I squeeze some toothpaste onto the brush and go to work. The mint has a shocking bite. Dental floss feels like lasers shredding my mouth apart. Still, I force myself to do my best, spitting out one red mouthful after another. I turn the knob for water to wash it down the drain and watch it swirl around in the bottom of the sink. Odd that I’ve missed hearing its whisper in my ears. I suppose Spangler will have to turn off whatever it is that jams my glove if he wants me to train those kids. Wait! I’ll have an opportunity to get us all out of here this time, and not as some mad unplanned dash through a maze of hallways. I will have my power back.
I nearly sprint out of the bathroom, and I make my way to the door. I want the guard outside to know I’ll train the kids. I want him to tell Doyle right away, but before I can get there, I see my ladies smiling at me from ear to ear.
“What?” I ask.
They point to a chair in the corner. Fathom is here. He’s in shorts and a T-shirt, all with the same stupid logo, but who cares? He’s here. He’s alive and in my room, and I have suddenly forgotten how to breathe.
Neither of us waits for the women to leave. He’s out of the seat and wrapping me inside his arms before I can really process him. I don’t even hear the click of the closing door. All my attention is on his face, his eyes, his mouth.
“I thought you were—”
He stops me with a kiss. It’s firm but gentle, romantic but passionate, everything I have ever dreamed a kiss could be and a few ways I never dared all at once. I wrap my arms around his neck, and he pulls me in with his. Our mouths never part. I’m not sure they can.
I don’t know how long it lasts—minutes? Days? We might live out the rest of our lives connected by this kiss. Fine with me. Eventually he pulls back, rests his hands on my shoulders, and looks me up and down.
“Did they harm you, Lyric Walker?”
“Yes, but I’ll be okay. I’m just a little beat up,” I admit.
He blushes a little.
“What?”
“I’d like to see,” he says.
I’m stunned and taken aback. It’s my turn to blush, not because he’s flirting, but because I want to show him, but there are too many faults and scars and wounds and I’m too thin and my head is shaved and my lips are chapped and I would do almost anything for a tube of lip gloss.
But then I take a deep breath and I drop the robe.
I feel like I’m going to cry. I wonder if I will ever be able to be vulnerable with another person again. I lean down to grab my robe, but he takes my hand, steps close, and wraps himself around me.
“You have a long way to go if you are trying to collect as many trophies as me,” he whispers.
He kisses me gently and runs his hands along my shoulders.
“I need to tell you something right now, while I still have the courage to do it,” I say.
“I love you, too,” he says.
I can’t help but smile, because that was actually the coolest thing any boy has ever said to me, and this guy, he’s not so good at being a boy or being cool. I realize then that all along, as intense as this feeling has been for him, it was always infatuation and lust, but now it actually is love.
Then, well . . . then we fade to black, and I learn about the afterglow.
Chapter Fifteen
I WAKE UP ON A BED DRAPED IN MY ROBE, ALONE IN A SPARSE WHITE ROOM. I sit up and call for Fathom, but there’s no answer. At first I’m hurt that he’s not here; then I panic that they took him in the night. I tell myself that dragging him out of here would have caused a lot of racket, so I know he left under his own power. I don’t know how to feel about it. When I imagined the night I just had, I really only pictured the beginning, with all the kissing followed by the waking-up-and-smiling-at-each-other part. I was looking forward to the waking and smiling. I feel cheated.
I pad out of the room into the spa area and find a mirror over a sink. I know it’s silly, but I want to see if I look different, like if someone could tell what has happened just by looking at me. Sadly, I’m just as rough as I was yesterday, though maybe cleaner, and my hair is coming in a little. I guess the difference is inside me, which is actually the best place for such a thing. No one can get at it there. Spangler, Doyle, Amy, the guards, the client—they can’t take last night from me. It’s not on a phone they can snap in half.
Arcade.
I didn’t think about Arcade. I didn’t consider her for a second. Last night the only people in the world were Fathom and me. Even now, the only shame I feel is that I don’t feel ashamed. Last night he came to me. He made his choice. She can’t blame me.
And besides, their relationship was forced on them. It’s not real. What he and I are is real.
There’s a knock at the door and I cringe, wondering if it’s her, then realize that Arcade would just charge into the room without knocking. I hurry to open it, hoping that it’s Fathom on the other side. We need to talk about what we’re going to say to her. She’s strong and has swords in her arms she can stick into my soft parts. Aargh. We shouldn’t have done what we did before we talked to her. I broke the girl code on that one, but she’s got to understand. We’re in love.
I throw the door open, but it’s not him. It’s my mother and father, as well as Bex.
“You look better,” Bex says.
My mother wraps me up in the greatest hug of my life. My father joins her, while Bex hovers on the borders. I am thrilled to see them, of course, but I’m having trouble shifting gears.
“My baby girl,” my mom weeps, giving me big, hard, wet kisses all over my face.
“It’s okay, Mom,” I promise. “We’re all together now.”
Behind them is Doyle.
“I hate to have to break up this reunion, but Lyric needs to get dressed. We have to get started as soon as possible, but I will bring her back as soon as I can,” he promises.
Bex slams the door in his face, and he’s smart enough to leave it closed.
I tell my mother and father everything that has happened to us so far, filling in holes that Bex left out, and editing out a few things that will break their hearts. I explain what Spangler wants me to do. My mother doesn’t like it.
“I don’t have a choice,” I explain. “But I think it might give me a chance to get us out of here. If he wants me to train them to control the water, Spangler’s going to have to let me use it myself.”
“Will Fathom help you?” she asks.
“I haven’t asked, but I’m sure he will,” I say, then blush, thinking about him. I can’t help it, and it isn’t lost on Bex. She flashes me a curious look but says nothing.
There’s another knock at the door, and my spa ladies enter. Doyle tentatively follows.
“They’re here to take care of the rest of your family,” he says to me.
“You’re going to love this,” I tell them, then look at my mom. “Actually, you might want to supervise Dad.”
“Lyric, please,” Doyle says. “The team is waiting.”
“Let me get dressed,” I say. I walk to the closet, where a dozen fresh black White Tower jumpsuits are hanging. Putting one on physically repulses me, but there’s nothing else to wear. I snatch one off the hanger.
“Bex, feel free to steal anything you want from my closet.”
I head to the bathroom to put it on, with Bex in tow.
“Something’s different.”
Again, I blush.
“Fathom was here last night.”
“NO WAY!” she shouts. It’s so loud, I have to clamp my hand on her big mouth while she jumps up and down. “Oh, Lyric, you are like a trouble magnet.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You thought Arcade was pissed at you for having that picture. Wait until she finds what else you’ve had,” she says.
“Gawd, do you have to say it like that?” I groan, then eye her sheepishly. “Am I horrible?”
“You love him, right? This isn’t a Stevie Brinks thing?”
“That was
the third grade!”
“You knew Heather Stamp liked him, but you kissed him by the bumper cars anyway. It was scandalous. Arcade is not Heather Stamp. She can break you in half.”
“I know.” I cringe. “But I do love him.”
“You have got to tell her, Lyric. Maybe not right now, when we’re locked up like this, but soon. They’ve been together since they were little. I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, but you need to be prepared for some of her hostility.”
“I am . . . I will be.”
“Still, you’re such a hussy,” she says with a giggle. “Shadow called it. The first time he saw the two of you together, he knew you’d be a couple.”
“Bex, back at the theater. Duck . . . did you—”
She shakes her head. “That was a hard day, and I really just wanted to crawl out of it, but no. I let him kiss me. I thought he might be a nice distraction, but it just made me sad. I miss my boy. He broke me for everyone else, Walker. He’s in my head, in my dreams. He’s hanging on more than he did back in the fifth grade.”
There’s a tap on the door.
“Ms. Walker, please!” Doyle calls from the other side.
I get dressed and say my goodbyes, making Dad promise to be nice to the spa ladies. I follow Doyle out into the hallway that leads to his park. Once we get there, we step onto the catwalk and descend a flight of metal stairs that lets out onto the lawn. The ground beneath me is as real as it looked from above, slightly spongy and cool, like the great lawn in Kaiser Park, back in Brooklyn. It takes me back to times when Shadow, Bex, and I would lie beneath a tree and smoke cigarettes she squirreled out of her mother’s purse. I reach down and let the tips of grass tickle my palms. I wonder if it will affect my allergies.
“Pretty cool, huh?”
“Shut up, Doyle,” I say, irritated at how proud he is of his battlegrounds.
“Put this on,” he says, undeterred by my tone. He hands me a black skullcap. “I think the bandages will scare the little ones.”
“These kids need to get used to being scared,” I say.
“This place is supposed to be pleasant, or at least as happy as it can be. They’ll see plenty of ugly things later. Here, they’re safe.”
I slip the cap over my head and tuck it down over my bandages just as I hear a buzzer sound. Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes and tell myself to stay focused and wait for my opportunity. If you do everything right, you can destroy this place, and these kids will never know what they were being trained to do.
The double doors on the far wall open, and the children rush into the space. Familiar faces are among the crowd, and a few even smile and wave to me. Most hover around a nine-year-old with bushy black hair and sad blue eyes. I guess this is Georgia, Charles’s daughter. His last moments replay in my memory, the way he looked so eager before he pushed the elevator button, and how his head snapped back when the shot was fired. He was being brave. I wish I could tell Georgia, but Doyle asked me not to speak about it with her.
Angela Benningford’s children, with their bright red hair, gather around me. Angela was the last Sirena to be captured by the government, at least until they got my mom. The oldest of her kids is McKenna, who is my age, pretty with a pale complexion and freckles. She reminds me a bit of Luna, the Sirena girl who died when the Rusalka arrived. I realize that all Angela’s kids are beautiful; in fact, every kid in this park is gorgeous. It’s the Sirena part of them.
Emma Sands and her two sisters, Tess and Jane, are brown-skinned supermodels. Danny Cho and his sister, Sienna, are adorable. Finn and Harrison Cassidy, the twins, are transitioning from cute little boys into handsome adolescents, but there’s something else about all the children I’m starting to notice. They all look tired. Many of them have dark rings around their eyes, a telltale sign I know all too well. They are all struggling with migraines. Samuel Lir and I had the same problem for most of our lives. They kept me awake, forced me to hide away in dark places until the pounding and the lights stopped. It all ended when I put on the glove.
Spangler follows them out, then wades through their midst, leading them all to me. His smile reaffirms our agreement, and he expects me to reciprocate. I nod and grin. He doesn’t need to know that my smile is motivated by revenge and the many ways I intend to destroy everything around me and bring the roof down on his head.
“Children, if you don’t know our new family member already, let me introduce you to Lyric Walker,” he says.
“She’s joining us here in the park every day as your new instructor, helping David with your training. Can everyone say hello?”
The children say hi in unison like an elementary school class. They give me gentle, shy smiles, all except one. A boy in the very back grins wide. He’s tall and lean, around my age, maybe even a year or two older. He’s fresh-faced and olive-skinned, clean and happy, with thick eyebrows and a head full of brown hair. I recognize him from the neighborhood too. His name is Riley, I think. I feel like I’ve been at a party with him, but I can’t be sure. Bex would know. She remembers all the cute ones. I’m not sure about his name, but I remember that smile. I think he went to private school and his mother is a graphic designer, and they had a lot of money for Coney Island standards. He’s looking at me like he remembers me, too.
I break his gaze and turn back to the kids, counting them one by one. Including me, there are thirty-three, as Doyle promised. Only, he told me I would be training all the hybrid kids, and there is one who is not here.
“Where’s Samuel?” I ask.
“Who?” Tess asks.
Spangler frowns. “Samuel isn’t able to join us.”
“Does he have a migraine too?” Emma asks.
“No, he has a few disabilities that keep him from doing things, but he’s one of us and I think he should be here, don’t you?”
The children nod.
“Perhaps we can bring him tomorrow,” Spangler says, stiffly.
“That’s great,” I say. “He’s very special and you will all love him.”
Spangler asks each one of the children to take turns introducing themselves to me, and all at once they’re squabbling over who gets to go first. I meet Lilly, and Danny and Geno, and Alexa, and Dallas, and the boy in the back turns out to be Riley after all. I try to remember each name, but I can’t. It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to be here much longer.
“Did your mom and dad get sick too?” Georgia asks me.
“Sick?” I ask.
Spangler clears his throat.
“Yes, children, Lyric’s father got sick like your human parents. He is helping us develop a cure.”
I turn to Spangler, ready to demand an explanation for this ridiculous lie, when a little girl with a strawberry blond pixie cut and bright green eyes pushes through the group. She can’t be more than six and holds a stuffed rabbit in her hands with the White Tower logo sewn onto the bottom of its foot. Her name is Chloe, and her bunny is Mr. Fluffer. She’s Sam and Jill Norris’s daughter. They managed a furniture store in Park Slope, and she’s the mirror image of her mother.
“Have you seen them?” Chloe asks me, her face drawn and full of worry.
“Lyric hasn’t been here very long, and as you know, kids, all the infected people have to be kept away from the healthy people. That’s why we can’t let you see your families right now. You could get sick too,” Spangler explains. “They need their rest, but I can take them messages from you, like I always do.”
The children deflate with disappointment, but none of them argue. Even the teenagers seem satisfied by his story. He’s got them trained very well.
I don’t know what to say to them. Everything in this place is a lie. All of this deception against children is gross. Now Spangler and Doyle want to include me in their ugly fairy tale. I didn’t sign on for it. They need to know this is all an illusion.
“I’m going to tell these kids the truth,” I hiss.
“Ms. Walker—”
Something in his v
oice is threatening. I stare at him for a long moment, and I can see it in his expression. He will hurt everyone I love if I pop his balloon. I let him sweat a few more seconds and then turn back to the kids.
“A few months ago, a man known as the prime attacked Coney Island.”
“The evil king,” Cole says.
“Yes, he is evil. He came out of the sea with a group of people called the Alpha, who, as you know, are related to you. The prime wants to kill everyone who lives on the surface and take it for himself, even though his people disagreed. He used a bunch of scary monsters called the Rusalka to help him. My friends and I tried to fight them, but they were too strong, and our hometown was destroyed.”
“Coney Island is gone?” Breanne asks. She tugs on her braid nervously.
I nod.
“The Rusalka used a machine that controls the ocean, and they sent a huge wave to destroy everything in its path. Your homes are gone. I wish I could make up a story that wasn’t as sad as the truth, but I don’t want to lie to you.”
“Uncle David showed us videos. We saw you fighting them,” Dallas says.
Uncle David?
“Unfortunately, I didn’t fight them hard enough, and now they are attacking other cities, so we need your help.”
“The children have been preparing for this for a long time, Lyric,” Doyle explains. “Some of them for as long as they have been here. They know all about the mission and how important it is. They’ve worked very hard. All they need is for you to show them how to use their secret power.”
“Secret power?” I say. He’s so awful. Now who’s living in a comic book?