ARC: The Almost Girl

by Amalie Howard

  “Where am I… What happened?” I croak. My voice is unfamiliar. Weak.

  “Don’t you remember? You crashed your bike and had some kind of crazy allergic reaction. You’re at my house now. You didn’t want me to take you to the hospital because you said something about money, so I brought you here,” he says in a rush and then clarifies, “My aunt’s a doctor.”

  “How long have I been here?” I say and try to stand, gasping at the soreness of my ribs.

  His nearness is overwhelming, confusing me as thoughts of Cale race through my clouded brain. My throat is raw, and the effort to swallow makes my head pound. A wave of dizziness overcomes me and I fall back to the bed. A knife-like pain slices through my leg.

  The boy leans forward to grasp my shoulder gently. “Look, you really should–”

  “Don’t touch me,” I snap, flinching away from the warmth in his fingers. My body may be beaten, but it’s still poised to attack. The boy’s offended expression throws me, and my anger fades as my brain struggles to keep up. “Sorry, I’m still a little freaked out, and I don’t like people touching me,” I say by way of apology. He still looks miffed so I force a tiny smile to my lips. “You go to Horrow, right?”

  “Yes, we’re in the same Physics class,” he says, the hurt look draining away slowly, “and in the same project group. I only knew who you were because Mrs Taylor asked me to help you out if you needed a hand since you’re new. You started last week, right?”

  “Yes,” I say, remembering the profile of a boy I’d barely given a second glance to. I grind my teeth together – that had been sheer carelessness on my part. Or maybe all those jumps are finally catching up to me; otherwise, why else would I be lying here in this bed, weak as a newborn kitten?

  “I’m Caden, by the way,” he says, sticking his hand out. Staring at his fingers as if they’re snakes, I raise my hand in an awkward half-wave. My smile feels forced. His hand falls away, and the weird look returns to his face. “You’re not too friendly, are you?”

  I breathe out the pent-up air in my lungs and feel the rush of adrenaline recede. I stare at the boy through the corner of my eye who could be Cale. No, not Cale. They may look the same, but they’re entirely different people underneath their doppelganger skins.

  “Sorry. I mean, I know who you are,” I whisper under my breath.

  It’s not Cale, I remind myself for good measure.

  My head still feels wobbly like some kind of horrible hangover. Only, I wouldn’t know what that would be like – the only time I’d tasted spirits had been with Cale, celebrating the Winter Solstice when I was ten. It was an experience I never want to repeat. But I’d seen other people drunk enough to guess what a hangover would feel like.

  A tremor runs through my hands and I flex them automatically. My veins are blue against my skin, the tendons still corded and raised along the backs of my hands. Black and blue bruises mottle the length of both arms. My torso probably looks worse. A hollow feeling fills my stomach as I realize just how close the shakes had brought me to an irreversible outcome last night. Too close… and now that I’d found the boy, I needed to have all my wits functioning. Others would be close too. The ones who would also come for him.

  “I like your tattoo,” Caden says, interrupting the turn of my thoughts. Instinctively, my fingers touch the gold circular seal and the three black lines – two whole and one broken – beneath it on my neck. “Does it mean anything?”

  I almost want to laugh. A filial brand and a line for each traitor I’d killed? He’d be running away as fast as he could or calling the police if he even guessed what it meant.

  “No.”

  “So, what’s your name?” Caden asks, shoving his hands in his pockets. I had to give him credit for trying. In that, he was just like Cale – neither of them took “no” for an answer.

  “Riven.”

  “I thought that was your last name?”

  “Riven is my last name,” I say, and bite back a grin at his immediate frown. “I only have one name. Where I come from we don’t have two names, just one.” I see his frown deepen, and kick myself for my telling choice of words.

  “Where you come from,” he repeats slowly. “Everyone has two names here, unless you’re like Usher or Madonna.” At my blank stare, he clarifies, “You know, the singers?”

  I nod quickly. I’ve seen them on the television. “Just Riven,” I say.

  “Just Riven.” He draws my name out slowly like he’s trying to taste it or something. “That’s a weird name. I mean, unique,” he says hastily. “Does it mean anything?”

  “It means ripped apart.”

  “Oh.” I can see that he’s at a loss for words. I don’t blame him. Back home, my name strikes fear into anyone who hears it – but that’s more a factor of the reputation that precedes me than anything else.

  From his expression, I can see him wondering why someone would name a child with such an odd, violent name. I feel my lips curling in a smile – as far as names go, I like the fierceness of it, the simplicity. In a weird way, it fits me.

  After a couple minutes, Caden speaks. “No idea what mine means. So, is that from Asia or Africa, then? You know, where people have one last name? Is that where you grew up?”

  I can only manage a terse nod. At Caden’s questions, I wish I could pull out the notebook in my backpack and leaf through it. Even after three years of blending in—appearance, accent and behavior-wise—I’m still not familiar with the exact geographical topography of this world. His questions are making my head spin, and I can’t afford to make any more mistakes, not when I am almost home… now that I’ve finally found him.

  I shake myself mentally once more. If my body were stronger, I’d grab him and go, but in my weakened condition, that would be sure suicide for us both. I’d die, and he’d never make it without me. Not there.

  My eyes fall to the glass of water sitting on the bedside table next to an alarm clock, and I take a slow sip. It’s almost 11 on Saturday morning. I need to make some kind of exit and compose myself for travel. And the travel I’m talking about is not as simple as buying an airplane ticket and showing up at a mass-transit airport; it’s way more complicated. Any number of things could go wrong, especially when there is more than one traveler – one of them a fugitive, the other a target.

  “You don’t look Asian,” Caden continues his monologue, considering I’m barely participating in the conversation. “I mean, you look like me, well, except the hair. Yours has green and blue in it,” he points out. I touch the strands and remember that I’d dyed it four schools before, after the incident with the police. It was haphazardly chopped around my face except for a single braid that wound down one side.

  “It’s cool, your hair,” Caden adds and then reddens. “For a punk look, I mean.”

  I’d butchered it myself when I’d been short on time, leaving only the slim blue and gold braid. I hadn’t been able to let it go – the only reminder of my position, my rank. But overall, it was an edgy, fierce look that tended to make people stay away, which I’d liked.

  It wasn’t doing much to shut Caden up, though. “You definitely stand out, especially at Horrow,” he remarks. “The girls are all pretty much vanilla. You meet any of them yet?”

  “No. I keep to myself.”

  A wry smile. “I get it. You don’t like being touched, you want to be alone, and you’re not looking for any friends.”

  Caden moves to stand near the window and moves my backpack from the floor to the chair. He doesn’t open it but just stares at it thoughtfully. It’s a brief respite from the conversation, so I use the silence to figure out how to tactfully say thank you and leave.

  He eyes me. “What exactly happened to you last night?”

  But I’m saved from having to respond to Caden or tell him rudely to shut up, when a neatly dressed woman enters the room. She is no taller than I am but sturdily built; she looks like a strong woman. Her dark hair is pulled off of her face into a tidy bun at
the base of her neck. She has kind eyes with lines at the corners, but there’s something else in them, too… warning that her kindness shouldn’t be mistaken for weakness.

  “How’s our patient doing this morning?”

  She glances at Caden, who is still flushed, and then back to me where I’m sitting on the edge of the bed with a frown on my face. A strange expression curls the corners of her lips upward, and I can feel my brows snapping together even more tightly. I don’t recognize or like the amused look on her face, as if she thinks there’s something going on between the two of us.

  “I’m Caden’s aunt,” she says to me. “He’s been in here constantly. I’ve never seen him so solicitous of anyone.”

  “What? I wasn’t.” Caden flushes and stares at the ground.

  “I hope you haven’t been keeping her from resting, Caden. She needs to keep that foot elevated.”

  “It’s fine,” I say, and then more clearly, “My foot?” For the first time, I notice that I am wearing some sort of cotton pants, and I wonder whether Caden’s aunt had removed my own clothes. Curiously, I don’t feel any embarrassment, because I’m more worried about whether the injury will slow me down.

  “Lay back,” she tells me gently and places a hand against my forehead. “That’s good.”

  “What happened?” I repeat, trying to pull the pajama material up to see. She stalls my hand.

  “Try not to move, you have some badly bruised ribs, too. It’s your ankle, nothing too serious. You must have torn a ligament from the convulsions or when you fell, but you do need to keep pressure off of it for now. I iced it and wrapped it last night. Let’s have a look.”

  Carefully unwrapping the bandage, I see that my ankle is a blotchy greenish purple and twice the size of my other foot. I am sure that it looks far worse than it is. I wiggle my toes slowly and I know from experience it’s a good sign. It means nothing’s broken.

  “A lot of the swelling has gone down, which is good,” Caden’s aunt says. I can’t imagine my ankle being any fatter, but it must have been because even Caden is nodding.

  “It matches your hair,” Caden remarks. I ignore him, more concerned with trying to calculate how much this injury will set me back.

  “How long?” I ask.

  “A few weeks.”

  “A few weeks!” I gasp. “Can’t you do anything to speed it up?”

  A gentle smile while deftly re-wrapping the bandage across my ankle. “No, honey. Best you can do to recover quickly is rest, ice, compression, and elevation. R. I. C. E. Simple enough to remember, right? If the pain gets any worse or it doesn’t get better, you’ll need to get it checked out. For now, I can give you some ibuprofen to help with the pain and the swelling.”

  “No meds. I can manage the pain,” I say. “I’m allergic to most medications,” I add at her curious look. The truth is that anything that inhibits the functions of the brain is a risk, especially during eversion. I need to be clear.

  “I guess that explains why you had such a high-tech injector in your bag,” Caden chimes in, pulling the pen-like instrument from the front pocket of the backpack where he’d replaced it the night before. “I’ve never seen anything like it. My emergency one is like a plastic piece of crap compared to yours. Bees are my nemesis,” he reminds me, twisting the silver cylinder between his fingers.

  I smile, a cheap attempt at reassurance and normalcy even though my heart is pounding. I’ve never wanted to lurch forward and grab anything more than at that moment. Like the teacher earlier, I feel that Caden’s aunt can see right through me. Her blue eyes are as sharp as Mrs Taylor’s had been, and although there’s no mistrust in them, I feel uncomfortable just the same.

  It’s one of the reasons that I don’t like getting close to people. Too many questions. And too many that can’t be answered. But I know that I owe them both some kind of explanation for my bizarre behavior… and for the injector that looks like it comes from some kind of super advanced robotics lab.

  “Mine is a little more complicated,” I say. “I’m not allergic to bees or food. It’s a… a genetic brain thing. If I don’t take my medication regularly, like yesterday, things can go south pretty quickly, especially with the seizures. Sometimes something as simple as hunger can set it off.” I glance up to test the waters. They are both watching me, but with more concern than any kind of disbelief on their faces. My lies are getting more convincing. “The injector is custom-made for my condition. You couldn’t use it,” I say in Caden’s direction. “And it’s really expensive so… “

  I don’t have to finish my sentence before Caden carefully replaces the injector in the backpack.

  “Sorry,” he says stuffing his hands in his pockets. “So are you OK now?”

  I nod slowly. I haven’t had to use the injector before but it has definitely come in handy to say the least. I am alive. Each cylinder has six doses, so I have five remaining. I hope fervently that I don’t have to use them. Even thinking about the pain makes my head spin. Caden’s aunt pulls the sheet up and pats my forehead.

  “You can stay here as long as you need to, Riven. Can I call someone for you? Your parents? They must be worried.”

  “No thanks,” I say quickly. “My father is out of town on business. He usually calls me to check in. You can talk to him then.”

  She frowns for a second but nods. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

  “I will. Thanks for taking care of me, Mrs…?” I trail off realizing that I don’t even know their family name.

  “Just call me June.”

  “Thank you, June,” I say.

  I’m overwhelmed at her generosity, letting some stranger into her home. I could have easily been one of the others looking for the boy. How easy would it be to kill him? One swipe of a knife, a pillow over the face, a twist of a finger? They’re so trusting, these people. Back home, getting within an arm’s length of another person is virtually impossible, much less getting into someone else’s home. It’s astonishing that the boy has survived for so long.

  The odds weren’t in his favor, yet here he was, unhurt and obviously thriving… hidden in plain sight. And I’d found him quite by accident – this town hadn’t been on my list. I’d just stopped here on my way to Wyoming and randomly decided to stay for a few days to recuperate after the last eversion. It had been a spur of the moment decision.

  I glance at Caden, chewing on his thumb and staring at me out of the corner of his eye. He seems to be just like all the other kids of this world, so oblivious to everything but their immediate sphere of existence. Watching him, I know that he has been well protected, but he is clearly unprepared.

  He thinks he’s just a normal boy. But I know better.

  He has no idea about anything – no idea of who is after him or what’s coming for him. I frown. So how has he survived? How has he been able to stay here undetected and in the dark about who he really is for this long?

  There is only one answer that I can think of. It is one that chills me to my bones.

  Someone has to be helping him.

  Someone who knows that I would be coming.

  BLACKOUT

  Caden and his aunt insisted I stay with them until late Sunday afternoon. Despite June’s protests, I took a taxi back to the cash-only cheap motel on the outskirts of town as soon as I could. Due to her expert care, my injury is healing well, albeit slowly. In my world, muscle and tissue would be repaired in minutes in a laser lab. Still, I’m surprised that after just two days, I can bear weight on it. I sigh, frustrated. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. Despite racking my brain for alternatives, I am a sitting duck. Attempting to evert with any kind of physical weakness is a death sentence. Eversion doesn’t just mean physical stress – any kind of strain that sends mixed messages to the brain could upset the timing and the result. And no one wants to end up inside out with a jump gone wrong.

  Hauling myself out of bed, I clear my mind and perform a series of meditational exercises that send en
ergy flowing through my body. Despite the hollow ache in my ribs, it feels good. I stretch each muscle carefully until my movements are fluid and limber, taking care with my ankle, then move into a series of simple calisthenics that has a fine sheen of sweat coating my skin when I’m finished. It’s a process that I repeat every morning without fail, with the exception of Saturday. I frown, redoing the exercises once more, a compensation of sorts for the missed interval. Even impaired, I can take on a couple of Vectors, but probably no more than three. I have to be prepared for the worst.

  I unfold the leather case lying tucked inside the back of my bag. Shiny silver knives and an array of weapons greet me, and I finger one of their edges carefully. They’ve never failed me. Without glancing behind me, I flick two toward the back of the motel door and they lodge with thick precision into the wood of the narrow doorjamb. Not much of a target, but I shrug and retrieve the blades. I repeat the knife throws, managing to get both in the same incision points as before. Better.

  Grabbing the crutches I’d borrowed from June, I hobble to the door, swearing under my breath. Having to move this slowly is worse than the pain. I hitch a ride to school in the back of a pickup truck, and before I can lose my nerve, I grit my teeth and awkwardly shuffle my way up the stairs to the doors. I’d like nothing more than to not have to attend another day of high school now that I’ve found Caden, but I also don’t want anything to happen to him, either. I still have that feeling of things not being quite right, and vigilance and caution are two things that have kept me alive all these years.

  So another day of Horrow High it is.

  Trudging to my class, I realize that I don’t know anything about Caden. The little I do know tells me that he is nothing like Cale. It confuses me. Still, what did I expect? They’re not exactly the same people – made even more dissimilar by the whole nature-versus-nurture thing. But the truth is, I don’t need to know anything about him. Why should I care? He’s a target, and one that I need to get back as quickly as possible.