The Change (Unbounded) (9 page)

Okay, I’d walk to Tom’s. Or hitchhike, if I needed to. I’d wait until later, though. The sun was setting, but there was still too much light coming through the windows to be sneaking around with any stealth. I climbed up on the bed and lay down fully dressed, planning to rest only a few minutes.

Sleep claimed me immediately. I dreamed I was in the car with Justine’s head lolling toward me. Fire sprang from our clothes. “Help me, Erin,” she pleaded. “Please help me.” I reached toward her, but my arm blackened and crumbled before I could free her from the safety belt.

I awoke with a start, and I could see by the lack of light in my room that it was much later than when I’d hefted myself onto the bed. The clock on the nightstand told me it was ten-thirty.

Time to go. I hoped Ritter wasn’t back yet, or I might have blown my chance. Pulling on a pair of black running shoes, I slipped out the door, pressing my body against the wall. I hurried past the first camera. Then the second. Were there more I hadn’t seen? At last I reached the front door and opened it. The moment of truth.

No alarm sounded. It could send a silent signal, though, and I worried about that as I ran across the yard, keeping to the shadow of the trees. When I arrived at the gate, I saw immediately that the stone fence was high and didn’t offer any footholds and the trees weren’t close enough to use. There was no way out but to climb the metal gate itself. I swallowed hard, hoping I could make it over before whoever monitored the cameras noticed me.

Using the hinges where the gate attached to the stone fence, I began climbing. It wasn’t as hard as I thought; my reformed muscles were strong and able. Then I reached the top—and almost threw up. Apparently, becoming Unbounded hadn’t removed my deathly fear of heights. I teetered there for dizzying seconds, my heart racing, before my sweaty hands lost their grip and I made it down the other side the hard way.

Cursing under my breath, I picked myself up from the ground. Nothing seemed broken. Another Unbounded miracle. Behind me at the hidden house, an alarm sounded.

I started running.

Now what? I had no money and no cell phone.
Think!
I told myself.

Two blocks over, where the houses had shrunk to more normal sizes, I slowed and began to walk. I wasn’t tired but a lot less likely to draw attention that way. Besides, there was a long stretch of bushes here, and if I saw a car, I could jump inside to hide. Good thing I wore long sleeves, though they were damp from the effort of my run.

The residential neighborhood seemed to go on forever, and so far I was alone in the streets. My mind raced over the possibilities, but short of going up to a house and asking to use their phone, I didn’t see what I was going to do. I didn’t recognize this part of town, and I might have to walk for hours before I even knew where I was.

When the bushes ended, I saw two teenagers on a sloped front lawn, a boy and a girl, their dark heads close together, cell phones gleaming in the darkness. Maybe one of them would let me use a phone, though I’d begun to have second thoughts about calling. What if Tom thought it was a prank? What if the Emporium really was listening and was able to pinpoint my location? I still didn’t know who I could trust. I needed another plan.

The teenagers were staring at me now, though I didn’t look threatening. Even in my dark clothing, I was just a woman of average build with an odd French beret on her head.

“Excuse me,” I said. “My car broke down back there, and I don’t have a cell phone. Could I use yours?”

“Sure.” The boy pressed a few more buttons on his phone and handed it to me.

I punched in a number and held the phone to my ear without pressing send. After a while, I shut the phone and handed it back. “No answer. I guess I’ll have to wait. I’m too tired to walk all the way there. Truthfully, I’m a little lost. I’ve been distracted since my cancer treatments.” I pulled off the beret so they could see my short, uneven hair, and then put it on again quickly, as though embarrassed. All an act, except the tears of frustration stinging my eyes.

“Man, sorry about that,” said the boy.

The girl next to him nodded. “You going to be okay?”

“Well, if you can call living with my parents okay.” And the fact that I was now Unbounded and presumably had other Unbounded hunting me who wanted to either use me or cut me into three precise pieces.

The boy laughed. “I hear you on that. I’m leaving for college at the end of the month, and it’ll be a relief to finally be on my own. Hey, why don’t I give you a ride? You can come back and get your car later.”

“Would you? That would really help.” My gratitude was real.

“Sure. We got nothing to do anyway. Just got back from a movie, and she’s got an eleven-thirty curfew. Talk about strict parents.”

“You live close?” The girl asked, obviously concerned now that her curfew had been brought up.

I had no idea. “I think so.” I gave them Tom’s address, and to my relief the boy nodded. “I know where that is. About ten or fifteen minutes from here. No problem.”

Minutes later, I was standing in front of the white clapboard house Tom had shared with Justine. It was as large as my parents’ home, but nicer inside since Justine had remodeled it with dark wood flooring, plush carpet, and granite countertops. I hoped Tom would be home alone, yet I also hoped he wouldn’t be. Maybe a friend at the firm where he worked as a stockbroker had thought to spend time with him so he wouldn’t have to mourn alone.

I went up the walk and rang the bell. No answer. I couldn’t tell if he was home because the garage was shut, but I tried the door anyway. The knob turned under my hand. “Tom?” I called as I stepped inside. “Tom, are you here?” The house was dark, and no alarm sounded, so I turned on the cast iron lamp by the brown leather couch. “Tom? It’s me, Erin. Don’t be frightened. I’m okay. There was a mix-up at the hospital. Tom?”

He came from the master bedroom down the hall, his brown hair askew, his blue eyes bloodshot. Something felt different about him, but after what he’d been through, that didn’t surprise me in the least.

“Erin? Oh, Erin!” He pulled me into his arms and we were touching, kissing. The familiarity of him soothed the terror of the past days. “I’ve missed you so much,” I whispered against his lips, pressing myself against him. His hands kneaded my back.

This is exactly what I needed.

We fell to the soft carpet, kissing in earnest. “I don’t want to ever wake up,” he murmured, rolling on top of me.

He thought I was a dream?

I pushed him away. “You’re not dreaming, Tom. It really is me. Look.”

“I don’t need to look.” He started kissing me again.

I evaded his grasp and turned on the brighter overhead light. “I’m alive.” I pinched him hard. “See?”

His ragged face paled. “You were burned.” His eyes went to my left arm. “They cut off your arm. Said it couldn’t be saved.”

Did I tell him it was a mix-up or give him the truth? I had no time to consider the options, but I didn’t like deceiving the man I was considering marrying. “I have a certain gene in my body. It healed me.”

“Your funeral is tomorrow. After Justine’s.” He could barely get out the words.

I lifted my hands to either side of his face. “I know it doesn’t make sense, Tom, but I’m alive. I woke up today, and I’ve been trying to get back to you ever since.” I pulled off the beret to show him my head. “See? We’ve been given a second chance.”

“This is a nightmare, isn’t it?” Tom looked at me with a mixture of both longing and sadness. He slumped to the couch, his face in his hands. When he spoke, his voice was a hoarse whisper. “I can’t take this. What if I keep losing you every time I dream?”

I sat and put my arms around him. “This isn’t a dream. I promise you—it’s going to be okay. I know you’re doubting your sanity right now. I’ve been doing the same thing all day. But it really is me. Look, feel.” I took his hand, running it up my arm, over my shoulder, across the top of my neck to the other shoulder. He began touching me of his own accord, his hands going to my face and my head, feeling the stubble there.

“I can’t believe it,” he said. “Yet here you are.” He didn’t make any move to kiss me again, and I tried not to feel offended. It was a lot to take in.

“Look, drive me home. I can’t let my family go to that funeral tomorrow thinking I’m dead.”

“Justine?” His face was suddenly hopeful.

I shook my head. “This gene isn’t something you can be injected with. You have to be born with it. She wasn’t.”

An odd aloofness settled between us as he drove to my parents’ house. After his reaction, I felt nervous about how my family would deal with my return from the grave. I was also tiring, so perhaps my nutrients were running low. I closed my eyes and concentrated, pulling in from the air around me. The sensation was vague, probably because there was no obvious food source nearby, but after a while I did feel stronger. I hoped I wasn’t stealing body mass from Tom. Yuck.

We pulled up in front of the house. Everything appeared the same, from the roses lining the walkway, to the weeping willow in the middle of the front lawn. It was an older, red brick house, well-tended and loved, and had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember.

“Are we going to ring the bell?” Tom asked.

The night was warm and beautiful, the overhead stars shining with a promise that I didn’t feel at the moment. In fact, I was beginning to dread the coming scene. “Let’s go through my apartment.” I scanned the streets, feeling nervous. I didn’t think I’d led anyone here, but Ava was bound to guess where I was the minute she discovered I was missing.

We went around to the back of the house. Our dog, Max, began barking as we went through the wood gate, but he stopped when he saw it was me. He bounded up, tail wagging, trying to lick my cheek, but I averted my face and gave him a good scratching instead. The Collie-Chow mix had long golden hair and a beautiful face with none of the pointy sharpness of a full-bred Collie. My younger brother had found Max sick and abandoned on the side of the road a few years earlier and now we were stuck with him. He wasn’t much of a guard dog, and he couldn’t even fetch, but he loved us all with single-minded devotion.

I snagged my spare key from under the decorative frog in the flowerbed, jogged down the stairs, and opened the door. “Stay outside,” I told Max.

“Is the alarm on?” Tom asked.

“Probably. But I know the code.” I punched in the numbers and a tin voice said, “Disarmed. Ready to arm.” Without stopping to see if Tom followed, I headed for the stairs that connected my apartment with the main house. I reached the upstairs kitchen only seconds before my mother came into the room, turning on one of the overhead lights.

“Who’s here?” she called. “Jace, have you been out? Was it you who disarmed the alarm? It woke me up.”

I could see her now, her hand clutching the top of her white robe. Her face looked worn, her blond hair carelessly swept up with a comb instead of her usual careful styling.

“Mom,” I said quietly.

Her head turned and her mouth fell open, one hand going up as though to stifle a scream. Then she did scream. “Erin!” She launched herself at me crying and squeezing me all over. “Is it really you?” Her hands continued to wander over me.

“It’s me.”

Her hands held my face still so she could look into my eyes. “My baby,” she whispered. Tears rolled unchecked down her face. She took off my beret and ran her hands over my head, then pulled me close again and sobbed.

“Annie,” my father called from the hallway. “I’m coming! What’s wr—” His words cut off as he saw me.

I broke partly away from my mother and held out an arm. “It’s me, Dad.”

“But the hospital.”

“They made a mistake.”

He grabbed me and my mother, holding us tightly. All of us were crying. My mother looked up at Tom, who was staring at us. “Thank you,” she whispered.

His head swung back and forth. “I didn’t—she came to me.”

“I can explain everything,” I said, “but we need Chris and Jace here. I don’t want to tell it twice. I don’t know how long I have.”

“What do you mean?” My mother blinked frantically.

“Just that I’m tired, and there are some people who’ve been . . . uh, helping me. They don’t know I left, and they might come looking for me. You’ll understand when I explain.” Ava and her friends had gone through a great deal of trouble to get to me in the first place and wouldn’t give up easily. Whether that made me feel hunted or special was still up for debate.

My father disconnected himself from us. “I’ll call Chris. Annie, go wake up your mother and Jace.”

“Grandma’s here?” I wiped the tears from my face.

“At a time like this, where else would she be?”

He had a point.

My mother hugged me again tightly before she left the kitchen, as if worried I might disappear. That she didn’t say anything about my cat burglar appearance said a lot about her state of mind.

“Don’t mention my name,” I said as my father dialed Chris’s number. “It’s not safe.”

“Not safe?”

“I’ll explain when he gets here. Tell him to bring Lorrie, if he can, but not the kids.” I would make sure I saw the children at some point, though, because I loved them and I wasn’t willing to give up my role as their favorite aunt. Okay, their only aunt. But still.

“Lorrie,” my father said, “it’s Grant. Can I speak to Chris? Thanks.” As he talked to my brother, his eyes never left me. Neither did Tom’s. I put my beret back on to hide my shorn head, but I still felt uncomfortable. As though a neon sign above my head screamed abnormality.

“See you in a few minutes,” my father said. “Drive carefully.” His voice cracked on the words, and my stomach twisted. He hadn’t lost me, but if I hadn’t been Unbounded, I would be as permanently dead as Justine.

My mother appeared in the doorway, a sleepy Jace behind her. I hadn’t seen my little brother since Mother’s Day when he’d made a surprise visit, but we e-mailed almost every day. We were born only three years apart, both the result of fertility treatments, and we’d always been close. The past four months had made a big difference in my brother. His white-blond hair was shorter and he’d gained ten very needed pounds—probably all muscle. He was scrubbing a hand over his head and yawning when he caught sight of me.