Cassidy Jones and the Luminous (Cassidy Jones Adventures Book 4) (15 page)

“But all that went away after I started drinking Luminous—the fatigue, the soreness, the depression, all of it. I have the energy I had ten years ago.” Her eyes moistened. Mine did, too. “How do I feel? Healthy, happy, invincible—” Her eyes slid to a bottle of Luminous, clinging to it. Tears rolled down her face. “I feel like if I don’t get a drink soon, I’ll die.”

“Lizzy,” Dad whispered, then buried his face in her red hair. We kids hugged her, assuring her she’d be all right. But how could we know?

Mom’s hand reached around Chazz’s head, and she pulled him to her fiercely. She stared at Serena, desperate. Serena nodded.

I understood their silent communiqué. Mom wasn’t scared for herself. She was terrified this parasite would hurt her children.

A couple of hours later, we were sitting around my kitchen table, eating pizza and listening to Gavin’s plan. He and Serena would fly to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Georgia, where Serena could work in their advanced laboratories and study the parasite with other scientists to determine its risks, if any.

“We know the parasite isn’t compatible with Cassidy—” Serena said.

“In other words, mutants,” I grumbled, reaching for my fourth slice of pizza. Feeding my face hadn’t provided much solace.

“—however, the rest of us—” Serena continued, as though she hadn’t heard me.

“Humans,” I translated.

“Cassidy,” Mom admonished with a sigh.

“—could be another story,” Serena finished, daring me with a look to interrupt her again.

I crammed pizza into my mouth.

“The government won’t act on presumption,” Gavin said. “We need proof. So while Serena is at the CDC, I’ll fly up to DC to meet with the appropriate agencies and attempt to get the wheels turning for an investigation. Drake, you’ll set up an interview with Grimm. Lead him to believe he’s being interviewed for his charitable works. Emery and Cassidy will accompany you, for obvious reasons.”

“I might smell lying, and Emery can hack into their computer,” I cleared up, talking with my mouth full.

Dad frowned at me. Emery looked amused.

I snagged pizza slice number five from the box.

Once we’d hammered out the plan, Serena warned Mom about withdrawal symptoms, which could resemble those of a substance abuser getting clean. This didn’t sit well with Mom, but she took it in stride, vowing to be accountable to us if she weakened and found herself headed out to buy a case of Luminous.

“I’ve gotta check on Athena,” Chazz announced at that point, bored with all of the talking. “She might be up from her nap.”

He’d become obsessed with Jared’s cat.

“She
surrrrre
sleeps a lot,” he said as he trotted out of the kitchen.

“Elizabeth, Chazz doesn’t appear to be suffering your symptoms,” Serena said in a hushed voice.

I straightened in my chair, hopeful.

Mom’s heavy expression lifted. “He only drank a quarter of the bottles I gave him, if that.”

“There’s a chance he didn’t ingest the parasite,” Serena concurred.

“And Nate’s safe, because I drank his water at lunch,” I contributed, and then proceeded to list the names of everyone I had seen drinking the vile stuff.

“This will be difficult for each of you,” Gavin interrupted me. “But it’s critical that you don’t share what we’ve discovered with
anyone
.”

We all nodded. We could do that.

“That means you don’t stop anyone from drinking Luminous Water.”

“Whoa!” Nate put his hand up. “Wait a minute! Why not?”

I didn’t need to ask why we couldn’t. I already knew.

“We need more information,” Gavin said, confirming my assumption. “Until the government is involved, we don’t want to tip our hand. We have no idea the magnitude of what we’re up against, nor the motivation behind it. This situation needs to be handled with kid gloves, and with the proper organizations in place to manage a crisis. I have experienced firsthand the catastrophic results of public panic, and witnessed guilty parties get off scot-free when the trigger was pulled too early.”

“So we just let people infect themselves?” Jared asked with disgust.

Gavin looked at him squarely. “Until we know what we’re up against.”

Scowling, Jared nodded and looked away, deliberating. I suspected he was thinking about his dad, who had introduced my family to the contaminated water. I certainly was speculating about Mr. Wells’s involvement. Did he know this parasite was in the water, or was he a victim, too?

I was still pondering the thought as I dressed to go out on my midnight run. Then Jared knocked on my bedroom door.

“Come in, Jared.”

He opened the door. “How’d you know it was me?”

I smiled. “I can smell you.”

He playfully sniffed his armpits, then closed the door behind him. “You’re going out?”

“Yep.” I put on a black Nike. “I have to talk to Joe.”

Jared sat next to me on the bed. “You’re going to tell Joe, even though Gavin said not to?”

“Uh-huh.” I forced the other shoe on. “Joe doesn’t have anyone to look after him. Besides, who’s he going to tell?”

Jared nodded, then appeared transfixed by a pair of jeans wadded on my floor while I tied my shoes. His face dropped, as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

“Jared,” I said, smoothing his hair. “This is a stupid question, considering everything you’ve been through, but what’s wrong?”

“I need to run something by you, since I don’t know how objectively I can view my dad,” he said, turning somber eyes to me. “Do you think he would intentionally hurt me?”

Rage exploded in my chest at the mere suggestion. I knew I couldn’t view his dad objectively, either, but I could see that Jared needed me to. However, I had to be straight up.

“If you want an impartial opinion, you should ask a Phillips, not me. I don’t trust your dad. I’m sorry, but it’s true. The thought
alone
that he could harm a hair on your head makes me crazy! You don’t
ever
want to see me
that
angry,
believe
me.”

Jared’s mouth curved into the sweetest smile. He caught my cheek in a warm palm and stared tenderly into my eyes. My mouth went dry. I was positive he was going to kiss me. But he didn’t.

“Thank you,” he said, smiling. “You have no idea how much that means to me. How much
you
mean to me.”

His face grew troubled again. His hand dropped from my cheek. Leaning forward so his elbows rested on his knees, fingers intertwined, he frowned at the floor. “I don’t trust him, either. But I do trust you. Please don’t tell anyone what I’m about to share.”

“I won’t.” I wouldn’t ever betray Jared’s trust. “You know I won’t.”

His troubled gaze flicked to me and then back to the floor. “I know.” He blew out an agonized breath. “I think my dad has been infecting me with that parasite
.
You know how your mom described feeling after drinking the water? That’s exactly how I feel when I stay with him. I’m happy—
really
happy. And when I go home, I fall into this depression and get sort of desperate to go back to his place. I even take it out on my mom, snapping at her for no reason. And I get these headaches, like Serena told your mom she might get. You know, withdrawal.”

I nodded, processing. It was a lot to take in. For Jared’s sake, I couldn’t freak out and react emotionally. I had to be logical. I had to be Emery.

“Did your dad give you Luminous?” I figured this would be Emery’s first question.

“He didn’t hand me a bottle. But he could have snuck the parasite into food.”

“Did you see him use Luminous while he was preparing food?”

“No. But that doesn’t mean anything. Basically, I’m going off the feelings your mom described.”

“And your being angry with your dad doesn’t help.”

Jared winced, which made me feel like a total jerk. Nevertheless, I had to sort facts from feelings, just like Emery did with me.

“Is it possible you felt happy at your dad’s simply because you were happy to be with him, and you felt depressed when you went home because you missed him?”

“Sure.” He didn’t look convinced.

“Your dad might be like my mom, and have no idea what he’s drinking. That’s probably the case.”

In that moment, I believed it was true. Jared’s dad had to be a hapless victim, addicted to the good feeling the parasite produced.
He should be warned
.

“I know Gavin said not to, but you can tell—”

Jared shook his head. “No. I can’t tell him. As far as I know, he’s involved, somehow. If you recall, I had a nine-millimeter aimed at my chest because of him.”

“Like I could forget.” Anger gave objectivity the boot. Owen Wells was slime. “Maybe the best thing to do, after a day like today, is to get some sleep. And, Jared—”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve always got your back.” I gave his cheek a quick peck. “Get some sleep. We can talk more in the morning.”

I stood. Jared caught my fingers and stared up at me with those beautiful, soulful eyes of his.

“Do you think we can pull off being callous, and keep our mouths shut when we see people drinking Luminous?”

“We have to. Gavin knows what he’s talking about.” I squeezed his fingers affectionately and swiped my ski mask from the nightstand. “But that doesn’t include Joe.”

I switched off the light and rolled on the mask.

“Get some sleep.” I gave him a brief hug, then ran for my open bedroom window, diving through.

~~~

When I found Joe, huddled in his box, my heart stopped. He looked awful. I knew it was because of the parasite.

What has it done to him?
Is it eating up his insides?

“Joe, are you sick?”

He forced himself into a sitting position, smiling weakly. “Just recuperating. Something’s wrong with that vitamin water.”

“How’d you know?” I asked with surprise, searching his dark eyes. No parasites were visible—thank goodness.

“How’d I know?” He rubbed his temples, making a face as though they were tender. “I go to great effort to feel bad about myself, but no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t feel bad on that water.”

He chuckled at his joke, which struck my heart like a chunk of lead. When would Joe cut himself some slack?

“How’d
you
know there’s something wrong with that water?” he asked, and I didn’t hesitate to tell him.

Joe let out a low whistle, watching me with worry. “Mendel’s mother thinks that parasite in you is dead?”

“Yes, she does, or I wouldn’t be better. My immune system fought it, but for some reason, yours—a human’s, I mean—doesn’t recognize the parasite as an invader. Ser—“ I almost used Serena’s name, then remembered the pseudonym I had dreamed up for her when talking with Joe. I didn’t like using real names with him. “Er . . .. Charice is going to go to the CDC to study them with other scientists.”

Staring off at something only he could see, Joe nodded. “I hear ’em calling me. They want me to drink more of that water. They’re making me thirst for it.”

“Do you mean you hear voices?”

“Not voices. I
feel
it.” He tapped his forehead. “I won’t weaken, like the others did.”

I touched his forehead to make sure he wasn’t delirious with fever. Joe wasn’t making any sense. His skin was cool to the touch.

“I’m not suffering from fever,” he assured me. “I’m at war with this parasite. It won’t get the best of Ol’ Joe.”

“You’ll be okay.” I prayed my words would be true. “Charice will figure out what it is and what medicine kills it.”

“Ain’t gonna be easy,” Joe predicted. “There’s more than meets the eye. It’s all connected.”

Again, I had to wonder if he was in his right mind. “What’s connected, Joe?”

“I’ll tell you after I do some investigating.”

“What do you mean?”

“I got my suspicions,” was all he would say.

“
Psst
, Cass.”

Nate’s whisper wrenched me out of sleep. My alarm clock blinked
5:34 a.m.

“What?” I moaned.

I had crawled into bed only a couple of hours earlier. After I’d left Joe, I patrolled the streets until three a.m., keeping a watchful eye for unsavory characters. You never knew. I could have crossed paths with whoever was behind the missing person cases. As it was, the Seattle Shadow didn’t even sniff out a mugging to intercede with.

“Hurry, before they leave,” Nate said in one quick breath, then took off.

That was enough to get me moving.

I sprang from the bed, swiped a hoodie from the floor and tugged it on, and caught up with Nate on the stairs. In the living room, Jared peeked out the front window.

“Are they still there?” Nate whispered, eagerly hooking the other side of the burgundy curtain panel with his fingers.

I pulled in close to him and peered outside, too.

Serena and Gavin, toting suitcases, approached a Crown Victoria with tinted windows parked under a streetlight. An alert, burley man in a black suit opened the back passenger door for the Phillipses. Gavin greeted him with a nod.

“That guy looks like—”

“
Men in Black
,” Jared finished and wiggled his eyebrows.

Nate practically giggled.

An older gentleman climbed out of the backseat. He had stark white hair clipped close to his scalp, and strong features. He held himself like a highly decorated general.

Nate cracked open the window. “Make use of those ears,” he ordered me.

As though I wouldn’t.

“Gavin.” The general shook Gavin’s hand.

“Sir,” Gavin returned, confirming that the man was his superior.

“Are they talking?” Nate demanded.

I shushed him so I could listen.

The general smiled at Serena. “You look as lovely as ever, Serena.”

“Thank you, Alton,” she replied crisply, handing her suitcase to the agent who had opened the door for them. “It’s nice to see you,” she added as a courtesy. It was clear she was giving him lip service.