Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy (72 page)

“Solus?” Alice called to him tenderly.

The boy turned, as if he’d already accepted the word as his name.

“Come here, please,” she asked.

Solus scooted to the edge of the bed and dropped off the
side. Then he walked over to Alice and stood attentively
, staring up at her.

“Can you speak?” she asked.

Solus blinked a few times and then his
lips parted. He took a breath, closed his mouth, and looked away as if the attempt
made him uneasy.

“It’s okay.” Brian knelt in front of him. “You don’t have to talk if you’re not ready or able. We just need to know that you understand what we’re saying to you.”

Solus nodded.

“Stay close to us. Okay?” Brian continued
. “We’ll protect you. I promise.”

I saw the beginning of a grin curl Solus’ lips. It vanished
in a second, though, as he fought back what
must have been an unfamiliar urge. If the Saviors raised him, it was no wonder he didn’t understand how to smile. Still, he seemed
content—pleased to be with his real parents, even if he wasn’t
showing it.

“Do you think you can go to sleep for a little while tonight?” Brian asked. Solus tipped his head to the side. “Do you… even know what sleep is?”

Solus stared blankly and blinked again. The kid did a lot of blinking.

Brian looked back at Alice and shrugged.

It was only two in the morning and we were all exhausted.

“Like her.” I pointed at Lucy. “Sleep.”

Solus squinted and then his eyes widened like he’d had a revelation. He hoisted himself onto the bed, crawled up beside Lucy, and clumsily attempted to make himself com
fortable on the pillow across from her. He kneaded the pillow
and nestled his head into it, analyzing Lucy as if he were checking to see that he’d done it correctly. Then he curled up into a fetal position and squeezed his eyes shut, his face crinkling from the pitiful, forced attempt.

The poor kid recognized what sleep was, but it didn’t look as if he’d ever been naturally induced into it.

“Uh, we can switch rooms, or whatever you guys want,”
I said to Brian and Alice. “But you guys have to look after Lucy
for the rest of the night, too, please. I don’t know if taking her away would be a good idea right now. He seems to be acclimating with her around.”

“Yeah. I see that,” Brian said softly. “Hmm.”

“I’ll grab him some clothes first thing in the morning.” I rummaged around in my pocket. “I’ve got enough money to take care of it for you.”

“Thanks.” A tired smile curved Brian’s lips. “We’d
appreciate that. A lot. Yes. We’ll keep an eye on Lucy for you.
I won’t let anything happen to her.”

Alice sat on the edge of
the bed beside Solus and pulled a blanket up to his neck. She rested her hand on his bony little shoulder and the strain on his face melted away. He murmured
a small, contented sigh.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “We’ll protect you from them now.”

“You guys need sleep. You can stay in our room,” Brian said. “Get some rest.”

Kareena shrugged and slinked away from her corner toward the door.

I glanced back at Lucy—who was sound asleep across from Solus—and assured myself she was in good hands.

Brian meant what he said. I knew he did.

Surprisingly, closing that door behind me on my way out
was less difficult than it had been in the past.

She’ll be fine.

Chapter 10

“
W
e’re completely screwed!” Kareena’s words woke me abruptly. “I’m not the only one who knows this, right?”

“Wh-what?” I rolled over to face her, still half asleep. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, bent over, with her feet on the floor and her face in her hands.

“We’re screwed. The Saviors must be totally pissed off
about this whole Solus Child thing. I mean, really. The Prism
seemed helpful at first, but to just drop this bomb on us. Seriously!? What kind of shit is this!?”

“What do
you mean?” I sat up and rubbed my eyes with my palms, then dropped my head back and to the sides to work a cramp out of my neck. I glanced at the clock beside the
bed. 7:45AM.

“You
do
know how the Prism got Solus, right?”

I shook my head.
Nope.
I slid my gun out from beneath my pillow and tucked it into the back of my jeans.

“They kidnapped him from the Saviors. And for a race of aliens who don’t show a lot of emotion, they’re pissed.”

“How do you know all of this?” I stretched my arms up over my head.

“They told me this morning,” Kareena replied with a growl, crossing her arms. “God damn them. I thought they were our friends. I thought they were helping us. Now
this?
Like we need the damn Saviors at our throats any more than they already have been.”

I didn’t like the sound of anything she was saying. We didn’t need the Saviors on our asses. They were powerful. And we… we were pawns in their game. Weak. Disposable.
Human
.

“This isn’t good,” I replied, trying to shake off the frustration and fear pulsing through my veins. “We can’t be held accountable for something the Prism did. The Saviors might
kill us for it! They might kill…” I shot off the bed and hustled
toward the door. “I’m going to wake the others.”

“Wait! Wait!” Kareena raised her voice. She rushed over to me before I could open the door. “Can’t you wait a damn second?”

“What?” I was itching to check on Lucy.

“The Prism told me something else.”

“Yeah? Spit it out.”

“Since Solus survived full-on exposure to the disease, they thought he could help us. Or…
you
.”

I could still feel it—the corrupted light shooting through
my bloodstream. The unnerving tightness in my chest at
night while I tried to force myself to sleep.

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “But we don’t know that for certain.”

“No, but that’s why they want us to protect him.”

“Protect him!? We can’t even protect ourselves, damn it!”
I felt a lump in my throat all of a sudden and my heart started
pounding against my ribcage. “But we don’t even know if he’s
safe to be around.”

“Solus is human, after all. I can see the light in him—Brian and Alice’s. And you’d have to be pretty damn blind to not see the resemblance, too. He’s not a threat. The Prism know that much, but they also know he’s better suited for our atmosphere than their own.”

Kareena had told me briefly about the dark, starry sky-
like world of the Prism. From what I remember, it was a
scattershot of
sparkling
lights in a sea of dark blue
emptiness
. That’s
all I could take from her story. The description reminded me of swimming in the ocean at night. Weightlessness. Twilight twinkling beneath the bright white halo of the moon. But that may have been my own nostalgia. The serene Hawaiian shores after dark.

I missed my childhood home…

Maybe, I just missed having a home.

. . .

Solus made me nervous. I needed to keep Lucy safe at all costs. The Prism were helpful enough to arm her with one of their anti-abduction bracelets, and for that I was grateful. But that wouldn’t keep us out of the line of fire. If the Saviors were pissed about losing their hybrid, we’d be facing their wrath soon, for sure.

How long did we have? How would we deal with them?

I had a plan.

I
always
had a plan.

Until today.

Lucy trotted past me, down the hall, leaving Solus behind
her. He was bewildered and unsure if he should follow. He
also kept stopping to fidget with his shirt and tug at the collar.

His new set of clothes, while they required some getting
used to, made him look
normal
. A green shirt screen-printed
with the image of a dinosaur, khaki pants, and a pair of white
sneakers. It all fit him well enough. For now.

“Be careful, Lucy!” I called. “Quit running around and get
back here, please.”

Kareena and Brian had gone to check out of our rooms. I waited with Alice and the children.

Lucy frowned and sulked back toward us. Solus didn’t seem to want to stray more than a few feet from his mother.

Now that morning light was shining through the waiting room windows, I could see Solus had vibrant light skin with a subtle pink undertone, unlike the Saviors’ ghostly white flesh. The child was small and fragile, with medium-length, straight, unkempt brown hair.

I leaned down and smiled at him. “You’ve got very pretty
eyes.”

He didn’t know how to respond.

He had one fair blue eye and one deep green eye. The first
thing to mind was the irony of the colors, but before I could carry the assumption for long...

“They’re heterochromatic,” Alice said.

“Hetero-what?” I raised an eyebrow.

“It’s a genetic thing. Brian has it,” she continued. “I don’t
know if you’ve noticed, but he has a dark brown spot in one of his eyes.”

I nodded. I had noticed, actually.

“
That’s from a genetic trait called heterochromia. It causes
people’s irises to be different colors or to have splotches of different colors in them.”

“And they teach you this stuff in high school nowadays?”

“No.” She looked away sheepishly. “I sorta looked it up back when we were first going out. I didn’t know what it was and felt like an idiot having to ask him. Didn’t want to make him self-conscious.”

“Ah. So, you think that’s why Solus has two different colored eyes?”

“
Yeah. Yay for the Internet, huh?” She let out an awkward
chuckle and then cleared her throat. “Anyway.”

“So we’re calling him Solus, then?”

“Yes,” Alice replied. “Brian and I talked about it last night and, well, it fits. I guess. We don’t really know what else to call him and after we heard Lucy using it…” She fell silent.

“I like it,” I said. Alice immediately looked me in the eye.

“You do? It’s not stupid or weird, is it?”

“Nah. I think it fits. He’s one of a kind, after all.”

“Yeah. He is.” Alice smiled with her eyes.

She didn’t smile much. Not around me, at least. I couldn’t
blame her for her sadness. She was at that age where she should
have been out growing up, having fun with girlfriends
,
and doing whatever the hell she wanted to with her boyfriend.
But they were being forced to act like adults and play house with a child they didn’t even know they had.

I’ll give Brian credit. He sure as hell didn’t miss a beat when he found out about Solus. He took on the
responsibility like he was meant for it. Just accepted it without question.

If only I could have been that brave.

“David?” Alice whispered my name.

“Yeah?”

She looked down nervously. “I… we—Brian and I—were wondering about something.” She looked over at Lucy.

My heart started beating faster.

“Yes?”

“Please, don’t be offended by this, but I didn’t want to ask you in front of Kareena because, well, I’m pretty sure I understand why you wouldn’t want her to know. But I kind
of want to know the truth. Just so I can stop wondering about it
. Is… Lucy your sister, or is she actually your—”

“Daughter.”

“That’s what I thought, but, you kept telling us she was
your sister, and… I don’t know. It seemed wrong to assume otherwise. But when we saw her, I had a feeling
that she was even more precious to you than that. She looks so much like you, David.”

“Don’t tell Kareena,” I said quietly. “Please. Not yet.”

“I won’t, but you
need
to. Before she finds out. She’s not stupid.”

“I never said she was.” I looked away.

“I think Lucy’s a beautiful little girl,” she added.

“Yeah.”

I didn’t know how else to respond. I was too busy thinking about how I could break the news to Kareena without her freaking out on me. She didn’t like kids
at all
. Obvious by the way she treated them.

I had to come up with some way to tell her. I had to stop
keeping secrets if I wanted a chance
at having a real relationship with her.

She needed to be able to trust me.

I heard footsteps and turned. Brian and Kareena came walking toward us. Kareena’s head was down and Brian had a discontented sneer on his lips.

“What is it?” I asked.

Kareena glanced up at me for a split second and shook her head, pressing her lips thin. I recognized that look.

“We have to fix this,” Brian grumbled. “This is a nightmare
. So many people are infected.”

“Let me guess,” I said, clasping Lucy’s hand. “The man at the front desk?”

“The man at the front desk,” Brian confirmed.

Chapter 11

M
y skin tingled. It was the familiar, stomach-twisting, skin-prickling feeling that came just before being abducted. I crouched down, shielded Lucy with my embrace, and held my breath.

The others felt it, too.

Worried, Alice knelt beside Solus. He appeared unaffected by what was going on.

“No!” Brian clenched his fists. “I thought the Prism said—”

Lucy coughed. “Daddy, I feel weird,” she whimpered. I tried to calm her with a stroke of my fingers down the back of her head.

“It’s okay. I think.” I glanced at Kareena. An angry sneer crinkled her lips. She must have heard what Lucy had called me.

Shit.

The feeling intensified until my entire body itched from the overwhelming sensation of static electricity swallowing
me up. Then my lungs tightened. The air was getting thinner.