Bright Star (26 page)

He squeezed his hand and pounded himself on the forehead. “Stupid, stupid.” He castigated himself. Never in life had he felt as inadequate as he had in these past months.

“Stop it,” Rush appeared, grabbing Jackson’s hand. “You haven’t done that since you were a kid.”

“How can you stomach me?”

Rush was perplexed, and his face showed it. “You’re my brother. And you shouldn’t beat yourself up for not knowing I was here. No one should have known. I don’t know how she knew. I swear to you I don’t. I just couldn’t go without keeping an eye on things here. I felt something was going to happen even if I didn’t see exactly what it was.”

“You see,” Bright Star said, alerting them that she was still there. “You see, Jackson. He’s starting to give in. He’s starting to accept what he has to do.”

“Bright Star,” Rush warned. “Don’t start this. And please do not interrupt this conversation I’m having with my brother.”

Bright Star said nothing else, but Jackson, for the first time, could feel a growing animosity inside of her all directed at him. Bright Star was starting to hate him.

“Please,” he entreated, holding his palms out to her. He didn’t know what he was asking for, but he knew he had to try.

“This wouldn’t have happened if you had made her leave.”

“She’s not safe out there alone.”

“She’s even less safe in here. Or rather, everyone else is less safe with her in here. Because remember, she’s not alone. She has her own personal little army of fanatics. Isn’t that right, Bright Star?” Rush turned an accusing eye to her. “Your own
growing
army of fanatics.”

“Who have no meaning without you,” Bright Star offered. Though her words were submissive enough, and her demeanor no less, there was a challenge.

“Bright Star,” Jackson reached out to her.

She didn’t answer, merely raised her hot gaze.

“What will it take for you to stop this?” How many times had he asked this question?

“Stop what?”

“Stop… this.”

“There is no ‘this’ to stop, Jackson. This is our way of life until Rush delivers us.”

“But what does that
mean
?” Jackson’s frustration was palpable.

She shook her head. She puffed out her bottom lip. She shifted where she stood on her bad leg.

“What does he have to do?” Jackson demanded again. Still she said nothing. “Why isn’t the fact that he saved you—that he continues to save you—enough?”

“You don’t understand,” she said finally.

“
That
I won’t argue. Today, you led a group of people onto a packed train. You and that same group of people crashed the train and called out just in time according to some estimate or equation I
don’t
want to even know about for Rush to save you. And, he did. He saved you. Every last one of you and all of the other people you endangered when you did this. What else do you want?”

Again, she said nothing, and her bottom lip began to quiver. Jackson wanted to stop asking her questions. He wanted to go back the way he’d come and avoid bringing her to tears. But he didn’t have a choice. If he were going to help her, he needed to know exactly what he was up against. “What else could you possibly want from him?”

“You already have it,” she answered cryptically, angrily. “So even if I told you, you would never understand what we want or why we want it.”

Gang

They entered in slow motion. Bright Star stepped aggressively even with her pronounced limp. One brilliant blue eye was covered by a lock of melting fire. Flanked by Point and Monk, she wore her standard white fare. A fuzzy white pullover. White pants. White, shiny heels. A white, plastic ring around her middle finger. Her luscious lips were even a translucent white. She had one yellow satin ribbon tied around her delicate wrist. Her broad face was bracketed by impossibly large white hoops in her ears. She didn’t even look at him. None of them did.

They kept coming and started up the stairs to the front door. When, finally, they reached the door, Bright Star turned. Monk and Point stopped short. Then, upon a non-verbal, non-observable cue, they both nodded their heads and continued inside. Bright Star tossed her hair back and bathed Jackson in the full unadulterated light of her mystic blue eyes. Just her neck. Nothing else. She turned to him.

Scheherazade, Bathsheba, Jezebel, Helen, Ceres, none of them could have produced that fascinating yet slightly condescending look that curved her lips. “Remember,” she told him in a deep and sultry voice. “I belong to him.”

“I—”

She cut him off before he could begin the lie. “Rush doesn’t want me. We both know that, Jackson. But I won’t betray him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jackson countered. Too late. The hungry gaze had already traveled up and down the length of her.

“You know,” she threw back, then squatted before him.

“What happens now is bigger than the both of us,” she told him as she grasped his face between her hands and stared at him gravely. His face was bathed in warm blue.

“I wish you would let me help you,” he said helplessly.

Bright Star scoffed and stood. The moment they shared was now over. “Help, help,
help
. It’s all you ever talk about. You can’t help me. Jackson, I think you know that. Furthermore, I don’t need any help.” She was quiet for a moment. The blaze from her magnificent blue eyes, cut in half by the persistent scar, stroked his body. “What I need from you is your faith.”

“Faith in what?”

“Faith in him, of course.”

“He’s my brother, Bright Star. Of course I have faith in him.”

“He’s not your brother,” she argued, reaching a warm and slender hand out to him again. “Okay, well, he is. Yes. He is your brother. But he is so much more. So much more. He belongs to the Earth, not just to you.”

“Or you,” Jackson dared. He watched that hand in anticipation. Would she touch him?

“Or me,” Bright Star agreed, ruefully pulling her hand back. She never hid her wants and desires when they came to Jacob Rush. She stood and started back into the compound.

“You never leave the house unless it’s to the SHQ. Where have you been?” Jackson asked, wanting to end that perilous thread of conversation.

“We have a lot to do today,” she winked at him.

“Bright Star,” Jackson entreated, “Whatever you’re planning… whatever it is, please tell me that it…” He didn’t finish.

“I won’t tell you what it is at all. That, apparently, is the only way you will be able to sleep at night.” And with those words, she started after Point and Monk into the building.

Before she made it inside, Jackson stopped her once more. “Then tell me who she is.”

Bright Star turned back to him and she fixed him with a cold and ruthless stare. She had never looked at him that way. In fact, he had never seen that expression at all on her face before. “Who?” Her voice was like a scratch in his ear.

Unfortunately, Jackson didn’t know who. All he had was the memory of his brother talking to a phantom girl once before and offhand references to someone by the Monk. There was nothing else. Bright Star narrowed her eyes just so, then turned and entered the building.

Jackson sat for a moment, but found himself restless. After the train, there had been a growing tension in the house. The tension wasn’t just emotional or a “feeling.” It was pure unadulterated High Energy. It had shown up on the satellite images and sensors at SHQ. Jackson had not been able to cover the fact the Energy was directly from his home. But, amazingly, he hadn’t had to. Every scientist, doctor, military advisor at SHQ seemed to believe this Energy field was completely normal and unworthy of investigation. Jackson did not agree but did not want them storming his home. His home, which over six months ago had been a two bedroom and was now a veritable compound housing more people than when it had been a regular apartment complex.

Bright Star was planning something huge. Something huge enough for her to expend Energy to put up a barrier for the minds of every one of the Followers living in their home. Jackson found it impossible, thus frustrating that he couldn’t break through the wall. He couldn’t stop something he couldn’t foresee.

Rush had been around more than normal, too. As if he, too, knew it was coming. Of course, Jackson thought, Rush knew. Of course he did. Rush knew everything. Rush was the fucking all powerful! Jackson threw the tennis ball he’d been hitting against the side of the building. Rather than bouncing back, it wedged itself into the brick wall. Then the wall seemed to wobble and accept the ball into it. Jackson grunted in frustration. Nothing was normal anymore.

“Ta dah!” Jackson heard from behind him. He turned to see the twins. His skin crawled at the very sight.

Regardless of the fact that they shared a beautiful room with its own bathroom. Regardless of the fact that they had access to whatever they wanted including clothes. Destroy and Harm persisted in looking like thrown away children, like filthy panhandling street urchins.

“What do you two want?” There was no love lost between them and Jackson.

“We thought
you
wanted something, Cowboy,” they said in unison.

“What could I possibly want from either of you?”

“We thought you wanted the wall to go down.” Destroy smirked. A dimple creased her dirty cheek.

“What wall?” Jackson asked glancing around. He felt like a criminal for just standing there with them. He also couldn’t deny the unease he felt at the High Energy that throbbed around them like an infected wound.

“The Energy wall, of course, Cowboy,” Harm told him. He sidled close to Jackson and looked up at him. His gray eyes were already starting to churn in the way that made Jackson want to vomit.

“Let’s forget about the wall,” he managed. “Why don’t you just tell me what they’re planning?”

“Unh unh unh,” Destroy tsked, shaking her head. “There’s a way, Cowboy. You know that. A way these things get done.”

Jackson didn’t say anything. He just stared at the two who were barely more than children. And yet, with their clammy skin and roiling mercury eyes, they were dangerous. He considered, was considering, what they were offering. The pair knew for certain what Bright Star was up to, but—as was now tradition when it came to Jackson—they wouldn’t tell him. They were going to make him use their Energy to infiltrate the wall. He would have to become a part of them. He looked around again. There was no one there to witness this. In the sky, stars winked at him.

“Okay,” he muttered.

“I’m sorry. We didn’t hear you,” Destroy prodded.

“Come on. Let’s get this over with.” Then he started around to the back of the grounds. He couldn’t go inside. Rush and Bright Star would know what he was up to if he went into the house. They might know anyway, but he thought to lessen the chance. Destroy and Harm followed him, holding hands.

They went into the utility shed. There was an old tub inside filled with landscaping supplies. Jackson considered briefly that five minutes ago they hadn’t had a utility shed. He didn’t remember anybody ever doing any landscaping.

“We’ll need to use that,” Destroy said of the tub. She began to levitate boxes and containers out of the tub with a wave of her hand. Jackson tried not to be amazed. He hadn’t the kind of control she possessed at that age. Both she and her brother’s Talent had increased exponentially since coming to the compound. He wasn’t sure why, but he was sure it had something to do with Bright Star. Or his brother.

“For what?” Jackson asked.