by Stacey Jay
“Could be.” He nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t totally convinced. “I’ll see what I can dig up over at SA headquarters.”
“I could go with you.” I suddenly didn’t want to be separated from Ethan, and the suspicion that my mom was hiding something made me a lot less worried about not being there for her to pick me up.
“No, you’re right, you should get back to class. I’ll drop you behind the gym just in case your parents are parked out front,” he said as we exited the elevator and headed toward the parking garage. “Then I’ll probably come back here and do a little more poking around before heading to headquarters. Definitely sounds like something big went down.”
“True, but we can’t be sure it was Undead-related.” I hated to be the voice of doom, but I was doing my best not to get too excited. This could still be nothing and we could be back where we started—square one and clueless.
“My gut is telling me to check it out.”
“Oh, my gut also told me something,” I said, excited to share my clue. “While we were talking to Caleb, I remembered something about the zombies last night. They weren’t wearing shoes!”
“Really? Monica didn’t mention that in her report.”
“Yep, no shoes. And they were also all in their pajamas. I mean, I think the big guy Monica fought might have been wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt, but the others were all wearing PJs.”
Ethan froze just inside the door to the hospital and turned to face me. “Dudes? They were all men?”
“Yeah, all four of them.”
“What about the others? You said you saw a few more coming through the woods before you and Monica linked up.”
“I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think they were guys. Why?”
“Check the left pocket of my coat,” Ethan said. I reached in and pulled out a hair ribbon, white with hints of gold streaked through the fibers. “I found that in the woods today. I didn’t figure it was any big clue, since things fall off corpses all the time, but if it belongs to someone living we might be able to—”
“These are CHS colors,” I said, my anxiety building as I stared at the seemingly innocent ribbon.
“True, but it’s also the kind of thing any chick could wear in her hair, right?”
I shook my head. Ethan was incredibly cute and fairly fashion forward, but he was still such a guy sometimes. “No, no ‘chick’ over the age of eight or nine would wear a ribbon like this, and I doubt someone that young would be hanging out in the woods behind the grocery store. Besides, I’ve seen this exact same ribbon every other game night for the past four months.”
“No way.” He shook his head. “Someone from your pom squad?”
“Not this time.” My fist tightened around the ribbon. “It’s a cheerleader ribbon.”
“Cheerleaders have been raising weird zombies?” He sounded dubious, and for once I was with him. Usually Ethan was the skeptic and I the voice of creative thinking, but he was right. There was no way I could believe that the cheerleaders were raising the dead.
“Of course not, but this ribbon means one of them was in the woods last night. Probably spying on our car wash to see how much money we were raising for the booster club.”
Ethan sighed. “They might have seen the RCs.”
“Or even worse, they might have seen Monica and me fighting the RCs.” I shoved the ribbon back in Ethan’s pocket. I didn’t want to look at it anymore, or think about how much more trouble I could be in. Even if I managed to prove my innocence, my family could still be relocated if a nosy cheerleader had seen something she shouldn’t have. “I’ll try to figure out who was in the woods and just how much she saw tomorrow at school.”
“Get Monica to help you.” Ethan took my hand as we headed out to the parking lot.
“Monica? Help me? What kind of crack have you been smoking?”
“It’s her butt on the line as much as yours,” he said. “If you were spotted, she was too. Besides, she seemed upset last night when the Enforcers headed off to search your house.”
“Why, because she couldn’t come along and personally watch me being taken into custody for a crime I didn’t commit?” I said, opening the passenger’s side door.
Ethan stopped me from getting inside with strong hands on my shoulders. “Listen, Monica isn’t the same person she was a few months ago. She doesn’t have it out for you. Honestly, I think you two would get along really well if you’d give her a chance.”
“I’ve given her tons of chances. She’s a total witch, Ethan.”
“She’s not a witch, she’s just . . . difficult. I’ll admit that, but she can also be a valuable person to have on your side. You two have let this jealousy and competition thing go too far.”
“Jealousy and competition?” I asked, inwardly seething though doing my best to keep my voice soft. What the heck was he talking about? “You think I’m jealous of Monica?”
“I don’t know, maybe? A little bit? She’s definitely jealous of you,” he said, trying to backtrack. But it was too late—the damage was already done.
I didn’t say a word, just frowned up at his face, hurt that he felt so compelled to defend the Monicster. I was the one who was in deep trouble, while she got away without anything more stressful than a few questions. She spent most of the day today planning an ice skating fund-raiser, not worried that she might be thrown in prison.
Besides, even if Ethan was right, was now the right time to be lecturing me about bonding with my Settler bitches and hos? The answer was no, it definitely was not.
“Let’s go. I need to get back to school.”
“Listen, Meg, I’m sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair and I could tell he was feeling almost as mixed-up as I was. “I shouldn’t have said anything—I just thought you could use some more help, that’s all. I don’t want to fight,” Ethan said, fingers moving to my cheek. “Especially about Monica.”
I sighed and bit my lip.
“Forgive me?” he asked, green eyes so magnetic in their repentance there was no chance of resisting.
“Forgiven.” I looked up at him and smiled. “And thanks, by the way.”
“For what?”
I shrugged. “For picking me up today, for helping me, for just being there.”
“You don’t have to thank me. This is what boyfriends do,” he said, before he closed the distance between us.
His lips were surprisingly warm despite how cold it was outside, and they heated up mine in no time. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he moved even closer, squishing me against the side of the car as our lip-lock quickly went from sweet to something more serious.
There was an urgency in the way his mouth met mine that had never been there before, an intensity that made my heart race and my head spin. It was easily both the best and the scariest kiss I’d ever had. Even as every cell in my body lit up with a hard-core case of the tingles, my mind couldn’t stop thinking there was something horribly final about the whole thing. It felt like we were characters in a movie, shooting that scene just before the hero runs off to battle and gets killed or the heroine dies of some tragic disease.
Gah! I didn’t want to die of some tragic disease! I didn’t want all this drama, even if it inspired kisses like this.
I sucked in a breath and ripped my mouth away. We were both breathing hard, very hard, like we’d been at this a lot longer than a minute and a half. I was surprised to find my hands were shaking as I detangled them from where they’d been buried in Ethan’s hair.
“Wow.” His breath puffed against my lips, hot and smelling of mints and Ethan.
“Too wow.” I tried to laugh, but it came out sounding more like a grunt. Way to go, Megan, very alluring.
“Is there such a thing as too wow?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?” As smoothly as possible, I pulled away and slid into the passenger’s seat.
Ethan sighed and tightened his grip on my door until his knuckles turned white. “What do you
mean, maybe? Is there something I should know, Megan? Because it seems like . . . ”
“Seems like what?” I asked, my voice small and nervous sounding.
He paused, then let out a deep breath. “Nothing.” But I could tell it wasn’t.
“I just don’t want to be late getting back to school. That’s all.”
“Okay.” He forced a smile I could tell he didn’t feel. “Fine, let’s hit it.”
As he circled around to the driver’s side, I tried to tell myself everything was fine, that Ethan and I were good and everything was going to work itself out. But for some reason, I was having a hard time buying my own pep talk, especially when that weird “watched” feeling returned with a vengeance.
I scanned the parking lot but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Still, I was glad when we pulled out onto the road and the creepy feeling vanished. Now if only I could banish the awkwardness between me and my boyfriend as easily.
CHAPTER 7
The world was coming to an end. There was no other explanation for why there was a bag of cheeseburgers—real cheeseburgers, not veggie burgers, and from McDonald’s no less—on our kitchen table later that afternoon.
“I couldn’t remember if you didn’t like mustard or ketchup, so I ordered all of them without either,” Mom said around a mouthful of burger. She always talks with her mouth full, and it drives me insane, but at the moment I found it oddly comforting. At least I knew she hadn’t been body-snatched by an alien or something. “I figured you could add whatever you liked and leave the other off.”
“Thanks.” I eased into my chair while discreetly shooting Dad a “what the heck is going on?” look. I’d never seen Mom eat meat, not once in sixteen years of life. It would have been disturbing on a normal day, but after her crying fit last night and her staying in bed this morning, it made me . . . nervous. And suspicious. What the heck was going on with her that she felt compelled to throw away decades of meat-avoidance on a bag full of McDonald’s hamburgers?
“There are french fries in the microwave,” he said with a weary smile, not seeming to notice my pointed stare. “We were trying to keep them warm until you got home from school.”
“We skipped lunch, so we were starving by four o’clock.”
Dad reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with this goofy grin on his face. “I can’t remember the last time we stayed in bed all day.”
I finally overcame my cheeseburger shock enough to notice they were both still in their pajamas. What the heck was up with everyone? First the zombies and now my parents. Didn’t anyone actually get up and get dressed anymore?
Mom had always said staying in her pajamas all day depresses her, but she didn’t look depressed. She didn’t look upset at all, which for some reason made me even more certain she was hiding something.
“Too long.” Mom leaned over to give Dad a quick kiss, then moaned her appreciation as she shoved the last bite of burger in her mouth. “God, these are so good.”
Okay. That was it. “Mom, you do know those are meat, right? Like, real meat, not something made from a soybean?”
“I know, I’m probably going to be sick as a dog later.” She and Dad laughed together, like they were sharing some private joke that involved retching hamburger meat.
Charming. And completely annoying! I was in deep trouble and they’d spent the day chilling out in bed, rekindling their marriage or whatever, and pigging out on cheeseburgers. And now they were acting like everything was okay and this was just any old afternoon, not the first afternoon since I’d been accused of a felony! My parents were huge jerks, and that was not okay!
“You guys suck,” I said, throwing the burger I’d just snagged back into the bag. “You do realize I’m in huge trouble right? That I could go to jail? Like, for forever? I mean, I hate to interrupt your grown-up bonding time or whatever the heck this is but—”
“Honey, calm down,” Mom said in her reasonable tone of voice. “Everything is going to be fine.”
“No, it’s not going to be fine.” I stood to pace around the kitchen. “People who know me think I raised those zombies even though no Settler has ever been convicted of using black magic. And no one will tell me why. There’s got to be more to it than black magic, otherwise—”
“As soon as we get the official paperwork, we’ll know exactly what you’ve been charged with, and we can go from there,” Dad said. “Until then, we would only be guessing at—”
“Mom is a Settler and she’s smart—I’m sure she can make a pretty good guess. They’re going to say I raised those zombies to do something horrible. Like kill someone or something, right?”
“I don’t know, Megan. I can’t know for sure until we get the paperwork.”
Paperwork. Right, like Mom had ever been one to wait for the paperwork. Why was she acting like this? “Well can you at least tell me what was up with Elder Thomas last night? What’s the big ‘mistake,’ Mom?” I pinned her with an accusing look but was surprised when she stared guiltily at her hands.
“That has nothing to do with you. I promise,” she said.
“It sure sounded like it did.”
She answered me with a long, sad sigh. My real mom would have sassed me right back and told me not to be ridiculous, that of course she didn’t know anything she wasn’t telling me. But this mom just sat there, fidgeting and letting Dad do the talking.
Maybe she had been body-snatched after all.
“Believe me, Megan, Mom and I are on your side.” Dad came around the table to pull me in for a hug. Even though I was still mad, I couldn’t resist leaning into him and wrapping my arms around his waist. He just felt so solid and dadlike and safe. “As soon as the written charges arrive we’re going to be completely focused on clearing your name.”
“Okay.” I sniffed and hugged Dad tighter while Mom started gathering up the empty paper wrappers littering the table.
“Mom and I just needed a little time for ourselves today,” he said, patting me on the back like I’d wanted Mom to do last night. “I know it’s hard to believe, but parents can feel overwhelmed sometimes too.”
“It’s not hard to believe.” I pulled away and took a deep breath. “I’m not a baby anymore, Dad. I know you and Mom have a life.” Well, sort of, anyway. “And I know it can’t be easy having a freak for a daughter.”
“You’re not a freak.” Mom threw the wrappers in the trash with a lot more force than required, then pulled me in for a hug so tight I could barely breathe. “You’re a beautiful, talented girl and a damn fine person.” Tears were leaking from her eyes again when she pulled back to cup my face in her hands. “From the time you were a little girl, I’ve always been so proud of you. Do you know that? You have such a good heart. I couldn’t have wished for a sweeter, more loving daughter.”
Geez, now I was getting all weepy. “Thanks, Mom.”
“You’re not one of the bad guys, Meg, and we’re going to make sure everyone at SA and the Enforcers and anyone else who thinks they know you better than we do understands that.”
“Okay.” I nodded and pulled away to fetch the both of us a Kleenex. I knew I should feel better after the pep talk, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. It was sort of like that line from Hamlet we studied during our Shakespeare unit last fall, “The lady doth protest too much.”
Mom did protest too much. But why? Was she just scared, or did my parents know more than they were letting on? I was trying to think of a way to get Mom to spill whatever it was she thought I didn’t need to know when the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” I said, and hustled toward the front door.
“Cliff?” I asked, shocked to see the Unsettled I’d put to rest three days ago standing on my front porch. Unsettled didn’t come back for seconds! Crawling out of your grave was a one-time deal. I’d never had a repeat customer, never even heard of such a thing. That must mean Cliff had never gone back to his eternal rest—despite the fact that I’d sealed his grave—whi
ch meant he’d been Unsettled for three days, which meant I probably had a Rogue zombie on my hands.
I braced myself for a fight, but Cliff just smiled.
“Hey, what’s up, Berry? Great to see you again.” The friendliness of the grin made him look almost human. Heck, he did look human. If I hadn’t met him before, I wouldn’t know he was a zombie at all. He seemed . . . cleaner. His long dark brown hair was shining with health, his clothes were different—light-colored khaki jeans and a dark brown sweater—and obviously clean, the grave smell was gone and he—
“You’re wearing glasses.” My statement of the obvious was met with a laugh.
“Nothing’s getting past you, B.”
“But why?”
“I sort of need them to see,” he said, winking at me in a way that was kind of flirty. Or maybe just a shade too friendly. Or maybe I was the one who was too friendly, since he obviously hadn’t gotten the message that our business was finished. But at least his eyes weren’t glowing red behind his glasses. He wasn’t anywhere close to going Rogue, at least not yet.
“Megan, who is it?” Mom called from the other room.
“A friend from church,” I yelled back, giving our code phrase for “an Unsettled at the door.”
I gestured for Cliff to shush and grabbed my coat, hat, and scarf from the coat tree by the door. “Be back soon!”
“All right, but take your cell phone. And call us when you’re done if you need a ride. I don’t want you walking by yourself after dark.”
“Okay.” Grabbing Cliff by the arm, I urged him down the steps and across the snow-dusted lawn. It was still an hour or so before sunset. There was enough light that my parents would be able to see how oddly clean Cliff was if they thought to look out the window, and I really didn’t want to deal with trying to explain Cliff to them or anyone else.
“So we’re in a hurry?” Cliff asked.