Chapter Thirty-Two
The Pile Up
I don’t return to Principal Jolly’s office. All day I hide behind my hair, ignoring the whispers and the laughs and the occasional overt point, dreading the moment Mrs. Finch will call my name over the intercom, asking me to report back to the principal’s office. But it never comes. Principal Jolly either doesn’t notice my absence or doesn’t care.
By the time the final bell rings, I realize that getting home will be tricky. Leela won’t speak with me. Luka’s already gone. So I call my mom and tell her a lie—that Luka went home sick. When she pulls up to the curb, I slip into the car and tell her I’m coming down with something, hoping this will keep her questions at bay. It’s only a matter of time until my parents hear what is happening. Thornsdale is not a very big town. I plan to ride out their oblivion for as long as possible.
As soon as I’m home, I change into a pair of sweats and crawl under my covers. I reject dinner. I take my medicine. Luka calls. Every half hour his number lights up my cell phone. He texts a few times, but I stick to my resolution. I will not be his demise. I let his calls go to voicemail and his texts go unanswered. My loneliness grows, like I’m slipping into some deep dark rabbit hole that leads to the inevitable.
I will end up like her. My grandmother. Alone, locked in an asylum.
I wonder if Pete will be upset when we move again. Perhaps it’s for the best. Despite making friends with Wren and Jess, he doesn’t like it in Thornsdale. The move has turned him into a different kid. Even though I don’t want to be away from Luka, even though the thought of it whaps at my brittle heart, I know it would be for the best. I lay in bed, eyes wide open, begging sleep to take me. I want oblivion, but my eyes refuse to cooperate.
So I slip into my bathroom and take two sleeping pills—at seven thirty in the evening. I lie back down, counting time in the half hour segments between Luka’s phone calls.
I wake up on a familiar stretch of highway. The one I take every weekday to school. Only there is a pileup and greasy-haired men stand in the middle of the road, causing more and more cars to slam into one another. It’s as if they control the direction and speed of each vehicle with the movement of their hands. And a thought hits me, in this moment, like it’s the most obvious thing. My father is wrong. We are more than physical. These men, who aren’t really men at all, are proof.
I watch it all unfold—the crushing of metal, the car alarms and the screams—from the shoulder of the road, with the detachment of one watching a poorly-produced movie on TV. I look into the cars, seeing adults and children unconscious or desperate to escape, and I know I should care. But I don’t. I stand there, unaffected, while horns blare and sirens wail and people bleed and cry.
None of it matters.
Not even when the strange men start lighting cars on fire.
But then, in the distance, I see something that pings at my indifference. Somebody up the road is fighting the white-eyed men. Somebody is fighting like I used to fight before the medicine and I want to see who. Who is this person—this fighter? I shift and squint to get a better look, but more tires screech against pavement. Brakes squeal.
As if in slow motion, my attention moves toward the sound and my eyes go wide, because the car is mine and my brother is behind the wheel, his face twisted in panic as he tries to avoid the collision. A few paces to my left, a man aims his outstretched, spider-like hands at Pete in my car. I could fight him if I wanted, like that person up the road. He’s not too far away. But I don’t move. I stand there as my car smashes into the pile and my brother’s unbuckled body flies into the windshield and the glass bursts apart and he lies motionless on the pavement, a trickle of blood seeping from his mouth and I scream and scream and scream until it turns into a shrill ring and I bolt upright in bed.
There is motion in the hallway. I hear Mom’s frantic voice and Dad’s deep rumble, telling her to calm down, it will be okay. The door across the hall flings open.
I sit up straighter.
“He’s not in here.” Hysteria swallows my mother’s words. “He’s not here.”
I jump out of bed, groggy from the sleeping pills, and open my door wide. “What’s wrong?”
Mom’s face shines pale white in the dark. Her terror awakens my own. “It’s your brother,” she says, clutching her chest. “He snuck out. He took your car and there was an accident. A horrible, horrible accident.” Mom’s chest clutching turns into mouth clutching. “That was the hospital. He’s in the ICU.”
Dad takes Mom’s elbow. “It will be okay, Miranda. It will be okay.” He looks at me, his face every bit as white as Mom’s. “Get dressed, Tess. Quickly.”
I hurry into my room and grab a wrinkled sweatshirt from the floor. I glance at my clock. It is five fifteen in the morning.
The Gifting (Book 1 in The Gifting Series) Page 33