Toxic (Denazen #2)(67)

Someone screamed. Just a garbled sound that was neither male nor female. Something cool wrapped around my upper arms, and I was moving again. Faster. Straighter. Out past the broken glass doors and into the night air.

The clean night air.

“Take it easy, miss,” a voice I didn’t recognize soothed. “Don’t take panicked breaths. Nice and easy. That’s it.”

It took several attempts for the fire in my lungs to lessen. Deep, measured breaths slowly replaced the bad air with good.

“Dez!” Kale skidded to a stop in front of me. He went to reach for me, but Jade, always frigging in the way, batted his hand aside.

At least he had the intelligence to glare at her for it this time.

“Are you okay?”

I tried to answer, but the burning in my throat stopped me, so I just nodded.

Behind him, Ginger, Kiernan, Alex, and a small group of others watched as the firefighters battled the blaze destroying our home. I was glad Daun left. Would she have gotten stuck inside? How many didn’t make it out? There were still so many faces unaccounted for.

So many unaccounted for…

Oh, God.

I scanned the crowd again.

She wasn’t here.

“Mom!”





25


I was almost back to the building when one of the firefighters tackled me. Spinning me back toward the crowd, he said, “Is that who you’re lookin’ for, kid?”

Frantic and running straight for us was Mom.

We collided halfway. Her arms wound so tight, it made the smoke seem like easy breathing, but I didn’t care. She was okay. I was okay. We hadn’t lost each other.

We rejoined the crowd and watched in mournful silence. The Sanctuary hotel was nothing more than smoldering ash and hazy plumes of gray smoke by the time the firemen were done. Two bodies were pulled from the wreckage. Rosie and another woman whose name I didn’t remember. I’d seen her around. She could shift into a tiger.

Four people were still unaccounted for. The firefighters assured us there was no one left inside the building, saying that in cases like these, people panic and run and usually resurface later. We knew better. They wouldn’t resurface. They’d been taken by Denazen.

“It was Fin. Had to be,” Mom said as she settled behind me.

The fire trucks were pulling out, and Ginger was in the process of arranging everyone a temporary place to stay till we could get things sorted out.

“It was,” I whispered, remembering the look on his face. He was completely unglued. Far past gone. They’d retire him soon, if he even made it out of the building alive. There was nothing I could do to help him.

“How do you know?” Mom blinked and backed away a bit. “And why is your hair green?”

I ignored the hair question—I really had no idea what to say—and focused on Fin. “We saw him. He’s—”

“Dez?” Kale came up beside Mom.

One look at his face, and she beat a hasty retreat in an obvious attempt to give us some privacy.

“You let go of me. Inside. I lost you.”

I took a small step back. “Technically, you let go of me.”

He was looking at me funny. Not angry, and not sad, but somewhere in between. “Did you hurt your shoulder?”

“No?”

“You’re rubbing it.”

I froze. “Itchy. Where’s your shadow?”

He ignored the question. Expression sad, he said, “You can’t touch me like you used to. But you can still talk to me.” He took a step closer. “I need you to talk to me, Dez.”

I couldn’t breathe. Every inch of me wanted to come clean. “Kale…”

“Something is wrong. With you. I don’t understand why you won’t tell me. You’re hiding something.”

But I couldn’t. It would only make things worse. “I—sometimes there’s just stuff people can’t tell each other.”

He folded his arms, not the least bit dissuaded. “We’re a team. You and me. Everything together. That’s what you said. You have to tell me. That’s how it works.”

“This is—” I scanned the crowd and found Jade standing by one of the ambulances. She was staring at us, lips twisted and expression angry. I could see the hate in her eyes. Hate my father had been able to easily manipulate. Hate that had destroyed the hotel and killed our friends. Had killed Rosie… It was easy to see she wanted to storm over and break up our conversation, but the EMT fussing over her refused to let her move from the tailgate.

I needed to distract him. “I know you think Jade is a good person and that you like her, but she’s a bad person, Kale.” I pointed to the remains of the hotel. “This is her fault. I know it. And I’m not just saying that because she wants to steal my boyfriend.”

…

“How ya doin’?” Kiernan plopped down on the floor next to me.

I sucked in a deep breath and looked around. Ginger had gone with me, Kiernan, and Mom to her friend Meela’s house. Mom and Ginger took the spare bedroom while Kiernan and I were bunking in the living room. “I’m a little freaked. Fin was…”

“That’s the guy you used to go to school with, right? Kale told me what happened when you were talking to your mom. It was that bad?”