by Kate Morris
He shook his head. “No, we can. It’s just that…”
After he didn’t answer, Wren prompted him, “What?”
“It sounds paranoid, but are people covering this up? I mean, that video tonight and that podcast guy, they acted like this was some big conspiracy theory cover-up.”
She nodded because she’d been wondering the same thing. “I know. It sounds crazy.”
They were quiet while he heated up food he insisted on sharing, which was really good. It was probably even better because she didn’t have to make it for a change. It was some sort of Chinese style chicken with white rice. His portion was huge, taking up the whole plate, but she took a small amount. Her nerves felt too frayed to relax and enjoy a meal.
“Where’s your brother?” she asked.
“Still on the job site,” he said. “Your uncle?”
She nodded. “Right. Same. Do you think the cops’ll find something in the school?”
“Unless it’s gone.”
“It?”
He shrugged, and Wren wished he would’ve put on a shirt. It was distracting. Every time he moved, some muscle group or another on his chest or arms would jump or flex.
“Wren, what do you think?” he asked.
“Wh-what?” she stammered, to which he chuckled. She’d been staring at his shoulders. Did he know that? Was that why he was laughing? She frowned and looked down at her food instead.
“I said maybe they aren’t human,” he suggested.
She looked at him with confusion. “What’s that mean? Of course, they are. We’ve seen three.”
“Yeah, but what if they’re something else now?”
Wren didn’t understand what he meant by that. With great hesitancy, she asked slowly, “What else would they be?”
“Something…new,” he pondered and stared into her eyes.
“Like evolution or something?”
He shook his head, “Just mutated. What if this flu is mutating people’s DNA, changing it somehow?”
“I think you watch too many sci-fi movies,” she joked and took a nervous drink of her Cherry Coke.
Elijah chuckled. “Maybe. I do like science fiction.”
This made her wonder about him, so she asked, “What are you going to major in at school? Other than football, of course.”
“Football’s not a major,” he corrected as if he were irritated. “It’s what I got a scholarship on, but it’s not my major.”
“So, what is? Beer pong? Chasing cheerleaders? Sorority parties?”
He grinned, “I don’t like beer. And no to chasing cheerleaders. Chasing secretive girls who carry guns is obviously more my thing lately.”
She puffed through her nose. His grin was provocative in nature. He was daring her to question him. She took another sip instead.
“No?” he taunted, realizing she wasn’t taking the bait. “I’m majoring in business with a minor in finance.”
“Whoa, I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Well, you can’t play football forever. If I get lucky enough to get drafted to the NFL, which my brother and coaches think I will, then I’ll be coming into a lot of money. I want to know how to handle it. I don’t want to be one of those dumb jocks that blows their money on cars and fat pads and women or whatever. Alex and I would eventually like to go into business together. I could run the financial end of it, and he could get the business off the ground. He’s good with that, schmoozing and working that end.”
“What kind of business?” she asked with curiosity.
“Concrete company,” he said. “It’s what he’s doing now. He likes certain aspects of it but would like to run his own crew and be a fifty-fifty owner of the business instead.”
“Wow, ambitious,” she remarked.
“I like the idea of the financial end of it,” he said. “My dad was like that, too. Alex says that’s where I get it. I like math, accounting, financial planning is cool.”
“Sounds fun,” she repeated him dryly. “And super hot.”
He laughed loudly this time. “Hey, there could be hot accountants out there. Ya’ never know.”
“You’d be the first,” she quipped.
He pounced, “You think I’m hot?”
“What?” she asked and choked on her drink. “Wait. No, that’s not what I meant. Anyway, about your brother. He’s gonna be the job foreman or something?”
He eyed her up and went back to his food with an ornery grin.
“Yeah, Alex has a lot of great ideas. He’s really creative, too. Does a lot of the design work for his boss now. You should see some of the projects they’ve done before. Not this stadium job, but at residences. Stone walls, paved patios that are stamped with designs. He has an eye for detail and working the landscaping aspect into it.”
“Cool,” she remarked.
“I could drive you around tomorrow. Show you some of them.”
“I don’t know,” she retreated quickly.
“What about you?” he asked. “You’re fast-tracking senior year. Must be a reason. Did you pick a college to go to, or are you just gonna join the Army and be the first G.I. Joe girl? Carry around that .45 and shoot terrorists.”
She smiled at his humor, noticed that he recognized the caliber of her pistol, and shook her head. “No, not going into the Army. Besides, I don’t even think I could.”
Crap. She hadn’t meant to say that. Why did Elijah always pull information from her? Her guard was always way too far down around him. He should scrap his business plans and become an interrogator for the FBI or CIA or something. Interpol.
“Why couldn’t you go?”
“Nothing,” she evaded. He never missed anything. That was a problem, too. She wasn’t sure if she could join the U.S. Army because she was not an actual U.S. citizen.
“So, no to the Army. But what then? College?”
She nodded and scolded herself again. Dammit. This had to stop. She had to stop being around Elijah, talking to him, hanging out together. All of it.
“I should go,” she said and stood as the back door opened and slammed shut loudly.
“Bro! You locked me out? What the hell? It’s raining goats and ponies out there!”
Wren furrowed her brow at the strange expression, and Elijah shook his head and chuckled. He seemed a little nervous.
“I need to go,” she blurted and attempted a dash to the laundry room when his brother walked into the kitchen looking down at a stack of envelopes, probably their mail.
“…and then this finisher lost his shit and started hitting Joseph with a fuckin’ hammer and…” He spotted her and froze mid-sentence.
“Hey,” Elijah said quietly to his brother.
“Hey,” Alex returned.
“Alex, this is Wren,” he said, to which his brother’s left eyebrow shot up. “Remember? From the festival?”
“Hi,” she said, sending a small and uncomfortable wave in his direction. Elijah wasn’t wearing a shirt. She was standing in his kitchen in just his shirt. It was obviously his. This looked very, very bad. She felt branded by his shirt, too, wearing his name and football number on her body. “I was just leaving.”
She dashed into the laundry room, yanked open the door to the dryer and began tugging on her clothes. She could hear him talking to his brother in the kitchen but couldn’t make out the words. Wren couldn’t see well enough inside the dryer to find her shirt since he’d thrown their clothes in together, so she just pulled on her leather jacket and abandoned the tank top and shirt. Her jeans were still damp, but she managed to get them on. Then she grabbed her boots and tugged them on but didn’t bother tying the laces. It all took about twenty seconds. She knew how to dress quickly. Once she had everything, she cracked the door open slightly and listened.
“…yeah, I understand, but you know the rules, Elijah,” Alex was stating, his voice as deep as his brother’s.
“I know,” Elijah answered. “It’s not like that. We’re lab partners. We got caught in the
rain. She was soaked. I didn’t want her to drive home like that.”
“It looked like more than that to me, Elijah. Is that why you’ve been acting so different lately? Is it this girl?”
There was silence. She dared not breathe it was so quiet.
Then a long sigh, “Elijah, come on. Seriously? Don’t do this, man. You’re so close to getting everything you hoped for. Don’t blow this.”
“I’m not, Alex. I don’t know. I can’t explain it. She’s just…”
She couldn’t hear the rest, couldn’t bear it. Wren barged out into the room and announced, “Thanks for drying my clothes. See ya’ later.”
“Wait,” Elijah said as she spun and fled. “Wren, wait.”
She didn’t. She kept going until she got in her car and took off. When they’d gone through that tunnel, Wren had turned off her phone so that it didn’t ring and alert someone. She had been worried about being caught by a teacher or Principal Pothead.
If Elijah’s brother was home, then her uncle probably was too. This was all because she was being too careless by spending time with him. That wasn’t going to happen anymore.
Wren tried not to speed, but her foot became heavier on the pedal as she got closer to home. It didn’t matter. He was there when she pulled in the drive, and the second she walked through the door, she could tell she was in trouble.
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling and calling,” Uncle Jamie barked.
“Sorry, I was at the library studying,” she lied.
“I drove by there, Wren,” he said. “I didn’t see your car.”
“Cameras in the lot,” she pointed out. “I didn’t want to create a pattern since I’ve been going there so much lately, so I parked on the street a few blocks away.”
He paused and considered whether or not she was lying before asking, “Why’d you turn off your phone? You know that’s unacceptable.”
“I was trying to be quiet. Library, remember?”
“Then put it bloody damn well on vibrate,” he growled.
She stepped closer and said, “Sorry. Did you eat anything? I can heat up leftovers.”
“I ate,” he said with an irritated shake of his head. “Did you at least make your meeting?”
“Yes, did you?”
“No,” he answered. “I gotta go in Friday night.”
“Oh, okay. That sucks.”
He eyed her suspiciously. Wren felt herself pulling her jacket more closely together. She was still wearing Elijah’s shirt underneath. If he saw it, there would be more significant problems to explain away.
“Had to run through the rain,” she explained her appearance.
This time, his eyes narrowed. “Take a vitamin packet and grab a hot shower. I don’t want you getting sick. If I have to take you to a doctor, you know that’s always a pain in the ass.”
“Right. Sorry,” she apologized again. “I won’t get sick. I promise.”
He rambled and lectured for a few minutes while she endured it. Then a thought occurred to Wren.
“Hey, Jamie,” she barged in, “have you…have you heard anything about this flu thing that’s going around?”
His eyes jumped to hers. “Some. What do you know?”
Wren shrugged. “Not much. I know about the incident at the festival. Some people at school were talking about it.” More lies that felt like battery acid in her stomach. They’d never had this kind of a relationship before. She’d always been a hundred percent honest with him in all things. “Guess some sort of flu bug is going around that makes people act…weird.”
His chin rose a notch, and he looked at her with suspicion again. She didn’t like this new, dishonest thing that was going on between them. Wren felt like he also wasn’t telling her the truth.
“No,” he answered finally and went around checking doors and windows, his nightly routine. “Just stay away from people, Wren. You’re supposed to be anyway.”
“I know,” she acknowledged. “I just overheard it. That’s all.”
“Keep your nose down and your eyes open,” he warned and left the kitchen for his bedroom.
She took his advice and chugged some vitamin mix she stirred into a glass of water. Next was a shower where she lingered under the hot, stinging spray. Her skin crawled as she recalled that video they’d watched. That person, that thing which had slammed itself against the windowpane played out in her mind’s eye again and again, and every time, it caused her to flinch the same way. The eyes had been so bloodshot and insane.
As she dried off a while later and dressed in warm pajamas, Wren couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever had hit the door to the tech center was the same thing that had bashed its own head into the glass window of that hospital door in the video. It caused her to shiver and not just because her hair was still damp.
She received a text message sound and picked up her phone.
Coming to the game Friday night?
She replied with:
Who is this?
Ouch, that was painful. You sure do know how to kill a guy’s ego.
????
It’s me, Elijah. Geeze
This was followed by a sad emoji face.
Wren instantly grew angry and began typing.
How’d you get my number?
She tapped her toe on the floor of her bedroom, then locked the door and plopped down onto the bed.
I synced to yours when you were doing arm extensions on the machine. You had me hold your phone, remember? Never give a guy your phone. Just a tip for the future. I could’ve uploaded dick pics on there for you.
Wren’s eyes narrowed. If he was trying to be funny, it wasn’t working. She had the perfect response:
I would’ve needed to enlarge the photo about 500% to detect it.
Laughing emoji, followed by the one with the character laughing so hard it was crying. Then a horse emoji. She returned that with a question mark and got a quick response.
Never mind. SO? Are you coming?
She thought about this for a minute. He texted again.
It’s a home game.
This message was followed by a football emoji. Then a happy face and some pom-poms. She groaned.
I have plans.
Doing what? Cleaning your gun? Sexy.
None of your business.
Hot date?
Yes.
Haha, sure.
You don’t know me well enough to decide that I don’t have a date, Brannon.
I’ve got your number, Australia.
Wren growled to the empty room. He was aggravating.
I hope I look up and see you in the stands Friday night.
An emoji for binoculars popped up, and she had to force herself not to laugh. He wasn’t funny. He was just…annoying.
How would you see me past your own inflated head?
Ha! You are pretty funny, did you know that? See you tomorrow night?
No.
A guy can hope. Winking emoji.
I think you are so annoying
He responded with:
Maybe, but at least you’re thinking about me. I know I’m thinking about you.
Again, you are just annoying. I think you missed that part.
Wren figured he must’ve gone to bed because there was a long pause. Then no answer at all, so Wren got into bed, plugged in her phone, and pulled the covers to her chin. He said he was thinking about her. Why? She was leaving soon. Why would he bother with her at all? Just when she was comfortable and ready to fall asleep, her phone bleeped again, of course.
And you are beautiful, Wren Foster.
Something in her gut shifted. Damn Elijah Brannon. She had to steer clear of that boy. He was nothing but trouble.
He looked around the room at the small group of people he was with and wondered which one of them would be next. Maybe it would be him. Immunity wasn’t guaranteed. People were dropping like flies. Some were killed, exterminated. Others had to be killed to protect those who coul
d not protect themselves. He’d done that, too. It wasn’t something he ever wanted to repeat.
Rising to check the room once again, he wandered closer to the window. They were out there. He knew it. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach, and his hand tightened on the baseball bat. Ammunition wasn’t going to last forever, but God had seen fit to give him a few other skills to deal with this.
He ended his perimeter check where he always did, near her. She was asleep, her hands clasped and resting under her head for a pillow. She didn’t deserve this. She’d been through so much. This was no way for anyone to end their life- surrounded by monsters, consumed by fear, worried whether or not they’d see another sunrise.
Chapter Thirteen
The day flew by, and he barely saw her. She skipped first period, ate lunch somewhere else not even in the library because he’d checked, and missed Graphic Design, an elective computer class in the tech lab. Then he’d had to skip Chemistry because the coach wanted him in the physical therapy wing to get worked over. He sent her a text but didn’t get a reply. By the time his therapy and massage were done, it was time to head home and eat before the game.
As he drove, Elijah found himself wondering what happened last night when the sheriff went to the school. He’d gone in early and run up to the biology class to check on the birds and found it locked, the lights off. He wanted to peek inside, but newspaper was taped over the glass from the inside to prevent it. He also didn’t see the biology teacher anywhere. Crossing the hall, he looked at the tech center door that had been so accosted last night. There were scratches on it. Those weren’t there last night when they’d gone through it. It was a wooden door, probably not very solid, either, because in the middle of it, the wood was splintered as if someone raged out and punched it with their fists. Only the dents were much wider than what someone’s fist could’ve done. When he looked closer, he thought he saw a few pin dot sized spots of red, which he figured was blood. What had been up here with them last night?
When he got home, he was surprised to see Alex’s car in the drive. He should’ve been at work until game time. He needed to eat and relax a few hours before the game. He always ate a heavy dose of protein with a salad before a game. It just worked for him. This sort of meal balanced with a good carbs to protein ratio gave him the energy he needed to get through the game. Today, he was having grilled chicken, steamed broccoli, half of a baked potato, and a salad. His brother had cooked the chicken last night- right after he’d bitched and railed at him for a long time about spending too much time with a girl. He didn’t care. He wasn’t going to stop talking to her. He wasn’t also going to allow himself to get too attached, either. Mainly for two reasons. He didn’t need the distraction; his brother was right. But, also, she was leaving in a few months. And she clearly didn’t like him. That also didn’t help.