Tainted (12 page)

“Shhh.” I choke back the bile souring my stomach and draw Emma tight to my chest. The wails break down into sobs, her tears washing clean tracks down her cheeks. “Whatever it is, I’ll take care of it. We’ll make this better.”

“How?” She tucks her head closer to my skin. “How can you ever fix this? I don’t even know what happened!”

“We can fix anything, as long as you’re OK.”

“OK?” A manic cackle sounds so wrong coming out of her. “This is not
OK
. I’m not
OK
.
”

Oh, God. Some of this blood may be hers. “Are you hurt?”

She stills in my arms. “That’s what scares me,” Em hiccups on a sob. “I feel fine.”

“Let’s get you cleaned up, and make sure you’re not hurt. Then we’ll try to figure out what happened.”

She nods, and pushes to sitting. Renfield’s growl deepens. Emma’s lip turns further down. “Even my cat hates me.”

“Shut up, Renfield.” I fling a pillow at the cat. The furball grumbles and scurries under the desk in the corner. He hunkers down, ears pasted to his skull, tail fat as a brush. “I’m sure he’s just reacting to the smell.”

Wrapping my quilt around her, I sit and grab my cellphone. I press my cheek to the back of her neck, with the blanket between us as I speed dial Jason. He answers on the first ring. “Find her?”

“Yeah.” I listen to her breathing, and the silence in the house. “She’s here. Filthy, confused, but seems unharmed.”

“Call me when you know more. I’ll call Bree.”

He disconnects the call, and I dial Paul. He answers before a second ring.

“Please tell me you found Emma.”

“More like she found her way back to me.”

“Good. Whatever is happening, she must be defaulting to returning to her source of greatest comfort.”

“We’ll discuss theories after I get her cleaned up.”

“Do I want to know?”

“No.” I don’t want to know what she did to get that dirty. “I’ll call soon.”

After putting the phone on my desk, I scoop Emma and the quilt into my arms. The hallway is quiet when I step out. A glimmer of light shines beneath my grandparents’ bedroom door. Instead of creeping past, and washing away the evidence of whatever Emma may have done, I walk across the hall and knock on their door. Footsteps punctuate the lack of snores coming from the other side of the door.

Grandpa wedges the door open. He gives Emma a quick glance, and her tears start again. I want to talk, feel like I should say something, but a sudden lump in my throat chokes off any words. Grandpa uses a wrinkled thumb to wipe Emma’s tears.

“You found your way home,” he tells her.

Something silent and deep passes between them, and then Emma nods.

“Take care of her,” Grandpa says. “Then put that quilt in the washer to soak, or Gran’ll have your hide.”

“Yessir.”

“Well,” I say after he closes their door. “That was surprising.”

Snuffling back tears, Emma nods in agreement. Her muscles tense more with every step I take closer to the bathroom. Her breaths come shorter, quicker. “Not the shower,” she whispers.

“People can’t see you like this, Em. And we have to make sure you’re not hurt.”

“But, it’s…”

“I know.” Water killed her. She may never win free of that fear now. I understand, because I constantly fight my fear of falling, an inheritance my father didn’t intend when he sewed Daniel’s parts into me.

I open the door on instinct, my eyes on her face as I do. Black lashes flutter as she squeezes her eyes shut. Her lips turn down. Then, something changes, a shift in the tension in her muscles, the knot of her pinched lips unwinds. Behind the closed bathroom door, Emma sheds the bloody cocoon of a quilt. Beneath, she’s a glorious, terrible beauty. Flushed cheeks, blond hair tipped in red, clothes a map of the grotesque. I really shouldn’t like it like I do.

“Will you check me for cuts, or anything?”

“Of course.”

She’s changed again, a shift in temperament like the one in the car, only not angry. A smile crooks her lips, inviting. Em holds my gaze, then turns away from me, and in one fluid motion pulls her shirt over her head. Emma’s back is smooth, a study of curves and planes, unmarked except for red splotches where blood soaked through to stain her skin. She extends both arms, twists them, displaying the angles and lines of sinew, bone and flesh.

“Perfect,” I say.

“If I didn’t know better,” she says, and unzips her jeans, “I would think you’re enjoying this.”

“Just looking for injuries,” I lie.

Her jeans fall. Nothing between Emma and me but a little cotton, air, and a thousand questions.

“Not even a bruise,” I promise. She turns then. “Not even one?” she asks, lashes at half-mast, finger hooked in the waist of my boxers.

Well, a bruise on my heart from her calling for Daniel. And one on my soul from me being as evil as my father to bring her back. I swallow a breath, trapped in her gaze as she steps nearer, closing the distance between us. Why fight it? I’m a fool for her and we both know it. Electricity dances through my fingertips when I slide them around her back and up her spine.

“I don’t want to get in there alone,” she whispers. Holding her as tight as I am, I feel the shiver of fear run down her spine.

“You don’t have to,” I breathe into her hair.

I release her, slide back the curtain, and invite her in.

The message light blinks on my cell phone when we return to my bedroom. Emma ducks behind the closet door to dress in more of my mother’s old sports jerseys and a pair of my flannel pajama pants. I toss a pair of socks over the door, a hoodie, in case she’s still cold, before checking my phone.

Bree Ransom?

My mind immediately starts formulating excuses, lies, anything to explain away Em’s missing chunk of hours. Or the amount of time we took in the shower...

I click through to open a message sent to Bree from an unlisted number. A video?

Why is Bree sending me a video? Who sent it to her?

The video loads, the frame stuck on a very recognizable scene: the front gates to my father’s estate. The last time I was there, Em sat in the car while I walked on the property to check on things. Everything was fine then. But doesn’t appear to be now.

The video starts rolling, shaky at first, someone running while it was recording. Then it settles, and focuses on Emma. She’s bloody from shoulders to feet, hair blowing around her face in an updraft, eyes wild. Em pulls upward on a raccoon’s back legs, with its head apparently trapped beneath her feet. The rotten tissues give way, and the raccoon’s existence is finally over.

Emma flings the body into the ditch beside the drive, and kicks the head off camera. Whoever filmed the video pans across the snow-clad field beside the road, and settles on the doe. Em must’ve ended her too.

The video continues to roll as the person walks up the drive following Emma.

I can’t watch anymore. My stomach rolls, acid burns up my throat. The phone plummets to the bed when I release it and run to the bathroom. Bile roils up from my stomach and into the toilet when I drop to my knees. She truly was soaked in slaughter when she crawled in my window. The blood of those innocent animals was on her hands, in her hair, soaked into my quilt.

Oh God, Em, what have I done to you?

Dawn light peeks through the curtains when I return to my room. Emma sits on the floor, her back to me, her legs crooked and hunched forward, a marionette with cut strings. Light filters through her hair, giving it a sickly glow. Renfield is coiled in her lap now that she doesn’t reek of death. Tremors slither along her body, seeming to start from her hands and flowing outward. Then I notice all of Em is moving, rocking back and forth and mumbling, “It’s me. It’s me.”

She doesn’t acknowledge me when I sink behind her and take the phone away. The video reaches its end, a close up of Pam, our old dog, finally dead, her skull completely crushed, and a shovel driven through her neck.

“Oh Alex,” She sobs, holding a hand over her mouth like she might puke, too. “I’m a killer.”

Vengeance in sneakers, dealing a final death to all the undead creatures on our property.

“No, Em. That was mercy. The kind I didn’t give to them.”

“But I
killed
them.” A dislodged Renfield meanders off when Emma spins, and holds her hands up by my face. “I. Killed. Them. And I don’t remember doing it. It was me. Not even with a weapon. A gun would’ve been merciful. I used my hands.”

“You didn’t hurt them. You set them free.”

Emma starts when my cellphone rings. The screen says it’s Bree. “I don’t want to talk to anyone,” Emma says, and collapses to my chest. I wrap an arm around her, and answer the call, “Hello?”

“Please tell me she’s OK,” Bree says. “Please tell me she’s in her right mind, and that was some lookalike.”

“I’m not going to lie, Bree.” Emma’s hair feels so clean when I stroke it, all the red washed and gone. “At least she doesn’t remember it.” Although I think I know why she might’ve done it. We’d been arguing about the animals right before she climbed out of the car.

“Well, that’s a small comfort,” says Bree. “I don’t know how she could do that and be sane.”

Me, either. Or how she could do it and not remember.

“Where the hell did that video come from?” I ask.

“Unlisted number,” she answers, “That’s all I know.”

“Alex,” Bree then says, “she needs to come back here. Her mom is going nuts and talking about buying a plane ticket home if she doesn’t talk to Emma today.”

“I’ll have her back there in a little bit.”

“We’ll be waiting.”

With the call ended, I put the phone on the nightstand, and take Emma’s hands in mine. I lift them, kiss her knuckles and press her hands to my face. Then, with her skin so close, I notice the red irritation, almost like a chemical burn or allergic reaction. I lean closer and look at her throat, and face, where she smoothed the lotion.

“Em? Did you notice you have a rash?”

“Maybe I’m allergic to killing,” she deadpans.

“It’s definitely a reaction from something you came in contact with, but it’s only where you put that lotion yesterday. I would stop using it. We can go buy you something else when you feel up to it.”

“Up until seeing that video, I felt pretty good,” she says, and runs a finger down my bare chest. She circles her arm around my waist and clings tight. “I feel better with you.”

“I do, too.” I kiss the top of her head. “But you have to go back to Bree’s. And I want to look at her phone, and see if we can trace that video back to its source. We might find out more of your missing time.”

“Do I really want to know?” Her voice is sad, already defeated.

“Knowing is always better,” I tell her. Except the world knowing what’s happened, thanks to my father’s fringe science. “You can’t defeat what you don’t know.”

“Only if I don’t have to watch it again.”

“Never, Em. I’ll do my best to make sure nothing like that ever happens to you again.”

“Promise?” she asks.

“With everything that I am.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“I don’t know, Paul,” I say. “We’ve been over this a hundred times.”

“And we’ll go over it a hundred more. Have her in and draw blood samples, take readings, measurements, anything we have to.”

“I checked Bree’s phone when I got there. When I dialed the number, I got an out-of-service message.”

“So, we have no idea why Emma flipped,” he pinches the bridge of his nose. “We don’t know who shot the video, or what else they may do with it. But we do know what she did for part of the time. We really need to do some tests.”

“I’ll get her in, maybe tomorrow.” Pacing does nothing to burn off the worry and agitation twisting my gut into a nauseous tangle. Paul sits behind his desk in Ascension Labs, almost a part of the chair now. We’ve been at this for hours, dissecting the events since Emma hit the lab table, discounting no possibilities, yet, and no closer to figuring out why she flipped or how to prevent it.

“I think I’ll try to get some sleep,” he says, “if you’re bringing her in tomorrow.” Paul stands slowly. Deep creases refuse to smooth from his clothes, and even I can hear his joints creak. “A rested mind is a sharp mind.”

“Thank you,” I say. I never felt I could lean on my father after he revived me. Paul invites confidence, seems eager to fill the loss of both my parents. He may never know how deeply I appreciate it.

“Don’t thank me yet.” He reaches behind him, to a shelf of supplies and grabs a notebook. “You have work to do. I want you to make a timeline of events, as accurate as you can be. Include all food, drink, amount of sleep, laundry soap, dryer sheets, perfumes… hell,
farts
if you think of it.”

I flick a glance at the wall clock, and sink into his desk chair.

“We will figure this out, Alex.” When he says it like that I believe him. “Order yourself takeout, put it on Ascension’s tab. I’ll leave the gates up.”

Paul walks out leaving me surrounded by why, who, how, and what-if.

The blank notebook page daunts me with the number of empty lines to fill. The cause of her mood flip may not be what happened after I revived her, it may involve what was already in her system. It could be a component in the formula. My heart recoils from that line of thinking. If something in the formula caused the split in personality, it could reoccur, she could get worse with every dose. And I will have to live with the guilt of destroying the girl I love with every attempt to prolong her life.

The sudden ache makes me think of what she said days before her accident, to text her something about myself. I pull my cell phone out, and text Emma:
The truth is, my mom read lullabies to me when I was sick, even as a teen. I think your quiet breathing makes the best lullaby
.

Papers, articles, charts, pens and other gadgets clutter Paul’s desk. I find the least chewed-on pencil, and write “before” on the heading of the page then start listing everything I can remember about the day of the accident. When she woke, Bree’s organic shampoo and body wash, what she said she had for breakfast. I’m up to listing details about the afternoon before the party when Emma texts back.