Tremble (Denazen #3)(7)
“Agreed,” Mom said. “Plus, we still don’t know where they are.”
Ginger downed the remaining contents of her cup and turned to Dax. “Call Henley. Tell him I need an update. Have him here first thing in the morning.”
“Henley? Who’s Henley?”
Ginger heaved herself out of the seat and flashed me an impish smile. “We have a man on the inside.”
…
I woke the next morning with a stiff neck and an uneasy stomach. Dreams of Kale had haunted me the entire night. The way he killed that guy. The look in his eyes as he turned to me. It was cold and so incredibly distant. A voice deep in the back of my mind whispered horrible things. A rush of scenarios that came to light in my worst nightmares kicked their way to the surface.
Kale fought so hard against the person Denazen wanted him to be. What if this change meant they’d finally succeeded in creating the monster they’d always wanted? An unstoppable killing machine loyal to their cause. What would happen if he never remembered me? If I’d lost him forever? No. I couldn’t think like that. This wasn’t the time to be negative. Not when I’d finally found him.
I slid out of bed and stumbled down the hall toward the kitchen. It was early. The clock on the wall above the door read 7:12, but someone was always up around here. It made me think of Rosie, the desk clerk killed in the Sanctuary fire. She’d never slept.
Thinking about Rosie made me think about coffee. We’d always butted heads, but the girl had an appreciation for coffee rivaled only by my own. I rounded the corner of the kitchen, intent on beelining to make a pot, but someone had beaten me to it.
“Deznee.” Ginger raised her mug and gave it a little wiggle. It was an old white ceramic thing with Chippendales dancers on the front. Knowing her, it was full of fruit punch, not coffee. “Good morning.”
I stopped in the doorway and took in the room. Ginger wasn’t alone. Dax was there with Mom, as well as Vince, a Six Kale and I met over the summer while visiting the names on the list my cousin Brandt had given us. A Denazen raid had destroyed Vince’s home shortly after we’d lost Kale, but thankfully I’d given him Dax’s cell number and we were able to bring him in safely. He’d been with us ever since and had started taking more of an active role in things. In recent weeks, he’d gone out with Alex and several of the others in search of new Sixes. He felt the need to pay forward the favor we’d done to him by warning others.
“Morning, Dez.” Vince nodded.
“Come in. Sit down.” Ginger pointed to the other end of the table at the one person I didn’t know. A tall guy with black hair and linebacker shoulders. Our eyes met and for a second, I was sure I’d seen him somewhere before, but then he spun away. “Deznee, this is Henley.”
I circled the table and pulled my Xtream Scream mug down from the cabinet with a nod in his general direction. “Oh, yeah. You’re the man on the inside, right?” The smell of the coffee was comforting, and when I sat down across from Mom and took that first heavenly sip, for one brief moment all was right with the world.
Then that Henley guy opened his mouth.
“So anyway, they’ve decided to terminate them. The order went out early this morning.”
I let the cup thunk to the table. Cream-colored liquid sloshed over the edge, collecting in a puddle at the base. “See, that’s not the kinda thing I really wanna hear first thing in the morning. Who ordered what terminated? Someone catch me up here.”
Dax sighed. “Denazen has been playing in the kitchen again. They’ve officially started the third Supremacy trial.”
“Officially?” I laid my hand across the table, right at the rim, to keep the spill from going over. Mom, with a roll of her eyes, tossed me a paper towel. “I didn’t even know there was an unofficial.”
“There is,” Henley said with a frown. “And it seems they got it right—for the most part. Incompatibility for the new drug seems to be sitting at fifty percent. And what’s worse? They don’t need babies anymore. Any age will do.”
“Wow.” I took another sip and set the mug down. “Way to ruin a morning, dude.”
“That’s me,” he said with a wink. Pulling something from his pocket—a Reese’s peanut butter cup—he unwrapped it and popped the small candy into his mouth. “Always happy to bring the sunshine.”
Mom frowned. This was a touchy subject for her. She and I were part of the second trial—one that, so far, had proved unsuccessful. While pregnant with me, she’d been given a drug to enhance my Six ability. It worked—but with some hefty side effects: an increase in abilities, followed by insanity, and then eventually death. Sometimes I thought she felt guilty about the whole thing. She was the one given the drug, and yet I was the one with the pendulum swinging over my head. “So they’ve started using it? The new drug?”
Henley opened his mouth, but I beat him to it when something dawned on me. “Oh my God. That’s it. They used it on Kale! That explains the difference in his ability.”
Henley finished chewing his candy and swallowed. “I can’t say for sure, but from what Ginger told me, yeah—though it shouldn’t have messed with his memory. Either way, he’s lucky to be alive. Like I said, there’s only a fifty percent survival rate.” He frowned. “But the new trial isn’t the only bad news.”