Spark (12 page)

I purse my lips in disgust.

“You’re not going to like this, but your magical new C-cup is an intentional design element, like a propagation of the species thing.” She swallows. “The gene modifier always finds the strongest candidates. Inevitably they’re smart, good-looking, physical people. Once the modification happens, these things are enhanced. As your frequency sensitivity matures you get smarter, stronger and better looking.”

I splutter, unable to find words.

“Not very PC, huh?”

“But – but I’m not – I mean, I’m just me.” My cheeks flame in the mirror.

“While you’re choking, you should know about one of the side effects of our condition.” She can’t look at me; instead she pulls the sparring dummy back into the corner with the other equipment. “Your body’s in overdrive on every level. Part of the design plan. Your reproductive potential quadruples.” Her head pops up from behind the dummy and her cheeks redden. “Your body will basically start chucking multiple eggs at your uterus every cycle, which becomes weekly instead of monthly.”

My mouth opens. “Tell me you’re joking.”

She grimaces. “You’ll bleed for only an hour one day a week. It’s a nightmare, the cramps are a bitch but at least they’re solid warning the wave’s about to hit.” She turns her back, browsing a display of throwing knives. “Then there are the pheromones.”

“Pheromones?” I say numbly, too grossed out by the thought of a weekly power-period to have the stamina for any more horrible surprises.

She removes a couple of knives with slim, leather-wrapped handles and gleaming four-inch blades and passes them to me. Their weight in my hands gives me a strange distracting thrill. Taking another pair for herself, she turns me to face the target by the stairs. On a wooden backboard she has attached a black paper silhouette of a man’s upper body, already scarred with multiple entry wounds. “Watch me closely.”

Left foot forwards, she extends both arms, left hand flat against the blade as she aims. Bringing the knife back by her ear, she points at the target, leans her weight on her back foot and launches the knife like she’s fired a bullet. A blur and it lodges in the centre of the target’s chest with a loud
pock
.

My spine zip-zaps with anticipation. “Again. Show me again.”

“Evie, listen.” She draws a deep breath. “When I say, pheromones, what I’m trying to say is from now on your scent is going to attract more attention than you’re used to. From men – boys, guys generally.”

I forget the knives and gape at her. “I’m in
heat
? Like a
dog
?”

“No! That’s disgusting.”

“Yeah?” I want to cover myself and hide. “Will they come up and
sniff
me?”

“You won’t necessarily smell any different. Just … more appealing.”

I turn my back, yank my collar open and inhale deeply through my nose. I can’t smell anything different about my skin. I’m about to ignite with more swearing and ranting when a startling memory arrests me. Jamie. The heady aroma when he carried me upstairs. I gasp, bringing my fists either side of my head, knives and all. “Jamie – Jamie, he’s got this incredible scent – his skin – you think he’s …?”

Miriam gives me a hard look but the suggestion doesn’t faze her. “Clearly the gene’s in the family. It’s a possibility. Jamie’s certainly,” she clears her throat, “symmetrical.” She assumes her stance before the target, aiming and throwing with ease. “But there’s no way of knowing. Just because Kitty’s a Spark, it’s no guarantee that Jamie’s anything.”

It is too late; the wild idea has hold of me. I rake back over our meeting at the hospital, the intense appraisal as he questioned me. A memory springs up. “He touched my neck! At the hospital, he – he gripped me here and squeezed. You think he might have been checking?”

“It’s not like you could ask him, kiddo.” She comes behind me and takes me by the shoulders, positioning me before the target. “Recall what you saw and let your body replicate the moves.”

She steps back and I adjust my stance, preoccupied by thoughts of Jamie.

“There are rules. If Jamie’s an Affinity agent, then he knows the rules too. Anonymity is the big one and they police it. It’s the first tenet they drum into you at orientation and trust me, Affinity will not tolerate indiscretion and won’t hesitate to discipline you if you break the rules. Come on, aim.”

I have to set Miriam’s warning aside to concentrate on the throw. I draw my arm back and instinct provides an easy supply of instruction for my muscles, like my brain simply lifts it from a database. An irrational sense of confidence grips me and I shift my weight, pivot and release the knife. It soars along the same trajectory, landing only an inch beneath Miriam’s.
Pock
. An electric charge burns through me. “Whoa.”

“Ha!” Miriam claps. “Excellent. Again.”

I don’t throw. I turn and look her right in the eyes. “You’re breaking the rules. What will they do to you if they find out?”

She looks back to the target. “Don’t worry about me, Evangeline.”

“I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“I know what I’m doing. Now, aim.”

I’m not reassured but I resume my stance, replicating the exact same steps as before, landing my throw directly between my first and hers above it. The buzz is undeniable but fleeting. “There’s no out, is there?”

She doesn’t answer.

I spread my arms. “This is my life.”

Her lips part but close again.

The injustice is crippling. I shake my head. “And Kitty’s life.”

“No,” her voice lifts. “No. That’s one good thing. The Spark only has one ignition in them. You deactivate the Stray and that’s it. Kitty will never go through it again.”

Fierce hope rises in me then fades almost instantly. So what if I can run faster, block a sparing dummy or throw a damn knife? All fluky beginner stuff. I felt the brutal reality and sheer violence of Miriam’s alley memory, the total certainty it requires to respond the way she responded. I sit on the padded bench of the weights machine. “I have to kill him?”

She bites her lips. “You can’t reason with the Stray, Evie. They don’t stop.”

“I’m not concerned for his wellbeing, Miriam.” Feelings churn inside me that, pre-Spark, would have made me recoil. “I’m worried I’ll be too useless to do it.”

She nods brusquely, no judgement in her eyes – she knows what I feel. “You need to be aware that until this is over, you’re going to be super paranoid. Anyone who looks at Kitty twice is going to seem like a threat, but you can’t make assumptions. You have no idea who she’s had contact with.” She goes and removes the knives one by one. “It’s a mistake to rely on anything other than the signals you sense. Think of it as a bandwidth you’re scanning, interpreting what comes through. Unfortunately, when you’re new, your sensitivity isn’t strong or reliable – you’ll pick up a lot of static. That’s why you have to train hard and stimulate your frequency sensitivity.”

After my visit to the hospital, I know paranoia is a factor. I can’t imagine ever feeling normal again and hate the absence of the tether. I miss its reassuring pulse.

Miriam returns the knives to the display and goes over to the corkboard. She points to a photograph of a teenage boy. I draw close and stare at him. He grins through his messy brown hair. Scribbled in the corner, his name, Callum Greene. He doesn’t look much older than thirteen. A black line of marker pen crosses through his picture. Next to this, a sticky note with a question mark. “He was my first Spark.”

I hug my waist for something to hold on to. “He’s so young.”

“He was fifteen. I was twenty. He sold me coffee in a cafe in New York.” Her mouth presses tight. “I couldn’t save him. I didn’t know what was happening to me. He was stabbed in the neck on his way home from work on a Saturday night.”

It’s like having a bucket of ice poured down my back. If she failed, what hope is there for me? For Kitty?

The next Spark, a woman in her mid-twenties. Lauren Sutton. Beside this, a photocopy of a driver’s licence. Jason Lyle. His image, crossed out with a red marker.

“This guy was her Stray?”

She barely nods.

“And you got him?”

“I did.”

There has to be nearly thirty, maybe thirty-five photographs of Sparks. Eight have black lines through them – the ones who didn’t make it. They’re closer to the top. Beside them are sticky notes with question marks. The rest are shots of survivors and the Strays who’ve been crossed out with red marker.

Something fierce rises in my chest and I reach for Miriam’s hand, staring at the board, the evidence of her DNA. “Show me how to save Kitty.”

She turns to look at me, her brown eyes warm and deep. “We’ll train during the day and run in the evening.”

“In the dark?”

“Don’t you want to check out your night vision?”

“But Mr Gallagher, I – I explained to Jamie that I would stay out of the way.” I stand rigid in the hall, trying not to crush the telephone in my hand. My heart pounds like it might break loose from its valves. I cannot be having this conversation. The thought of prolonged separation from Kitty is unacceptable.

Leonard Gallagher has the gift of immovability. Even if I let go of social restraint and flew into a full panic-induced rage, he’d still respond in the same polite unwavering tone. “Things have changed, Evangeline. Jamie didn’t know the doctors would place restrictions. It’s enough that detectives will be coming in and out over the next couple of days.”

“I can wait in the corridor. I could–”

“No.” The line crackles. “She needs rest, Evie. I’m asking you to respect my decision.”

Arguing would only make me sound unreasonable and offensive, but holding back feels like swallowing a stone. “Of course. I’m sorry, Mr Gallagher. I don’t want to upset anyone.”

Leonard sighs, a soul-deep sound. “Kitty’s lucky to have friends who care as much as you do and we appreciate it.”

My throat constricts. “Jamie said you were going to review the CCTV footage from the ball. Did it show anything?”

“It – it was very difficult to make out; the police are having it analysed.”

“What about the DNA test?”

“It’s too soon for results. Evie, I promise we’ll keep you posted, but you might not hear from us until Kitty’s been discharged and is settled in at home.”

I close my eyes. “A week?”

“At the least.”

There are parting words but the white noise in my head devours everything.

I hang up the phone and lean against the bookcase, closing my eyes to reach for Kitty; waiting for the peak in fear, the looming shadow. Nothing comes, nothing but static. It doesn’t comfort me. I hate the feeling I’m missing something.

Miriam’s head appears out the glass door of her studio. “Who was that?”

“Leonard. Doctors say no visits.”

“Oh.”

We look at each other in silence.

I straighten up. “Can I take the car? I can sit in the parking lot.”

“That’s ridiculous. She’s safe there.” Miriam steps into the hall and closes the studio door with a clap. “How many times do we have to go over this? You need to concentrate on training, stimulating your frequency so that you can read the bandwidth. It’s the only thing you can trust. There’s a difference between run-of-the-mill anxiety and the kind of signal that will build when Kitty’s in danger.”

Familiar anger flares inside me, the combination of frustration and fear. “Waiting across town for blind panic to hit me while some psycho guts her in her bed doesn’t strike me as an efficient use of time!”

She closes her eyes as though searching for strength. “This is not the only time in your life you will feel this way. You still have to live, be a functioning human being, not some crazy vigilante.”

“I want to go back over the photos again.”

“You’ve been over them and over them. It’s pointless, a dangerous distraction that only feeds your paranoia.” She looks at her watch. “I have a bus load of models arriving in half an hour. I suggest you go downstairs and work out, and when I’m finished we’ll do some reflex training.”

She disappears inside the studio and I stand staring in the hall.

A week. Maybe more.

Twelve hours apart from Kitty has almost driven me mad. I can’t imagine seven days of that kind of torture. I need the tether, that pulse that tells me she lives and breathes.

The Virgin sits beside me on her shelf, mournful eyes downcast, her blue robe filmed in dust already, lint at her feet. I wipe her carefully, my fingers trembling, wishing I’d prayed when I had the chance.

The Gallaghers’ rambling estate merges with the forest but the huge stone house sits on a rise near the south-east boundary, surrounded by gardens and manicured lawns. It has deep-set panelled windows, French doors opening onto sweeping porches, an elegant balcony running the length of the top floor and a slate roof. Less ostentatious than the governor’s mansion and all the more impressive for its restraint – grand not grandiose.

The sun has nearly set but we’re early on account of my seismic reaction to Miriam’s dawdling. We sit silent and sullen in the idling car, waiting for the gates to open. I grit my teeth. The gates take too long, like everything that has placed itself between Kitty and me in the past
fourteen
days: drip-fed information, the Gallaghers’ responses to calls and messages, endless days and sleepless nights and even time itself. Molasses slow. Then, finally, an invitation to dinner. I picture jumping out of the passenger seat, forcing my way through the increasing gap, charging up the long curving drive and launching myself through the dining room windows …

“Please don’t break the armrest,” Miriam mutters.

I release the groaning plastic and fold my hands in my lap, bouncing my knee in time with my pins and needles, zip-zap-zip-zap-zip-zap. I grip my knuckles and wince at the sting beneath my bandaids. I’d taken skin off each joint and the calluses inside my palms were just as bad – combination of rope burn and reflex training. At least my thumb has healed from the kitchen surgery.

I fidget with the hem of my dress, counting in my head until the gates are wide enough for Miriam’s car. “Finally!” I lean forwards in my seat.