Emma studied the situation. It’d be no good trying to put the earbuds on him either. They were the standard variety, and they would just melt when they came into contact with his body. Yanking the earbuds out of the phone, she turned it to maximum volume. Still not very loud.
“If it’s all right with you, Martha, I’ll see if I can get close enough with this so he can hear it,” Emma said.
Martha nodded. Clearly, it was more than all right with Martha.
Taking a deep breath, Emma walked toward Kenzie, holding the phone out in front of her. She inched in, as close as she dared, but the tinny, thin-sounding music had no effect. “Kenzie,” she said softly. “I’m Emma. Jonah sent me over. He’ll be here soon.”
Kenzie’s eyes fixed on her, but the flaming seizure continued.
“He sent you some music, if we can find a way to get it to you,” Emma said. “Listen.” She held out the phone again.
Kenzie shook his head. At least he was responding to her.
Emma backed away until she reached Martha.
“Would you have a speaker dock for phone or MP3 player around here somewhere?” she asked. “Something with big speakers?”
Martha frowned. “I don’t usually work in this building, so I don’t know. I could try to find one.” She looked eager to go somewhere far away from burning boys.
“If you can’t find one . . . do you know Natalie Diaz?”
“Of course,” Martha said. “But I know she’s tied up with triage at the moment.”
“Ask her to call Rudy Severino and tell him I need a sound system for Jonah’s phone. That it’s for Kenzie.” She stuck out her hand. “Leave me the brown stuff. Maybe I’ll figure out something.” Martha looked troubled. “I shouldn’t leave you alone with him,” she said, looking sideways at Kenzie.
“It’s an emergency, right?” Emma said.
“I guess so.” Martha handed her the bottle and spoon. “Just be careful, okay?” She disappeared.
“Martha went to get us some more amps,” Emma said to Kenzie. “Now, what are we going to do while she’s gone?”
For a little while, she sat and talked while Kenzie burned. When she could stand it no longer, she examined the spoon. It was constructed like a kind of syringe that shot medicine into a person’s mouth. She just needed to get it close enough to Kenzie’s. She looked around the room for clues. Her eyes lit on the pile of extra blankets next to Kenzie, kindling an idea.
Carefully, she drew up brown stuff to the one-tablespoon measure and set the spoon aside.
Darting forward, Emma grabbed a fistful of blankets, then retreated to her starting point. Wrapping one blanket around herself, she draped another over her head, fashioning a kind of hood. She took a third blanket and wrapped it around her neck like a muffler, pulling it over the lower half of her face up to her eyes. She’d fashioned a kind of flameresistant toga. More like one of those burkas, she guessed. Draping the remaining blanket over her arm, she scooped up the spoon and approached Kenzie again.
He seemed to know what she was up to, because he wrapped his blankets more closely around himself, burrowing in, adding another layer between Emma and the white-hot flames. When she got close, she turned away, swathed the spoon in the spare blanket with the tip poking out, gritted her teeth, and lunged toward Kenzie. On her second try, she managed to push the spoon between his lips and pressed the plunger all the way.
By now, it felt like the skin on her face was cracking and she could smell her own hair burning, despite the hood. She leaped backward, landing on her butt a few yards away. Then scooted backward like a crab.
For a moment, she worried she’d drowned Jonah’s little brother. He coughed and sputtered, tears leaking from his eyes.
“Emma?”
Emma twisted around and saw Rudy Severino in the doorway, his arms loaded with equipment and power cords. He stared, nonplussed, at Emma, down on her back in her fire blanket getup. “Natalie said you needed a sound system?”
It took a few minutes to get everything in place. During that time, Kenzie’s flames dwindled and finally died. He slumped over, apparently exhausted, his blue-veined hands still writhing in his lap.
Finally, Rudy hit the go button and Jonah’s voice filled the air, layered with Emma’s guitar and Rudy’s kick-ass keyboards, Natalie’s percussion the heartbeat of it all.
Kenzie smiled, tilting his head back and practically purring, like a cat that’s found its spot in the sun. Rudy sat down on one side of Kenzie and motioned Emma to the other.
“I’m Emma Greenwood,” Emma said, sitting next to him. “I’m new at the Anchorage.”
“McKenzie Kinlock,” Kenzie said gravely. “I’m sorry I was ablaze when you arrived. Thank you for putting me out.” He paused. “That just seems wrong, somehow.”
“That’s Emma you hear playing lead guitar on these tracks,” Rudy said, as if eager to bring Kenzie’s attention back to the music. “Is it?” Kenzie said, taking a second, closer look at Emma. “She’s sitting in for Mose on lead guitar . . . temporarily, at least,” Rudy said. “We recorded this at our last practice.
What do you think, Little Kinlock?”
“I think I’m going to catch on fire again if you call me Little Kinlock,” Kenzie said menacingly.
“No, really . . . what do you think of the tracks? Did we do justice to your songs or what?”
“Stop fishing for compliments, Severino,” Kenzie said, rolling his eyes. “You know this is staggeringly fabulous.” He looked at Emma. “I love how you improvised on the melody line. You’re not afraid of getting in Jonah’s way, but you leave room for the voice.”
“He’d better worry about getting in Emma’s way,” Rudy said. “She’ll run right over him.”
“So you’re a triple threat,” Kenzie said, grinning at Emma. “Beautiful, tough, and talented.”
“And you’re talented, tough, and full of bullshit.”
Kenzie laughed hard at that.
It feels good to hear him laugh, Emma thought. She tried not to think about what Martha had said. I just don’t see a happy ending to this.
“Do you play?” she asked him. “Are you a musician? I mean.”
“Only vicariously,” Kenzie said. “I write the songs, and hope they don’t mess them up. I can play compositions electronically—on a synthesizer—if I have time to build them. But I can’t hit my targets often enough to play on a standard instrument.”
Emma frowned. “I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand what you mean.”
“You’re seeing me at my very best, because I’m pretty much wrung out right now,” Kenzie said. “Usually I’m hyperkinetic . . . way too frisky for strings or keyboards.” He flailed his arms around to demonstrate just as Jonah walked in, looking weary and pissed. He shed that face immediately when he saw his brother.
“Kenzie, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times: humans are not made to fly.”
Kenzie dropped his arms to his sides. “It’s just like you to walk in when all the drama is over.”
Jonah studied the three of them, huddled together on Kenzie’s bed. “What’s going on? Natalie said you were in a bad way.”
Kenzie said, “Going on? We’re kicking back, listening to some tunes. Feeling ravenous.”
“You’re always starving after you catch fire. I asked Martha to bring back some food,” Jonah said. He squatted in front of Kenzie, looking him over. “How are you feeling?
Are you up to the minute on your meds?”
“I need the whole entire bedtime regimen,” Kenzie said, yawning. “Except the Weirsbane. This one shot me full of it a few minutes ago.” He scowled at Emma.
“Emma did?” Jonah took a quick breath, as if he might ask a follow-up question, but then seemed to decide against it. “Natalie says your room will be prepped in a few minutes.
Are you about ready to move?”
“Not before the food comes,” Kenzie said.
Just then, Martha appeared in the doorway with a stack of box lunches. “All they had left was—” She stopped, eyes wide, listening. “Who is that? That band is absolutely fantastic. I don’t think I’ve heard them before.”
“That’s our band,” Rudy said happily, finally basking in the praise he’d been fishing for.
Our band, Emma thought. Maybe Jonah Kinlock was crazy and they would never be together and his younger brother tended to catch fire and she was caught in a web of secrets and lies and violence, but . . . there was this. Our band. She really liked the sound of that.
Chapter Forty-two
Got Ourselves a Gig
“I’m not doing it,” Jonah said flatly. “No. Absolutely not.”
“But . . . I already said we would,” Natalie said. “You don’t have plans for Halloween, do you?”
“Do I ever have plans?” Jonah rolled his eyes. “Since I haven’t been traveling, I—oh, wait, I do. I’m clipping my toenails. If there’s time left, I’m doing my fingernails, too.”
“It’s a paying gig,” Rudy said. “They’re offering good money, in fact. And Gabriel says they’re really excited about having us come.”
“Of course they are,” Jonah muttered. “Don’t you see? It’s Halloween. Invite the monsters in to entertain at your party.”
Rudy and Natalie looked at each other. “I don’t think that’s why they invited us, Jonah,” Natalie said. “Patrick gave them a list of bands, and I guess Ellen Stephenson heard Fault Tolerant at one of the teen nights downtown, and so when we showed up on the list, they chose us.”
“There are a lot of bands in town,” Jonah said. “They can pick another one.”
“We don’t want them to pick another band,” Rudy said. “We need to get out in front of some audiences and build some buzz. Once we get a good set list of original music, I’d like to go into the studio and record an EP. We’ll need money to do that.”