by Stacey Jay
“What about the nurses? Could any of them tell you what happened?”
“No one could remember anything. Smythe did a thorough job.” His scowl made it clear what he thought of stealing people’s memories. There was a time I would have agreed with him, but if what the Elders had said was true and we risked a zombie apocalypse if anyone found out about our world…
Let’s just say it put my usually fierce belief in human rights in a slightly different perspective. I mean, what good were rights if we were all afraid to go out of our homes lest we be attacked by the Undead?
But then, wasn’t that saying it was okay for Settlers’ Affairs or the government or whoever to do whatever they wanted to the people under their control in the name of “protecting” them? There were always things to be afraid of-that didn’t mean I wanted Smythe or anyone else to have the power to steal my past, to corrupt my memories, to make me think…
Oh no… they wouldn’t. Would they?
“Ethan.” I turned to face him, a horrible suspicion growing in my mind. “What if the Enforcers did something to me? What if they made me forget something I did? So now I can’t remember it, but I’m really guilty and that’s why they all-”
“That’s ridiculous. You would never do something like this,” Ethan said, his faith in me as strong as ever. “Why would you? You don’t want to hurt anyone, especially yourself. What possible motive could you have?”
“I know, but then why is everyone so sure I summoned these people from their hospital beds? And why is my own mother keeping the truth from me?” I filled him in on the weirdness between Mom and me the night before and the blood-type stuff Monica and I had figured out this morning. “My blood and the blood they found on the coma victims must match and-”
“You’ve got your answer right there. They only think you did it because the blood matches and you’ve got a super-rare blood type. That means there has to be somebody else out there with the same weird blood you’ve got. And believe me, I’m going to do everything possible to find out who it is. I’ve already put a few things in motion so… don’t worry.”
“A few things?” He was definitely hiding something. “What kind of things?”
“I don’t want to worry you if it’s nothing. Besides, if you don’t know what I’m up to, you can’t be held responsible,” he said, a hard look in his eyes I’d never seen before.
“Ethan, I don’t want you doing anything illegal to-”
“I’m going to do what I think is right, whether that’s kosher with SA or not.”
“Now you sound like a criminal. You’re supposed to be with Protocol,” I said, scared by the change in my rule-loving boyfriend.
“I’m not a criminal, I just-” He broke off, choosing his words carefully. “Everything that’s happened lately… It’s made me think more Settlers should start considering what’s best for the people we’re trying to help instead of just trusting that SA has everything under control.”
“Because I’m a freak of nature?” I turned to look at the silent field with its barren rows of unplanted earth. God, I wished it wasn’t winter and everything didn’t feel so… dead.
“It’s not just you, and it’s not just Carol.” His fingers brushed my chin, urging my eyes back to his. “There’s been an increase in Rogue and Reanimated Corpse activity across the entire country. The world is changing and we’ve got to change with it. The people working black magic certainly are.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve just noticed some things, that’s all. Things that don’t make sense.”
“What sort of-”
“I promise, once I have something concrete, you’ll be the first to know.” He put his arm around me and pulled me closer to his side of the car. “But that’s totally weird about your mom. I wouldn’t have thought she’d do something like that.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, allowing the change of subject. I was sick of people hiding things from me, but I was also sick of fighting. Besides, I knew Ethan well enough by now to know he wasn’t going to budge. If he’d decided he wasn’t ready to spill whatever beans he was holding, no amount of pleading, whining, or threat of violence on my part was going to make a difference.
“I mean, she’s always seemed so cool.”
“I guess.” I wrapped my arms around Ethan and buried my face in his chest. I didn’t want to think about Mom or her weirdness right now. I didn’t want to think about anything except Ethan and how good it felt to be close to him.
I guess he was feeling the same way, because when I lifted my face his lips were waiting right there in the perfect position. Just like it had that day in the hospital parking lot, our kiss went from sweet to steamy in under six seconds. My skin was immediately alive with the amazingness of his lips, his touch, his smell-everything that meant Ethan when he was this close. Perfectly close.
We angled our heads, our kiss growing even hotter. Before I really thought about what was happening, he was pushing my coat off my shoulders and I was doing the same. Then we were back together, smushed as close as two people could get.
Or maybe not quite as close as two people could get-there were ways to get closer.
Ethan’s fingers were a little cold as they slid beneath my sweater, but that wasn’t what pulled me out of the happy kiss haze. For some reason, the feel of his bare hands on my bare skin made me think of Aaron, of how awful it had felt to have him touch me. Then I started thinking about how annoyed Ethan had been when I’d pulled away that day at the hospital and how I couldn’t pull away now or he’d get annoyed again.
He was my boyfriend, for God’s sake, and we’d been going out for practically forever in nineteen-year-old-boy time. How much longer would he wait for me if I kept freaking out every time he tried to take the natural next step in our relationship?
But then, should I really do something just because I didn’t want Ethan to freak? Shouldn’t he be patient and understanding about having a younger girlfriend? Even if she was technically not that young and more than old enough to be rounding the bases?
I mean, how many girls my age did I know who were already on the Pill? A lot. And I didn’t judge them. I wasn’t super conservative, and I didn’t have any morally compelling reason not to pounce Ethan. I didn’t plan on waiting until marriage. I loved Ethan, and I knew he loved and respected me too. So what the heck was my problem?
“You feel so good,” he mumbled against my lips.
“You too.” It wasn’t quite a lie, but it wasn’t quite the truth either. He did feel good, but I didn’t. I was approaching seriously crazy head space at a rate not healthy for a teenage girl. But what could I do? How could I gracefully put an end to something that was quickly growing way more intense than any make-out session we’d ever had?
As I inwardly stressed, we continued to kiss like the world was coming to an end
and Ethan’s hand inched higher. And higher. And then even higher, until, for the first time in my entire life, a boy was touching me there. The old pink training bra I’d borrowed from Monica this morning because her real bras were too big for my wee chest was still on and all that, but still! Touching. There. Sort of cupping and brushing and obviously thinking about sliding under the lightly padded lace and taking this to a whole other level.
It was supposed to be great, if my mom’s romance novels were to believed, so I tried to let the greatness happen. But after a second or two I couldn’t deny that I just wasn’t feeling the mind-numbing passion, or whatever it was, I was supposed to be feeling. It was definitely interesting, tingly, wonderful in its way, but there was something wrong. I was too distracted, too knotted up in my head to relax into what was going on with my body.
And maybe I would always be that way. Maybe I would always be the weird girl who freaked out when her boyfriends tried to get to second base, and I would die alone and childless-because it’s a known fact that baby making involves much touching and running of bases-but I couldn’t worry about that right now. Just like I couldn’t make myself go somewhere I wasn’t ready to go just because I thought I should.
“Stop,” I said, gently pushing at Ethan’s arm.
“Megan, I-”
“Please, stop.” I pushed a little harder, but he still didn’t move his hand, which made my heart beat even faster and a sour taste rise in my mouth. He wasn’t Aaron. I shouldn’t be feeling so anxious, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted my space, and I wanted it now.
“I have stopped,” he said, hand still firmly in place. “I just want-”
“Get your hands off of me!” I yelled, losing my cool. I shoved Ethan’s now-eagerly departing hand away and backed against the car door-my heart racing, feeling angry with Ethan and myself and Aaron for getting me started down this spaz-attack path.
“Fine,” he said, his expression a crushing mix of shock and hurt and irritation. “Just say something next time, will you?”
“I did say something.”
Ethan sighed. “Yeah, you did, but not until-”
“Not until what?”
“Never mind.” He started the car with sharp, abrupt movements that left no doubt he was angry. “Where am I taking you? Back to school?”
“Home. I need to find the paperwork my mom is hiding, and she should be leaving for work right about now.”
“Home it is,” he said, pulling back onto the road and turning the car toward my house. “Though you know your parents are going to get a call from the office if you skip this much school.”
You didn’t seem too worried about that a second ago, I thought. Aloud I said, “Hopefully it won’t take me too long and I can be back to school by lunch hour. But now that we’re pretty sure whoever is sicking these zombies on me is using the living, I can’t waste anymore time. I don’t want to risk hurting innocent people while I’m trying to keep them from hurting innocent people.”
“You’re right. I’ll follow up on a few other things while you’re busy at your house,” he said, his words perfectly nice but his tone telling me there had been serious damage done.
“Okay. Thanks.”
“No problem. Anything to help.” We both spent the rest of the ride in silence. I was trying not to cry, and I guess Ethan was just mad. He kind of looked mad. Or maybe he was trying not to cry too. I shouldn’t be sexist and assume he was too tough to cry just because he was a boy.
After all, if a wretched girlfriend like me couldn’t bring a guy to tears, what could?
CHAPTER 17
The good thing about leading a double life is that there are times when you’re just too busy to stress out.
By the time I ransacked our house thankfully finding the file without too much trouble, raced back to school just in time to join the seniors returning from lunch, finished class, changed into my dance clothes and practiced for an hour and a half, and showered and changed into the ice-skating clothes I’d snagged from the house during my ransacking earlier, I had managed to not think about my dire situation for six whole hours.
Or at least not think about it that much. The coma zombies, my weird blood, the psycho who was trying to kill or frame me, and the chance I could go to jail forever for a crime I didn’t commit were never too far from my mind.
The unread paperwork from my house was like a lead weight in my purse dragging me down to the bottom of an ocean of psychosis. I was jittery and paranoid all day long, torn between the urge to wait for a semi-private moment to read the file and just ripping the darn thing open in the girls’ bathroom in between classes and putting an end to the horrible suspense.
In the end, I decided I would have to break down and read the thing in public as soon as I got the chance. I didn’t have any more time to waste. On my way out of practice, I noticed that my normal beige SA tail had been replaced by a sleek black SUV with tinted windows exactly like the one Kitty drove. It followed me at a discreet distance as I jogged the five blocks over to where we were holding the sweetheart skate. The SUV turned off a few streets before the gravel road leading to the pond, but I wasn’t fooled.
I expected to be snatched off the street and taken into SA custody any second. In fact, when that skin-prickling “watched” feeling started up again seconds after I’d grabbed a spot on the bleachers and begun to tug on my skates, my first thought was that it was Kitty and that I should get ready to run if I wasn’t prepared to rot in a jail cell.
I peeked through the hair falling around my face, scanning the edge of the pond, but there wasn’t a sign of Kitty or anyone from Settlers’ Affairs. Finally, I spotted the source of the prickles-a zombie lurking in the woods on the other side.
It was Cliff. Even concealed by the winter wonderland of twinkling lights strung in the trees, I could tell it was him, but I didn’t make any move to acknowledge his presence, no matter how thrilled I was to see him. I couldn’t risk him being spotted by my Settler tail. Just the fact that he was here, still lurking, watching out for me, was a great sign.
Besides, I had a feeling he would be losing it big-time if he were forced to sit next to me while I laced my skates and Aaron tried his best to look up my skirt.
“Those are really cool skates,” Aaron said, eyes still glued to my hemline. The boy had deliberately chosen the seat two below mine and wasn’t overly subtle in his attempts to get a peek under my red and white kilt.
“Thanks. They’re vintage from the eighties.” I couldn’t freak on him. I still needed my backpack with my parents’ medical records inside and should have known better than to wear a skirt to ice-skate in anyway.
But I’d been trying to follow Monica’s advice and at least pretend I still cared about normal things. And in my normal life I wouldn’t have been able to resist the lure of my kilt with the matching red sweater. With a white turtleneck and he
avy knee-high socks, the outfit was warm enough to wear without a coat and looked great with my mom’s red ice skates. I looked fairly cute for a girl on the verge of a breakdown, and I was certain I’d snag a few couples’ skates before the night was through.
Heck, I already had one buyer, whether I liked it or not.
“You’re going to save me at least one song, right?” Aaron finally lifted his eyes as I finished with my laces and pressed my knees tightly together.
“Won’t Dana kill you?” I smiled, doing my best to be friendly, though I really wanted to tell him to give me my backpack and scram. “I mean, you’re the only boy for sale. I’m sure you’ll be in demand.”
And I was sure he would be. Girls were already roaming around, shooting Aaron “yummy, I want” looks even though it would be at least thirty minutes until the DJ arrived to start spinning the tracks for our little soiree. Hopefully Aaron would find one or two who enjoyed his inappropriate touchy-feelyness and they would all live happily ever after, making certain he never touched me again.
But for now, I gritted my teeth and tried to smile when his hand landed on my knee. “I don’t care what she says. It’s just one skate.”
“Okay, sure. Sounds good.” I vaulted to a standing position before his fingers could creep any closer to the hem of my skirt. “But until then I’d love to look at those records. You said you brought my bag?”
“Yeah, I looked all over school for you this afternoon but couldn’t find you anywhere. Guess you were hiding from me, huh?” he asked, with a weird giggle.
“Nope, just busy.” I smiled, determined not to give Aaron the “you are a creepy stalker leave me alone” talk until after I retrieved my backpack. “But you have it now?”