Courage (Mark of Nexus) (19 page)

“This must be what prison feels like,” I whispered to Gabby, as we stared into Jinx’s room on Friday night.

Aiden was red from the neck up, staring straight ahead as Jinx grinded behind him. Music pounded their coupled form and flooded the hall with vulgar lyrics.

“You just gotta get into it, man.” Jinx threw his arms in the air, oblivious to our entrance. “Give her a little bump, and show her who’s boss.”

He better not have been talking about me.

“W-Who
is
the boss?” Aiden asked.

“Tony Danza,” Jinx replied without missing a beat. “But next weekend, it’s gotta be you. Make her want to take that dance back to your bedroom. Mmh!” He thrust his pelvis, and Gabby cracked up laughing.

“I think that’s enough corruption for tonight,” she told him. Her flops slapped against the tile floor as she moved to shoo Jinx away. “Besides, if Aiden tries that with Ree, she’s liable to punch him in the throat.”

“Gee, thanks,” I cut in. “Glad to hear I have such a classy, ladylike reputation.”

“You two come to watch?” Jinx raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. “‘Cause I know this boy did not ask me for help, and then send some punk-ass SOS text in the middle of our lesson.”

“I didn’t,” Aiden whimpered. “I-I just invited them over. You know, so we can practice with…girls.”

Gabby blew a rogue curl out of her face and replied in a dry tone, “Yeah, that was it.”

Great. Whatever we’d walked into had torment written all over it. I needed to move the conversation along before Aiden made a dash for the door. “You know, security’s really slackin’ tonight, Jinx.”

He leaned back against his desk and gave my body an appraising sweep. “Oh, yeah? I wondered how you two got past the desk.”

“We sweet-talked some freshman on his way in.” Gabby sauntered across the room to plop down in a chair. “According to the records, we’re visiting some kid with the unfortunate name of Eugene. And we might’ve, too, had your dumbass door not been wide open.”

“I got nothin’ to hide.” Jinx grinned and held his arms out. “‘Sides, I’m not about to shut that door while I’m in here gettin’ up on a dude.”

“So, you want everyone to see it?”

Aiden’s gaze searched the floor, like he was looking for a hole to crawl into.

“Ready to practice with your date, Aiden?” I interrupted them, pushing off the doorframe. “I’m no Jinx, but I do have a few moves.”

“Um…”

“Give him a slow one,” Jinx told Gabby, nodding toward his laptop. “That’s the only part he’s mastered.”

She scrolled through a pre-loaded playlist and squinted at the screen. “Got it.”

Within seconds, a soft intro rolled across the room. I slipped my hands over Aiden’s shoulders and caught his eye. “You ready?”

His hands ghosted down my waist to settle at my hips, and I couldn’t help but marvel at their gentleness. “Sure.”

He tried to smile as heat seeped through the thin cotton of his t-shirt, but it was a futile attempt. The boy looked nauseated.

For cryin’ out loud, it was just me. What if he were dancing with that chick he was into? I could almost picture it. She would be petite. Small enough to make him feel like a man, but not sickeningly skinny. Her dress would be modest. Her shoes would be sensible. And despite her best efforts, the wretch still wouldn’t deserve him.

The song stretched on as the singer crooned about unrequited love.

I knew the kind of guy Aiden was—sensitive, considerate, loyal to a fault. This girl would have to jump through hoops of fire before Gabby and I let her have a crack at him. Literal, skin-searing fire.

“So, how exactly did this lesson come about?” Gabby asked, pulling her legs up on the chair. “A tutoring session gone wrong?”

I could see that. About a month ago, Jinx asked Gabby if she knew anyone good at ‘science and shit.’ She’d recommended Aiden, and Jinx the dancer had become a semi-permanent fixture in our lives.
Hooray.

“We just decided to exchange lessons. That’s all.”

Speaking of lessons, maybe Wallace could start tutoring me in accounting again. Those two weeks we spent apart really threw my grades into a nosedive. I would’ve gone to Aiden, but he always gives these patronizingly sympathetic looks when I ask for help—like my lack of comprehension is the saddest plight in the world.

Wallace, on the other hand, doesn’t judge. For every problem I get right, we kiss. And then we kiss some more. Hell, when I mastered cash flow, I ended up licking his abs.
His chiseled, perfectly defined abs…

“Enjoying the dance, Ree?” Gabby called out, her mischievous grin fixed in place.

“You know it,” I shot back on autopilot. Had I been making a face? My features fell. Crap. I totally had.
Down, girl.

Aiden dipped his head to fight a blush.

“Well, too bad.” Gabby hopped up as the song tapered into silence. “It’s my turn to traumatize the boy.”

God help him. I stepped back.

A spicy remix kicked on as she took my place, pointing to his eyes and then hers. Her hips wound around, and she pulled him in for the ride. “Don’t get jealous, Ree. I’m just borrowing him.”

I rolled my eyes. “Gee, I’ll try not to.”

My phone chose that moment to buzz, alerting me to a text message. I pulled it out while they were distracted and scanned the screen.
An unknown number?

THINK U CAN SNEAK AWAY FOR 5 MINUTES?

Before I could freak, the Mark of Nexus throbbed from closer-than-usual proximity—meaning Wallace was either in Foster Hall or right outside of it. That idiot. What was he doing sneaking around, using a burner phone?

“Yeah, that’s the way mama likes it,” Gabby coaxed, getting Aiden to bend his knees.

I shook my head and crammed the phone down in my pocket. “It’s too stuffy in here. I'm going to go get some air.”

Gabby’s bottom lip protruded with a glossy sheen. “But you’re gonna miss the show.”

“The show?” Jinx snorted. “Please. This is just rehearsal. Wait ‘til you see this guy next week.”

“See?” I said, gesturing toward the verbal evidence. “I’m not missing anything. I’ll be right back.”

Aiden made a face. “It’s dark out. Are you sure you want to go outside alone?”

“I’ll be fine.”

And with that, I made a casual retreat into the hallway—that turned into a jog once I rounded the corner. I leaned out the side door, the same one I’d fallen into during my drunken excursion last January, and found Wallace leaning against the bricks.

His lips curved into a wicked grin when he noticed me. “Hey.”

Rena shoved the door open, barely masking the eagerness that surrounded her. “Long time no see.”

I gave the area a quick scan, took her arm, and carefully guided her into the nook beneath the stairwell. During the week, it was the unofficial hub for plastering up notes and flyers, but tonight it lay undisturbed in shadow. “Too long.”

“So, how’s it going?” Her fingers slipped inside the waistband of my jeans, and I wasn’t sure if she was trying to pull me close or herself closer—either way, she stumbled forward.

How’s it going?
I leaned down, watched as dark, gleaming pupils eclipsed her eyes, and said the most truthful thing I could muster, “Lonely.”

She worked her bottom lip with her teeth and peered up through her lashes. “Well, we can’t have that.”

To her credit, she didn’t mention the cluster-induced swelling around my eye. In fact, she didn’t mention the cluster at all. “No,” I answered, my voice rougher than I recognized, “we can’t.”

Footsteps pounded overhead as people headed to and from the lobby, without so much as a backward glance. I knew we were supposed to use this time to compare notes, but…
damn
.

“Too soon for this?” she asked, winding her arms around my neck. Her scent laced the air like flowers in spring, and shallow breaths pushed between us.

Tight. My groin was tight. I tried to think past the fog about to cloud my judgment, but it was too dense. Too heavy. It’d already spread to my lungs and robbed my body of oxygen. “N-No.”

“Good.” Her lips brushed mine, hesitant at first, before she claimed what was rightfully hers—branding me with a kiss turned declaration. Longing mixed with urgency. Love blended with fear. This was the result of weeks foolishly spent apart. I wanted it…

But I wanted
more
.

“Now,” she whispered, pulling back for air, “how do you want to spend the other four minutes?”

I stared at her, praying for an ounce of restraint. Rena knew how to handle me, and she wasn’t messing around. As my fingers grasped for the wall’s edge, digging through brick and mortar, I came to terms with the fact that I wouldn’t be able to hold back much longer.

“We could…” My gaze slipped to the side for the briefest of seconds, focusing on the green flyer beside her head. The letters R-S-T-L stood out in bold, black print. “Uh…”

“Yeah?” she prompted.

I snatched the sheet off the wall and scanned its contents. “Shit.”

Her face scrunched up at my choice of words, and I knew why. I hardly ever curse in front of Rena.

“We could
shit
?”

“No, sorry, it’s just…” I held the flyer out so we could both see it.

“R.S. Tobler Laboratories is looking for students, aged eighteen to twenty-six, to take part in a research study this Saturday,” she read, incredulity constricting her throat. “Participants will visit the clinic three times over the course of six months to receive a trial vaccination, give blood samples, and answer questions related to the study…”

ERA had a pair, all right. Advertising here on campus? They were shoving the inevitability of their plans in our face, and at fifty bucks a pop, I knew they’d have a good turnout.

Rena looked up, her eyes searching mine. “You think they’re doing the experiments?”

“Yes and no,” I answered truthfully. “From what Corynn says, the vaccine is legit, but it takes multiple doses. That gives ERA time to sort through their participants and select a chosen few.”

Her brows twitched toward each other. “What do you mean?”

I repeated everything Corynn had told me days before and finished up by adding, “It's like they said in the forest. They’re going to winnow as they see fit—separate the deserving from the undeserving.”

“Why not just continue doing the experiments in private?” she asked. “You know, stay under the radar.”

I hefted one shoulder. “Maybe they need a larger crop to make sure some of the experiments survive this time.”

Rena clutched my sleeve. “Wallace, what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know.” What did she expect me to say—that I was going to drive up there and torch the place?

“By the time we come back from summer break, we could have hundreds of classmates walking around here with heightened senses and enhanced abilities. They’ll probably be brainwashed into doing whatever the hell it is ERA’s working toward, and then what? We can’t fight that many people, Wallace. We can’t even fight ERA now.”

“Relax,” I said through gritted teeth, feeding off her hysteria. “Freaking out isn’t going to help the situation. We just need to—I don’t know—take down the flyers or something.”

Her brows shot up. “You think that’ll help? They have a database full of information up there. They’ll call phones, take out Internet ads—maybe even recruit in person. We need to stop them before they get serious.”

“And how do you propose we do that?”

She fell silent, her gaze dropping to the side.

“Exactly,” I said. “We don’t have the manpower.”

“But we do have the
super
power,” she answered in a quiet voice, wringing her hands. “None of us is exactly human, you know. You have the strength and empathy. Cole has the speed and regeneration. And with me around, you’d have the advantage…”

Her eyes darted back and forth as she worked it out in her mind. “And Henry—Henry could tend to injuries.”

“So, you’re expecting injuries?” I pressed my lips together. “Some advantage.”

“I don’t know.” She shrank away from me, edging down the wall. “I mean, it’s a possibility if we confront them. Look at what Faye did last time.”

Somewhere, in the back of my head, an alarm went off.

“I remember,” I cut in. “I’m just surprised you’d risk it. Especially after last time.”

“What am I supposed to do, Wallace?” she asked, her voice cracking. “The world is about to shift, and we’re the only people who’ve had any semblance of warning. Don’t we have a responsibility to try—to do
something
?”

The red exit sign lit her hair and glittered in her eyes as she looked up at me, lost…searching.

I blew out a deep breath and ran a hand over my forehead. “Fine. Let's start by minimizing risks. We'll do what we can to sway people from the preliminary study, but we need to keep a low profile and stay alert. If we can stop ERA from releasing the virus in Ohio, we can buy ourselves time to find the source.”

“And destroy it,” she murmured. “But what if we don't stop them in time? Tomorrow is just a test run. They're waiting to target those unaffected by the initial breakout, right? People scared enough to receive a questionable vaccine to prevent it. We could have an epidemic on our hands with no means of treatment.”

“One step at a time,” I said, closing the distance between us. “We'll see what we can find out tomorrow.”

She deflated, pressed her forehead against my chest, and let out a warm breath against my shirt. “Why do you always get to be the rational one?”

I fisted the flyer. “Balance.”

She jabbed me in the ribs.

“Easy,” I grunted and tossed the crumpled wad toward the trashcan. “I’m on your side.”

“Uh huh,” she stretched upward, popped up on her tiptoes, and planted a kiss on my jaw. “Make sure it stays that way.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but something hit me. I finally realized where—or rather,
who
—that alarm was coming from. “I hate to say this, but you should probably check on Aiden. He seems pretty upset about you being gone this long.”

She rolled her eyes. “The guy is paranoid. He probably thinks I’ve been abducted.”

“In all fairness, it’s happened before.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

“Oh, right.”

Rena moved aside to leave, but paused mid-step. “So, can I see you later?”

Later?
The word shot heat through my veins and surged below the belt. Just like that. “Yeah, sure. Later, as in soon? We can go soon, if you want. Or not. We can meet up whenever.”

Who the hell was controlling my mouth?

She grinned. “Yeah, soon. How about midnight? It can’t be your room, though. Aiden will see me.”

“You mean you’re not going to his place after this? I thought you two were practically dating.”

More footsteps pounded down the hall. I didn’t even notice which direction they were going this time.

“Shut up.”

“Well, we can’t go to your room, either,” I told her. “What about meeting at my truck? I can drive somewhere, and we can hang out.”

“Sounds like a plan. Oh, and Wallace?”

“Hmm?”

She sauntered a few feet, her hips making deliberate figure eights as she approached the corner. “Don’t be late.”

‘Don’t be late,’ she says.
She was lucky I didn’t chase her.