Heroes 'Til Curfew (Talent Chronicles #2) (40 page)

“Shut up.” Tears were leaking out of my
eyes, being soaked up by the blindfold before they could run down
my face.

“Your mom feels like that, you know.”

“What did you do to my mom?”

“Not a lot, really. I had some time to kill
while we were there, but mostly I just mucked around in her head to
see what I could learn about you. She’s complicated. More than you,
actually. But the simple part of it is that she already feels like
she’s living a nightmare. She’s already seeing your dad’s latest
breakdown over and over. Probably when she’s awake, too. Of course
when she’s asleep it’s all mixed up with that other time when he
beat her up. The common thread, from what I can see? It’s always
your fault.”

“Are you going to take this blindfold off or
am I just going to kick you in the face?”

Pain exploded in my cheek when she punched
me, and the room went spinning out of control. I sucked in a breath
and then just tightened up against a flurry of blows. Trina wasn’t
much of a fighter. It was mostly right-handed, not too much power
after the first one that took me by surprise. The beating hurt, but
I knew she wasn’t doing much damage. She wound down quickly and
sagged back on my lap.

“That was for Tony you fucking bitch.” It
sounded like she was talking through her hands. She was crying.

I swallowed blood from where my teeth cut
the inside of my cheek rather than antagonize her by spitting it at
her. I pressed my hands into the bed, trying to still the spinning.
“What happened?”

“What did you think was going to happen when
you got those Syndicate people arrested? You think those three were
the only people they had working for them in this town? They
executed him! They got him alone and they shot him in the
head.”

She was sobbing, bouncing slightly on my
knees, shaking the bed. I couldn’t help but put myself in her
place. I was thinking about how I didn’t know where Dylan was right
now. How I was trying to keep that fact in the back of my mind so
the fear of it didn’t tie me into knots. I couldn’t ask Trina
because she would probably just lie to me. She’d say something
horrible, I’d have to wonder if it was true or not, and I’d be
worse off with it than I already was. And asking her about my
boyfriend, who was still alive, might just set her off again. Who
knew what she’d do?

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re
sorry?
You really expect me
to believe that? Tell me, Joss, were you sorry when you let Jeff
put his hands all over me in that stairwell a couple months
ago?”

“I—” I don’t know what I was going to say,
but I had started to reply when she yanked the blindfold off. It
wasn’t really bright in the room, but it took a second for me to
adjust. The light was coming from a single lamp behind her in the
far corner of the room. It was a bedroom with just a few pieces of
furniture, no knick-knacks or anything. The lamp was in the corner
between the two exterior walls and there were sheets of plywood
nailed over the windows. There was something familiar about the
room, but I couldn’t quite place it. Then I realized I was turning
my head too much to look around. Because there was black at the
edges of my vision. Tunnel vision, dizziness, nausea, the different
kind of headache…. Concussion.
Just keep talking.
“Yeah, I
was. But it wasn’t real, was it?”

“When did you figure that out? Because I
know you thought it was real at the time. I could see it on your
face. And every time you looked at me for the next few weeks, when
you thought I was ignoring you. Yeah, I think you were sorry.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Don’t think I liked it. It was totally
gross. But I had just started seeing Tony and Marco was giving us a
hard time. He didn’t trust me and Tony had asked me to make nice
with him. Marco thought you were a Talent. Figured that’s why you
act so weird all the time, keep to yourself. I figure that and
you’re just a stuck-up bitch. But anyway, I agreed to let Jeff paw
at me to see if you’d do anything to stop it. But you didn’t, did
you?”

“I would have. If it had gone too far—”

“Too far? How much farther were you gonna
let it go?”

My eyes filled again. She was right. It had
already gone too far and I didn’t help her.
Why are you crying
about it now, when you know it wasn’t real?

“Joss, Joss, Joss. You’re such a freak, you
know that? I don’t know why I ever wanted to be friends with you.
But that’s the other reason I did it. Emily almost got us killed.
You and your friend dragged me into that abandoned house and set it
on fire! And then you had the nerve to be mad at me for telling the
truth about it!”

“They sent her to State School! They took
her away forever. You did that. Doesn’t that bother you at
all?”

“Not as much as it bothered me to almost be
burned alive.”

“Well considering the company you’ve been
keeping, it’s hard to believe that bothered you so much.”

“Why, because I’m attracted to someone who
can actually control their Talent? Someone with that much power who
knows how to use it?” She covered her mouth with her hand, as
though she realized she was mistakenly talking about Tony in the
present tense. “You could have been there for me the way Tony was.
You’ve known about your Talent for a long time. You’ve practiced
with it. Don’t you think I could have used a friend like you when I
realized what I could do?”

Why, did it scare you to find out you were
like us? That you might be taken away the same way you had Emily
taken away?

Maybe that was true.
“You could have
told me.”

“Yeah, sure. Like you wouldn’t have been
running right off to report the girl who sold out your precious
Emily.”

“I wouldn’t have. I would never do
that.”

“Yeah, right. Well, as it happens, I didn’t
need you. I got to be friends with Krista instead.”

I guess I’d realized Trina and Krista hung
out together, but I didn’t really pay enough attention to who was
friends with whom, you know? When Krista got taken away by NIAC,
I’d been thinking about another Talent being taken, the implication
to me and the other Talents in general. I never really thought
about who her friends were.

“This is her house, you know. Her room.”

That’s why it looks familiar. I recognize
parts of this room from pictures Marco had of Krista.

“After they took her,” Trina continued, “her
parents just packed up what they needed and moved out. Left town.
Most of their stuff’s gone now. Mom and I were here a lot, having
yard sales for them, trying to get rid of it. Took a lot of stuff
to the thrift store. Her parents didn’t want to bring much, you
know, like they wanted to forget their whole life here. And her,
too. I wonder if your parents will be like that after you’re
gone.”

“Marco knew about Krista. He had pictures of
her using her Talent. After she was taken, he tried to use them to
blackmail—” I cut myself off.

“To blackmail Kat. I know about Kat’s
Talent, Joss. I was there when Marco found out about it, remember?”
She made a disgusted noise in her throat.

“How did Marco know about Krista?”

She shrugged negligently. “Maybe because I
told Tony about her.”

“So Emily
and
Krista. They’re both on
you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Maybe. I don’t know if
Marco was actually the one to turn her in, but maybe. So what?
Look, I wanted to be with Tony. I needed to be with Tony. He was
gonna be the one to take care of me. I had to give him something to
show him he could trust me.”

“But you couldn’t trust him. Look what
he—”

She slapped me. Hard. “Just shut up. You’re
not allowed to talk about Tony. So he told Marco. Yeah, so what?
They’re cousins. They talk about stuff. And maybe Marco did
something with that, and maybe Krista got hurt. But I didn’t take
those pictures and neither did Tony. I didn’t turn her in and
neither did Tony. And it didn’t mean anything between us. It didn’t
have anything to do with how we felt about each other.”

“Okay.”

She slapped me again. “And don’t give me
that tone—like you’re talking me down off a ledge or something.
Like you wouldn’t push me off if you had the chance. If it’s
anyone’s fault I had to tell Tony about Krista, it’s yours.”

“Mine?”

“Yeah, yours. If you hadn’t turned your back
on me, if you’d kept being my friend, then I would have
had
someone around who’d have my back. Someone strong enough to take on
NIAC, keep me out of State School. I wouldn’t have had to go after
Tony. Not that I didn’t love him. Not that I’d change anything I
did. I’m just saying, if you’d been looking out for me like you
should have, maybe everything would have been different. But you
weren’t. Because you’ve spent the last dozen years hating me for
something that totally wasn’t even my fault!”

“I haven’t. I’ve barely even thought about
you.”

She slapped me again. And that was getting
old. “What, is that supposed to make it better? Am I supposed to
actually believe you? Am I supposed to believe that if you found
out about my Talent you wouldn’t have been running off to get
revenge? No fucking way. But I’m the one who’s gonna get revenge.
Tony and I talked about this all the time. Since Krista’s been gone
we’ve come up here a lot. We used to lie in this bed and talk about
how we were gonna make you sorry for everything you did to me. It
was actually his idea to recreate the fire here. Krista’s dad owns
this whole subdivision and moved them into the first house. It’s
perfect because there aren’t any neighbors yet. Things will be able
to really get going before anyone notices there’s a house on fire.
Tony was good at thinking of things like that. He was supposed to
be here for that part. But thanks to you, he’s not. So it’s gonna
be gasoline.”

I could smell it now, realized I’d been
smelling it all along, but my injured brain had been refusing to
process what it might mean. What she was saying now sunk in slower
than it should have. I started to struggle against the chains.
“Don’t,” was all I could say.

Maybe you could use the desk or the
dresser to break the bed. If that doesn’t work, you could probably
flip the bed and break it, get out of these chains.
I reached
out with my mind for the desk chair, ready to knock Trina to the
floor. It wouldn’t budge.

“Don’t bother,” she said, following my eyes
across the room. “It’s all nailed down. All the furniture in this
room, boards nailed over the windows.”

It shouldn’t matter,
I thought.
So
what if things are nailed down? That fire escape was bolted to the
building. You can lift steel girders—you could flip cars if you
wanted to.
But not right now. Not with a head injury.

She was still talking. “There were still
some books on the shelves, things like that, because the realtor
said it made it look more homey, but I took all those things out.
Anything you could hit me with. So just give it up. This is
happening. Because it’s what you deserve.”

Why do people keep saying that to me?
That’s what went through my head as she climbed off me. I was
letting her get to me when I should be thinking of how to get out
of this. I remembered that my legs were free and I could kick her,
but it was too late. She was already too far away from me.

“Nice try. Bitch. Here’s how this is going
to happen. Just so you know what to expect, because this is why I
took the blindfold off. I’ve got gasoline poured downstairs near
all the good entry points. And I’ve got a trail going so they’ll
all catch when I throw this down on my way out.” She flicked a
Zippo and waved it at me. “Tony gave me this. He said, ‘For when
I’m not around to light your fire.’ He said cute stuff like that. I
know he never thought he just wouldn’t be around anymore, but I’ve
still got this, and he’d be happy knowing I used it to end you.
Anyway, the fire is going to come up the stairs and into this room.
I don’t think it’s going to spread
too
fast around the rest
of the house. Tony and I talked about the fact that I want you to
be able to see the flames coming for you. I want you to be around a
while, like when we were kids, and I don’t want you to choke from
smoke inhalation too fast. Without Tony to actually control the
fire, I’ve had to rely on some quick Internet research to put this
all together, but I think it’s gonna work out okay. Fast enough to
end you before the fire department will get in to get you out, but
slow enough that you’ll get…the experience I’m going for.”

“Trina, don’t do this. Look, I’m sorry about
everything, okay? You’re right, we should have stuck together after
Emily. I never should have turned my back on you.”

“And what? Are you about to tell me that we
can change it all now? Now we can be friends again, if I’ll just
stop the madness?”

“No.”

“Good. Thanks for not treating me like a
moron and making the last words anyone ever hears you say something
that stupid.”

“Wait! Just, wait, okay? I’m not going to
try to talk you down. I just need to know: what happened to Dylan?”
She was about to burn a house down with me in it. Not like I had to
worry about pissing her off anymore.

“What would be better, telling you or
letting you wonder about it?” She tapped the lighter against her
cheek and shrugged. “It’s all the same, I guess. Corey said Curtis
knocked him out and they took him back to Marco’s new place. Marco
planned to kill him when he came around. Dylan’s way out-numbered.
Without you there to protect him, there’s just no way, is there?
Your boyfriend’s dead too, Joss. But it won’t be long before you
see him in Hell.”

That’s not true. Calm down, you know that’s
not true. If Dylan were dead you would know it. He’s quick, he’s
smart, and he knows how to use his Talent.