Tremble (Denazen #3)(63)
…
“Are you scared?”
Everyone had gone their separate ways, leaving Kale and me alone in the hall. I started walking, too antsy to stay in one place. “I’d be crazy not to be, right?”
“I won’t force you to do this,” he said softly. “We can try to think of another way to get the vial.”
“There is no other way.”
“Agreed.”
A bitter laugh escaped my lips. I couldn’t help it. “Alex was actually right about one thing. My Kale would never have agreed to this.”
He didn’t answer right away, and when I turned to look at him, his expression was a cross between angry and stricken. “I don’t remember what we had—yet—but I know now in my heart, in my soul, that I am your Kale.”
I reached over and ran my fingers across his cheek. He felt the same. The same electric tingles shot through my body each time we touched, and that dizzy, falling-into-oblivion feeling overcame me each time our eyes met, but there was something else. An almost scary, raw gleam that reminded me of darkness. “Are you?”
“I’m different than I was—and maybe I’ll never be quite the same—but the one thing I’m sure of… The one thing I know without a doubt in my heart is that I’m yours. I feel it with every breath I take, Dez. From that moment behind Ashley Conner’s house, I felt it bubbling inside each time I looked at you. And if you and the others feel like I’m being careless by bringing you to Marshal, then think again.” He took my hands. “Maybe the old me wouldn’t have agreed to this because he was scared. I’m not scared. I think we make an amazing team. Together, I know we can do this. You’re the most able person I know.”
“One hell of a pep talk,” I said with a nervous giggle.
He started to say something, the hint of a smile tugging at the right corner of his lip, but someone down the hall let out a terrified scream. We bolted toward the sound, rounding the corner of the last room at the end of the hall.
“What the hell?” I snapped, busting into the room.
Lu was on the ground, scooting along the far wall as Ben loomed above.
“Y’all watch yourselves! He’s lost it.”
Ben whirled around with a sick grin, and I had to force myself not to look away. He was pale as paper, eyes sunken and bruised. At the corner of his mouth, a thin trickle of blood trailed down, collecting at the tip of his chin. Every few seconds a tremor would run through him, shaking his entire body.
“Bubbles have come to make it all better, aye?” Lu forgotten, he advanced a step in our direction. Rapping his knuckles against the side of his head, he said, “The swirly soup in there is all amiss. All sorts of holes like cheese.” He froze, then let go with a bout of hysterical laugher before exclaiming, “Like Swiss!”
Kale stepped in front of me, black gathering at his fingertips, but I pushed him aside. “No way. He’s sick, remember? We can save him. We just need to get the cure.” I inclined my head toward the door. “Go. Make the call you need.”
Kale’s eyes went wide. “You want me to leave you here with him?”
I turned to Ben, whose expression had changed, and pulled out the chair in front of Lu’s desk. “Take a seat, Ben. It’s gonna be okay.”
After a moment of hesitation, he nodded and sank down. “The bubbles in my brain are hurting me,” he whined.
“I know.” I turned to Kale. “See? We’re fine. Go—and let Ginger know we’re probably going to have to keep Ben quarantined for now. I’ll meet you back in the common room.”
He didn’t look thrilled about it, but he left.
I stepped around the chair and held my hand out to Lu. Her hair was sticking up and the sleeve of her hideous pink sweatshirt had been torn, but otherwise she looked fine. “You okay?”
She let me help her up. “Right as country rain.”
“What happened?”
She waved a hand back and forth in front of Ben’s face. He didn’t so much as flinch. She stepped away and fell back on her bed. “He came in and just stopped in the doorway lookin’ kind of like this. Then he yelled something about soup and charged me.”
I remembered all too clearly the encounter with Fin as the Sanctuary began to burn. The guy who’d attacked us had been barely human. “It’s the drug—I’ve seen it before.”
Her eyes were wide. “This is normal?”
“Well, I don’t know about normal, but this is what happens.” I snuck a peek at Ben. He was silent and staring at the wall. The tremors seemed to have subsided. “That’s what would happen to us if we didn’t get the cure—which we will. Don’t worry.”
Lu sighed and looked at the clock above the door. She seemed sad all of a sudden. Folding her hands in her lap, she said, “You’re a good egg, Dez. I like you. I wish we could have gotten to know each other.”
“We have plenty of time. When this is all—” It was in that moment I remembered the conversation we had her first night here. It was also in that moment Ben let out a feral roar and flew from his chair, straight at Lu.
It was over before I could even blink. She never tried moving from his path. Ben’s hands were a blur, wrapping around Lu’s neck. There was a horrific sound—the almost echoing crack of a brittle branch—and then silence.