Chapter Sixteen

 

Kaliel comes up to me. “I’m sorry I was such a jerk. Can we talk outside for a minute? It’s about Kayla.”

“Did Stephen report her missing? I know her parents are against it, pero–”

“I’ll tell you when we have a bit more privacy.” He casts a sour glance at Tawny, who is looking over my work.

I understand how he feels. As I follow him out the door, I catch a peripheral glance of Brill, trailing along behind us, trying to look casual about it. I blink as we come out into the bright sunlight. Mamá and Minda already have a table set up across the lawn, prepared to sign autographs. Botas is running in a circle nearby, chasing something that, if I squint real hard, looks like a butterfly.

“They’re outside?” Kaliel sounds surprised.

Minda sees me and comes over. She looks sourly at Kaliel. Somebody probably told her about what he’d done at the club. She takes my arm, obviously anxious to separate me from him. “Bo, you should come sit with us. You’re as much of a star here as me or your mother.”

I’m blushing. “Sí. Just let me grab a Sharpie.” I turn to go back in.

“Wait.” Kaliel moves, barring the glass door.

There’s a bang from inside. Minda blushes green. “My cake! I was so sure I’d got it right that time.”

Pero, then there’s a series of three shatterclashing bangs, and Brill comes flying through the door, gloved hands shielding his face from the shattering glass. He bowls into Kaliel, knocking him flat. I fall backwards against Minda, and she holds me steady as the impact of the blast rocks me.

“That hurt,” Brill says, rolling away from Kaliel. There’s a cut above his eye, on the same side as the half-healed freezer-marked cheek, pero otherwise, he looks OK. He’s said before that thick leather jackets aren’t just decorative.

He unzips his, pulls the syringe halfway out and, while trying to shield it from onlookers, examines it for cracks. I can’t believe it didn’t break. I can’t look away from that dark, inviting swirl, even when he says plaintively, “No more putting it off. I need to get this to someone who can dispose of it properly before I wind up stabbing myself with it.”

He remains sitting on the ground while Minda and I rush back into the building. Some Zantites are emitting those high-pitched wails. My baby sister screams – glass-shatteringly loud, feartastically close, distinct even over the Zantite noises of pain and distress. Pero, I don’t spot her.

“Oh, no.” Minda races to where my family had been sitting. A bloody blue and yellow mess wearing the same clothes as Verex Kowlk is lying awkwardly in front of the seats. Minda rolls him backwards, off Sophia and Isabella. He’d leapt in front of them to protect them from the explosion. His head lolls and his eyes are open in surprise, his rubbery lips a line of final determination.

The cops are moving through the crowd, trying to keep everyone from panicking. The shakes are the worst I’ve ever had them as the IH tries to cluster in my blood to give me what I need to get through this – tries and fails.

The counter where Minda was working has been jangleblasted to rubble, pero the table with my borrowed laptop is still in one piece.

Minda moves to the center of the room, wiping azure goo off her hands onto her pants. “We need everyone to move outside in a slow and orderly fashion. The officers will be escorting you, a section at a time. Until then, please stay seated.”

Amazingly, everyone listens to her. Isabella and Sophia are safe. Mamá’s outside. But what happened to Mario and his family?

Tyson makes his way towards me, despite the acid scowls he’s getting from the Zantites who were just directed to stay put. He holds out my bag, which looks unscathed.

“Have you seen Mario?” I ask.

Tyson shakes his cabeza, and at first I think he’s answering my question. “I can’t hear you!”

Maybe his reptilian vibration-ears are more sensitive than I thought.

Extra policemen have come, and are looking for more bombs, examining the places where the others were set off.

I get outside as soon as I can and start asking everyone if they’ve seen a family of Earthlings. It’s not hard to pick up their trail, which leads to the food court of a nearby shopping area. They would have thought they had a good hour and a half, while the holo played. I ask to be let through the barrier the police have set up, and after I give him my autograph, the cop lets me through.

When I find Mario, all three of his niñas are eating dough balls soaked in nkeh syrup, and a small group of Zantites are holding print copies of The History of Cacao. They’re laughing, and Angelina’s at least smiling. Mario still looks unhappy. Y todavía, from his expression, I can tell he hasn’t heard about the bombing.

One of the Zantites sees me coming. “Bo! Will you sign it too? Right by your picture?”

I’m the main subject of the last chapter of Mario’s book, and the Zantite flips it open to the relevant page.

I don’t want to steal Mario’s thunder, pero he gestures at the book. “Por favor, Pequeña.”

He uses the shift in attention to escape. I sign the books quickly – those are some of the most lop-sided stars I’ve ever drawn – and then I follow him to where he’s standing in line for something resembling a beer.

“You don’t like having fans?” I ask.

“That’s none of your business, mi hermana.” He steps away as the line moves up. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“Trying to make sure you and the girls were safe. Somebody bombed the set.”

His face goes slack with shock. “Mamá?”

“She’s fine.”

“But Sophie and Isabella. I left them with that actor guy because they wanted to watch his movie.”

“The niñas are OK. The actor’s not.” Mi hermano looks like he’s going to crumble, so I put a hand on his arm. I can’t remember the last time I did that. “You couldn’t have known it wasn’t safe.”

Because Frank didn’t bother to warn him. It’s got to be extraño to be the only non-gun-toting guy in the group, the one left out of the plans.

“Why would someone do this?” Mario asks.

I shrug. “Best guess? Some Zantite has a vested interest in this invasion happening. Minda’s too determined to bring peace, and they want Verex Kowlk’s ruined face paired with Earth all over the feeds.” Pain spikes through my chest again as I remember Verex scrunching up his nose, mimicking my youngest sister. “Though I’m not exactly popular back home either. So I could have been the target.”

“You haven’t been popular for a long time.” Mario looks down at the intricately patterned floor. “I should know. I got a lot of flak for things you did, en tiempos pasados.” Back in the day.

“Is that why you won’t ever let me forget it?”

Mario looks surprised. “Lo siento. I don’t mean anything by it.”

“Whatever.” I leave him to scramble over to his family, collect them together, and be thankful that they’re safe. I look back, and he’s watching me walk away.

I can’t get rid of what’s burning in my blood – and I can’t use it either. When I get back, Brill’s being examined by the selfsame doc’s assistant who offered to get me IH my first night here. He’s left his jacket slung over a chair near the door of the improvised exam room, with his shirt folded on the seat.

“Babe?” Brill can’t turn around, because Rex has his arm up over his head, testing the joint for range of motion.

“Sí. You OK?” I’m going to regret this. It’s weak. Pero I quietly zip open his pocket and take out the syringe. I slip it into my own jeans.

“Cuts and bruises. This su doesn’t believe me when I say nothing’s broken. Except my phone. I hadn’t even gotten all the contacts in it yet.”

“Phones can be replaced, mi vida.” I slip out the door.

There’s a nice breeze, blowing away the smell of burning, and I make my way over to the same picnic table where I had sat with Fizzax, not so long ago. Someone has set up a row of white tents off to the side of the tables, for people to get out of the sun. They’re facing the other way, so despite the soft voices coming from inside some of them, this spot feels private, as I look away from the set, towards the tangled undergrowth between here and the beach.

I take out the syringe, trying – and crashbanging – to remember the horror I felt the first time, when this stuff was forced on me. Four or five hits of IH and my liver fails. It’s not a question. Pero I should be able to survive this one, and maybe when it burns away, there’ll be enough left over to make me feel strong.

Unlike Fizzax, I don’t have a fever, or a new kind of headache, so I’m probably not suffering from the virus, or whatever it is, that’s crashing people’s judgement. This is all me, looking into darkness and waiting for the darkness to flinch.

I uncap the syringe, press lightly on the plunger to make sure there isn’t any air in it. I’ve never given myself an injection, but I’ve seen enough medical holo to know I need to do that much. It’s harder to figure out how to find a vein.

I hear footsteps behind me and Brill sits down next to me. He doesn’t look surprised. Pero his eyes are so gray, they’re almost black.

“You here to stop me from doing this?” Without me even meaning to, my grip on the syringe tightens.

“Not by force, Babe.” He looks at the tents, the light fabric tinted by the very beginning of the sunset. “I just wanted to remind you of a few things. Like how strong you are, and how it might literally break my heart if you die.”

I sigh. I don’t cap the syringe. “I never wanted this, mi vida. Despite what the sleazarazzi said, I never took drugs. I had a bit too much alcohol when I was with Fabian.” Fabian, despite being a huge star now, had been the biggest mistake of my wannabe days. “I was brainblurred when he got both of his DWIs. Pero that’s as far as it went.”

Brill leans against me. “I’m sorry this happened to you, but you don’t have to give in to it. I’ve never had an addiction, so I can’t sit here and say it’s easy. But I do know you always have a choice in life.”

The fabric of one of the tents bends, then tips to the side. There’s a startled, “Hey!” from the next tent over as the whole thing collapses, leaving Mario standing there, looking caught out. He shifts his face from little-kid-with-hand-in-cookie-jar to stern-older-brother-about-to-teach-a-lesson.

“Bo, what is that?”

“Nothing.” I cap the syringe and throw it on the ground behind the bench. Which is equally childish. I can feel my cheeks going crimson, and I can’t decide if it’s because of what IH is – or because Mario is seeing me in my weakest moment.

“That didn’t look like nothing.” He sits down across from me and Brill. “I have no right to ask, after what I said to you today. Pero – you really never took drugs?”

I fight not to roll my eyes. “Ay, I was impulsive, not stupid.”

Mario looks down at the table. “I’m sorry I listened to Ana buzzbashing you. I should have realized – since you stole Fabian.”

“Who’s Ana?” Brill asks.

“A FeedCaster who claimed I was hitting on her guy – even though he had broken up with her well before we got together. Eventually I realized Fabian was just using me to make her jealous, pero by then things had gotten a little out of hand. She always hated me.”

“That’s an understatement,” Mario says. “She had an anonymous malcast called WhoHatesBoBenitez, with voice changers and everything.”

“I knew that was her!” I had just never been able to confirm it. And here, I could have asked Mario and saved myself years of pain.

Mario looks down at the table. “Look, why don’t we go for drinks later?”

Que? We’ve never done that. Pero, he’s serious. This could change everything between us.

“Sí,” I say. “I’d like that.”

Brill holds out his arm. “You OK if we go back now? Rex wants to examine you next, even though I told him you were outside when the bombs went off.”

I take his arm. “I can’t wait.”

We’re halfway to the improvised med center when I realize I left the syringe on the ground. “Be right back.”

I head back to the table just in time to see Mertex sliding the syringe into his pocket. He puts his hand to his side. He’s injured, and his torso’s been wrapped with yellow gauze. He spots me. “You shouldn’t leave things lying around.”

He doesn’t move to give it back to me, though. He’s probably still worried about our lives-bound-together thing, afraid of what I might do under the influence.

“Sorry about that.”

He shrugs. “You know the time you took it is the only other time I’ve seen it up close. It looks like a child’s toy, full of glitter and swirls, but there’s hero-stuff in there. And death.”

He’s still sounds fascinated with IH, pero there’s no chance he’s going to take it. Which makes it easier to walk away, despite my body’s insistence that I need that glitter and swirls. Girls and glitter go together after all.

I force myself to say, “So you’ll give that to Doctor Sonda for me, right?”