The Bloom Series Box Set: Bloom & Fade

by A. P. Kensey

  “Do what?” asked Haven.

  “You must find more, like us, and bring them here. Keep them safe. You and Marius and Corva—even Dormer—all of you must keep them safe.”

  “But why? What’s going to happen?”

  “I don’t know,” said Elena, shaking her head. “I don’t know. But if Bernam succeeds at becoming a hybrid, there is no hope for any of us.” She took a deep breath. “I understand if you want to leave. You can try to live a normal life—but I hope you will stay. You could make such a difference here.”

  “I—I’ll do it.” Haven felt as if she were making a promise she didn’t know she could fulfill.

  Elena smiled and leaned her head back against the trunk of the tree. She looked up through the branches and at the distant lights on the ceiling. The light filled her eyes and sparkled like tiny stars. She let out a deep sigh, her body relaxed, and she was still.

  Haven reached out and gently squeezed Elena’s hand.

  The blue lights floating over the pond drifted across the water and circled the trunk of the tree. They landed on Elena’s body, covering her in a shroud of light. The lights pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat, until one by one, they blinked out and disappeared.

  31

  Colton sat on the edge of a rickety old cot in a small room with rounded corners and poor ventilation. The walls were rusted red. He felt like he was in some sort of sewage tank that had been drained and furnished just for him.

  He gently rested the heels of his palms against his temples and pushed until the sharp pain in his head lessened to a dull, continuous pressure. The high-pitched scream that had echoed in his ears ever since he awoke quieted to a distant but constant drone.

  White lights danced across his vision—big white blobs chased smaller blobs, absorbed them, and split into a dozen tiny dots, only to join with bigger dots and begin the process all over again.

  The headache, the noise, and the white lights were bad enough that Colton wished he were dead or asleep, but the worst part was the emptiness.

  In the pit of his stomach, twisting up his spine, was the distinctive feeling of nothingness. Colton felt like he was missing a part of his soul, as if a deep hollow had been carved into his very being.

  Even his bones were cold.

  He pinched his forearm hard enough to leave a bright red mark but felt nothing. Colton bit the inside of his cheek and tasted blood, but there was no pain.

  He pushed himself up from the squeaking cot and waited until the fireworks display of a thousand new white lights slowly drifted out of his vision.

  A single light bulb was screwed into the short ceiling of the room and cast down a sad, yellow glow. Colton reached up and touched it, focusing every bit of himself into the tips of his fingers so that he could draw even a fraction of the light’s heat.

  Nothing.

  He lowered his hand and stood in the middle of the room, lost.

  The last thing he remembered was watching Bernam and Reece kneeling next to the old woman—the woman that Bernam had asked Colton to hurt. The way she looked up—the life in her eyes—had made it impossible for Colton to go through with it. Bernam promised that it was the only way to help the others that were being persecuted, but that wasn’t enough for Colton to agree to take the old woman’s ability.

  Does that make me weak? he wondered. Colton knew that some people believed that hard decisions had to be made in order to prevent great atrocities—that sometimes a few must be sacrificed in order to save many—but could he be the kind of person to make those decisions?

  He had turned away from Bernam’s plan, and it seemed that his punishment was to be stripped of his powers—to be like he had been before he first realized he was different.

  Colton hoped the old woman was okay.

  The image of a girl lying in the grass next to a house flashed across his memory and Colton suddenly remembered that someone else had been with the old woman—someone that had made him feel stronger and more confident in every way, even if it the feeling had only lasted a brief moment.

  He tried to picture the person in his mind, but all he could remember was brown hair and—

  A sharp pain in his stomach made him double over. He dropped to his knees and clenched his teeth as an imaginary knife blade twisted deep into his torso, all the way to his spine.

  The pain slowly faded but left behind a lingering ache. Colton’s breaths came quickly, as if he had just ran a mile uphill. His chest shuddered violently with the heavy pounding of his heart.

  He stood slowly and walked to the only door in the room. The door had rounded corners and had been set into the wall a foot off the ground, furthering the feeling that Colton was stuck inside some sort of metal lung. He expected the door to be locked and to find himself a prisoner, but the rusted handle turned loudly and the heavy slab of metal swung open with a soft groan. Stepping over the foot-high doorjamb was like going through a submarine portal.

  There were several doors along the dark hallway that led away from his room. Each looked exactly like his, and Colton assumed they were the entrances to equally dismal lodgings. The hallway turned a corner and a room opened on his left that had no door—a kitchen.

  The cluttered room was packed with short stacks of cast-iron skillets, racks of utensils, and two refrigerators. Shelves loaded with jars of spices and boxes of cleaning supplies lined the walls. An old, wide stove rested on one side of the room, lines of ancient rust running down its broad door. The window in the door was foggy with grime. A forgotten microwave had been banished to the darkest corner of the kitchen; it sat crookedly atop a pile of dirty dishrags, its plug cut off halfway down its length, exposing the wires.

  A pot of stew sat bubbling gently on one of the stove’s burners, steam slowly rising from the thick concoction. Colton sniffed deeply but could only smell the slight metallic tinge that had been present since he had first awoken.

  He wanted to taste the stew—to find out if all of his senses were completely muted—but he was eager for answers and instead walked on, farther down the hallway.

  He wanted to find his mother.

  Bernam hadn’t told him the whole truth about what they were doing in that neighborhood—hadn’t mentioned that the twins were going to set all those houses on fire—so Colton was unsure if the man was lying when he said that another group of Sources and Cons were holding his mother captive.

  He had to be sure.

  The hallway led to a huge, domed room. Morning light poured in around a giant fan at the top of the ceiling and bounced off mirrors bolted all around the dome, illuminating the entire floor.

  Many doors lined the bottom edge of the concrete dome, some larger than others. The entire space was littered with tables, machinery, books, papers, and other odds and ends. Colton was alone; the cluttered floor was silent.

  A pair of swinging double doors nearby flew open and a small boy ran into the dome. He held a pair of glasses in one hand and wiped streaming tears from his face with another. The boy pushed Colton aside and disappeared down the hallway that led past the kitchen.

  The double doors from which the boy had emerged swung slowly back and forth until they came to a rest.

  Colton walked toward the doors, moving slower than he would have liked. Every time he walked too fast, the knife in his belly would return, twisting painfully as it burrowed toward his spine.

  He passed tables full of obsolete electronic equipment—boxy computer screens and big circuit boards. Colton wondered if he had not only been taken to a different place, but also to a different time.

  There was a small window in each of the swinging doors, but the glass was so dirty that Colton could only see a vast, bright smudge of white.

  He pushed open one of the doors and stood in the entrance to a long, grassy field. Rows of trees had been planted in a grid pattern on the half of the field closest to the swinging doors. Some of the trees were rich with brilliant green leaves, but others were dead, their black trunks crooked an
d twisted.

  Walking through the rows of trees fifty feet away, her head cast downward to watch her own feet kick through the grass, was a girl with brown hair. In the bright light cast down from the ceiling, Colton saw that her hair was shot through with light streaks of red.

  He recognized her immediately and waited for the strong connection to return—the feeling that he was being drawn closer to her even though he was standing still. Colton felt nothing. When he had seen the girl lying in the grass near the old woman, the world around him had dimmed so that all he could see was her eyes, looking back at him. All of that was gone.

  Colton looked down at the ground and realized that he couldn’t even smell the fresh grass beneath his feet.

  I’m dead inside, he thought.

  As if she heard him, the girl’s head snapped up and her eyes narrowed as she glared at him with cold malice.

  Colton could tell she recognized him, and the anger on her face made him wish they were only seeing each other for the first time.

  Blue light ignited in her eyes and they burned like tiny stars. Without a moment’s hesitation, she ran toward Colton. He stepped back in confusion, unable to decide if he should try and defend himself or turn and run.

  Thinking about it made him feel even weaker, so he just stood there, frozen, until she jumped into the air and slammed into him with her shoulder, tackling him to the ground.

  She grunted as she fell on him and pinned his arms down with her legs. She straddled his chest and pressed her open palms to his temples. The light in her eyes was too bright and Colton tried to turn his head to the side, but she forced him to remain still.

  She was strong.

  Concentrated blue energy trailed out from the corner of her eyes and drifted up into the air in long, wispy lines, dissipating above her head.

  “What did you do to my brother?!” she said between clenched teeth.

  Colton screamed as she pressed against his skull. He had thought he could not feel anything but the dull ache in his skull and the knife in his belly—that the rest of his senses were numb—but he was wrong. The pain coursing through his entire body was immeasurable. Every inch of his skin burned as if he were being showered with acid.

  The girl’s hands exploded with blue light and Colton screamed louder.

  “Is he alive?!” she shouted.

  Colton writhed under her grip but she kept him firmly pinned down. He couldn’t help but look into her eyes and was blinded by the piercing blaze.

  “I don’t know!” he said between screams.

  “Haven!” someone shouted.

  The girl kicked Colton’s stomach as she was pulled away by two silhouettes. Colton blinked his eyes until the blurriness cleared. A stocky man with stubble on his shiny head held one of the girl’s arms and a pretty woman with shock-white hair held the other.

  Colton coughed and rolled onto his side, clenching his stomach.

  “This is not a good idea,” said the man. His Russian accent was thick. “You said yourself that he did not hurt Elena.”

  “But she’s dead!” said the girl—Haven—finding new strength and nearly breaking free.

  “She’s dead,” agreed the woman with white hair. “And this helps nothing.”

  Haven glared at Colton until the blue light in her eyes faded and blinked out. She relaxed and closed her eyes. The man and the woman that were holding her slowly let go but didn’t move away.

  Colton pushed himself up to a sitting position. He looked at the skin on his arms and felt the back of his neck—the girl’s energy hadn’t physically burned him at all. A slight tingling sensation still danced over his entire body, just beneath his skin, as if a million tiny needles were jabbing down just hard enough to draw blood.

  “I never saw your brother,” he said to Haven. “Or anyone else besides the people that attacked you near Bozeman.”

  Haven looked down at him, her expression a mix of fear, rage, and sadness. Her eyes glassed over with tears and she hurried past Colton, through the swinging doors, and into the dome.

  “I—I’m sorry,” said Colton.

  The man and woman looked down at him carefully, as if deciding what should be done with their prisoner.

  “The old woman was Elena?” asked Colton. “Is she here? Could I see her?”

  “No,” said the woman with white hair. “No, you cannot ‘see her’.” She clenched her fists and followed after Haven into the dome.

  The Russian man sighed and shook his head.

  “They don’t like you very much,” he said.

  “I can’t say that I blame them,” said Colton. “I made a mistake when I joined Bernam. He promised me that—” Colton stopped and sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I still should have known it was wrong.”

  The Russian grunted. “Did you know about us, here in dome?”

  Colton shook his head.

  “Then don’t blame yourself. It was like winning the lottery ticket, yes? You didn’t know there was a choice, so you went with the bad man. He makes things look very nice. All new toys and cars. Sometimes Marius wishes he had those things.”

  “Your name is Marius?”

  The man nodded.

  “I’m Colton.”

  The stocky Russian hesitated a moment longer, then offered his hand. Colton gripped it and allowed himself to be pulled up to his feet.

  “Look at me,” said Marius.

  Colton looked. The man was tired. Dark circles drooped under his eyes, but it wasn’t just sleep that was weighing heavily on his serious face—there was also sadness, anger, and a small amount of fear.

  “We are not friends,” continued Marius. “No one here is your friend, and they probably won’t be for long time—if you stick around. Elena had rule that we allow anyone like us to stay here, no questions asked. But that doesn’t mean we are always happy about it. You have to earn our trust, understand?”

  “Look,” said Colton, “not that I don’t appreciate the offer—if that’s what it is—but I don’t want to stay here. Bernam told me that you guys were keeping my mother as a hostage, which I realize now was just a lie to get me to follow him. When I wouldn’t do what he wanted, he took away my ability. I’m empty. I’m not like you anymore. I don’t belong here.” He thought about his father in Pittsburgh. “I don’t belong anywhere.”

  Marius frowned. “Young people,” he said. “So serious. Always jumping to wrong conclusions.” He gestured for Colton to follow him away from the entrance. “Come.”

  They walked between the trees and ascended a large hill. At the base of the hill that sloped away from the trees was a small pond and an old willow tree, its branches tickling the surface of the water.

  The old woman sat against the trunk of the tree, her eyes closed peacefully and a faint smile on her face, as if she were in the middle of a pleasant dream.

  “Elena,” said Marius, nodding toward the woman.

  “I’m sorry,” said Colton quietly.

  “She was very nice woman. Strong and stubborn, but nice.”

  “Did Bernam kill her?”

  “He took her power. We cannot live without it. Yes, he killed her.”

  Colton looked down at his body. His skin was ashen and his knees shook with the strain to keep him upright.

  Marius must have seen the look of fear on his face.

  “You are strong, too,” he said. “Don’t give up hope.”

  “What are you going to with…with…” Colton swallowed thickly and tried to force himself to finish the sentence, but could not.

  “We will bury her next to the tree, the way she would have wanted.”

  “This place is beautiful,” said Colton.

  “What does your mother look like?”

  Colton turned to Marius, surprised by the abrupt question.

  “She left when I was nine.” He tried to remember her face, but was ashamed to realize that the memory of her appearance was blurry—she existed in his mind as a grouping of emotions and sensations, the
strongest of which was happiness that he felt when he spent time with her. “In the few pictures I kept that my father didn’t burn, she had light brown hair, shoulder-length, and light brown eyes. She was thin. There was a small mole on her left temple, like a beauty mark.”

  Marius’s frown deepened.

  “What is it?” asked Colton.

  “Bernam was right and wrong about your mother,” said Marius.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She is here, with us, but she is not a prisoner. She stays with us because that is what she wants—because it is too dangerous for her to be anywhere else.”

  Colton stood atop the hill, speechless, his mind a torrent of different thoughts. He took a deep breath and tried to think clearly.

  “Do you want to see her?” asked Marius.

  Colton expected to answer immediately, but instead the word yes caught in his throat. What if she’s different? he thought. What if she doesn’t remember me?

  “You don’t have to if you don’t want.”

  Marius turned and walked down the hill, toward the doors.

  “Yes,” said Colton suddenly.

  My power is gone, and I’m going to die, he thought. His body shuddered and he tried to force himself to accept that inevitable outcome. I’m going to die.

  He took a deep breath. “Yes, I want to see her.”

  “Very well,” said Marius. “But it’s too dangerous to go alone.”

  32

  Colton and Marius met a tall, thin man near a large metal box that looked like a sealed refrigerator. In the wall next to the box was a weathered steel door with heavy hinges and a chrome steering-wheel for a handle.

  Marius scowled at the tall man and orange light flared briefly in his eyes, then faded. He sighed. “Okay,” he said, turning to Colton. “Dormer go inside with you. I’ll help Corva with the body—nyet!” He slapped his forehead. “I mean, I’ll help her with Elena.” He walked away, shaking his head and whispering curses at himself in Russian.

  Dormer watched him go and blinked quickly. His movements were jerky and erratic, like a bird’s. He sniffed quickly and wiped his nose, and his hands shook slightly as he reached for the box. He twisted a handle on the front and the side panels slid down to reveal a compact cube of machinery. He flipped a small switch next to a thick pipe and the box shook to life like a car engine.