Forgotten (Reject High: A Young Adult Science Fiction Series Book 3) (13 page)

“What would you do about Mom, if you were in my shoes?”

She pondered my question, still fingering circles on the cover sheet. “I don’t know. Both of my parents are alive. If I lost one of them, there’s no telling what I’d do to have them back. Especially my dad.”

“So you don’t think I’m doing something stupid?”

Her smile reminded me of Mom’s. “Not my place to say. I haven’t been in that kind of headspace, the kinds of decisions you’ve had to make. None of us can judge you.”

“Yeah. But you’re putting your life on the line for this, too.”

She gave me that look, the one where I must have missed something. “You make a good point, Captain. I like my life, so do me a favor?”

“What’s that?”

“Make sure I keep living.”

We shared a laugh. Sasha scooted to the foot of the bed and let herself out of my room. I laid down for a few more minutes, checking my watch to make sure I didn’t stay past 5:30. I’d have to order dinner by then.
No way I’m missing a meal with food this good.

I splashed cool water on my face in the private bathroom and returned to the travel car. Mom had drifted off in her seat. Esteban was listening to music on a pair of white headphones. Rhapsody started a conversation with a half-interested Camuto as soon as I showed up. Sasha noticed I came back and waved “hi.” Courtney busied herself with a menu. Tired of the awkwardness, I grabbed Rhapsody by the hand. “Let’s talk.”

I dragged her through the travel car and back to my bedroom, locking the door behind me. It was the first time I'd noticed the window view of the passing landscape. From the looks of the mountain ranges surrounding us, we were somewhere in Nevada or close to it. Rhapsody and I stood face-to-face, close enough for her breath to tickle my moustache hair.

“So?” The top of her lip curled. “Talk Jason.”

I didn’t do well with confrontations unless I was using my fists, and even then I lucked out most of the time. What should I say to her? My confusion must have played out on my face, because Rhapsody lost it and started speaking in Spanish. Once she did that, there was no stopping her. I gave her a kiss, thinking it would make her stop or slow down.

Instead, it ticked her off more. “What was that?”

“A kiss.”

“You want to make up? Or that was to keep me from cussing you out?”

I thought about it.
Both.
I wised up and didn’t answer the question.

“We need to have a real conversation. About
us.
Here.
Now.”

I wish my feelings were clearer. I had strong feelings for both girls, and neither of them would back off for the other. They were going to make me choose between them. Mom didn’t like Rhapsody for whatever reason, but she and Sasha were peas in a pod. Perhaps it was a sign that I should be spending my time with Sasha. Or maybe it was nothing at all.

Rhapsody shrugged. “I’ll admit we started wrong. I should’ve made you straighten out everything with Sasha before we hooked up.”

I nodded, admitting my guilt in that as well. It wasn’t fair to either of them. “Yeah.”

“I can’t help it, though, the way I feel. Since we got these powers, each day might be our last. If you don’t feel the same way I do about you, you shouldn’t be spending time with me.”

I really liked her. Anything more than that, I wasn’t positive. I’d never been in love before. I didn’t know what it felt like to fall in love with someone. I told her what I knew to be true. “You’re my best friend. The best friend I’ve ever had.”

A tear slid down her cheek. “Maybe that’s all I am. Whatever.”

Tension started in my neck and trickled into my shoulders. “I don’t know, Rhapsody. How do you know how you feel?”

My question flustered her. “I don’t have a lot of time left for you to figure out this one.”

She sniffed and left my room. I trailed far enough behind her that she wouldn’t think I was following. I had feelings for Rhapsody, strong feelings. But were they “love"?

I slumped into my seat next to Mom.

“You missed the order,” she said. “I got a meat lover’s pizza for you and a salad for me. Since you’re eating for both of us, at least some of it should be halfway healthy.”

“Thanks. And sorry about before. I had a killer migraine.”

“Watch your mouth next time,” she said before leaning over and whispering next to my ear. “Girl trouble?”

I admitted as much. “That obvious?”

“Two girls who like you coming from your room a half hour apart? Sure sign of problems. Either that or I need to do a better job parenting.”

I doubted she, Ray, Julia, or Debra could effectively parent me at this point.

“If I told you which one I liked, would it make a difference?” she asked.

I wasn’t sure, but I was interested to hear why she liked Sasha so much more than Rhapsody. I had a guess and it had nothing to do with Frankie Beverly. “Go ahead.”

“That girl, she’s spunky, really balls-to-the-wall. Plus, I can tell she cares deeply about you. Don’t get me wrong, Sasha cares about you, too. I think you could do worse than marry her and have kids. Every mother wants the best for her son – a girl who makes him happy.”

“You’re talking about
Rhapsody?”
I whispered.

She shrugged. “Again, she’s the less conventional of the two. I don’t get the weird music or the black hair. But do you see the way she looks at you? Like you’re the only person on the planet who matters? She lives and dies by what you say about her. That’s love, Boogie.”

Not sure I understood. “Can you love two people at the same time?” I asked her.

Mom folded her hands. “A long time ago, while I was dating your dad, this guy I dated before him tried getting my attention.”

“His last name was McCoy?” I asked.

“Yeah. Ray told you about him? Antwaan was my first.”

I interrupted her. “Your first. . .boyfriend?”

“Yes.” She stopped talking for a second.

He was her first for more than that. That’s what she didn’t say. My skin crawled.

“He was persistent. Romantic, too, in a way I’d always liked. After a while I started paying him more attention and it drove Ray insane. Your grandmother loved Antwaan. She framed every picture we took together. They’re probably still in the basement.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her about the foreclosure. “What made you choose Dad?” I tried stopping myself from calling him “Dad” but couldn’t. It slipped out.

“I couldn’t see a future with Antwaan. I did love him, but he was a police officer. I wanted babies, he didn’t. I pictured myself sitting at home, waiting for the phone to ring with someone on the other end telling me he’d been killed in the line of duty.”

“A
future,”
I said.
Let me wake up alive on Tuesday. Then I’ll think beyond tomorrow.

She poked me in the ribs with her finger. “Your birthday is in a few days. Plan an imaginary birthday party in your mind. Only one of them can carry your cake and sing ‘happy birthday’ to you. Sasha or Rhapsody. Who would you want it to be? Who would you rather not be without?”

All good points. I closed my eyes and thought about it. It wasn’t clear. I couldn’t see in my mind’s eye which one of them it would be. Either girl fit the picture. Mom was alive. Her presence was the only reason to celebrate this year.

Our food arrived and I ate the pizza, disregarding how scalding hot it was. Slice by slice, I chomped down until nothing was left. On Mom’s insistence, I ate her crispy chicken salad with a gross amount of honey mustard dressing. Everyone else was eating except for Rhapsody, who wasn’t in her seat. The waiter said had her meal delivered to her room. Ruby’s comments about weight made Rhapsody self-conscious about eating in front of other people. Every once in a while, when she wanted to enjoy her food, she hid and ate.

Ever since she'd left my bedroom, I'd thought about her and what she had said. My heart swelled with warmth. The lunchroom where we first kissed, holding hands and meeting George, what he'd said to me about how she felt – Sasha had been right all this time. She
loved
me. Stupid me. I was the last one to figure out she had feelings for me.

After spending half a day on the train, our group started drifting into the sleeping cars, one by one. First, Sasha went. Then, Esteban. I was the last to turn in. Mom, Courtney and Camuto didn’t budge.
How much sleep do they need?
People talk about dying as “going to sleep.” If that’s what it’s like, I could see why Mom didn’t want to close her eyes after more than a thousand straight days of napping.

After showering and brushing my teeth I put on a set of generic summer clothing Sasha had given me, rinsed off my armor and hung it up inside my bathroom stall. It would be safe there, as it could only be accessed from my room. I’d find a way to charge its solar battery tomorrow.

The train rocked and swayed around a corner. I balanced myself long enough to crawl underneath the comforter into bed. I wasn’t quite ready to go to sleep, so I rolled over and said a prayer to God. Nothing long and involved, just a quick, “Don’t let me die, please.”

Laying my head back on the pillow, I stared at the white ceiling. Everything Mom said played back in my mind. She didn’t see a future with that other guy, but she did with Ray. I never planned an hour beyond what I was already living. It used to be because I didn’t care what I did. More recently I’d had to focus on the here and now. If I didn’t, there wouldn’t be a future for me or anyone else on the planet.

I knew who I wanted to hand me my cake, to sing “Happy Birthday", and the girl I couldn’t be without on that day. I’d want them both there, but one of them held the edge over the other.
I don’t know why it took me so long to think this out.

I had to say something. Now.

How did Camuto assign the rooms again?
I wasn’t sure. I did know I could reach her Collective-issued phone by pressing *2 on mine.

I wondered if she had turned it off. No, it rang a few times. Finally, she picked it up. “Huh?” She’d awakened from a deep sleep. Her words slurred together. “Time is it?”

“I don’t know,” I said with more enthusiasm than I wanted. “Can you come over? I don’t know which cabin is yours and it might be awkward if I guess wrong.”

She groaned. “Ugh. Alright. Give me five minutes.”

I tried not to watch the time on my wristwatch, but I couldn’t help it. One minute felt like a year passing by. I watched the moonlit sky through my parted blinds. It had been two minutes. Was time slowing down? Tired of watching a panoramic view of darkness, I sat up with my legs dangling off the edge of the bed, tapping rhythms with my heels. Courtney was right. My legs had grown longer. Had it been three minutes yet?

Then it hit me. Was I presentable? I sniffed under my armpits. Acceptable there, but my teeth could use a fresh brushing. I rushed into the bathroom, making sure to check my breath after I finished running the brush over my teeth.
Not good enough
. I did a shot of mouthwash. I wiggled my tongue from all the tingling on my taste buds. That’s when I noticed a female figure in the corner of the mirror, mocking my actions.

“What’s so important? It’s mad late.” She was wearing a pair of white mesh shorts, a matching tank top, and a fluorescent bikini top underneath.

Without a word I walked over and took Rhapsody’s hands in mine. “Everything that’s happened in the past four months – you’ve been a part of it since day one.”

“Okay…what about it?”

I locked my fingers with hers. The smooth touch of her skin sparked electricity in my brain. “Whatever I’m doing,” I said, “I want you to be there. I want you to give me my cake and sing ‘Happy Birthday’. And if you can’t make it, I’ll change things around so that you can.”

She shivered. The air conditioning had kicked on, so she might’ve been cold. “Jason, you’re not making sense right now. It’s late. You don’t have to…”

I squeezed her hands. “And I thought what I felt was different than what you felt, but it’s the same. Even when I was with Sasha, I thought about you and what you were doing.”

She let go of my hands and turned away. “Don’t….I don’t think…”

Bracing for her response, I built up my courage and said, “I love you.”

She inhaled sharply and faced me. Her expression pleaded with me to say it again. I did it. We kissed, over and over again. Soon, we lay on the bed and kissed, exchanging “I love you’s” back and forth.

“Stay with me tonight,” I said to her. It was an impulse, but one I didn’t regret posing.

Rhapsody paused and looked into my eyes. “Do we have to go to sleep right now?”

I told her no. We were headed into uncharted territory, for the both of us.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

i’m really starting to hate graveyards

Early the next morning Rhapsody and I woke up in one another’s arms. Instead of talking, we continued right from where we left off last night. Thankfully, the sun rose on the other side of the train. Judging by the soft yellow light at my window, the time of day still appeared to be close to dawn. Seeing that, we fell back asleep next to each other for a little longer.

When it came time to get ready for the day, Rhapsody gathered her things and said, “I love you” before ghosting back to her room. Meanwhile, I grabbed a shower and got dressed. We agreed to meet back here at seven-thirty. I’d ask Camuto to switch seats with Mom, just for this morning. I’d didn’t anticipate being this happy much longer, so I’d milk it.

I zoned out on early morning television news, wasting time waiting for Rhapsody to come back. Flicking back and forth between channels made my already razor-thin impatience worse. I needed an Adderall. Sasha used to stash some of my prescription for me. I’d bother her, but at this time of the morning she’d think it was for a different reason. Besides, we had left in a rush. What are the odds she keeps track of my medicine like Sasha did?

Then, to my surprise, Rhapsody knocked on my door a half hour early. I didn’t mind at all. Getting to spend this much time with her outside of a hospital bed was nice.

“Hey, Beautiful,” I said to her.

Goth or not, she was
hot
. She didn’t need conventional makeup. Her long black hair, stringy and wet, smelled like vanilla-scented shampoo. “Hey,” she said, smothering my lips with hers. “Couldn’t…stay away…any longer.”

As we kissed, she slipped a plastic baggie into my palm. Once we came up for air, she said, “Took a girlfriend lesson from Girl Genius and got you some meds.”

“Thanks!” I popped an Adderall into my mouth and went to the bathroom for some water to swallow it. The pills were definitely my brand, but the bag didn’t have a label on it. I slipped it into the inside pocket of my body suit. “How’d you get these?”

“Ghosted it from a pharmacy a while back. No worries, it’s low dose. Does it matter?”

“Not really.”

I had a prescription Debra would have filled if her neck wasn’t broken, so it wasn’t really stealing. I was just taking what I already would have had if I wasn’t defending the planet. Nobody would notice this little bit of Adderall missing. A low dose meant a scarlet emerald wearer could freeze me but not read my mind or control my actions.

“How are you feeling?” I asked her from the bathroom.

“Different,”
she said with a wily smirk. “Pretty incredible. I just posted about it on my blog. How about you?”

I snickered at her joke. Seriously, I hadn’t felt this good in years. “I’m good.”

Hand-in-hand, we exited my room, wearing our knapsacks, right in time to bump into Sasha. Her room was across from mine.

Sasha looked down. I thought she didn’t want to see me. Instead, she pressed her hand to activate the cloaking on her armor. She cleared her throat. “Good morning, guys. We’re meeting in the sightseeing car, if you haven’t heard. We’re late.”

She turned sideways to pass us. Sasha didn’t say anything smart or cut her eyes at us. I hadn’t expected her to throw us a party, but she didn’t appear to be bothered by our relationship. I counted myself lucky. My first monster crush and my first love could get along? Harmony on a life or death mission was a good thing.

When we reached the traveling car, everyone was missing except Camuto. Courtney’s eyes lifted from the newspaper she was reading. “Amauri needed to see you a half hour ago. She’s two cars back.”

Slightly annoyed, I asked her, “I missed the wake-up call. Can I order breakfast first?”

“There’s time for that later,” she said, piecing the newspaper back together by sections.

We made our way to the sightseeing car. The windows were large, oval-shaped and panoramic, offering full views of the passing countryside. After travelling for almost a full day, we had to have crossed Nevada by now and be in Utah, if I remembered correctly. The state’s gray hilly mountainsides cast shadows on the train as we passed them. Next would be Colorado, then Nebraska, Iowa, and into Illinois, where we’d switch rails for Pennsylvania.

Esteban, Mom and Camuto had assembled in the car some time ago. Sasha stood by one of the windows and sipped from a cup. In the middle of the room were two aluminum pots of coffee with black lids, a set of cups, sugar, cream, and wooden stirrers. I fixed myself a cup. Rhapsody did, too. Nobody seemed to care about our tardiness, except for Camuto. Mom kept staring at me and Rhapsody, like we were guilty of committing a crime.

“The aquamarine prisms we harvested are missing,” Camuto said.

I almost dropped my coffee. “Where were they in the first place?”

Camuto’s lips thinned. “In the train’s safe. They alerted me of the theft this morning. They’re gone. Esteban ran his Geiger counter over every car.”

Of course the train company would offer to replace the stones. To the naked eye they appeared to be precious jewels. We knew them to be much more. “Forced entry?”

“No,” Camuto said, sounding offended I’d suggest a thing. “Combination safe. The wheel’s bearings were worn down. It had to be turned extraordinarily fast to do that type of damage.”

Selby. “How did he find us? Why would he want the aquamarines?”

Rhapsody’s eyes darted back and forth between me and Mom.
He wants to raise his parents from the dead?
Why? To torture himself?
He hated them and Sasha said he had been abused for years.

The train’s metal construction should have masked our radioactive signatures. Unless one of us had gone outside. Rhapsody and I had stayed inside. I was almost positive Esteban hadn’t left. The Collective maybe? Not unless they were trying to sabotage us. Mom never did have a poker face. She could not hide her feelings from showing up in her facial expressions.

“However they found us, we have to get them back,” Sasha said without turning away from the window.

Esteban finished a swallow of his coffee and asked the question I was thinking. “Why? They’re after the provenance crystal not the prisms.”

Sasha spoke over her shoulder. “They’re after the provenance crystal, t00. King needs to fuse them with Jason’s blood and inject himself with enough of it to become immortal. He gets a chance to do that, we’re dead in the water.
We
being the human race.”

Camuto hooked her thumb at Sasha. “Sasha’s right. Suit up. We’re going to Orizaba.”

I disagreed. “Let him have the prisms. If they were enough to sustain him forever he wouldn’t be after the source crystal. He’ll still want it. Let’s stay the course.”

“But if the prisms work for a good length of time, King will kill us all,” Sasha argued back. “We’ll blow our cover going to Orizaba, but it’s a risk we have to take. Right, Amauri?”

Esteban snapped his fingers. “We could double down. Go to Orizaba, find and destroy King’s blood supply, put some pressure on him that way while we’re there.”

Rhapsody’s face lit up. “Wait. Selby is going to Orizaba, but he’ll make a stop first.”

No one stated the obvious. One person in the room knew Selby better than the rest of us.

“She means he’ll go to where his parents are buried with the aquamarines,” Sasha said. “They’re in the same graveyard as…” Her voice trailed off. My mom’s cemetery. I still don’t get it. Why would a psycho want to bring back the people who made him psycho? Revenge?

I gave the address to Esteban. “I’ll take Rhapsody. We’ll handle it.”

“You might get sick. Esteban will take Sasha for back-up,” Camuto said. “We pull into Chicago 6 a.m. Monday morning. Text me for coordinates.”

“Whoa.” Esteban ran his hand through his hair. “It’ll take a while for me to cover that kind of distance with another person. But we’ll get there in time, I guess.”

In the planning of the mission, I’d forgotten about Mom. She hugged me. “This is all my fault, Boogie. I wanted to see the sunrise this morning, have a moment of prayer.”

I couldn’t fault her for that. Any regular day, my mom talking to God wouldn’t have been a problem. Now that she was radioactive, like us, the rules had changed. “Do me a favor?”

“Anything,” she said. “Let me make this up to you somehow.”

She was alive. Each time I found myself face-to-face with her I drank in the moment as much as I could. The time could disappear at any time and we’d both fall asleep, never to wake up again. I squeezed her a little tighter and let go. Pulling my mask over my face, I gave her the following directions. “I can’t get sick there. Take it easy. Rest. And say another prayer.”

We backed away from one another. Rhapsody masked up and joined me at my side. Once we were invisible, we flew away in a
whoosh.
Since Rhapsody had her suit on, I approached the sound barrier, careful not to break it. Bystanders and anyone monitoring radar wouldn’t have been able to see what broke the sound barrier, but only that it had been broken. That was enough.

In my rush to get there, I dropped us down at the cemetery a little harder than I expected. Selby was nowhere to be seen. Sasha said the Selbys were buried here somewhere. On a normal day, he’d be hard to find because of his speed. Unfortunately for us, a burial was occurring at the same time in the cemetery’s center.

I hadn’t seen Selby from the sky, but then again, bodies from that height were colored dots. Rhapsody’s hesitance to move let me know she had no clue where the Selbys were either. We’d have to wait for Sasha to tell us, if she knew. Esteban couldn’t teleport hundreds of miles at one time – he’d have to stop once in a while to catch his breath.

We had covered the distance in about an hour. After finding an above-ground stone monument nearby, we turned visible behind it. “We missed him.” I said through my mask. “Esteban’s right. We should go to King’s compound.”

“I don’t know,” she whispered back. “How long do the aquamarines take to work?”

Thinking back to the time I put the prism into the ground, which was right around dinnertime, to when I saw Mom, after midnight – did it take six hours? Could be faster, could have been slower. Had Mom stopped somewhere else first? She'd never said one way or another. That would have changed our idea of how long it took to work.

Starting with the far left, Rhapsody and I walked the circumference of the cemetery, checking each headstone for the Selby name. I didn’t know his parents’ names. Rhapsody didn’t remember them from her middle school days with Selby. All we had to go one was the last name and May, 2014 – their death month and year. I didn’t remember the exact date.

By the third row I was starting to get a headache. Splitting up would get it done faster.

I wanted to suggest it, but Rhapsody’s slowing movements told me she’d never have it.

Near the back of the cemetery, the land sloped up to a weed-filled hill. It was the only place we hadn’t searched, besides the funeral itself.

Rhapsody smacked my arm and made us vanish. I saw it, too.

A male about Selby’s build and height stood in front of a headstone with a large American flag next to it. Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? Selby’s father was a police officer. My heart thumped. Ad we neared, it became clear he was talking to them. Rhapsody clutched my hand first, then my arm, too.

We continued walking forward. Selby was almost in full view. He wore an armored suit like ours. Shoulders slumped, he sighed and knelt in front of the graves. To his left lay the memorial plot for his father, Aaron Selby. At his right his mother, Maura's plot lay. The sun glinted off the aquamarine on the ground. He had taken the stones as we suspected.

Rhapsody and I stopped short, about ten feet away. He cursed the aquamarines and smacked his father’s headstone. Selby stood, turned around, and looked straight through us. His beady, angered eyes delivered chills to my system. Rhapsody’s, too, I imagined.

The soil in front of the gravesites moved, or at least I thought it did. The dirt parted, like someone was squeezing the life out of it. Three fingers emerged, then a full fist. I wanted to turn the moron around, but he picked up the sound and turned back around. Noticing the hand, he reached down and tried to help his father out of the ground. After much struggle and digging, Aaron Selby appeared in front of his own gravestone.

I felt myself backing up. In a few moments Maura unearthed herself, as well. Both held handfuls of aquamarine. Selby had kept some himself. They were connected now, like Mom was to me.

Of the things he could have done with the prisms, this was the least dangerous. King had sent him after the aquamarines, but Selby had his own sick motives for obeying. Whatever they were, he wanted to resurrect his abusive parents.

Aaron Selby used his free hand to brush the mud and dirt from the policeman’s uniform he’d been buried in. He was tall, broad-shouldered and well-built – at a physical peak before his murderer shot him in the back of the head. Selby had gotten his stature and looks from his mother. She wasn’t particularly attractive or tall, with a round physique, curly red hair and distinct freckles. Maura shook the fringes of her white burial dress.