by Eros, Marata
She leaned back. “Somebody died, I think I can get over it.”
The kids all looked at Tiff and I.
Tiff walked over to me. “We on tonight then?”
I nodded.
“Huh, my best laid plans foiled by a corpse,” Jonesy grumbled.
We rolled our eyes, Jonesy was so him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
It was Ceci.
Ceci Cline. Carson's girlfriend, our fellow AFTD.
Tiff was barfing in the bushes.
I was thinking I didn't want to do this anymore. How was this possible?
I knew her. She couldn't be dead.
I went over to Tiff who was somewhere between sobbing and barfing and put a hand on her shoulder.
She turned her head and I could see her face in profile, illuminated by the crime scene halogens, her eyes swollen and red-rimmed.
“I'm never gonna have that image out of my mind!” she said in a shouted whisper, her voice hoarse from the vomiting.
Gale walked over, her shadowed silhouette becoming larger on approach.
She hunkered down next to Tiff. “You okay?”
Tiff nodded and Gale gave her a cup of water. She gulped a ton then spit it out into the bushes. “My mouth tastes like ass.”
Gale barked out a laugh and stood. “I guess you'll be okay.”
Tiff stood.
Gale said, “I'll give you guys a sec.”
Tiff whirled on me as soon as Gale was out of sight and put a finger under my nose. “Don't you tell the guys I puked, Hart.”
I almost laughed but kept it together through sheer grit. “Hey, I would’ve barfed too if I wasn't so used to the smell.”
She shuddered, looking over at the still silhouette of Ceci.
There was shouting and we turned.
I said, “Oh God, it's her dad...”
Smith the Null and Gale were trying to restrain him but he broke through, racing to his daughter, picking up her limp form, he shook her.
“Wake up, baby.” Her broken neck lolled into one of his big palms and he howled, his head thrown back, spittle flying out of his mouth.
Tiff and I watched his grief and it struck us mute.
The emotion was such an obviously raw wave of emotion we were suffocating in it. I flashed on an image of what my parents would do if it'd been me instead of Ceci.
Better not to.
Garcia, Gale and Smith stood on the perimeter, watching their fellow officer shriek his rage and grief to the heavens, unable to comfort him. Unable to make her live again.
Officer Cline's eyes fell on me.
He laid his daughter's body down and rose slowly to his feet.
Shaking a finger at me he said, “You can raise her. You can bring my baby back!” His eyes were wild, moving frantically in their sockets, back and forth, back and forth.
Tiff moaned and moved behind me.
I knew just how she felt. But I remained where I was as Cline stalked to me. In my peripheral vision I could see Gale, Garcia and Smith advance on him but he'd get to me first.
His fist wrapped the front of my shirt into a knot and he drug me to him. Our height being the same, made our eye contact uncomfortably intimate. He shook me. “Bring her back, Caleb. You can do it. She told me so. That you were like her, but... you can bring her back!”
My teeth rattled as he shook me with the force of his grief.
“I can't! She won't be Ceci. She'll be something else!”
Garcia tried to untangle Cline's fingers from my shirt. It wasn't happening.
He flung Garcia off, no small feat, and then Smith was there.
“Come on, Cline, let the boy go. He can't do it.”
“He can!” he shrieked in Smith's face.
Gale put a chokehold on him from behind, her feet on tiptoe, and Smith worked his hand, prying finger by finger off while Garcia tried to restrain his other hand.
“Get her out of here!” Garcia shouted at the dead techs.
They moved.
“No,” Cline wailed. “Don't take her! She can't be dead, she can't be!”
And with that, he allowed his hands to be loosened from my shirt.
He slumped to the ground. He cried like his heart was shattering in his chest, big wracking sobs that sounded like they hurt. I'd never seen a man cry before.
I'd never seen a parent lose their child.
I felt another chunk of my childhood slide away as I listened to his weeping, Tiff's forehead pressed against my back.
****
Even I felt sorry for Carson when we got to school Monday. He was a dumbass but his girlfriend had been brutally slain by what the news whores were dubbing, “The Null Negator.”
Mom had hated the moniker saying, “Shoddy journalism. It's not an actual word, you know.” Her hands were buried in pizza dough.
Dad and I had looked at each other. Nothing took Mom unawares. The words were still critical.
The Parents had looked at me for such a long time that I had squirmed under their mutual gaze.
“What?” I'd asked.
Dad steepled his fingers. “It's not just Nulls now, Caleb.”
“A girl from your class!” Mom all but shouted, viciously punching the dough in its center.
That was how my Monday began (but Mondays sucked anyway, so no surprise there).
We were all quiet in our AFTD core class, Ceci's seat sitting empty, some of the girls silently crying.
Dave Smith said, “We're going to take this day off to just talk about what's going on. These murders were not something our community was worrying about, especially the AFTD community.” He took off his glasses, absently polishing them as he spoke. “But now that one of our own has been stolen from us, it's like I said. They need me.”
God, he was still on that?
“Listen, no offense Mr. Smith, but they don't need you or anybody else right now. They thought they had it figured out but now all their speculations aren't accurate,” I said with a tone.
Smith's eyes narrowed. “Maybe Ceci should be raised. In theory,” the class groaned. He held up a finger to stop their noise. “An AFTD victim would be different altogether.”
We were quiet, we just couldn't wrap our minds around her absence. It meant something that an AFTD was the victim. It was a message, somehow. Why had she been picked? It was not lost on me that she was a cop's daughter or that she had been dating Carson. The deaths were spiraling into some kind of tornado. I was hoping I'd survive it, and catch the weirdo that was nailing kids.
Class ended and I all but leaped out of my seat to seek out Jade when Smith blocked my path. “Talk to the police, Caleb. I think I can really help.”
I was getting sick of his interference but wasn't sure how to get away with saying anything and also not get in trouble.
I tried for that half-eye, dazed expression that Jonesy was expert at.
He gave a frustrated exhale and shook his head. Smith figured I was a grunter (which was fairly accurate), but I was pretty sharp right then. I didn't want him hanging around like a languid fly on a pile of shit while Tiff and I tried to figure it out with the cops.
I slunk out of the class, satisfied that I'd escaped notice for the moment. But I knew it was temporary.
Jade was waiting, leaning up against the wall with a foot against it and her backpack cushioning her torso. Her signature silver hoops flashed in the LED lights of the hall and there, riding in a delicate web on top of her collarbone was the dream-catcher necklace.
Wow, it looked good. Check. She looked good.
She moved forward, a slight sway to her hips. The noise faded around us and Jade moved into the circle of my arms like a warm shadow melding against me. I put my mouth on hers and pressed it to her, my lips moving over hers.
“PDA!” Griswold growled, as she pistoned by, swinging her arms like a Nazi.
Jade jumped. Laughing she covered her mouth.
I nodded and knew my grin was rueful. “Yeah, back already.”
> “She's not so bad. She took care of the government creeps.” Jade's black eyebrows arched.
There was that.
I began walking with her to our next class, and we passed Carson, who would normally never miss an opportunity to flip me off or offer general debasing annoyance.
Not today. Today he slid through the crowd, eyes on the floor, solemn look on his face.
Jade shuddered.
I turned to her. “What?”
“They're leaking on me.”
“Who?”
She shook her head, as if clearing it, her hair sliding around on her shoulders like black water.
“Everyone,” she whispered into my shoulder.
Must suck to be an Empath. “I thought you had to touch people?”
She nodded. “Usually, but this is called a collective.”
I stared at her, an unspoken question on my face.
She sighed as we stood outside the door to Literature One. “If many people are thinking or feeling the same thing, it can overtake the physical perception.”
“So, since we're all thinking sad thoughts, about the same,” I struggled here, “ event, then you don't need the touching because of the sheer amount of—”
“—emotion. Everyone's emotions are focused on Ceci's death.”
She gave a shaky exhale and I squeezed her to me. Pulling away, we walked into English together.
Call it a hunch, but it was gonna be a long damn day.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I walked toward the front door and saw Onyx standing at the window beside it, his tail a black windshield wiper obscured by the glass. Seeing Onyx made me feel a little happier because the day had been about survival.
I turned the knob and immediately sensed that there was someone there.
Jade's Aunt, Andrea , was sitting perched on the edge of our couch with a glass of iced tea and some cookies on a plate in front of her.
I would have been down with that but Dad was home early and that made my bullshit meter sing like a trumpet.
Dad looked up and Andrea nervously wiped her hands off on her pants.
And here we go.
My parents and Andrea stood. She gave me a nervous smile. “I'll let you all talk about some of the things I've mentioned.” She walked by me on her way to the front door and Onyx gave a soft growl, deepening my sense of foreboding. Onyx had a sense of things.
Mom and Dad looked at me and I just knew .
“You can't see Jade anymore, son,” Dad said the minute she was out the door.
Those words sucker-punched me, my lungs felt like they were on fire, smothering. Not see Jade? What the fuck was happening here?
Mom moved to touch me and I leaned away, her hand dropping. She looked helplessly at Dad and he continued, “She thinks time with you right now, when this investigation is ongoing for the murderer—she thinks it puts Jade in danger.”
Mom said, “So do we, Caleb. Andrea has a point. When it was only Nulls, it didn't seem so terribly close.” She shivered.
“But now this murderer is moving toward your immediate circle. Don't they have an officer assigned to randomly patrol John's house?” Dad asked.
I nodded, my chest was so tight I could barely breathe.
Jade. I needed to get to Jade. Stupid Andrea was going to drop that bomb and Jade was gonna freak.
Onyx whimpered, bumping my hand.
The Boy's scent had changed and become charged with tremendous anxiety and fear. The Dog looked around him to see if there was an imminent threat, seeing none, he leaned against the Boy to lend pack-comfort. He smelled the Boy's anxiety and somehow the Dog had the sense it had something to do with the small female that the Boy wished to mate with. There was a threat to the female? Why was she not here? The Dog bumped the Boy's hand.
“She can't do this. We are being punished for this deranged dipshit!” I yelled, my hands in fists.
I wanted to punch something, anything.
“Calm down, Caleb,” Dad said. “I know it's not fair, but she's Jade's guardian. Andrea must take this threat seriously.”
“Whatever!” I flung out. “Jade is safer with me! I can protect her! Do you think she's safer with her dad, or just her and Andrea as a pair? Listen,” my voice lowered to a furious whisper, “she is naked without me, she's already been targeted. The killer, if he's halfway smart, is looking at every one of us. Andrea didn't do anything tonight but strip her of protection.”
I straightened, letting my words stand.
“All of what you say makes sense, but Caleb,” and Dad put a hand on my shoulder, and I struggled not to throw it off, “she is in charge of Jade.”
“Hell! Couldn't you guys talk reason with her? Dad... Mom...” I looked at them in frustration.
“We tried to outline some basic principles of common sense,” Mom ticked off a few things that they'd mentioned, “your zombies have been sort of opportune,” she hesitated over that. “And now that you are working out and attending Judo, you two are together all the time, Jonesy and the Weller boy are around. Also, the addition of Alex isn't awful either.”
Dad shook his head. “She didn't want to hear that, son. Andrea had her mind made up before she arrived, and there wasn't a lot that could have changed it.”
I calmed down a little then. It was good to know my parents thought it was over the damn top too.
“I need to see her, Dad. Jade's going to freak; she's going to be scared.” Onyx whined again and I buried a hand in the soft fur of his head.
Dad shook his head sadly. “I'm sorry. I can't willfully go against her wishes. I suggest you pulse Jade and summarize some of the things which were said.” He spread his hands away from his body like our hands are tied.
Mom covered her mouth, standing tears in her eyes and Dad cradled her into his chest. “She'll be alright; they're going to apprehend this whack-job.”
Whack-job?
I grunted in frustration and disgust and stalked off. I heard Mom say, “Caleb.”
Dad quietly responded, “Let him go. Give him some time, Ali.”
Time! The hell with that. I went straight up to my room, popped the latch on my window and slid out onto the roof.
I wasn't leaving Jade to the mercy of fate. As I balanced on the roof, my pulse vibrated.
Initializing...
Jade LeClerc:
Caleb! Distress Andrea just told me... sobs ...
Break in pulse transmission...
I know, I'm coming right over.
No! She said she'll pulse the police if she sees you while this investigation is going on.
Extreme stress detected in voice modulation; does emergent situation require medical or police assistance?
Jade! Calm down. You're alerting the danger alert system! CH
Break in pulse transmission
I'm sorry! I was just-I didn't think she'd do it.- JLeC
Hang on. Meet me on your roof by your bedroom window.- CH
Okay... come soon, Caleb, I'm scared.- JLeC
I turned and looked through the window, wanting to take Onyx so bad but how to get him off the roof? I looked around, not seeing anything that would work. Dammit, I'd have to leave him.
He seemed to know he couldn't come and whined, his paws resting on the wood windowsill, a soulful look in his eyes.
Sorry boy , I thought at him, not this time.
The Dog had the terrible feeling of something bad happening again. The Boy's smell was filled with protection for the small female.
She was in danger.
The Dog could help as only pack could. He realized the Boy needed to leave through the clear solid hole that was usually not gone. He wished to come and help the Boy. He whined, as the Dog watched the Boy maneuver off a tall surface that looked very unsure in its footing. The Dog was amazed the Boy could navigate its treacherous shaping. He laid down on the soft nest in the Boy's private cave and waited, his unease increasing.
I hated, hated sneaking off while my pa
rents were downstairs, but I wouldn't be able to think until I'd laid hands on Jade, made sure she was okay. Maybe I had about two hours or so until supper.
I booked to my bike, picking it up from its perch along the side of our house and looking around covertly. I took off, pedals twirling, ass in the air. Pumping furiously, I made my way to Jade's house, thoughts of her filling my head into a swirling swamp of anxiety.
****
I shimmied up the lone tree ( the same one that Brett had , I thought sourly), and eased up next to Jade's window. My feet planted in front of me, I spider crawled to the sill. It was an older house and the pitch of the roof was steep. Way older than the other homes that surrounded it. The window jutted out from the main body of the roof, having its own, smaller roof topping it, with wood grids and wavy, distorted glass.
Jade's face suddenly appeared behind one of the panes, making it waver like she was underwater.
The sight fiercely gripped me in another wave of unease.
She used both hands to slide the window up, the thing sticking on the way.
“Come in,” she said.
I did, cracking my skull a good one on the upper part of the window. I cringed, but hopped in, scanning the bedroom I took in all the same stuff she always had. Her room was ultra-tidy. She had an iron bed in a pale pink. The dream-catcher that her grandma had made when she was born was strung from one of the stiff, iron posts to the other, its intricate bead work running the entire length. The bed was totally Jade, girlie and ornate, she had a pure white bedspread thing on the top with swirly patterns all over it.
Her room smelled like a great big vanilla bean.
We sat down together in the little alcove that had a seat built in under the window, a flowered cushion flung on the top.
I held her small hands in mine and looked into green eyes that were full of tears and I felt bad.
Jade had such a tough route. Her dad was a drunken loser, her aunt wasn't really thinking straight. No mom, and she was dating a guy with zombies popping up all the time who also helped the cops run around looking for a killer.