Pretty Monster Page 8

  “Quinn,” Haley said carefully. “I understand how hard it must have been, seeing whatever he made you see. But you have to understand… Shade isn’t a mind-reader. He’s an illusionist with the rare ability to make you see your darkest thoughts, actualized. He doesn’t hand-pick or manipulate them. He doesn’t even see those thoughts, himself. He did to you what he’s done to all of us; your darkest thoughts were probably just… a lot darker.”

  She had to admit, knowing that changed things. His attack on her hadn’t been intentionally cruel; it had just been his strongest ability, unleashed.

  But if that was his strongest ability, why shouldn’t she unleash hers?

  “Look,” she finally said. “Sure, it helps, knowing that. And maybe it means I overreacted. But you have to remember something. This might not be Devil’s Island, but the way you’re all acting, it’s like you’ve been living at a five-star resort. We’re monsters—I don’t care if we’re visibly affected or not, we’re still monsters—and I for one would rather know how to take a few punches, because I know this isn’t the end of the line for us. The rest of the world finds out how good we’ve got it, there goes how good we’ve got it.”

  Everyone remained silent. Pence and Charlie glanced at each other as if considering telling her something.

  “You’re right,” Charlie said to Quinn. “We talk about it a lot. What will happen when the word gets out about what it’s really like here. When legislation changes. When the UNCODA stops trusting the DCA and starts monitoring us themselves. Or even… whether there’s more to our situation here that we don’t fully understand. We think about it every day.”

  “That’s why we push Dash to train us, like you said,” Pence added, “rather than just teach us stabilization, like he’s technically supposed to. We don’t even call the class ‘power stabilization’ like they do, because it’s about more than that. To us, it’s power tech.”

  Quinn lingered on the words like he’s technically supposed to. It was like Rory had said: Savannah didn’t want the students using their abilities to the extent that Dash was having them do. Who was wrong? Reese, or Rory and Pence?

  “We were just surprised, is all,” Haley told her. “For your first time, someone you didn’t know. I think it was really your use of the word immeasurable… Maybe avoid that word from now on?”

  Quinn heaved an overdramatic sigh. “Fine. Just measurable pain from here on out.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Charlie said. “No one’s really welcomed you to the island yet, have they, Quinn? No sort of celebration, or anything like that.”

  Quinn snorted. “You throw me a celebration, you’ll be the next one feeling immeasurable pain.”

  “I’m serious! Maybe if we actually get you to have some fun, you’ll stop wanting to put us in pain. It won’t be cheesy. You know that big, stone building toward the east side of the island? The tallest one—four stories?”

  Quinn shrugged a shoulder, familiar with the building but not sure what he was getting at.

  “My parents own it,” he explained. “We call it the tower. The top floor—it’s a penthouse suite. Bar, patio, dance floor. It’s where we throw parties. Sanctioned ones and… unsanctioned ones.”

  “And your parents just leave you a key to the place?” she asked doubtfully.

  “Actually, they do,” Pence said. “Charlie’s parents trust him. They know how important it is to keep friends close here. If they were to ask him why he threw this party, and he were to tell them you needed to get to know your classmates…”

  “They’d understand,” Charlie finished. “Then again… Best we keep it between ourselves, just in case. You know, let them find out the hard way.”

  Quinn sighed. “There’s no chance you’re going to let this go, is there?”

  He grinned and shook his head.

  “Fine,” she said, admitting defeat. “I never was one to turn down a party.”

  • • •

  They agreed to throw the party the following Saturday, which left Charlie and the gang three days to prepare. Quinn did her best to lay low over the next few days, but it wasn’t easy. As promised, Zerrick had shared her education experience with her other teachers, but they still had dozens of questions apiece for her. Her new science teacher, Lydia, was the worst of the lot. Quinn spent a good fifteen minutes moaning her way through Lydia’s questions before finally the teacher handed Quinn a textbook on geology and told her to get to work.

  As bad as Lydia was, she was nothing compared to Dash, who hadn’t forgiven her as readily as her new friends. He continued to pair her with Shade every day, encouraging him to try different illusions on her. Shade, undoubtedly terrified of being subjected to the pain Quinn had subjected him to before, toned it down several notches. He put her under illusions of darkness or dizziness, but never memories; she returned the favor by putting him in very mild pain for a matter of seconds before accepting his surrender. Shade still seemed to resent her for the embarrassment, but not nearly as much as Dash, who could barely look at her.

  “This is an opportunity for you,” Dash urged Shade the first day of the subdued illusion. “This is the first time someone has had the ability to negate your illusions. Don’t you want to push it farther? Push her to negate them, then push yourself to keep them going?”

  But Shade’s expression remained as dark and dull as ever as he responded simply, “No.”

  “And that’s fine with you?” Dash asked Quinn, turning to glare at her. “You don’t want him to challenge himself? To challenge you?”

  “It’s not my fault he won’t challenge me,” she responded evenly, and he gave up on them both, moving on to the next pair.

  The pattern continued for the rest of the week. Every day, Dash was even more disappointed in her than the last. Every day, she did her best not to care.

  Finally, it was Saturday, and Quinn made it her mission to do nothing but lie in bed and sleep on and off the entire day.

  At least, until Trent barged in to remind them all what day it was.

  “We know what day it is, Trent,” Haley said when he stepped into their room, already fully dressed for the party. Quinn glanced groggily over at the alarm clock. It was just past two in the afternoon.

  “What are you still doing asleep?” Trent asked Quinn, eyes wide and genuinely confused. “Don’t you have to, I don’t know, do girl things? Style your hair? Put on makeup?”

  “Trent,” Haley said, laughing out loud. “The party starts in, like, five hours. How long do you think it takes us to get ready?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m happy to be an observer of the process.”

  “Trent,” Quinn said, chiming in for the first time as she shoved her covers off and rose to look at him, tank top strap dangling tauntingly off her shoulder. She cocked her head to the side in a deliberately irresistible way.

  “Yes, Quinn?” Trent asked her, cocking his head to mirror hers. He was clearly trying to be cute, and in a way, it was working. But it was nothing she hadn’t seen before.

  So she said, voice sweet and smooth as butter, “Get the hell out.”

  As usual, he didn’t look discouraged by her abrasiveness. He stood up, smiled charmingly, and said, “You’ll miss me.”

  And he left.

  Quinn rolled her eyes as she grabbed a towel and started to head for the bathroom. Seeing Haley staring after the door Trent had exited, she joked, “He’s really the worst, isn’t he?”

  “What? Oh—yeah.” Haley laughed a distracted laugh. “Totally.”

  Quinn raised her eyebrows and said nothing. She thought about that look on Haley’s face as she stepped into the shower. Was it… wistfulness she had seen? Lust? As if… Haley wanted Trent?

  She hoped not. Haley could do so much better.

  When she returned to the bedroom, Quinn was amused to see that despite making fun of Trent for being ready so early, Haley was already laying out clothing options for both of them. Quinn had intended to go shopping tha
t weekend, but she hadn’t been given the mysterious ‘allowance’ yet, so she appreciated Haley’s loaners.

  “I keep looking over everything I’ve got to see if there’s anything you would actually wear in the real world,” Haley told her. “But I doubt it.”

  Quinn laughed, scanning the clothes herself. They weren’t bad; it wasn’t as if Haley had all frills or florals. Everything was just… basic. And not in the black-on-black way that Quinn was used to.

  “What about this?” Quinn asked, something out of the ordinary catching the corner of her eye. It was fire engine red, hiding between something navy and something gray. She reached to pull it out and gasped.

  “Haley!” she exclaimed. She would recognize the knockout Armani dress anywhere; she’d worn one exactly like it to a DCA fundraising event a year earlier. Of course, after sneaking into the event, she had proceeded to burn the place to the ground. The dress had been for the cameras; she had pulled quite the audience that night for her anti-DCA demonstration.

  “Oh,” Haley said, blushing. “I didn’t think I still had that.”

  “I wore something just like this once. How did you get this?”

  Haley hugged herself uncomfortably. “It’s embarrassing. When you caused that scene at the DCA fundraiser that night, we were all watching. I admired you so much for it. The way you looked fearlessly into those cameras, wearing that bold, red dress—the way you caused utter mayhem while deliberately not taking any lives—I couldn’t stop talking about it. When my birthday came around a few weeks later, Charlie and Pence pulled some strings with Charlie’s parents to get the same one ordered for me. I never wore it—never had the guts. But it was sweet of them, all the same.”

  Quinn didn’t know what to say. She had known that Trent and Rory had been fans of hers before her arrival, but not Haley. And how did Haley know that Quinn had deliberately avoided taking lives that night? The majority of the press coverage had suggested just the opposite. They had called it a terrorist attack, saying that it was a miracle no lives had been lost.

  “I just knew,” Haley said softly, as if reading Quinn’s thoughts. “I could see it in your eyes.”

  Quinn stared at Haley, utterly floored. She could feel her eyes tearing up, but she pushed the waterworks away, determined to have a good time that night. “Well, one of us is going to have to wear it tonight. You’ve got first dibs, but seeing as you’ve had it for a year and not worn it…”

  “No way. All you.”

  Quinn didn’t need to be told twice. In a strange way, the dress gave her a sense of home that didn’t even fully understand.

  She popped into the bathroom, hung her towel up to dry, stepped into her underwear, and pulled on the dress. It didn’t fit quite as well as the one she had stolen from Bergdorfs, but it certainly did the trick.

  She finally recognized herself again, she thought as she looked in the mirror. She hadn’t regained all of the spirit and fire she had lost since losing Kurt, but it helped. A little curl to her hair, a little red to her lips, and she could almost fully fake it.

  She glanced down at her phone, considering who was in her contacts—who she might see that night. Reese? The man in charge of law enforcement, attending an underage party? Doubtful. Ridley? The security guard who had graduated from the school system with no prospects? Also doubtful.

  She sighed, tapping her finger against her lip. What was the point of going if two of her favorite people on the island wouldn’t be there?

  She was wearing the red dress, she reminded herself. She could make things happen.

  • • •

  “Ridley?” Haley asked in an uncharacteristically high-pitched voice as Ridley joined them in the dormitory courtyard. “He’s your last-minute date?”

  Trent, who had insisted on escorting Haley to the party after being turned down by Quinn, groaned. “Shot down for a lizard. Low blow.”

  Quinn smirked, pleased with the reaction her decision was having already. “Hi, Ridley,” she said to her friend as he took her arm.

  “Hey,” he replied, smiling gently. “You look great.”

  Quinn appreciated his tone and what it meant for both of them. There wasn’t lust or flirtation in his voice; just fondness and gratitude. Ridley wasn’t any more infatuated with Quinn than she was with him. He just liked her company, as she did his.

  “Thanks,” she said. “You, too.”

  She could tell from his expression that he didn’t buy it, but she didn’t care. She meant it. With his charcoal-gray, dragonlike scales, bright, piercing eyes, and understated-classy outfit, he looked far more interesting than Trent or probably any other guy at the party they were headed to.

  Quinn usually followed Haley’s lead when it came to navigating the island, but tonight she knew where she was going. There was only one multi-story office building with a penthouse suite; it had to be Charlie’s parents’.

  Charlie’s parents’… She made a mental note to ask someone how owning things worked on the island. Really just economics in general.

  “So, who’s going to this thing, anyway?” she asked as they walked. “Everyone in the YA, I’m sure. But who else? Younger people? Adults?”

  “Not younger people,” Haley said. “They won’t be let in. Underage drinking with our lot is one thing, but any younger and we’d just be asking for Savannah to give us a hard time.”

  Quinn would have guessed even underage drinking with their lot would risk Savannah’s wrath, but apparently that wasn’t the case.

  “As for the older crowd,” Trent added, “a smattering of people, here and there. But barely. Everyone older than us is just so boring. They all settled in. Got jobs. Forgot how to live life on the edge.” He grinned over at Ridley. “Excluding you, of course, Rid.”

  Ridley laughed. “I agree. Then again, even when my class was still in school, we weren’t nearly as exciting as yours. The whole community has a lot to say about your class.”

  Haley giggled. “I choose to take that as a compliment.”

  “It is a compliment,” Trent assured her. “Mainly because we’re by far the most powerful.”

  Quinn had to admit, as a whole, the YA did seem surprisingly powerful. Haley’s earth abilities; Pence’s water abilities; Shade’s powers of illusion…

  She realized that she didn’t know what Trent’s abilities were.

  “Trent,” she said. His eyes, of course, lit up at the sound of her voice uttering his name. “What’s your deal, anyway? What can you do?”

  “I must say, even the girls who aren’t interested in me normally ask that question within a few minutes of meeting me. Is it a lack of curiosity in general, or just regarding me?”

  “I learned Haley and Pence’s abilities pretty quickly. Must just be you.”

  She didn’t mean it; ever since she had arrived, she had been so absorbed in confusion and curiosity surrounding this island, the normal questions had completely escaped her. The only reason she had learned about Haley and Pence’s abilities was because they had talked about them.

  But she would never turn down a chance to tease someone like Trent.

  “Consider me your everyday Superman,” Trent explained cheerfully. “Minus, you know, the x-ray vision, flight, bulletproof skin, and all that. Oh, and the super-speed—that’s Charlie.”

  “So, basically just the super-strength?”

  “Sure, but that’s the best one, isn’t it?” he asked with another wink.

  She laughed, not dismissing him for his singular ability. Super-strength was no small ability, nor was super-speed, which was apparently Charlie’s. They really were an exceptionally gifted class.

  But she didn’t give Trent the satisfaction of further attention, because they had reached the tower.

  All of the lights were out inside, but Haley and Trent continued through the glass doors, at least one of which was unlocked. Quinn glanced at Ridley, wondering if he was as used to this near-breaking-and-entering as the others. He did seem a little uncomf
ortable, she noticed. She wondered whether her bringing one of the island’s security personnel on a rule-breaking party bender was the best idea, but decided not to worry about it.

  She and Ridley followed Trent and Haley to the elevators against the far wall—elevators that nearly rivaled Crowley Enterprises’ in elegance. The doors opened immediately, and the group stepped in. Haley punched the button for the fourth floor, and up they went.

  “Remind me,” Quinn said as the floors ticked up, “to have one of you explain to me at some point how economics work on this island.”

  Trent laughed. “That’s a conversation for several drinks in.”

  And the doors opened.

  It couldn’t have been past nine o’clock, but the party was in full swing. Quinn recognized just about everyone in the YA along with at least a dozen people she didn’t know. Virtually everyone had a drink in hand.

  “I see a spot for myself at the bar,” she told Ridley, glancing over at him. “Want me to grab you a drink?”

  “I’m okay. I’m probably going to pop over and say hello to Drax and Angel. Catch up a little later on?”

  Quinn nodded, a little irked at the thought of her new friend spending time with Angel, who so far was one of her least favorite people in the YA. But, glancing over at Angel and Drax in the corner, she knew better than to stop Ridley. Being a monster in the way that those three were was something she and the others couldn’t even begin to understand.

  So she headed to the bar, rolling her eyes as Trent took the barstool directly next to hers.

  The bartender, she noticed, was another monster. He resembled Ridley slightly: grayish skin, not scaly, but almost slimy, like a dolphin’s. He had a bald head like Ridley, but his face was even less humanlike: slits for nostrils, lips so thin, they were almost nonexistent. She felt her heart go out to him just as it had for Ridley, and yet, as usual, she refused to show it. So, when he came over, she had different words for him.