Page 31

31

TREY

“Shut your mouth, Jodi, or I’ll fucking kill you,” Victor shouts. The chains rattle as he points a stern finger at me. “I’ll kill him too.”

Jodi shakes my forearm to grab my attention back. “Remember that one time we made a blanket fort? We ate spray cheese out of the can, and you told me you had a crush on a girl at your Zordi school. Oh, what was her name? God, I can’t remember. Maybe that’s not the best way to prove?—”

“Don’t listen to her,” Victor says. “She’s a goddamn liar.”

Jodi ignores him again. “One time, I took you to the zoo. It was just you and me. When we got to the open aviary, you grabbed one of the small birds walking around and stuck it down your shirt. You wanted to take it home. No matter what I said to you, you refused to let the bird go. Eventually, the zookeepers got the bird out of your grasp, and they kicked us out. Do you remember that?”

I shake my head. “I don’t remember ever going to a zoo.”

“That’s because she’s a liar!” Victor says. “She’s making this all up to try to save her skin.”

All thirty-ish people hooked to this long chain between me and Victor gawk at us with wide eyes and silent mouths. The three Enforcers guarding us are silent too. Like me, they’re probably unsure what to believe.

Jodi takes her hands off me and runs them through her greasy, matted hair. The chains clink against her thick handcuffs as she thinks. “Oh! I know! One Christmas morning, I came over early and we snuck down to the tree. We opened up those Nerf guns I got you. While we played, you bumped into the tree and?—”

“Stop!” I shout so loudly, it makes Arella jolt back a step. I lock my attention onto Victor. “What happened next?”

“Huh?” he says.

“If you’re really Victor, then you’ll know what happened after I bumped into the Christmas tree.”

He scoffs condescendingly. “Of course I know what happened. You tipped it over.”

I turn my attention back to Jodi, whom I’m now pretty sure isn’t Jodi. “What happened next?”

“You broke your mama’s crystal angel ornament.”

“And?”

“The wings broke off. We spent the rest of that morning trying to glue it back together but ended up breaking the head off too, so we dumped the thing in the neighbor’s trash bin and made a pact to never tell anyone. That’s how we came up with our secret word.”

“Which is?”

Jodi doesn’t hesitate. “Crystal.”

I choke up as the realization sinks in. This whole time, it wasn’t my sweet Uncle V who abused me and called me names. It was Jodi in Victor’s body. Now that I think about it, it makes sense. It was always Jodi who treated me like shit, not Victor. This whole time, I thought he started treating me like that because he was sad about losing his wife. Turns out, he did it because his wife stole his goddamn body. What the fuck?

“So?” Cameron says, breaking the silence. “Who got it right?”

“Yeah,” another Enforcer says from behind me, “we wanna know.”

“Jodi is correct,” I say, then shake my head. “I mean Victor. More specifically, Victor in Jodi’s body.”

Cameron chuckles to himself, shaking his head. “Damn. The Keepers gon’ have a heyday with this one. A Mind Swapper? I thought them fuckers was extinct by now.”

This explains why Arella saw Victor’s eyes go black. It was Jodi trying to swap minds with Arella. I can’t imagine what would happen if it had worked. For someone as toxic as Jodi to have immunity? I don’t want to know all the things she’d do with that ability.

My dad places his female hands over my forearm again. “Jodi told me your mama’s dead. Is that true?”

The pain in his eyes makes me think about lying, but I can’t do that to him. “Jodi blew her up. She blew up both my parents.”

“I didn’t blow up anyone,” Jodi sneers from Victor’s body. It’s disgusting that her mind has been living in my dad’s head for this long and no one knew it. “They blew themselves up. My men’s orders were only to detain Suzie and Andy. I had plans to torture them in front of Victor. Whatever happened that night, they killed themselves and took my men with them. I had nothing to do with it.”

It’s official: Jodi is a fucking nutcase. Abusing me is one thing, but keeping her husband locked up for twenty years, with plans to torture people in front of him for her pure enjoyment? Nutcase.

“Why didn’t you kill me when you could?” I shout at Jodi. “I was seven. It would have been easy to get rid of me. Why keep me around for so long?”

If she tells me she kept me around just to torture me too, I won’t be surprised.

Jodi chuckles deep from Victor’s throat. “I had just killed Debbie and made it look like an overdose. That same night, your parents blew themselves up. How was I supposed to kill you too without raising suspicion? One death is an accident. Two is tragic. Three is a pattern. With the cops and social workers up my ass, it was either keep you alive or get investigated.”

“What?” my dad shouts. “You told me Debbie took Trey in! You fucking lied!”

“Of course I did! I couldn’t tell you that he was living on the floor right above you.”

“What?” my dad turns to me. “Trey, you—you lived here?”

“Yep,” I say. “From the day after the explosion, I lived here until the day I turned eighteen, when she kicked me out.”

My dad gapes at me, then at Jodi. “You heartless bitch!” He runs at her with his fists up. He doesn’t get very far though. The chains connecting him to me and thirty-some other people stop him. “You stole my body, locked me up for twenty years, and the whole time, you kept my son away from me right above my head!”

The Enforcers on the sidelines aim a perrizo gun at my dad, but they don’t shoot him.

“You’re a psycho!” my dad says. “A deranged lunatic!”

“And you were screwing around with your sister-in-law behind my back!” Jodi shouts. “Then you had a fucking baby with her and tried to hide it from me. I knew the second you laid eyes on Trey that he was yours. Nobody looks at a little boy like that unless they know it’s their son.”

Everything makes sense now. That’s why Jodi always treated me like I was diseased. The whole time, she knew about Victor’s affair. She knew I was his son.

Jodi glares at me. “Why don’t you look surprised?”

I shrug nonchalantly. “Because I already knew.”

“That Victor is your real father?”

“Yep.”

My dad drops his jaw—well, technically, he drops Jodi’s jaw. “How long have you known?”

“Since yesterday. Li and Tao told me.”

“I knew it!” Jodi sneers. “Those chinks must have been hiding you underground somewhere.”

My opinion of Jodi was already low based on my memories of her. It dipped even lower after I found out she’s a Royal who stole my real father’s body. Now she’s racist too? What’s next? Is she a pedophile? A Nazi? An animal abuser? I wouldn’t be surprised by any of those.

In the corner of my eye, I see Cameron press a finger against his earpiece. “Nah, he ain’t back yet.” A pause, then he turns to one of the other Enforcers. “How long do ya think Eduardo’s been gone for?”

The man shrugs. “A few minutes?”

“Hmm. He doesn’t usually take that long to run the perimeter. Apparently, he’s not responding to?—”

BOOM!

The tree behind Cameron explodes, rocketing chunks of wood through the air. Cameron falls over and doesn’t get back up. Screams echo around me as I instinctively leap in front of Arella and cover her with my body.

“We’re under attack!” an Enforcer shouts.

A mass of people burst out from the tree line. Lightning balls sizzle through the air. A flaming fireball hits an Enforcer in the back and sets him on fire.

“Send backup now!” the Enforcer behind me shouts.

The chain line explodes with a deafening BOOM! , releasing everyone from it. With my cuffs still on, I grab Arella’s arm and yank her toward me.

Then I shout at Katie over the screaming. “Please tell me these people are from your ZIRDA base!”

“No!” Katie yells over another loud BOOM! “They’re Royals! Look!”

My attention whips to where she’s pointing. A woman with short brown hair opens her palms toward Jodi’s cuffs. With a smaller boom! , the cuffs fall off Jodi’s wrists. With each small explosion, the heavy metal falls off all the Royals’ wrists.

“Grab the Immune!” Jodi shouts, pointing at Arella.

My heart sinks as a bunch of large men charge toward my girl. Ruby and Katie step in front of her with their cuffed fists up. I know exactly which side people are on by the way they either help protect Arella or try to fight their way past the human wall surrounding me and her.

I keep Arella close to me as a fireball flies straight toward Katie’s face. She screams with her arms up to block it. The fireball stops barely an arm away from her, then rolls to the ground and smokes out.

Katie’s eyes bulge as another fireball rockets toward her face. The flames hit the same invisible wall, fall to the grass, then smoke out.

I gawk at Arella, who’s got her eyes trained on the other element balls launching toward the people surrounding her. Each ball stops in the air, then disappears.

“What the hell?” a Royal shouts.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” Ruby says to Arella.

“I don’t know how long I can do this,” Arella says as she stops an ice ball from crashing over Katie’s head. It falls to the ground and shatters into pieces.

“Keep that up!” Ruby says, then she runs toward the guy running at her with a knife in his hands. She ducks his weapon, then turns and kicks him in the back. Using her heavy metal cuffs, she bangs him on the head, and he drops to the ground.

As the Royals close in on us, the people surrounding Arella use their cuffs to keep the Royals away from her. People shout and cry out as they fight each other. From the corner of my eye, I see two men in cuffs charge at me, each one holding a knife in his hands. Katie tackles one to the ground while I kick the other in his gut. Then I bash my cuffs against his face. It only takes one hit for him to drop his knife, but it takes another hit for him to slump to the ground.

“Get off me, asshole!” Katie struggles with the man straddling her. He’s trying to dig his knife into her neck. I rush up beside him and bang my cuffs against the side of his face. He yelps, then falls onto his shoulder. Katie picks up the knife he dropped and drives it straight into his stomach. He cries out again.

A woman charges at me with a water ball in her palm. It hits me in the face, drenching me with an icy-cold liquid. Agony explodes up my jaw as she punches me, then kicks me in the stomach.

“Get away from my son!” My dad tackles the woman into the grass. Then they roll around, punching at each other. The woman straddles my dad’s frail body and drenches his face with a steady stream of water.

I’m about to help him when Arella screams out from behind me. I twist around on my heel, then gasp. A thick man has Arella by her neck in one hand and a knife in his other. As I run to save her, the man draws the knife back and aims it at her stomach.

“No!” Katie shoves Arella out of the way. Then she screams as the man drives the knife straight into her side. She cries out as the man pulls the knife back and aims for her throat.

I grab the man by the back of his shirt and yank him away from her. He stumbles, falling onto his ass. Then I heave my cuffs into his face.

Then again.

And again.

Once he limply thuds onto the ground, I stop.

“Trey!” Arella is hunched over Katie, putting pressure over the knife wound in Katie’s stomach. “Help me! We have to save her!”

I kneel at Katie’s side. The glint of bloody metal sticking out of her neck makes my lungs stop working. Her body shakes as she gurgles, then she goes limp and her head droops over.

Of all the people to die, I never wanted any of them to be Katie.

“Come on, Trey!” Arella cries. “Help me!”

I choke up as I grab Arella by her arm. “Babe, she’s gone.”

“No! She can’t be!”

I drag Arella off the grass to meet my eyes. Her bloody hands tremble against my shirt. “We can’t save her, Arella. She’s gone.”

“No!” Tears stream down her face as her knees buckle. “Katie!”

“I’m so s—” The wind gets knocked out of me as someone tackles me into the dirt. Jodi in Victor’s body climbs on top of me and jabs something sharp into my side. I gasp for air as pain ripples through my stomach and down my leg. I feel every agonizing inch of the dagger as Jodi slides it out of my body.

She raises the weapon into the air again and spits into my face. “You worthless piece of shit! I never should have—” She flies off me as someone yanks her away.

“That’s my son!” My dad climbs on top of Jodi and bashes his cuffs against her face. Then he grabs Jodi’s dagger and drives it into her chest.

“Trey!” Arella drops to her knees at my side, putting pressure over my wound. “Oh, god!”

I groan in pain as Jodi kicks my dad’s skinny body off her. Then she straddles my dad and stabs him in the stomach with the same dagger she just pulled out of her chest.

“No!” I scream as Jodi stabs him again, then again, and again.

My dad screams until his female body goes limp. Then he’s not screaming anymore.

“Nooo!” I jerk upright, then everything stills. I try to stand up, but I can’t. I can’t even blink. All the screaming around me stops, and the air goes silent like we’re in a library.

Jodi freezes on top of my dad. Her knife hand is drawn back, but she’s not making a single move. A fireball flying above me is frozen in midair. The flames don’t dance. The wind doesn’t blow the trees. The crickets don’t chirp.

Arella’s mouth falls open at the hush surrounding us.

“Holy shit!” a man shouts from barely ten steps away. “That one just moved.”

“That’s impossible,” a woman says. “I just froze everything except us within a quarter-mile radius.”

“I swear, I saw that girl move.”

“Which one?”

Arella stills, but her hands tremble against my wound. I reach out to protect her, but my arms don’t budge. My heart races as two pairs of footsteps stomp their way toward us.

A male Enforcer I haven’t seen before steps into my view and points a firm finger at Arella. “It was this woman right here.”

The female Enforcer at his side produces a water ball in her hand, then drops it over Arella’s head.

Arella gasps for air as the chilly liquid drenches her and drips onto my chest. I can feel the bitter cold, but my body doesn’t react to it.

“What?” The female Enforcer grabs Arella by her arm and drags her onto her feet.

“Let me go!” Arella screams, making my heart thrash against my tight lungs.

“How are you doing that?” the female Enforcer asks, then gasps. “Oh my god! She’s an Ordinary.”

The male Enforcer presses a finger against the device in his ears. “Yes, we just arrived. Everything is under control now. Everyone’s been immobilized. We’re ready for the other Porters.” A pause. “Sounds good. And boss, you’re not gonna believe this, but there’s an Ordinary here, and she’s moving.” Another pause. “I mean exactly what I said. I’m standing right next to her, and my zense isn’t activating. Not only that, but she can move, even after the immobilization.” Another pause. This time, it’s longer. “Aye. We’ll take her in for a scrub.”

“No!” Arella tries hitting the female Enforcer with her cuffs, but it’s no use.

The female Enforcer shoves Arella to her knees, then points a gun at her neck. I try to protect her, but my limbs won’t budge.

“Stay down,” she says, then turns to her partner. “What if the scrub doesn’t work on her like my immobilization isn’t?”

The male Enforcer shrugs. “I guess we’ll find out.”