Tainted (21 page)

“How did this happen?” I ask, shock making my voice thin and breathy.

“Someone said it was poison,” she weeps. Tiffany drags Sam’s body tight to her again, and resumes rocking him. “Who would do that?”

I can’t ask her if she found Emma – guilt swarms up for wanting my girl alive when her guy is dead. Tiff presses her head against mine when I give her a quick, awkward hug around Sam’s corpse. Sobs rack the girl’s body. I should stay and try to comfort her, but I can’t: my soul is dying every second I stay here not searching for Emma. Standing, I pull off my jacket, empty the pockets and then drape the coat over her shoulders.

Stuffing my keys and phone into my jean’s pockets, I try to assess the damage here. Another security guard – that makes two. Sam. A couple girls. Six? Seven victims, maybe? And I haven’t checked the rest of the building. It’s too hard to wrap my brain around. Less than half an hour ago, this place was a cauldron of life, now the dregs convulse and die all around me.

What kind of sacrilege am I committing wading through the death of people I knew, praying my girlfriend is still alive?

Then I spot pale blond hair glowing in a downturned light, cowering in the far corner of the back alcove. Emma’s alive! My heart skips to double beats. I hustle across the floor, passing one of the girls as she goes still, her chest sinking on a final exhale, a brown splattered dessert plate floating in a puddle of dark vomit. If it was poison, was it in the food? I draw even with Jason, at the far end, standing with his hands over his mouth, gaze sweeping the floor.

“Found her,” I shout, and motion toward the corner nearest the back door.

He nods, and even from here I can see the relief flood his features. Sirens sound, a whisper yet, but the authorities are coming. We have minutes maybe.

I race the last feet to Emma’s side and skid to a stop.

She’s crouched, covered in blood, hands knotted to fists in her hair. Next to her lies another body – one I immediately recognize. My Sadony Academy nemesis, and tonight’s full contact sparring partner. Trent Landry, dead at Emma’s feet. Every mean thought I’d had of him turns suddenly sharp, rusty barbs in my memory. Was he really so bad? Did he deserve to die with a busted nose and broken tooth?

Did I do this to him? Or was he poisoned too?

A mewling whimper comes from Emma, competing with the approaching emergency sirens.

“Em,” I drop to my knees beside her. “Emergizer?”

She swings a terrified glance at me. “He said he was sorry.”

She scuttles further back, bumps the wall and drops to her butt. Her legs flop out like she can’t quite control them. Trent’s body, and more chocolate-colored puke, is inches away from her feet. Emma cries again, and creeps toward me. “He said he was sorry, but it wasn’t him…”

“Com’ere, Em,” I coax. “We have to get you out of here.”

“Out of here,” she echoes, then scales me, trying, it seems, to put as much distance between her and Trent’s corpse as she can. “Please.”

The pressure of the moment shows on Jason’s face. He helps me stand with Emma half-wrapped around my back. Her legs scissor tight around my waist, locking one arm down. He wedges an arm between us and tries to pry Emma from her death grip.

“Gotta let him loose, Em,” Jason coaches. “Loosen up a little.”

Brakes squeal outside the building.

“Dammit!” Jason spits. He slams his shoulder into the emergency exit at the back, and drags us outside.

Emma finally releases her legs and would have fallen to the ground if I let go. I press her tight to me and spin us both into the darkness cast by the building. Jason creeps forward to the cover of the large Dumpster at the corner of the building. He peers out, then ducks back and waves me forward. I guide Emma into the narrow space between the reeking metal container and the brick wall.

My heart clenches on a beat when Jason dashes across the narrow, empty side parking lot to my car. Safe, he drops down into its shadow and then gives me a thumbs-up.

“Em,” I say, “I have to let you go for a second. We need to run to my car.”

We can’t be caught here, with Emma covered in Trent’s blood. They’ll arrest her. They’ll give her blood tests because she’s so confused and wobbly. Then every sin I committed to save her will be exposed.

“Alex,” she says, voice pitchy and sour at the same time. “I don’t feel right.”

She spins from my grasp and heaves. Partially dissolved popcorn in a stew of stomach bile and lemon-lime soda splashes to the ground at our feet – none of it dark like the vomit next to the fallen inside. Em wipes her mouth with the back of her sleeve, then I hook an arm around her waist and we risk capture running to my car.

“Keys,” Jason whispers when we hide by the tire well. “Get the car open.” Thankfully, he leans over and pulls Emma’s sweatshirt off, and with it most of Trent’s blood.

The keys are jammed deep in my front pocket, and I have to straighten up to get them out. A police car slides to a stop in front of the VFW hall, headlights beam my way. Swearing, I duck down before the officer sees me. I press the door lock button, and breathe a little sigh when all the doors unlock.

“We’ve got to be fast,” I tell them. “When the doors open, the dome light comes on.”

Jason takes Emma’s hand, guides her in front of him. “Go around,” he says to me. “Tap the car then count to three, and we’ll all jump in.”

Following his instructions, I creep around the grill, thankful the headlights aren’t on to cast my shadow on the building wall. Once in position, I tap the car and count to three. A flurry of motion, like a Chinese fire drill in reverse, rocks the car as Jason and I wrench open the doors. I jump in, he shoves Emma in the back seat and then follows. I slam the button to turn off the dome light. Jason rips off his coat, flings it over Emma, and then we sit for a few minutes, barely breathing.

When the majority of first responders are in the VFW building, I pop the gear into neutral and let the car roll back on the natural slope of the parking lot. Turning the wheel, I aim it at the drive circling behind the factory and leading to our escape.

“Go,” Jason begs.

I start the engine and drive behind the factory, rolling past the loading docks and the hulking stacks of pallets. On the far side, we have a clear shot to Walsh Road and then we can disappear in town. Still, I drive slowly, not wanting to catch anyone’s attention.

“Jesus Christ,” Jason cusses as we line up with the pandemonium surrounding the front of the VFW and what’s left of the Reindeer Games.

“Yeah.” I can’t think of another thing to say. “Tiff said they were all poisoned.”

“Who would do that?” Jason mutters.

“He said he was sorry,” Emma mutters from under Jason’s coat.

“Sorry for what?” I ask.

“He couldn’t say,” she responds. “He said he was sorry until he died.” In the rearview mirror, I see Emma lift her bloodstained hands into the light cast by a corner streetlight. Tears run down her face. “I don’t feel like myself anymore.”

My poor Emma. What have I exposed you to? What did I make you become?

A numb, queasy kind of shock takes up residence in my chest. I can’t take her back to my grandparents’ when Bree’s parents are waiting for her.

I pull in at the gas station on Water Street. “We’ve got to clean her up,” I tell Jason.

“I’ll pump some gas so it doesn’t look suspicious.”

What would I do without him?

Emma slides out, then nearly collapses to the ground, like her body doesn’t want to work for her anymore. I stoop, ease an arm around her ribs and stand her up. Em wobbles, one hand grabbing my shoulder for stability. She slides into Jason’s coat with my help, my heart fracturing with every moment, every movement. No spark, no fire, hardly anything of her behind the confusion.

“Keep your head down,” I tell her.

She follows my command, blond hair dropping like a curtain before her face.

Bright lights turn the gas station interior into a magnifying glass, blowing up every bloodstain on Emma. It’s not until I turn us into the aisle headed toward the bathroom I notice the blood in the creases of my knuckles. God, Trent, I think, what drove you to goad me, to die on her?

We duck into the women’s bathroom when the attendant isn’t looking, and I lead Emma straight to the sink. She leans against me while I wash our hands. Bloody ghosts swirl into the running water, Trent’s life swills down the drain. Then I plug the drain.

“Bend closer,” I coach, and Em wordlessly complies.

I use handfuls of the foam soap to scrub the blood from her hair, then run sink after sink of water to rinse it.

Of course there are no paper towels.

She stands limp, pale and somehow empty, when I pull off my Henley shirt and dry her off as best I can. The hallway’s vacant when I peek out so I creep into the storage room and, sleeve over my hand, steal a bottle of bleach. Em stands where I left her, and watches me dump bleach in the sink to destroy any blood evidence.

The guy behind the counter eyes us, a sleazy grin on his face. He thinks we were screwing around in the bathroom, so I let him. He doesn’t need to know anything more.

No one speaks until we get to the Ransoms’ house. Bree stands in the open side door waiting. Jason helps me coax Emma from the backseat. Jason runs ahead to fill Bree in on events and beg her to keep it quiet. The secrets are piling up, deeper than the snow, blacker than the cracks in the night sky.

Emma stands watching our friends talk, her face blank of expression.

“I love you, Em,” I tell her at the door.

Just inside the house she turns back to me and says, “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

The door swings shut on me and Jason, his unwavering loyalty and my sickening guilt.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Morning steals into my room. I roll to my side and regret it – my jaw hurts where Trent punched me. Instinct says to be angry, he’d been my personal pain in the butt for years. He should still be living, pestering me.

He’s not.

My memory dredges up the image I don’t want to see, Trent lying dead at my girlfriend’s feet, bloody because of me. And he wasn’t the only victim: Sam Ashton, girls I didn’t know, security guards, possibly more. Bodies twisting, faces grimacing in pain, puddles of dark vomit. How did I ever fall asleep after witnessing the hell the Reindeer Games became? Sometime in the night’s waning hours my frayed nerves finally gave way to exhaustion after Bree texted that Emma was safe in bed.

Em’s white cat Renfield gives me a surly noise when I dislodge him from my cellphone. I’m not sure if he’s waiting for Emma’s ringtone, or trying to muffle it.

No new messages according to my display screen. My screensaver picture of a Whitetail buck fades into the messaging program. I tap on Em’s thread, and write:
The truth is, at night, the memories are his – you are my dream
. I’m not sure what’s happening, but you are not alone
.

“Alex?” Gran’s voice carries up the stairs. “Breakfast is ready.”

Sitting to a Sunday pancake breakfast with my grandparents seems so unreal. Normal life, after all of this hardly seems possible.

“I’m not very hungry,” I call down the stairs. My stomach is coiled into a knot, and I may not be capable of untying it.

“Then don’t eat,” Grandpa responds. His steely timbre carries from one floor to the other. He’s been my grandfather long enough for me to know my butt’s about to go through the ringer.

“Coming down,” I answer.

A vibration from my cellphone announces a text. Apprehension filters through me. The last thing to hit this phone was the picture of Emma by the Reindeer Games marquee. Before that, we received the video of her at Ascension’s gates. The first morning, when Em returned to me, Bree sent me the one of Em on my father’s property, killing the animals. The list of suspects shrank to Paul and Hailey.

Holding my breath, I lift the phone and look at the display screen. A text from Emma.

I never want to be alone, either. I’m scared I’m losing myself and no one will be able to find me
.

I couldn’t save her from death, either. Can I save her from losing her mind?

The pent breath escapes in a rush.

I will find you
,
I text in reply,
no matter what. I’ll talk to Paul today. There must be something we’ve missed. We will beat this
.

My closet is cold, the wood heat never reaches all the nooks and crannies like regular furnace heat does. I pull on a pair of jeans, then layer a couple of long-sleeve T-shirts and grab the leather jacket Emma talked me into buying right after Thanksgiving.

The cat is so close on my heels I’m half afraid I’ll bump Renfield in the nose all the way down the stairs. He follows tight to me into the kitchen, then veers off toward the food bowl.

“Sit,” Grandpa commands. Identical military tattoos on his forearms peek from his rolled-up sleeves.

“Yessir.” I sink to the chair directly across from him, squarely in the path of his narrowed glance. Gran passes the pancakes and I put them off to the side. Both grandparents sigh. My grandmother won’t take “no thank you” for an answer when it comes to scrambled eggs or sausage, though. “You need your protein, Alex,” she tells me.

I pick at the food, and wither beneath Grandpa’s unflinching focus.

“Do you know anything about what’s been on the news?” he asks.

“I don’t know what’s been on the news,” I hedge. The Reindeer Games, has to be. It’s bigger news than the blizzard coming our way.

As if to demonstrate how correct I am, Grandpa presses the power button on the remote by his morning paper. The TV comes to life, the news channel running a segment filmed outside the VFW hall. In the video clip, it’s still night and filmed from across the street, a full view of the madness we narrowly escaped. An ambulance sits to the edge of the walkway, doors open, a paramedic leads Tiffany Schultz toward the vehicle. Tiffany’s clutching my jacket around her like she’s trying to ward off the rest of the world.

“Well?” Grandpa prods.

“I don’t know what happened.” True enough. I stood in the middle of that room, and my brain isn’t able to process what I saw even now. Last night is bits and pieces of horror film cuttings running through a projector, a flash of this death, a glimpse of someone suffering.