Toxic Heart (28 page)

“Aria!” Turk calls.

“What’s happening?” the man cries out. “You lied to me! You tricked me! Help!”

Two men burst into the hidden room from the street. The Rose family crest is sewn onto their black uniforms in blood red, just above their hearts.

They point their guns at me.

“Attack us and we’ll kill her,” one of them says to Turk, who has put up his fists, about to fight.

“Careful,” Turk says to Jarek. “Get in front of Aria.”

Jarek goes to step in front of me and one of the soldiers points a gun at his head. “Don’t move a muscle. Give us the girl and no one gets hurt.”

“Over my dead body,” Turk says, spitting on the ground.

A loud whirring fills the air above us. I glance up and see a gray helicopter, just as its door slides open and two more men drop into the stall. The old man is crouching down, whimpering. There’s no sign of the woman, his partner. I wonder if she escaped.

Turk raises his hand and a jet of green light bursts from his palm, striking one of the men directly in the chest. He topples to the ground and writhes in pain, injured but not dead.

“That wasn’t very nice,” the soldier standing next to him says. Then he shoots off a round at Turk and Jarek, who deftly dodge the bullets.

I whip around as yet another soldier breaks into the room and smacks me with the butt of his gun. The sounds of the helicopter grow louder. Circles of light dance in front of my eyes, and as I pass out, all I can think is
The heart, the heart, the heart
.

I wake up in a small, sterile room.

My arms are in front of me, cuffed at the wrists. A thin cord stretches across my chest. From what I can tell, it seems to be tied behind the chair I’m sitting on.

Against the other wall, Turk is strapped to a metal chair, his face beaten to a pulp and purpled underneath the eyes. A huge gash marks his forehead, and a scary cut runs straight down his lips. Both are bleeding.

Everything from the cool, sterile air to the seamless way the touchpads are integrated into the walls tells me I am in the Aeries.

Plus the fact that my brother, Kyle, is standing in front of me.

“Well,” he says to me. “We meet again, little sister.”

He’s wearing a black suit with a crisp blue dress shirt underneath, open at the neck. No tie. His wheat-colored hair is perfectly parted. “You sound like a comic-book villain,” I say. “Cut it out.”

“Me?” he says, pointing to my wig. “You’re the one who looks ridiculous.”

I meet Turk’s eyes.
Don’t worry
, he mouths, but his words don’t
make me feel any better. The only consolation I have is that Jarek isn’t here—I hope he’s gotten away safely.

To my left, near the door, two of my father’s men stand at attention, silver pistols in their grips.

A cooler rests in the center of the room. Behind it, on a metal table next to Turk’s chair, are two vials full of liquid mercury—quicksilver—that shimmer underneath the fluorescent lights. Next to them is a plastic bag that holds three empty syringes.

“How did you find us?” I ask my brother, struggling against the cord that’s keeping me tied to the chair.

“You’ve been tagged, Aria. I already told you.”

Kyle looks at me inquisitively. He doesn’t know I’ve had the trace removed, that it’s now on the locket. And since I’m not wearing it, and the locket wasn’t in the sweatshirt, how could Kyle have found me? Where’s the locket now?

Clearly, Hunter didn’t put the trace on me after all. But then … who did? The only person I can think of to blame is Kyle, since he keeps finding me, or Thomas, but Lyrica said the trace was too intricate for anyone but a powerful mystic to perform.

“You’re not really going to keep us here like this, are you?” I ask. “How will this help your cause?”

Kyle shakes his head. “How will it help
your
cause is the real question.”

“What are you talking about?”

He steps toward the cooler. “That.” He bends down, running a finger over the top of the container. “The heart.” He presses the side of the cooler and the lid slides open. Silver light bursts forth. “How do you use it?”

“Use it? What do you mean?”

His face reddens. “You know exactly what I mean. The heart—how do you
use
it?”

I’m silent. There’s no way Kyle knows, or cares, about the ritual for the heart of a lost mystic; he only wants to extract its power. He must suppose that it’s too delicate for him to dissect without knowing the proper way to do so.

But I don’t know the first thing about that.

“It was Davida’s,” I say. There’s no use in lying. “It’s all that remains of her body. I was going to return it to her family.”

Kyle snorts. “I know exactly what it is.”

“You do?” I ask. “How could you possibly?”

“Elissa,” Kyle tells me. “I didn’t realize what Davida’s box was until I’d already given it to you. I mentioned it to Elissa afterward and she went hysterical. She said it must have been a reliquary and that I was an idiot to have given it away. No matter, though. I’m not one for lacquered boxes. The real prize is here.”

He looks at the silver light radiating from the cooler. “Elissa explained all about the mystic heart—how it holds all your power.” Kyle sneers at Turk. “I realized then that we had to go back, to see if Davida’s heart was still intact.”

Kyle whips his head toward where I’m seated, glaring at me. “It was difficult to find, as you well know. Turns out it wasn’t where it should have been. I have no idea how someone beat us to it, but”—he glances at the open cooler—“at least I have it now.” He gives me a fake smile. “Thanks for leading us right to it.”

“You’ll always be a Stic junkie in one form or another,” I say.

“And you’ll always be a little mystic tramp,” Kyle says, turning his attention to Turk. “You. Mystic. How do you use this heart?” He takes a few steps in Turk’s direction, then leans down and stares into his eyes. “Tell me.”

Turk raises his shoulders and looks innocently at Kyle. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

Kyle backhands Turk against the cheek, and I jump in my chair. “Don’t lie to me, mystic. I’ve put those quicksilver cuffs on you for a reason—so you can’t use your powers. Now talk to me, man to man.”

Turk remains silent.

“Not feeling chatty?” Kyle says. “Maybe this will change your mind.” He motions to the guards. The one on the right comes forward and sets down his pistol. He removes a syringe from the plastic bag, then uncorks one of the quicksilver vials, draws the liquid into the syringe, and replaces the cork.

Needle in the air, the guard approaches Turk.

“Quicksilver is the only liquid that can contain mystic energy,” Kyle says to me. “Did you know that, Aria?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “I’m sure you do. But perhaps what you
didn’t
know is that quicksilver is a volatile, deadly element in its own right. And no one has studied the effects of liquid mercury being inserted into a live mystic.”

Kyle gestures to Turk, who is rocking back and forth in his chair. His eyes are enormous, eyebrows arched in fear.

“Until now,” Kyle says. “Our very own guinea pig.”

“Get away from me!” Turk screams. “Back off!”

“Silence him, please,” Kyle says calmly to the other guard, who
removes a long piece of cloth from his pocket and inserts it into Turk’s mouth. Turk thrashes his head left and right, hollering, but the guard manages to secure the cloth around his face and tie it behind his head.

Suddenly, his screams are muted.

“Let’s begin,” Kyle says. He snaps his fingers and the guard with the syringe tests it, letting a jet of quicksilver into the air. Then he presses the tip of the needle into Turk’s forearm.

“If you decide to tell me how to use the heart, we’ll stop,” Kyle instructs him.

Turk simply shakes his head.

I watch as the guard empties the syringe into Turk’s arm. The skin on the inside of his elbow, where the needle is inserted, begins to shimmer. I can actually
see
the mercury traveling up his arm, turning his skin a silvery blue.

And then Turk convulses.

His entire body shakes as though he is going through a draining. His eyes roll back in his head and he foams at the mouth, drool seeping down his chin and onto his shirt.

“Stop!” I cry out. “That’s enough!”

Kyle snaps his fingers again and the first guard removes the syringe. It’s half empty.

The other guard unties the cloth around Turk’s mouth.

For a second, it looks like Turk is dead. Then he sputters up a bunch of mucus and begins to cough.

“Are you ready to tell me how to use the heart now?” Kyle asks, seeming entirely unconcerned that Turk could have just died.

Turk groans softly. “Yes.”

“Good,” Kyle says, rubbing his hands together.

“The answer is simple,” Turk manages to get out. “You suck.”

Kyle makes a strange face. “What?”

“You. Suck,” Turk says. And then he sticks out his tongue.

I suppress a laugh. Only Turk would make fun of my brother at a time like this.

“All right, then,” Kyle says stiffly. “If that’s how you want to be.” The cloth is placed back around Turk’s mouth, and Kyle motions for the guard to inject him again.

Once again, the silvery liquid shoots up Turk’s bicep, turning his entire arm a pearly silver. He convulses wildly. The skin of his arm looks as though it’s hardening—as if he is turning to stone right before my eyes.

This can’t be good.

“Just tell him!” I shout to Turk, hoping he’s conscious enough to hear me. “Kyle, stop—you’re hurting him!”

“That’s the point, Aria,” Kyle says, watching as green energy seeps from Turk’s pores, turning a sickly yellow as it hits the air, running like egg yolk down his arms and legs—as though the mercury is pushing out his powers. His body writhes.

“Stop!” I repeat. “Just get Elissa to tell you!”

Kyle waves his hand and the guard pulls the empty syringe from Turk’s arm. “I don’t want
Elissa
to tell me, because then I’ll have to share the heart with her.” The cloth is untied, and I watch as Turk takes a few shallow breaths. At least he’s still alive.

“So you’re not only a junkie, you’re greedy, too.”

“Oh, stop your wailing, Aria,” Kyle says, pointing at Turk. “How do you use the heart, mystic? How do you extract its power?” He’s shouting now, and the veins in his neck look like they might burst.

“Well,” Turk says in a weak voice, just above a whisper. “First you open the box.”

Kyle looks on eagerly. “And then?”

“And then … you …” The words come slowly, painfully from Turk’s cracked lips. “… suck it.”

“Damn you!” Kyle raises a fist and punches Turk in the side of the head. His neck whips to the side and I hear something snap.

I squirm in my chair again, trying to loosen the cord enough to slide out from underneath. Kyle isn’t paying any attention to me—he’s busy muttering to the guards, instructing them to fill another syringe with quicksilver.

I look over my shoulder and realize there’s an IV stand behind me, as well as an open bag of medical tools. The stand is tall and thin; for some reason it reminds me of the kendo stick Shannon used to train me back at the compound.

Which is when I get an idea.

“Inject him again,” Kyle says. “Let’s see if the third time is the charm.”

He and the two bodyguards have their backs to me now, their focus on Turk. I watch as the quicksilver crawls up his neck and spreads across his skin like a terrible rash.

I use the sound he is making—the
thwomp
ing of his back against the chair and the scratching of the chair’s metal legs across
the floor—to mask the sounds of my own chair as I wobble back and forth, attempting to crawl closer to the IV stand. At the same time, I heave my chest out, then in, trying to loosen the cord. With every move I make, I can feel more slack.

“Arrrggh!” Turk begins to scream.

Come on
, I urge myself.
He’s in agony. Just a little closer
.

“Are you ready to tell me now?” Kyle hollers at him. “Come on, mystic!”

I keep shifting my weight back and forth. For a second, Turk’s screaming stops and I hear the tiniest whisper:
“Suck it.”

“This is it, mystic,” Kyle says. “I’m guessing that once the quicksilver reaches your heart, you’re done. Dead.”

I can’t let that happen.

I shift my weight and feel the cord come undone and fall to the floor.

I try to remember some of the moves Shannon showed me, but my mind is a blur. I am so scared that Turk is going to die.

So I strike.

My hands still cuffed in the front, I bring the IV stand out in front of me and swipe it through the air, connecting with the head of the guard who is holding the syringe. The metal pole pierces his temple and he crashes to the floor, sending the syringe flying.

Kyle turns his head. “Aria?”

But I’m too fast for him.

I jump onto my right foot, slamming the pole into the other guard’s face. Blood bursts out of his nostrils, and I bring my right
knee up and kick him directly in the groin. The soldier collapses, and I give him one more quick blow to the back of the head. He’s out cold.