Toxic Heart (8 page)

But at least there was something.

Now there is nothing. Just a pit of blackness on a stretch of old land, bisected by filthy canals clogged with brick and plaster and scraps of metal. All I can smell is dust and dirt and death.

It almost doesn’t seem real.

Then I see us.

Scattered across the ground are posters of me and Hunter—huge glossy pictures that read
SUPPORT THE NEW MANHATTAN
. The images make it seem like we’re standing next to one another, even though we’ve never been photographed together. Hunter is dressed all in black, no smile, very serious. His dirty-blond hair, which is usually messy and just long enough that I can run my fingers through it, has been clipped and sheared close to his head on the sides. He looks older this way, more intense.

The picture of me is from a charity event last fall: I’m wearing a baby-doll dress the color of a ripe plum, with a soft-pink sash around the waist. My dark hair is up in an elegant twist, and I’m smiling like a little girl on her birthday. The image makes me feel uncomfortable, fake. I want to gather all the posters and tear them to shreds, but there are dozens and dozens of them.

So I just turn away.

“Anyway,” Turk continues. “The good thing that has come from all this is that most mystics now refuse to be drained. Pretty much all of us have joined up with the rebel cause, and we can defend ourselves and fight.”

“How can you support yourselves, though?” I ask. Most registered mystics were city workers or servants in the Aeries.

“It’s tough,” Turk says. “It’s definitely tough. Some people have set up shops around the Depths. We still need to eat, need clothes. Most of the men are driving gondolas. We’re surviving … barely.”

“But you’re surviving,” I say. “That’s what’s important. Once everyone has had time to regenerate their powers, they’ll be able
to fight … and then we’ll have a chance of winning. My parents and the Fosters can’t compete with mystic energy. That’s why they had mystics drained in the first place: they were scared of their power.”

“Yeah, but …”

“But what?” I ask.

“It’s not as simple as all that.” Turk leads me over a stone bridge that looks like it could fall apart any second—there’s a gaping hole in the center. “Money still rules the world.”

We turn down another street and pass a row of mangled brownstones, the street overflowing with chunks of cement and broken stone.

I begin to recognize the area. It’s near where the mystic Lyrica lives—which means we must be nearing the Magnificent Block. As we walk, Turk pulls out his TouchMe and sends a quick text.

“Was that to Hunter?” I ask as he stuffs it into his back pocket.

“No,” he says. “Nosy.”

“I need to see him, Turk. Now.”

Turk shakes his head as if to say
C’est la vie!
“No can do. Not at the moment. But soon.”

“This is ridiculous,” I say, walking ahead of him. “Why is he hiding from me?”

“Aria, wait up,” Turk says, but I’m already practically running—even though I have no idea where I’m going. It feels like everyone is keeping things from me. More nauseating posters of Hunter and me are plastered all over the place—on the sides of buildings, even on the pavement. I stare at myself smiling and holding on to Hunter. I look like an idiot.

We hurry up Broadway, scurrying underneath empty clotheslines and deadened mystic spires. Homeless people with dirt-caked faces and ratty hair line the streets, their palms open for change. I pull my cloak tighter.

“Aria, come on!” Turk says. But I don’t feel like talking to him.

The street opens up onto a major road where a series of bridges cover a wide, circular canal, and now I know exactly where I am.

The Magnificent Block.

Only instead of a towering wall, there’s simply … water.

No mystic tenements peeking over a stone blockade. No stilted walkways leading to the center of the Block, because there is no center.

The entire place has been destroyed. This section of Manhattan—what used to be Central Park and then was inhabited by the mystics—has been completely obliterated. The individual waterways and drained areas where the buildings were have been wiped out, leaving a sad, watery mess.

“Sad,” Turk says from behind me.

I turn to him, shocked. “What happened?”

He doesn’t respond for a few minutes, his broad shoulders slumped, his tattoos washed out by the sun. Even his Mohawk looks droopy.

“When the mystics refused to be drained, your family bombed the Block,” Turk says. “Hundreds were killed. Some escaped and are hiding out around the Depths. But here, your father wiped everything clean.”

I stare out at the massive lake that has taken the Block’s place.
Tenement ruins rise from the water, haunting reminders of what used to be.

“This is horrible,” I say.

“I know,” Turk replies. Gently he rests a hand on my shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go.”

We make our way to a gondola, and Turk pays the gondolier to let us use the boat alone, promising to return it when he comes back to pick up his bike.

“How does he know he can trust you?” I ask as Turk pilots us down a canal. The movement of the boat and the wind across my face feel nice, offering slight relief from the hot, sticky air.

“We go way back,” Turk says. He’s seated in the boat, facing me, one hand grasping the gondola’s motorized steering wheel, the other arm resting on the side of the boat. “His name is Monroe. I’ve loaned him money in the past.”

I’m silent for a moment, watching the ripples in the murky water. “Who are you?”

Turk raises his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“You just live a very wild life,” I say.

“Because I lent a gondolier some cash?”

“And where does this money come from?” I ask, removing my hood. I quickly run my fingers through my hair.

“MYOB,” Turk says, turning us left, onto a smaller canal. We pass a group of buildings that seem more or less intact, with gates that cover their doors, the bottom layers of stone stained green and brown from the water.

“What’s that? Some sort of bank?”

Turk sticks out his tongue at me. “Yeah. The bank of mind your own beeswax.” He laughs.

“Oh, that’s mature,” I say, but I can’t help it. I’m laughing, too.

“This part of Manhattan used to be called Harlem back in the day,” Turk says.

We’ve been riding the canals for the better part of an hour, and we’re now in an area of broken-down brownstones, like jagged teeth rising from the waters.

“And why are we here?” I ask.

“You’ll see.” He pulls the boat up to a sagging dock and ties it to a rotting wooden post.

We leave the gondola and step onto the street. We’re truly in the middle of nowhere. No people. No signs of life. Just abandoned buildings and the remains of old warehouses.

Turk guides me to a street corner—but it’s the corner of nothing and nowhere. There isn’t a building in sight that looks remotely livable. Just an empty lot that takes up nearly an entire city block, surrounded by a rusty chain-link fence. At least it’s still morning and the sun is shining through the smog. Otherwise, this place would be absolutely frightening. There is a stillness that makes me feel like something awful is about to happen.

“Please don’t tell me this is it,” I say.

“This is it!” Turk says, smiling.

I scan the street for a loophole or a portal like the old subway entrance at the South Street Seaport. “Where?”

“Just relax,” Turk says. Then he raises a hand in the air and points.

He closes his eyes, and his creamy skin begins to glow green. The color starts at the tips of his fingers and bleeds down, like wet paint, until his entire hand is pulsing with mystic energy.

And then there’s a shift.

I feel it first—a sort of rumbling beneath my feet.

Glancing down at the cracked pavement, I see a tiny fissure. The jagged crack slips forward like a fish, lengthening until I can no longer see the end of it.

And then the pavement begins to part.

“Watch out,” Turk says as the street beneath our feet expands.

We both move to the side as—in less than a second—a structure shoots up from the opening in the ground and a new wedge of building appears in the center of the empty lot.

“Wow,” I say. “Impressive.”

It’s oddly reminiscent of the historic Flatiron Building, which I learned about at school. The triangle-shaped building is about five stories high and covered in red bricks. There are a few steps leading up to a red door that glistens in the sun.

Even though I saw a mystic home appear out of nowhere once before, when I visited Lyrica, watching such a large building pop into place like this still takes my breath away.

I step forward, but Turk blocks me with this arm. “There’s a force field around this place,” he says. “Anyone can leave, but only a person with mystic energy in his blood can pass through it to enter. If you take one more step, you’ll be fried.”

I stare at the building. “I don’t see anything.”

“Watch,” Turk says.

Then he lets out a deep breath.

All of a sudden, there’s an iridescent ripple in the air. It’s the slightest movement—like the surface of the bubbles my brother and I used to play with when we were younger. “Hold on to me and you’ll be fine,” Turk says, grabbing my hand. I feel a tiny shock in my palm as our fingers intertwine. “I promise.”

We pass through the force field. It’s more intense than using a loophole—it feels a bit like when Hunter took me through a wall. There’s a fierce squeezing sensation, like my entire body is being gripped in a vise, and then a quick release.

“See?” Turk says. “Now let’s go inside. There are some people I want you to meet. And one is—”

“You,”
Shannon says before Turk can finish his sentence, striding down the steps and slapping me on the cheek.

“Ow!” I say. “What was that for?”

“
You
got Markus killed. I saw it all.” Shannon glares at me, and I can see that she’s exhausted: the circles under her bloodshot eyes are so dark it looks as though she was punched. Her red hair is unwashed, and she’s wearing loose-fitting blue sweatpants and a T-shirt that’s grimy with ash—the same clothes she was wearing when I saw her last. I bet she’s been up all night, too.

I don’t know how to respond, so I don’t. I doubt that anything Shannon says could possibly make me feel worse.

“Shannon, calm down,” Turk says.

“I will
not
calm down!” she says angrily. “I blame you for every
death last night, Aria. So if you thought your training was tough before, it’s only going to get tougher. The sooner you’re in shape and able to defend yourself, the sooner the rest of our team isn’t getting killed as collateral damage. And children.
Markus!
”

“You think I don’t feel guilty?” I scream. “Because I do. I will have to live with this for the rest of my life.”

There’s an awkward silence as Shannon and I stare at each other.

“Sooo …,” Turk says. “Shannon, it appears you got my text and you’re excited to see Aria.” He turns to me. “Shannon is a little … touchy this morning. We’re all on edge.”

Shannon abruptly turns on her heels and heads back to the town house. “Well, come on,” she says, motioning for us to follow her up the steps.

I step inside and the air is immediately cool—a welcome relief. A simple oval mirror hangs near the front door in a foyer with a mahogany-stained wood floor, bright yellow walls, and an old-looking chandelier with dozens of glittering crystals overhead. There’s a pile of sneakers in front of a closet with a few hooded cloaks hanging inside.

The foyer leads into some sort of living room, but my view is blocked by three people standing in front of me with their arms crossed, a girl and two boys who look around my age. I assume they’re mystics, because they’re here, but there’s no real way to tell. They look healthy and fit, which lets me know they haven’t been drained of their powers, or at least, not recently.

The girl is standing between the boys. She’s tiny, much shorter than I am, with a shock of blue hair. She’s wearing cut-off jean
shorts and a pink T-shirt with a picture of an elephant on it. The boys are both handsome in their own way. They’re wearing shorts and dark shirts that expose their arms.

They do not seem particularly excited to see me.

“Aria,” Turk says with forced enthusiasm, “meet your new friends!”

“Um, hello,” I say.

No one responds.

I give a little wave. “Nice to meet you.”

In response, the boy on the right extends his hand. At first, I think it’s for a handshake.

But then a flaming ball of mystic energy bursts from his fingers, shooting rays of electric green up into the ceiling, and I realize I am wrong.

There’s a harsh buzz and a flash of green, and a loud smash as the chandelier crashes to the floor and shatters.

This boy doesn’t want to be my friend. He wants to kill me.

“Landon!” the tiny blue-haired girl says to the boy. “What are you trying to do, scare her to death?”

“Not a bad idea,” Shannon mutters.

The kid with the glowing hand—Landon—gives a dramatic sigh. He shakes his wrist and the glowing stops, his fingers turning back to their natural tawny color. “Oops,” he says dryly.