Be the Death of Me (10 page)

I want to live.

And for that immeasurable moment of time, that’s all I know. The flame, the smoke, they are nothing. The single, defiant thought of life echoes throughout my mind as I press my face to the floor, feeling the last measure of coolness against my bleeding, torn skin.

I’m not done yet. This isn’t fair.

My lungs fill one final time, collapsing around the smoke they so effortlessly welcome. And suddenly I’m drifting, suspended in air by gentle, invisible arms, my face upturned to greet whatever awaits me. It kisses me, softly and welcoming. Death is easy now, no more than a pleasant sleep, a dream in which I simply float away, challenging gravity and its hold on me. There’s the soft hum of a whisper in my ear, the goodbyes of a world so very far away.

My dream is interrupted by the powerful roar of the earth splintering in two. I fall forever. So far, so fast. My head cracks against the hateful ground.

And all is black.

Ford

Seventeen hours, five minutes, twenty–three seconds.

That’s exactly how long it takes for everyone at North Chamberlain to find out about what I like to call “the beginning of the end.” I’m assigned a new locker while the janitors attempt to clean the paint off mine, but it isn’t difficult to tell, walking through the front doors the next morning, that everyone already knows. Eyes shift, hands move to cover mouths as theories are whispered from ear to ear.

It’s no surprise I spend lunch time in the boys’ bathroom. It
is
a little awkward, eating with Tucker and Billie crammed in the stall with me. They refuse to leave my side, and I decide not to complain. I figure I have much bigger problems to worry about.

“It could be worse,” Billie says when school finally,
finally
lets out for the day. She takes a running leap, wraps her arms around my neck and hoists herself up onto my back as if it’s what normal people do every day.

I let her stay where she is. The Billie I knew a few days ago would have comforted me with a verbal bitch slap and a shiny new nickname. It’s nice to finally be on good terms with her. I don’t know what’s brought about the change of heart. Maybe it’s a trap, maybe it’s a mood swing. I don’t really care. Either way, I guess it’s true what they say about flies and honey. Not to mention it’s not every day a gorgeous blonde wants to wrap her legs around my waist. I watch Tucker’s jaw clench, gaining a sort of perverse pleasure from the spark of envy that flares in his eyes as Billie’s arms close over my shoulders.

“Oh yeah?” I turn my head to look back at her. “How could this possibly be any worse?”

“Well, for starters,” Tucker picks up where she’s left off, “it would’ve been
much
worse if whoever decorated your locker shoved you in it first. You’re a little guy, Ford. It wouldn’t have been difficult to squeeze you in there.”

Billie laughs at the pair of us. “So we make a list of suspects,” she suggests, hitching her knee farther up my waist. “Can you think of anyone who might want to kill you? The locker said
retribution is coming
. Retribution for what?”

“Not a clue,” I answer honesly. “I mean, I’m usually the metaphoric punching bag around here, but that hardly warrants a death sentence.”

“What about Andre the Giant?” Tucker asks, referring to the one and only Logan Cartwright.

“Are you guys talking about the guy with no neck?” Billie chimes in, giggling into my shoulder. “The one who called you Bent–dick?”

Tucker erupts into a fit of laughter. “Bent–dick! I forgot he called you that!”

“I doubt it,” I say over the continuous sound of his deep guffaws. “Logan may be a walking mountain, but he doesn’t want to kill me. At least I hope not.”

“Still,” Billie cuts in, “he’s definitely someone to keep an eye on. What do you think, Tuck?”

“Bent–dick!” he throws back his head and howls. “That’ll never get old.”

A growl rumbles deep in my throat. “Are you done?” I ask, watching him keel over in hilarity, continuing as we reach the parking lot.

“Don’t let him get to you,” Billie giggles into my ear. “He’s just jealous because he wants a nickname of his own.”

“I’ve got one,” I blurt the first thing that comes to mind. “How about Tucker the F–”

The last word is drowned out by Billie’s own raucous rush of laughter. She slides off my back as Tucker’s smile slips from his face and I pretend not to notice the hateful glare he shoots me as I climb in the driver’s seat. He phases through the passenger door, leaving the backseat for Billie. Tucker doesn’t utter a word, but continues staring out the windshield, arms locked across his chest. I put the car into gear, and the three of us drive home in silence.

“Gran!” I call the second I’m through the creaking kitchen door. “Gran, I’m home!”

“She’s not here.” Billie saunters into the dark kitchen, glowing like a night light. I see Tucker crook his finger at the light switch across the room, the bulbs flickering to life without anyone so much as laying a finger on it. Billie points to the familiar pineapple magnet and pink post–it on the fridge.

Tai–chi with the girls. Be home for dinner.

Love, Gran

P.S.

Can you stop by Fairway’s and pick up ½ lb of ground round and a can of stewed tomatoes?

“To the grocery store!” she shouts, raising her arm as if she’s leading a cavalry charge. She turns to Tucker. “How about you report to the Captain while I escort Ford here to the grocery store. Sound fair?”

Tucker groans. “I don’t know, Billie.”

“I made the report last time,” she says. “It’s your turn. Plus, we both know Cap likes you better than me anyway.”

He accepts her terms with a shrug and a sigh. “That’s true.”

“So . . . you’ll go?”

He nods. Billie waves teasingly as her partner disappears, shimmering faintly before vanishing completely. “Give the Captain my love!” she calls after him.

The kitchen is steeped in silence for only a moment. She doesn’t notice me watching her. Her tilts expectantly, as if she’s waiting for the disappearing glow to return. “Ready?” she asks finally.

“Sure,” I nod, grabbing my wallet from the counter. “Hit the lights, will you?”

We’re at Fairway’s in less than fifteen minutes, choosing to walk rather than waste whatever gas fumes my car is running on. We talk about nothing and everything; her favorite band (The Kinks), how many times I’ve seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show (thirteen), how long I’ve lived with my Gran. Time slips by unnoticed as the chilling breeze of a dying afternoon whips around us.

“So I have a question,” I say as we walk through the automatic doors of the nearly–deserted grocery store. I’m hit with an immediate blast of warmth, and the dulcet tones of Muzak.

Billie picks up a grocery basket and tosses it to me. “Shoot.”

“So this . . . Captain. He’s your real boss, then? Not Tucker?”

“Right. The two of them have been thick as thieves since Cap promoted Tuck. I wish they would let me in their all boys club, you know? It feels like they’re keeping something from me, and I
hate
that.”

I lift an eyebrow. “You mean you don’t like somebody knowing more than you? I’m shocked.”

“Attention all shoppers, today is the last day of our melon madness sale. All cantaloupes and honeydew are buy one, get one half price. Don’t miss out on the great savings here at Fairway’s!”

“So if Tucker wasn’t always a Guardian, what was he?” I go on after the speaker crackles and goes silent.

“He worked in Sacrifice,” Billie answers with a small shrug.

“And what do they do? The people in—”

“Sacrifice,” she finishes for me. “I don’t know much about it to be honest. Tuck doesn’t really talk about it. I think it bothers him, you know, the fact that he got himself killed.”

“And that makes them special?”

“What do you think? You’ve seen it.” She whips her fingers back and forth imitating Tucker’s ability to move objects without ever touching them.

“Can they all do that?”

She shakes her head no. “Not all of them. The abilities vary. That much I know, even though we only ever hear rumors in our division. Water–cooler gossip. Sacrifice has always been oddly secretive. Very hush–hush.”

My eyes roll involuntarily. “You sound jealous,” I say, searching through brands of canned tomatoes. I pick one and throw it in the small, green basket hanging on my arm.

“Well maybe I am,” she snaps. “I’m dead too, you know? Why should they get special treatment?”

“There’s something to be said for sacrificing yourself for someone else. I’m not crazy about the guy, but let’s be honest. Putting everything on the line for another person? There’s a courage there that I can’t even begin to understand.”

Billie’s quiet for a moment more, letting the weight of what I’ve said sink in. “Maybe you’re right,” she mumbles, eyes flashing with insight. “Maybe deep,
deep
down Tuck’s kind of a badass.”

“What about me? You don’t think I could be . . . you know . . . badass?”

“Hate to break it to you, Ford,” she says, patting my arm gently as we make our way to the frozen meat section at the very back of the store, “but you’re not exactly hardcore.” She nudges me with her shoulder. “Pansy.”

“Attention all shoppers,”
the speaker box comes to life again, breaking through the lull of Muzak.
“Would the owner of a black Ford Explorer please come to the front of the store? Your lights are on.”

“So you and Tucker are just friends then?” I say. I should know better than to ask that question, but curiosity never fails to get the better of me.

‘Of course we’re friends,” she answers, throwing the package of ground beef at me, hitting me squarely in my chest. “What else would we be?”

Her response is too defensive to be entirely believable. There’s a slim chance Billie might be harboring secret feelings for Tucker. Then again, she would have to
have
feelings to harbor them, and I’ve seen no evidence to support the notion. I’m sure at one point in her life she probably had someone special. She’s too desirable not to have dated, but the fact she might have genuinely loved someone?

Doubtful.

I lose myself in my thoughts as we make our way to the front of the store, musing over my mysterious protector until I happen to catch sight of something that stops me dead in my tracks. A head of short, spiky, black hair bobs along at the front of the store. The head, it appears, is connected to a thick, almost nonexistent neck, itself attached to the hulking, massive, mouth–breathing form of Logan Cartwright.

“What are the odds?” I mumble just loud enough for Billie to hear.

She stares back at me before following my line of sight. “Godzilla!” she cries in complete and utter glee.

“What’s he doing here?” I hiss, ducking behind a pyramid display of paper towels.

She joins me behind the barrier. “Golly gee, Nancy Drew. Why would anyone come to the grocery store? What diabolical scheme is he cooking up, do you think? Get it?
Cooking
up?” She laughs at her own pun.

I watch through a tiny, triangular hole as Logan speaks to one of the cashiers. The two have a brief conversation before he leaves a moment later, empty handed.

“He doesn’t have any groceries!” I whisper back to her.

“Arrest that man!” she continues to laugh. “He’s leaving without buying anything!”

I stand from my crouched position, listening to my knees pop in aggravation. “You know it wouldn’t kill you to take your job seriously every once in a while.”

“It might.” She clicks her tongue against her teeth. “Then again, I hear it’s very difficult to kill someone who’s already dead.”

“What a shame.”

“Benedict?”

I’m not naive enough to believe Billie would
ever
call me Benedict, so I turn, startled to discover the sweet tempered voice belongs to none other than Shannon Walters, a pretty girl who is in several of my classes. She wears a brown, knee–length coat over a purple turtleneck sweater and jeans. I can’t help but notice how flattering that particular color is on her.

“Shannon! Hi!” I smile at her, hoping my overly friendly tone will cover for the fact I was discovered cowering behind a paper towel pyramid, arguing with a dead girl.

It doesn’t.

“Were you just talking to someone?” she asks, clearly confused. Her pale cheeks are flushed from the cold, and, I note, dotted with an occasional freckle.

“Oh, no. Just . . . uh . . .” There’s no way to get out of this without sounding insane. “Just talking to myself,” I concede, deflating the tiniest bit.

To my relief, her giggle isn’t the least bit derisive. “I do that sometimes, too,” she admits, brushing a strand of cropped, dark hair off her forehead. “So I heard about what happened to your locker,” she offers with a sympathetic look. “I’m really sorry, Benedict. I had no idea things at school were that bad.”

“Nah, it’s okay,” I lie. “Just a prank that got out of hand. You know, guys messing around.”

“Tell her she looks pretty,” Billie hisses unexpectedly in my ear. Her closeness raises a line of shivers over my arms.

“You . . . look . . .” I start to say.

“I noticed you weren’t in chemistry yesterday. Did you get the assignments for next week?” Shannon says, swinging her basket back and forth like an emerald pendulum. “I’m sure it was no problem for you. I’ve kind of been struggling with it. I just can’t seem to get the hang of that electro–negativity stuff. It’s so confusing. I bet you’re already done. You’re like the smartest kid in class.” She drifts off, letting her nervousness get the better of her.

Billie appears on my other side. “Ask her if she’d like some help . . . or dinner.”

“Go away,” I hiss at her.

Shannon’s brown eyes narrow. “What?”

“I said . . . uh . . .” I try and cover, all the while cursing Billie. “I . . . um . . . I have to go,” I say lamely. “I’ll see you at school.”

I make a bee line for the nearest checkout counter, leaving Shannon in a cloud of confusion. My exit from Fairway’s is followed by the sound of soft clapping. I whirl on Billie, who I discover grinning ear to ear, supplying me with an enthusiastic round of applause. “Wow,” she taunts, twirling gracefully to face me. “You were quite the Casanova in there. Truly.”

“You know what would help?” I ask, waiting for a car to pass before stepping off the sidewalk. “Not having you whispering suggestions in my ear!”

“I seriously doubt I was the issue in there.”

She’s right of course. I’ve never been what anyone would call gifted when it comes to conversing with members of the opposite sex.

“It’s just . . . girls.” I head out across the empty expanse of parking lot. The sun has set, leaving only a sliver of crescent moon and the store’s flickering lampposts for light. “I don’t know. You’ve seen how bad I am at interacting with people. It just gets a million times worse when those people happen to have breasts.”

“But you talk to me,” she points out, grinning. “And I have breasts. Mine glow!”

“Believe me, I know,” I say, trying my best not to stare. Right now Billie is about as qualified girlfriend material as Logan, and yet I still feel like I’m suffering from ‘red–button’ syndrome. You know whenever someone tells you not to push a big, red button, that button is suddenly all you can seem think about?

Well, the same can be said for gorgeous, glowing girls.

“You should ask her out,” Billie hints. Though the winter wind is trying it’s hardest to blow us both away, not a single hair is out of place on her blonde head. It’s as if she has a protective shield around her, keeping the cold from touching her. As for me, the wind is simply one more thing waiting to attack.

I roll my eyes at her suggestion. “Trust me, that wouldn’t be fun for anyone.”

My pathetic excuse is drowned out by the deafening sound of screeching tires. The noise grows louder, building to a roar, the Doppler Effect in action. Blinding headlights fly around an unlit corner, and for a fraction of a second, time ceases to exist. I’m actually amused by the scene playing out in front of me, the giant, black SUV jumping the curb, its tires burning against the pavement, its brilliant lights cutting short my vision. I bring a hand up to shield my eyes, completely oblivious to the vehicle’s true intention. It isn’t until I hear Billie shout my name that I finally understand what’s happening.

“Ford, get out of the way!”

But I’m frozen, held to the spot as the behemoth vehicle careens over the sidewalk. It stares me down like a lion hunting its prey, leaving me with only a matter of seconds before I’m caught and devoured.

One . . . two . . . three . . . 

And suddenly I’m airborne, flying across the pavement. I land hard on my back next to a trio of grimy, metal trashcans, my small bag of groceries crashing with a sickening splatter a few feet away. I have just enough time to see Billie standing in my place.

“BILLIE!”

I look on in horror as the car runs her down. I blink just once, and both Billie and the SUV are gone. The vehicle swerves off into the night, around the building and out of sight, its wheels squealing in protest.

I’m on my feet in a flash, leaving the explosion of groceries where they lay. I can barely feel the pain burning its way across my palm, the newly acquired smear of blood oozing from a pattern of torn skin. “Billie!” I call, frantic, desperate for a response. “Damn it Billie, answer me!”