Abomination: The Young Adult World of Genetically Modified Teens and the Elite (Swann Book 7)

by Ryan Schow

The minute my palm leaves her head, the stream of memories severs and she gasps for breath. Her eyes roll back down. They look around, dazed. Then they see me and recognition niggles in. She scoots away from me, backing up against her headboard, staring at me like I’m some sort of a ghost, or death.

  “That’s why you have to stop,” I say with softness to my voice. “I made you feel what they feel in the hope that you will become someone else. Don’t you see the bigger picture, Cameron? You can’t be a bully anymore.”

  She’s crying now. She doesn’t realize it, but big salty tears are streaming down her face. She’s no longer the bully; she is a witness to the victims. She’s the victim. No longer does she abhor; she is instead crushed by loss. Loss of her hair and her beautiful body. Loss of the two girls. She shakes her head, like something will break loose and fall out of her ears and everything will be alright again. I hate to say it, but it won’t. She starts to smack her head with the palm of her hand. What remains in there is a collection of their loved ones’ thoughts, and everything they felt and are still feeling. Soon Cameron is sobbing so frantically, so emotionally I know it finally hit—the weight of it all. I want to comfort her, but she won’t have it. She needs to survive this on her own.

  When the storm in her breaks, her face red and wet, her body a junked heap on the bed, she says, “How did…what did you put in my head?”

  “You hurt so many people, Cameron.”

  She thinks about this, tries to gather her bearings. And then she looks up at me with complete understanding and says, “I know.”

  “Yes, you know. But you didn’t know.”

  “Apparently,” she whispers, sagging further into the sheets.

  “Why didn’t you go to Maggie’s funeral?” I ask. This focusses her. Like she expected so many bad things from me, but not this.

  “I was busy.”

  “She only died once, Cameron.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “I don’t have to, but I will. Because until you understand what yours and your friends’ antics do to other people, you will never stop. I tried to make you stop, Cameron, but you wouldn’t stop. You’ve been too self-absorbed. You haven’t learned.”

  “I don’t know shit about you,” she says with absolutely no emotion behind it. “Only your stupid name.”

  My fingers find her foot, curl around it. She tries to pull it away but I’m so much stronger than her. “You’re going to feel it either way, Cameron. Best not to fight me.”

  She stops moving and that’s when I drive my own memories and emotions into her. She feels what I felt when I found Maggie’s body in the blood red waters of the bathtub. She suffers the same feelings I felt being at her funeral. Her eyes disappear again, showing me the creepy, egg white stare you see only in horror movies. Her body cinches and folds against the memory, everything in her pulled piano-wire tight. For all the things I felt, Cameron must die inside the same way I died inside. She is going to feel that death. I’m going to shove it down in her like a stake being driven through the center of her little black heart.

  For all the pain she caused, I’m anxious for her to get the f*cking point.

  3

  It’s awe inspiring to think of all the things that shape our early lives and cause our spirits to wither. If these years are our formative years, I can understand why so many people feel dead inside. Why if they aren’t exhausted, they’re freaking pissed off all the time.

  When I release Cameron, she turns away from me, her weakened body huffing out more tears, harboring depression—a rich melancholy so deep and draining it refuses to let go. The way I feel her feeling spent, atrophied, the fight in her is all gone. She can’t even scoot away.

  “You’re not Raven,” she says after a few minutes.

  “I am.”

  “You are now, but you weren’t then.”

  Shit. I was Abby at the funeral and she knows that now because it was in my brain, and now it’s in hers.

  “Who are you, really?” she finally asks, rolling over with her watery eyes and her cracked open lips. Seeing in her eyes, in her soul, I realize she hasn’t eaten since the incident, and she won’t. She’s a victim now. Wasting away in her shame. Sleeping uneasy because the nightmares of her attack won’t allow her any peace. What I took from her was not only the fight; I stole her dignity, her ego, her self-confidence. Part of me rejoices while another part of me is revolted by the thought.

  Turbocharged power-bitch or not, she’s still a person. Still human.

  Still just a girl.

  “You want to know who I am?” I challenge. She just stares at me, waiting. “Okay. But this is going to hurt.”

  “No more than everything else you’ve done to me.”

  And so I shove me into her, all of me, from the moment I realized Margaret was ashamed of me, to all my beastly pictures in the press, to Margaret’s inability to love me, to my awkward tits and how the paparazzi photographed them and sold them to the shitty tabloids, to my social anxiety disorder, to me coming to Astor and then to meeting her, Julie and Theresa. I stuff into her all the pain I felt in my transformation and along the way she starts sweating so bad I wonder if her body will survive the strain, and then I smell she’s crapped herself but I don’t stop because she didn’t stop.

  Nearly an hour has passes because I really want her to know me, to know what I am and why I have become…who I’ve become.

  Somewhere along the way, I feel her heart falter. She stops breathing. Gosh damn. I sever the connection, turning her over. She’s choking on vomit. I pry open her mouth, jam two fingers down her throat and clear her airway. Nothing. Her eyes are so far hidden I can’t see even a sliver of her iris.

  Seconds of her not breathing feel like hours. I tear open her nightgown, put my head to her bare chest and listen for a heart beat: there is none. I killed her!

  OMG, this isn’t happening!

  I close my eyes, lay my hands upon her scabbed-over chest, find her heart in my mind and start pumping. Blood begins to move, but there is no electrical current connecting her brain. What she needs is oxygen. I do mouth to mouth, filling her lungs with movement.

  It’s like jumpstarting a car, I tell myself.

  Mentally, I envision her brain and it feels like starved circuitry. I’m not sure how I can see into her the way I can, but time is now critical and I can’t consider such mysteries. I force energy into her, pump her heart, expand her lungs and after a few minutes, I feel her body take over.

  She’s breathing again.

  When at last she opens her eyes and sees me, her exhausted mouth says one soft and sorrowful word: “Savannah.”

  Staring at her, I’m completely breathless.

  No one really knows me. Not the way I know me, but now someone does. Completely. That she’s my mortal enemy leaves me unsettled. Should I have done that? Who knows. Looking at her, seeing her fading in and out of consciousness, I realize if I don’t help her, she’s going to die.

  I almost don’t want to help.

  What to do about Brayden and the Bastard

  1

  Julie was sitting at her desk doing homework when a knock on her door startled her. She stood, opened the door and gasped. Emery and Constance. Both of them looking so beautiful. Both of them smiling and invading her home-away-from-home. Standing there in her pajamas, her mane of brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and barely any makeup on, she frowned.

  “You can’t just show up here,” she said. “I told you both never to come here.”

  “And yet here we are,” Emery countered, leaning in to kiss her lightly on the mouth. He pulled away, his eyes feasting on the slight swell in her stomach. “Goddamn you look tasty.”

  Julie made a face. Like she didn’t want any part of his seduction of her. Even though he looked and smelled soooooo good.

  Constance reached out and touched her breasts. “They’re filling up,” she replied, giddy. Julie shrugged her hand off, but Constance said, “Don’t go all pru
de on me now.”

  The sexy thing about Constance was her dark beauty, and her complete surrender to her physical and sexual needs. At times is was refreshing; other times the Persian girl could be so intrusive. Tonight, she felt intrusive. Not that her step-sister would care. Constance sort of liked the push and pull in her.

  “This isn’t home,” Julie said.

  “Which is why you should invite us in,” Constance said, grinning suggestively. “We’ve come a long way.”

  “No,” Julie said, not letting them in. “Why are you here?”

  “We missed you,” Emery replied. His hair looked a little longer, his rocker’s goatee trimmed and clean. Visions of him ravaging her filled her head. She shoved them away.

  “That’s fine,” she said, stepping aside to let them in. “You could’ve called. It would have been better if you had called. That way I could have saved you the trip.”

  She had just shut and locked the door when there was another knock. WTF? Julie started to say something, but Emery turned and opened it. It was Brayden.

  Oh my freaking God, she thought.

  “Hi,” Emery said, polite but not kind.

  “Yeah,” Brayden replied, looking past him to Julie, who felt the panic flood her eyes. She didn’t want him here, not after what happened in the cafeteria with Raven, and especially after him knowing Emery was the father of her bastard child.

  “You must be Emery,” Brayden said. “And you…Constance, I presume? I’m Brayden James.”

  Emery gave a cool nod and said, “What’s up.” It wasn’t a question, it was kind of like him saying, we’re busy, at least we were before you came along and interrupted us.

  Constance looked him over, like she was wondering if she could eat him for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Brayden caught this look and said, “Interesting.”

  “I’ll say,” Constance quipped. She was dressed in yoga pants, running shoes and an oversized sweater. She looked sexy, totally fit, and it wasn’t lost on Brayden, which made Julie even more mad.

  “I can come back later,” Brayden said, “but honestly, I don’t want to.”

  “You should leave,” Julie said, hands on hips, irritation pulsing off her in blistering waves of “piss off.” She couldn’t forgive him for his betrayal. And she wasn’t going to sit there and watch him eye-rape Constance to death.

  “Let him stay,” Constance said, running a finger down his exposed forearm.

  “He can go,” Emery said, not kind at all.

  “Now I really want to stay,” Brayden replied, his eyes darting up and down Constance’s lovely, lean body like he couldn’t help it, even though maybe he was trying. He wasn’t doing much of a job of disguising his interest in her. Then again, Constance had that effect on people.

  Something uncomfortable started happening to Julie.

  She wondered, is this…jealousy?

  “This is a family matter,” Emery announced, acting every bit the alpha male all the sudden. “And you’re not family.”

  “Is this about your baby?” Brayden asked.

  “You know about that?” Constance said, her surprised smile flashing, then falling into a sort of delicious grin.

  “I do.”

  She turned and looked at Julie, who burned with shame, and said, “Well now this is a curious turn of events.” Back to Brayden, Constance said, “And why would she tell you about that?”

  “Because we’re friends.”

  “No we’re not,” Julie said.

  “If this is about Raven, she’s just…different. I just needed to explain things to her. Which I did. Now I want to explain some things to you.”

  “Wow,” Emery said looking amused. “Drama follows you around like a lost puppy.”

  “Julie and I are a thing,” Brayden announced.

  “The hell we are,” Julie snapped.

  “We still haven’t gotten used to me and her being the way we want while your baby’s growing in the middle of all of it,” Brayden explained, as if what Julie said didn’t matter the least.

  “We’re not a thing,” Julie insisted, hands on hips. “And not because of Emery’s baby. You just left me when Raven came over. You didn’t even stand up for me!”

  Constance tsk-tsked him, so Brayden said, “Constance, love, if you ever meet Raven, you’ll understand. And Jules, if we’re not a thing, then why is my saliva still drying in your crotch?”

  The way he said it, he wasn’t being cute—he was being mean.

  Constance heaved a slightly sexual sigh, bit her lower lip and said, “Doesn’t she just taste like heaven?” to which a somewhat red-faced Brayden said, “Only on her bad days.”

  Emery was seldom forceful, but Julie could see Brayden wearing on him. “What about our baby?” Emery asked. She wasn’t understanding the question.

  “Yeah,” Constance said, chiming in. “What about our baby?”

  “I’m not sure,” Julie replied. “It’s a big responsibility. I don’t want to get rid of it, but I can’t keep it either.” She couldn’t stop looking from Constance and Emery over to Brayden. After what he did, after he chose Raven over her, what did she care? He didn’t get an opinion. And he didn’t get to matter to her anymore. For Christ’s sake, he won’t even apologize!

  “You have to keep it,” Constance argued.

  “No she doesn’t,” Brayden said.

  Brayden wanted her to abort it, or find it a family. He told Julie he just wanted her to get rid of it somewhere so they could do their own thing, but now…now she wasn’t sure what to do. And being put on the spot certainly didn’t help.

  “I’ve always wanted to keep them,” Julie said to none of them in general. “This time is no exception. It’s just, I can’t be me and have a child at the same time.” To Emery and Constance, she said, “We can’t be us.”

  “You’re not giving this one away,” Emery said, his face sizzling as he stood his ground. “You’ll make an excellent mother.”

  “Is this how things are at home?” Brayden asked. “He gets you pregnant then tells you what to do with it?”

  “Time to go, Brayden,” Emery snapped.

  “Yes,” Constance replied, seeing Emery upset. “I’ll walk him to the elevator.”

  “Don’t come back,” Julie said. “And if you tell anyone about…anything, I’ll have you killed.”

  He gave her a look, like her saying that was cute, but she wasn’t kidding.

  Not one single bit.

  2

  When Julie threatened his life, Brayden wasn’t sure whether to laugh or feel bad for her. Constance didn’t give him time to do either. She just playfully spun him around, pinched his butt cheek and got him moving.

  “Let’s go, Brayden,” Constance said, giddy.

  Leaving Julie’s dorm room, Brayden stole one last look over his shoulder at his former almost girlfriend. She was glaring at him with such profound loathing, he realized it was truly over. He hadn’t even slept with her yet. He wanted that. If only to say he screwed then ruined the worst, most absolute mean girl ever. God, she was such a bitch. So why did he still want her?

  “I’ll call you later,” he said, but he said it with less confidence than he hoped to convey.

  “Don’t,” she replied, arms crossed.

  While he and Constance were walking down the hallway to the elevator, Brayden said, “You smell amazing, what are you wearing?” He felt sick inside. Jesus, was he really in love with Julie Sanderson? Is that was this was?

  “This is all me,” Constance said, grinning.

  “Bullshit. You’re wearing Estée Lauder, aren’t you?”

  If Julie was going to pork family and have incestual children (well, not really since they were all step-siblings), then Brayden had no business being a part of that future Jerry Springer show. He was on point, though, the gamer side of him unable to shut off.

  Constance stopped and looked right at him. “It is Estée Lauder,” she said. “I’m impressed.”

  “You’d be
more impressed if I could tell you which two flowers make up that particular scent, would you not?” For a second he thought, if I sleep with Constance, would it destroy Julie? It would. And Raven told him to just do what he set out to do, which was break her.

  “I would be quite impressed.”

  “Tuberose and Gardenia.” It was the same light, summery perfume Aniela wore in Vegas. Not only did he love the way the Polish woman looked, he absolutely adored the way she smelled. Looking at Constance, smelling her, he couldn’t stop thinking of Aniela and how he totally screwed that up, too. Wow. He didn’t realize how much he missed her until now.

  “Okay, now I’m not only impressed,” she said, looking at him like she was lioness and he was prey, “I’m intrigued.”

  “As I imagined you would be. Take me to the elevator? I’ve got places to go.”

  “The hell you do,” she said.

  “You’re Persian, right?”

  “Julie told you,” she said, like she knew his trick.

  Telling the truth, he said, “No she didn’t. It’s just, the most beautiful Middle Eastern women almost always come from Iran. At least, I’ve always thought so.”

  “And that’s how you know I’m Persian?”

  “It is now.”

  He started walking toward the elevator; she followed. The roles were reversed now, as he had been taught by Titan and Romeo in Vegas. She was something to behold for sure, but he was skilled in the art of seduction and running game. It was time to turn the tables. Not because it was challenging, but because he could.

  “You know, she’s going to be all fat and emotional in a few months,” Constance said, “and when she gets this way, she won’t want you around.”

  “What makes you think I’ll be around?” he asked.

  “It’s just, she gets kinda gross in the seventh, eighth and ninth months.”

  At the elevator, she moved in beside him, punched the DOWN button and said, “How was she? Did you fuck her?”

  “Not yet.”

  “But you did go down on her, yes?”

  “Of course I did. We both have, have we not?”