Escaping Grace: A Turning Grace Novel (7 page)

I wouldn’t say that I was smarter than anyone else. I mean, math did come easier to me than most people I knew, but it could to a non-Zombrid too. And if Dr. Roberson started this place two years after I…turned, then why didn’t I come here sooner? Was it because Mom didn’t want me to come? Also, Destiny died four years ago. I didn’t know her exact age, but she couldn’t be over twenty. She must have overdosed at a really young age.

“Grace?”

My vision focused in on Tristen’s face. “Yeah?”

“You okay?”

How long was he standing there for? “Yes, I’m fine. Hey, you want to go someplace…away from everyone? Maybe back to my room?”

“Sure.”

I took his hand and led him to my room in the Laguna hut. Once inside, I glanced over at my computer, feeling an urge to email my mother to ask her why she didn’t send me here long ago. Instead, Tristen grabbed me by my waist and pulled me to the bed.

I allowed myself to fall back into it, giggling on the way down. Yeah, yeah…I was being a girl. But who cared? The one and only person that I wanted to be around was here, and I was really happy about that.

He laid partially on top of me and brushed the back of his hand across my cheek. “Are you feeling better since you ate?”

“You worried I’m going to take a bite out of you?”

“Hmm…why does that thought sound more naughty than scary?” he asked, smiling deviously at me.

“You really aren’t scared that I’ll try to eat you in the middle of the night?” Number One’s question of whether or not I was sure I wouldn’t eat him started burning a hole in my mind.

“I really don’t think you would.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you like me too much,” he stated, reminding me of that matter-of-fact expression Phoebe used to give me.

I looked away, trying my best not to allow what I did to her ruin the moment.

“Hey, you okay?” he whispered.

“Yes. I’m fine.” I gently pushed him away and stood up from the bed. “This is just still all so surreal. I mean, I’m a Zombrid? How did this happen?”

“So you’re a Zombrid. It just means you’re different. It’s not necessarily a terrible thing, Grace.”

I shot him a look of disbelief. “How is it not? I ate my best friend! And I liked her…a lot!”

Tristen stood up from the bed and slowly walked toward me. “Yeah, you did. But now you’re here in this amazing place and getting the food and treatment that you need.” He tucked his finger under my chin and gently forced me to look up at him. “The worst has happened. You don’t think it bothers me? What happened the night before you left? I killed someone, Grace.”

The look in his eyes was almost heartbreaking. This whole time my thoughts had been on a constant loop, reliving what
I
had done to Phoebe and Sonny. But I forgot that Tristen was there too. And I had forgotten what he did to save me. Eric was getting ready to choke me to death before Tristen killed him by smashing his head in with a bat. The guilt must have been eating him up.

As if to have read my mind, Tristen continued. “I don’t regret what I did. I protected you. But that was before I knew that even if he did kill you, you wouldn’t actually be dead. So I can’t let myself dwell on it. I just knew at that moment, I was saving your life.”

“Would I have actually died, though? I mean, can I die again?”

Tristen squinted his eyes as if to be mentally analyzing that question. “I don’t know. I don’t know what would end your life, if it could end at all.”

“But I don’t want to live forever, Tristen.”

There was a knock at the door. I stepped away from Tristen to open it.

Maddi stood in the hallway. “Hi, Grace. Um…I was just wondering if you wanted to come see my seashell collection.”

I turned to look at Tristen, who gave me an unspoken go ahead with a nod and a smile.

“Okay. Sure.”

Maddi’s face instantly lit up. She took my hand immediately, and we practically ran down the hallway to her suite.

I could smell the lavender right as she swung the door open. “Wow, Maddi! It smells really good in here.”

“Thank you,” she said as she walked over to a dresser along the wall. “It’s my mom’s favorite flower.”

I glanced around her room, realizing that I was completely different when I was her age. There was pink and purple everywhere. Her bed was covered in dolls and stuffed animals, all enclosed in a canopy with white, translucent drapes. Her computer chair was pink and her desk was a bit shorter than mine. It seemed to fit her height just right. The walls were purple, with pictures and cutouts of butterflies and flowers. It was actually quite cute. But when I was younger, I had comic books and movie posters all over my room. I wouldn’t say that I was a tomboy per se, but I definitely wasn’t as girly as Maddi.

She stood at her dresser, clearly proud for me to finally see her seashell collection that covered every inch of it.

And it really
was
a collection. There were probably about a hundred shells, all different sizes and all different colors.  

“Are these all from the beach here?” I asked, leaning in to get a better view of them.

“Yeah. I love seashells,” she stated innocently.

“How come you love them so much?”

She picked up a large, white shell with what looked like spikes coming out the sides. She held it up to her ear and grinned.

I smiled back, patiently waiting for what she was going to say.

She pulled it away and held it up to me. “Listen.”

I brought it to my ear. There was a distant sound of hollowness.

“Do you hear it?”

I pressed it harder against my ear, trying desperately to hear something because clearly she wanted me to. When I didn’t hear anything in particular, I smiled so I wouldn’t hurt her feelings.

She smiled back. “It’s my mom. She’s saying my name.”

I pulled the seashell away from my ear and looked at it. Maddi reached over to grab it with her tiny hand and gently placed it back on her dresser.

“Do you miss home?”

Her smile faded. “Yeah, I do. But it’s okay. I like it here.” She walked over to her bed and picked up a stuffed animal.

“Weren’t you scared to come here all alone?” I asked. Surely, she was. She was a little girl who left everything she knew. And she was a Zombrid. That was scary all on its own.

She shrugged her shoulders. “At first, yeah. But I can eat all I want here. My tummy doesn’t hurt anymore. And Dr. Roberson said that when I get better, I can go home.”

“Did your tummy hurt a lot at home?”

She nodded. “Except…” She looked down at her doll and began pulling at a loose thread that dangled from its button eye. It was hard to believe that she was eleven years old. She seemed much younger than she was. She was tiny, first of all. And second, she was in her preteens. Shouldn’t she be reaching the age of puberty? She was sweet and small and just so fragile.

I kneeled down to her level. “Except what?”

“It didn’t hurt anymore after I ate her.”

“Ate who?” My heart began to race. I was nervous about what I was going to hear next.

“Emma.”

The whisper of her small voice made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “Who is Emma?”

“My little sister. Mommy and Daddy brought her home from the hospital. And then it happened.”

My stomach turned. Emma was a baby. A newborn.

A light knock came from the slightly open door. “Maddi, dear? Are you ready to watch that movie before dinner time?”

Maddi jumped up from her bed and ran over to Estelle, who was now standing in the doorway.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.”

“No, no,” I said as I stood up. “It’s okay. She was just showing me her seashell collection.”

“Ah, I see. She loves her seashells,” Estelle stated, reaching down to pat Maddi on the head. “Maddi, why don’t you go wait for me in Malibu?”

“Okay. Bye, Grace.”

“Bye,” I waved, but she’d already left the room and began skipping down the hallway.

Estelle chuckled. “So full of energy, that one.”

I smiled. “Yes, she is.”

She walked into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. “So she showed you her seashells, huh?”

I nodded.

“She isn’t crazy, you know. She’s just a child who misses her parents. She is trying to hold on to something.”

“I didn’t think she was crazy.” Thinking Maddi was crazy was not even a passing thought in my mind.

Estelle continued. “Her parents didn’t want her anymore after what she did. They were disgusted and embarrassed by it, they said. The nerve of some parents. I wouldn’t have just thrown my child away like they did to Maddi. She’s such a sweet little girl.”

“Do you have children?”

Estelle chuckled. She picked up the same doll Maddi was holding and hugged it. “Dear, I’m one hundred and fourteen years old. I have great, great grandchildren.”

I took a seat next to her. “How did you end up here? I mean, how did you meet Dr. Roberson?”

She sighed. “I wasn’t ready to leave this earth. God blessed me with many years, but when I realized that my time could be at any moment, He sent me Dr. Roberson.”

“So, Dr. Roberson found you?” I asked. I was confused.

“Yes. It wasn’t hard to find someone over one hundred years old. People don’t normally live that long. I even did an interview for the newspaper! Anyway, he showed up at my doorstep one day and asked if I wanted to be part of an experiment he was doing. He said that I could possibly live forever. Of course, I agreed. What did I have to lose? My time was coming up.” She tilted her head to the side and stared off in the distance. She was remembering.

“When the time came, when my body was just too old and worn down and couldn’t function on its own anymore, my heart began to give out.”

“So you weren’t…” I was never going to get used to asking someone if they died or not. “You didn’t die?”

She turned back toward me. “Oh yes, dear. You must die first. But when I did, he brought me back to life. You know, I lived my whole life believing that when I died, I’d see a white light. But, I didn’t. It was just darkness. Then he gave me the serum, and there was light again.”

That was a concept I didn’t even think about. I didn’t remember dying, I guess because I was too young. But no one talked about what happened when they actually did die. What did they see before they were revived? I guess it wasn’t a big deal, or else I would have heard about it before Estelle mentioned it.

I also wondered what would happen if you didn’t die before being injected.

“So, you’re okay with living forever?”

“Well…I was. But this world has changed so much. And I have seen so much. There comes a point when you’re just ready to let it all go.”

I knew it! Not everyone wants to live forever. This lady has been around for over one hundred years. She must have been tired. And from what she was telling me, it seemed like she was ready to die now.

Estelle stood up and began to walk toward the door. “Well, I should go. Maddi is waiting.”

“Um, Estelle? You were Dr. Roberson’s third patient. Do you know what happened to the second patient?”

“He died,” she said over her shoulder.

“Yes, but where is he?”

She turned to look at me once more. “No, sweetie. He was injected, but didn’t make it. You will have to ask Dr. Roberson for more details. I’ll see you at dinner.”

I sat on the bed for a moment after she left thinking about what the hell could have happened to the second patient. Who was he? Why did he die? I mean, really die?

I headed over to my room, mentally taking note of all of my questions for Dr. Roberson. I’d just have to ask. There would be no reason for him not to tell me.

Tristen was lying down on my bed looking at his phone. I shut the door behind me before throwing myself on my back next to him.

“How did it go?”

I stared up at the ceiling. “She thinks she can hear her mom calling her name through a seashell.”

“Awe, that’s sweet…and weird.” He turned on his side and rested his head on his hand. He began caressing my cheek as he listened.

“She ate her newborn sister. That’s why she’s here.”

His hand stopped for a moment, probably to take in what I’d just said. “That’s pretty rough.”

I turned to face him. “Tristen, what if I eat you?”

“You’re not, Grace. Why do you keep bringing that up?”

“Because! I’m a Zombrid! I eat people. It’s what I do.”

“No, it’s what you
did
. And you ate one person,” he exclaimed.

I sighed. “And an arm,” I said under my breath.

“Hey, you’re going to be fine. I mean, you have a bodyguard! He won’t let you eat anyone. And you’re getting the food you need here. You’re going to be okay,” he reassured me.

“I need to find out what happened to the second patient,” I said, staring back up at the ceiling. I was really talking to myself. For some reason, finding out what happened to the second patient and those other patients at the East Cocos facility would make me feel much better about being here. As much as I wanted to feel comfortable, I still had this nagging feeling in my stomach.