I promised her I would keep her safe. I might have lied.
When I open the phone and power it on, there isn’t much battery life left, but it’ll do for now. I can’t decide if I’m happy there’s a signal. I hit send on the single number saved to the contacts.
“Hey,” I say when Jamison answers.
There’s a long moment of silence. “I thought you were dead.” He draws a broken breath. “When I didn’t hear from you I thought...”
“There hasn’t been any time for me to get away,” I say.
“Right. Of course. I mean, I know you can’t call anytime you feel like it but the blood...I was worried she wouldn’t come through for us. I put a lot of trust in her to save you.” He laughs and then pauses. The words he finally speaks are stunted, awkward. “Listen man, I messed up. I shouldn’t have done that to you. Cut you like that. Are you okay?”
I’m not quite sure what to say. Technically, he killed me. “Apparently, you nicked my spleen or something?” I say, spitting back what Allie told me.
“Damn,” he whispers. “You’re okay now though?”
I hesitate. Part of me wants to believe he’s not asking to know if I’ve been changed, if I’ve gained any power. Part of me wants to believe my best friend’s actually glad I’m alive. “Yeah, I’m okay now,” I say finally. I wait for him to ask what happened, if she did it, if I’m like them now. He stays quiet. “Jamison, who was that guy?” I demand. “At the cabin? He could have killed us both. He shot her.”
“So that was her blood in the kitchen?” His question doesn’t hold any worry. Her pain doesn’t matter to him. He’s certain she can heal and her blood is all he really cares about anyway. I picture him soaking the puddles of it from the tiles with whatever he can find, paper towels, a dirty sponge. Can it be bottled? Saved? Or is it only effective when it’s drawn from her veins?
I glance back at her sleeping form. Maybe I should I tell her who I really am. Get her to run. To hate me. Isn’t that what I should do if I care about her? “Yes,” I say. “It was her blood.”
Silence from Jamison. And then, “She got her revenge on him though, didn’t she?” Anger hums across the syllables. “How can you hate me for Brandon, and hook up with a girl just as vicious?”
I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes. “I don’t hate you,” I say finally.
Jamison goes on. “Do you think she considered he couldn’t heal before she killed him? He knew even if he shot her, she’d be okay. I’m guessing she felt cornered. He must have needed to subdue her. Did she attack him?” he asks me. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be rhetorical. “Where are you? Why didn’t you help him?”
Because I’m the one who pulled the trigger, I think but don’t say. I’m the vicious one. When did I start acting like this? Less than an hour ago, I shot a man to death, and I haven’t thought about it since. “Who was he?” I ask quietly.
“Someone I trusted to help me. Us. There are others who know what Allie’s people can do. I’ve been talking to them. Trading information.”
“You didn’t say anything about bringing in outsiders.” The hurt in my voice embarrasses me.
“Well,” he says in a slow drawl. “You’ve been so hard to get a hold of lately I’ve had to make decisions on my own. I’m sorry they’re not what you would have done. I’m doing my best.” He pauses to take a breath and shakes off the sarcastic undertone. “He wouldn’t have hurt you. Or her. He was just holding you both until I got there. I hadn’t heard from you. Truth be told, I thought you were dead.”
“But I wa—” I cut myself off before I tell him the truth. I was dead. My brain skips to the beginning of our conversation, his relief at hearing I was alive. I want to believe him. I do. Because that relief comes from the Jamison I know, the one who got me out of my father’s house and saved me from his fists. My friend. But there’s this new side of him, an unfamiliar thing with dark, sharp edges. “You could have killed me,” I say.
“But it worked out,” he says tentatively. “She healed you, didn’t she?”
“No.” The word pops out before I can stop it. If it’s me he’s worried about, it won’t matter how I got the information about the resurrectionists. “Why is her aunt dead?” I say. “I saw you in the house. You burned the body.”
“Please tell me it was Allie who called the police and not you.” It’s not an answer.
“If she did is she next?” I ask, suddenly furious. “Are you going to kill me if I can’t work her the way you want?”
“Of course not,” Jamison says calmly and I hate him for the way he can make me feel like I’m the raving lunatic and he’s the picture of sanity talking me down. “I burned the house because the crime was sloppy. I found a couple names and addresses to follow up on, so it’s not a total loss, right? If Allie doesn’t work out, we’ve got others to—”
“Not a total loss?” I say in disbelief and he falls silent. I rub a frustrated hand through my hair, realize too late it’s stained with Allie’s blood. It doesn’t matter. I’m covered in it anyway. “Stop. Listen to me. We were wrong about some things, Jamison. Very wrong. It’s just some sort of genetic defect. It doesn’t stick long. That’s why your mom’s faded. It’s not what you said it would be.” I tear my eyes away from Allie. Guilt rolls through me. Allie trusted me with her secrets and I’m spilling them like I spilled the blood of that old man. But I don’t want power or fame or even new shoes if it means more death. “It’s over.”
“Allie said that, huh?” His words come quiet and low. I push the phone against my ear to hear them. “If she’s not lying...” A dangerous pause spins out between us. “We may need to adjust our technique.”
I drop cross-legged onto the mossy forest floor, next to Allie. Last time he’d gotten impatient, Brandon ended up dead. “I gave her some pills. That’s why I can call you. She’s pretty much comatose.” The words are out of me before I’m aware I’m going to say them. “Should I forget it? Leave her here? I mean, she’s worthless if we can’t get anything off her, right?” I hate myself for giving him the power to decide for me. “I can do it,” I insist, testing the lie out, praying it slides across my tongue as easily as all the lies I’ve told to Allie over the months. “I can walk away. She doesn’t have to get hurt. We can—I’ve got syringes. I’ll get you her blood and you can—”
“I bet she lied,” he says before I get a chance to finish. “She could make it permanent if she wanted. Do you think she could have? Lied to you? Are you positive she didn’t heal you? That cut was deep. I made sure of it.” I open my mouth to protest but hold back.
He’d meant for that cut to be deep. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.
“How much do you trust her?” he says instead. I hear the unease in his words. This is everything we’ve worked for. And it’s such a disappointment. Right now, her power’s flowing through my veins. I want it to burn. I want to feel untouchable, invincible, anything.
She didn’t tell me I could help at all until it was her only option. What if she was playing it off like she just needed a bump to heal faster when really I could resurrect someone? Why wouldn’t she want me to think it was temporary? I have nothing to go on but Allie’s word.
“Because if we’re done with her, she’s a loose end. Be sure.”
I swallow hard and shift the phone to my other ear. “It’s possible,” I concede. “That she’s lying. Even if she’s not, I won’t let you kill her.” The instant it’s out, I know I messed up. I shouldn’t care what happens to her. I shouldn’t be fighting for her.
The guffaw Jamison unleashes shoots chills down my spine. “You won’t let me? You think I haven’t had the chance?” The laugh cuts off abruptly. “I saved her life for you.”
My noise of disbelief only seems to make him madder.
“These people I’m working with,” he says. “They set a trap for Brandon. Some mansion in Fissure’s Whipp the night I killed him. Who do you think was sent to take his place?”
I clutch the phone in my hand, uncertain. “Her,” I say finally, because he seems to be waiting for me to answer.
“That’s right. Her. And luckily I was in enough with their group that they kept me in the loop. I called them off. She’d already sniffed them out and taken off though. She’s smart, I’ll give her that much.”
“I know,” I say quietly.
“Do yourself a favor for me?” he says. “Don’t get caught up in her. I kept them from taking her so you could try things your way, not get some sort of romance going. You think she’s going to want you when she knows how you used her? The things you’ve done?” There’s a pause. “Don’t be stupid about this. You’re after the power, not the girl.”
“Then I’ll bring you a syringe of her blood and we can leave her out of this.” She’s unconscious. She’ll never know. I can take it now and get it to him somehow.
“Don’t you think if it worked like that, I would have done that from the start? It’s gotta be fresh. It clots faster than normal blood and there’s no power once it’s watered down.”
I’m a little unnerved that he knows this. “She’ll trust me more now. That’s why I took her from the cabin. I got her away from the bad guys,” I say. “I need a little more time.”
“For what?” he yells, his façade of calm shattering. “To get in her pants?”
“No. To get in her head. Did you know it only works once or twice? That normal people get immune to it.” From his pause, I can tell he didn’t. “See? I am finding things out. Maybe she’s lying about that. Maybe there is a way to make it permanent. Maybe since I saved her, she’ll tell me the truth.” On the other end of the line, Jamison goes quiet. “I’m still on your side,” I add.
“Was I supposed to be wondering about that?” he asks.
“Well, you didn’t tell me there were others who knew about her,” I say.
“Okay. I should have told you but—”
“You said Brandon was a slip up. A mistake. Jamison, I saw what you did to Allie’s aunt. Am I supposed to believe you slipped up with her, too?”
His voice sheds the apologetic tones like a cracked skin. “If I said I didn’t do it?” He sounds weary. “If I told you she did it to herself, the aunt?”
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say. It’s ludicrous as far as excuses go. “How stupid do you think I—”
“You were there. Did you see it?” he says, cutting me short. “On the floor? A tube made of blue glass next to the body. We didn’t take it with us. It should have been there.”
I don’t remember anything like that. But the deliberate sidestep Allie took sticks out in my memory, a tinkling crunch from under her shoe. She didn’t react to it. “Go on,” I say.
“I truly went there to talk. I wanted to convince her to trust me. I wanted her to see I could use the powers for good. If that’s what they wanted. But her aunt was less cooperative than I’d hoped. We scared her. She bolted and Corbin went for her and she yanked out that little tube and chugged the stuff inside.”
Corbin. The man I killed. His name was Corbin. “What was it?”
“Poison?” he guesses. “Brandon had one, too. These guys I’ve been working with said it messes up the blood so bad that it kills the resurrectionists. Allie’s aunt...she laughed and said we’d never get what we wanted. Then she keeled over. She wouldn’t talk, or couldn’t, I’m not sure. Then she started shaking and choking. Corbin said she could ID us. That there might be some sort of antidote we didn’t know about. He said we had to make sure she couldn’t,” he says quietly. “He was mad when I wouldn’t help. I told you no more deaths.”
“Promise me.” I sound like a little kid, desperately trying to hold onto childish beliefs I know are fantasy. Santa Claus. The Tooth Fairy. “Promise me that’s how it happened.”
“Look, I’ll make you a deal,” he says. “Convince Allie to change you permanently if she can. Once she does, you give me the power. I won’t go near her. I won’t have to, right?” I go stock still. “You two can ride off into the sunset if that’s what you want.”
“You won’t hurt her. You won’t go near her.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he says, his voice singsong before the sarcasm drops away. “If you can give me that power, I promise.” I lick my lips as he pauses. His voice lowers. “But we both know that’s not how it’s going to play out, don’t we? Lying to her is eating you up. She’ll kill you when you come clean.”
“A little more time,” I manage.
“Don’t blow this for us,” Jamison says. “If you want her left alive, get what we want and get rid of her.”
He hangs up before I can say anything else.
What if I’ve just made everything worse? What if she really can’t change me?
Rubbing my hands over my face, I groan, trying to figure out what options I’ve got. I can tell her the truth when she wakes up—that I started out using her and things changed, just like they did for her. Coming clean now means gambling with not just my life, but hers too. Even if she doesn’t kill me for what I’ve done, confessing will lose me Allie and once Jamison finds out, it’ll lose me him, too. I could lie, but I’ll never be able to come up with a reason convincing enough for her to forget everything else and go on the run with me. She’s got vengeance in her. She won’t leave without finding out who murdered her aunt. Which leads back to Jamison. Which leads back to her finding out who I am, what I’ve done. Which leads to her and me both dead. “Damn it,” I mumble into my hands.
I trudge over to my backpack and stash the phone again after shutting it off. When it’s safely hidden, I kneel down beside Allie. She doesn’t stir when I call her name.
I think Allie really would kill Jamison if she had the chance. Maybe even before he told her how involved I am in this. I shake away the thoughts. Now, I’m imagining Allie killing my best friend because it’s easier than telling her the awful things I’ve done.
“I can fix this,” I murmur. Could she be lying to me? If I can get her to make the change permanent in me, I can give Jamison what he wants. No one else has to get hurt. “I can find a way out for all three of us.”
I’ve bought myself some time to figure out what to do.
I get to work.
Chapter 14
ALLIE
I open my eyes to branches four feet above my face. Footsteps crunch leaves. Close. Ploy. If it’s anyone else, I don’t have a chance at fighting them. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. Even before I move, my muscles are screaming. I roll my head to get a peek and realize I’m not in the open. There’s a shelter of sticks and brush. The sleeping bag is wrapped around me.
Blinking, I sit up. Dark spots swirl through my vision as my head starts to spin. Apparently, getting shot to death feels a lot like a hangover. I’m debating whether I’m just nauseous or actually going to throw up when Ploy ducks in through the low entrance. I eye him warily.
“Hey, you’re awake.” He gets on his knees and shuffles closer under the low ceiling. A bruise shades his left cheek, green and yellowed. The bone must have been broken. “How’re you feeling?”
“Like crap.” I’m not sure I want him knowing how weak I am, but I can’t exactly pass myself off as anything else right now.
“Those pills must have been pretty intense.” His voice lowers. “I couldn’t wake you up.” There’s a hint of fear to his words.
My throat is parched. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have taken anything.” In truth, it probably had more to do with the fact that his blood wasn’t strong enough, copycat cells. Most of mine was on the kitchen floor. I shouldn’t have told him anything about how to bring someone back, but that’s easy to say now that I know he would have gotten me out of the house. I’d panicked. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
His forehead wrinkles. “You were in pain, Allie. Hurt. Bad.” He’s right, though it doesn’t look like I’ve cost us too much time. And then he goes on. “I figured once the sun started to set you wer
en’t going to get up, so I made sure we were hidden,” he says as he rummages through his pack. He hands me a smashed granola bar. “Eat that. Sorry, it’s a little beat up.”
“Wait, what about sunset?”
He stares at me for a moment. “It’s morning.”
My stomach gives a hungry lurch as if to confirm. The thought of being utterly defenseless for so long only adds to the queasiness. My brain’s foggy. Words are fighting their way back into my consciousness. Crunching leaves. Ploy pacing on a phone call. Apparently, you nicked my spleen or something?
I wince and give my head a shake. That can’t be right. He’d been talking about being attacked, the stab wound. The drugs, I think. They messed with my dreams. He doesn’t have a phone and mine’s dead. But in the dream, he hadn’t said ‘he nicked my spleen’, he’d said ‘you.’ You nicked my spleen.
“How long do you normally take to get moving again once you...you know, die or whatever?” he asks and I try to focus. He saved me. Jamison was coming but Ploy did what I said with his blood and got us both away. Kept me safe while I was out.
“That was my first time,” I say and he looks up sharply. I roll my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. You swiped my back-from-the-dead V-card. Congrats. Hope it was good for you,” I say, wincing as I stretch to calm my over-fired nerves. Every muscle is tight and tired.
The barest hint of a smile tips up the corners of his mouth. “If it’s any consolation, you got my stab-a-needle-into-a-girl’s-heart virginity. Pretty sure that’s a lucrative one.”
The chuckle I force hurts. My lungs feel like they don’t quite remember their function yet. I cough hard and taste blood. Peeling the wrapper off the granola bar, I take a bite to kill the copper flavor.
When I finish chewing and look up, Ploy’s staring at me. “I brought you back,” he says, as if he doesn’t quite believe it. Technically, he only sped up the process—my genes would have done the job on their own—but I let him believe what he wants. Because in truth, if he hadn’t gotten me out of the cabin before Jamison showed up, my genes wouldn’t have done much good. “You said it was temporary. Me being able to do this.” He touches his chest, his heart, almost unconsciously. “Or were you lying about that too?”
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