Faded Flare Page 7

  “Dang, Hen, you made him cry reminding him of his unheroic moment of weakness.” Jen fished items out of the bag. She too had been a scientist, trained to take in details.

  Ace surreptitiously wiped his leaking orifices on his sleeve.

  “Tears won’t sway me. I demand to know what’s going on here.” Henley stamped her foot. Actually lifted and slammed it onto the stained blue carpet.

  Jen shoved a wrapped sandwich in her hand. “Chill, girl. I think you might be getting a little hangry.”

  “Any fries?” Sirena perked up, nonplussed by all the combat around her.

  Ace was grateful for her dispassionate attitude. He rewarded her with the giant fry container.

  She grinned. Shifting it into her lap, she held out the necklace to Jen, who’d settled behind her against the headboard, legs outstretched. “This is yours.” Sirena’s eyes analyzed the salt grains dotting the golden rods of potato. It wasn’t interest in the fries that held her attention. She was intentionally keeping her chin down. The light that had been in her eyes when he’d handed the food to her had extinguished.

  See? He could read people, too.

  “No. It was a gift. I gave it to Mark, and he gave it to you.” Jen took a greedy bite, moaning in ecstasy.

  Sirena shook her head, her hair falling into the food. Unsanitary. “It wasn’t a gift. It has no meaning for me like it does you. I had thought it belonged to my family but… clearly it belongs to yours.”

  Jen stopped chewing. “It wasn’t a gift?”

  Sirena’s lips were sealed. She tossed the chain onto Jen’s legs.

  It took a moment before Jen leaned over and scooped it up. She held it up, rubbing a thumb over the surface in reverence.

  Humans placed too much sentiment on objects. If Jen wanted to honor her family, she should be more obedient. Instead, she had stolen her mother’s research and left her. Ace couldn’t fathom such a level of disrespect. He would have to be careful with Jen, who easily deserted with such callous disloyalty at the whim of someone new to her who wasn’t blood.

  Jen dipped suspicious eyes back to Sirena. “Thank you,” she whispered sincerely. She stared at it again. “It does represent my family. It was a gift from him in the first place. When I first got to BTI. I knew he’d been dating my mom for a while, but that was our first chance to be a family when I was finally free from my dad and that shitty little town in the middle of nowhere. Sorry,” she added to Sirena for insulting what had been her town recently too.

  Mark, her mother’s boyfriend and researcher and Jen’s friend, had paid the price.

  Sirena shook her head and began munching the fries now that her hand was alleviated from the jewelry. “It was a peaceful town. That’s what I liked about it.”

  “Yeah, I bet. Your life wasn’t so peaceful before that.” Jen took a chomp and tilted her head, speculating. “Unless you count all the times you were in a medically-induced coma.” The wad of sandwich was wedged in her cheek. Revolting. She pulled the necklace over her head and adjusted her hair while chewing. She swallowed then informed them all, “He told me he wanted me to go out and explore the world.” She grinned at each of them in turn. “Well, here’s to exploring, so to speak.” She shoved the last massive morsel in her mouth, masticating loudly with her mouth open since the portion was so immense.

  Ace turned away in disgust. The action was more than rude; it became a pet peeve of his years ago in direct result of his sister constantly being guilty of speaking while eating at their family meals.

  Henley hadn’t even started eating. She was still standing next to the second bed with a sandwich in her hand, watching thoughtfully. What was she thinking now? She was always thinking, always mediating when discussions became uncomfortable.

  “My family is what drives me too,” she said.

  “Who’d’a thunk? You were so subtle about wanting to contact them at the post office,” Jen gibed sarcastically.

  Henley gave an eye roll, sitting down on the side of the other bed to unwrap her sandwich, holding it in the wax paper.

  That left Ace to perch on the edge of the desk and retrieve another item from the bag. It leaked grease across his fingers. He also kept his hands away from what entered his mouth. He didn’t trust this bathroom to do anything less than aid his griminess.

  “So we know what motivates you two. To a degree.” Jen waved a flippant hand at Sirena, considered it, then flipped it around to noisily lick and suck her fingers.

  Ace frowned, horrified.

  “You’re not really here out of choice. But—” She swung a steely look at Ace. “—Buster hasn’t expressed his reasons for ditching a place that he seemed very comfortable in. That might be our first indication to learn then why he brought you, Hen.”

  These women were more stubborn than any code he’d tried to debug. She reminded Ace of his sister. In fact, it was family that held his reins as well, whether he embraced them or resisted.

  “Maybe he has a secret lover he escaped for,” Jen fabricated. “She lives back where he grew up, and they separated so he could go to school, but then they realized they just couldn’t be apart. It hurt his heart too much, made him cold inside.”

  “He’s cold all right. I don’t know if I’d believe he were capable of having a lover.” Henley continued to appraise Ace, who ate silently, ignoring the conversation as best he could.

  He was aware of time passing. They needed to rest, or at least Jen did as driver, so they could return to the road.

  “All right, a boy scorned, then. Burned by a crush who tossed him aside for a more…” She looked Ace up and down. “…personable man. I’ll grant you that you are pretty big. I can’t tell muscles under that baggy t-shirt and jeans though.” She shrugged.

  Henley held up a finger to interject, politely finishing her bite before responding. She took too long to give her input, and Jen elaborated on her fantasy tale.

  “In fact, he’s probably looking for a rebound. Ooo, or someone to pretend to be his girlfriend to make her jealous and want him back.”

  Henley smirked at Jen then nodded back up to Ace. “A customer in the post office thought we were dating.”

  “And did he refute it?”

  “Not for a moment,” Henley’s eyes held amusement as they locked with Ace’s. “Is that what you meant when you said you need me?”

  Jen chortled. Even Sirena choked on a fry laughing. “Oh boy, maybe we should sleep in the car if these two will be sharing a bed, Sirie.”

  “That won’t be necessary. If your ideas hold any truth, Buster is going to find himself double-burned,” Henley vowed, her mouth going flat and her eyelids narrowing.

  They were all wrong.

  It wasn’t Ace who had ever been burned.

  ∆∆∆

  “If you’re going to remain silent about my questions, the least you could do is keep quiet when I’m trying to sleep.”

  Ace heard the hissed comment with half of his attention, slowly waking up from the rousing shove he’d received to his spine. The pillow barrier between them was no match for Henley’s wrath.

  “’S’going on?” Jen mumbled from the other bed.

  “Just Ace snoring. Go back to sleep,” Henley whispered. “At least some of us should get some rest,” she murmured.

  Ace blinked sleepy eyes at the floral curtains. The fan was blowing, and they danced in the air current, permitting a slit of bright light to sear straight into Ace’s retinas. He groaned and rolled over.

  “And quit moving.” The pillow that had been between their backs vanished, only to come flopping down on his head. “That should muffle you.” The bed bounced a little as Henley reoriented herself and heaved out a vexed sigh. He doubted she was going to sleep even if he made no noise. She sounded very stressed.

  He pulled off the pillow and stared at the darkened ceiling. “What’s wrong?” Ace’s low voice didn’t carry far.

  Still, she replied with, “Shh.”

  He sighed and cl
osed his eyes again, drifting quickly. He felt more tired than before their nap.

  “Argh.”

  Ace jerked back awake.

  The bed groaned and creaked as Henley slid out of the covers and tiptoed over to the bathroom. The door gently clicked shut before the light shot on, beaming from the gap at the bottom. Even enraged, she was considerate of others.

  Ace had the whole bed to himself. He closed his eyes again.

  There was a clank in the bathroom, followed by some angry grumbling.

  He sighed again and got up quickly, having slept modestly, fully clothed, on top of the covers for decency’s sake. He padded over to the bathroom door. Shadows of feet blocked two areas of the light underneath. He stared at it, tipping his ear toward the door.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. Maybe the food wasn’t sitting well with Henley either. She was also used to cafeteria food rather than fast food. His was gurgling like an angry rodent.

  “Fine.”

  Ace waited a moment more then turned to give her some peace when he heard a sniffle. He didn’t believe coincidence could afford them the probability that fifty percent of their group had dust allergies. “Do you want to talk?” Never had he expected to say the words he used to be asked as a child.

  There was a burst of manic laughter that petered out into a sob. “Now you’re the one with questions? Annoying being on the reverse side, isn’t it?”

  “Those were questions,” Ace pointed out. There was a thump on the door, suggesting she did not appreciate his pedantic amendment. His mentor had disliked that quality as well, discouraging it to the point where Ace would utter as few sentences as possible during their meetings. Henley had been the only positive to those meetings; he could note how she was doing by watching in the waiting room. He had seen many internal emotions decoded on her face over the years. Never sorrow. “Why are you sad?”

  “I’m not sad.” Her tone bit through the soft sobbing. “I’m frustrated.”

  Now she was being pedantic. It was a bad emotion one way or the other. Although, Ace wasn’t sure he’d seen that expression either. She always seemed very confident. Sometimes she’d been disheartened by a set-back or new concern, but the resolve to fight some challenge in her work had set her dark eyebrows into a determined ‘V’.

  “Why are you frustrated?” he amended.

  “You. You frustrate me. This situation frustrates me. I frustrate me,” she listed off.

  “Do you regret assisting me? Would you have preferred to stay?” He had given her the note. He knew she hadn’t wanted to stay after he’d revealed the linguistic pedantry.

  “No,” she sulked. “That situation was less than desired, but that doesn’t mean I’m content in the current one either. And you are aware of that. Yet, you do nothing to fix that. It would be simple.”

  “It’s not simple,” Ace retorted vehemently.

  Someone in the other bed moaned and rolled around.

  “Can I come in?” He doubted Henley would be conversing with him while doing… other things.

  “I don’t want you to.”

  Ace took that as reluctant consent and opened the door.

  Henley sat in the bathtub, knees to her chest, eyes red and a wad of damp toilet paper in her good hand. Pitiful. She managed a forceful glower, dissipating any empathy from him. Frustration and ire were similar expressions. He already knew the latter from their earlier argument at the post office. She was making things difficult. He should be catching up on sleep before the next leg of their journey. Did he regret including her?

  He closed the door softly behind him and sat on the toilet. The room was small, and he seemed to take up more space than usual with Henley folded in such a small ball.

  She swiped the hem of her borrowed sweatshirt across her eyes. He averted his eyes from her exposed stomach. “What do you want from me?” It should have come out like a rhetorical dismissal, but she lacked the force she had used when facing him down earlier in the day.

  “I don’t want anything.”

  She rolled her eyes. “What do you need from me?”

  “Nothing.” Right now.

  Her brows pulled down, shadowing her eyes from view in the low-watt orange bulb’s overhead glow. “You said earlier that you need me. I’m not buying into Jen’s whimsical tales either.”

  “I do.” She opened her mouth, and he cut her off. “I need you. I need nothing from you.”

  “After only a few hours in your company, I have determined why you have no friends.” She shook her head, her face changing. It was still morose but now something else. “Jen’s fictional romance will always remain as such.” Pity. It was pity and incomprehension—not ignorance. As much as he had studied her over the years, her earlier remarks about his skill for tuning out background inanity proved that she had been aware of him. The discord was more of an inability to empathize with Ace. He was a problem she couldn’t solve.

  That brought Ace up short. Henley was excellent at psychology as far as he knew.

  “I cannot simply reveal everything. It is dangerous. Secrets are meant to protect. You might agree with that.”

  She shot him a sharp look, then relaxed and nodded. “From certain people—from all people, in some cases. However, I am of the mind in this situation that having your accomplices privy to the particulars might decrease the danger. Otherwise, we are liabilities.”

  Ace let out a breath. He had considered this, calculated the pros and cons, and decided on the latter. “I can give you one thing,” he offered to placate her. Henley was right that she was a liability in her current, combative condition. However, achieving a task did not require one to read the full text of a manual. She simply had to be willing to follow basic directions.

  She sniffed again, wiped her nose and tossed the toilet paper in the trash between them. “One per day?” she negotiated.

  She hadn’t specified what he exposed. He nodded his agreement and held out a hand to shake. She scrunched up her nose. “Have you washed those since the T?”

  Ace smiled and retracted his hand. “I can tell you that our final destination will enable you to accomplish your goal.”

  She sat up tall. “My fam—”

  “Shh,” he sliced a hand in the air chopping her sentence short.

  A grin spread over her face, nonetheless, lifting her eyebrows up her narrow forehead. He had seen exultation on her face previously when reporting to her mentor about surmounting one of the challenges that she had set her every intention on overcoming. In those instances, her smile had been wide and contagious. Ace had had to look away to avoid announcing he had been fixated on her with a corresponding smile. This one showed two rows of even teeth, and it seemed more impactful, being directed full-wattage, brighter than the lone bulb, at him. “I’ll accept that silencing because—”

  A scream from the other room froze them both where they were for only an instant, then they were launching out the door, Henley crashing into Ace’s back as he pulled up, taking in the two girls standing on their bed, the door flung wide open, a broad silhouette situated in the center of the rectangular influx of daylight, intruding into their hideaway.

  Chapter Five

  “Run.”

  With the unknown guy blocking the doorway and the window leading straight out to the pavement next to him, Henley turned without hesitation at Buster’s command and zipped back into the bathroom, climbing on the toilet seat and wedging open the small window. It only pushed opened halfway, refusing to budge beyond a crack angled toward the ground that she certainly couldn’t fit through—maybe Sirena… if she hadn’t consumed all those fries. There was a hinged bracket connecting the pane to the building, which was preventing the window from moving further.

  The commotion in the other room—screams and smashing furniture and grunts—propelled her to act faster. She daren’t look behind her to know if Sirena and Jen had followed. It was each BTI escapee for him- or herself.

  Henley didn’t have her usual
workbench tools to unscrew it, and regardless, that would have taken too long, so she sent an apology to all her hard work, curled her fingers, and slammed her fist into the metal. It bent. She tried again, wincing at the crunch, not knowing how much damage it was doing under the glove. “Go, go, go,” she chanted to herself.

  “No!” Sirena screamed. There were thuds and smacks of flesh on flesh behind her.

  “Go!” she heard Buster shout, finally his calm rupturing like a fissure, which was exactly what had appeared in the pane with her latest effort.

  Henley gave up on the bracket. She decided it was either the same material as hers, or else the angle of her strikes while balancing on her unusual step-stool was just awkward enough to dilute the force.

  Henley yanked the window shut again, jerking it a few times when the damaged hinge didn’t slide smoothly, turned her head to the side, and smashed her fist through it. A clatter of shards showered down on the porcelain and tile. She shook off her arm, and a few more slivers tinkled to the floor. Consigning her glove to shreds, she tapped out the few remaining pieces jutting from the frame and hoisted herself up.

  She tried not to slide on her abdomen, given that the sharp pain to her stomach meant a few sharp glass fragments remained. However, she had little to no upper body strength. Her jaunts to the gym at BTI had been limited to the first year or two before her research consumed her schedule and a few mornings a month at best. She had been years away from doing a pull-up at her rate.

  Hair in front of her face, she wasn’t sure what was below, having trusted Buster’s perimeter walk of the building before bed.

  She did not have time to wrestle her hands free to remove the obstruction to her vision or to try another muscle-straining heave because, without warning, the clamor behind her faded, and a sudden shove to her behind sent her tumbling with a yelp she tried to stifle. She slammed with a winding thud onto her back upon something that cushioned far, far less than a water bed would have.

  Henley didn’t move, trying to encourage her lungs to re-inflate. A second thud announced someone landing beside her. Now was the time to breathe and get away. All she managed was a pitiful roll onto her side, fingers scrabbling at grass. A wheezing grunt escaped unexpectedly. It had felt as though her body was void of air.