusing on the instrument in his hands. Oh, how nice to be invisible right about now. Would the man recognize him? There was no way of knowing and Kai had no intention of finding out. He was here to get his guitar and leave. The floor manager had found him walking in and sent him straight to the stage, but as far as Kai wa
s concerned, he was bolting at the first opportunity to stick its nose out at him.
At least Zee was no longer in the equation.
He checked his watch, five more minutes until break. Five more minutes until he could leave here, go back to his room and forget that the last few days had ever happened.
~*~
It felt strange to wake up in his own bed. Kai shivered under a holey blanket, still dressed in his clothes from the day before. Cold. He was used to being cold. He lay flat on his back while his gaze roamed the room and his thoughts sifted through the events of the past few days. Someone had hit a cosmic rewind button and his life was back to normal.
Normal was good. Wasn’t it?
Only now, normal held no hope of one day finding a family. He knew for sure that the father didn’t want him, never had. The mom? She was connected to St. Greg’s and would send him back at the first opportunity.
Time to move on.
He’d never belonged to anyone and he never would.
Kai sat up, transferred the sleeping kitten from his lap to the bed, and went looking for food. There was nothing on the shelf that he used as a cupboard. That meant one thing—back to the street corner with his guitar and hat. He wanted nothing more than to lock himself away in his room and write the perfect song. Keep writing until the world made sense. But choice was a luxury reserved for those with money, and he didn’t have any.
He didn’t mind hunger, not so much anyway, but it wouldn’t be fair on the cats. Kai hadn’t chosen them either, he’d found them half-dead behind the garbage bins out back. Two starving scraps of nothing that could fit in his hand. Riff seemed to have the monopoly of all the gratitude genes, while Raff lived suspicious. Kai’s intention had been to take them to a shelter, but he’d kept them overnight and by the third day they felt like family.
Somehow putting himself out there to earn money to feed the two of them made so much more sense than doing it to feed himself.
A sharp knock on the door startled Kai and he nearly dropped his empty mug.
TrisTessa stood on the doorstep, her raven hair set alight by the rays of the rising sun.
Kai opened the door a fraction, leaving the chain on. “Why are you here?”
“It’s Eva. She’s missing.”
~*~
The air in the club hung thick with the sour remnants of the excesses of the previous night. Layer upon layer of debauchery hovered. Kai had trouble breathing—it wasn’t the kind of air he wanted in his lungs.
There was no way of knowing for sure that Zee was even here. It wouldn’t surprise Kai to find that she’d come here to find him. What she lacked in common sense, she made up for in guts. He shook his head, not wanting to think too deeply. He wanted nothing more to do with any of them, but after Bree, he couldn’t face another scalp on his conscience.
So he’d find her, make her swear to never pull another stunt like this, and get out before TrisTessa could spring her trap. St. Greg’s was not getting him back—not while there was still life in his veins.
He’d brought his guitar, his only ticket in, but found the door to the club open and unguarded. The aftermath of last night cluttered the floor in patches of broken bottles, dotted here and there with a sleeping body. He hoped they were sleeping.
Kai stuck to the shadows and circled the room in which he’d played the night before. He followed the passage around the edges of the room, retracing his steps to where he’d found Runt. He hoped that he’d find Eva there. It was dark, suffocating. He kept moving through the shadows.
Still no sign of anyone.
Why was the place deserted?
He found the hidden panel, pushed the button for the lift, and made his way down the hall where he’d rescued Runt. A throbbing started in his temple. The intensity grew with each step he took and became so bad, he shut one eye. He grabbed his head in both hands. As his palm touched the birthmark, singing filled his ears. A voice soaring, clean and pure above the damp darkness of this place.
~*~
Evazee sat in the dark, hating the tears that wet her cheeks. These were not cleansing tears of sadness, but bitter tears of fear and anger. How could she have been so careless as to get herself caught? The cord they’d used to tie her wrists cut deep into her skin. Pins and needles pricked down the right side of her hand. She could only blame all the weird dreams she’d been having. In those, she always knew exactly what to do. Like some heroine, she was strong, brave, and in control.
Except for the pink slippers.
And that one time with her PJs.
Heat rose in her cheeks at the memory. So maybe she wasn’t as in control as she’d thought. She was still pretty hardcore compared to real life. Something in those dreams had rubbed off on her, and she’d happily waltzed into the club to save Kai like some misguided superhero, only to find herself bundled up like a pile of dirty washing.
Looking back, she could smack herself for her lack of foresight. She’d left no note at home, hadn’t brought her phone, or done any of a hundred small things that could get her home safely. She should know better.
Something moved in the dark.
A rat? No, too big. If it’s a rat that big, I’ll die on the spot.
Night vision was slowly settling into her eyes. Across the room from where Eva sat with her back propped up against the wall and her knees drawn up close, a rounded shadow moved. She squinted in the dimness, where she could make out the steady rise and fall.
Breathing.
Eva’s mouth dried up.
Should she call out? What if it was an animal? A whimper – from her or the creature—she couldn’t tell. She clamped her jaw shut and waited. There it was again.
The lump began to quiver.
“Hello?”
The quivering stopped.
“I won’t hurt you, if you don’t hurt me.” What a stupid thing to say.
“You got food?” It was a young voice, quivery and thin.
Someone hissed in the dark. “What are you doing? You can’t trust her. She’s one of them.” Scuffling and a thud. A loud sniff then silence.
“I don’t have food, but I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Don’t listen, cover your ears.” More shuffling in the dark.
“But maybe…” The first voice spoke again.
The door cracked open, dim passage light silhouetting in red a muscle-bound body. It wasn’t hard to recognise the same guy who’d locked her in here. “Move, maggots.”
The pale colour washed over each of them as they scrambled out of the room. One looked back, a bony scrap of nothing. Probably the one hungry enough to ask for food. There was no hesitation in their obedience.
Eva, unsure of her maggot status, remained in the dark.
Muscles crossed the room in a few strides straight towards her, grabbed her by the hair, and lifted her to her feet. “You! Do you think you need a personal invitation? MOVE!”
A laboratory smell of chemicals washed over Eva and she gagged, trying not to inhale. She didn’t want to have any of that in her lungs if she could avoid it. His fingers still tangled in her hair, Muscles pushed her out of the room. Fiery pain burned Eva’s scalp. She was beginning to understand the instant obedience she’d just seen.
He half-pulled, half-dragged her down the passage behind the others.
Eva tried to keep her feet underneath her to ease the pain. In the semi-gloom she counted twelve others, none older than eighteen, at a guess. They led into a square room and lined themselves along all four walls. The light here was yellow, washing the room in a slightly brighter shade than the passage or their holding room. A low table sat in the middle of the room, covered in a layer of dust thick enough to make Eva sneeze just by looking at it. Damp seeped through the walls forming ghoulish faces. Eva turned away quickly—her imagination didn’t need any prompting to throw up an army of wickedness in this place.
Muscles shoved her to her knees, helping her to a place along the wall with the tip of his boot
. Hauling a knife from his belt, he cut the bonds on her wrists. The flow of blood brought instant pins and needles all the way up her arm. He turned a slow circle in the middle, hands wide in a display of generosity. “We have a new recruit today. My name is Torn. I hope you like my face because down here, I own you. I own you until I decide that you have been successfully trained in the ways of the OS. For most of you,” He paused and swung around with a broad sweep of his arm. “That will never happen. Got it? Good. It’s lunchtime. Who is hungry?”
The OS? But that was straight from her weird dreams.
Torn turned in a slow circle, eyes raking over each kid lining the walls.
Eva felt sick with fear. Food was the last thing she wanted. This lot though, looked starved. Why weren’t they responding?
A bald boy next to Eva, elbowed her and whispered. “It’s a trap.”
“Me.” The voice from the dark belonged to the scrawny little girl, hair the colour of a silvery moonrise. Her bony shoulder knobs poked through her worn T-shirt.
“Don’t do it, Peta,” the distrustful one next to her hissed. She was a slender girl with strong shoulders and a mop of auburn hair. Her hands were clenched fists in her lap. Peta didn’t answer her, focusing instead on the man who promised food.
“Good. Come here.” Torn curled his lip into a smile.
Peta didn’t smile back and avoided the eyes of the others lining the walls. She settled on her knees at the table, shaking, whether from cold, hunger or fear, Eva couldn’t decide.
Torn turned to Eva and crooked his finger. “You too.”
“But I’m not—”
His eyes narrowed and he leaned in close. His fist lifted her chin. Arguing with Torn would not be wise.
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