Tremble (25 page)

“But don’t feel bad. If I’m going down, I’m taking you with me.”

And with an almost inhuman roar, Kiernan charged me. It all happened so fast. Half a heartbeat. A fraction of a moment. I heard Kale call out as the ground beneath my feet disappeared and the world flipped. One minute Kiernan’s hands were wrapped around my throat, the next a sharp sting assaulted my entire body. Like a full-body slap—then icy cold water all around.

The force of the impact separated us, and I fought against the urge to suck in a deep breath. Surface. I needed air. My foot came in contact with something solid—Kiernan. She made an attempt to grab my ankle, but I avoided her and kicked hard for the surface. My head crested the water, and I lunged for the rim of the tank to haul myself out, but she grabbed my leg and forced me under again. I managed a shallow breath before I went down, but it wasn’t enough.

My lungs were on fire, and my heart felt like it would explode at any moment. Kiernan, with her singular focus on dragging me to the grave with her, didn’t give up. Each time I pushed her away, she came at me with a renewed sense of energy.

In a panic, I started thrashing. My knee collided with the side of her head, sending her far enough away for me to make one last escape attempt—only I couldn’t. Kiernan was no longer holding me back, having drifted away and down to the bottom of the tank, but I couldn’t move. My foot was stuck on something. Frantic, I twisted and bent, trying to find the source, but my time ran out. Everything dimmed around the edges, and my entire body went numb.

I don’t know how long it lasted. One minute I was giving in to the inevitable, the next, a soft voice was calling my name. Over and over. Begging and pleading for me to stay.

“Dez,” it breathed. Warmth pressed against my lips, followed by a burst of air. A second later, a foul rush of fluid surged up my throat, choking off my newly found source of air. Strong hands rolled me onto my side, allowing me to breathe easier.

“You weren’t breathing. Dez, I thought you—”

I tried to sit up, but nothing happened. “Kiernan—”

“Stay as still as you can.” He pulled the hoodie over his head, the edge of his shirt catching and riding up to reveal well-toned muscle. Normally I wouldn’t have an issue with the view, but I got the distinct feeling something was wrong.

He wadded the hoodie into a ball and slammed it against my shoulder. I tried to wriggle free—the pressure didn’t hurt, though it felt weird—but he was too strong.

“Dammit,” he cursed, and I tried not to laugh. It sounded so strange coming from his lips.

I tried again to pick up my head, but it felt as though someone were holding it down. I did manage to turn it sideways—and was sorry I had. “Oh my God.” The words spilled from my lips as my heart skipped a beat. I’d forgotten all about getting shot.

“Shh!” he whispered in my ear, arms slipping beneath my legs and behind my head.

The world tilted sideways, and then up. “I don’t feel anything. Did I—” I squinted into the tank below. There was a dark, unmoving figure at the bottom. “Is she—”

“It’s not bad,” he said, taking the steps faster than I would have dared. They were metal, and everything was soaked from me dripping everywhere. “It’s not bad.”

I wanted to tell him that when people repeated themselves—him in particular—that was the very definition of
bad
, but I didn’t. Or couldn’t. My lips, like my head, were too heavy to move.

Kale’s expression was fierce. Oddly
familiar.
As everything faded to black I figured out why the painting in the holding room looked so damn familiar.

I just hoped I lived long enough to tell someone.

33

“Am I dead?”

Brandt-as-Henley rolled his eyes. “Seriously? Would I be the first person you saw right before entering the Pearly Gates?”

“Fiery pits of hell maybe,” I mumbled, sitting up. I was curled around a large, soft pillow, scrunched in a comfy armchair. “Did we make it? Is everyone okay?”

“More or less.”

More or less? I didn’t love that answer.

“So I missed it all? The big escape?”

He shrugged. “You didn’t miss much. Actually, consider yourself lucky. Ginger has been on a rampage over Kale’s little stunt at the airport.”

“Kale’s—” Then I remembered. He’d used his ability in front of a huge crowd. “Oh, crap.”

“Yeah. She’s been playing damage control all day.” Brandt winked and waggled his brows. “Cabin’s a bit more crowded now, too. That goth guy came back with us. A hot chick named Carley, too.”

I was right. We were totally going to have to expand. “Kale?”

“He’s okay,” Brandt confirmed, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“So, let’s not beat around the bush. I was shot, right?”

He frowned. “Yeah. You were.”

“And I almost drowned.”

“The way Kale tells it, you
did
drown. He said you stopped breathing. Poor guy looked physically ill just telling Sue about it.”

“So the gunshot thing, am—am I okay? You said ‘more or less’ when I asked if everyone was all right.” I took another look around the room. The ceiling was papered with Powerman 5000 posters and the air smelled like coffee. “I’m in some freaky coma, aren’t I?”

“Nah. It’s not that bad. You’re dreaming. I wanted to pop in and see you. You were pretty lucky. It shattered bone. You’ll be rocking a cast for a while, since, oddly, we don’t have a healer, but you’re gonna be okay.”

I let out a relieved breath.

“Kale told us what happened to the blood, Dez, and that the Domination we have is no good.”

“I failed,” I said miserably, letting my head fall into my hands. “I blew my life and all the other Supremacy kids’ lives.”

“Not necessarily. Wentz is working on it. He’s got an idea. If this works, then you
saved
them, Dez.”

I wanted to ask him what he meant, but he was gone. And so was I.

…

If there was one sound I hated worse than whistling, it was humming. Everyone knew this. I’d once given Alex a fat lip for humming after repeatedly begging him to stop. It wasn’t him—the pitch was wrong—but someone was in the room with me.

Humming.

“Oh my God, dude. That is the most grating sound in the world.”

The whistler laughed. An amused chuckle, followed by something warm tugging up around my shoulders. When I opened my eyes, I gasped. “You!”

Vince leaned back in his chair and sighed. Brown eyes peeking out from under a mop of black-as-night hair. “I suppose that answers my question.”

“And I suppose that answers mine,” I replied, hefting myself into a sitting position. My arm was in a sling and my fingers felt numb—the beauty of painkillers if I had to guess—and both my legs were asleep. But I knew what I was looking at. I was looking at the guy from the painting.

Vince smoothed the bedspread, pulling the corner up and around the edge. “What question would that be?”

“Whether or not I was crazy.”

“I take it you saw the painting,” he said with a sad smile.

“W.V.K?”

“Winston Vincent Kale—or, as my current driver’s license says, Vincent Winstead.” He extended his hand. “Very pleased to meet you.”

I took his hand, realizing how incredibly surreal the whole thing was, and shook my head. “Winston Kale. As in, a descendant of Miranda Kale’s?”

“Winston Kale, as in, the one and only. Ginger has her facts confused. Both she and Kale are relatives of mine, not Miranda’s. Miranda had no living descendants. She and my son died from the black plague not long after I drove them away.”

“Let’s forget a ton of things—mainly that if you’re who you say you are, you’re, like, ancient—and focus on the big issue. You’re saying that you’re Miranda Kale’s husband?
You’re
the sonofabitch who started Denazen?”

He sighed and stood. “There is so much you all don’t understand. About me, about Miranda—about
Denazen
. Things are not what you think.
Denazen
is not what you think.” He frowned. “At least, it wasn’t.”

“I can’t tell if the pain meds are sending me on one hell of a trip or if you’re really standing here.”

“I reacted badly to Miranda’s confession about being a Six—not that we called them Sixes in my day. In those times, things like that were considered dark. Evil. I treated her horribly and not a day goes by that I don’t regret it.”

I still couldn’t wrap my brain around it. “But you’d have to be hundreds of years old. No one lives that long.”

“I’m a Six, Dez. I devoted a lot of time, after losing my wife and child to ignorance, to research, and I believe that I’m the
first
Six. I traced lineage on hundreds of different lines and from what I can tell, my body was the first born with the genetic abnormality. I was born in Virginia in 1810. My mother died in childbirth—as so many did back then—but it was because of a strange infection affecting pregnant women. Between June and December of that year, twelve women contracted the infection—all dying in childbirth. Neighboring towns panicked. They crept in one winter’s night and burned the town and all its inhabitants to the ground.”

I let my head fall into my hands and squeezed my eyes closed. “This isn’t really happening.”

Vince grabbed my hands and pulled them away. “It is, and you need to listen because I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of time. All modern-day Sixes are descended from one of the children born in Tunstal between June and December of 1810. There were twelve of us. Ten survived the town fire. After Miranda and my son died, it brought the number to nine. Nine people survived to produce offspring and carry on the abnormality. Nine of us: the mothers and fathers of the Six race.”

A thought turned my stomach and kicked up a heap of bile. “All related. Oh, God. Is there any chance Kale and I—”

“Are not related. Kale is from my line. You are from another. But I digress. I created Denazen as a haven for people like us. A place we could always go and be ourselves.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “Well then you failed, man. In case you hadn’t noticed, Denazen is kind of the polar opposite.”

“Again, you think you know what’s going on, but you haven’t even scratched the surface. Cross? The other heads of division? They’re nothing more than worker drones.” He stepped away from the bed. “I turned my back on Denazen some time ago, and because I chose to walk away instead of fight, it has become what it is today. You and Kale made me see my error. By risking yourselves to warn me—warn the others—you renewed my faith.”

“It was you!” I exclaimed, recalling our visit to Ben Simmons’s apartment. “Ben’s roommate said three people came looking for him. Kale and me, Aubrey and Able—and you.”

“I feared he wouldn’t be found in time. He was essential to my plan…”

“You’re talking in circles. Plan?”

He smiled. It was weak and full of unspoken sadness. “I have to leave. There are things to do and further information to gather. I don’t expect you not to tell the others who I am, but I beg you to please give me a full day’s grace.” He backed toward the door, eyes never leaving mine. “Please believe that I am on your side and truly wish to right the wrongs I’ve committed. We
will
see Denazen fall.”

“And that’s it? That’s all you’re going to tell me? Not what information or who’s really in charge—not to mention what the hell they’re really doing?” I slapped a hand down against the bed. “And more specifically, why tell me? There’s, like, a crapload of other, more powerful Sixes out there. Why do the big reveal to me?”

“Ginger has seen Kale’s destiny. Fated to become the Reaper, he will be crucial to bringing down those who wish to enslave us all. But he’s not the only one. There are others. Others like you.
You
are also crucial.”

Crucial? Nothing like dumping a twenty-ton weight on a girl’s shoulders. “So then what exactly are they doing?”

“What they’re doing, Deznee, is readying for war. Think about the limitless power that comes with limitless resources. Control the governments, the economy—the people—and you control the world. The people behind Denazen, the real puppet masters, want nothing short of that.” He opened the door, pausing. “Take care of Kale. He is, after all, my own flesh and blood.” Vince winked. “And the fabled Reaper.”

And before I could reply, he was gone.

I sat there for a while, stewing over what Vince had said. I went back and forth but, in the end, decided to honor his wishes and wait until tomorrow to tell the others. One day. What would one day hurt?

I must have dozed off, because when I woke again, Kale was sitting next to the bed.

“Hey,” I said, thrilled to see him.

He smiled. “How do you feel?”

I wiggled the fingers of my left hand. “Arm’s still attached, so that’s a plus.”

“I was worried.”

“That makes two of us.” I sighed. “I heard I almost took a permanent sleep with the fishies.”

Kale blinked.

“I almost drowned,” I clarified.

“Oh. Yes. And from this moment forward, we will never speak of it again.”

I threaded my fingers through his. “Ya got a deal. What about you? How do you…feel?”

“I’m okay, Dez. I don’t have it all back, but it will come.” He sat in the chair beside the bed and sighed. “I don’t think things will ever be the same, though.”

A chill raced up my spine. “What do you mean?”

“My memories are coming back, but there’s a sense of detachment. I’ve been through so much since that first day in the woods. Things about me have changed—and a lot of that happened while I was at Zendean.”

“Oh,” was all I could manage. I didn’t know exactly what he was getting at, but his words were like a ten-ton weight on my chest.

“I will understand if you don’t want me anymore.”

Wait, what?

“Kale, what are you talking about?”

“I don’t like cheese anymore.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “Well, then deal’s off. I can’t possibly be with someone who doesn’t like cheese.”

But he didn’t smile. “I understood that to be sarcasm. As you’ve pointed out, I have a different vocabulary. I’m not the same Kale anymore.”

I pulled him closer, rolling my eyes. “Of course you are. The more time you spend away from them—in the real world—the more acclimated you’re going to get. It has nothing to do with who you are.”

“Maybe,” he said softly. “But one thing is different—and it’s something that scares me.”

“What?”

“I remember feeling this…this blackness. Like a bubble in my chest. Anger, Dez. For everything they did to me. To all of us. It’s hazy, but I remember keeping it locked away. Controlled. It was something that took a conscious effort but I managed.”

“And now?”

He shook his head. “And now I don’t know. It feels different.
I
feel different. Like sometimes I don’t want to lock it away. Sometimes, I like feeling angry.”

“I think that’s normal, Kale. After everything you’ve been through—everything
we’ve
been through, it’s normal. I kinda feel the same way…”

He looked hopeful. “Really?”

I nodded. “Really. We’re gonna be okay. I promise. We all are.” Brandt told me everyone made it out of Zendean okay, but then I remembered Alex. “How is Alex?”

“He’s awake. He wanted to come see you, but Ginger asked him to wait.”

“Wait? Why?”

He looked away for a moment. When he turned back, there was regret in his eyes. “He wasn’t undamaged by Ben’s attack.”

“Wasn’t undamaged,” I repeated, throat thick. “What does that mean?”

“He’s missing a few memories. It’s nothing to worry over, though. He’s truly fine.”

“Okay,” I said, not sure whether to believe him or not.

“And right now, you have something more important to concern yourself over.”

I swallowed. He was right. The sand in my hourglass was almost up. “I… Brandt said— We don’t have a cure, do we?”

He looked away, hesitating for a moment before looking me in the eye. “Brandt’s strange friend is working on it. The scientist, Franklin Wentz—although don’t call him that.”

I blinked. “Call him what?”

Kale lowered his voice and leaned close. “Franklin. Something about babies. I don’t understand, really.”

I couldn’t help my smile. It was so Kale. His mannerisms, his tone—even the way he moved. “So, what about this friend who we won’t call Franklin? How far has he gotten?”

“He’s working on a synthetic cure. He says he thinks he can even duplicate my blood if the Underground wants.”

“I thought that was impossible?”

Kale shrugged. “I guess he’s special.”

“Wait—doesn’t he need at least some of Penny’s blood? We don’t have any. Kiernan destroyed it all.”

“That’s not true. We had your shirt. The one you were wearing when Penny Mills was shot.”

“My—” And then I remembered. I’d gotten blood all over it. “That’s kind of brilliant.”

“I know.” He grinned, but it didn’t last. “A lot has happened. I need to know if we’re okay.”

“Okay?”

“Dez, I killed people. I killed them
for
Denazen.” He bowed his head, ashamed. “That is something I swore I’d never do again.”

“You can’t blame yourself for that. Denazen killed those people, not you.”

“And what about the things I did to you? Was it Denazen, too? I… Kiernan—”

“Yes,” I replied quickly.

He looked like he wanted to argue, but he simply sighed, leaning forward to rest his forehead against mine. “I love you, Dez. Please tell me you know that.”

A lot had happened. Denazen, Kiernan—Kale and I would always have mountains popping up to stand in our way. But if anything, this last one proved to me that no matter what happened, we could weather anything.

“I know that, Kale. I promise you, I know.”