ARC: The Almost Girl

by Amalie Howard

  AMALIE HOWARD

  The Almost Girl

  Please Note!

  This is an Advanced Reading Copy of the book and may not have been through the final editorial and proof-reading process prior to publication. Please do not quote from the text in reviews, or critique the text on the basis of perceived errors, without double-checking with Strange Chemistry to see if the final version has been amended.

  Thank you.

  To Valerie, because she couldn’t be here.

  PROLOGUE

  THREE YEARS EARLIER

  The slight figure is lithe and quick, a shadow of a shadow in the darkness. It runs along the edgy gloom of the halogen-lit streets, flying over electric fences and scaling walls with the practiced ease of a skilled athlete. One would never suspect that it was being chased by an entire army of soldiers, but it was, several hundred of them.

  In a fluid twist to gauge the remaining distance from its pursuers, the runner’s profile is visible for a brief second. It is the face of young girl, barely fourteen, as she glides into a narrow alley. Blood drips from a self-inflicted gash in her arm, the silver implant she’d dug from the wound slipping from her fingers to the oily ground before it is crushed beneath her boot.

  Glancing at the gauge on her wrist, she sees a red flash that tells her that she’s nearly at the eversion checkpoint. Her timing and positioning must be exact for the universe transition. She ducks into a crouch as the first of the small army reaches the dark alleyway; he is faster than the others.

  They’re always fast.

  “Surrender yourself,” a voice says. The soldier stands, weapon at the ready. He knows that she is there. The girl steps out from behind a crate. There is no fear on her face, just a silent calmness, an acceptance of the situation. The soldiers are programmed to obey and to subdue hostiles, but she tries to divert them anyway. She knows that nothing she says will deter the soldier – after all, she’s been their leader for the better part of a year.

  And now, she is the traitor… the fugitive.

  “Stand down, Lieutenant,” she says firmly in a husky voice far too mature for her years. The soldier doesn’t even acknowledge her words. “That is an order.”

  “Surrender,” he repeats, raising the electro-rod slightly. “General.”

  His voice is dead, just like the rest of him, but he understands exactly who she is. He’s half-alive but still far from a mindless drone. She sees a glimmer of blue sparks at the rod’s three-pronged tip. He’d have it set to stun she knew, but she wasn’t going back alive. She couldn’t go back.

  “OK. Have it your way,” she says.

  The girl lunges at him, barely half his size, to slide on her knees beneath the blunt edge of the metal rod swinging toward her head. Her hand snakes out, a fist thumping into the hard, cold flesh beneath his ribs lightning-fast, and the soldier grunts, doubling over at the dull crack. In a reverse motion, her fist slices past his Achilles tendon, the blade between her fingers a blur, and he crumples to the floor.

  They may be immune to pain, but they’re still made of flesh and bone.

  Not losing momentum, she jabs him in the back of the neck just above the top of his spine with the point of her knife. The strike is snake-like and true. A spark and the sharp smell of singed flesh, and in a matter of seconds, the soldier is lying prostrate on the ground, twitching slightly, disabled for the moment.

  Glancing around, the girl listens for sounds of the others before emptying the soldier’s pockets quickly. As well as the rod, she sticks a communication earpiece, a long-handled knife, six packets of dried food dust, and two pen-like instruments into her own black knapsack.

  It is more than she could have hoped for.

  The soldier stirs with a whining noise, and the girl grasps his face between her hands, pulling open his eyelids with her thumbs and forefingers. His skin is cold and clammy but he’s not dead; far from it. Her blow to his cortex chip would only have caused it to reboot, but the nanocells in his retina would still be relaying real-time to her pursuers. She wants the message to be clear and stares directly into his eyes, straddling his chest with her knees.

  “Don’t try to find me,” she growls. “Don’t send anyone. If you do, they will end up like this one; that I can promise you.”

  Her hands twist, tugging the soldier’s chin upward and jamming his knife into the back of his neck. It is such a smooth motion of her hands that the soldier’s body barely twitches as she severs his spinal cord, the critical connector between the brain and the body. Her face will be the last thing her pursuers see. The light in his eyes fades but it’s only a trick of the shadowed gloom around them. There’s no life in these creatures… only death.

  The sensor on her wrist flashes to blue. Without a backward glance, she is away in an instant, swallowed up by the inky darkness, punching in a sequence on a flat computer-like device connected to the sensor. After a moment, all that’s left in her wake is a brief shimmer in the fabric of space and air. She’s gone.

  PART ONE

  THE OTHERWORLD

  PRESENT DAY

  COLORADO

  My thoughts rain like spatters of blood against the colorless landscape of drab walls and wooden faces. A bell rings, and it is a mad rush as chairs are pushed back loudly. A tall woman with a no-nonsense face calls for silence.

  “The class roster for the end-of-year projects has been posted in the hallway. You have been paired in groups of four with a different assignment based on what we have covered this semester. If you don’t know your partners, I suggest you meet them quickly, as these projects will count for half of your final grade.”

  A collective groan rolls its way across the classroom.

  “But Mrs Taylor,” a girl three rows across stands and complains loudly, “why can’t we pick our own groups? Wouldn’t that be better for everyone?”

  “Miss Hall, in the future, if you’d like to say something, please refrain from yelling it across the classroom. The groups have been allocated according to last year’s class standings.”

  “But–”

  “The groups are final, Miss Hall.” Mrs Taylor’s voice brooks no argument, and the girl falls silent, although her face remains puckered with frustration as she exits the classroom.

  I sit huddled at the back, waiting until the classroom is almost empty before gathering my things and walking noiselessly to the front.

  “Mrs Taylor?” I ask. My voice is slightly roughened from a lack of sleep, and the teacher jumps, looking up questioningly. I paste a suitably contrite look on my face. “Sorry to startle you, I’m… er… Riven. I transferred in last week. About the groups…”

  “Ah, yes, Riven, I do have a note about you, as a matter of fact,” Mrs Taylor says, shuffling through a pile of papers on the desk. “You have already been assigned. It’s on the board along with the others. If you run into any trouble, let me know.” Mrs Taylor pushes the wire-rimmed glasses up her nose, her dark eyes sharp. “Anything else?”

  “No, that’s it,” I mumble, unable to hold back the yawn that overtakes my facial muscles.

  “Are you alright? You look quite pale.”

  “I’m fine, just tired. Jet lag,” I smile and hoist my backpack over my arm. “Thanks, Mrs Taylor.”

  “Riven?” I freeze at the door and turn my head in her direction. Her black eyes are still piercing, unsettling as if they can see right through me. I feel an odd, unwelcome shiver take hold at the base of my spine. “Welcome to Horrow.”

  “Thanks,” I mumble and shift away from her impaling gaze. She’s looking at me as if she knows who I am… an imposter, a stranger.

  A killer.

  I sneak a glance into the classroom once I’m in the hallway, and Mrs Taylor is back to
studying the papers on her desk. I must have been wrong. I yawn again as exhaustion consumes me. In my tired delirium, I’m starting to imagine things. I’ve been pushing myself way too hard without enough rest intervals between jumps. It’s foolish and reckless.

  Black dots fill my vision. I’m disoriented as if the ground is tilting beneath my soles. I glance down, only to see the checkered tile floor undulating like a breaking wave. Gasping for breath, I haul open the first door I see.

  A janitor’s closet.

  Leaning against the cool plastic of a recycling bin, I breathe in huge gulps of stale closet air. The fatigue is becoming worse, ever since the last jump. My fingers begin to shake uncontrollably as I smooth open the crumpled paper with my new class schedule.

  Thirty class schedules in as many months, with time slowly running out. Trying to locate the boy here has been like looking for a drop in a bucket of water – near impossible. But I can’t give up. I won’t. Because in my gut, I can sense that there are already others here… others looking for him.

  And I have to find him first.

  Swallowing, I blink back the grit from my burning eyes and squint in the dim light at my schedule. I have Phys Ed and then lunch. I won’t make it to lunch, it’s an absolute certainty. My body slides down the side of the bin and I sit in the muted shadows as light filters from the cracks underneath the door. Maybe I’ll just sit here for a second to catch my breath.

  My eyelids droop heavily, and then there is only sweet aching darkness.

  When I open my eyes again, there is no longer any light seeping through the door and there is only silence beyond it. I must have slept through the entire day on the floor of this tiny closet. I inch my way up, hearing my joints creak painfully, and crack open the door. The hallway is deserted, the clock on the wall showing 4 o’clock in the morning. A chill sweeps along my skin as the fluorescent light flickers eerily. School hallways just aren’t the same without kids in them. Suppressing a shudder, I exit through a side entrance onto one of the practice football fields as the door locks behind me with a soft click.

  Early fall, and the night is dark and cold. I tug my black sweater down along my arms. It’s only when I reach the empty parking lot where the Ducati is parked that I feel the first painful rumble in my stomach. I haven’t eaten anything today. Swearing at my own carelessness, I unwrap a snack bar from my backpack with clammy hands and shove it into my mouth.

  It’s one of my few rules of survival – always eat. In my condition, hunger can bring on far worse things, things that you can’t come back from, not in this world anyway, and my body is unstable enough already. The food slides down like hard cardboard along the soft sides of my throat and I gag, but force myself to swallow. There’s a bottle of water in my backpack and I drink it so quickly that half of it spills down my sweater. I’m hoping that it isn’t already too late. I throw on my helmet and take a deep breath. I have to make it back to the motel. It’s only a few miles.

  Tires squealing in protest against the cold asphalt, I pull out onto the main road and ride as fast as I dare over the speed limit. The last thing I need is to get pulled over. It happened once before when the sickness started. The cop ended up in the hospital that night, and I had to leave town quickly, trusting that what I’d been looking for hadn’t been there. I couldn’t risk anything similar happening, not again and not here.

  I stop at a red light, concentrating on taking slow mechanical breaths. But the pain in my belly only deepens as if in silent mockery of my efforts.

  You can make it, I tell myself firmly, accelerating across the intersection.

  The panic recedes but then returns in a wave so violent that I am gasping as my back arches like a bow. There’s no way I can make it. How could I have been so foolish to think that I could beat the odds… beat time?

  Too late, too late, too late.

  A brutal wave of nausea drives me to jerk roughly on the Ducati’s handlebars, the motorcycle’s wheels protesting angrily on the asphalt, just as a lance-like pain stabs through me. My fingers jam reflexively against the throttle, twisting it. The bike lurches forward and careens across the two opposite lanes, my thighs burning from gripping the sides of the tank to steady it.

  That’s when the shakes start. Within seconds, I can feel my hands curl into hardened claws, my body spasming uncontrollably. My eyes roll back and I barely see the oncoming lights, as the bike swings precariously once more to the left, grinding off the road and spinning into gravel. My body is flung like a sack of rocks as the Ducati skids to a shattered halt on its side.

  The sky above me is dark and wide with nothing in it. No stars, no moon, nothing. Just blackness. I suck in a shallow breath, keeping my jaw tightly closed, knowing how easily I can bite my own tongue off if I’m not careful. My chest aches with the strained intake of air, but I already know from years of training that it’s mostly bruises, and nothing’s broken. Hot white dots cloud my vision and I focus myself, searching for my backpack. It was flung from me upon impact with the ground, but it’s just a foot away.

  Reach out slowly, the bag is right there, I tell myself, but my body refuses to cooperate. Inside I know that it is too late, I can feel myself shutting down. I should have rested today, stayed in bed and given myself a chance to recuperate from the jump, but I’d been stupid, arrogant. I hadn’t wanted to lose any time, and now I’m going to pay the price. My eyes slip shut.

  As if from afar, I hear a rustling and then a loud banging. Someone yelling. Shadows flit across my closed eyelids. “Help,” I whisper. “Help.”

  “Oh god! She came off a bike. Don’t move her; she could have a concussion.”

  “Hey! Hey, you OK?”

  The voices are dull as if coming from far away. My thoughts won’t even turn toward them. Noises followed by a dull thud as someone stoops beside me. Gentle fingers slip across my arm, moving upward to open my visor.

  Backpack. I try to say my single thought but my tongue is thick against my teeth. I can only open and close sticky lips that taste like metal.

  “She’s alive! Help me get this helmet off. Careful with her.”

  My head lolls backward as the helmet slips off, but I’m caught by strong hands and cradled gently. A bottle is placed against my lips and I feel cool water trickle into my mouth, washing away the coppery taste. It hurts to swallow, but I ignore the pain. The water moistens my gums and loosens my tongue.

  “Injector… backpack…” It won’t be long before I go into shock. “Have to… stick…”

  “Don’t worry, I got it. I’m allergic, too,” one of the voices says. I hear a rustle and feel the rough jab of the needle piercing into my skin through my jeans, and then soft fingers are brushing against my forehead. “Hang on, it’s going to be OK.”

  “Should we call 911?” the other voice asks. “What’s with the needle?”

  “No hospital, please. Be OK…” I direct my plea to the one who’d administered the auto-injector. “Please, can’t afford…”

  “Rest,” the voice says. “It’s OK, Jake, looks like an allergic reaction. Could be peanuts, bees, anything, don’t know.” I hear the rustling of a wrapper. “My aunt’s off tonight. I’ll take her home with me and see what she says. If she says to go to the hospital, I’ll take her.”

  “What about her bike? We shouldn’t just leave it, right? We can probably get it in the back of my truck,” the voice belonging to Jake says. “I can take a better look at it tomorrow.”

  “OK. Help me get her inside first. Careful, she may be hurt from when it went off the road.”

  “Thank you,” I murmur as they lift me gently into the backseat of the truck. They are the only words I can manage before my brain shuts down. I can feel the serum making its way through my body, stopping my cells from going into anaphylactic shock.

  The boy’s right – I am having an allergic reaction, just not to any food.

  In some dark corner of my mind, I know that I should be worried or be afraid that I have fallen i
nto the wrong hands, but somehow I know… I trust that I am safe. The thing, is I can’t remember the last time I felt safe. Oblivion sweeps my remaining consciousness away.

  When I open my eyes again, I’m lying in a bed in an airy room. It’s quiet and peaceful. A fan on the ceiling wafts cool air into my face, and for a second it feels as if I’m in some kind of dream. Then I see the boy slumped in the armchair in front of the window and instantly know that this is reality. He seems asleep, although I can’t really tell from the way his hair is curling into his face. I search for my backpack. It’s sitting next to him on the floor. Sitting up gingerly, I swing my left leg over the side of the bed and wince at the pain now radiating up my back and around my ribs.

  “You shouldn’t really move, you know.” The boy is awake now and I can feel him watching me carefully. I ignore him and shift my other leg to the floor. The pain is excruciating, echoing along every nerve ending like fire.

  “My aunt says you need to keep that leg up,” he says and moves to stand next to me, his hand pressing onto my shoulder. With his free hand, he carelessly shoves the hair out of his face and sits beside me on the edge of the bed. “You’re pretty banged up.”

  Our eyes collide and it is like I am being sucked into a vortex that I can’t control.

  It’s him.

  The boy I’m supposed to find.

  His hair is lighter, almost golden brown, and swept to the side around his face, but his nose and chin are the spitting image of the one I know. And his eyes… those impossibly green eyes, filled with vibrant life. I’d prepared myself that he would look like him but they’re so alike that it leaves me speechless.

  And he found me. He saved me.

  I shake myself hard. What are the odds? Searching for someone for nearly three years only to find them via an accident of fate? The questions make my head pound, and I blink, disoriented.