Toxic Heart (17 page)

Rain.

It’s a light splattering at first. I watch as the raindrops fall down,
around
us.

And then I see the force field. It’s much more visible than when Turk first brought me to the mystic hideout: it rounds over our heads and down a few feet below us, covering the entire town house like a dome. A mystic dome.

The raindrops make tiny impressions on the iridescent force field, which I can see fully now. It shifts colors seamlessly between different shades of green, like thousands of butterfly
wings sewn together. It ripples like the water in the canals, delicate but strong.

“Wow,” I say.

Turk flashes me a bright smile. “Pretty cool, huh?”

I don’t know why—maybe it’s the soothing pitter-patter of the rain, or the raid, or our matching shaved heads … but I’m feeling incredibly simpatico with Turk. Like I can trust him—even more than I trust Hunter right now.

Just then, my TouchMe buzzes. I glance down: a text from Kyle.

Summit is a go. Meet me tomorrow outside Belvedere Castle. 7 a.m. Come alone
.

“Who’s that?” Turk asks. “Hunter.”

I shake my head. “No. Listen, Turk …”

“Yeah?”

“I have to tell you something,” I say.

His eyes glisten with curiosity. “Oh?”

“I know how close you and Hunter are. So if I tell you, you have to promise not to say anything to him.”

Turk shrugs, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t know what you’re going to tell me,” he says. “How can I promise?”

The rain is speeding up now, falling harder. “Forget it, then,” I say. “Never mind.”

Turk moves closer, then exhales a huge rush of air. “Fine. I’ve never kept a secret from Hunter for as long as I’ve known him … but I promise. Just don’t tell me you’re doing something crazy like jumping off a bridge in the Aeries. Because that would hurt. And you’d die. Like, for sure.”

“No,” I say. “Nothing like that. It’s just that … my brother wants to meet me privately.”

Turk throws up his hands in frustration. “I wish you
had
said you wanted to jump off a bridge! Aria, you can’t meet up with Kyle—he’s dangerous. A total loose cannon. Hunter will never go for that.”

“I know,” I say. “Which is why I’m telling you.”

“Not cool,” Turk mutters. “This is so not cool of you to unload on me.”

I ignore this. “We’re going to meet tomorrow morning at seven, near Belvedere Castle,” I tell him. “And I want someone to have my back.”

Turk’s eyes narrow. “Aria, your brother is crazy and violent. He’s a Stic addict. You can’t trust him.”

“I know. But he called and asked me to meet him. I said I would, but only if he called Hunter and Thomas to arrange a meeting.”

Turk smacks his forehead. “So
that’s
why he called Hunter.”

“I know how resistant Hunter is to compromise,” I say, “but he agreed to meet Kyle and Thomas—that’s a start, right? Maybe they’ll figure out a plan to end the war. And in order for the summit to happen, I need to meet Kyle first. It was part of the deal.”

Turk doesn’t respond. He looks away, up at the rain.

“You were there today, Turk. Too many people are getting hurt, dying, on both sides. If there’s even a chance that a meeting will resolve things—”

“You have to do everything in your power to make it happen,” Turk says, finishing my sentence.

“Yes,” I say. “That’s it exactly.
Please
say you’ll show up tomorrow.”

I hear the desperation in my voice, and I know Turk does, too. His face softens, and his shoulders slump in defeat. “Okay.”

“Okay, what?” I say.

“I have your back, Aria,” Turk says. “This is a terrible idea, but if you go to meet Kyle tomorrow, don’t worry. I’ll be there.”

I can’t sleep.

I’m full of jittery, anxious energy. What will I say to Kyle? Will he listen, or is he just showing up to preach the Rose family gospel?

Finally, careful not to wake Ryah and Shannon, I creep out of bed to gaze through the window at Manhattan. I’m so used to the view from the balcony in my parents’ apartment—the majestic skyscrapers, their mirrored façades capturing the silvery bridges, the towering light posts practically bursting with stored mystic energy, pulsing with flashes of yellow and green and white.

But there is none of that here, in the flooded city beneath the Aeries. All I can see are the few surrounding buildings, wisps of canals, and the empty lot on either side of us. In the distance, a few spires that once contained mystic energy stand empty and broken—smashed by the rebels as a reminder to the Aeries of how much they need mystic power.

Follow the lights
, I remember the mystic Tabitha telling me once. Without her, I never would have realized that the mystic light posts
pulsed in patterns. Well, I followed those lights, all right, and they led me to Hunter. To love. To rebellion and now to war.

I close my eyes and see an image of Hunter. And then of Kyle.

I hope I’m making the right decision to meet him tomorrow.

I hope I won’t regret it.

The next morning, I wake up to the smell of bacon.

It’s still dark in the bedroom, and early—the clock on my dresser reads 5:30 a.m. Next to me, Ryah is sound asleep, her head buried underneath two pillows. Beyond her, I can hear Shannon snoring lightly.

I glance toward the foot of my bed and see a tiny wooden table with a metal tray and a perfect breakfast arrangement: two eggs over easy, two crisp slices of bacon, toast, a glass of pulpy orange juice, and a ceramic vase with a clipped red rose.

And Hunter is hunched over it, arranging the utensils.

“Hunter?” I say quietly.

He looks up, startled, like a young child doing something he’s been told not to do.

“I woke you,” he says. “I wanted this to be a surprise.”

He creeps over and sits down gently on the bed. I prop myself up on my elbows to get a better look at him.

“It’s so early,” I say. “What are you doing here?”

Hunter sweeps back his hair from his forehead. Even in the darkness, I can see the piercing blue of his eyes, staring straight at
me. He is freshly shaved; I press a hand to his smooth cheek and feel a light buzz of mystic energy run through my fingertips and into my palm, stirring my blood.

“We received information about the location of one of the Foster bases on the East Side,” he tells me, speaking softly as not to wake up Ryah and Shannon. “We’re leaving to check it out, but first, I wanted to do something special for you.”

I shift my gaze from Hunter to the breakfast he’s prepared for me. “Thank you,” I whisper back.

He leans down and presses his nose to mine, giving me a soft kiss on the lips before wrapping his strong arms around my waist. I scoot over to the side of the bed, making room for him; he rests his head on the pillow next to me. His breath warms my neck, and the way he’s holding me makes me feel safe and secure.

“I’ve missed you,” he says.

For a moment, I let myself forget how we haven’t been connecting like we should, how neither of us has been completely honest, how the sheer number of questions I have about us and the rebels and the city and the war is enough to drive any sane person mad.

Instead, I focus on the simple things: the way Hunter’s warm hand feels pressed against my stomach; the way our breaths mirror each other; the feel of the strong, capable muscles of his chest against my back; how he smells faintly of citrus shampoo; the gentle, ghostly kisses he’s leaving along my shoulders.

“I’ve missed you, too,” I say. “More than you know.”

“I doubt that,” he says softly. “I know I’ve been distant, Aria. Please just trust me. I promise things will work out in the end.”

Trust me
. Words that strike me like poisonous barbs.

Turk told me I should give Hunter time. Maybe Hunter is right. Maybe things will work out in the end.

“I’ve gotta go,” he says. The sheets rustle as he gets up and plants a kiss on each of my cheeks. “I love you,” he tells me. “I’ll see you later.”

I sit up and watch him disappear from the bedroom, his lingering scent the only reminder that he was here in the first place. Well, that and the breakfast in bed.

I reach over and sample the bacon. It’s delicious—crunchy, just how I like it. Which makes me feel even worse about what I’m going to do next.

I’ve already picked out some clothes—more of Shannon’s—and hidden them under my bed. A pair of black leggings and a stretchy midnight-blue shirt that might as well be black. I slip on my borrowed sneakers, sliding a plain gray cap over my shaved head. I stuff a pouch full of coins in my pocket, then grab a pair of sunglasses from Ryah’s dresser, glancing at myself in the mirror.

I look nothing like myself. I could be anyone.

I send a message to Turk on my TouchMe, letting him know that I’m leaving. He won’t travel with me in case I’m being followed. I hope he’s still coming, that he’s not going with Hunter to track down the Foster army instead.

Then I’m down the stairs and out the door and off to the Magnificent Block.

“This is good?”

“No.” I yank on the brim of the cap, trying to cover my eyes. “
Inside
the Block.”

The gondolier glances at the mounds of rubble towering in the water. “It’s too dangerous,” he says. He’s about my father’s age, with shaggy salt-and-pepper hair. He has a bruised eye and cracked lips and is missing most of his teeth.

We have slowed to a stop. “Here is as far as I will go,” he says.

“Look,” I say, yanking out the tiny pouch full of coins. “I have money. Please, just a bit farther.” I open the pouch so he can see inside.

“Crazy,” he says, gripping the wheel and steering us ahead, into the Block. “Crazy girl.”

The imposing brick wall that used to line the Magnificent Block is nothing more than broken fragments of red and brown stone that poke out from the water. There is debris everywhere, and we have to inch along like snails to make sure the boat doesn’t get snared on metal rods or the fallen pieces of lumber that dot the canals like tombstones.

The smell grows sour as we move forward, like a mixture of old milk and seaweed. I keep expecting there to be bursts of red and blue fireworks, like when Hunter took me to one of the mystic carnivals.

But this is different. The mazelike steel walkways that allowed people to traverse the Block by foot have all tumbled down after being bombed by my family and the Fosters; pieces have lodged in the muck at the bottom of the canals, sticking up like metal ghosts of what used to be.

None of the tenements, where the registered mystics were forced to live, remain. As we float farther toward the center of the Block, I can’t imagine what the scene must have looked like when the Block was blasted apart and law-abiding mystics suddenly lost their homes and even their lives.

The dark, early-morning shadows are evaporating into soft light that trickles over everything, casting a gray sheen on the green-black water. Tiny ripples from the gondola sweep through the canal.

“Sort of pretty,” I say to the gondolier. “Don’t you think?”

He crosses his eyes at me, and I realize what a stupid thing I’ve just said. “Not the destruction, I mean, I was just talking about … Oh, never mind.”