Toxic Heart

by Theo Lawrence

  “No,” I say. “I really can’t.”

  All I can think about, though, is what Hunter and the others are doing and whether they’ll come back safely. I’m so upset that I can’t even eat. Turk is deathly silent, which can mean only one thing: he’s worried, too.

  After we eat, I shower the grime from the Depths off my skin. At least having no hair means a lot less maintenance time.

  I wipe my towel over my head, and I’m done.

  Ryah is already asleep when I grab a cotton nightgown from Shannon’s dresser and slip it on, burying myself under the covers. I can’t believe that I spoke to Kyle, that I haven’t spoken to my parents in nearly a month. I think back to a year ago, or two years, or five—when I still let my mother pick out my clothes and did my best to please her; when I thought my father was the strongest man in the world; when I thought Kyle and I would be on the same team—our family—forever.

  Even if I wanted to, that’s not a time I could ever return to. I know too much now. My parents have lied to me, stolen my memories, nearly killed me. Kyle has betrayed me. Hunter is my family now; the rebels are my friends. I should be happy … and yet suddenly, I find myself crying for everything I’ve lost, for everything I imagined the future would bring that will never come.

  After about an hour of lying awake, my stomach begins to grumble, so I decide to go down to the kitchen and find something to eat.

  I slip out of bed and close the door softly behind me. Shannon’s bed is empty, which means she and Landon are still off somewhere with Hunter.

  Downstairs it’s mostly dark. Only the faint yellow glow from a lamp in the living room—the one Shannon threw at my head earlier—makes the hallway visible.

  I rustle through the pantry and pour myself a bowl of granola. I’m heading back upstairs to eat it when I hear voices coming from the second floor.

  I veer off the stairway, creeping toward the library door, careful not to make any noise. It’s open just a sliver, and light filters out around the doorframe, casting an odd-looking shadow across the floor and up the opposite wall. It’s two voices, I realize, a man and a woman. I lean against the wall until I can see through the open door.

  Two figures are huddled at the end of the long conference table. One of them is Shannon. I can’t see the other, but I know from the sound of his voice who it is.

  Hunter.

  “How many mystics have to die—or almost die—because of her?” Shannon is saying. “Why is she so important?”

  I know Shannon dislikes me, but hearing her speak like this infuriates me. Who is she to hate me? What did I ever do to her?

  “It doesn’t matter why,” Hunter says quietly. “She just is. And I don’t want any more mystics to die. The … project we’re working on won’t harm any mystics. Trust me.”

  What project? I wonder. What’s he working on with Shannon?

  I lean in even closer, trying to hear what else Hunter is saying, when a warm hand slips dangerously over my mouth.

  Mystic energy surges through my body, and my pulse skyrockets. I grip the bowl of granola so tightly I worry I might break it.

  “Shh,” the person says, pulling me away from the open door.

  His hand comes off my mouth and I whip around, prepared to scream.

  It’s Turk.

  He looks moody in the dark light. I catch the silver glint of an earring, but the rest of his face is hidden.

  “No one likes a spy,” he whispers.

  “I’m allowed to spy,” I say, beginning to calm down. “He’s my boyfriend. And what project is Hunter talking about?”

  Turk shakes his head. “Hunter doesn’t tell me everything—something you obviously can relate to.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m just stressed.”

  He presses a finger to his mouth. “They’ll hear us. Come with me.”

  I glance back at the library, where Shannon and Hunter are still talking, and jealousy floods through me. “Sure,” I say. “Okay.”

  “I like coming up here to think,” Turk says. He presses a touchpad and the door to the roof slides open. “You can see the Aeries from here. Well, some of it, anyway.”

  “I don’t have much luck with rooftops,” I say, remembering how my father tried to shoot Hunter and me on top of our apartment building on the West Side—until Hunter used his mystic powers to drop us through the roof so we could escape.

  The first thing I notice when I step outside is how cool it is. “Amazing,” I say.

  “Part of the force field, the one I warned you about the other night,” Turk says. “It hides us from view and protects us, and it’s temperature controlled.” He flashes me a smile. “Can’t beat that. We can see out, but nobody can see in.”

  “How does it work, exactly?” I ask.

  “Once it’s set up, it pretty much does its own thing,” Turk says. “Someone usually revitalizes it about once a week.”

  In the distance, I can see a scattering of old water towers that rise from the rooftops on thin, wired legs. The high windows of the buildings far above us in the Aeries are like hundreds of eyes, watching us, waiting, but everything below them, in the Depths, is masked by fog.

  Turk plops down and pats a space next to him. “Take a load off, Ms. Rose.”

  I sit as he stretches out, resting his hands behind his head and staring up at the sky. I put my bowl of granola down, careful not to knock it over.

  “If you look very carefully, you can see the force field,” Turk says.

  I lie back as well, stretching out my legs and resting my head on the roof, casting my gaze upward—only I don’t see anything except the smog-swirled sky, gray over blue over black. If I squint, I can see the silvery glints of the Aeries light-rail. But no mystic force field.

  “I don’t see anything,” I say.

  “You will,” Turk says. “Just wait.”

  He inches toward me. There’s barely any space between us now. Our arms are practically touching. Amber light from some of the streetlamps filters onto the rooftop, outlining his nose and cheekbones in a warm glow.

  Turk is nothing like Hunter. He doesn’t have the sort of face that inspires confidence in hundreds of thousands of people. He’s unrefined, rough around the edges. Turk says what he feels, does what he wants. He’s real. He’s not calculating like Thomas and Kyle and … even Hunter. It’s sort of strange to realize this about Hunter, that he’s not exactly who I thought he was.

  Turk catches me staring. “Your head looks … different,” he says.

  I immediately cover my scalp with my hands. Earlier, having all my hair buzzed off seemed defiant. Now it just seems silly. “Hideous, I’m sure,” I tell him, suddenly conscious that I’m wearing only a nightgown. “Don’t look at me.”

  Turk reaches out, prying my hands off my head. His fingertips sizzle my skin. “No,” he says. “Not hideous. Beautiful.”

  Turk’s eyes seem to sparkle as he leans toward me as though he’s going to kiss me.

  I shoot back up to a seated position and Turk falls onto his elbow. “Thanks,” I say. “You look … different, too. Better.”

  Turk rubs his elbow and looks at me strangely. “You didn’t like the Mohawk?” He pouts. “Most girls do.”

  “Well, I’m not most girls.”

  Turk sighs. “Oh, believe me. I know.”

  An uneasy feeling settles in the pit of my stomach. Does Turk like me? I don’t have any feelings for him. He saved me, that’s all, and he’s been looking out for me while Hunter is off fighting. There’s nothing more to it.

  “Are you okay?” Turk asks, resting a hand on my shoulder.

  “Hmm?”

  “You look deep in thought.… Is this about earlier … at the triage center?”

  “Oh, um. Yes,” I say, not wanting to admit what I was really thinking. “It was difficult.”

  Turk removes his hand and runs it over his head. “I imagine it would be—seeing your brother on the JumboTron after everything that’s hap
pened.”

  “Yeah,” I say. And you don’t even know that I spoke to him. “But really, it was seeing all those injured people—especially the children. It was all so … sad.” I wish I had a better word to describe how devastated I’d felt.

  He doesn’t respond, just stands up and steps toward the edge of the roof, thrusting his hands into his pockets. Without turning around, he asks, “Do you miss your parents?”

  I laugh. “That’s a random question.”

  He looks over his shoulder. “Is it?”

  “Well, sure,” I say. “They’re terrible people.”

  Turk nods. “But they’re still your parents. You don’t get to choose your family, Aria. It’s okay if you hate them and you miss them.”

  Childhood memories flicker before my eyes like scenes from a movie: trips to the Aeries greenhouses with my father, who loved to have me pick out the prettiest plants to bring back to our apartment; my mother showing me how to put on makeup, dabbing my face with creams and powders.

  The good memories are far and few between—mostly what I remember is distance, coldness.

  “I do think about them sometimes,” I admit. “I wonder what they’re doing. I wish they loved me unconditionally.” I feel myself start to tense up. “But they don’t. They love power and money. As far as I’m concerned, they’re not my family anymore. You guys are.”

  Turk shoots me a tight-lipped smile. “That’s how I’ve always felt about Hunter. My parents, they passed away forever ago. When I was five. It’s always been me against the world. I was passed along from mystic family to mystic family … to anyone who would take me in and feed me. I could tell I was never really wanted, though. When I met Hunter, I felt like I’d finally found my brother. We’ve always had each other’s backs. And now I have your back, too, Aria Rose. Always.”

  I feel myself flush with a feeling that’s hard to describe. I’m sad that my parents and Kyle didn’t turn out to be who I wanted them to be, and happy to have found people like Hunter and Turk.

  I cross my arms over my chest, feeling the soft cotton of the nightgown against my skin. “I do miss Kiki and Bennie, though,” I say. “Did you ever meet them?”

  Turk shakes his head. “I know who they are, though. Hunter’s told me all about them.”

  “Bennie was like an older sister to me. And Kiki reminds me of Ryah,” I say. “A lot. They’re both a little—”

  “Animated?” Turk says, raising an eyebrow.

  “That’s a nice way of putting it,” I say. “We have nothing in common anymore, though. Even if I saw them, I wouldn’t know what to say. They’d be upset that I led a double life—Kiki especially. She’s probably so incredibly pissed that I kept Hunter a secret. She was mad enough that I didn’t tell her about Thomas—and that turned out not to be, you know … real.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Turk asks. “Tell them about Hunter, I mean. I don’t give a rat’s ass about Foster.”

  “I didn’t think they would understand. Or approve.”

  “Of Hunter?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “And of me.” My lungs feel tight. Constricted. It’s hard to think about Kiki and Bennie, about my family—everything I gave up to be with Hunter, who’s been acting like I barely exist.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Turk says.

  “You do?”

  “Give him time.” Turk bites his lower lip. It makes him look young, vulnerable even. “Hunter. He’s going through a rough patch,” Turk says. “He needs time to adjust to his new life. And we need time to adjust, too.”

  “Of course,” I say. “I understand that. But there’s a difference between mourning the death of someone you love and …”

  Turk looks at me quizzically. “And what?”

  “He’s not even remotely the same.” It doesn’t feel right talking disparagingly about Hunter, but he’s practically a new person. The old Hunter created a loophole from where he lived to my balcony so we could see each other whenever we wanted to. So we’d rarely have to be apart.

  The new Hunter is actively keeping me away. Manipulating me for his own benefit.

  “It’s not you, Aria.” Turk takes his hands out of his pockets. “Like you said, he hasn’t had time to process Violet’s death.” Turk rocks back and forth on his feet; his shadow moves along with him, almost like it’s dancing. “He does love you, you know. More than anything. I know he’s not showing it right now, but give him time. Okay?”

  I’m about to respond when I hear a sharp patter above us.

  Rain.

  It’s a light splattering at first. I watch as the raindrops fall down, around us.

  And then I see the force field. It’s much more visible than when Turk first brought me to the mystic hideout: it rounds over our heads and down a few feet below us, covering the entire town house like a dome. A mystic dome.

  The raindrops make tiny impressions on the iridescent force field, which I can see fully now. It shifts colors seamlessly between different shades of green, like thousands of butterfly wings sewn together. It ripples like the water in the canals, delicate but strong.

  “Wow,” I say.

  Turk flashes me a bright smile. “Pretty cool, huh?”

  I don’t know why—maybe it’s the soothing pitter-patter of the rain, or the raid, or our matching shaved heads … but I’m feeling incredibly simpatico with Turk. Like I can trust him—even more than I trust Hunter right now.

  Just then, my TouchMe buzzes. I glance down: a text from Kyle.

  Summit is a go. Meet me tomorrow outside Belvedere Castle. 7 a.m. Come alone.

  “Who’s that?” Turk asks. “Hunter.”

  I shake my head. “No. Listen, Turk …”

  “Yeah?”

  “I have to tell you something,” I say.

  His eyes glisten with curiosity. “Oh?”

  “I know how close you and Hunter are. So if I tell you, you have to promise not to say anything to him.”

  Turk shrugs, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t know what you’re going to tell me,” he says. “How can I promise?”

  The rain is speeding up now, falling harder. “Forget it, then,” I say. “Never mind.”

  Turk moves closer, then exhales a huge rush of air. “Fine. I’ve never kept a secret from Hunter for as long as I’ve known him … but I promise. Just don’t tell me you’re doing something crazy like jumping off a bridge in the Aeries. Because that would hurt. And you’d die. Like, for sure.”

  “No,” I say. “Nothing like that. It’s just that … my brother wants to meet me privately.”

  Turk throws up his hands in frustration. “I wish you had said you wanted to jump off a bridge! Aria, you can’t meet up with Kyle—he’s dangerous. A total loose cannon. Hunter will never go for that.”

  “I know,” I say. “Which is why I’m telling you.”

  “Not cool,” Turk mutters. “This is so not cool of you to unload on me.”

  I ignore this. “We’re going to meet tomorrow morning at seven, near Belvedere Castle,” I tell him. “And I want someone to have my back.”

  Turk’s eyes narrow. “Aria, your brother is crazy and violent. He’s a Stic addict. You can’t trust him.”

  “I know. But he called and asked me to meet him. I said I would, but only if he called Hunter and Thomas to arrange a meeting.”

  Turk smacks his forehead. “So that’s why he called Hunter.”

  “I know how resistant Hunter is to compromise,” I say, “but he agreed to meet Kyle and Thomas—that’s a start, right? Maybe they’ll figure out a plan to end the war. And in order for the summit to happen, I need to meet Kyle first. It was part of the deal.”

  Turk doesn’t respond. He looks away, up at the rain.

  “You were there today, Turk. Too many people are getting hurt, dying, on both sides. If there’s even a chance that a meeting will resolve things—”

  “You have to do everything in your power to make it happen,” Turk says, finishing my sentence. />
  “Yes,” I say. “That’s it exactly. Please say you’ll show up tomorrow.”

  I hear the desperation in my voice, and I know Turk does, too. His face softens, and his shoulders slump in defeat. “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?” I say.

  “I have your back, Aria,” Turk says. “This is a terrible idea, but if you go to meet Kyle tomorrow, don’t worry. I’ll be there.”

  I can’t sleep.

  I’m full of jittery, anxious energy. What will I say to Kyle? Will he listen, or is he just showing up to preach the Rose family gospel?

  Finally, careful not to wake Ryah and Shannon, I creep out of bed to gaze through the window at Manhattan. I’m so used to the view from the balcony in my parents’ apartment—the majestic skyscrapers, their mirrored façades capturing the silvery bridges, the towering light posts practically bursting with stored mystic energy, pulsing with flashes of yellow and green and white.

  But there is none of that here, in the flooded city beneath the Aeries. All I can see are the few surrounding buildings, wisps of canals, and the empty lot on either side of us. In the distance, a few spires that once contained mystic energy stand empty and broken—smashed by the rebels as a reminder to the Aeries of how much they need mystic power.

  Follow the lights, I remember the mystic Tabitha telling me once. Without her, I never would have realized that the mystic light posts pulsed in patterns. Well, I followed those lights, all right, and they led me to Hunter. To love. To rebellion and now to war.

  I close my eyes and see an image of Hunter. And then of Kyle.

  I hope I’m making the right decision to meet him tomorrow.

  I hope I won’t regret it.

  The next morning, I wake up to the smell of bacon.

  It’s still dark in the bedroom, and early—the clock on my dresser reads 5:30 a.m. Next to me, Ryah is sound asleep, her head buried underneath two pillows. Beyond her, I can hear Shannon snoring lightly.

  I glance toward the foot of my bed and see a tiny wooden table with a metal tray and a perfect breakfast arrangement: two eggs over easy, two crisp slices of bacon, toast, a glass of pulpy orange juice, and a ceramic vase with a clipped red rose.