Dead Rules (10 page)

Chapter Fifteen

MARS'S SHOULDER CRACKED.

Fully materialized to fight off the Rogues, Mars suffered a blinding pain that bolted through his arm and neck as he hit the pavement. By reflex alone, he managed to keep his head from slamming against the street. He drew up his knees and struggled to catch his breath.

The kid on top of him spread out like a fat spider working quickly to hold a captured moth in its place. The other Dead School dropouts rushed to join the assault. They pulled his arms and legs, and roughly turned Mars facedown on the street. His mouth and chin were scraped in the process. His lip bled.

The lead Rogue poked the end of the aluminum bat into the middle of their victim's back. They had him pinned. The one who had blindsided him took Mars's wallet out of his back pocket.

The bat lifted while they rolled him over on his back. They wanted his pants.

It was tradition for Rogues to pants a Slider when they were lucky enough to catch one on the Planet.

Jana rushed to the front of the bus.

She had to help him. She didn't know how, but she had to do something. Her head spun. She'd tell the streeters that her father was a cop. They'd leave.

The bus door was closed.

“Open the door!” she shouted. “They're killing him!”

“Can't,” the driver said, without so much as looking away from the windshield. “The door doesn't work like that.”

“I don't care how it works,” she said. “Open it!”

Jana backed up a step. With both hands, she pulled the chrome handle next to the driver, the handle that opened the folding door. It wouldn't budge. Bending her knees, she put her whole weight into pulling the handle. Jana pulled so hard she ended up sitting on the floor of the bus. Her arms trembled from exertion.

She got to her feet somehow and flung herself at the thick glass of the door. Jana pounded on it with both hands. It was no use.

His jeans were down over his shoes and off by the time Mars could catch his breath. The pain slowly subsided. He sucked air into his chest, tightening his belly.

There weren't enough of them to hold him still. Rogues didn't have the courage to get the best of him. His body slowly mended. Mars focused. He arched his shoulder against the pavement for leverage.

With a single thrust, Mars twisted sideways. His limbs flexed on solid muscle and in one instant he freed both arms from their clutches and managed to kick a standing Rogue a direct hit just below his knee.

The Rogues scattered instantly. Except for the leader, who lunged toward Mars. Sunlight flashed from the blade of a small knife he held in his hand. Mars spun over on all fours, scraping his bare knee on the rough pavement of the street. His other knee was flying in a roundhouse backward kick, which caught the Rogue with the knife squarely across his legs. The Rogue fell.

Somehow, before Mars could drop him, the Rogue had managed to cut Mars's leg across the flesh of his thigh. The knife blade was razor sharp. It left a deep slash that burned like a hot wire had been drawn across the meat of his upper leg.

Mars never stopped moving and was on his feet in a flash. The lead Rogue scooted backwards on his bottom as quickly as he could to keep from being kicked in the face. Mars picked up his jeans in one hand, flung them over his shoulder, then quickly snatched up the bat.

The Rogues backed off in a wave.

Mars had the moment.

He pointed the bat at each Rogue in turn until he found the one holding his wallet. Mars held out his free hand, palm up, and flipped his fingers twice. The Rogue stepped forward and placed the wallet on the street in front of Mars. He wore a large steel safety pin in one ear. Mars picked up his wallet and flung the bat away. It clattered to the street.

Mars was in jockey shorts and shoes. Blood ran down one leg from the cut.

The Rogues were through. He turned his back on them, stuck his wallet in the back pocket of his jeans, and pulled on his pants. One of the Rogues picked up the bat and walked away. The others followed him to the jeep.

Jana was saying something out one of the bus windows. As he watched, she left the window and moved frantically to the front of the bus. Mars latched his pants.

He limped on his cut leg to the door of the bus, and couldn't help but smile. He'd won. His mouth tasted like blood. His torn lip hurt. And so did his shoulder and leg. It was a really good day on the Planet. He swore he heard a bird singing.

Mars was back to the bus on time. Jana had feared it would leave without him. She stood at the front of the bus. Mars easily pushed open the door from the outside.

“You're hurt,” she said, holding out her hands to him, her arms.

“It's nothing.”

“Here,” she said, and Mars took one of her hands. She tugged him up the steps of the bus. “You're bleeding. Are you sure you're okay?”

“I'm fine,” Mars said. “Just glad I wore underwear today.”

“It's not funny. They could have killed you!”

“Aren't you forgetting something, Webster? I'm already dead.”

Jana dropped her gaze and stared at the oval of blood that had soaked through the upper leg of his jeans. He felt awfully warm to be dead, she thought. Even when he was beaten up and bleeding, his body was warmer than hers. He could open the bus door and she couldn't. Mars wasn't as dead as she was. At least on the Planet, the planet where Michael lived.

“Well, they could have cut off your ears,” Jana said. “Or something.”

The bus was moving. She let go of his hand.

Mars motioned Jana toward the back of the bus. They sat there together so Mars could stretch out his leg.

Jana couldn't help herself. She wiped blood from his lower lip with her fingers. It was sticky and cold. She wiped her hand on the front of her blouse. His soft lower lip looked as inviting as ever.

“Who were those guys?” Jana asked, still breathless from the horror of being trapped on the bus while Mars was being attacked.

“Rogues,” Mars said. “Dead School dropouts. Rogues are Sliders who leave campus and don't come back. They're rebels, I guess. They don't have long out there. You almost never see the same one twice.”

“Someone comes by and picks them up?” Jana asked.

“You might say that.” Mars pushed his hand through his hair. “But everybody gets a chance to change, Webster, even Rogues. Even if it's only for a day or two.”

“They don't look to me like they want to change.”

“True,” Mars agreed. “Rogues go to all the high school funerals, looking for tagalongs. I should have remembered that.”

Jana watched people's houses slide by outside the bus window. She was thinking of Michael and how they were supposed to have a house in Ireland someday and maybe one in southern France. And an apartment in New York.

She was suddenly ashamed of herself. Mars was hurt and she wasn't even considering that. She should do something to help him.

“Take off your pants,” Jana said. “We need to do something with your leg.”

“It's okay,” Mars said.

“They cut you,” she insisted. “You're bleeding. It's deep. We need to make a bandage or you'll bleed to death.”

“It stopped bleeding,” Mars told her. “It wasn't that bad at all.”

Jana stared at the blood-soaked faded jeans stretched over his thigh. The stain looked like it was drying. It wasn't glistening like before. She wanted to touch it to see for sure, but thought it would hurt him if she did.

“You're going to figure this out sooner or later, so you may as well know,” Mars said. “It goes away.”

“What goes away?”

“Whatever you do to your body, it doesn't stick. Sliders and Risers are a little different, but it's about the same. You can cut your hair, Webster, but that's about all. It's not part of your body. I mean, it's not alive or anything.”

“We're not alive,” Jana said.

“Okay. But we have our bodies for now.”

“So if I were a Slider, instead of being a spirit who can't open doors, I could get into fistfights on the Planet and thump people on the head at funerals and . . .”

“And use a cell phone. And be seen when you want to be seen and heard when you want to be heard. You might be able to do some of this stuff with practice already. Risers don't usually leave campus on their own, so we don't know for sure.”

“Either way, though, I could do more on the Planet as a Slider than a Riser,” she said. “That's right, isn't it?”

“Yes.”

“And if I can do more the way I am now, I want to do it now. I want to leave campus with you tonight. Will you show me how?”

Mars didn't answer.

“Look, I'm not stupid, Mars. I can leave campus on my own if I can leave at all. How does campus work, anyway? I don't get it.”

“We're not supposed to understand everything,” he said. “I don't understand everything. That's the whole point of Dead School, Webster. And for some reason that's where they want us.”

“You mean the Regents Council?”

“Davis is telling you more than I realized,” Mars said. “No one in school knows much about them. But they're in charge.”

“They're angels,” Jana suggested. A tiny smile at the edge of her mouth said at least she hoped so.

“More like old librarians than angels. Everything's not going to make sense in the beginning, Webster. Trust me, I've been trying to figure out all this for several months now.”

Jana looked at the tear in his lip. It was healing.

“Okay, your body feels pain when you're in Dead School. You can walk around with it and poke it with sharp objects. I got all that. But if I cut off my hand, it reattaches itself?”

“Yes, your body fixes itself. It returns to the way it was when you died.”

“That's what Wyatt was showing me in the library,” Jana said.

“He was being stupid, but that's what he was doing. And he wanted to gross you out to, you know, get a rush from your reaction,” Mars said. “It's against the rules to damage your body on purpose to have an effect on someone else. See, that's the most important rule—you can't impede other students. It's best to go off campus if you want to experiment.”

Mars spoke softly and watched Jana's eyes to make sure she was understanding what he said. His eyes gave off warmth just like the rest of his body did. Jana secretly wanted to touch his eyebrows with her fingers to see if they sparked. Thinking such a thing about another boy made her think of Michael. Fast.

“I want to go to the Planet tonight,” Jana reminded Mars. “I want to be with Michael.”

“You'll get demerits.”

“You sound like Arva. How do demerits work?”

“Nobody but Arva
sounds
like Arva,” Mars said in an imitation of her croaky voice.

Jana laughed. It was the day of her funeral and it felt good to laugh. The warmth from sitting next to Mars had soaked through her skin and she felt warm inside.

“Look, I can't answer all your questions. Risers and Sliders are different. I've been trying to figure out my end of things since I've been here. So I don't really know how demerits work for Risers. I've heard of one or two Risers getting into enough trouble here that they become Sliders. But I don't know how it works exactly. I'm not sure anyone does.”

When someone tells you he doesn't know something, it makes you believe everything else he said. Jana believed everything Mars told her.

“Can I tell you a secret?” she asked. “I never had, you know, just a friend I could tell secrets to.”

Mars nodded. His eyes found hers.

“I want to kill Michael,” Jana said.

Mars's dimple disappeared. He looked away.

“I was going to ask you to help,” Jana confessed. “But I really think I should do it myself.”

She loved him that much, Mars thought.

Mars knew that love wasn't all red-paper valentines and candy hearts. Love wasn't always joy. Love could be hot-blooded pain down to the bone. Sometimes love was despair. And sometimes love was wrong. Jana loved Michael enough to kill him for it. Jana loved Michael to death.

Chapter Sixteen

“OH GOD, HE RAPED YOU!”

Arva's face, when she first saw Jana at their table in the cafeteria, was a mixture of wild-eyed shock, anguish, and triumph. Arva had been right, after all. Rules had been broken and this was what it led to. Wanton savagery.

“No,” Jana said. “Not at all.” She shook her head and drew her lips together, admonishing Arva for such a wicked flight of fantasy.

Jana arrived late to lunch and had rushed in without going by the girls' room. Her appearance was the last thing on her mind. She set her bottles of water on the table being shared by Arva, Beatrice, and Christie. Everything was just like yesterday, only Jana's clothes were a wreck.

She tucked the back of her wrinkled blouse into her skirt waist as best she could. Her face was smeared with dirt from having wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. She tugged her hair behind her ear.

Jana breathed in. At least her clothes didn't smell like Ivory soap so much. She smelled like grass and dirt and sweat. She smelled like Earth. Like life.

Beatrice stared at Jana's face. The yellow dart fins leaned left and right, then left again.

“A quick roll in the hay with Dreamboat?” Christie asked Jana pleasantly, getting his name wrong on purpose. “Your eyes look greener than before. They say your eyes are brighter after, you know, you've been doing it.”

Jana grinned and shook her head no. In the world as viewed by Christie, a roll in the hay with Mars Dreamcote was the best thing that could happen to a junior at Dead School. Jana glanced around the room as she sat down.

Everyone had blue-tinted faces, those who didn't have their faces bashed in or their heads sitting next to them on chairs. A third of the students looked like refugees from train wrecks. Another third looked worse. It didn't seem fair to Jana that when she showed up with her blouse untucked and a little dirt on her face, it caused a riot.

“There's blood on your blouse!” Arva pointed her finger at the place where Jana had wiped her fingers after touching Mars's wounded mouth.

“It's chocolate,” Beatrice said. She looked excited. “You had chocolate on the Planet. When I was there, I couldn't eat anything. Now that I'm here, I don't want to.”

“No,” Jana told her. “It's blood.”

“I'd forgotten about chocolate,” Beatrice said quietly.

“See,” Arva creaked out. “I knew something awful would happen.”

“Leave her alone,” Christie said. “Funerals are hard.” She jerked her shoulders and quietly said, “Ouch.”

“Are you okay, Jana?” Beatrice asked. “How do you feel? Was it okay?”

“I feel like I've been dead a long time,” Jana answered honestly.

Jana screwed the cap off a bottle of water and finished half of it in one long drink. She felt like she'd been dead a long time, but she also felt like something new was alive inside her. She had a plan to come up with and to put into action.

Arva kept talking. “I knew it,” she rasped. “I knew something awful would happen when you chose a Slider to go with you.”

“Maybe a Slider chose her,” Mars said.

He was standing behind Jana's chair. He'd walked up to the table of girls without their noticing his approach. All eyes had been on Jana.

Arva stuck her current bottle of water in her mouth and looked away. If she could have sniffed and sucked water at the same time, she would have. Beatrice and Christie beamed their best sunshiney faces and smiled at Mars.

Jana closed her eyes momentarily when Mars lightly touched her on the shoulder. She accepted his warmth now without surprise. It came inside her like an invited guest. Instead of speaking, or doing anything at all to greet Mars, she let the warmth of the moment have its way.

“I hope you don't mind, ladies. There's someone I'd like to introduce to you.”

The kid in glasses from the library stepped forward. He'd been standing behind Mars.

“This is Jameson. He's just agreed to be Jana's personal tutor. She's having a little trouble concentrating in class these days.”

Jameson pushed his glasses up on his nose and turned red. He wasn't used to talking to girls. After securing his glasses in place, he didn't know what to do with his hands. So he pushed his glasses against his face again.

“Hi,” Beatrice said.

“Hi,” Christie echoed, then added a shoulder bounce and one “ouch.”

“Davis,” Mars said, waiting.

Arva took the bottle of water from her mouth. “Hello,” she squeaked, only glancing in the general direction of the two boys standing at the table.

Mars took his hand away and stepped back. A trail of warmth lifted from Jana. She scooted her chair sideways to look at him. His face was clean and his hair was combed. There wasn't a bit of blood or even a slight bruise on his face.

But the blood had been there. The dark stain was still on his faded jeans. Like he'd cut out his own heart and stuffed it in his pocket.

“Things to do,” Mars said. He threw one hand open and tilted his head, as if to say there was no getting around it. His blue eyes slid over Jana before he turned and walked away, leaving Jameson behind.

Without the slightest limp from having had his leg sliced, Mars left the cafeteria. He'd never sat down. He hadn't gone through the line. Mars got his water from the fountain in the hall and used his cafeteria time for other things.

Jana watched Wyatt rise awkwardly from a table of Sliders by the windows. He glanced at her with a flash of his one good eye, but wouldn't catch her gaze. He seemed to be frowning. It was hard to tell for sure, because half his face was shaped into a permanent frown. Leaning to one side on his damaged leg with every step, Wyatt followed Mars out the cafeteria doors.

Jameson sat in the empty chair at the table.

“Haven't we run into each other before?” Jana asked. She looked at his straight brown hair and cowlick. It was a small distraction compared to Beatrice's yellow dart fins.

Jameson did not reply.

“In the library,” she tried.

Jameson nodded. He started to say something, then changed his mind.

“I'm Jana Webster,” she continued, knowing how shy boys like Jameson could be around girls. She didn't add “of Webster and Haynes.” It was just her for now. Jana intended to see that it didn't stay that way for long.

Jameson walked Jana to fourth period.

Arva approved. You could see it on her face.

Jana stopped off at the girls' restroom while Jameson waited outside. They had a few minutes between classes. No one knew how many, because the clocks were screwy. And cell phones didn't work, so you couldn't check the time. Maybe they started class when everyone got there. There wasn't anyplace else to go.

She checked the stall doors. There were no toilets in the stalls. Each stall was outfitted with a simple oak chair you could sit on. It was a place to sit and think, if you were in the habit. Or a place to be alone, when you needed to cry.

Thank heaven they had paper towels. Jana ran water on two towels and washed her face in the mirror. She ran her hands over her hair. With careful fingers, she felt the uplifted lock of hair on the back of her head, the small crack of skull underneath.

She folded a corner of the wet paper towel and washed carefully around the corners of her eyes. Jana saw her mother in her own face. Just like that and for only a second, her mother appeared then vanished. Had her mother known love when she was sixteen or had she been too beautiful?

Jana knew love. You couldn't love without being able to forgive. It sounded like one of Arva's rules, but it was true. She forgave Michael the minute she left the funeral. He was weak without her. He was devastated by the loss.

Her mother was a different story. If she knew love, she knew the love you take, not the love you give. Jana wished her mother had been someone she could talk to. But she wasn't a listener. She made regular pronouncements and requests and took it for conversation. She used people to talk to. Jana's mother never talked
with
anyone.

Marilyn Webster was a born user. Using alcohol and drugs, and people, was all she knew how to do. She used her beauty to take the things she wanted. She was good at it. Jana had to get Michael away from her mother.

“What's with the teachers?”

“They're dead,” Jameson said. “Is that what you mean?”

“Got that,” Jana said. “But do they have to be so boring? It's like they hate what they're doing.”

“Best in their fields. They rotate through for a year and then they're gone. Some are rather fascinating, but you're right, most of them don't know how to teach. I guess they provide examples of people who have done things well. Maybe they've done things we were planning on doing.”

“How would we ever know?”

“You can ask them questions if you like,” Jameson said. “Most students just sit through class, though. We're all trying to deal with being dead, I suppose.”

Jameson only looked at her when he was certain she wasn't looking at him.

Jana asked him about the original guidebook in the library. “So, you understand what it says, then? And there
are
rules for Dead School?”

“Bits and pieces,” Jameson said in an apologetic voice. “Different people wrote different parts at different times. They all used the language differently. Or the language changed. Some of it is Aramaic. Some of the languages we don't even have names for now. It's all very ancient. But yes, there are rules. Some are stated plainly. Others are parables.”

Jana stopped walking and grabbed his arm. “Can I leave campus on my own at night? Can Risers do that?”

“Oh, it doesn't actually say that.” Jameson's face reddened when she touched him. Jana took her hand away.

“The main rule in the book is free will,” he continued. “You have free will to make your own choices here. If you make the right choices, it can be like atonement, you know? And if you make wrong choices . . . well, you can go backwards. Most Risers just try to ride it out the way things are. The status quo is in your favor, so to speak.”

They continued walking. Jana's thoughts tumbled quickly into some sort of understanding. “So, you can
rise
to the occasion or
slide
backwards. Is that it?”

“Yes,” Jameson said. “Mostly that's it. There are earlier rules too. I keep finding one more here and one more there.”

“Okay,” Jana said. “How do I become a Slider?”

This time Jameson stopped walking. He looked at Jana for the first time while she was looking at him. He pushed his glasses up on his nose.

“That would be going backwards,” he stammered.

“Let's think of it as a place to start,” Jana said.

She smiled. If going backwards meant she would be in Michael's arms again, then backwards was the only way to go. Sliders could physically interact on the Planet and Jana needed to interact with Michael. Right away. Besides, she thought, it wouldn't hurt to feel a little warmer while she figured out a way to kill him.

Michael's car was parked out front.

Sherry and Nathan sat on the porch swing at Jana's house. Nathan was worried about the voice mail he'd received on his cell.

“At first I thought it was God,” he said. “You know, the voice at the funeral home. And when he asked what time was good for me, I thought he meant what time was good for me to meet my Maker.”

Nathan did his lawn mower laugh, but it was all worry and nerves. Nothing was funny right now.

“It's not God,” Sherry said. “Will you shut up about that already?”

“I know that now. I think it's the guy from the bowling alley. The one who showed up out of nowhere and was giving her CPR. He must have taken her cell phone. We have to find out who that guy is.”

“Why is Michael taking so long?” Sherry asked.

“Her mom's a wreck. You know how it is. She's totally out of it. He's putting her to bed or something.”

“He just better
not
get in there with her,” Sherry said. “That's all I've got to say. Why did they have to bury her with Michael's ring, anyway? He's not with her anymore.”

“And you are,” Nathan said. “Everybody knows that already.”