I gasp. “It is going to kill me.”
He shakes his head. “No. It’s going to set you free. It’ll let you go from this form so that you can spread your light, your love. You save lives.”
“I don’t want to save anybody,” I say. “You’re wrong. It’s not true.” And suddenly I just want him to leave. To leave me alone so that I can lie down, rest my body. Everything hurts, but it only reminds me of how much I want to keep my skin. Forget the light. I won’t go.
I stand up, flinching as I put pressure on my thighs. “Good night,” I say to Monroe, and walk toward the apartment door. I open it but don’t turn around. I don’t want to see that adoring look he has for the gold on my shoulder. When I don’t hear him move I say good night again, only louder. He gets up.
Monroe Swift—doctor extraordinaire—pauses in front of me, his blond eyebrows pulled together in concern. I used to think he could save the world. I used to think he cared for me.
“Soon you’ll understand,” he says.
I glare at him, angry. Scared. He nods and starts out the door. “Monroe?” I call. He stops and glances over his shoulder. “Why are they called the Forgotten?”
His eyes weaken, like he might cry. But instead, he clears his throat. “You’ll know soon enough, sweetheart.” He looks at the ground and then to me. “Let’s keep this between us, shall we?” he asks.
“Like anyone would believe me.” I touch the stitches, mostly to check that they’re still there. That this is still happening.
I close my eyes, listening to the sound of his shoes slapping on the tiles. And when it’s quiet, I close the door and lean against it.
Even though I’m mad that Monroe has been keeping secrets from me, I want to believe that he won’t let anything happen to me. No matter what he says now, he won’t just let me die. I’ve known him since I was a kid. He’s friends with Mercy. He’s friends with me.
And he’s the only person who can help me.
Feeling unsteady, I stumble across the room to the couch. Even if Monroe is wrong about my skin, it doesn’t explain the Need. It doesn’t explain why I’m consumed with helping people I don’t know.
I yawn, feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. I’ll get more answers, but not tonight. I glance at the clock on the wall and see that it’s after midnight. I close my eyes, hoping that in the morning things will go back to normal . . . or as normal as they were yesterday. Which, admittedly, isn’t all that normal.
Chapter 7
I ’m startled awake by the sound of keys jingling in the apartment door. As it slowly opens I sit up, the dried tears on my cheeks leaving my skin feeling stiff. Georgia walks in, but pauses. She looks at me and then around the apartment.
“Mercy still at work?”
I nod.
“Cool.” She shuts the door behind her and turns the deadbolt before shrugging off her gray coat. “What are you doing up?” she asks, tossing her jacket over a chair. She drops down across from me and bunches her short dark hair into a ponytail on top of her head with an elastic band she’s been wearing around her wrist.
“I had a rough night,” I say.
“Boyfriends suck.” She sighs. “Especially the cute ones.”
We’ve never talked about Harlin, really, but she did mention once that he was sexy as hell. It made Alex and me giggle at the time. Weird that I never asked if she had a boyfriend. “Are you seeing someone?”
She tsks. “I got a guy waiting on me back home. I don’t have time for the fools around here.” She pauses. “No offense.”
“None taken.”
“So what did your man do? He find another girl?”
I shake my head. “I was actually hit by a car tonight.”
Her dark eyes widen. “You okay?”
“Few stitches, but I’m fine.”
She seems to think this over, then nods and rests her head back into the chair and closes her eyes. “You’re crazy, girl.”
After six months I feel like this is the most heartfelt conversation Georgia and I have ever had. We don’t fight; barely even talk, really. It’s just that I’m always wrapped up in Harlin or the Need, and she’s . . . doing what she does.
When Georgia first came here, Alex was totally jealous. He’s been with Mercy since he was a baby, and he takes every opportunity to still act like one. So when Mercy gave Georgia driving lessons before him, Alex went berserk. And Georgia, being sort of a badass, told him off. Now they make a sport of it.
All I know is that Georgia’s mom will be out of prison soon, and when she is, Georgia will move back with her. Maybe that’s why I haven’t tried to get to know her.
I feel suddenly guilty, especially after what Monroe told me. I’m supposed to be some sort of angel, and yet I’ve ignored my foster sister for months.
I stare at Georgia, wondering what it’s like to have a mother you could remember, and then lose her. Wondering if she thinks about her mom all day as she waits for her. Georgia’s dark skin is dotted with old acne marks and her multi-ringed fingers start to brush back her hair. When she turns her head, I see it. Her scar.
It’s pink and jagged and it runs from behind her ear all the way down to her jaw. I’d noticed it the first day she showed up here, but no one’s ever asked her about it. I think we all just assumed it had to do with why she was in foster care to begin with. I’m struck by the fact that I don’t know. That I live with her and know nothing about her.
“What happened to your neck?” I ask.
She looks up and stares back at me viciously. “None of your damn business, Charlotte. Did I ask why you were out late getting hit by cars when you’re supposed to be at home?”
I’m stunned, feeling embarrassed. “No. You didn’t. I’m sorry.”
We’re quiet for a minute and I’m about to go to bed when Georgia starts talking, her eyes closed and her head turned away.
“When I was fifteen,” she says, “my mother was into drugs—using and selling. And one time she let the wrong people in.” She sucks at her teeth as if the memory is painful. “Mom got hit a couple of times, but I got the worst of it. Five stab wounds and a broken collarbone. Spent three weeks in the hospital.” Georgia looks over at me. “After that my mom got arrested for possession and I’ve been bounced from house to house. But I’m almost eighteen and my mom’s getting out in a few weeks and we’re starting over. She’s clean now.”
I’m amazed that she told me this, but I’m without words. Georgia had been attacked. Brutalized. Why hadn’t the Need sent me to her? Why didn’t I save her instead of some junkie in an alley or a thug running from the cops? It doesn’t seem fair. Nothing seems fair anymore.
“I’m sorry,” I say finally.
She waves me off. “Now never ask me again.”
I press back into the couch, watching her as she rests, looking too tired to make it to her room. And I wish that I could somehow save her.
But mostly I wish that I could save myself.
There are sounds around me, but whenever I try to open my eyes, I sink underwater again, submerged in the thickness of sleep that won’t let me go.
“I don’t know,” I hear Georgia say. “She was talking about getting hit by a car.”
“Is she dead?” Alex asks as I feel an arm wrap around my shoulders and tug me forward.
“You’re a damn fool. You can see her breathing right there.”
Alex gasps, and there’s a whisper of a touch on my head. “Oh, yeah. Look, she has stitches.”
“Let me see.”
“Right there.”
And then I’m out, surrounded in dark. But in the distance there is a small glow, a tiny light. Suddenly I’m standing alone, the space starting to brighten as the light grows.
“It’s going to hurt, you know?”
I jump at the sound of the voice and look sideways. Standing next to me in the dark is the woman in black. Up close she’s even more beautiful than I thought—icy blue eyes, pale porcelain skin. And her voice has th
e slightest hint of a Russian accent.
“That light”—she motions toward it—“hurts like hell. Worse than being burned alive.”
“Who are you?” I ask.
“I’m like you.” She grins widely. “Only more evolved.” She stops suddenly and looks around, as if she heard something that I didn’t. She meets my eyes. “We’ll talk more soon.”
My eyes flutter and I feel a jolt. I’m lying flat in my bed.
“Finally,” Alex says. I turn to see him sitting on the edge of the mattress, pushing my legs. “Thought maybe you did die.”
I swallow hard, startled by my dream . . . by the woman. The smell of bacon is in the air and I’m comforted by home. I’d know the lingering smell of Mercy’s cooking anywhere. Within a few seconds the dream starts to fade.
“No,” I say, my voice thick with sleep. “I’m alive. Got the bruises to prove it.” I reach up to feel my head, the stitches still poking out. “My brain hurts,” I murmur.
Alex chuckles and grabs a cup of water off my dresser and holds it out to me. “Your savior is here,” he says after I take the glass, and he tosses me a bottle of Advil.
“Hallelujah.” I down three pills, and then think better and take one more.
“Your man has been calling this house all morning,” Alex says. “You’d better call him back before he sends the SWAT team.” He picks at his nails. “And we don’t need that kind of trouble. Georgia might have someone tied up and gagged in her room.”
I burst out laughing and then wince, touching at my scalp. I kick him off the bed. “Georgia’s not that bad,” I say. “She and I had a sisterly heart-to-heart last night.”
Alex shrugs. “Oh, so you like her better now?” He says it jokingly, but I can hear the tension in his voice. Once you’ve been a foster kid, I’m not sure you can ever be loved enough. And although Mercy gives Alex the world, I think he’s still scared of being abandoned. I know I am.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“After ten.”
“Damn.” Classes started two hours ago, so it looks like I’m taking the day off. I hope St. Vincent’s hasn’t tried to call Mercy at work. I haven’t even told her I’d been in an accident yet. I gnaw on my lip, trying to count out when she’ll get home from her fourteen-hour shift.
Alex sighs. “I have to go. Today we’re doing highlights.” I make a face at him because he’s lucky. While I have to attend St. Vincent’s at eight a.m. every morning, he gets to take classes at vocational school—highlights and weaves from twelve to three. Really I just think he goes because he likes to have half days.
The house phone rings from my dresser, and Alex rolls his eyes. “Romeo again. Want me to grab it?”
“Will you?”
Alex snatches the phone and passes it over. I glance at the caller ID. “It’s actually Sarah,” I say.
“Ugh. Can’t stand that girl.” Alex flees because the sound of Sarah’s perky voice is like nails on a chalkboard to him. He thinks she’s a spoiled brat, she thinks he’s a bitter foster kid. They’re both sort of right, so I don’t get involved.
“Thank you,” I sing as he walks out the door.
I smile and click on the phone. “Hello, dear.”
“What. The. Hell. I’m at school, Charlotte. Where are you?”
“In bed.”
“Clearly. Now get up. I have major problems and I need you here.” I instantly feel bad for not being there for her. Sarah has a way of guilting me into things. It’s her gift.
I sit up, my head feeling like it’s two seconds behind my movements. But I’m thinking forward to the quickest way to school, bus or cab. “Are you okay?” I ask.
“What? I’m fine. Sort of. So last night at the charity event, something happened. And I cannot deal with this today. Not by myself.”
I relax a little. I realize that her voice isn’t frantic enough for this to be an actual emergency. This is a Sarah emergency, which means it relates to boys, clothes, or boys. “You scared the crap out of me, you know?”
She snorts. “Hello? You didn’t show up for school and Harlin’s been calling me like a crazed maniac talking about how you were hit by a car. How are you feeling, by the way?”
“Nice of you to ask. I’m fine.”
“Oh, please. If you were dead I would have found out long before now. Besides, I called Monroe the second I heard and he said you were fine. So don’t get all feel-sorry-for-me. Now are you going to help me or not?”
“Sarah, I’m ninety-nine percent sure that I can’t help you. But if you need me to listen while you complain, I can do that.”
“Awesome. Meet me for lunch at Frankie’s. My treat.”
“I just woke up. I have stitches in my head!” But somehow I know that even this isn’t a good enough excuse to miss lunch.
“See you in twenty,” she hangs up.
I put the phone down on my bed and rub roughly at my face. Sarah knows it will take me longer than twenty minutes to get to Frankie’s, and that’s if I don’t shower. But I sigh and climb out of bed, wincing once when I put weight on my thighs.
I pause, last night’s conversation with Monroe rushing back to me. The Forgotten. I stumble backward onto my bed, my heart racing. Quickly I shove my shirt off my shoulder and stare at the glowing gold beneath. My mind races through everything he said. He said it wouldn’t kill me. He said—
I’m like you. Only more evolved.
The voice in my head is from my dream, even though the memory of it is foggy along the edges. I can’t quite remember, like it’s just out of reach. I can still hear those words, though. I can still hear that voice.
I furrow my brow, considering what it means. Monroe had said that “they” should have told me by now. Maybe that’s what the voice is. Maybe it’ll tell me who I am and how I can save myself. If there’s someone else like me out there, it means I don’t have to die, right? Maybe I’m not the light after all. I feel almost relieved, so I stand and begin walking to the bathroom to get ready to meet Sarah. For the first time since finding the gold, I have a sense of hope. I’ll get the answers and then I can—
The force of it hits me. A shiver that runs from my toes to the top of my aching head. An intense burning in my shoulder. A vine that twists around my gut.
The Need. It’s back.
Chapter 8
I stumble out of my room, something pulling me fiercely toward the door. I’m still in my pajamas, barefoot. As I pass the kitchen, I hear Alex.
“Where are you going? I think you should wait for Mercy.”
I’m burning up from the inside, needing to get out. I look sideways at him and try to smile. “Can’t. Tell her I’ll call her later.”
“Not your secretary.” He shakes his head and turns to open the fridge. I’m glad that he doesn’t notice my bare feet. If he did, he might try to stop me. But there’s somewhere I have to be. My body is demanding it.
As I get to the front door, a burst of wind blows through me and I pause. I still feel pulsing under my skin, in my shoulder. But this is where I’m supposed to stop. I open my apartment door and peer out into the hallway. It’s empty.
I stand there, not sure what to do. Is it Alex? Maybe I could just go back and grab my shoes, still make it to Frankie’s. I’m about to try when I hear the squeak of hinges. I glance down the hallway and see the door of apartment 5468 ajar, but no one comes out. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen who lives there.
The Need pulls me out and I shut my door quietly, the sound of my bare feet padding on the floors. The door to the other apartment is still open.
I wheeze, heat searing my shoulder, and I push my T-shirt aside to look at the spot. It’s glowing.
“Oh God,” I murmur, trying not to cry. Unlike a few moments ago, the skin around the spot is now peeling at the edges; my skin rubbed away, exposing more gold. It’s the size of a grapefruit, my entire shoulder an inhuman shade with an indescribable shine.
I tremble with the horror of my transformation
. I’m wearing away, just like Monroe said I would. What if it can’t be stopped and the gold reaches my face? How can I live? I lean against the faded green wall, feeling like I’ve just been punched in the gut. I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to ball up and cry until I’m cured. But the Need rips me forward and I stumble down the hall again.
When I hear the creaking of a door, I stop. My breath comes out in short jagged gasps and my skin feels as if it’s burning off.
There is a little girl in the doorway—her long blond hair loose and wild around her face. She looks frightened.
“Hi,” I say, unsure. Suddenly there is a burst of wind and I stagger forward, hoping I can help her. Hoping she can make this stop.
She doesn’t answer and instead stares at me with wide blue eyes. My body aches, but I squat down in front of her, getting to her level.
“What’s your name?” I ask. I wait but I can’t see her past. Her want. She’s just a little girl in front of me. But I can tell by the pulsing that this is where I’m supposed to be. Only, it’s not her.
“I’m Olivia,” she says in a tiny voice.
“Hi, Olivia.” I smile, waiting for something to happen. The little girl reaches to wipe her nose with the back of her hand. “Are you alone?” I ask tentatively after a moment of awkward silence. She shakes her head.
I’m considering my next move, when I hear it. It’s a soft moan from inside. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I try to look past her into the apartment. But it’s dark, the windows blocked with heavy blankets.
I lean closer to Olivia. “Who’s in there?”
Her mouth twitches. “My mom.” There’s another moan from behind her, this one followed by a gurgling sound. My vision starts to blur and I know I have to get inside.
“Take me to her,” I say, reaching out to hold the little girl’s hand. I’m unsteady and I wonder if my head smack last night has changed the way the Need works. It’s unusual for me to be so weak.
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