“Relax,” she said, finally spying the pacifier under a bear in the corner. “Here.”
She jammed it in his mouth. He reflexively started sucking, and the tears immediately subsided. Like literally putting a cork in him, Noa thought, impressed. Shame you couldn’t do that with just anyone. There were times it would come in handy.
The door opened, ushering in a blast of cold air. Pam reappeared, cheeks red and hair mussed. There was a white plastic bag over her arm. The neck of a vodka bottle peeked out the top. “God, it’s freakin’ cold out there!” she exclaimed. “Got you kids some chips, thought you might be hungry.”
“Thanks,” Peter said.
“No problem.” Pam cocked her head to the side. There was a dull thud, then the sound of footsteps mounting wooden stairs. “That’s Cody, then.” A hint of disappointment in her voice.
Peter got to his feet. “Thanks so much for letting us hang here. It was great meeting you and Ethan.”
“Yeah, great,” Noa mumbled, scrambling to her feet.
“Sure, anytime.” Pam appeared crestfallen. “You tell Cody if he wants dinner, it’s pizza night, ’kay?”
“Absolutely. Thanks again.” Peter had plastered his perpetual grin back on. Noa wondered how he managed it. If she smiled that much, her mouth would probably start spasming.
She followed him out. Peter rang the bell for the upstairs apartment. After a minute, a guy in his early twenties opened the door. He was tall, maybe six-two, broad-shouldered, dark hair trimmed close to his scalp. African-American, with pale blue eyes that drooped with dark circles. He was dressed all in navy; a round white patch on the sleeve of his shirt read EMS/CITY OF BOSTON. He looked utterly exhausted. “Peter?” he said. “What’s up?”
“Can we come in?” Peter asked.
Cody looked perplexed, but said, “Yeah, sure,” and stepped aside to let them pass.
Noa followed Peter up a creaking flight of wooden stairs: no runner, just a worn tread down the center of each step. Peter seemed to know his way around; at the top of the stairs he turned right along the banister. He went into a tiny living room lined with bay windows. It was identical to downstairs, except that where Pam’s was packed to overflowing, this room was barren. Nothing but a thin throw rug, a futon couch with a plain white mattress, a low table, and some pillows on the floor. Stacks of textbooks balanced along a board straddling two cement blocks. It was only slightly more welcoming than a prison cell, Noa thought as she looked around.
“Sorry, I don’t really have people over much,” Cody said apologetically. “Take the couch, I’m fine with the floor.”
Peter had already plopped down on the futon. It was tiny. Even though Noa sat at the very edge of it, their legs ended up touching. Peter didn’t seem to notice.
“You going to introduce us?” Cody asked, crossing his legs as he settled on a pillow.
“Oh, yeah, sorry. This is Noa.”
“Hi, Noa. Nice to meet you.” Cody smiled at her before turning back to Peter. “I’m so tired I can hardly see straight. Did we have plans tonight?”
“Nope. Sorry, I would have called, but … well, I lost my phone,” Peter said. “And it was kind of an emergency.”
“Yeah? What type of emergency?” Cody said wearily. His tone implied doubt that anything Peter was involved with could achieve emergency status.
“Long story,” Peter said.
Cody held up a hand, stopping him. “For that, I’m going to need a beer. You want one?”
“Yeah, sure,” Peter said.
“How about you, Noa?”
Noa shook her head. She was dying of thirst, but the thought of a beer turned her stomach. She still couldn’t believe she’d managed to eat so much earlier. It was weird. She hadn’t been hungry for days, then suddenly she’d been ravenous for everything in reach.
As quickly as the hunger kicked in, it switched off again, and she couldn’t choke down another bite. The thirst was always there, though. It didn’t seem to matter how much she drank. She swallowed hard against the dryness. “Actually, could I have some water?”
“Sure.” Cody got up and went back down the hall. She heard the sound of a fridge opening and closing, then a tap turning. “I shouldn’t really be offering to corrupt minors, anyway. I grew up in an Irish household where you got one beer with dinner starting when you were sixteen. Hard habit to break.”
“You’re Irish?” Noa asked, puzzled.
In the kitchen, he laughed. “Why, don’t I look it?”
She was embarrassed. Cody came back and stood in the doorway, grinning down at her. “My mom was Irish. Dad was black.”
“Oh.” Noa felt like an idiot. Of course he was part Irish—that explained the eyes.
Cody handed a beer to Peter, who unscrewed the cap and gratefully took a slug. Then he dropped back onto the pillow and said, “So let’s hear this long story.”
Noa let Peter tell it. He glossed over a lot of the tech details, mainly describing the home invasion he’d told her about and some guy named Mason grabbing him at the library. She hadn’t heard the part about his parents being involved, though, and kicking him out. That got her edgy again.
Cody listened silently. He clasped his right wrist with his left hand, the beer hanging down forgotten. When Peter had finished, he took a swig, then turned to Noa and asked, “So how do you figure into all this?”
Noa debated how much to tell them. The fact that he was a med student hadn’t been lost on her. It was almost too much to hope for, when what she needed more than anything was someone knowledgeable who could help her interpret those files. But could she trust him? Really, could she trust either of them?
Peter was watching her, too. The air of expectation was oppressive, like she was supposed to launch into some sort of song-and-dance routine. Noa flushed under the weight of their attention.
“I don’t really know where to start,” she finally said.
“The beginning works for me,” Cody said.
Noa met his eyes. They were warm, compassionate. She realized that she liked him, and she never liked people straight off the bat. Cody just gave off a certain kind of energy, like he truly cared. It would probably make him a great doctor someday.
“All right.” Noa drew a deep breath and started at the beginning. “Two days ago, I woke up on an operating table …”
There was a long silence when she’d finished. She’d told them pretty much everything, even the part about not being able to eat, then suddenly feeling starved. Peter’s eyes had widened at that, and she wondered if he’d actually thought she ate that much all the time.
Noa tugged at her shirtsleeves, wishing they’d say something.
“Wow.” Peter finally spoke. “And I thought I was having a crappy couple of days.”
Cody cast him a reproving look. “Way to be supportive, Pedro.”
“Sorry, I just meant … man.” Peter shook his head. “You’re pretty badass, getting away like that.”
He genuinely sounded awed, which made Noa feel even more uncomfortable.
“And you’re not sure what was done to you?” Cody pressed.
Noa shook her head. “No. I have a scar, but—”
“Where is it?” he asked.
Noa drew a line along the length of her shirt. His eyes followed her hand, but not in a creepy way. He nodded thoughtfully, and said, “Interesting.”
Something about his tone struck her. “You don’t believe me?”
“Honestly?” Cody took another sip of beer. “It’s almost too crazy not to believe. And given what happened to Peter … well, I believe him. And your story isn’t far-off from his. Plus I’m guessing that a lot of this stuff, like the Brookline High thing, I could check on. So, yeah. I guess I believe you.”
“You guess?”
“Easy.” Cody held up a hand. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I believe you,” Peter chimed in.
He was still looking at her with a goofy expression. Noa
reached for her wrist to twist her bracelet, remembering a second too late that it was gone.
“Okay.” Cody gulped down the last of his beer and set the bottle on the low table. “So let’s have a look at those files.”
Noa got out her laptop and set it up, turning it around to face him. She went to the other side of the table and perched on a pillow beside him, then opened the folder that held what she figured were medical charts—other kids’, not hers. She wasn’t 100 percent ready to hear about those yet.
Cody leaned in, peering at the first file she opened. “Standard post-op stats,” he said. His eyes ran down the form, and he frowned. “Huh.”
“What?” Noa asked.
“The patient deteriorates. You want to see those numbers improving.” He ran a finger down the screen, showing her what he meant. “And here, well …”
“The patient dies?” Noa filled in for him.
He nodded. “I’m guessing. Let’s see more.”
They went through three more files: In all of them, Cody determined that based on the steady decline in life signs, the patient probably hadn’t survived.
“How many of these are there?” he asked, closing the files.
“Lots,” Noa said. “And I’ve got these, too.”
She opened the file that contained scrawled doctors’ notes. Seeing the first, Cody barked a laugh.
“What?” Peter asked.
“I’m not going to be able to help with these. That’s kind of the running joke: Not even a doctor can read another doctor’s handwriting.”
“Okay, then.” Noa found the folder that held the larger reports filled with scientific jargon. “How about these?”
Cody skimmed the first, quickly becoming absorbed. He took over the cursor, scanning through another document, then another. Noa watched him read. He had a look of intense concentration on his face.
“Anything?” Peter said.
He sounded annoyed. Noa turned to find him glaring down at them from his position on the couch.
“A lot,” Cody said, not appearing to notice. “Man, this is … where did you say you got these?”
“They’re from a company called AMRF,” Noa said.
“And that’s the one your parents are involved with, Peter?” Cody asked, looking up.
“Yeah,” Peter said. “Why?”
“Neither of you was able to find out anything more specific about this company?”
“I’ve got some more files on a database,” Peter said with a shrug. “They’re uploading now. Why? What does it say they’re doing?”
Cody sat back and eyed the laptop pensively. “Experimenting,” he finally said.
“What kind of experiments?” Noa asked in a small voice. Suddenly, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to know.
“They’re trying to find a cure for PEMA,” he said. “Using human test subjects.”
“Test subjects?” Peter asked.
“But I don’t have PEMA,” Noa said. She tried to fight the panic out of her voice as she continued, “I mean, I’d know if I did, right?” She suddenly realized she hadn’t been to a doctor in years. Could she have been sick and not known it? She didn’t know much about PEMA, although of course everyone had heard of it. Schools had recently started monitoring for it, but only after she’d dropped out. She tried to remember what the symptoms were. The most common was weight loss over time, but there were also weirder things. She’d heard of kids walking in circles, avoiding other people, lapsing into sleep midsentence. Had she been losing weight? She’d always been skinny, but the new jeans she’d bought barely fit her. And suddenly, she didn’t have an appetite, she realized. “Did they give it to me?” she demanded in a shaky voice. “Or did I already have it?”
“I can’t say yet,” Cody said gently. “I need to go over these more carefully to find out. But hey, relax.” He reached out an arm and encircled her, drawing her close.
Usually Noa would have jerked away from that sort of physical contact, but she let him do it. Even more surprising, she tasted salt, and realized that she was actually crying.
“Oh, man,” Peter said. “My brother.”
Noa peered up at him through her tears. “What?”
“That’s why my folks got involved. Because of Jeremy.”
“Probably,” Cody said. “That would explain a lot.”
Noa looked down. It was all starting to make sense.
“What’s going to happen to me?” she finally asked.
“Nothing tonight,” Cody said. He took hold of her chin with one hand and tilted it up so that she was forced to look in his eyes. “It’s going to be okay, Noa. We’re going to figure this out.”
In spite of everything, he sounded so certain Noa let herself believe him.
Amanda blew hair out of her eyes and sat back on the floor. Filing was her least favorite part of volunteering at the Coalition. The nonprofit had a tiny budget, and there was only one computer in the entire facility. So the bulk of their files was kept in metal cabinets that were packed to the seams. Every few years, older files were boxed up and sent to storage, but still it took effort to squeeze a new file into the drawer every time a teen took advantage of their services.
She’d spent most of her five-hour shift cataloguing the drop-ins as the waiting room gradually emptied. Amanda tucked the last file into the drawer and slid it shut. Mrs. Latimar was in back ushering the last few teens in to see the doctor.
Amanda took a look around the office while she wiped her hands on her skirt. The filing was done, the phone wasn’t ringing, and everything was as straightened as possible. She peered around the doorsill into the waiting room: empty. Good, that gave her a few minutes. Once Mrs. Latimar came back, she’d be put back to work on something: The woman was a firm believer in keeping her volunteers occupied.
Amanda sank down in the chair behind the desk. Once Peter had left, she’d sat up in her window seat staring out at the quad for hours. She felt awful about what had happened—she hadn’t handled the situation well, and she knew it. She’d never meant to hurt his feelings. All along Amanda had figured that once she went off to college, their relationship would just naturally fade away. Unfortunately, Peter hadn’t felt the same way.
A flash of his look of betrayal the night before flitted through her mind. Amanda cringed at the memory.
“Excuse me.”
She turned to find a man watching her, a strange smile on his face.
“Yes?” she said, automatically straightening in the chair. He was overdressed in an immaculate three-piece suit, wool overcoat, and shiny black shoes. He had short black hair and eyes so pale they were kind of spooky. Amanda forced a smile as she asked, “Can I help you?”
“I certainly hope so.” He scanned the room as if looking for someone, even though there wasn’t exactly space for anyone to be hiding. “Mrs. Latimar is expecting me.”
“She’ll be back shortly,” Amanda said. His eyes darkened, and she fervently hoped that Mrs. Latimar would show up soon; she couldn’t put her finger on it, but something about the guy gave her the creeps. Maybe just because he was so clearly out of his element, she told herself. Plus she was still spooked after her encounter with the girl who claimed her friend had been taken.
He cocked his head to the side, considering her. “You’re one of her volunteers.”
The way he said it wasn’t a question. Amanda nodded. “Yeah, I am.”
“Then you can help me,” he said decisively, stepping into the room.
Amanda fought the urge to shy back—she was overtired, and it was making her paranoid. Still, it was a strain to maintain a smile while asking, “What can I do for you?”
“I need some files.” His eyes flicked toward the cabinets. “Mrs. Latimar would have put them aside for me.”
Amanda’s mouth opened, then closed again. The one thing that had been drilled into every volunteer was that files were sacrosanct. Mrs. Latimar’s assurances that anything they said and did would be kept confidential
from the authorities, their parents, or whomever else they’d run away from was largely what kept teens coming back. She couldn’t imagine Mrs. Latimar just handing over files to anyone, never mind a guy dressed like this.
“I’m on the board,” he said, noting her discomfort. “It’s all right, she approved it.”
“Still,” Amanda said, “I’d feel more comfortable if we waited for her.”
He frowned and made a show of looking at his watch. “I really don’t have much time.”
“I’m sorry, Mr....” Amanda paused, waiting for him to fill in the blanks. When he didn’t, she asked straight-out, “You haven’t told me your name.”
“That’s true, I haven’t,” he responded evenly. “You haven’t told me yours, either.”
“Amanda,” she said. “Amanda Berns.”
“Pleased to meet you, Amanda Berns,” he said, extending a hand. “You can call me Mr. Mason.”
She shook automatically, thinking, Mason. The name tugged at her memory. She tried to place it, but failed. He probably was on the board; she must have seen it on the letterhead. “Mr. Mason, I—”
The sudden appearance of Mrs. Latimar in the door behind him stopped her. Amanda caught her eye. At the sight of Mason, the woman had frozen. A strong emotion—fear? Dislike?—marred her features. By the time he’d turned to face her, Mrs. Latimar had composed her face into its normal mask of affability. Amanda was certain she’d seen it, though.
“Mrs. Latimar!” Mason cried, opening his arms wide with delight. “Just the person I was looking for.”
“They’re in here,” Mrs. Latimar said curtly, pushing past him. She offered Amanda a thin smile, then leaned around her to open the desk drawer. She pulled out a thin sheaf of files and passed them to Mason, letting go as soon as his fingers touched them. That was odd, too, Amanda noted. Mrs. Latimar was known for her warmth—she tended to stand close to people, as if on the verge of offering a hug. Clearly not with this man, though.
“Excellent.” He tucked the files under his arm and nodded at both of them. “Nice meeting you, Ms. Berns. Mrs. Latimar, I’ll see you next time.”
Don't Turn Around Page 16