“I didn’t really plan on an outdoor shower.”
“I did.”
She thumped Daniel’s arm. “Well, you could have warned me not to wear so much mascara then. I look like the Joker, don’t I?”
Thankfully, not only were there no mirrors at the full moon party, there were no reflective surfaces of any kind. There was no way she wanted to know what she looked like right now, especially if the other bedraggled, make-up smeared girls were anything to go by. Daniel threw his arm around her shoulder.
“You make rain-soaked look chic.”
Farley gave him a bemused smirk and leaned down to bite him playfully on the forearm. Daniel was pretending to writhe in agony, silently yelling, Zombie! Zombie! when Grayson appeared, towing a seriously pissed looking Tess behind him. Her afro had gone limp.
“That is so inappropriate,” she complained.
It really was. Grayson coughed, polite as ever. “We have a problem.”
Farley dropped Daniel’s forearm and scowled. “When don’t we?”
“This time it’s Anna. She just texted me. She wants us to meet her. She’s on her way here now.”
Daniel’s eyes flickered the way they did when he was processing things rapidly. “Here?”
Grayson nodded. “I didn’t tell her where we are. She already knew. I tried calling her but there was no answer.”
“Show me the text.”
The phone Grayson held out lit up blue and ghostly, casting a small pool of light around them as Farley and Daniel both read.
G, need to talk. Will meet you at the beach. Make sure D and F don’t leave. Anna xoxoxo
The fact that Anna had spelled her own name out in full and only managed an initial for the rest of them really said something. Farley sucked her teeth and looked to Daniel. Usually his facial expression dictated what was about to happen. He looked blank.
“Something about this doesn’t feel right,” he said. “I’ve tried calling her a hundred times over the past twenty four hours and she hasn’t picked up once. It kept saying her phone was out of service range, and when it didn’t say that, it just rang out. Why would she want to keep us on the beach?”
Tess paused in wringing out the hem of her dress. “Who knows why she does anything. She’s a selfish monster. I vote we go back to the hotel and get dry. If she wants to talk to you guys, she can do it back there.”
“I think Tess may be right.” Grayson slipped his cell phone back into the pocket of his khakis. “She could be trying to avoid Cassie. She must realize she’s furious with her.”
Daniel’s brows hitched together, and he hmmmed. “I don’t know. Maybe. We’ll head back, anyway. We all need to get dry.”
Tess grinned like the Cheshire cat, overly smug that she’d gotten her way. “Great. I have plans, anyway.”
Farley gave her a dry look. She knew what plans Tess meant and they weren’t doing her mental state any good. She spent at least a few hours every night hitting re-dial on her cell and staring at it blankly while it rang and rang and rang. “You should stop calling him. There’s obviously something going on. He’s never picked up, has he?”
The grin faded from Tess’ face. “If Daniel disappeared and everyone thought he’d gone dark side, would you stop trying to find him? You wouldn’t believe it, would you? You’d want to hear him say the words for yourself. And no, he hasn’t picked up. But that’s because he’s apparently a hundred feet underground and his stupid cell phone says it’s out of… service range.”
A look passed around the group, starting with Tess and ending on Daniel. “You can’t call Oliver ‘cause he’s out of range. Anna can’t be reached for the same reason.” He scrubbed his hands over his face before kicking at the sand with a bare foot. “I can not believe this.”
Farley couldn’t keep from frowning. “What? You think the Immundus took Anna, too?”
“No,” he said, “I don’t. If they had taken her, they wouldn’t be letting her send messages or come meet us for a chat on the beach. I think she’s gone over there willingly for some stupid reason and now she’s about to hand us over to Simeon.”
Blind panic made Farley bristle. Suddenly freezing cold, she wrapped her arms around her body. “The Immundus are coming here? Right now? We’ve got to go.”
“Agreed.” Daniel took her hand and started off at a fast pace up the beach, back towards the spot where they’d left the Viper. This time Tess and Grayson were right on their heels.
“I can’t believe Anna would do this,” Daniel mumbled. “She’s lived at the cabin for fifteen years. She and Cassie are inseparable.”
Grayson let out a vinegary laugh. “Anna’s been fending for herself for a long time. Her family haven’t spoken to her since she decided to leave the Quarters. They wanted her to fight, but she refused. She’s a coward when it comes to confrontation but her survival instinct is second to none. She’ll do whatever she thinks necessary to make sure she comes out on top.”
“So she abandoned her friends like a rat abandoning a sinking ship?” Tess spat. “She’s even worse than I thought. When this is all over, I’m going back to the cabin and I’m burning all of her Prada.”
She would totally do it, too. Tess knew how to hit people where it hurt. Farley jogged a couple of paces until she was back beside Daniel. “Where’s the car?”
Daniel squinted into the distance and then pointed. “Right there. It looks like there’s someone there, though.”
Sure enough, a black silhouette was propped against the passenger side of the door, apparently waiting for them.
“Stay here,” Daniel said, pushing ahead, but the figure by the Viper stepped down onto the beach, making its way over towards them.
“Ugh, it’s Anna,” Tess growled.
“Don’t say anything to her, okay? Just act like everything’s normal,” Daniel said.
“How ‘bout I punch her in the face? That’s something I’d normally do.”
“No.”
Anna slunk her way across the sand, hips swinging wide and confident. Her auburn hair was pulled back into a stylish side bun, and it looked like she’d spent a considerable amount of time curling the wisps that hung free, framing her face. Her outfit screamed sexy commando chick. Black figure-hugging one piece with boots that finished mid-thigh. She looked ridiculous, like she was playing dress-up as a superhero. Farley had no doubt Anna believed she actually was a superhero- someone noble and brave. She must have spent a lot of time in front of the mirror telling herself that. When she arrived in front of them, she tucked her thumbs into her belt and smiled at them smugly, like she was privy to a secret they weren’t.
“You guys look a little worse for wear. Got caught in the rain?” Grayson rolled his eyes and started walking past her. She reached out and grabbed his arm. “Haven’t seen each other in a few days, Gray. Don’t you want to catch up?”
He looked down at her hand where she gripped hold of him. Slowly, he reached across with his free hand to swat her away like a fly. “Surprisingly… no.”
She stuck out her bottom lip and made it tremble, feigning hurt. “Some friend you are.”
Grayson took off his glasses and carefully folded the arms, slipping them into the breast pocket of his shirt. “And I suppose you’re a governing authority on how friends should behave, Anna?”
“What do you mean by that?” Her pencil thin eyebrows pulled together in a sharp frown.
Her act was almost too much to take. Arrogance really didn’t become her, especially when she was behaving that way because she thought she’d outsmarted them. Tess clearly couldn’t tolerate her attitude, either. She stepped forward and slipped her arm through Grayson’s. “He means you’re a super bitch.”
“Tess,” Daniel warned. She gave him a tired look and then twisted on Anna.
“We all know Cassie’s difficult to be around, but there was no need to ditch her in the middle of nowhere.”
Anna pulled back her shoulders, fixing a hard grimace on Tess.
“I left her there to keep her safe. I thought we were being followed.”
“How very altruistic of you,” Grayson said. “And what have you been up to the past few days, Anna? Something equally as altruistic, no doubt?”
“Don’t throw words around like you think I don’t know what they mean, Gray.”
He raised his eyebrows at her. “Oh, I really don’t think you know what it means. But please, disprove me.”
“Altruistic means to be selfless,” she spat, “for the good of the group.”
“For the good of the group,” Grayson whispered quietly, looking down at the sand. Anna sneered but behind the bravado a nervousness poured off her. Her eyes flickered back up the boulevard.
“What do you want, Anna?” Daniel said. He still had hold of Farley’s hand and was drawing reassuring circles with his thumb into her skin. The action was calming and possessive.
Anna pouted, reigning in the sneer. Her face smoothed out until it looked like she was actually trying to be congenial. “I was wondering if I could come back with you guys? Gray’s Jeep broke down and it took me a while to catch up with you.”
“Probably took longer than it needed to, what with all the time you spent shopping in the Russian covert ops surplus store,” Farley snapped. Anna was blatantly lying to their faces and trying to worm her way back to the hotel with them. No doubt they’d be tailed the whole way and as soon as they were cornered, the Immundus would storm in and capture them all. There were no words to describe how utterly vile she was. Daniel seemed to agree.
“We’re not going anywhere. And we’re definitely not showing you where we’re staying. Why don’t you tell your friends we’re doing this here, right in front of everyone?”
Anna’s mouth fell open. “I… I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.”
Tess let go of Grayson’s arm and prowled forward so she was right up in Anna’s face. “Can I punch her out now?”
Daniel shrugged. “Sure.”
Anna’s nose made a strange popping sound when Tess’ fist connected with it. Blood exploded everywhere, running in rivers down her face; she staggered back and held her hands up to her face, her eyes round and fit to pop out of her head. “What the…?”
If the situation hadn’t been so abso-freaking-lutely bad, Farley would have had a hard time keeping her hysterical laughter at bay. Tess was always mouthing off about one thing or another, but she’d never actually made good on her threats. Daniel’s tuition in fist fighting had obviously paid off. Tess shook out her hand and took another step forward, keen to go all ten rounds.
“Stop.” Daniel held her back by the shoulder. “We need her to tell us where they’re waiting for us. Anna,” he clenched his jaw tightly, “are they back up on the road?”
Only her eyes were visible over her hands. They were narrowed into furious slits. She’d clearly had other ideas about how this night would play out, and they were ruining her vainglorious dreams. “I’m not telling you anything.” She leaned forward and spat a fat glob of congealed blood into the sand.
Daniel’s shoulders tensed. His fists were glowing a hot white color. When he unclenched them, his fingers snapped with electricity, and blue shards of light sparked from him, skirling off into the night air. It had been a while since he’d charged up to use his power for real, and the tightening of the atmosphere around them made panic rise in Farley’s throat. So many bad memories: Daniel nearly dying when she’d walked in on him trying to give his power back to Aldan; That night in the Tower when they’d fought the Reavers together, and she’d nearly succumbed to the light. Her lungs weren’t quite satisfied when she tried to fill them. She needed to smother the fear igniting itself in her chest, and yet she couldn’t.
Anna didn’t seem to appreciate how hard it had suddenly become to breathe, either. With her nose out of commission, she could only breath through her mouth. And judging by the way she kept spitting, it was obviously filling up with blood. “You shouldn’t do that here,” she gasped. “People can see. They’ll see you use your power. We should go somewhere more private.”
Daniel studied the patches of red on the ground with mild disgust and stepped around them so he stood beside her, facing the road. “Take a look around,” he said calmly. “Nearly everyone on this beach is wearing fifty tacky glo-stick bracelets, or they’re spinning fire, or they’re covered in neon paint. Not to mention we just had lightning tearing across the sky. Everyone’s dancing. Everyone’s drunk. I don’t think anyone’s going to notice me if I did something like this…” He held his palm out to Anna’s side and a bolt of blue-white energy connected the two of them for an instant.
Anna’s whole body spasmed, her back bowing violently. It was only a second before Daniel cut off the power, but it was enough. Anna collapsed to her knees. Her breath stuttered out in a wet, shaky gurgle. She toppled forward onto all fours and wretched into the sand, vomiting for what seemed like an eternity. Farley knew what she was feeling. She’d been nailed by that light the first time she and Daniel met, and she’d felt like death for days. Two guys passed them by, staring at Anna, and Daniel pressed his lips together.
“Too much to drink,” he said.
The guys both smirked and carried on by without a word.
“See?” Daniel crouched, getting up in Anna’s face. “Now, I’m sure I could do that again and no one would be any the wiser. What do you think?”
She paused in hacking and spitting, her neat hair fallen loose and stringy where it had trailed in her vomit. “No,” she snarled, “don’t. They’re up there on the intersection. They’re waiting for your car.”
“And how many are there? How many Immundus?”
She scraped the back of her arm across her face and fell back onto her heels. “Twenty.”
“You’d better not be lying.”
Anna didn’t get to proclaim her honesty. She pitched forward and started heaving again. Tess skittered out of the splash-back zone and hid behind Grayson. “What are we going to do?”
“You guys aren’t going to do anything. Head back up the beach. Dance. Look like you’re having a good time. I’ll handle the Immundus.”
Farley stepped forward. “Not on your own.”
“These guys aren’t Reavers. I don’t need your help to kill them.”
“But there are twenty of them.”
A reckless smile spread across his face. Dangerous. “I can handle twenty.”
Grayson grabbed Farley round the wrist and starting pulling her off towards the bonfire, which had died back to a mere five feet tall inferno. She yanked her wrist free and ran back to Daniel. He caught her up when she launched herself at him.
“Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay,” he whispered.
“It had better be. I still have plans for you and me.”
He winked brazenly and kissed her hard. “So do I.” He set her down and gestured her away just as headlights from the road lanced over the beach, illuminating him in a cold white light. It looked like the spotlight from an old prison break movie, where the escapee had just been spotted by the guards. Anna shielded her eyes and squinted into the headlights, but Daniel remained side on, staring at Farley.
“Go,” he mouthed.
She set off after Grayson and Tess, feeling sand spray up behind her with each lurching step. When she looked back over her shoulder, Anna was throwing up again and Daniel had turned into the light.
******
The world slowed. Swallowed by panic and fear and hate, the sounds of the night were muffled distractions. Everyone seemed to know what was about to happen; shirtless guys with sand-dusted shoulders and tribal paint smeared across their chests followed Farley with their eyes, their lips curling into deliberate smiles. Girls with tousled hair and colorful feather earrings watched her pass, their mouths moving in protracted vowel shapes that could have been forming words of warning- warning her to go back. She would have, but the flashes of light erupting further up the beach told her
not to. Daniel was dealing with the problem. If she went back there she would only get herself captured and he’d lose focus.
Occasionally, a jolt of Daniel’s light was bright enough to illuminate the scene, and the shapes of many dark figures appeared in still shots and frozen poses before disappearing again. Daniel had been right about nobody noticing. If nothing more, it looked like a strobe light was going off a couple of hundred feet away, with people dancing around it. Tess and Grayson were both washed out, ash-colored. All three of them stared anxiously back towards the fracas, where Daniel was hopefully killing a bunch of people.
Hoping for something like that didn’t feel right. And yet Farley had never wanted anything more. Tess’ hand grappled at her arm, momentarily drawing her attention away.
“I thought I saw something,” she hissed. Pointing out to the side of the beach close to the boulevard, Tess angled Farley until she saw what she meant: a dark shape hobbling towards them. Anna. Had to be. Farley set off, intending to meet her halfway. Grayson didn’t even try and stop her. Neither did Tess, which was a good thing. Farley was intent on smashing her fist into something, and it would be a shame to waste the violence on them.
As she stormed towards Anna’s scurrying shadow, her elevated heartbeat fell into sync with the bass line and the pounding of each step she took. Every thrum of the music, every throb of her heart, every jarring thud travelling up from the soles of her feet was a countdown. A countdown to something bigger than just beating the crap out of Anna. A chain of events were about to be set in motion, and Farley knew in the pit of her stomach that those events would change everything.
Anna actually had the decency to look surprised when Farley ducked out of the shadows in front of her. Maybe it was the fury on her face or the fact that her fists were already clenched and twitching with their pent up desire to hurt. Whatever it was, something about the way she looked had Anna cowering. Satisfaction poured through Farley.
Eternal Hope (The Hope Series) Page 26