Damage (4 page)

Things even worse than they did to you.

The bus rumbles and lurches forward. I smell fuel and my stomach clenches. My fingers dig into my own arms. It’s too late now.

It’s always too late.

Sweat gathers between my shoulder blades. I drop my forehead to the cold window and suck in a breath, watching trees become houses and houses become fast food restaurants and fast food restaurants fade into trees again as we merge onto the highway heading south. The sun is shining so bright the frost in the fields on the side of the road makes my eyes hurt. It’s a perfect day and everything is going to be fine.

Everything really is going to be fine. I signed up for the stupid Radio City show. I’ll follow Dani and her friend and sit a few rows behind. If she gets up to go to the bathroom, I’ll go with her. If she and her friend go shopping, I’ll go too. I’ll be their shadow, ready to kick that man’s ass if he shows up and tries to grab Dani. I’m bigger than he is. Unless he has a gun, there’s no way he’ll be able to take me.

I pocketed the money before I thought better of it, but I’ve thought better of it now.

Anyway, I did what he asked me to do. I made sure Dani’s name was on the sign-up list and I added mine in the last space. We’re both on the bus heading for New York City. I never told the freak I’d let him abduct her or touch her or even look at her up close.

Close. We’re close. Our shoulders brush just the slightest bit. She doesn’t pull away the way I think she will, but I know she can’t be comfortable. I’ve never seen her touch anyone except that goth girl she’s friends with, and she doesn’t have a boyfriend. At lacrosse practice last year, Gareth said he thought she was a lesbian. He wasn’t being mean about it, just making an observation, but I’ve remembered it ever since.

I’d bet my leg that Danielle doesn’t like girls like that. But she doesn’t like guys, either. She doesn’t like people, at least not when they get too close. She needs her space. She’s like me. I felt it from the second I first saw her, and every careful step she took to get to the back of the bus was a spy confirming my suspicions.

I suddenly want to know what happened to her to make her like me. But then just as quickly decide I don’t. I have enough bad memories of my own; I don’t need to collect someone else’s.

Still, I never imagined we’d end up sitting next to each other. It never entered my mind. I wonder if it’s a sign that my gut is right and I need to watch out for her. If so, it would be a good idea to quit acting like an asshole. Otherwise, she’ll be as scared of me as some stalker old enough to be her dad.

Just ask her what she’s doing over break, or tell her you like the smell of her—

No, don’t tell her that. You don’t talk to a girl like Dani about the way she smells. Tell her you’ve seen her around school. Ask her what grade she’s in. Tell her you—

Say “hi,” idiot. Say “what’s up?” Something! Or just turn and look at her. Quit staring at the window like a loser or it’s going to be too late.

Too late. I see the headlights coming, but my brain doesn’t register what they are until after. They’re too high, too intense. Even in the early morning sunlight, they’re bright enough to blind me. I squint and turn to Dani, planning to ask her if she knows what they are.

I’ve barely turned away from the window when the semi hits.

The middle of the bus explodes, glass shattering, metal groaning as people near the point of impact are thrown from their seats. Dani and I are forced the other direction as the two ends of the bus fold back around the truck.

Dani crashes into me, her light body slamming against mine. My arms close around her on instinct just before the back of my head hits the window. I can hear the pop of bone striking glass over the cries of the girls in front of us and the wail of iron as the bus screeches across the road. My brain feels soft and squishy and the day grows darker, like somebody turned down the sun.

Dani’s hands clutch mine as she curls into a ball. She’s smarter than I am; some part of her must have known we wouldn’t be smashed against the glass for long.

Our sideways movement ends in a moment of horrible stillness. One second we’re skidding, then, with a groan and a crack, we’re falling. Faster, faster, off the side of the bridge, shooting through empty air.

The world whirls and people fly like clothes in a dryer, flipping over each other, feet and hands and jackets and backpacks and portable televisions colliding and coming apart broken. I curl around Dani, clenching my stomach and tucking my head, trying to protect as much of her as possible. I’ve already got a busted skull; might as well put my broken body to use.

We start to fall toward the opposite window, but by the time we get to the other side, the window is the roof of the bus. My spine hits—hard. I make a noise, but I can’t hear it over the rushing of the blood in my head. Maybe it’s because of the injury; maybe it’s a side effect of fear.

I’ve never been so afraid. The world is sharp with it; everything stands out like a scene from a pop-out book. I swear I can see pupils dilate, pieces of dirt rise up from the floor as gravity reverses its pressure, concrete rush by smashed windows with teeth made of broken glass.

Then it’s over, ending with a bang way bigger than the one it started with.

The bus lands on the same side it was hit, the force of our fall knocking the bus flat again, ironing out the wrinkle made by the initial impact. As metal and rubber and glass collide with cold earth, a collective groan fills the air, a sound of such pure pain it makes my teeth hurt.

Or maybe they hurt because Dani’s skull slams into my jaw as we land. She groans and goes limp just before we slide down the side of the roof to puddle with the rest of the bodies on the new floor.

I smell gasoline and sewer. I feel the cold winter day seeping into the air, cooling the blood that spills from torn skin.

God, everything hurts. My ribs, my head, my arms, my jaw. Glass slices into my side and stabs through my sweater and undershirt, but I can’t move. There’s a terrible pressure in my chest and a something …

Something … crooked … rattles inside my brain.

More gasoline stink, so strong I can almost taste it. Visions of big-budget movie crashes and cars going up in a burst of flames shoot behind my eyes. My foster dad says that’s a bunch of Hollywood bullshit. Real cars hardly ever burn. He ought to know, he drives a tow truck part-time. Only part-time, so he can spend the rest of his time on the couch watching those bad movies.

When I was younger, before Mad Prep and the endless soccer and wrestling and lacrosse practices, I used to watch them with him. I never realized I missed those long, lazy nights until this very second. I’ll have to tell Trent that he isn’t a complete loser. I didn’t always consider every day under his roof another day in prison.

In fact, in those early days, watching movies with him probably saved my life. The later I stayed up, the less time I had to spend in my bed waiting for the monster that kept trying to kill me. Green and black, with slick scales covering snakelike muscles—the monster was every bad dream I’d ever had rolled into one terrifying package.

I never got a good look at the creature, but I felt its death grip around my neck dozens of times. I smelled its devil breath and watched its red eyes glow in the darkness. It would hover over me while I slept, but never strike until it knew I was awake. It wanted me to be conscious when I died, wanted to lick up my fear with its rough tongue, soak up my death like bread swiped through spaghetti sauce.

In my mind, I called it the Thing, but I never named it aloud. I never said a word, never made a sound, never cried out for help. I knew by then that crying out for help only worked if there was someone around who gave a damn. I stopped calling out and learned how to fight. And I fought and I fought, every single night, until finally the monster went away. Around my tenth birthday.

It’s been seven years since I’ve seen the Thing. It’s been almost that long since I’ve thought about it. Even when I push myself to the breaking point in the weight room, getting bigger, stronger, meaner than anyone else, I don’t let myself wonder why I need to be so strong. Even when I go to sleep with the lights and the television on, I don’t let myself remember why I’m afraid of the dark.

I don’t admit to anyone—even myself—that I’m afraid of anything.

But I am. I’m afraid of dying in this bus. I’m afraid of Dani dying in my arms. I’m afraid of the Thing that came in the night, the Thing I almost swear I can see curled around the broken steering wheel at the front of the bus, staring down the long row of broken, moaning, twisted bodies.

Looking straight at me.

Jesse

Red eyes sent from hell glare above the dragon’s mouth and blood drips from its fangs. It leaps from the steering wheel, claws crunching in the broken glass. Green-and-black scales ripple over muscles way bigger than mine, thick masses of tissue that assure me that I’m as small and helpless as when I first went into the hospital.

It’s the Thing, no doubt about it. I’ve never seen it in the daylight before, but I’ve felt that reptilian body crouched on top of me, tense and ready to strike.

“Mina … Mina.” Dani shifts in my arms, eyelids fluttering. Her head turns and her blood smears onto my sweater.

The skin above her right cheek is split open, and red trickles down her face. I can almost feel how much the Thing would enjoy licking that trail away, getting a taste before coming in for the kill.

Kill. The Thing is back. It’s here. It’s
real
. And it could kill everyone on this bus.

Or at least everyone who isn’t dead already.

The bus is mostly still now. Only a few pained moans and sobs break the silence. A couple of people at the front are moving—flailing arms and legs, struggling to sit up with no help from broken bones and bruised bodies—but the middle is silent. Dead silent.

The place where Dani’s friend sat down is the hardest hit, just ahead of the point of impact where the seats are twisted beyond recognition. The chances that Mina is seriously hurt are good and getting better as the Thing slinks into the center of the bus, crawling over debris, pausing to survey the limp bodies with satisfaction. Its eyes slit and it pulls its bloodied lips back another inch, baring more of those impossibly large teeth.

“Mina … we have to … ” Dani’s eyes open, but almost immediately wince closed again. She shudders against me like it hurts to breathe. “I have to … ”

We have to get out, that’s what we have to do. We have to get the hell out of this bus and away from that dragon before we’re as dead as half the student body of Madisonville Prep.

“Hold onto me.” I scoop Dani into my arms, ignoring the sting in my side and the rush of warmth that seeps through my sweater, and fight my way to my feet.

What’s left of the bus window shatters beneath our combined weight and my left leg plunges through the hole to sink into the muddy ground. I tug it free, gritting my teeth as one of the glass shards stabs into my calf and lodges there. I stumble back toward the emergency exit, feeling my way as I climb over the other seats, too scared to turn my back on the Thing.

“But what about—”

“The bus could explode,” I say, realizing a part of me worries my words are true. The sharp smell of gasoline bites at my nose, making my already aching head spin. “We have to get out. We’ll call for help when we’re safe.”

You’ll never be safe. Never again. Never, never, never. It came for you in the daylight. It won’t be leaving without your blood in its mouth.

I move faster, tripping over dead weight.
Dead weight
. People are dead, people I’ve seen every day, who I’ve envied for their easy smiles and simple problems. And now they’re dead, and Dani and I could be next.

“My backpack … ” Dani reaches a hand toward where we were sitting, but it falls back to her side a second later. Her head lolls against my shoulder. I glance down in time to see her eyes roll back and her lids flutter closed. She’s losing consciousness again, maybe even dying.

“Dani, wake up, don’t go to sleep. Stay awake!” The panic in my voice draws the attention of the monster.

Twenty feet away, the Thing hisses and crouches lower, wiggling its haunches, getting ready to pounce. Dani didn’t see it and none of the people at the front of the bus seem to have noticed a nightmare the size of a small horse slinking through the wreckage, but that doesn’t stop my heart from kicking into adrenaline-fueled overdrive. I don’t care if anyone else can see it.
I
can see it.