“You stopped breathing, so I pulled you into the hallway.”
“But . . . what . . .”
“They lace all the rooms with drugs, it seems.”
“Were you drugged too?”
Cy doesn’t answer me; he’s checking my pulse. I wonder if he can measure my embarrassment under his fingertips. I’m still so fuzzy. Did I imagine everything? Or was Cy in complete control, when his hands were up the back of my shirt and on my thighs and oh my god. What really happened?
“Water.” My throat is so dry that the request is croaked, rather than spoken.
“I don’t want to leave you,” he says, and I return his concern with a coughing fit so violent that tears pour down my cheeks.
“I’ll get you something. Wait here.” He gently scoots me over and props me against the wall. I watch him step over the other people in the hallway, cat-like, making his way upstairs to the bar.
I just concentrate on my breathing and try not to hack up a lung again. This time, I’m taking no chances. There are too many weird vapors oozing out of the rooms here. I put on my necklace, making sure the clasp is secure.
My body responds to the tidal rhythm of the pendant. I relax a little, watching the other people walking by. The door to the room I’ve just left opens again, and a hand claws at the doorjamb. The guy with the black teeth drags himself out of the room, and as his head emerges, he sucks in the normal air, eyes squeezed shut.
I stand up, wobbling to the side. I’m not going to get pawed by this guy again. He opens his eyes and sees me.
“You!” he slurs, dribbling saliva down his chin.
“I’m not on the menu, sorry.” I trot a crooked path down the hallway. My legs feel weak, but I’ve a head start in sobriety. I can hide out somewhere else until Cy returns. As I push my way through a tangle of people by the brain room, I hear a laugh.
I know that laugh.
It’s a girl’s, one that rings like bells, high above the noise of the crowd. I twist around, searching anxiously for the source. I push people out of the way, trying to filter out the noise, wanting to scream at everyone to be silent. And then I see her, supported by two boys who smile smugly at her drug-induced mirth.
Dirty blond hair in ragged curls falls over her thin shoulders. A low-cut green dress is plastered to her frame, and eyes rimmed thickly in smudged blue eyeliner look straight at me, but don’t see me.
I scream.
CHAPTER 13
“DYLIA!” I SHRIEK, RUNNING TO HER. Everything about her is wrong, so wrong. Her bloom of health is withered beneath a pasty complexion. The slinky clothes and smeared makeup remind me of a dress-up game gone totally wrong, as if a little girl decided to play neurodrug addict instead of tea party.
I’m seeing Dyl’s innocence, the last bit of real goodness in the world, being flayed. And I know, as sure as I need another gasp of air, that it’s all against her will.
“Dyl! Dyl!” I push my way through the crowd, the vision of her half-dead eyes in my head. A large girl shoves me to the wall, irritated that my hands are so desperate to wipe her out of my way. I lose sight of Dyl. The crowd surrounding her slithers farther away, drawn into the room with the pulsating brain. I catch a glimpse of her ratty hair as the door closes.
“Dyl!” I scream again. I throw the door open and frantically scan the room. This one has glowing blue orbs of smoke that float around. An orange-haired girl wearing a chain-mail mini-dress saunters up to the orb bobbing closest to me. She purses her lips, as if kissing the sphere, and it shrinks in size as she inhales it.
“So . . . sweet . . .” she murmurs as she backs away from me, eyes glazing over with contentment.
I push her out of the way, and she laughs hollowly. The room is crowded, and I can’t get past the people right before me. I weave in and out of the blue orbs, refusing to get any of the inhalant in my face. The back of the room is partitioned off by a black wall with an entrance on each side. I start to make my way to the left opening, when a leathery hand pushes my chest.
“This is a private room.” The boy who’s holding me back is tall, wearing an unbuttoned, expensive-looking white shirt. His neck, chest—all of him, really—are covered in a hard, bumpy brown material, only slightly less repellant than a giant scab. His face is covered in a shiny white mask that reveals only his unsmiling lips.
“I need to get back there,” I beg, clutching his hard, scaly hand. It doesn’t budge. He pushes me hard, and I fall onto the ground painfully, skidding against the wall. There’ll be a fresh bruise adorning my hip where I’ve fallen, I’m sure. He laughs, as do the people around me. No sympathy for underdogs here.
“Fine,” I say. I stand up, pretending to walk away, then dash to the other open side of the wall. I get one foot into the room before I crash into a steel-hard pole. No, it’s not a pole, or even a piece of furniture. It’s a squat, muscular boy just under my height. I shelter my ribs where the pain begins to spread and notice that he too is wearing a glossy white mask.
He takes one hand and grabs my neck, not squeezing, just holding me in place. It’s like a metal vise. I scrape and claw the hand, screaming, but he won’t let go.
“Get OFF me!” I kick him hard, only to be rewarded with a throbbing pain in my foot. It feels like I just kicked a boulder. Geez, is this kid wearing steel plates under his clothes?
“Shhh.” A girl’s voice whispers in my ear from behind. “Time for you to check out, darling.” Thin feminine fingers cover my eyes for several seconds. I blink wildly as my world descends into black. My eyes feel like rubber globes, my lids fluttering strangely over them as they search for light, people, anything.
The vise-like grip around my neck is released, and I stagger away with my hands splayed out. The edge of the wall finds my fingertips, and I cling to it. I’ve no confidence that the floor is solid, or that there isn’t a gigantic hole I’m about to step into. Male and female voices murmur, giggle, chortle.
They are laughing at me.
They are laughing at me because I’m completely blind.
“DYL!” I SEARCH THE ECHOES OF LAUGHTER, trying to find the thread of her voice. But I can’t find it. She’s gone, and I am worse than helpless. The sick fear of losing her again overwhelms my body and I dry heave, my knees hitting the floor.
I wish Cy were here. I feel my way around the wall to a flat section, pressing my face up against the cold plane to avoid the blue puffballs. I swallow over and over, the saliva pooling in my mouth in reaction to all the retching. I touch my earlobe, hoping my holo is still on. “Someone, please help me. I’m in the Alucinari Room with the brain. I can’t see.” I choke on my words.
“You can’t see because you’ve met Caliga.” A guy’s voice sounds close to my ear, the tone warm and gentle.
“Who’s Caliga?” My words sound slightly garbled with my face pressed against the wall.
“Her talents are pretty wicked. She numbed your optic nerves, but it’ll pass shortly.” A warm hand covers my cold one where it’s splayed against the wall. A buzz of prickly heat emanates from his hand into mine.
“Who is this?” I ask. The hand gathers mine in his as another cradles my back tightly as if I’m in danger of sinking in a black, deep sea.
“You know who I am.”
“Q,” I whisper in the darkness. My statement is affirmed by a hand squeeze. The buzzing feeling intensifies and I yank my hand away. “You’re hurting me.”
“Sorry, I’ll tone that down.” His hand meets mine again, and this time it’s just warmth, no buzzing. What the hell was that? “Come on, let’s get you out of here—”
“No! My sister, I have to—I can’t go.” I push his hands away, trying to find the wall. Something catches my toe and I tumble, flying through nothingness until my palms and knees slam the floor. Before my head follows suit, Q’s arms encircle my waist to pull me off the ground.