8

Kai tucked Paintbrush into bed and pulled the blankets over her. Peta sat on the mattress opposite, watching. Kai tucked the blanket under Paintbrush’s chin the way he liked them to be, and straightened up to stretch out a knot in his back.

Peta quietly padded over to him. Her silvery hair was tucked behind her ears, and she had dark rings under her eyes that made her seem more porcelain-fragile than usual. She tugged on his shirt. “Where’s Evazee?”

I would love to know that myself. “She’ll be back soon, I’m sure. How are you?” He hadn’t seen much of the girl since they’d come home through the mist.

Peta ignored his question. She balanced on one foot and drew circles on the floor with the other. Her whole attention was on Paintbrush. “Why is she all glowy?”

“You can see that?”

“Is it catching?” Peta backed up a few steps, holding her hands up.

“No, not like chicken pox. Do you like it?”

Peta wrinkled her forehead and as she was about to answer, a commotion broke out outside the room. Kai ran to go see.

Evazee flew down the passage, red blotches riding high on her cheeks and trailing down her neck.

Elden half-ran, half-walked to catch up.

“Evazee, please just listen.”

“I don’t want to hear anything more from you. Back off.” She brushed past Kai, misjudged the space, and slammed him against the wall.

One look at her face took the words off his tongue. He caught Elden’s eye, but Elden looked away.

Kai stopped him with a hand on his chest. “What’s going on?”

Elden waved at Evazee’s departing back, ran a hand through his hair, and shrugged. “Women. I don’t get them.”

“She’s steaming. You must have done something.”

Bree pushed past Elden. “More like what he didn’t do.” She smacked her brother on the back of his head. “For the record, I would also be mad at you. Just saying.”

“But I’m trying to explain myself, and she’s just not hearing me.”

Peta poked Elden in the belly, waited for him to look at her, and then graced him with the fiercest glare she could muster. She turned on her heel and stormed off after Evazee.

Elden followed them with his shoulders bunched and his hands in his pockets.

Bree patted Kai’s arm. “We are in deep—” She glanced around, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Is there somewhere more private than this passage?”

Kai took her arm and led the way to Torn’s office. The door shut behind them with a loud click that made Bree jump.

“You stole the necklace.” The statement popped from Kai’s mouth as a hard accusation.

Bree rolled her eyes. “Never mind that. You need to know what I saw. Kai, this is beyond anything I’ve seen. It’s an onslaught.”

Kai perched on the edge of the desk and held out a hand. “Necklace.”

“Are you serious? You won’t listen to me until I give it back? Plot twist. I don’t even have it. Evazee made sure she took it the moment it closed. Which I think is pretty dumb because my imprint is on it, not hers.”

“Your paintbrush imprint was on the necklace?”

Bree sighed as if he’d managed to drain her last splodge of energy. “Identical.”

“Anyway, we borrowed it. We didn’t steal it. We were going to give it back as soon as we could. Now, can we please get back to the onslaught?”

Kai made a mental note to get the necklace from Evazee. Though he should probably wait for her to calm down first. Bree was making no sense, and today had been too long. Once she’d gotten this off her chest, maybe he could convince her to make coffee.

Bree poked him in the chest. “You’re not listening to me. I can see it in your face.”

“You’re not saying anything that makes sense. Beyond thievery and general doom and gloom, I’m not hearing much to be concerned about.”

“Fine. I’ll just say it. A building full of dark Affinity serum. If you think what happened here at the OS was bad, this was nothing. A gnat in the Amazon. This setup is not some haphazard thing to mess with some school kids. This is a carefully planned operation with a calculated mind behind it that is terrifying.”

Kai shook his head. “Are we talking about reality, or something you saw on the internet?”

“We walked through the rooms. I could have run my fingers along the glass bottles if I’d wanted to.” Bree shuddered.

Her words sank in, and Kai’s stomach twisted. “If what you’re saying is real, I don’t know how one would ever reverse the effects of that much serum. Right now, I’m having a tough time undoing the damage done to this building full of kids. I’m not getting it right.” He blinked and shook his head. “Somebody needs to sort this out.”

Bree paced. Her red hair bobbed as she walked. “Yes, you. You are here to fix this. There is more to this than the lives in this building.”

“I don’t buy that. You make me sound like some sort of chosen one.”

Bree stopped pacing. “You think you’re involved in this because of some freak accident.”

“I’m the only person I know to get knocked over by a bus, so yeah, that fits.”

“Don’t be cheeky.” She waved a finger in his face, one eyebrow riding dangerously high. “You know what? I don’t care if you are here by accident, or by some divine choosing. The fact is—you’re here. You can do something. I’ve seen you cringe as you walk amongst this bunch. If that serum is released, I can’t begin to imagine how far the damage will spread. You can’t ignore this.”

“I could say the same of you. You are also here. Same with Zap, Evazee...even your brother.”

“You’re right. I will do whatever you tell me to. But like it or not, you are the catalyst.”

Nothing Kai thought of seemed an appropriate response to that. The best he could do was to not laugh out loud. “Your opinion has been noted, I still say we’ve each got a job to do. Now tell me where you were.”

“We tracked down the pendant vision. I was hoping it would take me to my father. You know how you keep saying he’s alive?” Bree scuffed the carpet with one foot, avoiding his eyes. “There’s a part of me that really wants to believe you. Anyway, what we saw through the window looked familiar. The vision led us to my old school. It was horrible. It’s all burnt down, a charred skeleton of a building. But it turns out that the school is just a cover. Below the school is a massive storage depot. Somewhere they are pumping out and bottling the stuff faster than we can pat ourselves on the back for making it back home through the mist. There’s a lab onsite. I don’t know what for, maybe quality control? There must be some rich sponsors backing the whole operation. I didn’t get a chance to see it all properly. We were dragged through so fast.”

“Wait, are you saying that those people knew you were there?”

Bree went back to pacing, squeezing her fingers. “This is where it gets a little complicated. You know Elden was involved in the whole OS thing? Well, we ran into two guys who knew him. They thought he had sought them out on purpose, they didn’t seem to realize he is with us now. While they were talking to him, Evazee and I had a look around.”

“You went snooping? Are you nuts?”

“We didn’t think it through, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. The guys who know Elden work in the labs, and they came and found us.”

“And they took you on a tour and happily let you waltz out of there to come back here? I’m not buying it.” He grabbed a paper from the desk drawer, wrote on it, and held it up. What if you’re bugged?

Bree snatched the paper, crumpled it up and threw it at his chest. “We weren’t bugged, that’s such a dumb idea. Good grief.”

Kai threw the paper ball back at her, and it hit her on her nose. “You don’t know that. Why is Evazee so angry?”

Bree squirmed. She shut her eyes tight and blurted, “They took us for marking. I got off lightly, but they did her. Elden stood by and watched. He didn’t stop them or say anything. She’s a bit cross.”

“I don’t get it. Is Elden still working with them, or is he with us? And what does it mean, they did her?”

Bree shrugged and looked lost. “Evazee was marked. Elden? I don’t know.”

“You said you got off lightly. What does that mean?”

“I’m marked already, Kai. But you know that.”

“Your marking got us safely through the Spirit Cuttings. I remember.” Kai rubbed his neck. A few more knots had developed while he’d been talking to Bree. “This is a lot to take in. I don’t know what to do.”

“You’re always speaking of Tau. Why don’t you ask him?”

“I do ask him about things.”

“Then surely he should show up and tell you what to do.”

Kai snorted, “It doesn’t work like that. I can’t just rub a magic lamp and suddenly poof, there he is.”

“So how does it work, then?”

“I’m still figuring it out. A lot of it is joining the dots, and believing what he says.”

“That makes no sense. But all that aside, listen to me carefully. If that serum gets released, you would never be able to undo the damage. The way I see it, you don’t have a choice. You have to stop it before. And to do that, you’re going to need an army.”

 

~*~

Evazee stalked through the OS with her fury as a barrier. She made it to the lounge of stolen fruit without anyone speaking to her and shut herself in. The moment the lock clicked, hot tears ran. She felt her way to the couch and threw herself into its softness, fury blazing through her. None of this was fair. None of it made sense. To have her gift stolen was bad enough. Being marked as one of them? That disqualified her utterly and completely.

Elden. The biggest sting, the pimple on the abscess. She couldn’t deny that he’d slipped through her defences, got under her skin. From the moment he’d taken over her training, she’d seen the tender side of the man. Feeding her on the roof, protecting her. But today? Today had been the ultimate betrayal. He’d stood by silent and allowed her to be marked, branded! as one of the enemy. There were a hundred ways he could have stopped it, but he didn’t. The memories blurred and bled together, but she remembered screaming. Screaming his name.

Nothing.

How could she have been such a fool to think he cared for her at all? Jesus, I don’t want this. I don’t want any of this. Help me.

Nothing.

No warm glow, no quiet peace inside. Cold, hard nothing.

Her tears dried up, and she stayed on the couch, a small, curled bundle of heartache, shivering in the dark.

The click of the door catch woke her. Another click and light flooded the room. It was Kai. He crouched down to her level. She could hear him speaking, but the sounds were like underwater bubbles. A familiar scent drifted through the air. Tea.

“Evazee, wake up.”

“What do you want?”

“I made tea, you have to drink it. I don’t make tea for anyone.”

She may be disqualified and outcast, but she couldn’t find it in herself to be mean, so she pushed herself upright and squinted at Kai through crusty eyelashes. He grinned and placed a hot mug in her hands. It stung her fingers, but it was good to feel again. She sipped and swallowed and felt warmth curling through her insides. She made it half-way through the cup before she was ready for talking. “I’m drinking your tea. What do you want?”

Kai bottomed down on the carpet and ran fingers through his spiky hair. “We have a problem, and I need your help.”

Evazee kept sipping, not trusting any words that might come out of her mouth.

“Bree told me about your field trip.”

Did he know about the marking? Surely not, or he wouldn’t be asking for help. Tainted help.

“Bree thinks I need to raise an army to stop the serum from being distributed. What do you think?”

“I don’t know if an army will be enough. This is a full-on onslaught.”

“There’s that word again. Onslaught. Did you and Bree rehearse your speeches?”

Evazee drained the last drop and set the mug on the table next to a lamp that sat off-centre on the round top. “Don’t be daft. We’re just calling it as we see it.” Who would deliberately put a lamp off-centre?

“As I see it, all we need to do is shut down the serum factory and the distribution centre. Trying to use this bunch of kids? It would never work. They’d need to be effective in the natural and the spiritual realm, and immune to the negative serum. Right now, they’re just a lost bunch of broken souls. We don’t have time to fix that. There has to be a better way.”

“I agree. They will never be the army you need. If you’re not getting anywhere, why do you keep working with them?”

“How can I send them away from here, broken? What kind of life would they have? Forget training these kids to fight. I just want them whole. Here’s the thing, Zee, you saved me from dying. I would have kept walking through those black gates. But I didn’t because you showed up. That’s one example of many. How do you do it, and why won’t you train others?”

Evazee pushed the lamp to the centre of the table. Much better. Her hand brushed the switch, and the darkness flooded in. She felt for the switch again and light returned.

Kai sat frowning at the lamp as if it were a two-headed alien. His face lit up, and he grinned at her. “Evazee, you are a genius. Thank you!” He jumped to his feet, kissed her on the head, and ran out.

Evazee sat, blinking. Maybe her friend had finally cracked under the pressure.

~*~

Kai found Zap and Ruaan raiding the fridge in the kitchen. Runt sat cross-legged on the counter-top, humming to herself with a kitten on her lap.

“I want my necklace back.”

Kai ruffled her hair and stroked the kitten. “We’ve been through this. I’m not budging. As soon as it’s fixed, I will give it back to you.”

Runt huffed, but went right back to humming without missing a beat.

Kai tapped his friend on the shoulder. “Zap, you’re a bit of a lab rat, right?”

“Excuse me? I believe lab technician is the term you’re looking for.”

Kai waved off his correction. “Same thing. I need you two to start developing an antidote to the negative Affinity serum.”

“There is a formula under development that they use for the Recruiters. I don’t know where it’s kept though.” Zap paused and his nose wrinkled. “I might be able to recreate it from memory. But I must warn you, it has some nasty side effects.”

“As long as it doesn’t stop us from using our Affinity. We can deal with side-effects. Runt here, she seems to be immune. Maybe she can help.”

Runt’s eyebrows lifted, but she kept humming and stroking the kitten that stretched, purred, and curled up into a tighter ball.

Zap was tapping on the palm of his hand as if making a shopping list. “I think we’ve got all the chemicals I need. Come on Ru. I need you.”

Ruaan gave one last longing glance at the contents of the fridge, but Kai pushed him back and shut the door. “We need this yesterday, guys. Go, go, go.” Kai shooed them both out the kitchen.

Ruaan was still staring at the fridge as the kitchen door closed behind them.

Kai turned in a slow circle. “So Runt, I have a question for you. The fridge, urn, toaster, oven...what do they all have in common?”

“Obvious. Food.”

“Bad examples. Let me add a lamp, computer, and a heater. Now what would you say?”

“Is this some kind of test?” Runt tilted her head at him as if he were nuts.

“More like an epiphany.”

“An epipha-whaty?”

“None of these things work unless they are plugged into a power source. Once they’re plugged in, they automatically do what they were built to do.” Kai flourished his hands like a magician revealing the bunny in the hat.

“That’s a very obvious epipha-thingy.”

“But you see, I’ve been trying to get this building full of people to operate in Affinity without first connecting them to the source of their Affinity. For some of them, it sort of works. You can sweep a floor with a vacuum cleaner brush if you try really hard. But it’s far better to plug it in before trying.”

“So what are you gonna do?”

“Introduce them to the Source.”

“How are you gonna do that?” The kitten woke up and tried to jump off Runt’s lap, but she tucked it close to her chest and held on.

“The only way I know how.”