Tremble (Denazen #3)(5)

I was an idiot.

“This is Kiernan McGuire, the girl Daddy told you about.”

I nearly fell over. “Are you serious?”

Kale’s eyes darkened and the right corner of his upper lip pulled back. I knew that look. It was the one he frequently wore while thinking about his years at Denazen. While thinking about the people who hurt him. At the moment, that was apparently me. “She’s the one responsible for my accident?”

There was the smallest twinge of doubt in his voice. I might have been able to pick at the edges and pry something free, but Kiernan jumped right in. “Think hard, Kale. Kiernan. You know the name… How does it make you feel?”

“This is crap,” I spat. “Don’t listen to her. She’s so full of shit her eyes are brown!”

“Kiernan.” He repeated the name, eyes still on mine. Falling forward, he released my throat and placed both hands against the wall on either side of my head, boxing me in. “It makes me feel angry.”

Worry bubbled, but I stuffed it down. “Of course it makes you feel angry. She screwed us all over.”

Alex moved farther into the bathroom and inched closer, but he froze when Kale turned. Alex threw up his hands in a show of surrender and nodded in my direction. “You’re confused, brother man. This is Dez. You don’t want to hurt her.”

“He’s right, Kale,” Kiernan said, somber. “Daddy would be pissed if something happened to her. She’s part of an earlier trial of his Supremacy project.”

Kale’s eyes traveled over me with a hint of disgust, and something inside shattered into a million tiny pieces. Seeing him kiss Kiernan had been horrible, but seeing him look at me that way was unbearable. Like I was one of them. It was one of the worst moments in my life. “She’s Supremacy?”

“I know. Makes no sense, right? But it was the test round. They weren’t picky about subjects. She lives. For now.” She waved her cell and pointed toward the door. “We have to go. Stuff to do, remember?”

He held my gaze, and for a second—just a second—I could have sworn I saw something spark in his eyes. Recognition? A feeling? Maybe a flash of something familiar. But it didn’t matter. Whatever it was disappeared within a half beat of my heart, leaving his stare cold and empty. He turned and crossed the threshold without a word, Kiernan following close behind.

As she stepped into the hall, just before rounding the corner, she turned back to me, smiling. “Did you know the first official stage of the Supremacy decline is loss of the ability to feel pain?”

And then she was gone.

“Dez, your arm.” Alex grabbed my hand and twisted. The sleeve of my new green sweater was ripped and oozing red.

“Crap,” I hissed, wrapping my hand tight to stop the bleeding.

“You don’t feel it?”

“Of course I feel it!” I lied. Did it with a straight face, too. Pretty impressive considering the raging storm of holy freaking crap brewing in my chest. “Hurts like hell.” I nodded to the door. I could freak later. The Supremacy thing would still be waiting—unfortunately—but Kale wouldn’t. “Hurry. We can’t lose them.”

We charged from the bathroom and into the hall, taking the steps two at a time. It took a minute, but I finally spotted Kiernan’s newly blond head bobbing through the crowd, Kale at her side. We needed to move faster. They were already across the room and by the door. Another few seconds and they’d be out of sight.

The party had gotten even more crowded in the time we’d been gone. An unending sea of bodies stood between us and them, making it impossible to cut fast through the middle of the room. “Shit! We’re gonna lose them.”

Alex took my hand. He stopped short and tugged me to the side, jaw set in determination. “No we won’t.”

We’d talked about Alex using his abilities in public. More specifically, around our friends. He’d grown a little careless, and in an epically weird turn of events, I found myself being the voice of reason. It was one thing to make a napkin float across the room in a crowd of drunken people. It was another to make said napkin conveniently dive into the cleavage of the hot foreign exchange student.

This was an exception. With the smallest flick of his fingers, he parted the crowd down the middle, allowing for a narrow, straight path between them and us. There was a little confusion, and a few people yelped, but no one seemed to realize what had happened. It was like a handful of people inexplicably tripped backward at the same time.

With a grin, Alex propelled me through the middle of the newly separated crowd and right out the front door. Easy peasy. We made it onto the lawn in time to see Kiernan and Kale reach the sidewalk. They stopped, and Kiernan pointed to a couple standing a few feet away. I didn’t recognize either of them, but that didn’t mean anything. Parkview had one hell of a reputation. Kids came from neighboring towns just to party.

We ducked behind a tree and I sucked in a deep breath, trying to process everything that had happened. “He had no memory of either of us. He touched me and nothing happened… He touched her.”

“He did a little more than touch—”

I glared, daring him to finish the sentence.

“Sorry. Old habit. The guy brings out the worst in me.” He leaned forward and cursed. “Oh, wow… The memory and touching? Yeah, that’s not the only thing that’s different.”