Damage (12 page)

Hmm. Did her stepmom call them? Dani said that Penny used to work for the FBI so maybe she has some connections, but even that doesn’t seem very likely. “Maybe, but how would they get here so fast? It’s been less than an hour since we left your house.”

Dani nods. “And Penny doesn’t know your last name. We didn’t tell her when she asked. So how would she be able to figure out where you live?”

“Miss Connor is diabetic.” Agent Bullock’s voice is underscored by footsteps crossing the front porch. Several sets of footsteps. He isn’t alone. The red-alert signal in my head flashes brighter. “She’s going to get very ill if she doesn’t receive proper care. You need to come out and bring Miss Connor with you, or we will enter by force.”

Dani’s fingers dig into the sleeve of the clean sweater I pulled on. “This feels wrong. I’m scared. I don’t care who they say they are, I think we should go.”

The addition of her gut instinct to mine is all I need. I hitch my bag higher on my shoulder, crawl out the window, and reach back to help her through. I point silently to the soft spot on the roof where it isn’t safe to step. She nods and inches along beside me, keeping tight to the house until we reach the right side where an old VW bus stands rusting in the yard. Trent keeps saying he’s going to get it up and running and he and Traci are going to drive it cross-country one summer. So far, that plan has gone as far as the back yard, but the van provides the perfect jumping-down place.

It’s only a few feet from the roof of the house to the roof of the van, and then an easy belly-slide to the ground. The fence that circles the front yard doesn’t wrap around the back. Our yard bleeds straight into Mrs. Crain’s, who, according to Trent, hasn’t been out of the house since 1979. She certainly never seems to notice me rushing by her windows on my way to the street. She won’t notice now, either. We’ll dash across her patchy grass, hustle down a block or two, and come out near the bus station where it will be easier to hide. We just have to get out of here before Agent Bullock sends someone to check the perimeter.

I step onto the van—wincing at the metal thunk that seems to echo louder than it ever did on the nights I went out alone—and offer Dani a hand. She jumps lightly down beside me, making a much softer thunk, and drops to her stomach without being told. She eases to the ground, and I’m about to follow when she hisses in pain.

“Stop,” she warns, the urgency in her voice making me freeze. “There’s something here. It cut me.”

I look over my shoulder, stomach dropping when I see the slashed place in Dani’s jeans and the blood pouring from the cut on her shin. I shift until I can see the ground by the van, the sick feeling in my gut getting worse when I spot the rusted circular saw and the strips of sheet metal on the ground. Trent must have actually been working on putting in that new bed he’s threatened to get finished by springtime, and left his tools out. As usual.

And now Dani is bleeding. A lot. And there are FBI agents—or men pretending to be FBI agents—on my front porch.

We have to get out of here. Now. I inch to my left and hop down to the grass. “Come on, I’ll carry you.” I ignore the firm shake of her head and scoop her into my arms. It’s better if she keeps her leg elevated until we get the bleeding to stop.

I hurry across the yard, making as little noise as I can, shushing Dani when she tells me to wait. We’re through Mrs. Crain’s yard and back on the street, moving as fast as I can while carrying another person, when Dani punches me in the chest hard enough to make me grunt.

“I said, you can put me down now,” she says, face flushed red. “So put me down.”

“But your leg. It’s better if—”

“My leg is fine.” She points to her shin, where the bleeding has stopped and the skin smoothed as if there was never a cut there to begin with. If I hadn’t seen it a few minutes ago—seen how deep and nasty it was—I wouldn’t believe she’d been hurt. My arms relax, trembling, as I set her on her feet.

This is crazy. This is science fiction shit. This is … very, scary weird.

“Yeah,” she says, as if I’d said the words out loud. “I’m calling my dad. I won’t tell him where we are, but like I said, maybe he’ll know … something.”

And maybe he will. I actually hope he will. It would be good to have someone say that what’s happening to us is normal … even if I know it isn’t.

Dani

The phone booth at the bus station smells like pee and the receiver smells even worse—like someone rubbed it into their long-unwashed armpit. I hold it as far from my face as I can and still hear the receptionist at North Corp asking me “which extension?”

“Dr. Connor’s office, please.” I wait while she promises to transfer me and the cheesy company-promo message begins to play. I would usually zone out during this part, but today I focus on the rich, female voice promising that “the work of today will be the hope of tomorrow,” and that “donations to North Corp are appreciated and go toward building a better, healthier future for all people, regardless of race, color, or creed.”

Anything to get my mind off the fact that Jesse is shoved into the phone booth with me, his chest only inches from my face. His eyes scan the area outside for trouble. His lips press tight together, as if he’s trying to banish the memory of my kiss with pure pressure.

Kiss
. I had my first kiss, and it was … amazing. Better than I ever imagined. It revolutionized my entire view of boy-girl relations. If
that’s
what kissing feels like, no wonder Mina likes to do it so much.

Mina, my best friend who is dead, who won’t kiss anyone ever again. The truth keeps coming back to knock me off my feet when I least expect it. How dare I be moping about the fact that Jesse wasn’t affected by our kiss the same way I was? Mina is
dead
, crazy things are happening to my and Jesse’s bodies, invisible creatures are trying to kill us, and I would swear I saw a flash of dark hair dart behind a tree in Jesse’s backyard before I slid off the van …

I hold the droning receiver farther from my face. It always takes forever to transfer calls at North Corp. “I think Rachel was there. At your house.”

“What? Where?”

“In your yard. I think she moved that saw so I’d cut myself. It’s not as dramatic as the tree or the bottles, but that’s the kind of thing she used to do when I was younger.”

“Okay … ” Jesse chews his lip. I turn to stare out the dirty glass, determined not to think about the way his lips felt on mine. “So you think she’s getting weaker than she was this morning? Maybe she’s used up her juice for today?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe she just thought something sneaky would be more effective.” I sigh and tap my foot on the metal floor. “Or maybe I’m just
imagining
things, and she wasn’t even there.”

Jesse laughs beneath his breath. “Right. But it is kind of strange that we were at my house for over a half hour and neither of the things attacked.”

He’s right, but is it significant? “Maybe,” I say. “And maybe not. Maybe they’re both just tired.” Does Rachel get tired? It used to seem like she did, but now the rules have all changed. There are so many things we don’t know, things that are going to get us killed if we don’t figure them out soon.

I clench the phone tighter, willing my dad to pick up on the other line.

“Or maybe they wanted us to stay there for some reason,” Jesse says. “Maybe making out is bad for our health.”

It’s a joke, but I can tell he wishes he hadn’t made it. Our eyes meet and the discomfort level in the phone booth shoots to amazing new highs. His lips part, as if he’s trying to think of something comforting to say. Thankfully, my dad’s voicemail picks up first. I don’t want Jesse’s comfort. I want him to like me the way I like him. Or at least not crack jokes that make me feel like a fool for letting my guard down.

“Hey Dad.” I aim for an upbeat tone, but not too upbeat. “I know you’re probably worried, but I’m okay. I’m with a friend and we’re … okay. I just need to talk to you about something weird that’s going on. A medical kind of weird. I’ll try to call you again soon. If you could pick up when I do, that would be great.”

“You’d think he’d be sitting by the phone.” Jesse watches me hang up the receiver and wipe my hand on my borrowed jeans. “Doesn’t he have a cell you could try?”

“He has one, but I don’t have the number,” I say, embarrassed. “It’s just for work emergencies. The company pays for it.”

“What about family emergencies?” Jesse asks.

I lift one shoulder. “He doesn’t like being tied to technology. Even for me and Penny.” I follow Jesse out of the booth, grateful for the relative freshness of the fuel-scented air. We step up on the curb, close enough to the crowd of people waiting for the New York City bus that we seem to be one of them. “One time, Penny had to go the hospital for emergency appendix surgery. Dad was out for a bike ride and stopped at a different coffee shop than usual after. I couldn’t find him for hours. By the time he came home and saw the note I’d left, Penny’s surgery was over. Even
that
didn’t make him give me his cell number.”

I sigh, angry at my stupid father and his stupid beliefs that seem like another excuse not to be there for us. Penny insists that Dad loves us more than he loves anyone, but what does that even mean? How is that comforting when, as far as I can tell, Dad has no use for people? As long as he has his work and his morning bike ride, he’s complete. Despite the fact that he pretty much devoted his life to helping me get better when I was little, sometimes it feels like Penny and I are just another concession to perceived normalcy. Like the expensive suits he wears because all the other doctors do, even though he couldn’t care less about fashion. He has a wife and a daughter because it’s expected, not necessary or important to him.

My jaw gets tight. “My dad’s kind of a jerk,” I say, surprised at how good it feels to say the words out loud.

Jesse shrugs. “At least he didn’t lock you in a closet when you were little so he could go out and party with his friends.”

The way he says the words make it clear they aren’t hypothetical.

God.
I can’t imagine any of my parents doing something like that. It’s terrible, and makes my whining about my dad not answering his phone seem completely stupid. “I’m sorry.” I want to take his hand, but I don’t dare. Things are still awkward between us.

“It’s not your fault.” He shrugs again, but it’s stiff, uncomfortable. “It was my mom’s fault.”

“Do you ever see her now?”

“No. She wasn’t there the day the child protection people came to pick me and my sister Jamie up from the house. And she never came to visit me in the hospital.”

My jaw drops. Even my mother—the queen of uninvolved—was always there for me when I was sick. Always. “She never … Never?”

“No.” He stares at the ground, seemingly fascinated by the gray smudges of old gum at our feet. “I don’t know if she ever found out what had happened, or if she even came back to Madisonville. She and her boyfriend went to Florida that summer. Maybe they stayed there.”

“They left you alone? By yourself when you were only eight? With your sister?”

“My mom said she’d be back before school started, but Jamie and I were home alone for a long time. It was okay at first. I knew how to cook a few things and we had lots of cereal. But then the rent didn’t get paid, and the landlord came around and found out we were alone … ” His voice is calm, even. The hands that fist and unfist at his sides are the only sign that he knows the story he’s telling is awful. “He called protective services. They took me and Jamie to the hospital because we were underweight and not as clean as we should be. That’s when they found the cancer or whatever it was. They checked me in and took Jamie … somewhere else. To an orphanage or something, I guess.”

My hand slips into his. Who cares about awkward? I can’t fathom what it must be like for him, to carry all this misery around in addition to the memories of the hospital and his dragon. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“I don’t anymore. She got adopted while I was in the hospital.”

“You never tried to find her?”

“Why would she want me to find her?”

I hold his hand tighter, wishing I had the guts to hug him. “You’re her brother.”

“So what? She’s better off without me.”