Vial Things (A Resurrectionist Novel Book 1)

by Leah Clifford

  “Sorry,” he murmurs. There’s the pressure of a fingertip, a tingling numbness as he spreads some sort of cream over my torn skin. He pushes the cuff of metal as far up my arm as it will go and then starts to wrap the wrist he’s working on. “Does it hurt?”

  What do you think? my brain spits out. “Yes,” I say, leaning the back of my head against the pole. He makes quick work of the second wound.

  When he’s finished, he holds my hand in his. “Remember that pain next time you think about trying to escape,” he says. “It’ll help you make smarter choices.”

  I slip my hand away. I hate him touching me. “Where’s Ploy?” I ask. I know I shouldn’t push him, but I can’t help it.

  Jamison’s eyes are solemn. He doesn’t speak, though he clearly wants to say something. I watch as he stands awkwardly and toes at Talia’s bag. A boxed syringe tumbles out onto the dirt floor. He murmurs something I don’t catch.

  “What?”

  He shakes his head and then the words come, slow, tinged with a swampy accent. “It would have crushed him to see you like this, Allie.”

  I stiffen. “Would have?”

  “You knew that damn well, too, didn’t you? It’s probably why you mauled yourself, to make him feel sorry for you. But it doesn’t matter now, does it?” I sit in stunned silence, his words echoing through my head. It doesn’t matter, he’d said. Why didn’t it matter anymore?

  Without warning, Jamison squeezes my wrist, right over the bandages he just finished so carefully tying.

  I whimper, my jaw dropping in surprised agony.

  He rips me forward as he points up the stairs. “He didn’t have the heart for this, but I was making it work,” he hisses into my ear. “You ruined him.” He tightens his grip and black dots cloud my vision. “It’s your fault, what I had to do to him.” My breath catches in my throat as pain grates up my arm, through me. “Screw playing nice. You give me any more trouble and I’ll gut you like I did your mother, understood?”

  Everything inside me freezes. “What?”

  He lets out a guffaw. “They thought it was my mom, didn’t they? I always wondered. It wasn’t the experimenting they killed her for, I know that much.” He digs in his fingernails and I bite down on a scream. “Your mother didn’t tell us we’d lose all our money. All our land. You ever see your mom cry, Allie? Tell you she was sorry, that she wished she was dead?” His voice quiets. “I just wanted to make things right. Talk it out. Figure a different way, so I could help my mom. But no one listened.” He shrugs, as if it’s all water under the bridge. “Your mother cried that night.” His fingers are snaking into my hair, slowly inching me closer to him as I lean against his grip. “And I wanted to believe her when she said she’d make everything right. But people lie under that kind of pressure. They’ll tell you anything. Just like your little boyfriend tried to do.”

  I snap, my fingers clawing at his, tangled in my hair. His arm smacks against my wrist and I let out a wail, half heartbreak, half pain. “What did you do to him?”

  Jamison doesn’t answer. He snags a chunk of my hair, rips the strands loose at he pulls away. Pacing, he rubs his palm furiously against his buzz cut. “You ruined him,” he mumbles. “Like your mother ruined things. Like your father, in the way. Like your aunt, too stupid to figure it all out.”

  I swallow hard, fighting tears. “I’m sorry,” I whimper. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  He sneers. “Don’t patronize me, Allie. I’m not an idiot.”

  “I know that,” I say, fighting calm into my voice. My wrists throb, my scalp. We’re never going to get out of here alive. But I have to try. “Is he dead, Jamison?” Guilt’s etched into his every movement. I can use this, I think. “You got mad. Things got out of control?” I guess. I raise my voice; make the words forgiving but confident. “How long ago? An hour? Two?” Please. It’s on my lips. I’ll beg. I’ll give Jamison the blood. Anything he wants if he lets me help Ploy. “I can fix him for you. Undo it.” It’s mostly a lie. All I want is for Jamison to free me.

  “I took everything out of him.”

  My plan falls away. “No. You wouldn’t do that.”

  The guilt in his eyes shifts to rage. He tips forward, his mouth an inch from my cheek as I turn away. “I had to! I couldn’t trust him anymore! I did what needed done. I’m stronger than you!” he yells. His hand goes behind his back as he rips the gun from his waistband and levels it on me. “Don’t look at me like that. I have Talia. I don’t even need you.”

  “Wait!” Talia screams, and Jamison falters just long enough that she can speak. “You promised him. You promised Ploy no more killing.” She’s taking great gasping breaths while I sit frozen, terrified to move. Grief swallows me. Ploy’s gone. Everyone is gone.

  Jamison stares at me. His eyes are dead cold things, emotionless.

  “You promised him,” Talia whispers. “You were his best friend. He told us. That promise had to mean something to him. You promised him you wouldn’t kill her.”

  His lips curl in a snarl. “Yeah,” he says. “But I didn’t say anything about making her suffer.”

  He reaches down and snaps up the box, strips the syringe from inside and pulls off the plastic. I don’t even bother to fight him when he grabs my arm roughly and shoves the needle into my vein. I wince at the pinch. When it’s full, he slips the needle into his own arm and pushes the plunger. A look of euphoria overcomes his face. Distantly, I wonder why. He doesn’t feel anything. I know that much.

  Without another word, Jamison grabs the bag and heads up the stairs. He doesn’t switch off the light. The door clicks as it closes, and then again as he turns the key.

  “Are you okay?” Talia asks quietly.

  I don’t answer.

  “Allie?” She scoots around the pole to me. “Listen, I should have told you earlier but—”

  “You knew Ploy was dead?” I ask.

  “No,” she says. “About this.” It piques my interest enough that I look at her. She reaches into her shirt, her bra. And then, in her palm, is a blue vial.

  My heart starts to pound. “I don’t have mine,” I whisper. “It’s in my bag, at your place.”

  Her tongue darts out to wet her lips. “We could split this one. It’d get the job done.”

  I glance up the stairs to the door. “I know.” But the point of the vial is keeping our blood from getting into the wrong hands. I don’t know Jamison’s connections. If he’d know to get himself to someone willing to experiment, someone who already was. Synthesize the gene. Right now, a floor above, our secret is coursing through the veins of a murderer. My head starts a slow shake. “Not yet,” I tell her. “We have to stop Jamison. Ploy...” He’s really dead, I think, the words stuttering to a stop. I never even knew his real name. Sadness wells inside me, heavy and cold, but I won’t let it take me. “He...um...he told Jamison the effects were temporary. If we swallow that,” I say, pointing to the vial, “Jamison will just go after another resurrectionist. This’ll never end.”

  Talia closes her fingers over the glass. “He’s going to make this bad for us,” she says quietly.

  “Yeah.” I think of Ploy. Did he know what was happening? Was it quick? “But Jamison left the light on, didn’t he?” She gives me a confused look. “He makes mistakes when he’s angry. You do everything he says, play the good one. He’ll let his guard down, and when he does...” I lean my head on her shoulder.

  “What if it doesn’t work?”

  “Keep that vial handy,” I tell her. “Either way.”

  “There’s something else,” she says. She adjusts to dig into her pocket and holds out her hand. “These were in the bathroom medicine cabinet. It’s all I could find.”

  I stare down at the tablets in her palm. Inside me, grief battles with fear. “Talia,” I say. “I don’t think we’re going to make it through the night alive.”

  “Me either,” she says.

  Chapter 23

  Ploy

  Chapte
r 24

  Allie

  It feels like drowning. I can’t get my breath so I hold it. As Jamison comes down the stairs, I concentrate on the ground I lay on, the pain in my wrists, Ploy’s whispers last night as he kissed me. I want to stay with you. Anything to keep me still, but the air goes quick. When I finally give in and gasp, my mouth is full of thick froth and I choke hard.

  At the sound, Jamison’s footsteps speed up. My eyes are closed. I don’t dare move, except a quick, steady twitch to my fingertips.

  “Son of a bitch!” he yells. He drops to his knees beside me. No, damn it, I think frantically. Talia. Check Talia. He rips my head to the side, trying to swipe my mouth clear. His fingers taste like mud. One of his nails is jagged and gouges the inside of my cheek. He shakes his hand off, the bubbled goo splattering against the floor. I give a weak gag as my mouth fills up again, open my eyelids to let him see my eyes rolled back in my head.

  He grabs for my wrist, going for a pulse, but they’re both wrapped thick with the gauze he used to bandage them earlier, the white stained where my blood soaked through.

  “No,” he mumbles. “No, this isn’t happening.”

  He drops my arm. My knuckles smack against the hard packed earth as he stands. I don’t react. He’s not moving to Talia. He has to check her.

  He has to get closer.

  I draw a rattling breath at the exact wrong moment. It jerks his attention to me.

  “You stupid—” Before he finishes, his boot smashes into my ribs. I grunt, curling onto my side.

  Don’t help me. The thought’s frantic as he swings his foot back to strike again. I can take it. Pain, damage. If he smashes my skull in, death. But if Talia blows this she won’t get another chance.

  As his kick slams into my ribs again, I hear a crack. I knew this might be a one way ticket. That he might push too far. I wonder if Talia’s realizing that now, when it’s too late. She has to wait. There’ll be a perfect moment. She’ll know when to act. I can only hope it comes soon.

  I’m not sure how long I can keep from screaming.

  Chapter 25

  Ploy

  Rotten, earth, cold.

  My thoughts come in single words as I drift into a confused consciousness. And then one word breaks free. Stronger than the others. Pounding with my heartbeat.

  Breathe.

  Air gushes into my lungs as I gasp, desperate, clawing myself up into a sitting position. The walls crumble, raining down damp slimy dirt that peppers my hair and sprinkles into the shallow puddle under me.

  Moonlight illuminates the grave I’m in, the dead body of Jamison’s father stinking at my curled feet. When I press my hand down to adjust my position, it sinks into the soft ground. I wrap my arms around myself, shivering despite the heat and humidity. My chest aches.

  Because he shot me. I remember Jamison holding the gun, the pop, the slam of my hip against the bottom of the pit as I landed hard. A hazy memory surfaces of staring up and I know this isn’t the first time I’ve woken. I must have passed out again. Wincing, I drag my feet closer. The muscles are sore and stiff. I have no way of knowing how long I’ve been in here other than the starred sky above me.

  Allie. I have to get to Allie.

  Struggling, I shift my feet underneath me and fight to stand. My knees wobble, barely supporting me. I poke my head up, sure I’ll find Jamison just out of vision on the lip of the grave, waiting to pick me off again with a head shot. The yard is empty. I shudder a sigh of relief.

  I hadn’t told him Allie gave me blood. I’d been angry with him, wanted to make sure he cared more about me being alive than discovering her secrets. It saved my life. Or rather, she had, again. She obviously kept my secret or Jamison would have cut me open, taken my organs. I’d have wound up buried in this hole.

  Jamison said he wasn’t going to fill it in until dark, when it was cooler. I wonder how much time I have. I can’t count on much.

  My body aches, exhausted, but I have no choice. I have to move.

  The grassed edge of the pit is even with my collarbones. I jump and dig my elbows in, my feet scrambling for purchase. There’s no way this will work. I don’t have the strength to pull myself out. Giving up, I lean against the mud wall and catch my breath. The smell of death clenches my throat tight. It’s strong enough to make my eyes water.

  The body’s mostly wrapped in the tarp, bent over on itself, one arm oozing in the moonlight. I nudge it under the plastic. You can do this, I think. I back up as far as I can lengthwise and get in a two stride start before I launch onto the spine, use it to propel me out of the hole. My ankle almost gives way as the skin sloughs off his back. My waist hits the edge. Fingers digging into the grass, I kick, frantic to free myself. Finally, I roll onto the lawn, chest heaving. For a full minute, I can only lay there.

  I drag my knees under me and push up until I’m hunched uneasily against the side of the barn. My hands are filthy. I wipe them off on my pants, but it doesn’t help. I won’t think about the liquid I was laying in. The ground was wet. It could have been rainwater.

  I creep along the side of the barn and look out onto the graveled driveway. Past Talia’s SUV, there’s a single light burning in the house in what I know is Jamison’s room. The shades are drawn. It’ll give me a little cover.

  I stare at the SUV. Something tickles in the back of my mind. Last night, healing the baby.

  Gun, I think suddenly. There’s a gun in the glove box. Allie had taken knives for us, but she’d left the other weapons in there. Had Talia brought it into her apartment last night? My head’s muddled. I can’t remember. The only way to know for sure will be to check.

  The risk of being discovered has me hesitating. I forget if there’s a chime when the door opens, but the dash lights will definitely come on. If Jamison picks that moment to look out the window, I’m caught. But, I think, you’ll be caught with a gun which is a lot better than you’re doing right now.

  With one last look at the glowing window, I start my trek to the SUV. I don’t run. I’m not sure what’s going to happen later, but if the last time Allie brought me back is any gauge, I need to save my energy. There’s a new hole through my shirt, small enough to go unnoticed among the others if it wasn’t for the bloodied gore stiffening the fabric. It’s nearly over my heart. Cautious, I bend my arm and run my fingers across my shoulder blade searching for the exit wound. When I find it, it’s nickel-sized, scarred, the skin there sore. I’m not sure if there’s a line where damage would be too much to heal or if it only takes more time. I wonder if shrapnel in my heart would get stuck if the wound healed around it. What if there’s a bullet fragment in there now, headed for a lung or into my brain? I push the thoughts away. As long as I’m standing, all that matters is getting to Allie.

  I might be too late. When I get to the cellar, there’s a chance I’ll only find Talia.

  I get to the SUV and duck into a crouch. With trembling fingers, I test the door handle, sure I’ll find it locked, but it lifts easily, the door rocking open. My eyes squint against the light. I cram my finger onto the button, make the electrical system think the door is closed and it blinks off again. I crawl into the driver’s side and quietly pull the door near shut. There’s no movement from the house, but that doesn’t mean anything. I have to hurry.

  Leaning over the center console, I open the glove box. My sigh of relief burns my lungs. I reach, grab the gun and pop the chamber out.

  It’s empty.

  Of course it would be empty. I drop back against the seat. Everything just got so much more complicated.

  We’ve fought before, Jamison and I, screwing around wrestling when we were younger. Back then I stood a chance. Now, I’m skinnier from my time at the Boxcar Camp. Weakened. But what am I supposed to do? If I wait, he’ll eventually come out to fill that hole and find me gone. I don’t know what he’s done to Allie. I don’t know if she’s okay.

  The gun’s useless. I toss it onto the floor and grab the knife with the longest bla
de out of the glove box. I clip the sheath to my belt loop. Two deep breaths later, I’m out of the car.

  Now that I’m closer to the house, I feel exposed. I get out of the gravel, heading to the grass and following the yard around. It keeps my steps quiet. The tree with the old rope swing gives me shadows to creep into. The movement feels good. The last of the stiffness fades from my hip where I landed.

  When I make it to the porch, I dart by each of the windows. They look in on an unused dining room but without the gun, I can’t get caught. I’m silent as I open the door, close it behind me. The house is dark, quiet except for the buzzing of a few straggling flies.

  There’s dim light streaming into the kitchen from the hall. I wait, knowing it’s coming from the cellar and that Jamison will be closing the door in a second, locking it behind him. My plan starts to form. I’ll hide just to the right of the cellar door. When he comes up… I draw the knife into my hand. My palms are sweaty. You can do this, I tell myself. You have to do this.

  But the light doesn’t go out. The door doesn’t close.

  Something’s off. A fluttering starts in my stomach. She already got him, I think. They killed him and don’t have the combinations to the locks. But why is the door unlocked? a small voice whispers. I can’t imagine him being forgetful. Not with so much on the line. Maybe he knows Allie gave me the blood. Maybe it’s a trap.

  As I creep closer though, I hear a hard thump. I’m steps into the kitchen when I hear Talia scream Allie’s name and I think for a second they did overpower Jamison somehow until she cries, “Stop! Can’t you see she’s dying?”

  Dying. Allie’s dying.

  It takes everything in me not to bolt for the door. She’ll heal, I think. Unless he’s taking her organs out of her. Talia said dying, not dead. I edge around the kitchen and take a quick glance into the hall before striding across to the cellar.