“Nope,” I told her. “One…two…
three
!”
It worked—it worked! For a fraction of a second it had worked. I saw Rochelle stagger and I’d moved my arm—just a bit. But I’d definitely moved. “Dana?” I asked.
“Yup,” she said. “Let’s keep it going. One…two…
three
!”
Rochelle just laughed and turned on her unequal heels—but again, she’d wobbled just a little as she went into the closet.
“Don’t push her too hard,” Milo said to me quickly and quietly. “She’ll lash out and she’ll kill you.”
“No, she’ll lash out and kill
you
,” I whispered back, my heart hammering in my chest. “She wants
my
blood.”
And sure enough, Rochelle came out of the closet—out of her home Destiny lab—with IV tubing, a needle, and an empty plasma bag. She wasn’t carrying them—she was floating them telekinetically beside her as if to emphasize how unconcerned she was by our attempts to tax her abilities.
In her mind, her powers were limitless. But I knew better. She was starting to sweat. I could see it beading on her upper lip and along her hairline.
“One…two…
three
,” I whispered, and we all pushed hard.
Rochelle just laughed again, and the rubber tourniquet wrapped itself around my arm, which she’d used her powers to jerk straight. And yes, there were my veins. Ouch. The needle pricked as it slid in and my blood began to flow out.
“So who do you save now?” Rochelle taunted me. “Jilly or yourself?” She turned to look at Dana as another blood bag and IV tubing came dancing out of the D-lab closet. “Or maybe…your precious Dana?” She smiled that awful smile at me. “I know your TK powers are limited and that you can’t save more than one of you at a time, you poor, pathetic little waste of powerful and delicious blood. So who, exactly, is it going to be?”
————
I was frozen—and not just because Rochelle had me in that TK body lock.
But then I realized that this was what she wanted. She wanted me paralyzed—and not actively fighting back and forcing her to use up more of the D in her system.
Dana and Milo were both hammering me with variations on, “If you die, everyone else will, too.”
Dana said it best. “Always put the oxygen mask on yourself first.”
Still, I knew if I stopped sending that blood back into Jilly, she was in serious danger. I could handle losing a bag of blood. I looked at it again. It was a
very
big bag.
But I also knew that Dana hadn’t recovered yet from donating blood into Calvin’s private Destiny fund. It wouldn’t be long before I was going to have to choose between Jilly and Dana, and I’m sorry, but I was going to pick Dana. But I was going to hate myself for the rest of my life—I knew that, as well.
But then Cal spoke up. “Bitch,
please
,” he said. “We all know Skylar’s gonna choose herself—because that’s what we all do, right? When it comes down to it? We always choose ourselves. So why don’t you let me get the hell up, so I can go and get that batch of D that’s cooking out in the trunk of my car—add it to what you’ve got going here. Because if you’re making Destiny with all three of these girls’ blood? That shit is gonna
rock
. And I want in.”
Dana started to cry. “Oh, Calvin, no,” she said. “Please, no, don’t make me kill you, too.”
Rochelle had turned to stare at Calvin, but now she looked hard at Dana. “She’s lying,” she reported in her crazy triple voice as she turned back to Calvin. “She will never kill you. She is not able. But you…
You
are
not
lying.”
My heart sank. I had been so certain that Cal was playing her—convincing her to set him free, so he’d suddenly… I didn’t know what. Save the day? Somehow. We desperately needed
someone
to save this extremely awful day.
But now…
Rochelle stepped closer to Cal. “You…
want
to help me. I see this in you.”
“That’s right,” Cal said, and my heart was in my throat because his eyes looked as crazy as hers. It was worse, because he was
Calvin
. Except he wasn’t. Not anymore. Oh, dear Lord… Was jokering contagious?
Except he wasn’t looking at me. His full focus was on Rochelle and only on Rochelle. His gaze didn’t waver, like she was the only person in this room he could see.
“Calvin, no,” Dana sobbed.
“Dana won’t have to kill you, Cal,” I spat out through gritted teeth as I strained against Rochelle’s hold. “I will!” He flinched—just a little—but he
still
didn’t look at me.
“No,” Milo said quietly. “
I
will.”
Rochelle did her truth-o-meter thing, looking first at me—“Lying”—and then Milo. “Not lying.”
Calvin laughed—the tiniest chuckle in the back of his throat as he kept his gaze glued to Rochelle. “Thanks, Miles. Good to know. Come on, sweet thang,” he implored the woman with a great big smile. “Cut me loose. Let’s have us some
fun
.”
Rochelle nodded and did it. I was waiting for her, and as I pushed and strained against her hold on me, I felt her control give just a little bit. Just enough for me to get my hands free and to rip that IV from my arm.
Ow!
She whirled to face me at that, crazy eyes sparking, her focus on locking me back down as behind her Calvin sat up, released from her hold. It was only then that he finally shot me a look—a slight widening of his brown eyes in an expression that said
Seriously?
—even as he reached for Dana, wrapping his arms around her as he shouted, “Now, now,
now
!”
He wasn’t on Rochelle’s side after all! I was right! I was right!
And it was insane what happened then. It was as if by touching each other, Dana’s power somehow combined with Cal’s, because the force they blasted out toward Rochelle was tinged with Cal’s blue electricity, but it was bigger; it was better; it was
super
Greater-Than. It picked up Rochelle and it flung her all the way across the room and slammed her against the far wall with a crash that shook the entire house.
And just like that, the TK hold Rochelle had on us was gone. Garrett sank down onto the floor, with Jilly still in his arms.
I could move again, and I reached for Milo, who also grabbed for me.
Are you all right? I am. Is Calvin…? He was lying to her! How in God’s name did he manage to lie to her?
But Cal and Dana weren’t done. They sent another bolt of their combined power at Rochelle, who was lying motionless across the room, and then another and another, until Dana finally spoke. “Cal! That’s enough. That’s enough, babe. That’s enough.”
And then they lay there, arms still around each other, both breathing hard.
Garrett asked what we were all thinking: “What the
hell
…?”
“Apparently one of my new abilities is some kind of telepathic blocking,” Cal told us. “And that whole weird knowing thing? Different than the numbers or addresses I blurt out, although…twenty-two! I don’t know what that means, but twenty-two. I got a big honking twenty-two echoing in my head—do with it what you will. But I somehow knew that I could do it. That she’d believe me even though I was lying. Kinda the same way I knew that if I grabbed hold of Dana, our powers would combine. And can I just state for the record? That. Was.
Awesome
.”
I asked the next important question. “Is she really dead?”
Dana pushed herself up off the floor and—still holding tightly to Cal in case they needed to blast her again—went over to check. “Yes.”
“Whoa,” Garrett said. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!”
Alarmed, I turned to look, wondering what new monster had appeared that we’d now have to fight, but saw that it was Jilly who was making Garrett go all
whoa
. She’d roused—apparently enough of her blood had returned to her system for her to be able to regain consciousness. She was trying to pull the needle from her arm.
“It’s okay,” Garrett told her. “The blood’s going back in.”
The bag was almost empty. “I’ll see if there’s any more in the back, in the lab,” Milo said and went to do just that.
But the girl was still disoriented and upset. Garrett had to hold her hand to keep her from removing the IV. “It’s all over,” he tried to reassure her. “You’re safe. Rochelle is dead.”
Jilly started to cry. “Oh Jesus, oh no!”
“Rochelle being dead doesn’t make Jilly safe,” I reminded Garrett. “She thinks she has to go back.”
“Because I do,” Jilly said, sobbing. “I have to go back. And then it all starts again! Please,
please
just let me die.”
“Okay,” I said. “We will. We’re going to. You’re going to die here. Today.”
Now Dana, Calvin, and Garrett were all looking at me as if
I’d
jokered.
But Milo had recently spent time in my head, and since I’d been thinking about this for a while, he knew exactly what I meant. And as he brought another bag of Jilly’s blood out of the closet, he said, “Skylar has a really good idea. It was from something Garrett said. About how the only way Jilly will ever be free is if she dies.” He knelt down next to the girl and told her, “So we’re going to make it look like you died. Here. Today, just like Sky said.” He looked up at me. “We’ll have to burn the place down.”
I nodded. “I figured Cal could start an electrical fire. It’ll be an accident. Rochelle’s body will be found, along with her dear friend Ashley, and the body of a teenager that Garrett can identify as Jilly. That, plus we’ll leave behind the tracking device from Jilly’s arm…”
Dana was following, partly. “Hello. This means we need the body of a teenaged girl.” As she said the words, she, too, figured it out. “We’ll go into Harrisburg. And buy one.”
I nodded as I put the new plasma bag on the end of Jilly’s IV and gently sent that blood back up the tubing.
Most people in Harrisburg were desperately homeless. They couldn’t buy food let alone pay for burial costs when a loved one died. So a truck went around every morning, picking up the dead. Some of the cadavers were sold to the university and colleges up in Palm River. The others were buried in the local landfill. It was awful to think we could buy a dead girl, but if it meant saving Jilly…
Jilly looked from Dana to me to Garrett, and for the first time, she had a spark of hope in her eyes. “But…I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“You can stay with me,” Garrett said, not entirely gallantly.
Dana shook her head. “That’s not a good idea. Your father’s eventually gonna come home. I think she should go to Orlando. Stay with April and the others. They’re doing a good job taking care of Lacey…”
Calvin took her hand. “That’s a really good idea.”
“For now, anyway,” Dana said.
Garrett cleared his throat. “I’ll go into Harrisburg and get the, you know, body. That’s something I can do. You guys have been carrying most of the weight today.”
“Thanks, G,” I said. “That would be great. Meanwhile, we’ll get Jilly ready to travel.”
Garrett cleared his throat again. “But I kinda need…money. Sorry. I’m broke, and I’m betting the guy with the bodies won’t take my plastic.”
Dana nodded. “You and Cal go upstairs, see what Rochelle has in her wallet. If there’s not enough cash, go shopping in her jewelry box. We don’t want to take it all. We don’t want anyone to think there was a robbery here—just an accidental fire that burns itself out.”
And it would burn out. Coconut Key’s skeletal fire department would, at best, only be called in to prevent the neighboring houses from igniting.
“Let’s do this,” Dana said. But before Cal followed Garrett upstairs, she pulled him in for a long, lingering,
thank God we’re alive
kiss.
And I realized then that this dangerous day wasn’t over.
We still had to deal with Calvin’s addiction. The words he’d told Rochelle echoed in my head.
When it comes down to it? We always choose ourselves
.
I knew he was lying when he said it—that he didn’t believe it, because it
wasn’t
true. We were all still alive because we always chose each other, because we worked together, because we relied on and protected one another.
But as the Destiny took a tighter hold on him, Calvin
would
forget.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Jilly signed on to our plan by doing it herself—cutting her own arm and removing the tracking device that her Destiny farm owners had implanted beneath her skin. Like most G-Ts, she had an ability to heal superficial wounds rather quickly. Her massive blood loss, though, would require a longer period of recovery, so after she did her little self-surgery, she curled up and took a nap.
Dana and Milo were in the closet, making sure that Rochelle’s home Destiny lab would be completely destroyed in the fire, when Calvin approached me.
I was still shaking from the fight with Rochelle, but I was trying my best to help—going through the piles of laundry that were in the hallway. I pulled out Jilly’s clothes and packed what I found in a series of leopard-print suitcases. I’d tossed in the video game player, along with a small collection of games—but not enough to make anyone think there’d been a robbery. Still, I figured that since I’d recently flooded out the rebels, they might appreciate whatever Jilly could bring with her.
“Hey,” Cal said as I tucked Jilly’s sneakers in next to a pile of T-shirts.
“Did you find what you needed?” I asked. He’d wanted to cover both Ashley and Rochelle with sheets. I think the sight of them—particularly Ashley—royally freaked him out.
“Yeah,” he said. “I did. Upstairs. Thanks. Although this does seem to be laundry central, doesn’t it? I guess it saves time if you can get dressed while walking down the hall.”
“You know, I didn’t
want
to believe you before,” I told him, just bluntly changing the subject.
Cal nodded. “I know,” he said. “It’s okay. I’m pretty scary these days.”
He’d meant that as a joke—at least I think he did. But I didn’t laugh. Or deny it.