Translucent (6 page)

At last, the bags, the flask containing the meteorite, and the trash can were wheeled out to a waiting van. I wanted to cry against my mom’s shoulder, but she was still outside being informed of the military’s right to conduct routine decontaminations.

Connor turned to me. “Now it’s your turn.”

“My . . .
what?
” I said, alarmed.

“Boys, let’s get her cleaned up and get out of here.” He nodded between the cleanup crew and me, then stepped back.

“Wait, wait, wait—”

One of the hazmat suits loomed in front of me, face unreadable behind a aluminized face plate, and my words cut off.

Were they going to throw me away too?

His tinny voice projected from a speaker on his helmet. “Where did it touch you?”

With growing unease, I pointed to my right hand.

“Hand out, palm up,” he ordered.

I did as told, and he roughly yanked my hand forward, his gloved grip like a vice. From a toothpaste tube, he squeezed a sticky, plaster-like goop onto my palm, which he worked in between my fingers, rubbed into every pore, and forced under my fingernails, encasing my whole hand. It tingled a little, and I felt it hardening around my fingers. Next he wrapped my hand in strips of fabric like a mummy.

“This might sting.” Without waiting for a response, he gave the fabric a sharp tug, and with a tearing sound, the hardened plaster came off my hand in the shape of a glove.

Along with the top layer of skin.

It felt like a million needles puncturing me everywhere. I screamed and jerked my hand back, now raw and throbbing. Spots of blood dotted the pink skin.

“Where else?” he said.

Trembling, I pointed to my left hand, and the process was repeated. This time I only flinched.

“Anywhere else?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Are you sure?”

“Try to think,” said Connor from the sidelines, arms folded. “Did it touch you anywhere else? Try very hard to remember, Leona. Did it touch you
anywhere
else.”

I hesitated, then nodded, lowering my eyes.

“Show him where,” said Major Connor.

On the verge of tears, I pointed at my belly button.

The guy in the hazmat suit knelt in front of me, toothpaste tube at the ready. “Lift your shirt.”

An ache rose in my throat. Slowly, I lifted the bottom hem of my hoodie, flames burning in my cheeks.

“A little higher,” he said, squeezing plaster onto his hand.

Reluctantly, I pulled the fabric up to the bottom of my rib cage, keeping my eyes focused vacantly on the ceiling.

I felt his gloved fingers massage the sticky cream onto my abs, around my belly button, then briefly dip into it. I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking it all out. Ice cold on my skin, the stuff drew out goosebumps. I tried to focus on something else—
anything
else—but couldn’t. My heart made heavy thuds somewhere far away. No one spoke. I sensed the tension in the room. Even shielded behind their hazmat suits, the team’s discomfort was palpable. 

They didn’t like this either.

I barely noticed the sharp sting when he yanked off the strips. I pulled my hoodie down, covering myself again.

The man stood. “Anywhere else, ma’am?”

I shook my head, unable to meet anyone’s gaze.

“Here, take these—”Connor thrust a change of clothes into my hands, one of only a few articles that hadn’t been contaminated. “Go to the bathroom and change. We’re going to take the clothes you’re wearing.”

I nodded and took the clothes without a word.

After I handed over my hoodie and jeans, Connor handed me his business card—in case anything else came up—and they finally left me alone. I stood trembling in my bedroom doorway and took in my gutted bedroom, the throbbing skin around my belly sending out twinges of pain every time it brushed my shirt. Despite the late-afternoon heat, the sight sent a chill through me—walls stripped of paint, carpet ripped up, a single trash bag of my belongings that hadn’t been contaminated.

All for a tiny fragment of radioactive rock.

Chapter 6

Well, that was
that.

The meteorite was gone, which meant I wouldn’t have to destroy it myself. All in all, I felt relieved to have it off my hands.

Besides, they knew what they were doing.

They had also taken everything I owned. All my furniture, all my clothes, all my toys. They had even stripped off my outer layer of skin. But it wasn’t enough.

I still didn’t feel clean.

The contaminated parts were inside me.

So on Saturday, still shaken from Major Connor’s visit—and partly spurred by it—I inched my brand new lipstick-red Toyota Corolla out of the garage and filled up two buckets of soapy water to clean it for the hundredth time.

Since the beginning of summer, cleaning my car had become a ritual.

I gathered whatever else I could from the medicine cabinets and under the sink. Alcohol, bleach, hydrogen peroxide—anything with the words
disinfect
or
sterilize
on the label.

I dragged a foamy sponge across the windshield and down the driver’s door, scrubbed under the handles. Kneeling, I attacked the hub caps, got behind them. The soapy water ran down in gray rivulets, and I had a moment of panic before I remembered I’d driven the car last week to the trailhead.

Relax, Leona.

I set the sponge down and wiped my thumb and forefinger on my jeans—even after the skin had been ripped off, it still felt like there was something on them—then got back to work.

My eyes flicked to the front bumper, and my pulse quickened.

Not yet.

I tried to distract myself.

Thorough . . . be thorough . . .

Like the Air Force cleanup crew had been with me and my room. Thorough. Clean up everything, get rid of everything. Like they had done.

But even they hadn’t been as thorough as they could have been.

If they were so worried about radiation, why hadn’t they brought in Geiger counters? Radiation detectors? That way they could have seen what was contaminated and what wasn’t.

Instead, they’d cleaned me out of anything that had even the slightest chance of touching the meteorite.

Since when was radiation that contagious?

I thought back to how they’d raided my room—ripped out my carpet, peeled the paint off the walls, ripped the skin off my stomach and hands—and a disturbing thought struck me.

That wasn’t how they handled radiation.

That was how they handled an infectious disease.

Instinctively, I wiped my fingers on my jeans again. My tongue rewetted my lips, and I continued to scrub the tread on the rear wheel, feeling strangely uneasy. The sponge made tiny circles.

My gaze went back to the front bumper.

Not just yet.

I forced myself to keep scrubbing the wheel, but my nerves had begun to buzz, agitated. I couldn’t focus.

I had to check.

What if I missed a spot?

Paranoia won out. I grabbed the alcohol and bleach and scrambled to the front of the car. Heart in my throat, I inspected the bumper, ran my finger along the front grill, breathless. It was still there.

The tiny dent.

A soreness spread through my chest.

Hands shaking violently, I doused a towel in alcohol and rubbed down the bumper, the front of the hood. My fingers probed every nook and cranny, got into every slot. I slid my fingernails along the cracks, scooped out tiny bits of dirt and grime, then rubbed it with alcohol until it was spotless.

Next I popped the trunk.

The space had that chemically, new-car smell, which I inhaled deeply. No other smells. I wet another towel with alcohol and ran it along the trunk interior, the plastic siding. The rug had to be cleaned too. I mixed bleach with shampoo and worked it into the fibers, producing a satisfying foam, which I wiped away. At last I lifted the rug and rubbed down the spare wheel, the car jack, everything I could see. Finally satisfied, I let the rug fall and wiped my hands on my shirt, lungs rising and falling.

Relax . . . deep breath.

No one will ever know.

The sight of the empty trunk brought an uncomfortable tension to my heart, and I was about to avert my gaze when a glimmer caught my eyes near the back.

I leaned closer, but now my shadow blocked it. Breathless, I ran my hand along the rug, still wet. Nothing there.

But then my head shifted and sunlight poured past me.

It gleamed again, caught between the rug and the rear seats, almost invisible.

A shiny fiber of some sort.

I plucked it out of the trunk and held it up to the light.

And then I saw what it was. It swayed in the warm breeze, golden, almost translucent in the sunlight.

A long blonde hair.

The ground seemed
to drop out from underneath me as I stared at it. Dread rose like bile in my stomach, and a cold sweat broke out down my back.

No matter how much I cleaned, no matter how much I scrubbed, I could never erase all the evidence.

It would always be there, always reminding me, always torturing me.

Forever.

“You sure take great care of this car,” said my dad, emerging from around the side.

I flinched and stuffed the hair in my jeans, but part stuck out, like a neon yellow ribbon. Panicking, I wedged it in deeper, jammed it to the bottom of my pockets

“Whatcha got there, sweetheart?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I blurted, straightening up.

He ran his hands approvingly over the Corolla’s hood. “You want to take this baby for a drive?”

I was about to be sick again.

Don’t throw up, don’t throw up . . .

My own nauseating heartbeat repulsed me.

“I . . . I don’t feel so good.” My hands went to my stomach. “I’m going to go lay down.”

I hurried inside before he could say anything else.

I decided that
day, sobbing into my pillow, that I had to know the repercussions of what I had done.

I needed to understand it, see it,
feel
it.

Or else I would never get closure, I would never move on, I would never live a normal life.

So after school on Tuesday—we had Labor Day off—I went looking for Emory Lacroix. I had met him and seen the haunted look in his eyes, and now I wanted to understand that pain.

I wanted to torture myself with it.

Prowling the halls, I spotted him as he emerged from the history wing, and just had time to duck out of view.

He cut across campus, his muscled shoulders hunched forward in a tight black T-shirt. His blond hair caught the sunlight, which he flicked out of his eyes before he reached into his backpack and pulled out a cigarette.

I darted after him, keeping my distance. Couldn’t let him see me following him. I looked guilty, and I knew it.

But I had to do this.

“Leona!” Andrew ran up behind me, startling me.

I flattened myself against a wall. “Andrew . . . hey.”

“New shoes?” He pointed at my feet.

I looked down at my new Vans Authentic Lo Pro sneakers, color: Aqua Splash. “Oh, yeah.” I wiggled my toes in them. “I bought a bunch of new stuff over the weekend.” I peeked around the corner and saw Emory had vanished. Damn.

He’d been heading toward the parking lot.

Andrew readjusted his backpack shoulder strap and fell into step beside me. “Leona, I was wondering . . . so I’m throwing this party on Friday—well, not really a party, just a little get-together with me and a couple of friends, we’re just going to hang out, do a little this and that, maybe smoke a little . . .” He glanced over at me. “Anyway, you and Megan should stop by.”

I tensed up.

A party. People staring at me, asking questions. That was the last thing I wanted right now. Absently, I wiped my fingers off on my jeans. “Can we talk about this later?”

“Uh . . . okay,” he said. “Sure. Whatever. See you tomorrow in English.”

“Bye,” I said.

I made sure he was gone before I continued my pursuit of Emory, walking briskly between the portable classrooms. The parking lot came into view, heat waves baking off the asphalt.

No sign of him.

By now, the parking lot was mostly empty. I craned my neck to look for his car, then let out a frustrated sigh.

I had no idea what car he drove.

That was, until a black convertible pulled up next to me, engine rumbling. He stared at me from behind a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses, arm slung across the passenger seat, cigarette dangling from his lips.

Caught
.

He took a drag from the cig. “Get in.”

I backed away, shaking my head.

“
Get in
,” he said.

“Why?” I managed to croak.

“So I can kidnap you and hold you for ransom, that’s why. I’m kidding. I want to give you a ride home.”

“I don’t want a ride,” I said.

“Is that why you’re following me?” He heaved out a sigh, climbed out of the car and circled to my side, and reached for my backpack.

I stepped back and warned, “Don’t touch me.”

“Then go,” he said. “Leave. If you have nothing to tell me,
leave
.”

I didn’t move.

He stepped forward and tugged my backpack off my shoulder, and I didn’t stop him. He tossed it in the back of the convertible, then opened the passenger door for me. “Get in.”

I stared at the red leather seats. My heart hammered in my chest. I couldn’t be here, I couldn’t be doing this, I couldn’t be talking to him like this.

Yet here I was.

Because I wanted to be near the pain I had caused.

He flicked the cigarette butt onto the ground, still watching me.

My brain was telling me to run, but my body craved this.

So I made the stupidest of all stupid decisions. I got in.

Emory slammed the door and went back to his side, where he hurdled his door in a single fluid motion, swinging into the driver’s seat. The engine revved, and we glided through the parking lot.

On the floor in front of me, my shoes nudged aside pink lip gloss, a bottle of moisturizing lotion, a hairbrush tangled with blonde hair.

Her
hair.

I began breathing fast, hyperventilating.

She
had sat in this seat.

Before I could process that, Emory veered onto the main street and floored it. The acceleration crushed me into the seatback, and my stomach seemed to lag far behind. My hair sailed behind me, whipped my face.

“You’re not her friend,” said Emory. “I knew all her friends. You’re not her friend.”

I shook my head.

“But you knew her?” he said.

“I knew
of
her.” The words sounded callous, and I wished I could take them back.

In the silence that stretched out between us, I focused on his toned forearms, fluidly shifting gears.

Oh God, what was I doing here?

Did I
want
to go to jail?

I rubbed my thumb and forefinger together. They felt sticky. Probably honey or something from lunch. I wiped them off on my jeans, but if anything, that only made it spread.

“I think you know something,” he said carefully. “That’s why you ran away when I asked you about her. You know something, don’t you?”

My body went rigid. I said nothing, not trusting myself to speak.

“Leona?” he pressed.

“I can’t be here,” I said softly.

The breeze lifted my hair again, and I caught it in my hand and held it to my neck, feeling sick all over again. I imagined her in this very seat, her golden hair sailing behind her like mine, except in slow motion.

She would have been a sophomore this year.

It was easy to picture, brother and sister, rolling up on the first day of school with the top down, rapping along to the same songs. She would climb out, shake out her long mane, and scamper off to join her friends. Boys would have had crushes on her.

Now that would never happen.

I peeked at Emory and caught him staring at me, getting a nervous jolt of adrenaline. I fixed my gaze straight ahead, face burning hot.

Was he remembering her in this seat?

Was I the first girl who had been in his car since her?

Suddenly, I couldn’t take it anymore.

I didn’t deserve to be in this seat. I didn’t deserve to sit where she sat.

“Stop,” I whispered. “Emory, stop the car.”

“Where do you live?”

“Just stop the car. I’ll walk home.”

“I’ll drop you off at your house.”

“Emory, stop the car!” I shouted, shocked at the sudden edge to my voice.

He slowed down and pulled to the curb, but before I could jump out, his hand closed on my forearm. “Leona,” he said. “If you know anything about my sister, if you know anything about what happened to her, you need to tell me.” There was a desperate plea in his eyes.

“I’ll tell you if I hear anything,” I said. “I promise.”

“No, you don’t understand,” he spat, holding on more firmly. “It can’t wait. If you know something, you need to tell me
now
.” He let go and forced his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry. Go. Just go.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said, staring at my lap. “You need closure.”

“I don’t give a damn about closure,” he said, shaking his head. “Closure is when you want to forget. I don’t want to forget her. I don’t ever want to forget. I don’t care that the police have given up. I’m never giving up, I can’t . . . because there’s something really fucked up going on here.” He raised his gaze to mine, eyes brimming with tears, and continued in a vicious whisper, “I’m going to find out who’s responsible for what happened, because they need to go to jail. I don’t care what anyone else says. I
know
Ashley was murdered.”

“He knows,” I
gasped, knotting my fingers in my hair. “Emory knows. He’s going to go to the police.”

“Calm down, just calm down,” Megan raised her palms, “and tell me what happened.”

After Emory dropped me off, I’d practically sprinted to my best friend’s house. The cleanup crew had visited her too, it turned out, although the contamination in her room wasn’t nearly as severe.

Most of her stuff had been left untouched.

I took a deep breath. “He knows about Ashley.”

“Knows what?”

“
Things
, I don’t know . . . he knows
things
.”

“Okay, slow down.” She pulled her door shut and continued in an urgent voice. “Tell me exactly what happened. Who told you this?”

I pulled my fingers out of my hair, and a few strands came away stuck on them. I swiped them loose and went to the adjoining bathroom to wash my hands, lathering them in soap. Even though cold, the water felt warm on my shivering skin. “Megan, he knows.”

“No one saw us,” she whispered. “The police stopped looking.”