"You know, Byron, maybe it's just exhaustion from the show, but I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. You might want to back up."
"Oh, here, let me give you a hand," he says, and puts one of his ferrety paws on my arm. Next, he's steering me toward the "greenroom" couch made out of nongreen cushions pilfered from furniture in bombed-out homes.
I'm so shocked that Byron Belly-Crawler Swain has his hands on me that I can't even react. I should have shoved him off the stage when I had the chance.
"I know some great massage techniques for all sorts of exhaustion," he's saying, but just then the Bionics and a swarm of their groupies burst into the room… along with my brother.
I guess the universe hasn't totally forsaken me.
Chapter 29
Whit
"WHAT'S GOING ON?" Wisty asks me as she pivots away from Byron's pathetic clutches. Normally I'd be ready to teach him a lesson for putting his creepy claws on my sister, but now I'm just relieved to see that he's not one of the fake rockers who were nosing around at Garfunkel's.
I'm pretty sure they're here somewhere-and they're definitely looking for my sister. It's becoming increasingly clear to me that she has something that they want. Badly.
"New Order spies," I tell her. "And they're after you, Wist. So next time you decide to take the stage at a packed concert, will you give me a heads-up? You know, so I can tell you that it's a totally boneheaded idea."
"Huh? What spies?" she asks, looking only mildly distressed. Meanwhile her eyes are darting over to some of the rock-star types being swamped by chirping groupies and whatnot on the other side of the room.
"Wisty, listen to me. Closely. Some guys came by Garfunkel's asking after you and the concert. They were dressed like some old person's idea of a rock band. They were obviously New Order Citizen Patrol, or worse."
Her head drifts off toward the fan herd again, so I put my hands on either side of her face and swivel it back toward me.
"Oh, okay." My sister blinks several times, finally processing what I'm saying. "Are they here? Should I be worried?"
"I gave them the wrong directions, but I don't think I fooled them. We'd better get out of here." I grab her hand, but she shakes me off.
"Whit, I'm okay! This is probably the safest place in the city. We're surrounded by, like, a jillion Freelanders hopped-up on New Order hate. Not to mention half of them are packing weapons -"
"Plastic weapons," I remind her, frowning. "They're in costume, for God's sake."
Wisty shrugs. "Costumes, whatever, doesn't matter. We're practically indestructible down here. Can't you feel it? It's the most amazing thing." Her eyes are still glazed over with some sort of euphoria I don't understand. I have a future flash: Wisty, rock star, being interviewed twenty-five years after her career goes south. They slipped something into my drink that night, she insists. I didn't know it. But after that, I was an addict.
I'm shaking my sister now, and her head swings like that of a bobblehead doll. "Wisty, snap out of it! I know you don't believe me, but I've got this feeling we're on the verge of something really bad happening."
"You mean something bad 'like a rabid mad dog, poisoning me,'" sings Byron, inserting his unwelcome presence as usual, "'while the fire inside me glows, the fire outside you grows.'"
Holy freaking crap, what did the weasel just say? Those are my words. From my journal.
"What the -?" My eyes feel as if they're going to pop out of my head. "You were reading my journal, you jerk?"
I can't help it-I grab him by the neck. I've had just about enough of our so-called leader of the week.
Wisty finally comes out of her haze. "Whit!" she shouts, trying to pull me off Byron. It's the first time ever that she defends him! Didn't I tell you the world's turned upside down? "Byron only knows those words from the song I just sung. Up on the stage."
Huh? I don't know how I couldn't have heard the lyrics on my way in. I was so focused on making sure she was safe. Wait a minute…
Wisty was reading my journal? WTH?
I release Byron but give him an extra shove for good measure. I look at Wisty, hoping I heard her wrong. "That's what you were singing up there? Words from my journal?"
"You weren't even listening?" she says, then softens her voice. "It was a tribute to your genius, Whit. I love what you wrote."
Wisty reaches for me, but I'm already stomping out of the room. "You two deserve each other!" I yell back at her and the traitor.
Chapter 30
Wisty
I'M ALMOST READY to follow Whit when my whole body is kind of stun-gunned by this amazing voice behind me.
"So where'd you get the drumstick? It's an antique, right? Classic."
I turn and find I am looking eye-to-mesmerizing-eye with none other than the drummer of the Bionics.
He is talking to me. The Bionics drummer is talking to me.
I'm concerned about Whit, really I am, but… he'll get over it, right?
Drummer Boy is even better-looking up close than he was behind his drum kit. If that's possible. He's tucking his overlong, wavy black hair behind his ears, but then it falls right back in his face again. Sweet. I watch his lusciously thick lips move, but I have no idea what he's saying, of course. I don't think I could hear a car crash over my own heartbeat right now. Dumb? Maybe. Fun? Definitely.
"Uh-what?" I finally manage to get out a couple of syllables. I'm unable to meet his hazel eyes for too long, so I find myself staring at his faded black T-shirt, which reads, NO ORDER. I like it. We have something in common already.
"Your drumstick. Kind of funny for a guitarist and a singer to be carrying a drumstick around." He has a nice smile, too. Not too much, just right.
"Yeah, I know." I smile back. Maybe a little too toothily. "My mom gave it to me. I think it's for good luck. It's kind of a collector's item."
"It looks like it," he says. "So your mom's a drummer?"
I am not about to ruin this with a mood-killing "I think my mom was a witch and this is a wand she gave me the night I was kidnapped" dud.
"She was," I lie. Ouch. Mom wouldn't like the past tense. "I mean, is." That feels even worse. "I mean, was." My face goes from pale pink to fuchsia in about three seconds.
But Drummer Boy looks at me with… sympathy? "I know, it's hard." How could he have possibly grasped my blah-blah? "A lot of us don't know if our folks 'is' or 'was.'" He puts a comforting hand on my arm, and my stomach kind of flips. God, he's sweet. He understands!
His eyes drift back to my stick. "Can I see it? Is that all right with you?"
"Um… sure!" I start to hand it to him, but as he grabs the end to take it from me, he jumps back, yelping in pain.
"It burned me!" he says, sticking the side of his hand into his mouth. "What's with that?"
"Jeez! I'm so sorry!" I say. I look down at the stick in my hand. It doesn't feel even slightly warm, but it is glowing red at the tip where he tried to touch it.
"I had no idea it could do that," I say. "I really didn't mean -"
"Don't worry about it," he says, shaking his hand and smiling through the pain. "It's nothing. Especially next to what's happening every day to kids in New Order 'schools,' right?"
"Have you been to one?" I ask, a little surprised.
"Not yet. A little too risky for us. But we've had fan tips about that last facility you raided."
"Er… how do you know about that?"
"You and Whit and Byron made the underground newswire," he says, and shrugs. "You're famous. But you don't act like it."
Byron hears his name across the room like he's got supersonic ears and is by my side in half a second.
"They're practically writing folk songs about you already, Wisty," Drummer Boy continues. "That facility you hit is part of a system of exploitation and experimentation. The New Order calls them Juvenile Education and Repatriation complexes. It's just cheap child labor."
"That's really shocking," says Byron. The boy's like a bad cold. You just can't shake him.