Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy (52 page)

He tucked the gun beneath one of the pillows on his bed and then shot me an offensive glare. “I… don’t think I have to tell you this, but—”

“I won’t touch your gun,” I replied. “I’m not stupid.”

“Good. Though I’m not gonna lie; it wouldn’t hurt for you to learn how to use one.”

“Maybe later.” I shrugged. I didn’t want anything to do with it.

He sat up and rubbed his face with both hands. “Ugh. You feel as shitty as I do right now?” He glanced up at me while I fiddled with the A/C console. It was ice-cold in the room.

“Uh, I was sort of the one who almost got buried alive today, remember?”

“Ah, yeah. Almost forgot about that.” He stifled an awkward chuckle. “How’s your arm doing?”

“Better,” I replied as I walked into the bathroom and turned on the hot water to wash my hands in the sink. I needed to take a shower, too. My jeans had stiffened from the dried blood and I felt disgusting. “How long can we stay here?” I asked, pressing a hot washcloth against my face and taking a deep breath of the steam.

I didn’t hear a reply.

“Da—” I turned my head.

He was in the bathroom doorway now, looking down at me.

“Jesus. Don’t sneak up on me like that!” I huffed and squeezed the muddy reddish water back into the sink.

“A few days if we need to,” he said, leaning against the doorframe.

“David?” I set the washcloth down. “What did you show the receptionist downstairs?”

His eyes widened briefly in surprise. “Uh. Why?”

“Because. I want to know,” I said, turning to face him. “You didn’t tell the others, but you can tell me. Really. I won’t say anything.”

He stared at me for a few moments, as if he were
contemplating how to reply, or whether or not to tell the truth.

“It’s okay,” I added, reassuringly. “I won’t tell them. I swear. I just want to know because we’re—”

“This.” He pulled a wallet out of his jean pocket and flipped it open to a fake ID and goldtone badge. He pulled it back before I could make out what the ID said. “Now don’t go saying anything to the kid.”

“I won’t. I promise.” I took up the washcloth again and ran it under the faucet. There was absolutely no doubt that Brian would let David have it if he found out he was brandishing a fake detective’s badge. I didn’t really trust him, either, but I had to.
We
had to.

I squeezed hot water from the cloth and started scrubbing
the rest of the dried blood from my arms.

“How do you stand those two?” David blurted, coming up from the doorframe and taking a step closer. Our gazes met in the mirror. “Really? How do you do it? That Brian kid is such a hard-ass. And his girlfriend—”

“There aren’t a lot of people I can trust.” I hung the wet rag on the nearby towel rack and leaned back on the edge of the bathroom counter. “We’re kind of stuck together.”

“But you don’t
have
to be with
them
, you know. No one can force you guys to stay together.”

I glared at him. “You don’t get it do you, David?”

His brow furrowed. “Get what?”

“Those things up there can force us to do whatever they want. The Saviors almost killed Brian when he tried to stand up to them. I’m not ready to take that risk.”

I didn’t want any more pain. I didn’t have someone to worry about like Brian did. I didn’t have someone worth fighting for or worth dying for.

My throat tightened. I had to muster up every ounce of strength I had left to keep my eyes from watering in front of David.

Chapter
6

A
fter my shower, I threw on a terrycloth hotel robe and tied the belt snugly at my waist, hoping David wouldn’t get any stupid ideas. I didn’t feel that comfortable half-dressed around him, but I also didn’t have any other choice. My only set of clothes was covered in blood and I’d lost my bag (and with it, my change of clothes) in the earthquake.

I filled the bathtub with a few inches of warm water and a drop of shampoo and tossed in my shirt and blood-soaked jeans. As I swished them around in the tub, swirls of brown mucked up the water. I wrung them out as best I could and then flung them over the shower curtain rod. Hopefully, they’d be dry by morning.

Back in the spacious hotel room, David lay flat on the bed closest to the window, his eyes closed as if he were asleep. Dark cinnamon skin showed through webbed tears in his denim and the laces on his black sneakers were frayed, like the hem of his jeans.

I sat on the edge of what was apparently my bed for the night and cupped my hands in my lap.

I glanced at my arm—the one that had been wounded earlier. Hidden beneath the fluffy white facade was fresh, pristine skin. It was as though nothing had ever happened to me. I hadn’t been cut up. I hadn’t almost been crushed to death and suffocated because of an earthquake. I hadn’t been rescued by a man I knew little about, and I wasn’t about to spend the night in a room with him.

“What the hell am I doing here?” I murmured. It had barely been a week since the Saviors had teleported me out
of the police station. My entire world had been turned upside
down just as school ended and college loomed on the horizon.

I didn’t want to be stuck with the group like dead weight
. Alice and Brian had each other. David had himself and that was obviously all he needed.

Me? I was just… there. Useless while we weren’t actively searching for sleepers.

“Can I sit with you?” The voice made me jolt. I glanced up at David, who was now standing beside me with a concerned look on his face.

“Uh. Yeah. S-Sure.” I scooted toward the corner of the bed to make room for him and he sat down, his weight sinking in beside me.

He spent a moment studying me, searching my face for something. Then he leaned closer and reached toward my face. His fingers drifted past my ear and as he drew back his hand, a metallic shimmer blurred by the corner of my eye.

“
How long have you been hiding that there?” He smirked,
playfully investigating the coin that had appeared in his hand.

“Wait. How did you?”

“Some sleight of hand, that’s all.” He tipped his head to the side and grinned, holding his open hand out, palm up.

The coin was large. I didn’t recognize it.
1
Onza… something.
And an image of an angel.

“It’s from Mexico. A silver Libertad,” he said with a nod. “It used to be my mother’s. They found it in my father’s hand just after…”

He stopped himself and averted his gaze.

“Just after what?” I asked, having a gut feeling the answer wasn’t something I really wanted to know.

“Well, let’s just say after he passed away. Anyway.” He shook his head and adjusted his grasp on the coin. “She found it the year I was born and truly believed with all her sweet little Catholic heart that it was some kind of sign from God—a good luck charm dropped for her by an angel. See,
she and my dad wanted kids real bad, but because of a health
defect, my mother couldn’t get pregnant. Or, at least, that’s what a bunch of doctors had told her.”

I squinted my eyes to try to see the year on the coin, but he flipped it over too quickly. The back showed an eagle with a snake in its beak mounted atop a cactus.

“This is the Mexican
national seal, by the way,” he added.

“What does it mean?”

“
Hell if I know. I didn’t grow up in Mexico. I’m American.
Grew up in a few different states until…” He stopped himself.
“
I didn’t take this out to give you a history lesson on myself.”

He flipped over the coin again and held it up to my eye level, pinching the rim between his thumb and index finger.

“Do you see the two mountains behind the angel? One on each side in the background?”

I nodded.

“They represent two lovers from an Aztec legend.
Supposedly,
there was this warrior who wanted to marry
a princess
, but her father—the king—said he couldn’t have her unless he won a battle against a rival tribe. So, long story short, the rival tribe spread a rumor that the guy was killed in battle and the princess ended up dying of a broken heart. The warrior returned, buried her on top of this hill, and knelt beside her to watch over her. Over the years, snow covered them both and they eventually became the two volcanoes you see there.”

He shifted in place, tilting the coin in his hand while pointing t
o the mountain on the left side. “This one looks like a sleeping woman—the princess.”

I couldn’t see it, but I took his word for it.

“And what does all of this have to do with me?” I narrowed my eyes, struggling to see any kind of people-like shapes in the mountains on the coin stamping.

“I told you the story because I wanted to make a point. Sometimes two people care for each other so much, their
feelings evolve into something bigger. And, for better or worse,
unchangeable.”

David reached out and pressed the coin into my open hand.

“W-what are you doing?”

“Take it,” he said, smiling kindly at me.

“But… No. It must be important to you. Right? I-I couldn’t.”
I tried to give it back to him, but he gently refused,
pushing my hand away and forcing my fingers to close around the coin.

“Keep it,” he said softly. “It’s kept me safe all these years. Hell, it may have even saved my ass from a bullet or two. But right now, you need the luck more than I do. Look, I know I haven’t been with you guys for very long, but I can already see what’s going on.”

“What do you mean? What do you
think
is going on?” I squeezed the heavy coin in my fingers.

“You’ve got an eye for Brian. I’d have to be blind not to notice the way you look at him and the way he avoids you.
You try to hide it behind your angst, but it’s obvious. The thing is, you’ve got to come clean about what’s really happening. Life that can’t or won’t adapt to change will struggle to survive, and as long as you’re holding on
to something you can’t really have, you’re only hurting yourself. You can’t keep trying to do the impossible. You can’t move mountains.”

“M-mountains?”

He motioned toward my closed hand. “Think about it for a minute.”

I did.

Brian and Alice were the mountains…

Chapter
7

I
spent the next few moments trying to think of smart ways I could retort to David’s “advice.” Stupid things like “yeah, well, water can erode anything” and “earthquakes destroy shit, too.”

Really, I was trying to avoid the painful truth.

I couldn’t move mountains.

I couldn’t stop Brian and Alice from loving each other. Thinking about it constantly was doing nothing but causing
me
pain and reminding me over and over again how very alone
I
was.

I miss my family… I miss being safe… I just want a stable life again.

“Thank you for finding me and for pulling me out of that hellhole,” I said, looking at David. “To be honest, I thought that gun of yours was some kind of front, and that you were only acting tough because of your powers, but you’re a lot braver than
I thought you were. Thank you for saving my life.”

He looked
off to the side, fixating on something I couldn’t see and licked
his lips. “You’re brave too, you know?” He turned to look me in the eye. “To stand up to Brian like that. To really hold your ground even when it means putting aside your feelings.”

“He acts like a jerk, but he’s a good guy at heart.” I shrugged. “I’ve learned a lot hanging around him and Alice. I didn’t know shit before they came along.”

“People change,” he said quietly. “I’m not sure what they
really
think of you, but I know you’re a whole lot smarter than you let on.”

I sighed. “Maybe.” I took a deep breath and squeezed my fingers around the coin, wondering if it might bring me any luck at all—not that I believed in that kind of shit. “I was a lot happier before those bastards put this stuff inside me.” I brushed my thumb over the angel’s image and then tucked the Libertad into the pocket of my robe.

“We all were,” David said.

“Yes, but the Saviors put some kind of curse or something on me and, unlike Brian and Alice, it’s impossible
for
me to even
try
to be happy. I can’t get close to someone
because
I get these damn migraines. They’re so painful that they—”

His hand rose toward my face and I gasped.

“Don’t!” I squeezed my eyes shut and cringed. “Please. No!”

“No?” he echoed, his palm cupping the side of my neck. “Why not?” His fingers slid up to my jaw and he traced my lower lip with his thumb.

“Because…” My eyes eased open. His face was only inches
from mine.

No debilitating pain. No migraine.

“Because it usually…” I stopped again and glared at him. “Wait. After everything I just said to you, why the hell would you do that!? How did you know it wouldn’t—”

He shrugged. “I didn’t.” A small smile curled on his lips. “But I had to find out.” His fingers slipped from my chin.

Ass.

I crossed my arms and scoffed, trying to ignore the audacity
of his actions. But then I felt a twinge in my
stomach—a flurry of emotions took wing—and I felt compelled to look David in the eye.

Butterflies
. Maybe?

Over
… him?

It was a sickness so good, it made my heart flutter. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt it.

Challenging the anxious thoughts bubbling inside, I brought a hand up to David’s face and let the backs of my
fingers drift over his strong jaw line, contemplating
his carefully chosen words.

“I had to find out
,
”
he’d said.

The dark stubble on his chin bristled against my knuckles
. His intense eye contact held me captive while I traced my
thumb from his trimmed black mustache down to his goatee.
Dark brown eyes watched my expression change. The golden
amber light brightened in his chest, flecks of yellow-gold leaching through his grey t-shirt. His gaze locked onto my lips and he leaned in to kiss me.