Tremble (Denazen #3)(38)

I couldn’t help it. A smile crept across my lips. Kale saw it, too.

“Don’t. It doesn’t mean anything. The thought was there one minute and gone the next. I could push you from the car right now and not think twice.”

I shook my head. “No. You couldn’t.” A short snicker escaped despite my best efforts to rein it in. “You wouldn’t make it far. You can’t drive well, remember?”

“You did something. When you kissed me. My head’s been…wrong ever since.”

“It’s not wrong, Kale. It’s starting to clear.”




…

We drove until the sun crested the horizon. I didn’t know where we were going and didn’t ask, instead following the directions Kale would occasionally bark. I was tired but energized by the tiny glimpse of progress. It was enough to keep me going. The road that stretched in front of us was full of possibilities. Despite the situation, I felt more hopeful than I had in months.

Kale had me pull the car off the interstate and into a Sunoco station parking lot. Digging into his jacket pocket, he said, “I’m going to make a call. Don’t speak.”

“Make sure you put it on speaker,” I said, and to my surprise, he did.

It rang six times before a girl’s voice, frantic, answered. “Kale?”

“What’s going on, Roz.”

“Oh my God, Kale. I’ve been so worried.”

It gave me some small amount of pleasure to hear the chill in his voice as he spoke to her. It was all business, tinted with anger. And the expression on his face? Yeah. Obviously, Kale wasn’t feeling the love. “What’s going on?” he repeated. “I was attacked by agents.”

On the other end of the line, you could have heard a feather hit the ground.

“How did they find me?” he pushed.

“Are you sure they were Denazen agents? It could have been an Underground tr—”

“They were Denazen. Why would they attack me, Roz?”

“I—I have no idea. Where are you? Come home. Please? You’re so close to a breakthrough. Mindy’s waiting to do your next session. If you miss it you’ll lose all the progress you’ve already made.”

“I’m in the middle of something.”

I could hear the panic in Kiernan’s voice. Teeth digging into my tongue to keep from saying something out loud, I leaned a hair closer. Kale didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he didn’t care. I let myself believe the latter.

“Then tell me where you are. I’ll come to you. Whatever it is, we can tackle it together. You don’t have to be alone.”

“I’m not alone. I have Kiernan with me.”

I could almost hear the steam coming from her ears. Her reaction was so epic that for once, I didn’t get pissed about him calling me Kiernan. “What?”

“I found her outside Thom Morris’s house.”

“And you, what?” she snapped. There was banging in the background—like she was slamming things around. Typical Kiernan. She was the temper tantrum queen. I’d seen it a thousand times. She’d hummed her cell through one of the windows at the hotel when some guy at Ginger’s Six-only rave never called her back. “Thought you’d take her for a ride? Didn’t Daddy give the kill order? Why is she even still alive?”

“First I owe her for what she did to me.”

The tension in her voice eased a little. “But we need you back here. We have to find the others before they do any damage—and your treatments… I want to see you well again, Kale. Why don’t you bring her home? Maybe Daddy can reason with her.” Then, in a softer voice, she added, “Please…I miss you.”

Kiernan was frantic. It reinforced Aubrey’s theory about Kale’s memories coming back on their own. Every minute I spent with him was another that her control over him might slip. She knew how much he loved me. Spending time with the real thing—and not the phony—was bound to shake something loose.

Dez Cross. Accept no substitutions.

“I can’t yet. There’s something I need to do.”

“What?” she squealed so loudly that I cringed. “What could you possibly have to do?”

“You’re going to have to trust me.” His eyes darted to mine, then back to the cell. “You trust me, right, Roz?”

“Of course I—”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I don’t like you running around with her. She’s dangerous.”

“I can take care of myself. I’m hanging up now. I’ll be in touch.”

“Kale, wait. I—”

He looked down at the cell, then up at me. It wasn’t a smile. Not really. But it wasn’t a scowl, either. “Let’s go find the truth.”





15


We drove for another hour before Kale made me pull off the interstate again. I asked him twice where we were going and he kept saying he wasn’t sure, but it looked like we were headed somewhere specific.

“How much farther? Remember Simmons’s plane comes in tomorrow. We can’t miss it.”

“We won’t.”

And that was it. It was all he said for another forty minutes. When he spoke again, it was to tell me to pull into the driveway of a small, unassuming ranch with a barricade of firewood all around the front porch and a three-foot lit snowman with a bright red Santa hat by the door.