Tremble (Denazen #3)(18)

“For what?”

I whipped the object—it turned out to be a wrench—around and slammed it into the side of Kale’s head as Alex yanked up the garage door. “To knock some frigging sense into you.”

I raced toward Alex as Kale went down and Kiernan burst through the door.





7


“Is this blood?” Mom had my T-shirt in her hand. I’d caught the sleeve on the way out Conny’s garage, gashing my shoulder in the process. Alex and I had gone straight back to the cabin after leaving Kale—something I felt horrible about doing. I’d hit him hard, and I had no way of knowing if he was all right.

“Figures. One of my favorite shirts, too.” I pulled a clean shirt over my head and turned back to Mom. She stood in the doorway, the ruined shirt still in hand, and looked uncomfortable. It was easy to forget sometimes—especially lately—that she, too, had been a prisoner of Denazen. She had been there just slightly less time than Kale, having been imprisoned after becoming pregnant with me. “I don’t suppose we’ve gotten any leads on that Penny chick, huh?”

“Nothing solid,” she said. “But Dax and I did manage to find one of the Supremacy kids.”

This was the first I’d heard. “And by find you mean—”

“Alive,” she confirmed with a smile. “We convinced her to come back with us, too.”

“Seriously?” Maybe Alex was right and I’d been too aggressive with Ashley. Dax had mellowed her out a lot, but Mom still tended to be on the scary side if you didn’t know her. If they’d managed to talk someone into coming back, I’d screwed up big time. “Who did you find?”

“Her name is LuAnn Moore. Ginger has her in the new wing—on the other side of the pool. She’s keeping that area reserved for any of the Supremacy kids we find and bring back.”

Reserved. Meaning quarantined in case they went bonkers. I wondered how long before they suggested a change of address for Brandt and me.

Mom hesitated, then said, “How…how are you feeling?”

“What you’re really asking is if I’ve started seeing any signs, right?”

She kept her expression neutral, but I did catch a small twitch of her lip. For Mom, that was equal to an emotional outburst. She wasn’t the most touchy-feely person out there—unless of course you were Dax. I still hadn’t figured that one out. “That, and how are you taking the Kale situation?”

I pulled a hoodie over my T-shirt and sank onto the bed. “There’s nothing yet,” I said in response to the Supremacy question, even though I was pretty sure it was a lie. I’d stubbed my toe that morning and screamed like a baby because it’d hurt so badly, but the other night when Kiernan slashed me, I hadn’t felt a thing. It seemed to be sporadic—and I didn’t know if that was good or bad. “As for Kale, I’m dealing. It hurt seeing him like that. The way he was talking—it was hard. But I’m going to fix it. He’s in there—I know it. I’ll make this right.”

She tossed the shirt into the pile of dirty clothes on the floor. “And if you can’t?”

I lifted my head and met her gaze head-on. “That’s just not an option for me.”

A small smile tugged at the edges of her lips. She nodded, and right before she turned, said, “That’s my girl.”

“Hey,” I called as she disappeared around the corner. I’d almost forgotten the reason I’d called her in.

“Yes?”

“That list. The one Brandt gave us with the Supremacy names. Where is it?”

“Why?”

I shrugged and tried to play it cool. “No reason. Thought maybe I could take a peek. See what’s ahead. Might help to get an idea of who else is still out there and what we’ll be up against.”

And just like someone flipped a switch, Mom’s demeanor changed. She went from normal Mom to I-have-a-secret Mom. It’d taken me a while, but I finally had her moods down—not that there were many. “Ginger has it. She’s keeping the names a secret for now.”

“Really,” I said, folding my arms.

She started inching to the right. “I have to find Dax. I promised I’d spar with him.” If I’d blinked, I would have missed it. She was gone.

“You’d think she’d know better by now,” I said to myself. I mean, she’d basically dared me to go find the thing. If Ginger was keeping the names a secret, then there had to be a reason. I had a duty to myself—and to the other Supremacy kids—to find out what that reason was.

I waited a few minutes to be sure Mom was gone before heading out of my room and down the main hall.

Dax was our own resident Bruce Wayne Six, and he had financed the entire underground community to keep us safe. I didn’t know it when I first met him, but apparently Dax had money. Lots of it. And at the rate we brought in new blood, we’d have to expand soon. That is, unless some of us started dropping off.

I hurried through the pool room, pinching my nose against the stench—I’d never liked the smell of chlorine—and made my way toward Ginger’s room. She was at the end of the hall, away from everyone else. She said it was because she liked the quiet, but if you asked Dax, he put her there because she snored loudly enough to wake the entire complex.