Toxic Heart (9 page)

I can play this one of two ways: be upset, or kill him with kindness. I go for the latter.

“I’ve seen a lot worse than a broken chandelier,” I say. “Happens to the best of us.”

Landon raises his thick eyebrows. I can tell he thought I’d be scared.

Blue Hair shoots Landon a disgusted look. “You’re like a little dog, marking your territory. It’s stupid.” Her voice is high-pitched, and she’s a fast talker. She reminds me of a peppier version of Kiki. I like her immediately. “Grow up.”

She turns to me and says, “Sorry. Not exactly the welcome you were expecting, I’m sure. I’m Ryah.” She points to the guy on her left, who’s been silent the entire time. “And this is Jarek.”

“Hi, Jarek,” I say, but I don’t get any response.

Jarek is tall, even taller than Turk, with wide shoulders. From the thickness of his tan arms and the way his T-shirt clings to his body, I can tell that his chest, and probably the rest of him, is made entirely of hard muscle. His long brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and he has thin, arched eyebrows that suit his sculpted face. His nose is straight and wide, his jaw square. There’s a soft slant to his eyes, and I wonder if he is of Asian descent. He’s no Hunter, but he’s still very handsome.

“He doesn’t say much,” Ryah says. She gives me a smile and I can see her dimples. “But his heart is in the right place. And this is Landon.” She points to the boy who tried to scare me. “He’s … sort of an ass.”

“He’s actually not that bad once you get to know him,” Turk chimes in. “Right, Landon?”

Landon doesn’t reply. His black hair is buzzed close to his scalp, and he’s about half the size of Jarek—both in height and width. He looks strong and lithe, with a cocky expression and smooth coffee-colored skin. It’s pretty clear he doesn’t like me.

“Now clean this mess up.” Turk motions to the fallen chandelier. “Stop destroying the place where you live. That’s no way to treat your home.”

Landon shakes his head and slopes down the hallway. I assume he’s getting a broom.

“He’s very moody,” Ryah whispers. “It’s not you. Well, it’s a
little bit
you.…”

“Let’s get you set up, Aria,” Turk says, steering me around the broken chandelier. There’s a staircase along the left wall leading
to the next level, a living room with couches and a fireplace to the right. Straight ahead is a large, open kitchen.

The décor is homier than I expected from the outside, and the space looks lived-in—the couches are frayed, their cushions indented; the yellow paint is dirtied and scratched; the hardwood floors are scuffed. Cheap-looking multicolored area rugs dot the floor, and carvings like the ones back at the compound adorn the walls.

Turk turns to Shannon and Ryah. “Can you point Aria toward her room?”

Ryah says, “Absolutely, Turk,” in a way that makes me wonder if she has a thing for him. She turns to me. “You’re going to be staying with me, Aria! But first—a tour.” She links her arm with mine. “We’re going to be
great
friends. I can already tell.”

I glance back at Shannon, who is miming sticking her finger down her throat and puking.

“Okay,” I say to Ryah. “Let’s go.”

I’m surprised by how large the house is. Outside, I could see only the narrow façade; inside, the rebel hideout seems to have the depth of an entire city block.

Ryah takes me through the kitchen and the pantry, which is full of canned fruits and vegetables. The floor here is made up of large black and white tiles, and the gas range and cabinets seem fairly new and well polished.

“There’s a walk-in freezer with meat and fish.” Ryah points to a metal door. “We don’t get a fresh supply now because of the war, so we have to use it sparingly. Are you vegetarian?”

“No,” I say. “Are you?”

“Oh,
God
, no. I love me some beef.” She leads me out of the kitchen, down a hallway with sunshine-yellow walls and black track lighting along the ceiling. “I try to eat my weight in protein. But since we have to be careful to leave enough meat for everyone, I just wind up eating a lot of peanut butter.”

She stops outside an open door. “So this is the armory,” she says, motioning for me to look inside. Stacked on shelves and against the wall are more weapons than I’ve seen in my life: rifles, pistols, ray guns, stacks and stacks of bullets and ammo clips.

There is also a fair amount of weaponry I don’t recognize, which must be unique to the mystics: bronze pistols that look like miniature trumpets and gloves made of silver and gold twists of metal; black headgear with purple lenses over the eyeholes and vests covered with tiny lightbulbs; rows of knives in various shapes, their clear handles filled with deep-green liquid.

She points to the far wall, where a dozen or so axes are hanging. “Those are Damascus steel,” she says. “And there are swords and knives—all mystic-enhanced.”

This word is familiar:
Damascus
. I learned it from Hunter; it’s steel that has been welded by the mystics, able to support unbelievable weight, nearly impossible to break. It is how the mystics helped build the Aeries, forming the foundation of its skyscrapers.

It strikes me as ironic and unfair that most mystics seem to live in old stone buildings instead of the ones they helped create.

“Come on,” Ryah says, pressing a touchpad and sealing the armory door. I follow her down the hall to another doorway, which
opens onto a flight of stairs leading to a basement. Old-looking brass sconces hang on the wall, burning with bits of green mystic energy and casting a luminescent glow. I hear grunting sounds and breaking glass.

“A shooting range,” Ryah says before I can ask. “It’s basically a training area.” As she says that, the bottom of the stairs brightens with green light. “I’d show you, but whoever is practicing isn’t expecting us, and you
don’t
want to catch a mystic off guard when he’s training.”

“Who’s down there?” I ask.

“Right now? I’m not sure.” Ryah shrugs. “Mystics sort of come and go as they please around here. But this is where Jarek and Landon and I do our training.”

I think of my sessions with Shannon back at the compound. How impossible my training was—and that didn’t even involve actual
powers
.

“You need to train?” I ask.

“Of course, silly!” Ryah says, chuckling. “Why wouldn’t we?”

I’m actually not sure. Turk and Hunter have always seemed so confident with their powers. It never struck me that they had to, well, practice.

“I’m only sixteen,” Ryah says. “I came into my powers three years ago, so they’re still new. There are some things you can do inherently, but most of it you have to learn.”

“Who teaches you?” I ask, relieved to have someone who is willing to answer all my questions.

“Parents. Friends. Registered mystics never get to learn, really,
because they’re drained as soon as they hit puberty. I grew up underground, though, so I’ve had a few years of practice. My dad taught me a lot before he died.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know.”

“How could you?” Ryah blinks. “We just met. He was killed in an attack about two years ago. My mom passed soon after him.… She got sick and just never got better. I’ve been on my own ever since.”

It shocks me that someone who has lost both parents can be so cheerful.

“We’re all sort of misfits,” Ryah says. “That’s why we’re here. Landon’s parents are still alive, actually. His mom is in a compound outside the city, taking care of his younger sister. His dad is somewhere, but I’m not sure where.”

“What about Jarek?” I ask.

“He’s an orphan, too,” Ryah says. “Us kids with dead parents gotta stick together.” She runs her fingers through her blue hair, then takes a step away from me, heading down the hall.

“To our right is an infirmary.” She points to a large black door. “There’s no nurse or anything, but there are bandages and pretty much anything you’d need if you got hurt.”

Mystics heal incredibly fast, so I wonder how much this room gets used.

“Here’s where we eat,” Ryah says. The hallway opens up to a utilitarian dining area with four long tables and benches for dozens of people.

At the back of the dining room is a staircase. Ryah skips up, and I follow her more slowly. “This floor is the library,” she
says, leading me into a room that is simply crammed with books. Physical books are such a rarity that seeing so many of them in one place is a unique experience—even in the Aeries, only the biggest libraries and richest families have collections, and they don’t nearly rival this.

The shelves are practically bursting. The books look old, some of them falling apart. A tall ladder is attached to a metal rod that runs around the top of the room, allowing access to the books near the ceiling.

“This is where most of the strategy meetings happen.” Ryah motions to the long wooden conference table, its planks different lengths fitted together neatly with a glossy, varnished top.

“Those books …,” I say.

“I know.
Old
,” she says. “Most of them are from before the Aeries even existed. Crazy, huh?”

“Wow.” I think back to my video calls with Hunter—he was always in a meeting room that had books. “Is Hunter here?”

Ryah shakes her head. “No. Sorry.” She leads me out of the library to another staircase. “Girls’ rooms are on the third floor, boys’ are on the fourth.”

“How long have you lived here?” I ask as we head upstairs.

“We don’t exactly
live
here,” Ryah says. “More like … we’re staying here. There are a few concealed rebel hideouts in the city, and people move between them now that the underground has been blown out. This is our home base for the moment, but it could change at any time.”

We reach the third floor and Ryah leads me into a room with three beds. It’s nice but pretty minimal. “The color is called
rose
,”
she says, referring to the light pink walls. “Do you like it? I painted it myself. Pretty fitting, right?”

“Right,” I say.

She smiles broadly. “You know. Because your last name is Rose.”

“Yes. It is.”

“Funny,” Ryah says, perching on one of the beds. “I didn’t even know you were going to be living here when I chose this color. And some people don’t believe in fate!” She laughs. “Life. It’s really something, huh?”

“It sure is,” I say, standing in the middle of the room. There are three of everything: beds, dressers, and desks, each with its own TouchMe. One of the desks has a clear vase with a few weeds sticking out the top, pretending to be more exotic flowers. I’m betting it’s Ryah’s.

“That one is yours,” Ryah says, pointing to the bed by the window, with a purple comforter and matching pillows. She walks over to one of the desks and picks up a TouchMe. “And this is yours, too. Same number, new gadget.”

She hands it to me and I scroll through the menus. None of my saved texts have been transferred over, or any of my family or friends’ information. The new TouchMe is a clean slate, a fresh start.

“Great,” I say. “Thanks.”

“Turk made sure to enter us all as contacts, so you have our numbers—just in case.” She goes over to the closet and opens it with the press of a touchpad. Then she starts flipping through the clothes. “We’re not the same size, exactly, but you can borrow whatever clothes of mine you want. And Shannon’s.”

“Shannon is sleeping in here, too?” I ask.

Ryah nods and points to the bed by the door.

“Well, I’m not sure that Shannon would like me borrowing any of her clothes,” I say. “We’re not exactly friends.”

“Don’t mind her,” Ryah says, waving her hand in the air. “Shannon likes to put on a bold front, but really she’s a sweetheart. She’s just tense. Everybody is.”

We stand in silence for a moment. “The bathroom is down the hall,” Ryah tells me. “And here’s where we keep some emergency funds.” She runs her hands along the wall next to the door. I can see a faint square outline; she grabs a knob that’s painted the same color as the wall and pulls, revealing an alcove full of tiny leather pouches.

“Coins,” she says.

I nod. In the Aeries, everything runs on credit, but here in the Depths, you need physical money to pay for things.

“You probably won’t need them,” Ryah says. “But just in case.” She closes the hidden safe and turns back to me. “We’re going to have dinner in a bit. Why don’t you rest up, put on some fresh clothes, and come down? Really, take anything in the closet you want. We’re family now.”

She trots out of the bedroom, calling “Later!” over her shoulder.

Family
.

What a loaded word.

After a catnap, I pull some underwear from a dresser and a navy-blue tank and pair of slim-fitting jeans from the closet. Then I find a pair of old sneakers that look as if they haven’t been worn recently.
I go downstairs to the dining room and slide onto the bench at the table where Turk and Ryah are sitting. It was a pleasure to throw the red dress Thomas made me wear into the garbage, though it feels strange to be wearing borrowed clothing.

Jarek and Shannon are at the table, too. They seem to be in the middle of a conversation, but once I sit down, they stop talking and avert their eyes.

The rest of the dining room is empty, except for a group of men older than my father who are huddled together at another table, not paying us any attention. The walls are covered with some of the same mystic charms that were at the compound: beautiful hamsas with intricate beading, and other symbols I don’t recognize, inlaid with colored stones and pieces of ceramic. There’s also a silhouetted image of one of the female figures that were on the walls of the farmhouse, with nearly identical curls down her back: a Sister.

“Hope you don’t mind that we aren’t going to have a feast,” Turk says. “A bunch of rebels who were pretty good cooks just left, so we’ll have to make do.”

There are empty plates and utensils in front of us; in the middle of the table is a pitcher of ice water. “That’s fine,” I say. “I’m not picky.”

“Did you find everything okay?” Ryah asks.

“Yeah, thanks again for the tour,” I say.

“No problem,” Ryah says. “My pleasure.”

“Is that my shirt?” Shannon asks, studying my tank top.