Tremble (Denazen #3)(64)

Three seconds. Possibly four. That’s all it had taken. I hadn’t even had the opportunity to try and stop it.

Lu’s eyes were wide yet unsurprised as she wobbled for a moment, then fell sideways across the bed. It was pointless—the whole thing was over and done—but I screamed it anyway. “No!”

It wouldn’t help Lu. It couldn’t help Lu. But it did remind Ben that there was someone else in the room.





25


Ben’s lip twitched with the slightest hint of a smile before he charged.

I managed to sidestep him—barely—but ended up tripping on the corner of the rug in my haste. I went down hard, the side of my head kissing the corner of the small dresser. Stars exploded behind my eyes and the floor tilted sideways as the room began to swirl.

I tried to roll onto my side but a heavy weight on my chest prevented movement. “You’re just like the others,” Ben said with a snicker. “Beautiful and deadly and made up of bubbles.” He leaned close, yanking a chunk of my hair aside so he could whisper in my ear. “I’m onto you, though, Bubble Girl. You can’t have the soft stuff inside my head!”

“Ben, please…” The room still spun but things were getting clearer. I sucked in a deep breath and tried to push him off with no success. For such a scrawny guy, he sure as hell was heavy. “You’re sick. You’re not the kind of guy who goes around hurting people.”

Although I was pretty sure Lu would have had a different opinion on that.

“Self-preservation,” he snapped. All the amusement in his expression was gone, replaced now by something dark and unreasonable. “If I wipe you away, you won’t be able to hurt me anymore.”

“Wipe me—” And then I understood—he intended to wipe my mind.

And honestly? I freaked the hell out.

Bucking and kicking, my arms flailed in every direction. A chunk of hair, a patch of skin—anything that would shift his weight and allow me to wriggle free. But the way he was on me didn’t allow for any advantage. I couldn’t move much and it was hard to breathe. Playing the distress card turned my stomach—but I had enough common sense to know when I needed help. So I did the one thing I blasted movie starlets for doing—I called for help from the big strong man.

“Kale!” Over and over, I screamed for him, but he didn’t come. Of course not. I’d sent him away. Assured him there was nothing to worry about.

Ben’s hands clamped around my head, the tips of his fingers digging through hair to reach my scalp. The pressure was enough to make me scream. In fact, I did. I let out a howl that probably could have shattered glass just as another voice rang out.

“What the fu— Shit! Dez!” Alex.

I gasped for air, on the verge of praying for death to come swiftly. Every second Ben’s hands stayed attached to my head, the pressure continued to build. Scenes—memories—rose like a dust storm in my mind. Each one I focused on—Dad screaming about me breaking curfew, a particularly bad book report in eighth grade English, ten minutes in heaven with Steve Gander at my first co-ed party—exploded with the tiniest of pops, stealing what little air was in my lungs and disappearing forever.

Something above me shifted, and suddenly there was air. Lots and lots of glorious air. I threw myself sideways, coughing, in time to see Alex haul Ben off the floor and fling him toward the bed.

“What the hell happened?” Alex helped me off the floor.

Obviously he hadn’t paid attention when I told him Ben needed the cure more than I did. “Supremacy decline. Lu…”

When he didn’t answer, I followed his gaze to the bed. Ben sat there, skin pale as paper, staring down at Lu. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

Alex took a step closer. “Is she—”

“She knew,” I whispered, keeping my eyes on Ben. If I didn’t look—didn’t blink—then I wouldn’t cry. I wasn’t ready to subscribe to Ginger’s school of thought—don’t ask, don’t tell—but it seemed to me that the Sixes with an inside line to the future had more to deal with than anything I’d ever want to consider. “She told me when we first met that she was going to die.”

“And she just accepted it?” Alex turned back to the bed, angry.

And that was it. The last thing I truly remember in detail. I was there, talking to Alex, and a blur of white and blue came at us from behind. The room dipped sideways and a sharp pain bloomed on the right side of my head, just a few inches from my eye.

There was a scream—something I’d never forget for as long as I lived, and then, there was nothing…

…

“She’s okay,” someone said. He sounded muffled and far away. “I think she’s okay.” It was Dax.

“Back away. Give her some damn room.” Ginger. Definitely Ginger. There was no mistaking that bark, along with the distinct sound of her cane tapping the floor.

“She’s right,” I mumbled, opening my eyes. Kale, who was on the floor behind me, helped me sit up. “Kinda hard to breathe with you guys sucking up all the air. What happened?”

No one answered.

“Anyone feel free to jump in,” I tried again. “Alex?”

My heart gave a squeeze as I looked to the bed where Lu’s form was draped with a blue afghan. Peeking out from the edge was a single finger adorned with a pink plastic mood ring. On the floor a few feet to the right, another body lay still beneath a sheet.