Tremble (Denazen #3)(59)
23
“Where is he?” Alex asked as I settled on the couch with an oversize cup of coffee. Mom sat across from me next to Dax, and Vince had his nose buried in the business section on the other end while downing a colossal stack of pancakes doused with an unhealthy amount of maple syrup. I’d never seen anyone eat as much sweet stuff as him. My teeth hurt just being in the same room.
“In the gym. He’s dealing with a lot of…anger.” I sipped the coffee. There wasn’t nearly enough sugar, but I’d left the jar on the counter in the kitchen. I was too lazy to go back and grab it, so I sucked it up.
Kale and I had fallen asleep in his room and stayed that way clear until eight the next morning. We’d talked for a while—mainly about the way things had been before he went back to Denazen. He questioned me extensively about his early years there but was disappointed when I couldn’t give him any details. I suggested he talk to Mom, but he didn’t seem eager. I was pretty sure it had to do with the slightly cool reception he’d been given upon arrival.
I woke to find him watching me with an odd expression. When I asked if he remembered something, he simply replied not exactly and excused himself to the gym.
“Where’s Ben?” But what I really wanted to know was, How’s Ben? Sane or raving nut job?
Mom rested her elbows on the table—something she only did when Ginger wasn’t around. For a cranky, jagged old woman, she took table manners seriously. “Ginger’s with him now. We also managed to find Andrea Marko and Kayla Dean.”
“Kayla Dean is showing signs of decline,” Dax said through a mouthful of bagel. Apparently everyone took advantage of Ginger’s absence. Last time someone talked with their mouth full, Ginger whipped out her cane. “Not as bad as Ben, but it seems to be increasing. We’re gonna have to do something soon.”
“What about the others? There were twelve on the list, right?”
“We have Henley Walker—Brandt—and Sarah Milburn has been confirmed dead by a contact in Kansas. The only ones we have no solid information on are Thom Morris and Mark Wells.”
“Wells is dead,” Kale said from the doorway. Everyone looked up as he stepped cautiously into the room. Turning to me, he said, “The night at the party. The guy outside. That was Wells.”
The couple. The first time I’d seen Kale’s newly improved ability at work.
“Then that rounds out the list,” Dax said. “Now we need to focus on finding Penny Mills.”
Crap. After the chaos at the airport and then coming back here to crash, I’d never gotten a chance to tell them about Penny. Or maybe I was trying to avoid it. If I didn’t say it out loud, then maybe I could pretend it never happened. “Yeah…about that.”
All eyes in the room swiveled to me. Even Vince looked up from the paper, stopping mid-chew on a particularly large mouthful of pancakes. A drop of syrup fell from his lips to the plate.
“Kale and I found Penny Mills.”
There was a collective gasp, followed by everyone speaking at once.
“She’s dead,” I finished, thankfully shocking them into stunned silence. The admission was like swallowing a mouthful of glass. I managed to get the words out with a straight face, calm and without breaking down, but inside the guilt was crushing me.
“And she was dead when you got there?” Mom asked.
“No. She was killed shortly after we arrived. When they used her blood to make the Domination serum, it connected her to everyone who got it. Before they messed with Kale’s head, she showed him where to find her. Kale, unfortunately, led them right to her. Denazen implanted a tracker—”
Dax jumped from his seat. “Shit!”
“It’s fine.” I waved my nearly empty cup. Really? Did he think I was that stupid? “We got the tracker out—obviously. He’s off the radar.”
Dax sat down and seemed to relax a little, but not Mom. If anything, she looked more worried. “That doesn’t make sense. They needed her. Why would they kill her?”
I took a deep breath. “They didn’t do it on purpose. They were aiming for me.” I glanced over at Kale, still standing by the door, and remembered what he’d said about asking questions. “They got paranoid, I think. Dad was probably worried that if I was with Kale, he’d start remembering—which he has. I guess they figured it was safer if I was just dead. But Kale pushed me out of the way and Penny was standing behind me. She’s dead because I’m alive.”
Dax frowned. “It’s not your fault, Dez. Denazen is to blame for this, not you.”
It was sweet of him to say, but the facts were the facts.
Mom let out a breath and tapped the table twice. “This means it’s going to be ten times harder.” She turned to me, and I had to look away. I couldn’t stand the fear in her eyes. She was worried I wouldn’t get the cure in time—if at all. “With Mills dead, our only chance is the blood Denazen has. Finding it in time is going to be—”
“Kale knows where it is.” Ginger appeared behind him in the doorway, expression grim. Brandt was with her, looking bleary-eyed and rundown. He’d slept a lot since arriving at the cabin and it worried me. I knew he technically couldn’t die, but I also knew he didn’t want to jump again. When he jumped, the person whose body he took over, was just…gone. “It’s in a lab under a facility called Zendean Industries. It’s a pharmaceutical company about an hour from here that Denazen is using as a front. Like the law firm.”