Fear My Mortality (19 page)

The guy scowled, spitting on the ground. “That’s no angel.”

I wondered how much nectar was left in my system, how long it might last to protect me, help me heal, make me fast. I inched back toward Michael, feeling an intense urge to run. “What do you want?”

Without taking his eyes off us, Jeremiah inclined his head across the fence, back toward my house. “What happened to her?”

I shook my head. “Who?”

“Your neighbor. Mrs. Hubert.”

I frowned at him. “She had her final death. It was the same day my brother died.”

“No, she didn’t.” He glared at Michael. “She was like you, mate.” The way he said “mate” scattered shivers across my skin. He may as well have spat at Michael.

Michael took a step back, his face turning a peculiar shade of gray. “What do you—”

“You know what I’m talking about. She couldn’t die. She was like you—one of the immortals. So why’s she dead, huh?”

“Immortals? You’re crazy,” I said. “Everybody dies.” I turned to Michael. “Right?”

He didn’t say anything, just stared at the guy, who demanded, “That Hazard—the one who came here yesterday. He was here when the old lady disappeared.”

Michael held up his hands as though he could halt the guy’s voice mid-air. “Stop, what are you talking about?” He glanced at me and I could tell that we didn’t have much time. The sirens were much closer now.

Jeremiah peered at us between his dreadlocks and I was surprised to discover that he had young eyes, hidden behind his long hair. It was a disguise. He wasn’t much older than us.

He glared at me. “It used to be old people—like our granddad, and that old woman there—but we’ve seen things on the news. Homeless people, runaway kids.” He leaned in close and there were threads of blood in his eyes, but he smelled like cinnamon, clean. “Your friend took our granddad and now we don’t know where he is.”

“Why would he do that?”

The fire engine shrieked. A car horn blared and Jeremiah’s head snapped up. He shrugged and retreated. “You’re gonna have to figure it out for yourself.” As he spoke, he pulled his brother with him, backing away.

Michael edged closer to me, turning his body just slightly, ready to jump in front of me if the gun went off. A scowl grew across the other guy’s face. Still moving backward, he lowered the gun, letting the tip slide down beside his muddy boots.

Michael gave me a gentle push toward the road. I wasn’t about to protest. The sirens were at the end of the street and escape seemed like an impossible dream. The grass fled beneath my bare feet, faster as Michael propelled me away. Glancing back, Jeremiah had his arm around his brother, disappearing around the back of the house.

“What was he talking about?”

Michael shook his head as if he didn’t know, but I was sure he did. Now wasn’t the time to say so, as we ran for the vacant block.

We reached the path as the fire engines raced past us. Michael pulled me onward. There was no point stopping to see what happened. The further we got, the safer we would be. At least it seemed so. There was a part of me that wanted to run back—as though my world was normal again—and ask the firemen for help. They were meant to rescue people when they were trapped, get cats out of trees, put out fires, save things. Then again, so were the Hazards, but I didn’t know how many of them were working with Reid and how many weren’t, so for now I couldn’t trust any of them. I ran on.

We made it through the park and beyond, and Michael whispered, “Stay cool,” as we came out into a busy street. I kept my head down.
Just out for a jog
, I told myself, trying to pretend that I wasn’t barefoot and wearing my pajamas.

We ran past a café, slowing to a quick walk along the pathway with tables and chairs on either side and cars cruising the street next to it. The scent of coffee and fruit toast tormented me, but not as much as the gentle buzz of conversation, the people eating, chatting like normal, ignoring the image of my charred house playing on the air screen in the background. Was that Reid, disappearing from the corner of the footage? The screen showed firemen and Hazards everywhere and I couldn’t be sure it was him. Then, a picture of me appeared, and under it were written the words:

Suspected Basher
.

Stunned, I ground to a halt as the newsreader’s voice registered. “Speculation rises as Ava Holland, sister of dead teenager, Joshua Holland, disappeared from her home this morning after a car bomb exploded … ”

Michael was a few steps ahead of me, and I wanted to call him back, but my voice wouldn’t work. The newsreader continued. “After significant negotiations, we’ve acquired a still shot of the moment before Joshua Holland died, clearly showing him wearing a Basher uniform.” I couldn’t look, couldn’t see Josh’s face before his death, desperation turning to peace. “Which gives rise to questions about his family’s involvement with the gangs.”

Michael had stopped. He reached back for my hand, his face pale, seeing the footage. “We have to go.” He inclined his head further down the road, keeping his voice low. “There’s a surveillance drone coming this way. We have to backtrack.”

I didn’t breathe until we turned into a back alleyway. After a while, the streets blurred and mushed together. I tried not to look at other people as we passed. Michael seemed to know where he was going and sometimes we stopped jogging and walked, other times we flitted between buildings and down alleyways. We climbed a fire escape and crept over a roof. I tried not to think about what they were saying about me on the news or the possibility that Hannah was a Basher, but I heard her voice over and over, asking where I was.

“We should check the news again tonight. We need to know what they’re saying.”

He nodded but propelled me down an alleyway behind a set of shops. “If we can. Somehow.”

Finally, my feet dragged. “I have to stop. Seriously. I’m
starving
.”

He slowed, planting his hands on his waist and shaking out his shoulders as his chest heaved. “Yeah, me too. Let’s head down here first. There’s a park up ahead. Only the drug addicts go there.” He pointed to a nearby street and I realized that we’d left the nice side of town behind us. Hiding in a park with druggies didn’t seem safest to me, but then nowhere was safe anymore. The trees might give us some shelter from the drones and at least addicts were less likely to pay attention to our faces.

Michael led me through a crumbling brick archway and into an overgrown area of trees and shrubs. “Park” seemed like the last thing this place was. I spied a filthy syringe left lying on the ground and asked, “Are those dangerous?”

“For you? Probably.”

Suddenly my bare feet were a problem. “I need shoes.”

“We have to do something about that. This way.” He nudged me down the path into the heart of the wilderness and motioned toward a tree that was mostly obscured behind thick bushes. I sank down against it, rubbing my aching calves. It must have rained there recently—or else the sunlight never reached the ground—because the damp seeped through my pajama shorts straight away. I pulled my knees to my chest and tried to ignore it. “You’ve got food, right?”

He dropped his duffel bag on the ground and laughed. “Because I think of everything?”

“No. I mean … well, yes. At least … ”

“Your belief in me is staggering, star girl. But, no, I don’t have more food. We ate it all last night.”

My shoulders sagged to the mushy earth and he smiled again. “But I do have money.”

“Yeah?”

He dropped to his knees beside me and rummaged in the bag, withdrawing a clump of paper notes. “I raided my college fund; a.k.a my dad’s safe.”

“But … college is important.”

“College is for normal people. There’s no way I can have a normal life now.”

I touched his shoulder. “I can’t have a normal life, Michael. You could go home and explain … ”

His expression was sharp, determined. “I’m not leaving you.” He sighed and his voice softened. “Ava, if I went home right now, the first thing they’d do is pump me for information. They’d use me to find you. And then my dad would pack me up and send me someplace people don’t know who I am. I can live the next few hundred years hoping nobody recognizes me. The Attorney-General was right: I killed someone—there’s no normal for me anymore.” He studied the notes in his hand, as though there was nothing more to say.

Inside his partly open duffel bag, I caught sight of a red cross. “You have a medical kit.”

He followed my gaze. “I’m sorry, it’s way more basic than the one we lost in the explosion, but there are bandages and plaster.” He chewed his lip. “And methylated spirits.”

I withdrew as he pulled his bag shut.

He shoved the money into his pocket. “What size shoe are you?”

My voice was small. “Six, but I didn’t see any shoe shops along the way.”

“I’ll figure something out. I won’t be long.”

He jogged away before I had the chance to say anything else. A half hour later, I was starting to worry. My stomach growled and it sounded too loud in the quiet park.

I jumped at the sound of someone coming along the path, but it was the smell of food that brought me to my feet. Michael appeared with two paper bags full of fries and burgers. I wasn’t sure what I was happiest to see—him or the food—especially when he drew a pair of sneakers out of a plastic bag and said, “There’s a second-hand shop back there. Sorry it took so long. I had to keep a low profile.”

“Thanks.” I pulled the shoes onto my dirty feet. I didn’t care that they used to be somebody else’s if it meant protection from a sharp syringe.

He waited for me to stand up again and handed me the bag. “I got you some clothes too.”

I pulled out the jeans and t-shirt and checked the sizes. “Nice guess. For someone without sisters, you seem pretty good at buying girl’s stuff.”

He shrugged and passed me some food. “Eat first. Try on clothes later.”

I crammed the food into my mouth before he’d even finished the sentence. I ignored the growing buzz in my head. I was tired, that was all. When my stomach was full again, I put away the wrappers and tapped his arm. “Where will we go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay, let me rephrase: Where
can
we go?”

“I don’t know.”

“But—”

“Again with the staggering belief.” He shook his head, and I noticed that his hair looked longer than the day before. It cast shadows across his face and his eyes, creating dark pools, making me wonder what was behind them.

“You must have some idea.”

“Actually, no. Well … ” He ran a hand across his forehead. “I was kind of thinking—”

His words blurred as I peered at his head. The dark strands of his hair looked like threads of ink splattered across his cheekbones. I balanced against the tree as my field of view suddenly swam. So did my stomach. “How fast does your hair grow?”

He stopped and gave me a strange look. “Same as everyone else, but each time I regenerate, it grows a few inches all at once.”

“Wow, you must have to cut it all the time.”

“Are we really talking about hair right now?”

I held up my free hand, hardly noticing that it trembled. “Hey, you’re the one who bought me clothes without even having to ask my size. These shoes fit, too. Kind of amazing really because everyone has different feet, you know. Some people have really narrow feet and some people—like me—they have wide feet, and some people hate having their toes squished. You know those pixie shoes everyone was wearing a while ago. I hated them! Did you hate them? You must have. Actually, you probably didn’t wear them because you’re a guy. Why am I talking so much right now?”

I tried to breathe, but my chest constricted.

Michael put down his food, rattling the paper bag, and it screeched in my head. I clamped my hands over my ears, sliding to the ground and ducking my head toward my knees.

“Ava?”

“Stop shouting.”

“I’m not shouting.”

I squeezed my eyes closed, really tight. I tried to take a deep breath and failed. Something bad rose inside my chest, and my hands shook so much they clattered next to my head. “Something’s wrong.”

I sensed him move around me and come back. Between the cracks in my fingers, I made out the shape of a jacket. He sat down beside me so slowly and quietly that it barely registered in my throbbing head. He didn’t say anything as he lowered the jacket over my shoulders and put his arm around me. I didn’t feel any zap when he touched me and that made me shudder.

“You’re freezing.”

I moved a finger to see a patch of his face—one eye and the corner of his mouth, worried, his lips all pressed together. He said, “I’m sorry I gave you so much nectar today. I wish I’d had another choice, I really do, but you were going to die.”

“What’s wrong with me?”

“I don’t know, some kind of reaction. You can get through it. I’ll help you.”

I said the first thing that came into my head. “We have to get moving.”

“We’re not going anywhere right now. We can stay here for tonight. But … ” He pulled away a little. “We need more food.”

“Don’t. Don’t go anywhere. I don’t know what will happen while you’re gone.”