Owen and I both looked to Meg. Her eyes watered, and I didn’t know if it was from pain or the memory. Who knew, maybe the memory was pain. “Here’s what you have to understand,” she began, taking a deep breath. “Hugo is a piss-poor excuse for a town.” I started to open my mouth. “Wait. I know you think because you’re not exactly from New York City that you’ve got the whole small-town bull nailed down, but this place deserves its dot on the map. Where we come from, people sit around waiting to die. And when they’re bored, they sit around thinking of ways to speed that process up. John was going somewhere. He was an athlete. He was dynamite on the football field. Probably would have gotten a scholarship.” Her smile was soft in the trickles of moonlight. “But John’s biggest problem was me. Like I said, he’s been in love with me since we were kids. He’d have walked through fire for me if I asked him.”
I set my jaw. “And did you?”
“I didn’t have to. I got involved with this guy, see.”
“I thought you said you two were madly in love,” I said.
She looked down at her knotted hands. “This guy and his friends were bad, and being with him meant being involved with both. I did some things I shouldn’t have. I’m young. I experimented. We all did. Better than sitting and waiting to die.” She rubbed her arms like she’d caught a sudden chill. “But by the end, I owed them money and I wanted out. When I tried to stop, Jimmy wouldn’t let me.” I recognized the name. Jimmy, short for “James.” James Flacco, the man who died at 408 East Trice Street. “I told John that Jimmy had been hitting me. It wasn’t true. But I did believe he might have killed me. Sooner or later, anyway. I knew John had … a temper. There’d been a few other incidents. Lots of guys in Hugo were angry, though. I knew when I told John about Jimmy that he’d lose it. So I let him and that was when it happened.…” She trailed off.
My eyes flashed with anger that she’d done this to Adam. But then again, there would be no Adam without her. “Then how come you had a gun?” I demanded of Meg.
She let out a short, mirthless laugh. “I knew that looked familiar. For protection. From Jimmy’s friends,” she said. “I’m not exactly the most popular girl in town right now. John even less so. The question is why’d you go searching through my things.”
“I needed to find you.”
Adam studied his knuckles. “I killed Knox. I killed Jimmy. I would’ve killed him, too.” He looked over his shoulder at McCardle’s crumpled body. “I’m a monster.”
I grasped his chin between my finger and thumb and looked into his eyes. “The generators worked, Adam. You’re not a monster. If I’m right, the energy source should hold. At least a lot longer. You can be Adam.”
“I can only be both,” he said. I cut my glance to Meg. She looked away, shifted her weight. “And I’ll always be this,” he continued. “Dead.”
“No. Don’t say that. I made you.”
“I know, Victoria. Thank you. But you made me.”
My intestines writhed like slime-laden earthworms. “Adam, you can’t stay here,” I said. “Not after Knox. Not after Jimmy. You’ll never get a fair shot.” I had destroyed the keeper of the secret, the one who knew what Adam was, but who he was could still catch up to him.
“Victoria, no.”
I shut my eyes to block out his pained expression. I’d abandoned him once, and now I was doing it for a second time. “You have to. It’s the only way that makes sense. At least for now.”
All around us, the clearing was cast in an eerie light.
“My aunt has a house in Laredo,” Meg said. “We’ll head there for now.”
“What about your injuries?” Owen asked.
Carefully pinching the fabric, I peeled up Adam’s pant leg. Deep lacerations churned up loose skin. Blood coagulated in the sunken wounds. I was pretty sure the cuts went down to the bone. “His platelet count has been double what it needs to be. It may be enough to heal him more quickly.”
Beads of rain dripped from his hair. I thought of the tree-branch scars that braided his chest, and I wanted to memorize him, all of him.
“Adam,” I said softly.
“Victoria.”
I breathed in from my nose, out through my mouth, and tore my eyes away. “The charge should hold, but if it doesn’t, don’t let it get too far. Always stay alert.” I glared at Meg when I said this. “You let him get too far gone. You see what happens now. Promise me.”
“I promise,” she said, and I knew I had no choice but to trust her, even though I still didn’t.
The rain had nearly dissipated. The sky had turned milky. The night clouds swirled in uneven patterns, blotting out the stars.
“Go,” I said before I could change my mind. “We’ll take care of all this.”
My throat became sore and achy. With Adam’s last look, he didn’t hug me. We didn’t shake hands. He only held my gaze for what felt like a small eternity, and then he was gone. Owen wrapped his arm around my shoulders and squeezed as the pair of them disappeared into the Hollows.
FORTY
With a heavy heart, I’m closing the Adam file today. Adam has been my greatest achievement. I’m looking into the possibility of getting recently euthanized cats and dogs from the local animal shelter. Will report with availability. Otherwise, I may have to look into less palatable means of getting large mammals.
* * *
People would believe anything that fit within their version of reality. Some days I was convinced that the people of our town chose not to see Adam for what he really was. Now he was nothing more than a memory in Hollow Pines—a ghost—which was funny seeing as how he’d been dead all along.
I stood with Owen next to our flimsy piece of poster board, waiting for the judges to evaluate our project. By now the burns around my wrists from McCardle’s rope were a ring of ragged orange scabs, half peeled from the skin. I used my sleeves to cover them up and the nubs of my fingernails to scratch them now that they itched constantly. The judges consisted of two senior science teachers, a junior college professor, Principal Wiggins, and an oil-rig engineer. All around the cafeteria, students sat with their creations—oozing volcanoes, models of the solar system, and seeds sprouting weeds.
“That kid blew up balloons using Pop Rocks,” I said, crossing my arms and eyeing a set of three soda bottles whose necks were covered with blown-up latex. “And I thought our project was bad.” Science fair projects were mandatory in most science classes, but effort tended to be lackluster. The school fair was only a stepping-stone, anyway, for the team that got to move on to county and then state. Owen and I had won every year, and this one was supposed to be our best. Our brightest.
Instead, in front of our poster board, Owen had displayed the Florence flask and the sulfuric acid that had resulted from our chemical process. The whole thing lacked pizzazz. It was boring, and I was sulking as a result.
“We’re lucky we even have a project given that our other one is currently on the run and, oh yeah, a federal crime,” he muttered out of the side of his mouth.
I touched the lightning-bolt charm dangling from my damaged wrist. I still hadn’t tried to contact Meg’s phone. It seemed smartest to lay low and submit stupid, subpar science fair projects like nothing much had changed.
One of the judges passed with a badge pinned to his lapel. I stared down at my shoes. When he passed, I turned to Owen. “How long do you think until they stop searching for the body?”
Owen’s mouth formed a line. “I don’t know. Another week? I—” He took a deep breath and shook his head. “It’s hard letting all those people go to all that trouble searching for something they’ll never find.” He pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose.
A couple days ago, the city had started dredging the lake for Adam’s body. Twenty-four hours after the Homecoming dance, he was declared missing. Shortly after that, he was presumed to be one of the boys killed by Roy McCardle Sr., the Hunter of Hollow Pines.
It hadn’t taken long for Owen and m
e to mastermind the crime scene. We’d used a screwdriver to whittle away the serial number from Meg’s gun and placed it in McCardle’s lifeless hand. We’d wiped clean the tools and the traps. Owen insisted on searching the grounds for the rest of them. We found seven more bear traps and made sure that they snapped closed by using a thick stick to press the triggers. I had wanted to burn McCardle’s old house down, but Owen was right, I had never been in the criminal system and any hairs they found there would be a match for no one. One anonymous tip from a pay phone and it was all shockingly simple. They had found the mutant body with the pieces of the missing boys. There were suspected to be more out there. Especially since there were two unidentified blood samples left in the bear traps. But no one had found anything yet.
“Stop worrying about them, Owen. This town has never paid attention to us. Why should we feel bad about it now?”
I read the Lie Detector religiously, devouring any mention of Adam. Commenters thought it’d be a matter of days before they found Adam Smith’s body strung up somewhere in the countryside. Adam had received some “posthumous” sympathy for Knox’s death, which many now viewed as an accident. Of course, there were fringe commenters who created a conspiracy theory where Adam had been working with McCardle and was now in hiding. I appreciated their creativity if nothing else. Or others that thought he’d just gotten spooked and ran after Knox’s death. But few were convinced that a high school boy could get very far on his own without getting caught.
Owen and I fell silent. We’d been doing that a lot the last few days. Another judge—the junior college professor—passed. I watched the judge linger over the Pop Rocks experiment. When I turned back, Cassidy was standing in front of me. I jumped and knocked over our poster board.
“Sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Behind me, Owen righted the project. I could feel him listening.
Her fingers worked, twisting themselves around and around. Her hair was pulled up into a bun, and she looked sickly thin, like she hadn’t eaten or slept in days. She parted her lips and, at first, no sound came out. I just stood there staring at her. She blew a long breath out and began. “I just wanted to say, I’m sorry, for … not giving Adam a fair shake.” She glanced away. A tear slipped onto her cheek, and she quickly brushed it away and took another deep breath. “We all saw what Knox did. What he was doing and … I know you’re not Adam, but I can’t say it to him and this doesn’t change the fact that what you did to me was terrible. But, you know, I just want to find him.” She sucked in her lower lip. Her nose was turning red, but she was holding it all together. “I feel responsible in some way.”
I noticed Paisley on the outskirts dressed in all black. She was shaking hands with people and holding a hot-pink handkerchief. She’d been scheduling her breakdowns for smack in the middle of class for days. Paisley’s “grief” was on full display.
“Anyway,” Cassidy continued when I didn’t say anything. She had appeared on the five o’clock news to talk about her boyfriend, Adam Smith. To her credit, she didn’t pull a Paisley. There was no choreographing the wardrobe or doing her makeup. Cassidy appeared bare-skinned, wearing a fourth-grade Mathletes tee and looking the worst I’d ever seen her. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry for your loss.” Her throat contracted.
“Thanks,” I said. “He actually really liked you. I wish you hadn’t turned against him.”
At that she made a little hiccupping sound and spun on her heel. She grabbed Paisley by the elbow and whispered something in her ear, and then Cassidy Hyde was gone. I wondered if I would ever talk to her again in my life. Somehow I doubted it.
“They’re handing out ribbons,” Owen said.
I craned to see Principal Wiggins shaking the hand of the third-place winner. I tapped my foot, wishing he would get on with it already. The next place should have been second, but I saw Principal Wiggins walking our way.
I looked around, seeing what other candidates there were for second place. Before I knew it, though, Principal Wiggins was standing in front of us.
I swallowed hard. “Congratulations on a fantastic science fair project,” he said, extending his hand to Owen. He then said something else, but I wasn’t listening. He reached his hand out to me, but all I could do was stare at the color of the ribbon he held in his hand. It was red. And after he was finished shaking my hand, he fastened the red ribbon to our board. I bit into the side of my cheek until I tasted blood. I didn’t stop until Principal Wiggins had moved on to find the first-place winner.
“What is wrong with you?” Owen leaned over.
Suddenly it felt like I didn’t know Owen at all anymore. I had thought he was the one person who got me, but here he was wondering what was wrong with me, and he had never seemed more alien.
“What’s wrong with me?” I ripped the red ribbon, tearing the poster board in the process. I stared at the second-place prize and then crumpled it in my fist. I felt tears burning my eyes, and my nose starting to run. I lowered my head. “Really, Owen?”
He came to stand beside me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I know you lost him. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so harsh.”
I sniffled, and with tears blurring my vision, I looked up at him, wiping spit from my lower lip. “It’s just such a shame that the experiment had to end. I worked so hard to tie up everything with McCardle, but—”
Owen’s eyes narrowed. His body separated from me. I felt the cold spot where his torso had been. “What do you mean, ‘tie up everything with McCardle,’” he said slowly.
“Just that he’s dead, that’s all.”
“Adam was a person, Tor.” It was like Owen’s brain was spinning. He turned on the spot and tugged at his hair. “Oh my God, you actually did it. I knew it. I knew that moment. You killed him on purpose.” His head shake was slow and disbelieving now. He pressed a fist to his lips. “What did you do, Tor?”
My tears dried. I wished that they wouldn’t have. The delivery would have been so much better if only I reacted like other people. Even with Owen. That was what he wanted. I knew that now. But I couldn’t cry. Like I’d said before, I wasn’t that good of an actress.
“He killed people, Owen. He killed people and he knew the truth. It’s not a big loss for the universe.”
Color drained from his face. “McCardle did what he did out of grief.” He stared at me for a long moment. He bit down on his lower lip. “You made this whole mess, Tor. It was you. None of this would have happened otherwise. None of it. Adam may have been unnatural, but you Tor…” His nostrils flared, he pointed his finger at me, and I knew what he was thinking. That I was the monster.
In the end, I watched Owen go, and I felt mostly as I felt with all people—detached. Like I was watching an argument happen to someone else. I wiped the leftover tears from under my eyes and squeezed the wrinkled ribbon that was growing sweaty in my palm.
I found the first-place winner not far away on a fancy corkboard designed to look like a space background. On it, the winner had pinned personal photographs she had taken days earlier. All were of a giant lightning storm that had been witnessed just this past week in Hollow Pines. She explained in great detail through paragraphs she had clearly pulled from articles on the Internet what might create such an intense “lightning event.”
When the girl wandered away, I tore the pictures down and put them in my pocket. These belonged to my father, and they would come in handy as part of my research.
After all, I figured, I could always use them. For next time.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS BOOK WOULD literally not exist without Liz Gateley and Tony DiSanto, who both nurtured and guided the story of Tor and Adam since its inception. Liz, you have acted as a mentor, always striking the perfect balance between encouragement, critique, and business savvy, while, Tony, you have invariably understood what I’m trying to achieve in no small part because of your limitless creative references, which, of course, are always on
point. Thank you to the team at DiGa Vision for not only creating some of my favorite TV shows, but also for being behind this book.
While this story may exist, it would be a far lesser novel without the direction of Jean Feiwel and Holly West. Endless thanks for fruitful brainstorming sessions and your willingness to push me (and Tor) in new directions. I’m so glad we get to do this again.
I would have been lost without the eagle eye of my copy editor, Veronica Ambrose. For the rest of the team at Feiwel and Friends and Macmillan—Christine Ma, Nicole Moulaison, Johanna Kirby, Kallam McKay, Molly Brouillete, and Rich Deas—I have tremendous gratitude for your work in taking this manuscript and turning it into a real, live book.
I have to thank Andy McNicol at William Morris for making sure this book found a home and my own agent, Dan Lazar, and his assistant, Torrie Monro–Dougherty, for wrangling my schedule and being there for me each step of the way.
Love to Kelly Loy Gilbert and Shana Silver, who suffered last-minute phone calls when I was stuck and doubting myself. It has to be said that I might have never finished this book without Charlotte Huang and our daily e-mails. It’s also true that everyone should be so lucky as to have amazing friends like mine, who include Lee Kelly, Lori Goldstein, Virginia Boecker, Jen Hayley, Jen Brooks, Kim Liggett, Emily O’Brien, and Kelley Flores—thank you, thank you, thank you.
To my sweet girlfriends, Erica Amadori, Stacy Koski, and Emma Kate Scovill, I’ll always look back fondly on our times riding around in Bert, and I appreciate your letting me borrow him for a cameo in this novel.
Not enough can be said about my parents, to whom this book is dedicated. Your unflagging support means the world.
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