Inherit (26 page)

I wrinkle my nose. “A fishing analogy?” I lean closer to him, catch a quick whiff of his aftershave and motor oil smell, and back right up because that is not possible right now.

“If you can think of a better one, go ahead and use that.” He reaches a hand for mine, then pulls it back and drops it on the couch cushion between us.

“Fishing it is.” I take a deep breath and focus my energy on Vee, her sweet and caring hazel-green eyes, her long dark hair, her brilliant Sherlock Holmes-esque mystery solving, and wild, brightly painted nails. I cast my shield far and wide, until my hands tingle because she’s right there, right in the zone of my reach. I tighten the shield into one long line, just like the line on a fishing pole, just like Jonas told me to, and right when she feels so real in my head, I’m positive I could open my eyes and see her standing in front of me, the
smør
net pulls taut and glows a bright, iridescent white, and I’m a short tightrope walk away from her brain.

I suck a deep, sharp breath and make the walk without looking back or down.

“What is it like?” Jonas’s voice is strong and comforting, coming through the waves of my power and steadying me before they suck me under.

I can’t will my eyelids to come unglued. “I feel like I’m standing in the middle of her brain,” I whisper. It’s a lot like wading out into an ocean, and when I walk around, I mange to open my eyes. I can see her thoughts like all the neon ocean life slipping and darting under the surface. I make sure I’m careful not to disturb the corals or floating seaweed. It’s gorgeous, this whole bright, sunny ocean of thought and memory. “I can see…me and Vee at the eighth grade Valentine’s Day dance in matching red tube shirts. Wow! It’s funny and sad how hot we thought we were. And there she is with her mother and father at a Diwali festival in her grandparents’ village. So gorgeous. And…ugh! Oh, no. That’s Zivalus. I have to, um, avert my powers, because I do
not
need that particular image burned into my memory, thank you very much. It’s amazing Jonas. I wish you could see what it’s like.”

“I can, technically.” His voice floats through my mind and breaks up some of the images, like a stone breaking the surface of the water and leaving a web of ripples in its wake. “I’m not saying you should let me. It is your best friend’s private thoughts and all. But you can link me in.”

His voice echoes softly, getting slightly farther away as I wade deeper into Vee’s brain, past the darting neon fish and curly-tailed seahorses and into the deeper water, dark with craggy seashell bits and rock houses with holes to hide biting eels and menacing, pincer-waving crabs.

My lungs pump fast with understood terror as I wade past the image of her twisted face and labored breathing from that time we were on top of the Empire State Building for school and her fear of heights almost made her hyperventilate.

I stare like there’s a bloody train wreck in front of me when I see an image of my sweet, honest best friend unfolding a tiny cheat sheet during Mr. Lang’s ridiculously hard chem midterm.

I feel like a dirty voyeur as I turn away from her screaming at her mom, kissing some mystery boy in her grandparents’ backyard during a formal party, and sliding nail polish bottles into her purse from all different shops and stores.

Vee steals her nail polish? Why? She always has money from her parents. Nausea pulses through me, and the acidic burn of vomit threatens the back of my throat.

This is private. Not even for a best friend’s eyes. This isn’t for me to know about unless Vee wants to. I’m about to get the hell out of my friend’s brain, when I notice something flash and dart with a sinuous slither. As soon as my eye catches it, I try to follow, but it’s gone. It could have been a trick of my tired mind, a shadow, an echo, but I know better.

I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention, and the cold, emotionless eyes of a shark bulge in my mind, cloudy and predatory as if there were next to my leg, about to devour me in one tearing bite.

Sakura was here. I can’t present a single shred of solid proof, but it’s as obvious as plastic bags and oily residue floating in the waves. She’s been in Vee’s brain and left her toxic imprint.

Because of me.

“Wren?” Jonas’s voice is so far away, it brushes the back of my spine like a whisper. “Are you there? Are you okay? I’m losing my feel for you.”

“I’m here!” I call back, suddenly noticing I’m adrift and have no lifevest. “And…I need you. I need your help.”

But for what? What has my power-hungry cousin done to my friend? To my family? And will adding Jonas to the mix make things better or worse?

I decide there isn’t time to quibble about all these details. I can’t do this alone, so Jonas is in whether he wants to be or not.

I ignore all the fear lapping over my mouth and nose like waves about to pull me under and focus on my energy. I send a line of bright white condensed light like a lifeline his way, reaching past the outer limits of Vee’s mind. He sends his light, a pure, steady-burning white that transfers through and calms me instantly. I sink sharp hooks into him and draw him across time and space, funneling his energy to my side in slow, measured counts, until he’s floating close, his presence buoying me and restoring my confidence.

“What happened here?” He pulls me out of the deep and we wade through the littered dark areas, and he looks around carefully, collecting every shred of evidence to use later.

There’s only one word for this kind of mess. “Sakura,” I whisper, and her laugh rolls out on a wave, tensing Jonas and I both and bringing my hands out, my wrists flexed, ready to take her pink-haired, evil ass down. When I speak next, my voice resonates with the strength I finally feel. “And she’s sure as hell not ready for what I’m about to bring.”

Chapter 25

“Where is she?” Jonas turns in a complete circle and scouts, but the flick of a shadow I saw before is the most we’re going to see of her. I know it. “Can you feel her here, or is this just the aftermath of what she did?”

“Just the aftermath.” My voice drops like a stone in the water, but I clear away the fear and worry and let the rage burn. It ricochets through me in a singing, brewing, scalding rush of power that feels amazing, chemically radiant, like having pure electrically-charged acid running through my veins. When I look down at my palms, the light that’s collecting there has a soft green hue, like a spring leaf held up to the afternoon sunshine.

Jonas’s hands grip at my wrists with a sudden ferocity. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I was about to make a shield!” I snap, trying to shake his hold off, but not having any luck. If my rage was a running convict before, it just jumped onto the back of a stallion with a thorn in its side. I practically snort and paw as the green glow begins to fade and leak out of my hands. When it’s completely gone and there’s nothing left but the dull white glow that’s beginning to run just under the surface of my skin all the time, Jonas loosens his hold on me, and I lash out with a fury that builds low and deep as a tsunami wave. “What the hell are
you
doing?” My voice hisses like the tide retreating from the shore.

“We need to leave Vee’s head before you do more damage than Sakura ever could.” His voice is rough and impatient, and it grates at the edges of my already raw nerves.

“I didn’t let Vee know where I am yet. Get away from me while I send her the message.” I jerk away from his side and collect powerful waves of energy again. I know it’s more than Vee would need from me. This is supposed to be simple, quiet, non-intrusive.

But the memory of that green burn bobs and prods in my brain, my blood, my entire body. I want it back. After weeks of feeling weak and stupid and used by every single person in my world, I want to hold the key to a command that no one else can control. I want to manipulate something I know is frighteningly powerful, even if I don’t completely understand it or how it works. I tell myself it’s Vee I’m focused on, but I can’t stop my need to use this new power.

It’s like trying to hold the remnants of an imploding star back with a kid’s butterfly net.

I know it’s going to pulse and burst in my face, but part of me tingles to feel the explosive reach of my possible power. The green radiates up and down my arms and pools in both my hands and every finger.

When the glow fades this time, it isn’t as obvious right away. It’s a slower, subtler drain, and I flick my wrists a few times, imagining that I’ve somehow unplugged or disconnected from my power source.

Then I feel a tightening that goes from caress to bone-crushing in a few quick coils, like twin anacondas roped around my arms.

“Let me go.” I use my best shidlemaiden/witch-in-charge voice. “I know what I’m doing.”

“You have no fucking clue what you’re about to do.” Jonas talks slowly and steadily, the way negotiators in the movies talk to the guys with bombs strapped to their chests. “This power will backfire and annihilate you. Do you feel how easy it is to collect? How strong it gets so fast?”

“So?” I try to move my arms, wiggle my fingers, turn my wrists, but I’m locked down and it’s damn infuriating. “Maybe one thing in this whole ordeal could be easy for me. Or maybe I’m a hell of a lot stronger than any of you give me credit for. I don’t need all the incantations and magic voodoo. I’m beyond that. Maybe this is just me coming into my own.”

“This is you getting manipulated.” His voice is still stubborn and strong, a riptide pulling me under. “The power you’re tossing around is a plant someone left here for you to find. They’re counting on that fact that you’re not going to be able to walk away from it. It’s a Pandora’s box, and if you open it, it’s going to unleash shit you don’t have a chance in hell of controlling. Then it’s going to send out millions of poisonous spores that will rot the people you love from the inside out. It’s a trick, Wren. You’re too smart for it.”

The threat of hurting Vee or Bestemore or my parents makes the eagerness to use this power wane. “It feels good. It feels powerful, but like I can harness it. I swear, I wouldn’t want to try it if I didn’t think I could handle it.” I argue, and it’s the grasping desperation in my voice that makes me shut the hell up and listen to Jonas, let his voice tug me away.

“It’s like a drug.” His voice is sweeter now, coaxing me back. “It’s feeding on your rage. You have to let go of that, or it will consume you.”

“Was it put here? In Vee’s mind?” Thick black clouds roll into the scene, obliterating the sun and spiking my panic. “Can this hurt her? Is it getting worse? Who’s doing this?” My last shrill word echoes back at us.

Jonas eyes the clouds with narrowed eyes. “I don’t know. It could be Magda or Sakura. Or they could have united.”

“United? Can we protect her? Can we make this okay?” Even the white glow is fading from my hands. The water at my calves slaps at my skin in violent, choppy waves, and the wind picks up and stings my eyes.

“I have no idea. No shield will be permanent enough. We can leave a temporary one, but it will fade without you here to monitor it.” He kicks at the brackish water and mutters a long line of swears in what sounds like seriously pissed-off Norwegian.

“What about a
ferdig
, like we did on my memory
boble
?” I finger the warm little sphere around my neck and wait for him to tell me the logical reason why it won’t work.

“A
ferdig
spell is for small trinkets and portable shields. It can’t be done on a full force shield.” He puts his hand on my arm, ready to drag me away, but I grind my feet deeper into the rough sand.

“Why? Why can’t it? Has anyone tried?”

The wind picks up and throws my hair, wraps it around my neck, and tangles it in a black web netted over my face. I brush it away and yell over the screaming current. “Please! Try with me, Jonas! Look at this, at what’s happening!” I hold my arms wide on either side and gesture at the once peaceful interior of my gentle best friend’s brain, now filled with crashing waves, darkening skies, and the screech of gulls I know are white seabirds, not black harbingers of disaster. Knowing that doesn’t stop the fear that nettles through me. “I have to fix this!”

“We have no time! We’ll get trapped.” Jonas yanks me close, his breath ragged, his voice a razor cutting through my nerves. “We can go back, figure out a plan. Worst case, Vee is like Bestemor. It’s reversible. I promise.”

But his light eyes brim with guilt. He’s making promises he has no business making. And I understand his reluctance. His job is to protect me.

But right now, all I can think of is my grandmother, pale and comatose on the bed.

There’s no way in Hell, on Earth, or in this weird realm in between I’d let that happen to my beautiful Vee.

I spin around once, twice, and let the insanity of the scene sink in. I think about how my stupidity, my inability to accept my powers and my place caused this all. I’m sick and tired of it.

I’m ready to sink my teeth into this crazy problem and suck it dry.

The fury that prickled through me before gets syrupy, clogs my veins and stops up my rational thoughts. After a few seconds I’m panting. Then I arch my back. My fingers curl, I rock on my feet, and my core tightens, ready for a long, nasty fight.

I ignore Jonas’s warning because I have to. I have to trust myself, and I have to use this power I know I’m made to control. I gather my fury, my dangerous, acidic fury, and let my hands glow a hot, nasty green. The green glow shoots through pinhole breaks in my fingernails, which are cracking and splitting with a power I can’t harness fast enough.

It crawls up my arms and bubbles in radioactive furrows and ridges that morph with frenetic speed right in front of my eyes. My veins pick up and strain my skin, igniting with the color. My back hunches over, throwing me forward at the waist, then whips me back, so my head is tipped up, my arms thrown wide, and flashing hot green light shatters through my cells and rolls off my skin. The entire sky blinks and quivers as my fingers flick and my fists ball erratically. I feel like I’m howling right back at the wind, smashing into the waves, silencing those squawking gulls with a power so enormous, it poisons me.