Pretty Monster

by Somers, Jill

  Let’s be real, Rory said in her head, you were never a huge fan of life itself. Just keep focusing on saving me.

  Quinn laughed out loud, but there was a sob mixed into her laugh, and she buried her head into the girl’s hair, closing her eyes and thinking of nothing but that smell, nothing but that voice in her head.

  And then Rory pulled away, and she was gone, and Ridley was gone.

  And all that was left was Quinn and Dash.

  He tried to kiss her goodbye. He tried to say more things to her. Tried to convey all of the feelings that she knew she was still feeling, too. But she didn’t hear any of it. She couldn’t.

  She only heard three words: “I love you.”

  But those words only sent her away faster.

  • • •

  Her position in the perimeter was in between two people that she had come to care very much about—two people that she loved all the more for staying despite being virtually powerless. Angel and Drax.

  Both of them were mostly silent as they stood on either side of her, a few yards apart, just far enough to have to raise their voices to be heard but not far enough to leave anyone feeling alone. That was the purpose of them being there, she supposed. Not just what Michael had said about ‘transference of energy,’ but also to remind those around them that they weren’t alone.

  The minutes ticked by slowly. The plan, as Evelyn and Michael had laid out before their departure, was to take formation, but not to produce the shield until exactly five o’clock. If Rory’s vision had been precise, that would give them an hour of leeway before the sun began to rise, without draining their energy completely.

  Finally, when five o’clock was upon them, she allowed herself to speak at full volume for the first time since she had learned of Pence and Trent’s betrayal.

  “I know they said to keep a few meters apart,” she said to them, “but do you think you two could come a little closer?”

  Angel and Drax both came to her side, and for what felt like the first time in her life, Quinn outstretched her hands to her friends.

  If she was going to save this island, she was going to need help.

  • • •

  It was a thing to behold, that shield. Truly, it was.

  Everyone was precise on the timing—almost instantaneous. The moment that second hand clicked into place, she went for it. Fire. Water. Ice. Stone. Abilities she didn’t even know she had. Abilities she didn’t understand.

  She threw them all up into the sky.

  And she wasn’t alone.

  It was a brilliant thing, full of light. Not unlike the walls they had casted that day at power tech, and yet so much more. It lit up the night with fire and lightning and rain; it emitted heat; it emitted cold; it emitted everything. It truly did look as if nothing could to get in its way.

  But looks could be deceiving, she reminded herself. There were no guarantees. The shimmering, terrifying, magnificent shield up above her could very well be the last thing she would ever see.

  She closed her eyes. Inhaled. Exhaled. But no matter how hard she tried to push it away, the same thought kept coming back to her.

  The shield wasn’t the last thing she wanted to see.

  He was.

  • • •

  She wasn’t sure how long it had been. She wasn’t sure whether the bomb had already come, whether it had gone, or whether it was in the middle of its detonation. She wasn’t sure what was going on at all. All she knew was that when she opened her eyes, Angel and Drax were on either side of her, passed out, energies drained—no doubt by her. Transference of energy. Michael had been right. The shield was still up above her.

  She sat there, still as a statue, legs curled up to her chest, alone again, afraid.

  And that was when he she heard it. The voice.

  “Hey.”

  Her eyes widened, and she knew to turn and look, to do the logical thing, and yet she was paralyzed, stuck in some strange, alternate universe, some déjà vu, some memory, because she knew that voice, she knew that word, she knew this situation…

  “Hey,” the voice said again. It was his voice. Dash’s. Soft, mystical… Unlike any other voice she had ever heard.

  “Please don’t be afraid of me.”

  It was him. Him, the man from that night, the man that had protected her when she was just a child… Dash.

  “You can trust me,” he whispered, and he held out his hand.

  A tear streamed down her cheek as she put it all together. She could almost hear Rory’s voice in her head, smirking. Told you you’re a seer.

  Because, of course, she had foreseen this.

  And as the bright light came and swallowed them up, and everything turned to darkness, at least she was not alone.

  13. SAVE SILOH

  As it turned out, they didn’t all die.

  In fact, none of them did.

  They kept the shield up for hours—probably far longer than they actually needed to. Slowly, piece by piece, it began to unravel. Person by person, they each collapsed, exhausted, until finally there was nothing left of the shield.

  But there was nothing left of the bomb, either. Or the fallout.

  When Quinn finally woke up, she was still in the grass on the edge of the perimeter, back to the wall. Angel was still on one side of her, and Drax was on the other. And Dash…

  Well, he was right under her.

  She couldn’t help but grin when she rolled off of him, watching his sleeping face with a mixture of love and amusement.

  His eyelids fluttered open as if he knew he was being watched; when he saw her, he smiled.

  “What are you laughing at?” he asked her.

  Her grin faded, and what was left was something more.

  “I wasn’t crazy,” she told him softly. “Thinking I’d seen you that day. The event. I did see you. It was my first premonition. My first… anything.”

  He stared at her, processing. “You’re saying… during the event… you had a premonition? Of what just happened?”

  “Word for word. Exactly the words you said to me. Exactly the way you look right now. Down to the outfit. Even that bright white light I saw… It was Haley. Haley in her goddess mode.”

  He shook his head, eyes full of wonder. “That’s incredible.”

  “I know. If that’s not the universe trying to convince me you’re my soul mate, I don’t know what is.”

  “Get a room,” Drax said from next to them as he came to, stretching and yawning. “Which, apparently, we still have. Nice to see our home hasn’t been completely obliterated.”

  “Not even a little,” Angel said from their other side, rising to her feet. “Do you think everyone’s okay?”

  They all rose to their feet, making their way to the center of the island to report back to the tower. But they stopped outside of the building, knowing that there really wasn’t any reason to hide out there any more. Savannah was gone. Everyone who wanted to hurt them was gone.

  For now.

  The others filtered in slowly. Some stayed unconscious longer than others. Quinn counted silently in her head as people approached them. 35… 36…

  She stopped short when she saw number 37.

  It was Pence.

  Before she knew what she was doing, Quinn was attacking her.

  “What did you do?” she shouted at her old friend, knocking into her at lightning speed and pinning her to the ground. Her hands grew hot as coals as she seared burns into Pence’s wrists. She could feel Pence trying to put out the flames with her own abilities, but it was no use.

  “Stop!” Pence shrieked, writhing beneath her. “Quinn, I came back! I came back before the attack! There are witnesses!”

  “Why did you leave in the first place?” Quinn demanded, not letting up. She couldn’t help it. After all the progress Quinn had made on the island learning to trust people again, Pence had made her question everything. She couldn’t let it slide. She just couldn’t.

  “Quinn!” Charlie
shouted, running up to her and knocking her off Pence and onto the ground. If not for his speed and the element of surprise, it wouldn’t have worked, but it did. “Stop it!”

  “Why?” Quinn asked him, shoving him off her. “Why should I forgive her for what she did to you—to all of us? Are you trying to tell me she didn’t run away?”

  “I did run away,” Pence said, raising her hands in the air in surrender. Quinn tried not to look at the severe burns she had given the girl. “I did. And I’m sorry. I just… My family’s still out there, Quinn. They don’t even know whether I’m alive or dead. For them to hear about all of us dying in a nuclear attack, on the six o’clock news—to never see me or talk to me again? I couldn’t bear it.”

  Angel stepped into the mix at that point, surprising both Pence and Quinn.

  “My family’s still out there, too,” she told Pence. “I’m sure lots of people here still have family out there. I’m sure none of them know whether we’re okay or not. But this is my family now, Pence. Has been for years. And as much as I can’t stand a lot of them, I’d never betray them.”

  Pence swallowed. “I know. And that’s why I came back.”

  “Are you sure?” Quinn asked darkly. “Are you sure you weren’t sent back? The word got in Savannah’s ear that we weren’t all going to die, and she sent you to report back?”

  “No,” Pence said desperately. “It was never about going to Savannah or the alliance. I never even let them see me. Compel me to tell the truth, Quinn. Use Rory. Use whatever you can. You have to believe me. No.”

  Quinn sighed. She could probably compel her to tell the truth. She could probably ask Rory to help. But at this point, she was starting to trust her own telepathic abilities. She was starting to trust that she knew when someone was lying.

  And Pence wasn’t lying.

  More than anything, it was a relief. It made her happy. It made her feel like she might be able to let herself trust Dash again.

  But it still annoyed her.

  “Fine,” she said, turning her back on the girl. “But don’t expect me to like you any more.”

  “That’s quite enough,” Evelyn said, stepping forward. “We have reached our count. I am happy to say we lost no one during the attack. In fact, we even gained someone.” She smiled over at Pence, who she had clearly already forgiven for running away. Quinn rolled her eyes.

  “What do you all think about reclaiming our old dining hall?” Michael suggested.

  Ridley nodded, eyes bright. “I think it’s time we reclaim our whole island.”

  • • •

  They all headed to the dining hall for the meeting about what to do next. As usual, Evelyn and Michael took the floor first. The YA—what was left of them—along with Ridley, Rory, and Zerrick, sat in the front row. Quinn could tell that just like her, they were all about ready for their voices to be heard.

  “We have won this battle,” Evelyn announced to all of them, “but not the war. We must now decide what to do next.”

  Quinn raised her hand immediately. Evelyn glared down at her, clearly not finished with her speech, but she let Quinn speak.

  “I just wanted to point out that you have some people in your midst who have proven pretty spot-on about seeing the future,” Quinn said. “So maybe, you know, you could trust us a little more this time around.”

  “Very good,” Evelyn said, clearly annoyed; “but have you had a vision yet? About what comes next?”

  Quinn crossed her arms. “No. I’m just saying.”

  Pence raised her hand next. “I was only in the real world for a few hours, but there were some things I learned there. Things that could be useful.”

  “You made it to the real world,” Quinn asked doubtfully, “without Savannah or the alliance seeing you?”

  “The alliance and the DCA guarded nearly the entire path to Fiji, like you all predicted. But they were all airborne or in boats. It was easy for me to make the whole trip underwater, undetected.”

  Quinn nodded, satisfied with this answer.

  “Once I made it to Fiji, I saw Savannah, Reese, and several of the others camped out at this little cottage right on the coast. Plotting their next move. I waited for them to fall asleep and snuck into the cottage to use Savannah’s computer. I got on to the internet there and tried to track down my family—get an idea of how hard it would be to get home. On the internet, I learned about this deviant rights movement that’s emerged since Quinn was captured. It’s called Save the Siren.”

  Quinn choked on her own breath, eyes widening. “What?”

  Dash laughed out loud.

  “I’m serious,” Pence said. “Turns out you had this, like, mega fan base of regulars back there who were rooting for you—hoping you wouldn’t get caught, then fighting for your rights once you were. They’ve used you as an example and are pushing this whole movement to free not only you, but all of us.”

  “Wouldn’t we have heard of this movement?” Rory asked, frowning. “We have the same TV channels as them. We have the same internet access as them.”

  “Actually,” Rita told Rory, “that’s not entirely true. While we do have access to their cable channels, the censored internet access Savannah and Crowley allowed us to have was… minimal, at best. ‘For our protection,’ Savannah always said. Shouldn’t be hard for me to undo.”

  “Save the Siren never made it to the live news,” Pence explained to Rory. “Dangerous publicity, I guess. But the online movement is huge.”

  “That’s a nice story,” Michael said to her, “but I don’t really see how—”

  “What I’m saying is,” Pence said impatiently, “the world is already thinking of us in terms of human rights. They’re still scared of us, but they’re thinking of us. What we have to do now is lead our own internet movement. We call it… I don’t know… ‘We’re Not the Monsters.’ We show them what life’s really like here—tell them that we just want peace—tell them someone tried to nuke us. Make versions with subtitles in every language… Accessible to the entire world.”

  Evelyn and Michael glanced at each other, considering this.

  “I think it’s a decent idea,” Quinn admitted. “Not quite as violent as I’d like, but I guess it’s about time the world figured out what’s really going on here. And we could expose Savannah and Crowley for the monsters they really are.”

  “We should appeal directly to world leaders if we are going to do this at all,” Angel said. “The UNCODA were always more on our side than the DCA—they’re more likely to listen. Releasing some public, online statement, directed at no one in particular… It’s going to be disregarded by the people who really make the decisions.”

  “You’re both right,” Drax said. “We should appeal to the UNCODA. But we should also appeal to the public. Chances are, the UNCODA will just ignore us if all we do is make a private plea to them. They hate conflict—it’s the same reason they told the DCA to stop killing deviants. But if we do both, the UNCODA will have no choice but to respond, because the public will be watching them.”

  Dash nodded. “Drax is right. It’s the best shot we’ve got.”

  “Very well,” Evelyn said. “With Savannah gone, we should be able to lift the restrictions she kept over the internet. Rita—I’m sure you could help me with that.”

  “I’ve got a camcorder,” volunteered Simon, the English teacher. “It’s not the best, but it’s probably better than a cell phone.”

  “We’ll need some sort of script,” Michael said. “And a face. Someone to speak to the camera, to tell our story to the world.”

  “Quinn,” Rory said automatically. “Obviously. Pence just said there’s a whole movement to save her. She’s by far the most famous of all of us. And she’s the most familiar to them, since she was there the longest.”

  Quinn shook her head immediately. “No. I might have some fans out there, but the majority of the public was scared shitless of me. The last thing we want is to make them afraid of us.”

&nb
sp; “Quinn’s right,” Dash said. “And as much as I hate to say it, it shouldn’t be anyone visibly affected. Not right away. We need to appeal to their emotional sides—show them someone relatable. Someone they could love.”

  “Haley,” Ridley said, standing up. “She’s perfect. She’s soft-spoken. Smart. Attractive. Young enough that she can’t properly be feared, but old enough that she won’t be considered naïve.”

  Everyone seemed to like this idea. Quinn grinned as she watched Haley’s soft brown skin turn crimson.

  “I agree,” Pence said, “but I have to point out something: If we put a kid in there, too, our emotional appeal skyrockets.”

  Quinn stiffened, knowing what came next. “Not Rory.”

  Rory turned to Quinn, eyes immediately narrowing. “Excuse me?”

  “Quinn,” Dash said, turning to look at her. “It’s not a bad idea. They’ll fall in love with her. They’ll be furious at the thought of someone trying to kill her.”

  “She’s just a child! She’d become a target!”

  “If she did,” Evelyn told Quinn, “we’d protect her. But the point is that she isn’t a target. The point is that no one in their right mind would consider her one.”

  Quinn understood her point. But she also understood what they did not: how many people out there weren’t in their right minds.

  • • •

  The meeting broke up shortly after that. Pence and Charlie, it was decided, were to direct the video. Rita and Simon would be in charge of the technical aspects of it, including lifting the internet filters and blocks. Rory and Haley, of course, would star in it. They insisted that the rest of the YA, plus Dash and Ridley, be heavily involved in the content creation.

  But there was something Quinn wanted to do first.

  “We need to have another premonition,” she told them as the majority of the room filed out, leaving just their group to plan. “I like this video idea—I think it’s the best we’ve got—but we still need to know what they’re planning. What if they’re faster? What if they’re planning on trying again?”