Awakening (13 page)

I
SLAPPED ONE OF the knives into Tori’s hand and told her to run. She did, sprinting ahead, her long legs soon leaving me behind, which was
not
what I’d meant. But we had enough of a head start. We just needed to get—

I glanced back at my pursuer and missed the curb. I stumbled and tried to recover, but my injured knee gave out and I sprawled onto a strip of grass. I dug in with both hands, ready to scramble up, but the girl landed on my back and the wind flew from my lungs.

We fought—if you could call my frantic kicking and flailing a fight. Soon she had me pinned on my back, knife at my throat. That stopped me.

“I—I—I—” I swallowed. “I’m sorry. Do you want my jacket? My shoes?”

Her face twisted in disgust. “You don’t have anything I want, blondie.”

She wrenched down my hood and yanked a handful of my hair. I winced and bit back a yelp.

“Red streaks?” A humorless laugh. “You think that makes you tough? Makes you cool?”

“N-no. If you want my shoes—”

“They’d never fit me. I wanted your friend’s jacket, but she’s long gone. Nice friend you’ve got there. Never even looked back.” The girl eased up, knife still at my throat. “It was a taser, wasn’t it?”

“What?”

“What she did to me back there. She tasered me, then my girls. I bet you thought that was funny.”

“N-no. I—”

“I said I was going to teach you a lesson, and since you don’t have anything I want…”

She lifted the knife until the point was an inch over my eye. I saw that tip coming down and went nuts, writhing to get free, but she had me securely pinned with her arm on my neck, cutting off my air as I struggled, and all I could do was watch that point coming straight for my eye. A whimper burbled up from my gut. She laughed and lowered the blade to rest on my cheekbone.

The tip pressed in. I felt the jab of pain, then hot blood trickling down my cheek.

“This is no life for pretty girls, blondie. A cute little thing like you? I’ll give you a week before some player has you turning tricks. Me? I’m lucky. I don’t have to worry about that.” She tilted her face, showing me her badly scarred cheek. “I’m going to do you the same favor.”

The knife bit in, digging deeper. I closed my eyes against the pain, then felt the girl leap off me with a snarl of rage.

As I scrambled up, I realized it wasn’t
her
snarling. And she wasn’t leaping off me—she was sailing up, eyes wide, knife dropping point down in the earth as Derek wrenched her into the air. He swung her straight at the wall.

I screamed “No!” I thought it was too late, much too late, but at the last moment he checked himself, so abruptly that he stumbled. The girl flailed and kicked. Her foot made contact. Derek didn’t seem to notice. He looked around, saw the fence and, with a grunt, heaved her over it. She crashed onto the other side.

I was almost on my feet, unsteady, shaking. He grabbed my collar and yanked me up.

“Move!”

I found the fallen knife and snatched it. He shoved me forward so hard I stumbled. Then I started running. He got in front, leading me. We’d gone about a quarter mile when he spun, meeting my gaze with a look that made me shrink back. He grabbed my upper arm and held me still.

“Did I tell you to stay put?”

“Yes, but—”

“Did I tell you to stay put!” he roared.

I glanced around, afraid we’d be heard, but we were behind a row of stores, all the windows dark.

“Yes.” I kept my voice low and even. “You did. But you also told me to watch out for Tori, and she took off.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about Tori. If she walks away, let her. If she steps in front of a bus, let her.”

When I looked up at his eyes, I saw the terror behind the rage and knew who he was really mad at—himself, for almost throwing that girl into the wall, just like the boy in Albany.

Saying nothing, I pried his fingers from my arm. He pulled back, clenching and unclenching his hand.

“If she takes off, let her go,” he said, quieter now. “I don’t care what happens to her.”

“I do.”

He stepped back, rubbing absently at his forearm. When he saw me watching, he stopped.

“It’s an itch,” he said. “A normal itch.”

“Have you had any other symptoms? Fever or—”

“No,” he snapped. “Don’t change the subject. You need to be more careful, Chloe. Like earlier, with that body. You need to think about what could happen.”

He was right. But seeing him scratching reminded me that I wasn’t the only one who’d been careless, who’d ignored a potential threat.

“And what about you?” I pointed as he scratched his arm again. “The werewolf who hasn’t had his first Change yet, but knows he’s developing fast. Yet when you started getting restless, feverish, itchy, it never occurred to you that you might be Changing early? You let it slide…until it starts on the night we’re supposed to escape.”

“I wasn’t going with you guys—”

“But if I hadn’t stayed to find you, Simon wouldn’t have left. You could have botched the escape because you didn’t know what was happening to you.”

“I
didn’t
.”

“Like I didn’t know I could raise the dead in my sleep. But did I chew you out? Did I even mention how close I came to getting caught because I stayed to help?”

He looked away, jaw working, then said, “I tried to help you, too. And got this.” He gestured to the scratch on his cheek.

“Because I woke up with a guy pinning me to the floor! I know you were trying to keep me from seeing that zombie crawling on me. A good plan, poorly executed. Then you totally lost patience and kept barking orders.”

“I was trying to help.”

“And what if I’d done that to you? Yelled at you to finish Changing before we got caught?”

He looked away again. “I…About that night. I haven’t said…” He squared his shoulders. “We need to get back. Simon will be worried about you.”

We walked about twenty steps in silence, me trailing him. When his shoulders bunched, I knew he was thinking about it again, and I prayed he’d let it go. Please just let it—

He spun on me. “Next time when I tell you to stay, I mean stay.”

“I’m not a dog, Derek.”

I kept my voice steady, but his jaw tensed, green eyes flashing. “Maybe not, but you obviously need someone to look after you, and I’m tired of doing it.”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Didn’t we agree to stop bickering?”

His face darkened. “This isn’t—”

“You’re mad at yourself and you’re taking it out on me.”

I meant to be reasonable, but he exploded, coming at me so fast I backpedaled and hit a chain-link fence.

“I’m mad at
you
, Chloe. You took off. You got in trouble. I had to rescue you.”

He kept coming at me. I pressed against the fence, the links whining in protest.

“And stop doing that,” he said. “Backing away, giving me that look.”

“Like you’re scaring me? Maybe you are.”

He stepped back so fast he wobbled and caught himself, and the look on his face—It vanished in a second, the scowl returning.

“I’d never hurt you, Chloe. You should know—” He stopped. Paused. Then wheeled and started walking away. “Next time? Handle it yourself. I’m done taking care of you.”

I wanted to fly after him, yell that I hadn’t asked him to take care of me, didn’t need it, didn’t want it. Not if this was the price—his rage, his guilt, his scorn.

Tears prickled. I blinked them away and waited until he was far enough that he wouldn’t turn on me again. Then I followed him to Simon.

Tori was already there. She didn’t say a word to me, as if mentioning what happened would mean explaining why she’d left me behind.

No one said much of anything. We were all too tired and too cold. Our new spot was a delivery bay. Safe, but the north wind blew right in. We huddled against the walls with our thin blankets pulled around us, and tried to sleep.

I
WOKE TO THE smell of sausage and eggs and squeezed my eyes shut to savor the dream, knowing when I opened them, I’d be lucky to get bruised fruit and an energy bar.

“Rise and shine,” a voice whispered.

A paper bag rustled. Then sausage-scented steam bathed my face. I opened my eyes to see Simon holding a familiar take-out bag in front of me.

“McDonald’s?”

“Shhh.”

Simon pointed at Tori, still snoring beside me, then quietly retreated from the delivery bay, motioning for me to follow.

He led me into an alley, where a fire escape ladder hung, then he boosted me onto it. We climbed up to the roof of a three-story building.

I walked to the edge and looked out. There was a park to the east, glistening with dew, the sun still rising behind it, tinting the sky pink.

“Nice, huh?” Simon said. “That park wasn’t quite so empty last night or we would have slept there.” He set down the bag and drinks on the rooftop. “So is this okay for breakfast? Up here?”

I looked at the view again. After last night, this was better than the fanciest breakfast in the fanciest restaurant. It might be the most thoughtful thing anyone had ever done for me.

“It’s perfect,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Good. If it wasn’t, I’d have blamed Derek.”

“Derek?”

“He suggested we come up here and helped me pull down the ladder. Breakfast was my idea, though. We saw the Mickey D’s last night and I thought you might like a bickering-free breakfast.”

Derek picked the spot? Had he been hoping I’d be blinded by the morning sun and stumble off the edge?

“Pancakes or sausage McMuffin?” Simon asked as I settled onto the rooftop.

“Which do you want?”

“I’ve got mine.” He lifted a wrapped sandwich. “I thought I’d buy you both and, whichever you don’t want, Derek will eat. Nothing goes to waste with him around.”

I took the McMuffin.

He lifted two cups. “OJ or a strawberry milkshake?”

“I didn’t think you could get milkshakes in the morning.”

He grinned. “I can.”

When I took the shake, his smile grew. “I thought you might like that.”

“Thanks. This”—I waved at the food and the spot—“is really nice.”

“And well-deserved after your cruddy night. By the way, there’s a cut on your cheek. We should get that cleaned up later. I know Derek gave you the gears last night—more than once.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. Going at you about raising that zombie? That was out of line, even for Derek. He’s been…”

“Crankier than usual?”

“Yeah. I think it’s because he Changed—or couldn’t Change—but that’s no excuse to vent at you, not after what you did for him.”

I shrugged and took a long draw of my milkshake.

“About what you did that night, staying with Derek while he was trying to Change…” Simon shook his head. “I don’t know how you kept your cool. Finding him like that when you didn’t even know he was a werewolf.”

“I figured it out.”

Simon took a bite of his sandwich and chewed, looking out at the sky before saying, “I wanted to tell you. Especially after he forced
you
to admit you were seeing ghosts. We argued; he won, as usual. But if we thought you could ever have stumbled on him like that, we’d have warned you. Even knowing what he is, I doubt I could have stuck around, much less helped. It took guts.” He caught my gaze. “It really took guts.”

I’m sure I turned crimson. I glanced away and chomped into my sandwich.

“I appreciate what you did for him, Chloe. Derek appreciates it, too, though I’m sure he hasn’t said so.”

I swallowed my mouthful and changed the subject. “So, about your dad…You never did tell me how he disappeared.”

He laughed. “Enough about Derek, huh? Unfortunately, Derek is where this story starts. It was after he broke that kid’s back. When it got a mention in the Albany paper, Dad decided it was time to move on. He must have known the Edison Group was still trying to find us. We should have left right away. But…”

Simon picked a burned piece off his muffin. “This happened a lot. At the first hint of trouble, we’d pack and move. Derek and I didn’t understand why, so we’d complain.” He paused. “No,
I’d
complain. After growing up in that lab, Derek was happy as long as the three of us were together. I hated moving. It always seemed I’d just made new friends, just made the team, just met a girl…”

“I know what that’s like. Well, except the part about meeting girls.”

“Yeah, but I bet you never complained. You’re like Derek. You make the best of things. I bitched and moaned, so Dad always tried to make it easier on me. That day, I had a basketball game I was hyped about, so when Dad saw the article after we’d gone to school, he called Derek’s cell. He told him not to mention it to me, but that he’d meet us after school and we’d take off. He never showed.”

“And you haven’t seen him since?”

Simon shook his head. “We got home, found the car packed, the keys in the kitchen. He’d taken his wallet or had it in his pocket when…whatever happened, happened.”

“You think someone kidnapped him?”

“I don’t know. Derek couldn’t find anyone’s scent in the house. It was like Dad just walked away, which he’d never do. Derek wanted to take off. Again I screwed up. I thought there was some logical explanation—maybe Derek misunderstood Dad’s message. The next morning, I gave in and we left, but it was too late. They caught up with us the next day.”

“The Edison Group?”

“They said they were child services. We believed them. They took us back to the house to see if Dad had returned, and when he wasn’t there, they said that we had to go into a group home until they figured stuff out. Since we’d been born in Buffalo, that’s where they put us. Which should have seemed weird, but we didn’t know better. So that’s how we ended up in Lyle House.”

Simon continued, explaining that, since we’d escaped, he’d been casting some kind of seeking spell his dad taught him, but he couldn’t detect him. Using library computers, Derek had searched on their dad’s name and aliases, but found nothing.

“And now, with all this about the Edison Group, and Liz and Brady and Amber murdered…” He looked out over the parking lot. “I’m starting to think it might be a waste of time. That he’s not out there. That they killed him.”

“But Aunt Lauren was sure the Edison Group wasn’t involved in your dad’s disappearance. And she seemed certain he’d still be alive. Do you know any other place he could be? Or anyone who might know something?”

“I thought about going back to Albany, maybe talk to people he worked with, our neighbors, someone who might have seen something that day…”

“We could do that. We have enough money.”

“Derek doesn’t want to.”

“He wants to stay here?” That didn’t sound like Derek.

“No, he just doesn’t see any point in going back—and says it’s probably dangerous. But there is someone we could go to. This friend of my dad’s. Andrew Carson. He lives outside New York City. Dad said if we were ever in trouble and he wasn’t around, we should go to Andrew.”

“Have you called him? Maybe he knows something about your dad.”

“That’s the problem. Dad put his number on our cell phones, but they took those when we were tossed in Lyle House. We know his name and where he lives—we’ve been there plenty of times. But when we tried looking him up on a computer, we couldn’t find anything.”

“His number must be unlisted. Or he’s using an alias.”

“Or he’s not there anymore. It’s been a few years since we saw him. He and Dad had a falling-out.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t contact him then.”

Simon crumpled his wrapper. “I shouldn’t say ‘falling-out.’ A disagreement. Dad and Andrew kept in touch; we just didn’t go visit him anymore. He was still our emergency contact. So we
should
go see him, like Derek says. I’m just…not ready to give up on finding Dad. But with you and Tori here, and your picture everywhere, Derek’s ready to buy the bus tickets.”

“How about another solution? I need to get out of Buffalo. You need to talk to this guy. What if Tori and I go find Andrew while you and Derek look—”

“No. I don’t trust Tori with you, especially after last night. Derek wouldn’t go for it either.”

I wasn’t so sure. He might jump at the chance to get rid of me.

Simon continued, “Even if Tori’s
not
homicidal, she’s careless and reckless. Worse than me, which is saying a lot. We’ll find another way.”