Redlisted (6 page)

I open my eyes and
find myself looking at her arm. It’s so thin. How can someone
with such thin arms be so strong?

She opens the
passenger side door and helps me climb in to the front seat. “Just
close your eyes and rest, okay?” she says. “See if you
can get some more sleep.”

I nod, but I have
no intention of listening to her. I don’t want to sleep. I
don’t want to be Adam again. I don’t like drinking blood
through his lips.

Aya closes the
door to the car and leaves me. The three of them start carrying
things to the car and loading them in the trunk.

“Just dump
anything we can afford to replace,” Haruko says. “We got
the head?”

“Yes,”
Adam says.

“Are you
sure?” she asks.

“I’m
quite sure. Let’s go.”

Someone slams the
trunk shut. Adam and Haruko get in the back seat. I watch them
through the rear-view mirror, just to keep myself awake. Haruko
reaches up across me, opens the glove compartment, and pulls out a
road map.

“Did you
find anything to eat?” Adam asks.

“No. Why?”
She turns the overhead light on and unfolds the map.

“I think I
gave her too much,” he says, lowering his voice. “I’m
right on the edge.”

“God damn
it,” Haruko mutters.

“I won’t
ask you again, I promise.”

She sighs. “Fine.
But make it quick.”

Adam pushes
Haruko’s glossy black hair off her shoulders and holds it at
the nape of her neck. He brings his mouth to her throat, and—I
look away, horrified.

Aya climbs into
the driver’s seat, starts the car, and pulls out of the gravel
driveway. I fumble for my seat belt, fasten it, and stare out the
window. Aya accelerates; the trees whip by. She says nothing. She
doesn’t even seem to notice.

I glance back into
the mirror and catch a glimpse of Haruko’s face. Her eyes are
closed; her lips are parted.

I look away again.

Soon the hum of
the engine and the gentle vibration of tires on asphalt start to send
me into the twilight state between waking and sleep. I can hear the
three of them talking as if through layers of cotton, but I can’t
hold on to the words.

My half-sleep is
restless and wracked with pain. My stomach has begun demanding food
again, and my muscles are sore with fatigue. My chest wound still
aches mercilessly.

After some time I
feel the car slow and then stop. I blink my eyes into focus, peel my
cheek away from the car window and look outside. We’re at a
decaying strip mall, anchored by a dead grocery store, its painted
concrete exterior eroding and mottled with incoherent graffiti.

“Pull around
back,” says Haruko. “I’ve got an access code for
the employee entrance.”

We roll through
the pothole-ridden parking lot and past a bank of dumpsters to the
back entrance. Aya pulls into a parking space, puts the car in
neutral and yanks on the parking brake. She and Adam pile out of the
car. Haruko writes something on the skin of her palm with a felt-tip
pen before she gets out.

I watch the three
of them through the rear-view mirror. Adam takes the keys from Aya.
She and Haruko grab a few things from the trunk, suitcases and
backpacks and the black lockbox. They start walking towards the back
of the supermarket.

Adam gets into the
driver’s seat. “Do you feel up to eating?”

I don’t want
to go anywhere with him, but I’m starving. I nod.

“Breakfast
food okay?”

I nod again.

“I’m
sorry about all this,” he says. For the first time he sounds
like he means it.

We roll back
through the parking lot in second gear, over to a twenty-four-hour
diner with trash strewn throughout the parking lot. We climb out.
Adam presses the lock button on the remote key until the car beeps at
him to stop.

Adam opens the
door to the restaurant for me. Before I can step inside, a man in a
leather coat pushes past me, throwing me a look that makes my skin
crawl. Adam stares at the back of the man’s head as he walks
towards the back of the building, his expression slowly hardening.

“Would you
mind getting us a table?” His voice is soft, his tone dark.
“I’ll be right back.”

I nod once and
step inside the diner. I pause for a moment as my eyes adjust to the
bright light, then look for a bathroom. The one I find is a single
room with no stall. It smells overwhelmingly of ammonia. The toilet
seat doesn’t look particularly clean, but my legs are suddenly
too weak for me to squat, so I sit, trying not to consider the
surface underneath my thighs too carefully.

Pulling Haruko’s
jeans back over my hips takes work. They’re only barely large
enough for me to button. I wash my hands, look at myself in the
mirror, shudder. I look grotesque. I splash water on my face, trying
to clean the blood and grime off, then wash my hands a second time,
then comb my hands through my hair. I look in the mirror again. Only
marginally improved.

The mirror jogs my
memory. What the hell happened to Mirabel? Did they kill her? My mind
starts to race. Adam must be out in the parking lot, drinking that
man’s blood. Distracted. Would it be worth it to run? I don’t
have any money, or any idea where I am, but this might be my only
chance.

I leave the
bathroom, psyching myself up, but Adam enters the restaurant just as
I emerge in the dining room. I swallow hard. Too late.

I walk towards
him, drying my hands on Haruko’s jeans. He grabs two menus and
sits down at a booth in a corner. I slump down across from him.

“Sorry for
the delay,” he says.

I shake my head
no, then shrug. He picks up a menu and begins to read. I pick up the
other, but instead peer at him nervously from behind it, inspecting
him with morbid curiosity.

He’s a
little too thin, with hollow cheeks. His frame isn’t small,
though; he looks like he could have been an athlete at some point.
His features are all sharp lines and angles—square jaw, thin,
aquiline nose, deep-set eyes—except for his mouth, which is
soft, almost feminine. I wonder what it felt like against Haruko’s
neck.

He gives me a
knowing look over his glasses.

I duck behind my
menu, feeling my cheeks burn. I need to not think about him. I need
to not think about
anything
while he’s around. I can’t believe it. I’m going to
be stuck with him for the rest of my life? Christ.

“I really am
sorry,” he says, sounding almost hurt.

Oh, God. Whatever.

A server, a skinny
blonde girl in a dull pink polo shirt, wanders over to our table.
“Can I get you something to drink?”

I stutter
silently, fumbling with the menu, then point to a picture of a cup of
coffee.

“Regular or
decaf?”

I sigh and point
to the word “regular”.

“And for
you, sir?”

“Just water,
thanks,” Adam says.

“Do you know
what you want to eat?” she asks me.

I point to some
monolith pictured on the menu by the name of the Mega Breakfast
Special.

“Bacon or
sausage?”

I look for the
word ‘bacon’, irritated. This stupid voice condition
better be temporary.

“Bacon,”
Adam says.

“What about
you, sir?” she asks.

“Nothing for
me. Thank you.”

He hands her his
menu, and I do the same, and she leaves.

“I’ve
been thinking about that,” he continues. “Your voice,
that is. Your tongue and your mouth look normal. I think something
might have happened to your vocal cords.”

My right hand
travels to my throat, and for a moment I find myself distracted,
but—
wait.
What happened to Mirabel?

“That wasn’t
her. That was another double,” he says, lowering his voice.
“Like you. Although she wasn't a dhampyr.”

I blink,
processing this information. A double. Yes—I was being trained
to be Mirabel’s double. That was the Program. There were many
others like me in the Program; I’m not sure how many.

“She gets
girls—somehow, somewhere—and has them altered into
flawless copies of herself,” Adam says. “Looks, voice,
mannerisms. Everything the same. It allows her to interact with the,
uh, daytime world.”

So what did you
do with her?

“The
double?”

Yes.

“We, uh...”

You killed her,
didn’t you.

“Haruko did.
Yes.”

I shiver, my
fingers and toes curling.

“She was
different than you. Complete. Once they’re done with the
program...” He takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of
his nose. “There’s really no hope for them after a
certain point. Their personalities are too thoroughly warped—“

So you’re
saying I wasn’t finished?

“Well,
obviously. You can’t even talk yet.” He shakes his head,
puts his glasses back on. “And you don’t seem to have any
programming, either.”

Programming?

“Like OCD on
steroids. Like you wouldn’t believe.”

But Julian said
revenants aren’t allowed to tamper with human life.

“Julian?”
he asks, confused. “What about Julian?”

He said
something about a consensus. Rules for what you can and can’t
do.

“Wait—when?”

In my last
dream.

His upper lip
curls slightly. “Right. Well, you’re correct. There are
rules we’re supposed to follow. But Mirabel’s kind of...
exempt.”

Why?

“Because of
her abilities. She has some irreplaceable skills that are very useful
to us.” His voice keeps getting lower. “Many of my line,
my family group, can control others' thoughts or memories. Some of us
can even erase memories. I can’t, but that’s beside the
point.”

Where are you
going with this?

“Mirabel is
unique in her ability to control the thoughts of many individuals
simultaneously. Moreover, she can erase memories on a wide scale. A
societal scale.” He pauses, putting his glasses back on. “She’s
the reason you’ve never heard of us.”

How the hell
did I get involved with someone like that?

“Your guess
is as good as mine,” he says.

The waitress
returns to our table. She places a mug of black coffee in front of
me, a glass of water in front of Adam. As she walks away, Adam pushes
the water over to my side of the table.

“Here. I
don’t want you getting dehydrated.”

I make a
dismissive sniffing noise and pick up the coffee instead.

“So these
dreams,” Adam says.

What about
them?

“You’ve
been dreaming about... about being me?”

Yes. About how
you became a revenant, I guess.

“I see.”

Is it because
I’ve been drinking your blood?

“I have no
idea. It’s never happened before.”

I shrug.

He stares at the
ceiling, his eyebrows furrowed.

So
what’s in the box?
I wonder at him.
You
said she was looking for it.

“Ah. Right.
Mirabel recently stole something important, something which
rightfully belongs to Julian. The three of us raided her offices to
reclaim it.”

Okay,
but what
is
it?