Heartless (13 page)

“Jo!” Lucy shrieked, and ran to me. “What the hell? Are you okay?”

She grabbed me under the shoulders and began to haul me to my feet, but I was ahead of her. I hopped up, still holding the boulder.

I opened my mouth to speak, but Eli interrupted. “Guys, help. Get a blanket, a towel, something!”

I turned my head. When I knocked Eli aside, he’d crashed into a small cluster of candles on my desk. One had fallen over, hot wax dripping down the desk leg. Worse, though, was the flame that had alighted on the curtains my mother and I so carefully selected and hung on the day I moved in. The flame now danced as it moved up the curtain’s thin cotton fabric.

“Oh God,” I said, dropping the rock. I ran to the bathroom while Lucy ran to the flames to help Eli. I yanked a towel off the rack and turned on the shower. Keeping my torso away from the water I stuck the towel into the stream. Electricity sparked around my fingers, but I ignored it. The towel soaked, I ran back to the flames. Eli and Lucy had no luck batting at them with my comforter.

“Look out,” I cried, and I swung my wet towel at the curtains. The flames sizzled and smoked as I swung again and again. Soon, they died down to a low, shimmering smolder. Eli stopped my arm from swinging, and then tugged the remaining fabric down from the curtain rod. He stomped on the dying embers.

“That was close,” he said, as Lucy collapsed on the bed. “What in God’s name is going on?”

“I don’t know, but…”

Once again, I was cut off, this time by the shrill cries of the fire alarm as it roared to life throughout the building. Never one to enjoy a good, high-pitched alarm, I brought my hands to my ears as the sound cut through my head in a whole new way. “Make it stop,” I shouted.

“It’s the smoke from the fire,” said Lucy. “We have to go. Quick, blow out all the candles!”

“I can’t go out like this,” I said. “People will see me!”

Our voices grew louder and louder to be heard over the alarm’s shrieks.

“I don’t know what to do!”

Meanwhile, Eli went around the room, blowing out all the candles and stuffing them into drawers and closets. He shoved the remnants of the burnt curtain beneath the bed. “Lucy, get your coat,” he said, ignoring our panic. When she didn’t respond, he added, “Now. We’ll meet you in the hall.”

She ran to her room through the bathroom in the sudden, loud, and velvety darkness.

I turned to Eli. “What about me?” I said. I hated the pleading I heard in my voice, the fear. I hated needing anyone to tell me what to do, but I was out of ideas. “Are you going to shove me under the bed too?”

“No,” he said. “They’ll search the rooms to see what set off the alarm. You have to get out of here too.”

“But I’m falling apart!”

“So we cover you up,” he said. “Don’t worry, you’ll see.”

And he reached over and picked up a blanket from my bed. He draped it over my head, then wrapped it under my chin, kerchief-style. “Here,” he said. “Hold it like this. We’ll keep you in the shadows. No one will even notice you.”

He reached through the blanket, took hold of my arm, and led me, the reluctant one this time around, out into the teeming chaos of the hall.

O
utside, students clustered around each other, huddled together for warmth. Eli, Lucy, and I stood apart, in silence, beneath a copse of trees. As I watched people hold onto each other, clinging together to conserve body heat as firemen entered the dorms, I thought about what this would have been like the week before. I pictured the three of us, on a normal night. Eli would have stood in the middle, and he’d have held Lucy and me close, an arm around each of us. We’d have been like the three amigos, all snuggly and warm and normal. Just like all the kids around us.

Instead, we stood apart, and though Lucy and Eli stood protectively between me and the rest of the Calvin Hall student body, no one touched. Lucy hopped up and down in the cold, her own comforter pulled tight around her, covering her coat, her hat, her arms and legs, as she froze, untouched in the night.

Eli had been wrong. To me, standing in our self-contained silos, we were as obviously hiding something as a kid sneaking out of a candy store with a fistful of licorice.

I felt more alone than I’d ever felt. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hit something so hard my hands would bleed.

I wanted my blood back. My normal life. My old problems: fights with Eli, trouble in Chemistry. I was sick of this new life, this new normal, and I’d have given anything to be up in my bed, safe and warm and no longer undead.

But it wasn’t meant to be, and even our new normal was soon interrupted.

“You kids causing more trouble?” said a dark, husky voice behind us. “Somehow I’m not surprised to see you here.”

We all jumped and turned.

“Crap,” Eli whispered. I heard him, though, and I shot him a warning look that he probably missed in the darkness.

Officer Strong stood, leaning against a tree, watching us. I melted backward as Eli and Lucy stepped forward.

“Officer Strong,” said Lucy. “So nice to see you again. Aren’t you freezing? I’m freezing.”

Eli was less friendly. He only nodded in the officer’s direction.

Strong looked right at me. “I’ve been keeping an eye on things around here,” he said. “Don’t want you to turn up missing again, do we, Miss Hall? I see you and your boyfriend have patched things up?”

I gave Lucy a look, begging her to take over, but she hesitated. So I nodded. “Yes,” I said, as brightly as I could muster. “We had a long talk after you came by this morning. It was a stupid fight and we’re back together.”

Why do you care?
I silently asked.

Strong turned his gaze on Eli, who stepped closer to me, though he kept his arms pinned at his sides. “So,” Strong said. “I don’t have to expect any more phony reports.”

Lucy laughed. Hard. To my ears it sounded fake, but I knew her better than most, and I hoped Strong wouldn’t notice. “Oh, Officer Strong,” she said, and walked closer to him. “You’re so funny.” She slid her blanket back from her head, letting it fall prettily around her shoulders.

She looked like a snow queen, and he finally noticed. “Lucy,” he said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your last name earlier.” He smiled at her. “You look different from earlier, don’t you?”

I’d seen that look on the eyes of plenty of boys and men before. Lucy had that effect on them. She noticed it too.

“It’s probably because I’ve showered,” she said, tossing her head and laughing. “So tell me, are you stalking me?”

I thought I saw a dark cloud pass before Strong’s eyes, but it was probably just a flicker of light.

Nearby, the fire truck turned off its sirens and the firemen climbed back in. A cheer went up among the students as lights suddenly blazed forth from Calvin Hall. The crisis had ended; the power was back on.

Strong laughed. “No, I’m just making sure nothing else goes wrong for your friend here,” he said. “They like me to keep an eye out after a report like the one your boyfriend filed goes down. It’s not that unusual. Especially in light of…” He trailed off, staring around him as other students began filtering back into the dorm. He held out a hand to keep us there.

“In light of what?” Eli asked. He sounded aggressive, angry.

Strong shot him a warning look. “Watch it, buddy,” he said. The he glanced around again, the look of someone convinced he was being followed. “I guess I can tell you three this. Can I trust you to keep a secret?”

We exchanged looks, the three of us, and all nodded, solemnly, like little children taking a sacred vow. Lucy even held up a hand, pinkie outstretched, in typical pinkie-swear fashion. No one else swore with her, though.

“All right, then,” Strong said, dropping his voice a few decibels lower. “Let’s just say that Miss Hall’s disappearance isn’t the first disappearance that’s been reported among young, college-age girls recently. And let’s just say she’s the first one who’s turned back up, seemingly fine. But let’s also say that the police chief is worried, and asked me to keep a special close eye on Miss Hall, and also on the ambassador’s daughter. Lucy, I hear that’s you?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Because if an ambassador’s daughter turns up missing, it would mean big things, even bigger than we know, could be afoot. So it’s my job now to keep an eye on you both, to make sure nothing further goes wrong.”

“But Officer Strong,” I said, my voice strained and tense, “I was never missing. I
told
you that.”

He gave me a look, eyeing me up and down. I pressed myself further back into the shadows. The chaos surrounding us had died down as all the students reentered the building, and suddenly we four stood alone outside the dorm, in the darkness.

“I don’t think I believe you, Miss Hall,” Strong said, and then he turned his glare on Eli. “I’m not sure I believe any of you. But until I have proof, I can’t do anything but watch, and wait, and make sure things move smoothly from here.”

With that, he turned on his heel and strode off into the night, his boots crunching in the snow.

“What the…” Eli said.

“Heck,” Lucy finished for him.

I let my blanket fall to the ground and covered my face with my hands. Closing my eyes, I willed my thoughts to stop churning. Nothing Strong said would matter, if only we could find the people who did this to me and convince them to turn me back into a normal girl. Then we would be fine. That had to be the priority.

When I dropped my hands, I saw Lucy and Eli staring at me, their skin pink and vibrant and alive in the cold. They looked concerned.

“Screw it,” I said, taking each of them by the arm and heading back toward the building. “Screw it all. Let’s get back upstairs. There’s still that boulder in my room we need to deal with.”

From the OoA files, dated February 15

Memorandum:

Efforts to apprehend Subject 632G-J have been unsuccessful. She is proving wily, whether she realizes it or not. She remains in public places, heavily surrounded by other students and faculty.

If we are unable to return her to the lab and our study within the next 48 hours, damage to her person will become irreversible; we will be faced with no other option than termination of Subject 632G-J.

Retrieval efforts redoubled. We must bring her in quickly and silently. She is a valuable success story that must be studied further.

Additionally, new subject identified. She will be Subject 679G-L. Photo to be provided with official Subject Memorandum.

B
ack in the comparative safety of my room, strong breezes blew my remaining curtain like an unmoored ship’s sail in a squall. Eli hurried to close the window, hiding the gaping hole in the screen with a pane of cloudy glass. Beside me, Lucy shuddered.

“There it is,” she said, and I followed her gaze to the large, smooth rock in the center of the floor. Tied to it, like something out of an old gangster flick, was a piece of folded paper.

“Don’t touch it,” said Eli. “It could be laced with something.”

“Laced with what? Something to make me deader? Doubtful. So, my note. My rock. Mine.”

Eli glanced at Lucy. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, but she nodded, and so did Eli.

I approached the rock with caution. I wasn’t afraid of any hidden disease for myself—I’d have hugged a leper, just because I could—but I had to admit there was a chance the rock concealed an explosive device. I didn’t want to blow up my friends.

To that end, I paused. “Why don’t you two wait in Lucy’s room, okay? No arguments. Let me look at it by myself for a sec, just in case.”

“In case of…” Lucy began, but Eli grabbed her arm.

“She’s got a point. I think we should listen.”

But they both stared at me, concerned and weary, as they backed slowly away into the bathroom. I waited until I heard the bathroom door on my side click, and then the one on her side as well.

I knelt beside the rock and picked it up, bracing for some kind of detonation that would end my misery right then. Nothing happened. No sound came louder than the rustling of notebook paper beneath my own papery skin.