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“Screw you,” I say.
Luke chuckles. “Does your bed have two bad sides?”
“What?”
“It’s just you’re always so … ill-tempered. I figured you wake up on the wrong side of the bed every day.”
“Yeah, I’m sure your bed is perfect.” As soon as I say this, I cringe.
“Sweetheart, you have no idea. All I can say is you would always get up on the right side of my bed.” His grin is wide. He looks so pleased at his own wit I could punch him. If it wasn’t for the crippling nausea his comment unleashes in my gut, I would do it.
I regain my cool in time to say, “Your foul, slut-ready lair, you mean.” I can’t hold the acid from my words. Great, I’ve answered his wit with an insult. I guess he is smarter than me.
He puts a hand to his heart. “I refuse to pay back your insult with another. This should serve as proof that I’m a gentleman and innocent of the accusation you lay before me.”
“Oh, get over yourself, Luke,” I snap.
He laughs and laughs, pleasure brimming in his gold-flecked, blue eyes. My mind churns with nothing but more insults. I squeeze my eyes shut and let it go. The game started the moment I sat in front of him. The pieces haven’t even moved and I’ve already lost.
Checkmate.
After Luke outsmarts me in chess as well as other areas, I ride my bike to Millennium Arcade to look for Xave. Cigarette smoke wafts past me as I open the door. Randy, the owner, ignores the public smoking ordinances. His patrons don’t complain.
I find Xave at one of the pool tables, playing with Cameron. He breaks the balls with a quick flick of his wrist and watches as four of them find homes. The way he plays pool should grant him a PhD in physics, if only this ability translated into good grades at school.
“What’s up, Xave?”
The smug smile disappears from his face when he looks up and sees me there.
“Had fun last night?” I ask, walking over to get a cue. “Hey,” I say to Cameron, who, used to the pool rivalry between Xave and me, gives me a quick nod and finds someone else to play with.
“You could say that.” Xave scans the balls, planning his next move.
A fast-paced song plays in the Dance Dance machine, trying to entice someone to bust a move. We all have two left feet here. Randy will realize that soon and get rid of the abomination. He’ll replace it with a good shoot-’em-up game, if he knows what’s good for business.
“So, are you gonna tell me how it went? Or is it some … national secret?” I examine the balls on the table, calculating possible shots. As I glance back at Xave, I wish assessing his mood was as easy as assessing this game.
He returns his cue to the rack, wipes chalky hands on his black jeans and walks away.
“All rightie,” I say, “I guess that means you don’t wanna play … or talk.”
Xave looks over his shoulder. “Let’s go out back.”
I don’t understand what’s up with him lately. God, I wish he’d quit acting like an idiot. It’s as if all that testosterone coursing through his veins has a negative impact on his IQ. I don’t think I can put up with his moody butt much longer. But for now, curiosity gets the best of me, so I play along.
We go into the back alley through the emergency exit. Xave leans against the wall right next to the door, pops a stick of cinnamon gum in his mouth and crosses his arms. I walk out, stand in the middle of the alley, my back turned, and wait for him to say something before making eye contact. He says nothing. I exhale and bite my tongue, trying to control the urge to scream. Maybe he’s still mad at me for crashing the motorcycle. If so, he needs to get over it.
My favorite alley cat shows up, purring at my feet. I squat and pet her, relieved for the distraction.
“Hey there.” I scratch the backs of her ears. Her round, green eyes squint, a clear sign of pleasure. I smile, almost forgetting Xave stands brooding nearby.
“Come here,” I say, picking Alley Cat up and sitting down on an upturned recycling bin. I place the cat on my lap, where she stays content.
Finally, I look up. Xave’s staring at me, frowning. I stare back, and for the first time take a good look at him. His light brown hair, usually styled to look casual/shaggy, lies limp like wet noodles. There are dark half-moons under his eyes and stubble accentuates his jaw. He looks tired, but above all, angry.
“So what, you’re still mad at me?” I ask.
His eyes are dark, hiding everything but his ill temper. He huffs, a quick exhale through his nose that makes his head go up and down.
You big bobblehead!
“What’s the deal, Xave? The cult got your tongue?” I chuckle.
Practically growling, he stomps toward the Dumpster like a lumbering bear and proceeds to kick it with the tip of his boot. Alley Cat spooks and jumps two feet in the air, but not before digging sharp claws through my jeans and peppering my face with black fur.
“Ow.” I jump up, rub my thighs and glower at Xave. He stands breathing heavily and slouching as if he just ran a race and is trying to recover.
“Look,” I say, “if you don’t want to tell me anything about your new friends,that’s okay. But you don’t have to act like a Neanderthal.”
I understand guys sometimes don’t like to talk about feelings and stuff. Hell, I don’t like it either. But if he’s still mad at me, he needs to spit it out, so we can get past this.
Do I have to be the one who brings reason into this mess? I sigh. “Okay, I apologize about Clark’s bike.” The words feel like spiked ninja Makibishi going down my throat. I swallow my pride and continue. “I promise to fix it and to never pull a stunt like that again.”
He looks at me as if I’m speaking Japanese. I guess Clark’s bike is not what’s on his mind. I put my hands up in a give-me-something gesture. He gives me nothing but a darker shade of those hazel eyes. Well, I guess we have nothing to talk about. With resolve, I walk past him and head toward the street.
“You know where to find me if you wanna talk.” I’ve taken five steps when he finally decides to speak.
“They call themselves IgNiTe,” he says.
I freeze. My eyes grow wide and my hands go as cold as dead fish. I whirl around, a tornado vibrating with the force of nature.
“What?!”
Inhale.
Keep cool.
Don’t choke him.
Xave stares at the ground. I wait for him to make eye contact, fingernails digging into my palms. His eyes flicker toward mine for a split second, then fall back down, this time to a broken crate. His anger is gone. He just looks embarrassed now.
With measured steps, I approach him until he’s at arm’s length. “You told them about me?” As I ask the question, my upper lip twitches, enough that I’m sure he can see my clenched teeth.
Xave sniffs once and flicks his nose with a quick thumb, a nonchalant gesture that he pulls off all too well.
“Did they catch you by surprise, Warrior?” he says.
What happened to being embarrassed? I never knew him to feel such … discontent toward me, never knew him to flip emotions so quickly.
“Why the hell would you do something like that?” I ask in complete disbelief.
I don’t get it. I know lately things have been squirrely between us, but we’ve been friends for a long time, ever since he showed up in front of my house wearing red rubber boots and started splashing in a puddle, asking me to join him. We laughed and held hands while we jumped.
Since that day, we’ve done countless things together and know everything about each other. I sat with him when he got his first tattoo and the first time a girl dumped him—even if I never said a word, he still let me hold his hand. I’ve even memorized the exact shade of his hazel eyes for his every mood. I wish I knew why lately I’ve seen plenty of that dark, threatening hue when in the past, I’ve only seen it directed at others, especially those who mess with me.
“Why would you let them infect my rig like that? All my hard work’s probably messed up for good. Why?” I really want to understand.
“Oh, it was a harmless message, Marci. They said it wouldn’t hurt anything.” Uncertainty crosses his eyes for a second, then he asks, “Everything still works, right?” But it’s not a caring question. It’s a challenge. He doesn’t want to believe they would play him.
I could tell him that I don’t know, that I didn’t have a chance to check, but I choose to let doubt settle on him. I hope it’s heavy. His eyes waver. Good.
“Well Xave, I’d say we’re even now. So maybe now you can stop being so mad at me.”
If anything, my comment only makes him angrier. Ha! And they say women don’t make any sense.
“What do they want with me, anyway? I already told them. I. Do. Not. Join,” I say.
At the question, he looks as puzzled as I feel. Then it hits me: he doesn’t know what’s going on any more than I do. They didn’t tell him jack. I chuckle at the irony. The newest member of IgNiTe knows nothing. It’s probably part of their cult philosophy.
“It beats me,” Xave admits. And there’s bitterness in his tone and something else, too. Jealousy?
Oh, man. That’s it! He’s jealous. I should have seen it before. For months, all he’s talked about is discovering what his brother’s up to. Ever since they were little, Xave has looked up to Clark, emulating him in every respect. And now that he’s finally within his brother’s circle, he hates to see the attention shift to me.
The question remains. Why are they interested in me?
I know what you are.
IgNiTe’s message flashes in front of my eyes. I try to pretend the words mean nothing, that it was only a stupid prank, meant to get my attention. I hate to admit it worked.
“What do these people do, Xave? What did they tell you? Why are they interested in recruiting … high school kids?”
“If you’re so interested in the details, I guess you’ll have to join, won’t ya?” he says, then walks away rubbing his chin, making a raspy sound.
“Cut the bull-crap. It’s obvious they didn’t tell you anything. Don’t act as if you’re with the in crowd, now. Tell James and IgNiTe or whoever that I’m not interested.”
He lays a hand on the door knob, ready to get back inside. “Whatever you say, Marci.” He speaks over his shoulder.
“Oh, and don’t worry, I’ll stay out of your way, so you can play Bad Boys with your brother without me cramping your style.”
Something like regret takes shape in Xave’s eyes. He looks as if he wants to say something. His lips part, but as I see he’s at the verge of letting the words out, I spin on my heels and walk away.
I’m too mad to even look at him anymore. If I stay, there’ll be no hope of ever keeping this friendship or controlling the shadows. It’s the latter that scares me the most.
Chapter 7 (#ulink_5b15ec63-b453-5cf6-9240-9cf3671a8fa6)
When I get home, the house is quiet. Mom’s not back from work yet. I go straight to my room, fall on my knees under the desk and pull out one of the CPUs. I unplug all the cables and carry the metal box to the opposite end of the room, where there’s another electric plug. I go back and forth, snatching a monitor, mouse, keyboard, and cables out of my stockpile.
I boot the machine by itself, isolated from the other computers to avoid cross-contamination. When it comes up with no problems, I still don’t trust it. With quick keystrokes and mouse clicks, I fly from one scanning routine to another. After one hour of scouring, using programs written by me and others, I come up empty. There is no trace of any malicious code.
Exhausted, I sit cross-legged on the floor in the deep silence, my back curved, my chin touching my chest. I feel beaten and vulnerable. My eyes lock on an old Cheerio that lies on the floor. For a hair’s breadth, my mind goes blank.
Sensing the wasteland of my thoughtless mind, shadows lurk, stalk—like lions crouched amid tall, golden grass. I’ve become a sitting duck. As a trained response, adrenaline explodes inside me and gets my heart hammering. I smell the threat, sense the hunger, and my own fear threatening to paralyze me.
Stand up.
Breathe.
Bugs Bunny.
Get to work.
I become a moving target—my instincts razor sharp, the product of a lifetime fending off countless assaults. In a frenzy, I check the rest of the computers in the same fashion. When I finish, my frustration is even greater than before. I still have no idea how IgNiTe managed to bombard me with those messages.
I know what you are. I know what you are.
The words resonate with me and I get hung up on a particular one. “What.” Not “who you are” but “what you are.”
What did they mean? Is it possible that I’m not …? No! I shake my head, unwilling to take any guesses, desperate to find out what exactly IgNiTe is talking about. Could they be aware of the secret I’ve so carefully guarded all these years? Or is this just some big coincidence? Because it seems unthinkable that they would have an answer to the one question that has obscured my entire life.
But what if they do? Am I foolish enough to hope they can expel the shadows living inside my brain? What if there’s a cure? There’s nothing I want more than to be free of them, than to live without fear.
My head hangs low again, aware that these conjectures are all part of my madness. Because what else could I be but barking mad? The puzzle never ends. How much of my life is real? How much is a product of insanity? Because the truth is: demons don’t exist and possession and exorcism only happen in the movies.
Psychosis on the other hand … they have medication for that.
Not caring anymore whether my system blows up or gets hijacked again, I connect everything the way it’s supposed to be and get back online. I don’t dare go on the H-Loop today. I’m not in the mood, anyhow, so I decide to check my email instead. I open the inbox. A solitary message awaits.
My heart freezes.
From: IgNiTe
Subject: You are NOT the only one
The mouse pointer hovers over the message. There are no attachments that could contain dangerous files, so I open it. In the body of the message, one simple sentence stares at me in bold and italic letters.
Watch the State of the Union Address.
9:21, 25:58, 43:07…
What the … ?
This game isn’t funny. If Xave is behind this new messed-up prank, I’ll kick him so hard he won’t live to spread his seed. My fingers pound the search words into the web browser. When I hit enter, the first listing is a video of the most recent State of the Union Address by President J.P. Helms.
I click on it. It’s one hour and fifteen minutes long.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
I haven’t slept in thirty-five hours. If I play along with this ridiculous game, I’ll be drooling over my keyboard in two minutes flat. Forget it. If I’m gonna sleep, I’ll do it in the comfort of my bed. I’ll get lost in my dreams, where the shadows can’t reach me.
