“Shhhhh!” I said. “Just a second.”
“Tor Frankenstein!” She stood directly in front of the television. I moved a foot to the right to see.
“You forgot the syrup again,” I told her.
She looked down at the fork and the brimming glass of wine and cursed. A few seconds later I heard her open the fridge and begin rummaging.
“… exclusively to Channel 8 to tell us the gruesome details of the body’s recovery.” The anchorwoman finished just as the screen cut to a man in camouflage overalls and a lure hanging from the brim of his cap.
“I’ve never see anything like it,” the man said. “And I’ve been fishing here for twenty years and have never seen anything like it,” he repeated, rubbing his chin. “It was like an animal had gotten ahold of the boy’s ankle. It was that torn up. Like maybe a bear had attacked him. And his other leg, well, it was missing completely.”
The camera panned wider and the field reporter turned to face it. “Authorities will be investigating the cause—”
The channel flipped to a man in a surgical mask and scrubs making eyes at a young nurse. I hadn’t even noticed Mom come in. I sat pinned to my seat, blood whooshing through my arteries. Trent Westover had been found. It wasn’t Adam. I laughed out loud; I was so relieved until Mom slapped at my elbow and hushed me.
“It’s not funny,” she muttered. “Dr. Lee could lose his teaching job at the hospital. His daughter is sick.”
“What? Oh. Yeah.” I blinked, still feeling the tickle of laughter building inside. “Sorry.”
Then I noticed the heap of pancakes sitting in front of me, and for the first time all day I felt really, truly hungry, so I took a fork and dug in.
SIXTEEN
Hypothesis: A re-administering of the electrical charge will sustain circulatory and organ function.
Process: Same methodology followed with lower voltage.
Conclusion: Experiment was successful, though shockingly (pun intended), Adam seemed to exhibit signs of physical pain post-electrotherapy and elicited incoherent words.
Observations: Personality shift observed right after electrostimulation. Perhaps stimulus to cranial cortex. Personality shift subsided shortly thereafter and no further anomalies have been observed.
* * *
The discovery of Trent’s body buoyed my mood more than it probably should have. For one, it wasn’t polite to gloat when a teenage boy was found with one leg mauled and the other completely gone and, for two, it solved only a fraction of one of my problems, which left at least two big, fat, granddaddy-sized predicaments to topple over and crush me at any given moment—there was the shattered phone that, science would suggest, hadn’t appeared on my porch by magic and the fact that someone, somewhere, even if it wasn’t the Westovers, was probably looking for Adam, my Adam, and if they found him, it wouldn’t be either dead or alive.
But instead of feeling the weight of any of those things, I was starting the school day feeling nearly invincible. The experiment was working. The sun was shining. Adam was a student at Hollow Pines High. Today, for the first time, it felt as though it was all beginning to fall into place.
“Um, Tor? Why are people staring at us?” Owen said, smiling through gritted teeth. The sun reflected off the morning dew, bright enough to leave a sunburn. The smell of freshly mowed grass permeated the air. It was summer in September.
Adam trudged through the gravel lot beside us. The pools of crimson that had pocketed beneath his skin had all completely disappeared, and the dark circles beneath his eyes had lightened.
“Huh?” I tore myself from my thoughts and noticed that we did seem to be drawing attention. “I have no idea. Do I have toilet paper stuck to my shoe?”
Owen actually fell back several paces to check. “No, rider, you’re clear for takeoff.”
“God, you’re a geek.” I rolled my eyes.
“I think that’s been established,” Owen said with an uneven strain to his voice. He tugged at his collar and glanced around at the onlookers.
As we neared the Bible Belt, several clean-cut kids in matching T-shirts turned to greet us. “Hey, man,” said one. “Heard you had a great practice last night.” Adam waved without stopping. The guy turned to watch us pass. “May the power be with you.” The Bible Belter put up his fist. “The power of God, that is.” At this, a few cheers rose from the group.
“That was nice.” I looked back.
“Yeah, but they’re always freakishly nice,” Owen said. “It’s their thing.”
“I don’t know them,” Adam said. “I didn’t say hello this time.” He smiled. “See? I’m learning.” The flecks in Adam’s eyes shined golden in the sun. A lock of dark hair slipped over his eyebrow.
“Not exactly what I meant,” I said.
As we neared the Billys’ trucks, more people began to turn, and it became clear that they weren’t looking at us at all. They were looking at Adam. Billy Ray broke from the group, and I had an instinctive, bone-deep desire to run. Science would call this a conditioned reflex. The art of survival. I’d call it high school.
Instead, the three of us slowed as Billy Ray blocked our path. Given that he was the size and shape of a refrigerator, there wasn’t really any other choice. He held a football chest level, smashed between his palms. He tossed it to Adam, who caught it easily.
“I heard Coach is thinking of starting you, Smith.” Billy Ray’s face broke into a wide, fat-lipped grin. He ran his hand over his shaved scalp.
Adam hugged the ball to his chest. “Starting me to do what?” he asked, looking down and hiking his book bag farther up onto his shoulder. A curtain of thick lashes brushed his cheek. If I looked closely I could make out the red slivers behind his ears.
Billy Ray wedged himself between me and Adam, knocking me sideways. He wrapped his arm around Adam’s neck. Ruffled the hair on his head. “The game, man. Football!” He released Adam’s head and shook his own good-naturedly. “You, Smith! Where the heck did you come from, son?”
“I came from Elgin, Illinois,” he replied.
Billy Ray looked over at me as if to say Can you believe this guy? As I said, it was a popular look where Adam was concerned. I pressed my lips together and raised my eyebrows. But truthfully, no, I couldn’t.
“I would like to start playing more football.” Adam bobbed his chin up and down. “That would be good.” It occurred to me then that I’d already been thinking of reasons not to let him. It was too dangerous. We hadn’t studied the possible side effects. His state was fragile. It was only when I heard the hopeful lilt in his voice that I had to consider whether I had any right to tell him what to do at all.
I created him, but did that make me the master of his universe, too? I couldn’t decide.
“Well, good.” Billy Ray thumped Adam on the chest. “Because you keep it up and you’re starting the game. The big one. Two bye weeks and then you better be ready.” He pointed at him with both hands as he backpedaled away. “You, Smith. You’re the man. This is the season. I feel it, buddy. This year.”
As soon as we were out of earshot, I grabbed Adam’s arm. “Group sidebar. Please?” I yanked Owen into the huddle. “I mean now.”
Our heads pushed together, except that I was the shortest so mine only reached to their chins. “They’re starting you?” I said to Adam. “Is this a real thing? Because I’m feeling like this isn’t a real thing.”
“I’m feeling like you’re talking real fast,” Owen chimed in.
“I thought people were being uncharacteristically nice or curious or had all suffered some weird, town-wide aneurysm.”
“I liked it,” Adam said. He was still a man of few words, but even since yesterday I observed that he was just a hair more lively. Less stiff, more natural maybe. “I made friends.”
“You made friends?” I said. “But you have friends. Why the need for more friends? I’ve had one friend for the past eight years and you don’t see me complaining. You already have two friends. Me and Owen. And wha
t, you’re already bored? Don’t you think that’s being just a wee bit greedy?”
“If you lifted your leg, I think you might be able to pee on him to mark your territory.” Owen tilted his head and stared hard at me.
“What’s a ‘bye week,’ anyway? What do you do with ‘bye weeks’? They sound like a made-up term.”
“It means they don’t have games tonight and next Friday to lead up to Homecoming,” Owen said as if he were some authority on the sport now.
I ground my teeth. At least that gave us some time. “Adam, look, these people might be nice to you now, but…”
But it was too late. I didn’t get to finish. Cassidy Hyde had butted her perky behind straight into our conversation.
“’Scuse me.” She spun around. She was holding the ends of a pair of black and orange streamers. “Pep rally decorations.” Her smile was blinding. “Go Oilers.” She said this with a shrug in her voice like she was partly making fun of herself.
Standing at the steps of the school, I was about to continue with my train of thought when I registered how his eyes were lingering on Cassidy as she pulled the streamers high over her head to wrap them around the top of a column, so that her pierced belly button peeked out the top of her jeans.
“Good morning, Cassidy Hyde,” Adam said, formal, flat, but strangely charming because of both those things. “Do you need help with that?” Adam walked over with his stiff gait. He took a pair of streamers from her and stretched up to tape them higher than she could reach.
She put her hands on her hips. “Well, look at that. I didn’t think they made real gentlemen anymore.”
I felt a scowl overtake my mouth. They didn’t, I wanted to tell her. I did.
* * *
“OUCH-GOSHDARNIT-DAMN!” MY FINGER sprung out from under the metal hot plate I was working to pry free from its base. I shook it and stuck the tip in my mouth while it stung.
“How are you still single?” The door to the chemistry lab swung closed behind Owen. He cocked his head as I continued sputtering jumbled curse words under my breath. “I mean, really, it’s an unsolvable paradox. You have such a sweet demeanor about you. That’s what I always say, anyway.” I removed my finger from my mouth and examined the broken nail left over. He strolled through the empty classroom to the lab table I was occupying near the back and paused at the sight of my project in progress. “Maybe a little light would help?” He moved for the switch.
“I didn’t want anyone to know I was in here,” I said sourly. Late afternoon light trickled in through the blinds, casting the classroom in shadowy gray. Trace smudges of dry erase marker covered the whiteboard where Ms. Dot had erased today’s notes, and the freshly wiped countertops smelled like antibacterial soap.
“You mean while you’re defacing school property?” Owen’s white T-shirt read Wikipedia is accurate.
“I mean while I’m working.” It was nearly five o’clock. Ms. Dot, my AP chemistry teacher, had collected her giant tote bag and stack of manila folders half an hour ago. I had keys to the lab and exactly twenty-five minutes before Adam would be finished with football practice. Even in my head, I couldn’t say it without a sneer. Football practice. Now, scattered around were crucible tongs, a base holder, boss heads, burette clamps, and a hot plate.
“Well, you’re doing a good job of that at least. I’ve been looking for you for thirty minutes,” he said, dropping his backpack on a nearby stool. “You might want to consider fixing the whole cell phone situation at some point.” I cringed at the thought of my phone splintered on the road and how it’d found its way back to me. Annoyed as I was about football and Adam’s sudden rise in popularity, the day had been pleasantly uneventful, and it almost felt as though phones and missing boys could slip into the background and disappear. “We’re living in the twenty-first century.” I decided not to deal with his cell phone comment.
Since I’d been unsuccessful in wrestling the hot plate away, I gripped the base in both hands and began beating it against the tabletop. Owen jerked and plugged his ears. “What are you doing?” His eyes were wide behind his lenses. I made several more noisy blows before he put his hand over my wrist. “Tor, stop!” I held the hot plate in midair before striking again. “Are you insane?”
“I’m trying to loosen it.” I clamped my tongue between my teeth and went to try for another blow, but Owen held me firm.
“Step away from the hot plate.” Like a cop disarming his suspect, he slowly extracted the piece of equipment from my grasp. I huffed but folded my hands in my lap. “Now speak in sentences,” he said. “What is it that you’re trying to do?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m trying to build this.” I reached into my bag for my composition book and flipped through the pages until I landed on the one I wanted. I shoved the notebook in his direction. On the open sheet of lined paper, I’d drawn a circle diagram with four smaller circles inside.
Owen squinted. “Which is…?”
I snatched the composition book back and frowned at the rudimentary drawing inside. “It doesn’t have a name yet.” I glanced sidelong at him. “Adam malfunctioned last night. He completely lost his energy, and his whole body started to shut down.” I shuddered. “I … had to do it again.”
Owen did that thing where he looked over his glasses and made me feel like a little kid in trouble. “Electrocute him?”
“A little,” I fibbed, exactly like a little kid. “Okay a lot.” I nodded. “He was going to die, though.”
Owen pushed his fingers into his hair and left it standing straight up. “He already is dead.”
“You know what I mean.” Footsteps squeaked by in the hallway. A shadow crossed the door before disappearing. “And”—I lowered my voice—“if he’s going to insist on playing this caveman sport with all the hitting and running around and throwing of things, his energy’s going to keep getting drained.”
“Funny. I would have thought you’d have been proud to learn your progeny was turning out to be a perfect physical specimen.” He tilted his head. “At least in Hollow Pines terms.”
I blinked and felt my forehead wrinkle. “You think?”
“If the cleat fits…”
I bit my lip. Adam was becoming every bit the breakthrough that I’d sought out for him to be. Maybe Owen was right. “I’m trying to make a … device.…” This time I jammed my finger into the page and it tore a centimeter. “… To make it easier to, you know, recharge him. But it’s not working.”
Owen pulled the edge closer and slid his glasses to the bridge of his nose. “Some kind of plate?” He hummed quietly.
“I figured I’d surgically insert it. With portals for the wires and—”
Owen held up a finger and looked away from me. “I am going to try not to be positively offended—no, wait—blasphemed by the fact that you didn’t come straight to me before attempting to upend a perfectly innocent laboratory hot plate.” My shoulders relaxed. “But I’m here now.” He cracked his neck, followed by his knuckles. “We can get to work.”
A slow grin stretched across my face. “Really?”
Owen had already turned the hot plate onto its back and was bent over, fiddling with the screws. I glanced at the clock and registered the time. Resting my elbows on the table, I leaned in to watch him work. Owen tinkering, a man in his natural habitat. “Uh, Owen?” His fingers stopped. He turned toward me, our noses an inch apart. “Think you can help a girl out and sort through the rest of this on your own?” I set my chin on my fists and peered up at him. “Pretty please?”
He spared a long-suffering look for the ceiling. “I’m already in this deep, I suppose.” He returned his attention to the lab equipment and pinched his tongue between his teeth. “Besides, you’re hazardous when it comes to machines, anyway.”
“Awesome.” I grabbed my bag and slung it over my shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Can you have it ready by then?” I batted my eyelashes.
The right corner of his mouth crept into a smile that dimpl
ed his cheek. “You’re not that charming, Frankenstein.”
“I am to you.” I blew him an air kiss, turned on my toes, and headed out the door.
At least half the school’s lights had been turned off, and the hallway was dotted with patches of darkness with only the red glow of exit lights to mark them. Outside the classroom, I fumbled in the bottom of my bag for my keys and looped a finger through the ring. The soft melody from a teacher’s radio floated toward me as I made my way to the football field.
A prickle grew along the back of my neck, inching its way up the notches of my spine like a caterpillar. By the time I’d passed the last of the science classrooms, I was able to place the creeping sensation as the feeling of being watched. It slithered and disappeared into the cracks between my ribs, where it forced my heart to beat faster.
I froze in place and spun. My bag banged against my hip. I felt the dead quiet all around me until over my heartbeat I could again hear the small trickle of music coming from the radio hidden behind one of the classroom doors.
Shadows cloaked groups of lockers in even intervals. My eyes focused, and I saw a silhouette. The tingle worked a path down my forearms. The silhouette stepped from the shadow into a shaft of light. The head of a mop landed next to his feet.
I let out a whooshing exhale. “Mr. McCardle,” I said. “God, you scared me.” My pulse throbbed even as my muscles relaxed. I shook my head, unsure of what had gotten me so spooked.
Blackness filled in the lines on his face. His mouth was curved into a shallow frown. “It’s dark,” he said.
“Guess so.” I lingered awkwardly, remembering when he’d found me rather precariously positioned in the girls’ restroom with Adam. I could only imagine what he must have thought he’d walked in on. I pressed my lips together and rocked back on my heels. Maybe he’d forgotten. Earlier today, I’d seen a few kids playing Pin-the-Tail-on-McCardle, a dumb game where students tried to attach embarrassing signs or stickers to the janitor’s back. The game was mean-spirited and cold, but I never removed the stickers for fear that McCardle would think that lots of people had been noticing. “Anyway.” I waved. “Just heading out. Have a good night.”
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