~21~ A Broken Bond

(Lulu’s POV)

“Hello?” I whispered, walking out of Angel’s room. We had shared the pint of ice cream after she changed into some actually dry clothes and then she fell asleep before we could do our boy bashing or romantic comedy movie marathon. Now I was just trying to greet whoever was calling her phone.

“Lulu?” Joey’s voice replied.

“Oh hey,” I officially greeted as I was now downstairs to sit on the couch with Brian, who was mouthing: “Who is it?”

“Where’s Angel?” Joey asked. Brian hit my shoulder because I hadn’t answered his question. I rolled my eyes after he annoyed me of such actions.

“Angel’s asleep,” I answered.

“Oh,” Joey said. “I thought you would still be at the party.”

“Well think again,” I commented.

“What?”

“Hey Joey,” Brian greeted. “Something…happened at the party and Angel decided to leave.”

“Something like what?”

Brian and I shared the same look, meaning we didn’t know who should be the one to tell him.

“Zac showed up,” Brian blurted. The line was silent.

“What’d he do to her?”

Joey inquired, already angry.

Well, all in all, he’s: saved her from a fire, gave her a great friendship, fell in love with her, made her fall in love with him, dated her for a day, left her the following day, wrote and sent a very heartbreaking note, and now he showed up at her roommate’s cousin’s sort-of Homecoming party for their military friends.

But Joey meant specifically tonight.

“Nothing,” Brian answered. Joey laughed sarcastically, but only once. “It’s not like he just dropped by. Nelly’s cousin just so happened to bring him. They’re friends—”

“Ha! I’m sure they’re more than just ‘friends’,” I commented, but I couldn’t stop myself. I saw the sympathy Grace showed him. Sh!t, I’ve done it before—that teasing with the light hits on the shoulder as an excuse to just feel his muscles and crap. Ha!

“Whatever the case, Grace barely got through the introduction before Angel bolted off and I chased after her,” Brian finished.

“Good,” Joey spoke. “I don’t think he deserves to be around her in the first place. She did the right thing and so did you.”

…and so did you. What the h3ll was that supposed to mean?

“So that’s all that happened?” Joey asked.

“Pretty much.”

“Yeah,” Brian agreed. “Anything happen there?”

There was a pause.

“Did you know Devin has a girlfriend?”

What?

Brian laughed.

“Yeah, she’s hot right?” Brian expressed. I hit his shoulder and he raised his hand to return the gesture, but controlled it in a teasing manor.

“Back to reality…” I mentioned. Like Devin Hallow can get a girlfriend. HA. FUNNY. Not that I had anything against him, but come on…he’s a dork.

“Well we figured to just mix certain strands of DNA from all of us and mix it with the initial Drug. We’re just testing the DNA,” Joey explained, already on the brink of confusing me. I felt a “but” coming along. “But—”

“But what?” Brian rushed.

“Something changed about Zac,” Joey said.

“No joke…” I breathed.

“I meant his molecular structure and mutations in his DNA,” Joey added. Whatever.

“Meaning…?” Brian and I asked together.

“It’s as if half of him is human and the other half is still at a powerful advantage,” Joey noted. “Something changed in his time being gone.”

“Are you saying he has no powers?” I asked. Brian gave me a look that read: “That was a stupid question”

“He still has a good healing system, but his chromosome in which adopted his ADHD is altered in every other strand—as if he can control it when needed…white blood cells towards sugar is wrong.”

“

What’s that mean?” I whispered to Brian, but of course Joey heard.

“In one test, it will react one way and in another, it will act differently,” Joey added. “It’s as if his Diabetes his threatening to come back.”

Well other than that…

“What about his fire powers? You’d think they would heat up that glucose to where he’d have Hypoglycemia, not Diabetes,” Brian commented. It made sense, though. There was a silence and I knew there was bad news coming. “He still has his fire…right?”

“It changed,” Joey told. Changed? “It’s more reactive. He can control when he uses it, but he can’t control to what extent.”

“How can you tell?” I asked, doubtful.

“We examined his blood with yours, Lulu—with a fire’s stimulant of course. And then we saw it with Angel’s,” he started. “The reaction with yours was crazy. I mean with no control over the emotion of anger, it was phenomenal, but of course we thought with Angel—being his normal stop trigger, it could act completely opposite, but it remained the same; as if the mix didn’t happen.”

“W-what are you saying?” I asked, confused and thinking the worst.

“Zac doesn’t have a stopping trigger,” Brian said, absent mindedly.

“How is that possible? He can’t suffer through being shooting at people for the love of his country and have a girlfriend, without an adoring feeling in his body,” I rambled. “That’s his stop right? Adoration?”

Brian nodded.

“Without a stop, can’t his power take over his body as well?” Brian asked. That was interesting.

“No. It’s done enough by threatening his insulin levels,” Joey responded. “But without his stop trigger being completely there, that means his DNA altered itself again.”

“So what?” I asked.

“We need each of our blood to be the same in order to cure Devin, apparently,” he announced. Sh!t. I heard him sigh through the phone. “I want to know what exactly he did this year for this to happen.”

“H-He was in the military,” I said. “A sniper. He got an honorable discharge for this leave though.”

“So soon?” Brian asked with a frown. I nodded.

“For what

?” Joey asked.

“He said he got shot in a few major places, but he looked perfectly healthy to me,” I continued.

“Anything else?” Joey asked.

“Nope,” I said. “I left after that because Brian told me he couldn’t find Angel.”

“Alright, well, I don’t know what could possibly complicated a seventeen year old boy’s DNA so quickly, but I’ll give it a look,” Joey concluded. “Tell Angel I say hi, and I’ll probably call you guys tomorrow.”

“Alright.”

“Sounds fine.”

“Bye.”

“It’s funny how life or death situations are the only way to sway your tolerance for people,” I commented, folding my knees up.

“What do you mean?” Brian asked, hanging his head down onto the back of the couch.

“You can’t stand Joey and I can’t stand Zac, but because of Angel and Devin, we’ll act civil towards them,” I clarified.

“It’s because it’s time to grow up,” he said, rising from the couch. “I know that I’m sick of Joey—and maybe even Zac, but I care about Devin well being. If that means teaming up to save him, then whatever.”

I looked up to him with respect.

“And what about Zac?” I asked, hesitantly. “Her and Angel. Same thing.”

“It’s not the same thing,” he denied. He pressed his lips together for a moment. “I thought of Zac as my friend once and maybe even my brother in place of, well, Luke…I even respected the fact that he fell for Angel. When he moved away, those thoughts sort of changed. Even though Angel was trying to celebrate the fact of her happiness and loving feeling of finally being with him—even for a day—even she started getting over him.

And then there came that stupid letter he wrote her. She didn’t deserve it and he knew that he didn’t deserve to write that to her. He shouldn’t have left us. The situation is different than us and Joey because at least when Joey’s around, it’s you see what you get. With Zac, he’s toying with everyone’s emotions and changing the game we know as life. I’m sick of it and I don’t want him fu**ing with Angel anymore. Even though it hurt Angel, he needs to continue to stay away from her for the sake of me not beating his a$$ for complicating everything. I don’t know why I keep defending him for sh1t, but I’m done. We only need him to help Devin and that has nothing to do with Angel.”

“You really love her,” I commented immediately. His green eyes were locked onto mine.

“Yes, I do,” he admitted. “That’s why I don’t want Zac to hurt her—even if we all do know that they’re perfect for each other.”

It was then, that something crossed my mind. Brian had taken the liberty to leave the living room and go up to his room with a conclusive “good night” with a grumble, but I sat there with a new point of view.

Maybe it wasn’t the initial idea of the military sh!t that messed with Zac’s DNA. It was his triggers messed up, correct? Anger was an easy emotion that could be generated quickly—which explained that control over when he wanted to use his powers, but the stop was different. Love was harder to comprehend and he knew that. His first ever stop trigger was saving and caring for Angel, which created some “bond” between them apparently.

Well, how was Zac supposed to have that bond and initial feeling of adoration when he had been away from everyone he ever loved for all this time?