My throat goes thick. I know why she battles me in her nightmares. I’m the bad guy. Even now she’s checking for the best exit.
This was stupid, I think. She’s still got her hand pressed over my heart. I take her fingers and entwine them with mine. The action’s enough to drag her focus to me. “Allie, I—”
“Did you hear that?” she interrupts, her words clipped. And then, she twists fully, her back to me.
I scan the woods. “There’s nothing there,” I tell her.
I’m watching closer now. Watching her hands, one hovering at her waist, near the holstered knife. The other has been on me since we stopped. Allie’s a fighter. Her resurrectionist cluster raised her to protect herself. She wouldn’t leave herself vulnerable if she thought I was the threat.
“You’re not afraid of me.” I’m so surprised, I say it out loud.
She whips toward me, confused at my relief. “Of course not!” She softens as my tension dissolves. “Why would you think I’m afraid of you?”
“Allie,” I whisper. I lean forward, too scared of her reaction. Her lips are stiff with surprise when I meet them, but then she melts into the kiss. Her fingers clutch my shirt as she tugs me closer.
“What’s gotten into you?” she asks, a laugh buried in the question as she throws her arms around my neck. “You’re being totally weird today!”
Before I can gather my courage, her mouth presses hard against mine, hungry. Her scent is in my lungs. Her fingers stroke the nape of my neck and then her lips are at my throat and I’m lost in the sensation. My breath stalls. My entire body buzzes to get closer to her, take her in, make her mine. We kiss there beside the river before she sighs contentedly and leans against me, her chin propped against my chest.
I run my fingers through a few strands of hair that slipped loose from her ponytail. “What’s got your nerves so shot?”
The joy slips from her. I hate how I know I have to question her now, when she feels vulnerable, for a chance at an answer. If we make it to the apartment, she’ll have those walls rebuilt.
She licks her lips. At the shoreline, the ripples lap quietly. “Before Sarah…” She winces and trails off. “Because of my parents…” They, too, were murdered because of the blood, the gene. She raises a hand to wipe her forehead. Her nose scrunches before she blurts, “I don’t want to resurrect anymore.”
She swallows hard, like she’s dropped some sort of epic bombshell. I’m not sure how to respond. After a long second, she starts to pace, her steps crushing the tall grass at the creek’s edge.
“Every second of every day I wonder how my life is going to get worse,” she says. “On the next call, will I resurrect a child and then charge the parents enough to take the food out of their mouths? Or maybe the job is a trap? Am I being watched? Will my next mistake end with me gutted? Then again,” she says, holding her palm up. “I miss a call, no one else is close? It’s my fault that person stays dead.”
She bends to grab a stone and then fires it across the surface of the water. It skips twice and disappears. “It’s exhausting,” she says. “Every decision I make ends up wrong.”
“That’s not true,” I break in if only to comfort her.
She hugs herself, watching the wide creek as it burbles past. “When I moved to Fissure’s Whipp, I told Sarah I was out. Talia knows, but she expects I’ll come around. I mean, I’m supposed to be in charge of the cluster now. People are depending on me.” She pauses and then she deflates. “Honestly, I’m ridiculous to fight it. I need the money.” Her hopeless eyes meet mine. “But I don’t want to do it anymore.”
“Then don’t! We’re good,” I promise. We’ve been searching for jobs. “How many applications have we put in? Ten each? Twenty? More?”
“Not enough,” she insists. “Not in time.” As she trudges toward the embankment, I catch her and spin her roughly to me.
“In time for what?”
Allie’s silent for a long beat. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I think I screwed us both.”
She licks her lips, hesitating.
“I moved out of Sarah’s place and into the apartment a couple months ago, and since then, she covered my bills. It was only supposed to be until I got on my feet. But now that she’s… She should have had business accounts. Money. If it’s there at all, it’ll take time to track down. It might be under assumed names and the fire wiped out all the paperwork. As far as I can tell, I wasn’t on it yet anyway. It should have been decades before I took over.”
“Allie, what are you trying to say?”
“Rent’s due in two weeks,” she says. “Not to mention utilities.” Her throat bobs as she swallows. “My bank account is at zero.”
“What?” I remember our trip to the grocery store a week ago, the extra bag of chips I grabbed, a package of cookies I dropped into the cart. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I thought I could fix it. I assumed I’d get a job and there’d be time to—I didn’t want you to get worried.”
My anger flares. “Stop acting like I’m along for the damn ride,” I say through gritted teeth before I force a breath. “You should have told me.”
I stare into the water, watch as the current slings loose a dirty plastic bottle. It slows, catches in a patch of cattails and spins twice before it goes under. I’m doing math in my head, frantic rounding, zeroes.
“I don’t know what to do,” she says. “Sarah always told me the next step in the plan.”
She stares at me as if she expects me to fill the role of her dead aunt, but I’ve got nothing. “What am I supposed to say here, Allie?” I ask.
“You’re supposed to say I’m being stubborn. You’re supposed to say I need to give in, start resurrecting again, run the cluster. Grow up.” She pauses. “Before one of my resurrectionists gets hurt, I need to root out those hunters Jamison found.”
She says his name as if speaking it aloud will raise the dead. He wanted her blood, her freedom, her powers for himself.
But I couldn’t let him have her.
When I imagine anyone laying an unkind hand on Allie, a spike of rage splits my brain. If one of those hunters even attempts to touch her, I’ll gut them.
The ferocity of the thought scares me. Jamison was my best friend. I came too close to choosing wrong, choosing him, to deny something inside me is wrong, dark, evil. Being with her means I can never, ever let that part of me see sunlight.
“I should have told you,” Allie says in a voice brimming with shame.
I shrug, the movement too casual for the riot inside of me.
I’m not going back to the Boxcar Camp. I can’t deal with night after night staring up at the leaking metal roof, lucky to scrounge a meal, wishing for shoes not held together by duct tape. I think of desperate dreams and believing in the riches we’d earn from resurrectionist blood and “a few more days” day after day after day. I think of the stench of the swamps and the heat and the mosquitos and the discarded needles half-buried in the gravel around the abandoned tracks. I think of finding Brandon’s gutted body where I typically laid my sleeping bag. How I ran to Allie, to the only safe place I had left.
Allie doesn’t run. She’s no coward.
There’s a difference, though, in being brave and being easy prey. Jamison was working with a group here in Fissure’s Whipp. Allie’s right. “We need to find the hunters. That’s the first step.”
“How?” she asks.
“We’ll figure it out,” I say, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“And the rent?”
“Let me work on it, okay?” I spent the last year busking for change downtown. A couple weeks’ haul won’t be enough to cover expenses for both of us, but at least I’ll be contributing. “We’ll get the rent in time.”
“You’re not going to tell me it’s stupid to stop resurrecting?” she asks.
It honestly never occurred to me. “You said you don’t want to anymore.”
She clutc
hes her elbows, folding in on herself. “Thank you,” she whispers before uncertainty clouds her expression. “If I lose the apartment—” She cuts off and gives her head a sharp shake. “If the hunters find me and you get in the way—”
In the way? I can’t help the bitter sound that breaks from me. Except this isn’t the time. “It’s going to be fine,” I say, rubbing my hands over her arms. “We’re going to be fine. I promise.”
We stare out at the water and then almost at the same moment move toward the path.
“Hey,” she says, stopping me just before I start the trek up the embankment. “Thanks for showing me this place. It’s pretty here.”
“No problem.”
Her fingers drift across my cheek. There’s a question in her eyes, like I said something wrong or she’s expecting more and I think maybe, maybe, this could be the moment.
Tell her. It’s three words and I can’t get them out. Three words caught in my throat. Three words clinging to the roof of my mouth.
Three words unspoken as Allie turns from me and leads us to the apartment while I trail behind her the same coward I’ve always been.
Allie
After the date I ruined, we pass the morning in silence. Every few minutes, I raise my phone to swipe the screen, check for missed calls, nonexistent offers for interviews that are starting to feel mythical. All it takes is one, I tell myself over and over.
When we got home from the river, Christopher asked if other resurrectionist clusters would shelter us. We talked about worst-case scenarios. He offered the Boxcar Camp as a potential temporary hideout. The instant emptiness in his voice ruled out the possibility for me. I won’t let him go back there. Never again. He mentioned making a run for it, to parts unknown. Hopping a train to anywhere. Never once did he ask me to reconsider resurrecting. Never once did he suggest I quit later, when it’s more convenient, when I’d saved enough to cover a few months of uncertainty.
Finally, as the apartment heats from uncomfortable to sweltering, Christopher strips the phone from my grip and sets it on the scarred end table beside the couch. The urgency in his fingertips on the damp skin of my shoulder calls me closer.
Christopher kisses me like he’s trespassing. Sweat trickles down my neck, rolls over my spine to seep into the material of my tank top. I think about taking the shirt off, what he would do if I did, what I would want him to do. His knee edges in between my legs, pressing into the couch cushion under us and tilting me hard to the right. His fingers hop the button of my jeans and hide against my hip in the newfound inch of space. I moan as his mouth presses a trail that skirts the edge of my collarbone.
“More,” I whisper against his throat. His mouth plunders my thoughts, stealing my breath. The oscillating fan rotates in our direction. I shiver. His muscles flex and roll under my fingertips as I arch from the cushions and against him.
“More, huh?” he says in a teasing whisper.
“I—” Licking my lips, I pause, sudden nerves flooding through me. Aside from Christopher, I can count the guys I’ve kissed on one hand and have fingers left over. I haven’t exactly had what anyone would consider a normal teenager’s experience. Being a resurrectionist didn’t leave time for much, other than training.
He’s still with me, even though I hurt him. He’s still with me, even though the hunters could be monitoring me, standing by for an opportunity. Still with me, even though it’s dangerous, even though everyone else I love is dead.
Not that I love him.
Oh my God, I think suddenly. Do I love him? My nerves tumble into surprise.
Those trespassing fingers at my hip halt, lift away unchecked as he takes in my hesitation. Suddenly, he rocks forward for one last kiss and then flops beside me on the couch. I lower my legs to the floor. Our make-out session is over. Even with the fan on full speed, the heat drives a space between us.
I sit, my stomach in knots, desperate to find something to say, explain what just happened. I’m getting my feelings mixed up, overthinking things. He and I are not a couple. I don’t know what I want…even if I want it with him. We return to watching the small screen of the television as if nothing happened.
I can’t love him.
If I love him, I’ll have to tell him I can’t be the one to save him. Two weeks until the landlord gets angry about the late rent. Three weeks at most before I’m looking at an eviction notice. This time, Christopher and I will both be without a roof over our heads and it will be my fault.
He laughs at the movie and I stare around the room, cataloguing. The TV stand (old and tilting dangerously) won’t survive a move. The couch we’re on is far too heavy. Actually, all the furniture is bulky. In the three months I’ve been here, I’ve amassed a handful of appliances: toaster, coffee maker, a dinky ten-dollar grinder for the fresh roasted beans I used to splurge on.
My throat goes tight. Sarah must have set something aside for me in case this happened. Before the house had gone up in flames, while Sarah’s body had still been in the living room, I’d sought out a hidden envelope meant for me in case I needed a quick getaway. The name on the fake ID hadn’t connected to any accounts I could find, and I’d spent the couple hundred bucks within days. Later, Talia and I sifted through the wreckage of the burned house for bank statements or paperwork and found nothing. There’d been little remaining inside the house, the ribs of the second story jutting from charred walls, everything else collapsed and sopping and blackened. After hours of poking and prodding, we scrounged a few journals in a lockbox, a saltshaker, and half a box of Christmas ornaments.
It took me days to get the smoke smell off my skin.
All you have to do is resurrect and at least your money problems are over, I think. The idea of it makes me sick. That money is from extorting vulnerability beyond description. Not to mention, the blood running through my veins seems to be a death sentence, a clock ticking down as my enemies close in on me. First Jamison, now the group he left behind. So far, I’m not doing a damn thing to stop them.
Christopher clears his throat pointedly.
“Yeah?” I say, pasting a smile onto my lips. It’s obvious he’s been trying to get my attention.
“Where were you just then?” he asks.
It’s a dangerous question. I could have been thinking about the cellar at Jamison’s or the cleaners who took him away, their van of chemicals and disposal secrets and silence.
Christopher watches me.
A blush heats my cheeks. I use it to my advantage. “You,” I say as I give my eyes an exaggerated roll. “And me.”
He breaks into a grin. “Yeah?” he says and leans to wrestle me into his arms. His touch sneaks toward my stomach and I screech a laugh as he tickles, the tension dissolving. “Swear?”
Giggles break from me, louder as he joins in and then silences them with a kiss. It’s the only reason we hear the sharp knock on the door.
Christopher releases a dramatic groan. “My biggest fan,” he says and it’s almost amused enough to hide the hurt that flashes across his expression.
“Stop,” I say, my tone light, to match his, as if this is all a game. “Talia doesn’t hate you that much.”
He raises an eyebrow at the lie.
“She takes time to warm up to people,” I say.
“She leveled a gun on me two weeks ago,” he deadpans. “If anything, she’s gotten less enthusiastic about me being around you since then.”
Christopher and I haven’t talked about what’s happening between us, and until it’s crystal clear, I’d rather Talia thinks he’s still only occasionally spending the night instead of crashing on my couch full-time. Because he’s right. I can’t picture a scenario where Talia will ever be Team Christopher.
His lips brush mine and he grins against my mouth. “Kick her ass for me,” he whispers.
I nod against him before we separate and I grab my gym bag where it rests near his pack.
“I’m taking off once you leave,” he says. “I’ll be back later
tonight, okay?”
“Sounds good.” I head for the door.
Even counting the time searching the ruins of the fire at Sarah’s, I haven’t spoken much to Talia since the night at the farmhouse. Barely enough to straighten out our stories for the affidavits we had to fill out explaining what happened. According to our official reports, I’d gotten caught up tracking a suspected hunter when he turned the tables on Talia and I, and he kidnapped us. We were able to kill him and escape.
No mention of Christopher because technically, he too, hunted us. If another cluster stumbles across that little detail, it won’t only be him in danger. In covering for him, Talia and I betrayed our own kind. While I accepted the risk, Talia got dragged along for the ride. I owe her a hell of a lot of favors. And we both know she can bring down me and everything I care about with a comment to the wrong person. Best friend or not, it’s leverage she’ll use against me, eventually.
I close the door and lock up out of habit even though Christopher’s still inside. Talia’s already halfway down the hall. I trail behind her, down the stairs, through the rose garden’s path to where her SUV is parked at the curb.
As I climb in, I wonder if today’s the day she cashes in one of her favors. When she does, it’s going to cost me.
A thin ribbon of blood stretches from my mouth and drips to the floor. Bent over, I groan. The split on my inner lip throbs where Talia punched me.
The gym we use is tucked in a small strip mall, the front room made to resemble a business perpetually outside of office hours with an unmanned receptionist’s desk and a quad of cubicles. The door is accessible by a passcode and swipe card combo that keeps the public from entering. In the back room, out of sight of the picture windows, is a larger area that holds a variety of machines and equipment along with a padded fifteen-foot square meant for the dirty fighting those with our aggressive ability to heal dare risk. Because it’s resurrectionists only, and because there are so few of us in Fissure’s Whipp, the gym’s usually empty. Today’s no exception. Talia and I have been sparring alone for the last hour and a half.
Something Grave: The Resurrectionists Series book two Page 2