Supernormal

by Caitlen Rubino-Bradway

  GAS STATION. Cam got the sense of distance, but a close one. He saw the sign—MORRO BEACH MOBIL. LIZ WALKING.

  It happened so fast, it wasn’t clear at first. Just images, so fast he almost went dizzy with it. TIRES SCREECHING. WHITE VAN, DOOR SLIDING OPEN. DUCT TAPE WRAPPED FAST AND TIGHT AROUND HER WRISTS. PLASTERED ACROSS HER MOUTH. TWO MEN—“BE CAREFUL!”—LIZ KICKING OUT, STRUGGLING. There was the sense of air, movement, as they SWUNG HER INTO THE VAN. LOUD CRACK AS HER HEAD HIT THE FLOOR OF THE VAN, HARD. The pain of it echoed in Cam’s head. THE VAN SPEEDING OFF, EXHAUST BILLOWING OUT THE BACK.

  He stood up fast, knocking his glass over, spilling water all across the table. “Call Liz,” he told Danny.

  “Miss her that much?” Danny laughed, but Tyler must’ve heard Cam’s voice, seen, understood. He already had his cell phone out and was dialing.

  “What’s wrong?” Ashley asked.

  “Liz is in trouble. Going to be in trouble. The van, the one that took Ian, it’s coming for her.”

  “She still in Morro Bay?” Ashley asked.

  Danny nodded, phone up to his ear, muttering to himself, “—pick up, Lizzie, pick up—”

  “It’s going to voicemail,” Tyler said. “The game might not be over yet.” He pinned Cam with a look. “How much time do we have?”

  “I don’t know.” He never got a sense of time, just of future. “It’s when they’re on their way home. Keep calling until you get her,” he told Danny. “Tell her to get to a public place and call the police.”

  “Brody,” Ashley said.

  Cam nodded. “You get him. I’ll head to the police station. The sheriff can get in touch with the Morro Bay PD.” Tyler climbed over the back of the booth to an empty table, and was already heading for the door.

  “I can’t get her, she’s not picking up,” Danny said, clambering after them. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Keep trying,” Tyler ordered.

  “Wait.” Ashley hung back, then called after them. “Tyler can tell Brody. I can run ahead. I’ll get there faster than you.”

  Cam looked at her. “The men who went after Ian, they had weapons.”

  Ashley shrugged. “Been there, done that.” She turned serious. “I can do this.”

  “Yes, you can,” he said, thinking, But I don’t want you to. She smiled.

  “Hold still,” Ashley ordered Danny, and then stepped in close, inhaling deeply. Then she slipped off her sunglasses and handed them to Cam, flinching at the fluorescent lights of the pizza place. Be careful, he thought; he tried to push the words out, but they caught in his throat, and anyway it didn’t matter because she was gone.

  “Brody’ll meet us at the station,” Tyler said, shoving his phone back into his pocket. “Come on. My house is two blocks from here. We can use Dad’s car.”

  Ashley jogged ‘til she reached city limits, then broke into a run. She was fast. For once she didn’t have to hold back, didn’t have to push—not that way. Not as a punishment. She was fast, she could do this, she could get to Liz, and something inside her was soaring.

  She kept off the highway. There were too many cars out, and headlights stung worse than streetlamps. Still, she made Morro Bay in fifteen minutes.

  Once she was there, though, it took too damn long to find the camp van. Liz’s scent took her to the baseball field first, and then a pizza joint. Ashley shot out again before the hostess finished asking if she wanted a booth or a table. She closed her eyes, tried to soak up the scent of rosin and Ivory and Danny.

  The stronger trail—that’d go back to the baseball field. Ashley ignored that, focused on the other one. It was fainter, but then Liz would have been inside a car. It led towards the freeway. Shit, shit, shit. Cam said it happened when they were heading out. Ashley ran.

  She saw the camp van sitting by the side of the road, heard the kids’ high, excited voices streaming through the open windows, and Coach Parker’s strained, “Okay, everybody just settle down now.” Saw Liz just starting to walk away.

  Liz saw her and waved in confusion. “Ashley?”

  The white van came around a corner. It made a sharp, fast turn, squealing to a stop right in front of Liz.

  “Run, Liz!” Ashley yelled. She raced towards the white van, vaulting over it—soaring—and landed on a big guy in a white jumpsuit. It was a hard, nasty fall, but Ashley kept on top. The guy struggled, reached up, and there was a pop-pop-pop, and three pinches along her neck and shoulder. There was a rush, a relaxation, and Ashley’s eyes wanted to roll back in her head. But it faded almost as soon as it appeared. Ashley recognized the feeling—Proom’s sleepytime cocktail, or close enough. He went to hit her with the butt of the gun, but she caught his arm and squeezed. He screamed and the gun dropped from limp fingers. His other hand clawed at her. She twisted her head around and latched her teeth onto the guy’s wrist. With a snarl and a wrench, his hand came off in Ashley’s mouth, and the guy screamed in agony.

  Blood rushed into Ashley’s mouth. It tasted—it tasted—a black, twisted joy built up, the sick pleasure of I can do this, I can stop you, I can hurt you—but the screams weren’t all his, she realized. There were other screams. Liz. Ashley tried—she did—forced herself back. Grabbed the guy’s throat and knocked his head into the pavement, hard enough that his body went slack.

  Liz was cursing and kicking, but it was two against one. They’d got her hands tied and got her into the van. One man scrambled behind the wheel and gunned the engine. The other caught Liz as she tried to climb out and shoved her back, climbing in after her. Ashley charged at them and caught the open door as the van took off. Ashley grabbed at Liz, got her ankles and pulled her closer. The man with her held out a gun, and this time it wasn’t a couple of pinches. There was nothing quite like getting shot with bullets. He got three or four in the chest before Liz elbowed the man in the face. He rocked back, and she hurled herself at Ashley. Liz, get Liz. Her arms closed around Liz, and they tumbled out of the van, scraped to a stop on the pavement.

  “Oh god—” Liz scrambled to her knees, her face stark with terror. “Ashley, oh god, oh god.”

  “Fuck,” Ashley groaned. Getting shot was just as much fun the second time. The white van turned and headed back towards them. “Get up. Get up, RUN!” She shoved Liz back, behind her. Towards lights, and people.

  But Liz wouldn’t go. She pulled at Ashley, trying to help. “You’re hurt! They shot you!”

  Chest oddly numb, Ashley pushed herself to her feet. “I’m fine.” I can do this. “Run, they’re after you!”

  They started running, but the van was there, cutting them off. Fuck. She should’ve tossed Liz over her shoulder and got the hell out of there. The pain was making it hard to think.

  The van didn’t slow. It twisted around, and one of the men leaned out the back. Ashley pushed Liz down, away, right before the van clipped her and sent her sprawling. She felt the impact, felt her skin scrape along the pavement as she tumbled. There was a moment of fog and confusion—this should hur—

  Then the pain came, and for a moment the world threatened to go dark and blurry.

  She heard tires squealing. Heard Liz screaming.

  Liz, Ashley told herself. Liz, get Liz, dammit, GET THE FUCK UP. She pushed herself to her feet, forward. Her one leg was dragging.

  Don’t think about the pain. She’d been in pain before, she’d be in pain again. She could live with it. Don’t think about the pressure in her chest and—she coughed—don’t think about the blood either. Think about the van. Get the van. RUN. They had stopped over by Liz, and she was clawing and kicking and screaming as they dragged her towards it. They tossed Liz inside—again—slammed the doors, and it started rolling. Ashley chased after it.

  She wasn’t as fast this time, even pushing herself, and the pain she wasn’t thinking about still brought tears. Now she could cry. Figured. Get to Liz, get to Liz. God, her chest didn’t feel right. Faster. Run faster. Almost there. She launched herself at the van, kicking off her go
od leg. She could do this. She slammed up against the back doors, her hands automatically closed into fists, bending the metal like thick taffy. She tried to get a good grip with one hand, let go with the other so she could punch the back windows in.

  But the van suddenly swerved. Ashley tried to hold on, but the metal pulled away under her grip and she went flying, and even as she landed, the van was reversing, rubber tires shrieking against the asphalt. It slammed into her. Her head cracked into the pavement hard enough they must’ve heard it a couple of states over. Pain—god—so intense, there was a moment, just enough to realize I’m fucked, before her mind went blank.

  By the time Ashley came to, she heard the sirens.

  Ch. 17

  It took longer to convince the doctors that she was okay than it did to heal, and it took her longer than usual to heal. Gunshots were like that.

  The toughest part was when they fished the bullets out. Ashley hated that part. She didn’t like hospitals, and she hated going into surgery—the smell of the antiseptic, the sound of the machines, the feel of the drugs in her veins and the knives on her skin. The feel of the stretcher at her back as they dug around in her chest, the little sucking pop as one bullet pulled free from where her body had already started to heal around it, and her mind in such a spin from the drugs that she couldn’t not remember another bed, other knives, digging out other bullets.

  At least the drugs were good—whatever it was they gave her—and there was a steady stream of it. Didn’t knock her out completely, but it was enough to get her feeling nice and foggy. Though not foggy enough that she missed the low, “What happened to her?” when they cut her shirt open. She wasn’t sure they meant the bullet holes.

  She was just with it enough to know that she had to hold still when they poked around in her chest. And she could mostly ignore the clink, clink, clink when they tossed away the bullets.

  The worst part, though, was when they wheeled her back. Rolled her through the halls so they could lock her away in a room somewhere. It was only the thick blanket of meds that kept her from panicking, ripping the IV out of her arm, and running. Even through the fog of drugs, there was too much—too much everything. Fluorescent lights searing when she tried to open her eyes. The shrieking wheels of her stretcher, mixed with the footsteps thundering along next to her and the squeal of monitors and the thundering fireworks of voices. The smells—the smells. The blood and the bleach and the sharp antiseptic sting that made her want to kick and claw and scream. She wanted her sunglasses, and her earplugs. She needed something to stuff up her fucking nose. She needed to get out of here, before it got so messed up in her head that she started thinking this place was that one, that there were real locks on the doors, and armed guards, and Proom, and she got really ugly.

  Soon as they wheeled her into a room and left her alone, Ashley started pushing through the drugs. Consciousness crouched just beyond her eyelids, painful and waiting, but she needed out, she needed gone. She flailed her hand out, groped blindly along her arm for the IV.

  Then another scent. His scent. His hand, covering hers, pulling it away from the tubes in her arm. “You need to keep that in.”

  Cam. She reached out drunkenly, tried to hold on when he let go of her hand, but her fingers felt weak and numb. “Cam.”

  “Shhh. You need to rest.”

  “Cam.” Her voice sounded broken. “Stay.”

  She felt the mattress dip, fingers brush back her hair. “I’ll stay. You sleep.”

  The panic fading away, she did.

  But she dreamt. And the dreams were…bad.

  Gut-churning and garish, memories viewed through a funhouse mirror. Dreams she was back at the facility, with the white walls, white floors, white white white, until it swallowed her whole. She dreamt the other subjects were there, too, except not really because they were dead, sick and dead and sobbing. She tried to find a way out, but the only way was through Jase. The facility was cold and hard against her back, and the white walls red now where she and Jase had torn into each other. She could hear the gasps, the shouting, the heartbeats from the guards around them, and the doctors, watching. They could’ve stopped them. They could’ve tried. But they didn’t, and anyway it didn’t matter because she was winning. Jase was so sick, sicker than he’d said, sick enough to make this pointless, and stupid. It was easy now, too easy, and his breath was rasping in his chest and Ashley knew she hadn’t done that. And Jase knew, or maybe she imagined that, and he smiled and said please—she could’ve sworn he said please—or maybe she imagined that, too, so she could sleep at night. She hadn’t known, before, how good she was at this. She was so, so good. Proom would be proud. Later, when it was over, he would be so proud of her, and she would try to break through the restraints on her wrists and ankles and get to him.

  But always, when it got very bad, she became aware of a hand on hers, and a voice saying…something. She couldn’t make it out. But she knew that hand, and that voice, and knew she wasn’t back there, at the facility. Knew it was a dream, even if the fear and anger and fight still gripped her throat. He was there, and it was enough to keep the monsters at bay. For a little while.

  And it was nice that when she opened her eyes, awake, Cam was there.

  He was sitting in an uncomfortable-looking chair, in the corner, his cell phone softly clicking as he texted, his face illuminated by the tiny screen. The room was dark—somebody had shut off the lights and pulled the curtains—and saturated with his scent. She wondered how long he had been there. All night, maybe? Her stomach twisted at the thought, but it made her want to smile. “Cam.”

  “Ashley.” He looked at her. His fingers dug into his cell phone, and he didn’t move, but he looked at her like… Something uncurled in her stomach, sending out shaky tendrils.

  “Hey,” she said, not sure what to say but wanting to say something, anything, to make him stop looking at her like that. Wanting him to never stop. “You look like shit.”

  “You looked worse.”

  “I’m fine.” Ashley shifted, tried to sit, wincing as her muscles protested. “Just sore,” she said when Cam shot to his feet. “I heal fast. The wonders of modern technology.” She tried to smile; he didn’t even try. “Liz?” she asked, even though she knew the answer.

  He shook his head.

  “Danny?”

  “About what you’d expect. He’s with Liz’s parents now.” Cam looked away then, bending to put his cell phone in his backpack. She felt—relief, she told herself. “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine.” It wasn’t really a lie, she probably was fine. “How long—?”

  “Three days.”

  Not too bad, all things considered. Underneath the hospital gown there were bandages wrapped around her chest, and a square one taped to her left shoulder. Ashley pulled at the edges of one bandage, saw a small pink scar. Well, that was that. She tried to sit up again and managed something close enough.

  “Don’t.” Cam took a step forward, then stopped. “Don’t mess with those,” he said as she pulled the bandage off her shoulder.

  “I’m fine. Do you know where my cell phone is? Could you call Meg?”

  “She’s here. She just dragged Brody down to the cafeteria. Why?”

  “I need some clothes. I think they cut off the ones I was wearing.” She swung her legs over the side of the hospital bed, cursing at how weak they were. Christ, a measly three days in bed and they went to crap? Super-advanced bionics just did not hold up like they used to.

  “Ashley, stop.”

  “I’m fine,” she told him.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Cam—”

  “Ashley.” His voice was savage. “Do you have any idea how many times you were shot?”

  She rubbed her chest. There was only a small twinge of soreness under the bandages. Felt like… “Three?”

  “Four. You were shot four times. And that’s not counting the busted ribs, or the punctured lung, or the dislocated—” He sto
pped, breathing hard.

  “That was the van.”

  “The van.”

  “It…” Backed over her. Seeing Cam’s expression, she decided to keep that to herself. “I’m fi—”

  “If you say you are fine one more time I will punch a hole in the wall,” he informed her levelly.

  Ashley swallowed hard. “I’m thirsty.”

  Cam raised an eyebrow, but it worked. He turned into less of a statue, and crossed to her nightstand, where there was a pitcher and a few cups done up in plastic wrapping. He struggled with unwrapping one, glaring at it, until Ashley finally took it from him to do it herself, only he didn’t let go, and somehow he was holding her hand.

  He said, “I thought you were going to die.”

  She didn’t know what to say. He wouldn’t look at her—now he wouldn’t look at her. He sat down on the edge of her bed, staring at the floor. And he was still holding her hand. His fingers were strong and steady, and she wanted to weave hers through his but the plastic cup was crumpled awkwardly between them, like a safety barrier. He wouldn’t look at her. “I saw it. I was trying to keep an eye on Liz. I called you, but you didn’t pick up your phone. I couldn’t… I saw.” The plastic crinkled as his hand tightened on hers.

  She couldn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to say.

  It was so easy to close the distance, to sink against him and hold on. She didn’t even have to think about it. It just was. And he—his arms closed around her, and his head burrowed against her shoulder, until she wasn’t sure who was holding onto who—only that he was warm and solid and real, and she was lost.

  “I’m fine,” she said against his shirt, and he laughed. The sound was hollow, but she felt it resonate against her chest. She felt his fingers wind into her hair, his arms tighten around her, though not nearly tight enough. She’d forgotten this, the feel of another person.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” he muttered against her shoulder. She didn’t want to say, That’s what I was built for, or that Proom would come for her eventually. She just wanted to hold onto him, and to pretend that he could say that and make it real.