Stray (18 page)

“Grateful?”

“You fancy cuddling your brother in bed by yourself? I told you you needed me.”

I’m about to fire up but stop short. “Hey … does he feel warmer?”

“Maybe?” Kitty squeezes Aiden closer, her hand stroking down and resting over his stomach. “Wow, he has very defined muscles.”

I pinch her arm.

“
Bloody hell. What?
”

“Stop. It.”

“It was an observation.”

“Taking advantage of the unconscious.”

“That’s sick.”

“I remember you flirting with him at the Governor’s office.”

“I didn’t know he was trying to kill me then.”

“Which makes
this
deeply disturbing.”

“
Shhh
.” She drops her voice to an airless whisper. “You broke him out of a detention centre on the basis that he’s not like that any more. Are you having second thoughts?”

“You could at least hesitate at the idea of groping your ex-stalker.”

She jerks behind Aiden, rocking the bed, thumping her head back on her pillow. I sigh, tempted by sheer exhaustion to sleep, but worry keeps me at the surface. Worry. Dread. Fear.

A few minutes tick by and I’m sure Aiden is getting warmer. I hear Kitty’s breathing lengthen and deepen. I wonder if she’s falling asleep, but then she whispers, “He smells really good.”

“No.”

“Are you kidding?” Her head pops up.

“He doesn’t smell like anything to
me
.”

She presses her nose and mouth to the back of his shoulder, inhaling. “Seriously? It’s like–”

“I don’t want to hear about how he smells, for crying out loud. You’re creeping me out.” And making me think about Jamie. I don’t want to think about Jamie while she’s making comments like that about Aiden.

She purses her lips and lays her head down.

A long silence.

“What was it like?” she asks, a cautious whisper.

“What was what like?”

“Breaking him out. Were you scared?”

“Of course I was scared.”

A thoughtful pause.

“I can’t imagine doing anything like that.”

“You don’t want to.”

She hesitates then asks, “Did you have to fight anyone?”

I sigh. “Yes.”

“Did you hurt them?”

“A little.”

She swallows. “If someone tried to hit me, I’d probably burst into tears.”

“Which would make you
normal
.”

“Ugh.”

I lift my head off my pillow and nearly go cross-eyed with the effort. “What’s ugh?”

“Normal.” She sighs.

“Normal is good.” I resist the urge to pinch her again. “You should be happy.”

“Happy to always be the useless damsel in distress, while you get to save the day?” She shifts in her agitation, pulling on Aiden. “Just once admit that it’s cool not being afraid, all that speed and kung-fu and psychic whatnot, knowing you can take someone down, guys drooling all over your hopped-up DNA.”

“Cool?” I growl, blistering inside. “
Cool?
Ask me again when I’ve made my first kill.”

She freezes behind Aiden and my stomach sinks.

“I’m sorry,” she says, sounding choked. “That was a stupid thing to–”

“No. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” I wiggle my arm free so I can rest my hand on her shoulder. “But I told you already; I get scared. I’m scared all the time and you’re not useless. Didn’t I say you’re the bravest person I know? And you’re here, aren’t you? You’re helping.”

Kitty shrugs, on the verge of tears.

Cursing myself, I lay back down to find wide hazel eyes looking at me.

“Whoa!” I shoot backwards out of bed, hitting the ground with a thump. “He’s awake.” I scramble to my feet, blood rushing from my head, as Kitty tumbles out of bed on the other side.

Aiden’s eyes slide to the towel grown loose around me. I clutch the folds against my body. “You were really cold. We were – we were–” I gesture at Kitty hugging a pillow over her torso.

“We thought you might have hypothermia,” Kitty explains, pink-faced, tucking her hair behind her ear.

Aiden stares at her.

“So, you’re – you’re feeling … okay?” I ask.

“I’m thirsty,” he says, his voice croaky, his eyes fused to Kitty’s.

“Right – that’s the um, Fretizine.” I turn and dig through my pack for a bottle of water and hold it out to him. He takes it without shifting his gaze. “Well. I’m thinking clothes might be in order. I brought a change for you.” I gesture at the pile on the second bed then grab the pack and shuffle to the bathroom, but Kitty doesn’t move. “Um … Kit? Clothes?”

She takes a few steps backwards to keep her body hidden behind the pillow and slips into the bathroom. I follow her in and close the door before collapsing against the wall. Relief and exhaustion loosen a valve inside me and hysterical laughter bubbles up, shaking my shoulders. I cover my mouth, eyes watering. Kitty buckles next to me, smothering her face, struggling to stifle her giggles. “Did you see his face?”

I press my finger to my lips. “I think he’s wondering if he’s been violated.”

Kitty slides down next to me. “Do you think he heard us?”

“I can hear you now,” Aiden’s voice carries softly through the wall.

Kitty gapes and then we’re writhing with laughter on the wet linoleum, trying and failing to keep our noise down.

“Yeah,” he mutters. “That’s better.”

“
You have twelve new messages …
” I stab the “end” icon and swipe the screen. I don’t want to hear Miriam fuming on voicemail. It’s bad enough reading her text messages. Six, ranging from
Where are you?
to
Tell me you’re not where I think you are
and ending with
Please, please don’t do this
.

The weight pressing on my chest makes me curl in. My head hasn’t stopped spinning and my stomach rumbles, but I’m too nauseous to eat. It’s nearly three-thirty. Aiden was out almost two hours. The trains won’t start till five-thirty but we can’t sit here. If we can get him to Boston, he can take the first train to Virginia. I spread Pop’s map to the beach house flat on the bed beside me, ignoring the tremor in my hands.

“They know?” Aiden asks, swaying on the bed opposite, clamping the cotton swab to the crook of his elbow. His head nods, still groggy with the effects of Fretizine. Beside him a sealed baggie, containing the full syringe of his blood. It was the best I could come up with and I hope the lack of sterile equipment won’t corrupt the sample. But Doctor Sullivan had made do with Richard’s blood on my gym uniform and this had to be a purer sample than that. Aiden checks he’s stopped bleeding and pulls the sleeve of his new Dartmouth College sweatshirt down to his wrist. It’s way too big. So are the sweatpants. Incredibly, the sneakers fit.

I drop my phone on the map. “Miriam knows.”

“What will she do?” His words come slurred.

“Hopefully nothing.”

Aiden’s attention drifts towards the sound of the shower, his lips pressing together, that crease forming between his eyebrows that appears when Kitty speaks or looks directly at him.

“She won’t be long,” I say. “We’ll be on the road before four.”

He nods but the sound of the shower stopping distracts him. His head makes a slow swing back to me. “I got the impression she wasn’t going to be in on the law breaking.”

“I took her to the station.” I shrug. “Then she was here when we got back.”

“I don’t – that’s so … reckless. She shouldn’t be here. What if something goes wrong? What if she gets hurt? I mean, God, what if I–”

“Stop.” I put my hand on his knee, tilting my head to catch his fuzzy gaze. “We’re not doing this.”

“She should be
repulsed
by me,” he says, groaning, his speech as muddy as a drunk’s. He leans on his elbows, his head in his hands. “Why isn’t she repulsed?”

I can guess why. “She says you smell nice.”

He looks up slowly. “What does that mean?’

“Oh, hell,” Kitty’s muffled voice comes through the bathroom door then it bangs open and she stumbles out in her jeans and
Watch yourself!
T-shirt, wet hair dripping, clutching her phone. “Jamie knows. He knows.”

Reeling, I launch up and snatch the phone. The text message reads:
You have a half-hour to return my call before I notify the AP
. He sent it forty-five minutes ago. I slump on the side of the bed, stars popping in my peripheral vision, imagining him clocking up demerits, using illegal terminology, to cue a call from his Watcher. There’s no other way to contact them, they’re a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” organisation.

“I had my phone turned off,” Kitty whimpers, her voice high and thin. “And now it’s too late. They’re coming.”

I scroll back through the barrage of messages.

12.05 am:
Where are you?

12.20 am:
Answer your bloody phone!

12.21 am:
Miriam called me at midnight looking for Evie. She said you were at the library together. Evie hasn’t come home. What’s going on?

12.43 am:
I know you’re not at Lila’s. I called her. She says she hasn’t seen you since this morning and that you weren’t in class this afternoon. Where the f*&% are you? Are you with Evie?

12.56 am:
Miriam just hung up on me! Now she won’t answer my calls. If I don’t hear from you in five minutes I am going over there
.

2.03 am:
F*&%! F*&%! F*&%! This is NOT happening. Tell me you aren’t with her
.

Her.

2.13 am:
I am begging you to call me. Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you. Please, if you’re safe I won’t notify the
AP. Tell her, I WON’T if you’ll just call me
.

Breathing heavily through my nose, I’m about to pass the phone back to Kitty, about to tell her to call him, about to say maybe it’s not too late, when a new text comes through, making the phone vibrate in my hand. A long message.

It’s done. Tell her not to run - it will only make things worse. Stay with her till they find you. They will bring you home. Please be safe. Do NOT let her leave you alone with him under any circumstances. I cannot begin to fathom your actions after everything this family has been through. I won’t be home when you get here as AP will collect me tonight. They’ll take Miriam too. Barb and Dad know because I had to wake them and explain. I’m sure you can imagine how they are feeling right now. Be sure to tell your best friend what she has done and that I will hold her personally responsible for anything that happens to you
.

I thrust the phone back into Kitty’s hands and stagger upright as she reads the new message.

“Affinity know,” Aiden says, barely a murmur.

I give an abrupt nod and snatch my pack, tipping it upside down, shaking the contents onto the bed – the medical kit tumbles out. I wrench the zipper open and riffle for the scalpel. The blade gleams in the lamplight and I turn to Kitty, pins and needles eviscerating my spine. “Cut my tracker out. Now.”

“You brought a scalpel?” Kitty cries, following me into the still steaming bathroom, holding the blade between her thumb and forefinger, away from her body. Aiden leans, milk white, in the doorway. Cotton pads and bandages, hastily snatched from the mess on the bed, are cupped in his hands.

Electric with terror, I knot my hair on top of my head and fold my collar back. I lean on the sticky vanity and close my eyes over the sink hole, the smell of something dead fuming from the drain. Ominous high-pitched ringing fills my ears. “The incision scar can’t have disappeared yet; I don’t heal that quickly. All you have to do is follow the red line, maybe a quarter-inch of blade.”

“
All
I have to do?”

My eyes spring open and the sink hole spins. “I’m not asking you to replace a heart valve.”

“No. Just to cut your bloody neck open!”

The ringing in my ears reaches an instant blinding peak. “
This wouldn’t be happening if you’d gone home!
”

A sharp snap.

We all jump.

Kitty squeals.

A shard of glass separates from the now-cracked mirror and clatters into the sink. We stare at it and I press my hands over my ears. The light stings, everything razor-edged and heightened, my pupils expanded with the flood of adrenaline. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just … I just need you to cut it out. Now. Okay? So we can leave.”

Aiden stands rigid with shock, mainly because Kitty still grips his forearm; she grabbed him, without thinking, in her fright.

Teary, she releases him and gives me a small tremulous nod.

“Thank you. I have no idea what their response time is like. They could land a helicopter in the parking lot and we’re screwed.”

“I don’t understand how it works.”

“It’s not magic. They can’t find me without the tracker, not without a Warden. And they can’t just whip up a Warden because there’s a whole procedure they need to do to boost their signals. If we destroy the tracker, they’re blind. Miriam and Jamie are the only people who know what we’re up to and even then they’re guessing. Miriam won’t tell them anything unless they perform a Harvest, but I think we have to assume Jamie will have told them about Aiden and that means they’ll search this area. So, let’s not be here when they come.”

A tear slips down her cheek. “I’m so, so sorry.”

I lean again over the sink. “I know. Now, please.”

“Shouldn’t we sterilise the blade?”

“I have mutant DNA. Germs aren’t a problem.”

She moves close to me, bringing her trembling fingers either side of my neck. I shiver at her icy touch. She should be warm after her shower, but adrenaline and fear has made her cold. She shivers too but doesn’t hesitate, bringing the tip of the scalpel to my neck. I grip the edge of the basin as it pierces my skin.

Incredibly, Kitty remains silent. She cuts upwards, her hand now steady with purpose. The pain is nauseating, especially when the scalpel hits the implant. “Oh!” She scrabbles at the back of my neck. “It popped out! Ugh, there’s so much blood.”

“Here.” Aiden staggers forwards.

She grabs a wad of cotton pads and jams them on the wound. My eyes nearly roll up into the back of my head, but I cling to the basin.