The A-Word

by Joy Preble

  Shit, I thought, getting foggier by the nano second. Shit. Shit.

  I rammed my shaking hand in my pocket. I was still new to phone ownership. And my fingers felt like clumsy sausages. But I’d put Amber Velasco on speed dial as Number 5. Maybe I …

  “You’re not …” I said, nausea rushing through me. “You son of a …”

  “Maybe I better take those,” said Terry’s voice. I felt but didn’t see him lift the cup from my hand as I slid from the chair.

  This time I was sure I was dreaming. I wanted to wake up. I knew there was a reason I should wake up. But my eyes were so heavy I couldn’t force them open.

  Voices. I tried again to open my eyes. See who was talking. But I couldn’t. I tried to move my arms and legs. Couldn’t do that either. I could breathe. I could feel my heart beating, slower than I thought it should. I should be panicking. I should be … I couldn’t remember. I could hear two people talking. That was it.

  “You hired me to run this lab,” said the first voice. It sounded familiar. Who?

  “We hired you to do a lot of things,” a second voice said.

  This one I didn’t recognize. “Not litter the floor with bodies.”

  “But they knew about the sample drink bottles.”

  “And whose fault is that?”

  “But—”

  “Shut up. When I leave, you’ll deal with it.”

  “But my girlfriend will be suspicious if—”

  “She’s not your girlfriend, McClain. You think we don’t know that? We’ve been watching you since Austin. Five damn years, you idiot. You think we don’t know the little EMT dumped your cheating ass?”

  I tried again to pry my eyes open. Voice one was Terry McClain.

  Was I dreaming? Was I awake? Why couldn’t I move my arms and legs? Wait. I could wiggle my fingers. But my hands … were they behind my back? I tried to make my arms reach for my pocket. If I could get my cell out, then maybe I could at least dial 911. If this wasn’t a dream.

  Terry said, “What should I do?”

  The other voice laughed gruffly. Why couldn’t I open my damn eyes? I felt so tired. Where was Ryan? Where was Mags?

  “What you should do is what we’re paying you for. You saw your apartment back in Austin, didn’t you? You knew then who you were dealing with.”

  “That was a burglary.” Terry’s voice was shaking.

  “More or less. The police didn’t catch the burglars because we caught them first. They screwed up, like you did. They lied, like you are right now. Your loyal girlfriend was home when she wasn’t supposed to be. And they swore they’d taken care of it. But we all know they didn’t. Because she’s still here, and you’re still buying her expensive jewelry.”

  “You can’t know …”

  I faded out then. I don’t know how long. But they were still talking when I faded back in. My eyes opened just a tiny slit. I saw Terry in his lab coat. The other guy was tall, his back to me. Through my squinty vision, I could see that his hair was dark blond, and he was wearing some kind of heavy boots. My eyes glued shut again.

  “The test worked,” Terry said. “Every kid demonstrated the desired symptoms. I mean, there was a goddamn lightning strike. A girl almost died. None of them remember. But it’s not like I could bring them in for cognitive testing. And that was just a miniscule amount. What I’ve been testing on the mice is full strength. One dose and those mice don’t know what hit them. It’s going to work exactly as you want it to. I’ve distributed the first two shipments to those addresses. Just like you directed. One dose is all it will take.”

  “And I should take your word for this?” said the other voice.

  Terry coughed nervously. But his tone was definite when he said, “There’s no one better at this than I am. You know that. That’s why you came to me.”

  A pause.

  “Clean up this mess, and we’ll see. And don’t try calling the cops and confessing. Last time someone tried that, it didn’t turn out well for him. Try looking up Dr. Stuart Renfroe, MD. See what you find. Big nothing.”

  And then the other guy was gone.

  Terry McClain, as far as I could see, which wasn’t very far, was alone. He fidgeted with something at a lab table across the room, muttering to himself. I couldn’t move, but I could sense someone beside me. I willed my fuzzy eyes to shift, and there was Ryan.

  Had it been real? A dream? I wasn’t sure.

  Here’s what I was sure of:

  • I was lying on the floor in Terry’s lab, my hands tied tight behind my back.

  • Ryan Sloboda was lying next to me, his eyes closed, alive. I knew this because his chest was rising and falling.

  • I was a big idiot.

  • Amber and I would be having a HUGE CHAT about picking boyfriends.

  • This was possibly the last time I was going to wear my new signature jeans and favorite cowgirl boots.

  I made sure Terry wasn’t paying attention, then wriggled to my side, twisting my tied hands this way and that. “Ryan,” I whispered.

  He moaned but didn’t open his eyes. My right hand tugged loose, just a little, from whatever was holding it. My spirits lifted. Terry McClain was a genius at manipulating pharmaceuticals, but that didn’t mean he had rope skills. I mean, look at Dave Pittman. He cut stuff into his baggies of weed all the time to stretch profits, and he wouldn’t be receiving any academic scholarships.

  There was a chance that I could keep wiggling my hands free. Also, Ryan wasn’t dead. I still had no idea where the hell Mags was, but better to focus on the positives.

  My thoughts were coming hot and heavy. Was Bo right? Was this whole thing seriously part of some Battle to Come? Was Terry a power player in some huge plot? Did Amber know this? Was she corrupt, too? Did Bo know? Was all this connected to Renfroe and Manny, somehow going all the way back to crazy olden Roman days? Was that even possible?

  Too many thoughts for my dizzy brain. Oddly, though, I did not feel panicked. In fact, I felt sort of unnaturally not panicked. Which then made me panic because I figured that the not-panic was from whatever drug Terry had put in that milk to knock us out for the count.

  A hand touched mine. I jerked, then realized it was Ryan. “Shh,” I whispered. Right at that moment, the panic kicked in and my heart started doing monster truck tricks in my chest cavity. But I guess that meant I was fully awake.

  Ryan wriggled right next to me. So close I could smell his Axe. “Can you sit up?” he whispered, his breath warm in my ear. My cheek was almost pressed against his. “If you can, I think I can untie you.”

  I nodded. Yes. And quietly wriggled around until I was sitting. Ryan did the same, scooting so we were back to back. He also seemed unnaturally calm—going with it rather than letting it panic him, which I found impressive. His fingers began working at my plastic ties.

  Unfortunately, Terry McClain started stomping around the lab, possibly getting ready to drug us again or kill us or drug us and then kill us.

  I felt the ties loosen a little. Two seconds later, they went slack. My wrists slipped free.

  “Got it!” he whispered. “Now do mine.”

  I scooted silently backward. Sweaty fingers fumbling, I found it surprisingly easy to undo. I could feel both our hearts thumping. But his body was still as a stone. Maybe he was channeling Tony Stark. I realized then that pretending to be brave was the exact same thing as real bravery.

  So we were free. I was a little nauseated still. Now what? Okay, I was more than nauseated. I made a gagging sound and worked hard not to throw up. Terry hadn’t heard us whispering or untying. But the gag he heard. He spun around. Saw us sitting up, hands free. Let me say his eyes got pretty wide.

  Turns out Ryan is an act now, think later kind of guy.

  With a shout, he bull-rushed Terry, knocking him to the floor. He kept his head up. He did not look at his feet. My brother would have been proud.

  “Sit on him!” I hollered.

  “Get off me!” Terry sho
uted.

  “You put poisoned milk in our coffees!” I shouted back, the first thing that popped into my head. I wanted to cause a scene. Because a scene would mean that we’d have witnesses. Sure enough, the lab geeks came running. But then I had a moment of true panic. Okay, more than a moment. What if it wasn’t just Terry? What if all of Texicon really was filled with corrupt mad scientists who kept drugged milk in their fridge?

  Two guys in lab coats, khakis, and white shirts grabbed Ryan under the arms and pulled him off Terry. They were remarkably fit for science geeks who spent their days killing off mice.

  “Get them out of here!” Terry shouted.

  Before I knew it, two other guys had grabbed me under my own armpits. The whole crew dragged us to the elevator and held us tight until we were down in the lobby. Mostly by then I was feeling glad we weren’t dead. More thoughts, hot and heavy: Terry was involved in whatever had happened to Amber that day. Was this why she’d blocked it out? Had he done something to make her block it out? Or was it Bo, protecting her? And Terry really was connected to everything else! The Battle to Come—a reality! The drugs Renfroe had developed—a global threat! A Texas threat at least! Follow the riches, Bo had told me. I hated that I only knew he was right long after the fact.

  A-word land had swallowed me whole and had no plans to spit me out any time soon. The possibility of huge, bad things beyond just losing my family and my brother—all of this was real. Plus we were still in mortal danger. And Ryan Sloboda was probably going to run for the hills. If we got out of this alive.

  Terry was muttering something as the guys dragged us through the lobby. I gazed around wildly for Maggie, but didn’t see her. Shit.

  Fury bubbled hard in my veins. My chest was heaving. Terry McClain thought he was so smart! He didn’t care if he hurt a bunch of people. If he hadn’t given everyone the drugged power drinks then the stupid cheerleaders wouldn’t have forgotten they tossed Lanie in the air. My brother wouldn’t have had to save her. When that storm started, everyone would have run rather than milling around like lost sheep. Maybe they wouldn’t have even been on the field in the first place. The fury reached a boiling point and had nowhere else to go.

  “You cheated on Amber,” I hissed at Terry.

  His eyes bugged.

  “You engineered the break-in, didn’t you?”

  More eye-bugging. The lab guys dragged me faster across the smooth linoleum floor, preventing me from moving. Terry walked backward faster. We were almost to the big glass entranceway to Texicon.

  “Shut up,” he said. “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.”

  “Are you working with Renfroe?” I asked. It’s not like I expected him to answer, but I wanted to see the look on his face. He frowned. Puzzled. He honestly didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. I wondered if he’d heard that name for the first time just now.

  “Who are you giving memory drugs to?” I went on. “Who?”

  Atta girl, Jenna, I heard my brother’s voice say in my head. But enough with the damn owl thing. It’s getting old.

  This should have flummoxed me, but there wasn’t time to worry about it. At that exact moment the big glass doors of Texicon cracked and shattered into a million pieces.

  Amber and Bo strode in, Maggie Boland trotting behind them.

  In the movie version, they’d have been wearing long black duster coats flowing behind them in the breeze. Which they weren’t. Even so, their entrance was a bit overdramatic considering they were the only supernatural beings in the place—at least that I knew of. Sometimes it’s about how you deliver the message. Everybody cringed. Naturally: the front doors of a major corporation had shattered and there was glass all over their nice lobby.

  The lab guys stopped dragging us.

  Terry McClain let go of my hands and turned around to see what all the crashing was about. I scrambled to my feet and grabbed Ryan’s hand.

  “You cheated on me?” Amber cried.

  “Babe,” Terry said, sounding totally confused, for which I do not blame him. It was not the accusation any of us had expected. He did not know that she had died because of him. He did not know that she was dead. And maybe I would have felt the tiniest bit sorry for him had he not added, “It’s sort of your fault, you know. If you hadn’t asked me to research what was in the blood sample last year, then no one would have known I was still working on this project. Then they wouldn’t have …”

  He clapped a hand over his mouth. Didn’t say another word.

  Bo was glowing. I saw something rustle under his shirt near his shoulders and I knew it was his wings. Any second now, I figured he’d start spouting something like, “Stand still while I smite you, dickhead!”

  “Holy shit,” Ryan said.

  “I told you,” I hissed at him. “I thought you believed me.”

  “I did,” Ryan said. “But I—”

  If he said something else, I didn’t hear it. Because I was too busy gawking. Bo and Terry had vanished. Gone. Poof. Like the power going out in a hurricane but silently, without the cracking and zapping sound. My breath seized. My pulse leapt. Like Casey! But hey—Terry wasn’t an angel.

  “Jesus!” Ryan hollered and it sounded like he was mimicking my brother, who did not choose this moment to return.

  I looked around wildly, glass crunching beneath my feet as I turned this way and that. The lab guy henchmen—Were they in on it? Or just duped into helping?—whirled frantically, too. Then they bolted for the exit, scrabbling over the crunchy floor.

  “Stop,” said Amber. She did not shout. She did not gesture. Just said “stop,” calm as can be. They stopped.

  She squinched up her eyes like Casey had done at the ball field, skin glowing deep golden, something simmering inside her.

  “You never saw this,” she said. “There was a storm. Things happen.”

  Mags and Ryan and I exchanged silent looks of awed understanding. Damage control. My eyes flashed back to the lab henchmen. They were staring at Amber like she had just imparted the secrets to the universe.

  “Walk away,” Amber said. “It’s been a weird day. Shit happens.”

  The lab guys shuffled off. My mouth hung open—just a little—as I watched them go. Even the security guy appeared calm and collected.

  “You can do that?” I asked Amber. She didn’t even look at me as she strode toward the elevator.

  “Oh Jenna,” she said as she passed, so quiet I almost couldn’t hear her. “Of course I can.”

  “Holy cow,” Maggie said. “Holy f-ing cow.”

  “Screw the Avengers,” said Ryan, not whispering at all. “This is better than Agent Phil Coulson coming back from the dead.”

  “What the hell? Where are they?” That was me.

  “Rooftop,” Amber gasped. She was breathing hard like whatever she’d done had taken something out of her. “Let’s go before he does something even more stupid.”

  I had no idea how she knew or if she meant Bo or Terry. Probably both.

  HERE IS WHAT we saw when we rode the elevator to the roof and climbed up these little stairs and out the creaky metal door:

  • Bo Shivers standing with his toes over the edge of the roof, balanced perfectly, holding Terry McClain by the back of his lab coat.

  • Terry, toes over the edge. He did not look as comfortable with this.

  • Bo’s wings, fully extended—white and grey mixed, spanning so wide that he had to stretch out his arm to keep hold of Terry. He was glowing so brightly it hurt to look at him. He was a fearsome creature, Bo Shivers.

  “Don’t!” Amber shouted. “Bo. No.”

  Bo lifted Terry. His feet dangled in thin air.

  My heart ceased beating. One second. Then two. Then I exhaled sharply and it coughed back to life. I realized that Ryan was holding my hand. His fingers intertwined with mine, gripping tightly. Maggie was wide-eyed and silent.

  Amber’s gaze—dark, sad, painful—was trained on Terry McClain, the man she had loved. The man who had betraye
d her and lost her and then betrayed her again by hurting us, by setting in motion something I didn’t even understand … didn’t want to understand. Did Terry understand it? Probably not. Bo was right. People did enough damage to the world all on their own. Evil didn’t need any bigger source.

  “And now,” Bo said, his eyes also fixed on the man he was holding delicately in the air thirty stories up. “You are going to tell his what you did. You are not going to leave anything out. You must be held accountable, you know. That’s how this works.” His voice boomed so loud that I plucked my hand from Ryan’s and covered my ears.

  “Put him down,” I said.

  “Too late,” Bo thundered. He lifted Terry higher. Terry’s mouth opened and closed like a fish on a line.

  “Put him down,” I said again.

  “Miss Samuels,” said Bo Shivers, Texas slipping into his voice. “You’re gonna have to let me do my job. I hadn’t taken you for the squeamish type.”

  “Do what she says,” Ryan told him. His hand was shaking but his voice was firm.

  Maggie was crying. Maggie never cried. I couldn’t blame her. Maybe Amber could work some memory healing on her, just to make this whole thing less traumatic. But even as the thought flashed through my brain, I shoved it away. The truth hurts sometimes. It should hurt.

  “Talk,” Bo told Terry, tightening his grip, his wrist scars twining darkly. “I’d suggest you spit it out pretty fast. My hand feels sort of twitchy. And these children here are quite impressionable. I’d hate to let them see you splatter.”

  That, apparently, did the trick. Terry talked. He talked his head off while my heart beat itself into a frenzy, and Ryan gripped my hand and didn’t let go, and Maggie seized my other hand. Amber pressed her lips together. Her eyes—dry as a bone—never left Terry McClain.

  It wasn’t a surprising story. I’d heard enough bits and pieces back at the lab. I’d heard other pieces when we were at Bo’s watching that terrible, mind-twisting PowerPoint. It was, in the end, the same crap that things like this always are: powerful people somewhere spending money to control whatever or whomever it was they wanted to control.