Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy (54 page)

I stepped out onto the balcony and slid the glass doors closed behind me. David was leaning on the balcony fence looking out over the street below.

“Hey. You okay?” I asked.

He turned. “I guess.”

I set my forearms onto the warm metal banister and clasped my hands together. David brought a pack of cigarettes out from behind his back. He flipped open the lid and drew one out of the box.

I bit my lip as I watched him tuck the pack away into the pocket of his jeans. Then he plunged a hand into another pocket and took out his lighter.

“You… want one?” he asked, once he’d noticed me staring.

“Sure,” I replied. He brought the pack out again and popped open the lid with his thumb so I could pluck one out.

“I didn’t know you smoked.” He closed the pack and put them away.

“I don’t, really.” I let him light it for me and allowed the paper to burn a moment.

I inhaled. Hot smoke swirled in my mouth and my eyelids
eased closed. I took a deep breath, dropped my head back, and released the smoke from my lips. “I used to do it once
in a while with friends. And to piss off my parents.” I chuckled,
then brought the cigarette back up to my lips and sucked in
another mouthful of smoke. The subtle, but not-soon-forgotten
nicotine buzz quickly began its seductive dance.

I couldn’t ignore the real reason I had come outside. I had to warn him about…

“It’s not good for you,” I blurted, the words escaping my mouth with plumes of smoke. “Or Lucy, for that matter.”

He raised an eyebrow at me and then looked off at nothing.

“I think it’s making you or your fluorescence sick,” I said, trying to get him to look me in the eye. “Seriously, Davi—”

“How the hell do you know? And who are you to talk?”
He motioned toward my hand—the one holding the cigarette. He was right.
I was being hypocritical.

I thinned my lips, letting smoke drift out my nostrils and fade into the air. I didn’t want to tell him the truth—what I was really seeing inside him: jagged black lines coiling around his lungs like parasites, wriggling through the arteries in his heart. Fluorescence being choked out by illness—cancer or whatever it was forming inside him. I’d been seeing it for the past two days.

“I can see it. Your fluorescence, it’s screwed up. I’m not really sure why, but maybe because of how much
you smo—”

“Hey! Wait a minute.” He veered toward me and tossed his cigarette over the banister. “So we sleep together and now you think you can tell me how to live my life? I never opted into this kinda shit. I thought we had an understanding about our relationship? I thought we settled this last—”

“Damn it, David.” I snuffed out my cigarette on the banister
railing and tossed it over. “Why can’t you just listen?
This has nothing to do our relationship
.
It’s about you and what’s…”
I gritted my teeth. “And what might be killing you.”

He sneered. “Stay out of my business, alright? I can take care of myself.”

“Sorry.” I turned away. “I’m only trying to help.” I went back inside, walked into the bathroom, and shut the door.

I turned on the faucet and looked up at myself in the mirror.

What the hell am I doing here?

For a passing moment, I actually believed David could be the answer to my problems. At least, for the time being. That being with him could mask the feelings of
loneliness and uselessness growing stronger every day. And
the jealousy and anger I harbored because of Brian and Alice.

David wasn’t exactly my type. Nor was he the kind of guy I imagined myself being with for more than a one-night stand, but last night—as lame as it sounds—the rest of the world disappeared. All of the darkness, fear, and hate trying to swallow me up went away. That meant something to me, even if it meant nothing to David. We had agreed to keep our relationship simple and—

A high-pitched buzzing noise filled the room. I doubled over in front of the sink and pressed my palms over my ears, but pain still rippled through my brain.

“Kareena,” a familiar ethereal voice sounded.

I slowly opened my eyes and lifted my face toward the mirror. Ther
e, in the reflection, was the Prism. Out of instinct,
I turned, but there was nothing behind me but the bathtub. I returned my focus to the mirror and shielded my eyes with the back of my hand. My headache diminished slightly.

“You’re back,” I began. “The Saviors, they—”

“We are aware,” it said, interrupting me. “We are aware they have threatened to chastise you for your interactions with the Tracker.”

“Yes. They did.” I could barely hear my own voice. “Can you help us yet?”

“We are in the process of studying the disease as well as mutations the Saviors have incited; however, it will take some time. We also bring unfortunate news.”

I perked up, my eyes widening unconsciously until I felt the burn of the Prism’s iridescent light and had to shy away, squinting to regain focus.

“They have created an abomination—a hybrid form of fluorescence that did not exist before. It is dangerous and volatile.
You and the others must be vigilant as it is unnatural
and, therefore, we cannot predict its effect on any of you.”

“Will we know this hybrid stuff when we see it?” I asked, noticing how the thing was already flickering in and out of focus. “Can you tell me more? Please?”

“I’m sorry,” it echoed, its voice quieter and more distant now. “We are working quickly to develop a stable solution. Please tell the others what we have told you.”

“I-I will. Please, don’t go!”

The light dimmed, swirled, and shrank away into a tiny black spot which faded into nothing.

I heard a loud bang on the bathroom door.

“Kareena!”

David!
I jerked my head toward the sound.

“Are you okay!?” he shouted, his voice rising with fear.

“Yes!” I replied, opening the door.

“What was that all about?” he asked, glaring at me for an answer. “Who the hell were you talking to?”

“David, there’s something I need to tell you.” I left the bathroom and walked over to the edge of my bed to sit down. He followed and sat beside me.

“What is it?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

I shook off the sick feeling creeping through my stomach
and looked David in the eye. “The Saviors, they aren’t the only aliens involved in all of this,” I replied, looking down at my trembling hands in my lap. “There are others—a different race—called the Prism.”

“What?” His eyes widened. “Who the hell are the Prism?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I do know that they want to help us. They want to protect us from the Saviors.”

“When did you find this out? I wasn’t gone that long.”

“About a week ago. I… didn’t tell you at first because—”

“You didn’t trust me,” David interrupted. “It’s
understandable. But I’m part of this, too, so I need to know what the hell is going on. I can’t see things like you can.”

“One of them told me the Saviors are endangering more than just us humans—that their manipulation of us and fluorescence could be devastating to other worlds, too. It basically said that if we stayed away from the Saviors, we might survive.”

“Stay away from them?” David raised an eyebrow. “How?”

“Can we take a walk?” I asked, brushing my fingers against his.
“Please? I
really
need some air.”

Chapter
10

A
few shots of amaretto went down easy. And then a couple more. The smooth liquor calmed my nerves, leaving a subtle sweetness in my mouth.

Our walk ended up evolving from a brief conversation about what the Prism had told me into a long discussion about how messed up our lives had suddenly become. One thing led to another and the next thing I knew, David and I were drowning away our sorrows the only way we knew how.

Afterward, we staggered back up to our hotel room. Both of us were still a bit buzzed, but that helped blur our cruel reality for a few moments. Screw the Saviors. This was about me and what I needed to be happy, to have a normal life. They couldn’t tell me what to do. They couldn’t tell me who to—

David leaned down to kiss me, the scent of vanilla rum lingering on his breath and the essence of the tequila on his tongue making mine tingle.

While I fumbled to unbuckle his belt, his arms snaked around me so he could swipe his keycard through the lock and open the door to our room. We stumbled past the threshold and the door clicked closed behind us.

He took my wrists and pushed me back against the door, bringing my hands up over my head and holding them there once his lips found my throat. My knees trembled as his mouth explored my neck, the sensation stealing my breath away. Then his tongue licked a path toward my ear, where a heated whisper about what he intended to do next and a gentle nibble to my earlobe made me surrender completely.

Bright yellow light radiated from his chest and the potent
warmth overwhelmed my body. He released my hands and inched down my side, wrinkling up my shirt so
he could
plant a line of kisses on my ribs. Then, my abdomen. With a quiet snap, my jeans came unbuttoned and David came down
onto one knee in front of me.

I forked my fingers through his hair, sucking in an anxious, shuddering breath as he lowered my jeans just enough to kiss the hypersensitive skin of my outer thigh. Jesus
,
he knew how to control my body with his mouth.

But even while my mind raced with voracious wants and needs, I had to conjure up enough sobriety to pull one hand away from his head and keep it away. My hands were dangerously close to his temples, and I couldn’t risk hurting him with my fluorescence.

Without warning, white light blinded me and a breath c
aught in my throat. I opened my eyes to darkness and blurry
shapes swooping in and out of sight. A sharp pain tore through
my upper arm and I cried out, losing my balance and falling against David.

“Kareena?”

I cringed and crumpled over, holding my arm close as the searing ache intensified and warm liquid seeped down off my fingers. My vision slowly began to return to normal.

“Kareena!” David stood up and grabbed me by shoulders.

I screamed, recoiling from his grasp. A quick glance at my arm revealed that the skin had been ripped open and blood was drizzling out of me. I covered it with my hand and pressed my fingers tightly over the wound.

“What happened?” David asked, putting a hand on my face to get me to look him in the eye.

“I need Brian,” I said, shaking with pain. The alcohol made my head heavy. “Please. Get him. Now!”

David hurried out of the room.

I looked at my inner bicep again and trembled. The freaking aliens had torn out my implant and left an open gash.
Damn it!
So their first line of action against my sexual freedom was taking away my birth control?

Brian showed up at our door, in what seemed like seconds, and rushed over to me. “What did they do to you?” he asked.

I lifted my arm and turned so he could see the gaping hole in my bicep. It was deep. Deeper than it needed to be—to make a point, no less—and I was bleeding. A steady stream of red dripped off my fingertips. David snatched a towel from the bathroom to put beneath my elbow to help keep some of it off me and the carpet.

“What the hell?” Brian grimaced, reaching his glowing hand up toward the wound. He cupped his fingers over the frayed skin, and my blood oozed out from between them. Our eyes met briefly.

I flinched as his hot blue light did its work, stinging at first and then soothing the pain with gentle warmth. I felt the skin stitching itself back together beneath his touch.

A moment later, Alice came jogging into the room.

“Oh my God! What happened!?” She came up behind David and looked at me with widened eyes.

“It’s nothing,” I replied, straightening up and clumsily buttoning my jeans. My head was still swirling from all the alcohol. “I’ll be fine.”

“What?” Brian grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me back, forcing me to face him. “What happened to you, Kareena?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, scowling at him. “Really, Brian. Butt out. Okay?” I jerked free of his grasp and pushed past David and Alice so I could get to the door. I darted off down the hall as quickly as my tipsy body could carry me.

“Kareena!” David came sprinting around the corner. I looked off to the side to avoid eye contact with him just as the elevator doors closed in front of me, separating us.

The elevator chimed and I wiped some of the blood on my jeans just before the doors opened. The main lobby was relatively deserted and, luckily, so was the bathroom.

I bent over and contorted myself enough to get most of my arm beneath the faucet and douse it with warm water. The blood rinsed away down the drain. Then I scrubbed some subtle red splashes off the porcelain sink with a paper towel.

I lumbered out of the bathroom and looked around the empty lobby. I’d had too much alcohol. Swallowing made me taste the bitterness of indigestion. I really needed to sleep it off, but I didn’t feel like dealing with the others again.

There was one receptionist at the front desk and no one else in the room except a bellhop sorting through someone’s dry cleaning order. I glanced over at the elevator, expecting David to pop out at any moment.

He didn’t.

Then I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

“What!?” I jerked my head around and my heart almost stopped. The man looking into my eyes looked… like Brian; too much like Brian. He was a little older but had the same hazel eyes, fair skin, and nose shape.
His shorter hair was more blonde than brown, and more kept up, but their
similarities were… uncanny.

“Miss, I asked if you were okay.” He squeezed my shoulder
lightly and I snapped back into reality.