The Almost Girl – ebook edition (3 page)

“What? I wasn’t.” Caden flushes and stares at the ground.

“I hope you haven’t been keeping her from resting, Caden. She needs to keep that foot elevated.”

“It’s fine,” I say, and then more clearly, “My foot?” For the first time, I notice that I am wearing some sort of cotton pants, and I wonder whether Caden’s aunt had removed my own clothes. Curiously, I don’t feel any embarrassment, because I’m more worried about whether the injury will slow me down.

“Lay back,” she tells me gently and places a hand against my forehead. “That’s good.”

“What happened?” I repeat, trying to pull the pajama material up to see. She stalls my hand.

“Try not to move, you have some badly bruised ribs, too. It’s your ankle, nothing too serious. You must have torn a ligament from the convulsions or when you fell, but you do need to keep pressure off of it for now. I iced it and wrapped it last night. Let’s have a look.”

Carefully unwrapping the bandage, I see that my ankle is a blotchy greenish purple and twice the size of my other foot. I am sure that it looks far worse than it is. I wiggle my toes slowly and I know from experience it’s a good sign. It means nothing’s broken.

“A lot of the swelling has gone down, which is good,” Caden’s aunt says. I can’t imagine my ankle being any fatter, but it must have been because even Caden is nodding.

“It matches your hair,” Caden remarks. I ignore him, more concerned with trying to calculate how much this injury will set me back.

“How long?” I ask.

“A few weeks.”

“A few weeks!” I gasp. “Can’t you do anything to speed it up?”

A gentle smile while deftly re-wrapping the bandage across my ankle. “No, honey. Best you can do to recover quickly is rest, ice, compression, and elevation. R. I. C. E. Simple enough to remember, right? If the pain gets any worse or it doesn’t get better, you’ll need to get it checked out. For now, I can give you some ibuprofen to help with the pain and the swelling.”

“No meds. I can manage the pain,” I say. “I’m allergic to most medications,” I add at her curious look. The truth is that anything that inhibits the functions of the brain is a risk, especially during eversion. I need to be clear.

“I guess that explains why you had such a high-tech injector in your bag,” Caden chimes in, pulling the pen-like instrument from the front pocket of the backpack where he’d replaced it the night before. “I’ve never seen anything like it. My emergency one is like a plastic piece of crap compared to yours. Bees are my nemesis,” he reminds me, twisting the silver cylinder between his fingers.

I smile, a cheap attempt at reassurance and normalcy even though my heart is pounding. I’ve never wanted to lurch forward and grab anything more than at that moment. Like the teacher earlier, I feel that Caden’s aunt can see right through me. Her blue eyes are as sharp as Mrs Taylor’s had been, and although there’s no mistrust in them, I feel uncomfortable just the same.

It’s one of the reasons that I don’t like getting close to people. Too many questions. And too many that can’t be answered. But I know that I owe them both some kind of explanation for my bizarre behavior… and for the injector that looks like it comes from some kind of super advanced robotics lab.

“Mine is a little more complicated,” I say. “I’m not allergic to bees or food. It’s a… a genetic brain thing. If I don’t take my medication regularly, like yesterday, things can go south pretty quickly, especially with the seizures. Sometimes something as simple as hunger can set it off.” I glance up to test the waters. They are both watching me, but with more concern than any kind of disbelief on their faces. My lies are getting more convincing. “The injector is custom-made for my condition. You couldn’t use it,” I say in Caden’s direction. “And it’s really expensive so… “

I don’t have to finish my sentence before Caden carefully replaces the injector in the backpack.

“Sorry,” he says stuffing his hands in his pockets. “So are you OK now?”

I nod slowly. I haven’t had to use the injector before but it has definitely come in handy to say the least. I am alive. Each cylinder has six doses, so I have five remaining. I hope fervently that I don’t have to use them. Even thinking about the pain makes my head spin. Caden’s aunt pulls the sheet up and pats my forehead.

“You can stay here as long as you need to, Riven. Can I call someone for you? Your parents? They must be worried.”

“No thanks,” I say quickly. “My father is out of town on business. He usually calls me to check in. You can talk to him then.”

She frowns for a second but nods. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

“I will. Thanks for taking care of me, Mrs…?” I trail off realizing that I don’t even know their family name.

“Just call me June.”

“Thank you, June,” I say.

I’m overwhelmed at her generosity, letting some stranger into her home. I could have easily been one of the others looking for the boy. How easy would it be to kill him? One swipe of a knife, a pillow over the face, a twist of a finger? They’re so trusting, these people. Back home, getting within an arm’s length of another person is virtually impossible, much less getting into someone else’s home. It’s astonishing that the boy has survived for so long.

The odds weren’t in his favor, yet here he was, unhurt and obviously thriving… hidden in plain sight. And I’d found him quite by accident – this town hadn’t been on my list. I’d just stopped here on my way to Wyoming and randomly decided to stay for a few days to recuperate after the last eversion. It had been a spur of the moment decision.

I glance at Caden, chewing on his thumb and staring at me out of the corner of his eye. He seems to be just like all the other kids of this world, so oblivious to everything but their immediate sphere of existence. Watching him, I know that he has been well protected, but he is clearly unprepared.

He thinks he’s just a normal boy. But I know better.

He has no idea about anything – no idea of who is after him or what’s coming for him. I frown. So how
has
he survived? How has he been able to stay here undetected and in the dark about who he really is for this long?

There is only one answer that I can think of. It is one that chills me to my bones.

Someone has to be helping him.

Someone who knows that I would be coming.

BLACKOUT

Caden and his aunt insisted I stay with them until late Sunday afternoon. Despite June’s protests, I took a taxi back to the cash-only cheap motel on the outskirts of town as soon as I could. Due to her expert care, my injury is healing well, albeit slowly. In my world, muscle and tissue would be repaired in minutes in a laser lab. Still, I’m surprised that after just two days, I can bear weight on it. I sigh, frustrated. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. Despite racking my brain for alternatives, I am a sitting duck. Attempting to evert with any kind of physical weakness is a death sentence. Eversion doesn’t just mean physical stress – any kind of strain that sends mixed messages to the brain could upset the timing and the result. And no one wants to end up inside out with a jump gone wrong.

Hauling myself out of bed, I clear my mind and perform a series of meditational exercises that send energy flowing through my body. Despite the hollow ache in my ribs, it feels good. I stretch each muscle carefully until my movements are fluid and limber, taking care with my ankle, then move into a series of simple calisthenics that has a fine sheen of sweat coating my skin when I’m finished. It’s a process that I repeat every morning without fail, with the exception of Saturday. I frown, redoing the exercises once more, a compensation of sorts for the missed interval. Even impaired, I can take on a couple of Vectors, but probably no more than three. I have to be prepared for the worst.

I unfold the leather case lying tucked inside the back of my bag. Shiny silver knives and an array of weapons greet me, and I finger one of their edges carefully. They’ve never failed me. Without glancing behind me, I flick two toward the back of the motel door and they lodge with thick precision into the wood of the narrow doorjamb. Not much of a target, but I shrug and retrieve the blades. I repeat the knife throws, managing to get both in the same incision points as before. Better.

Grabbing the crutches I’d borrowed from June, I hobble to the door, swearing under my breath. Having to move this slowly is worse than the pain. I hitch a ride to school in the back of a pickup truck, and before I can lose my nerve, I grit my teeth and awkwardly shuffle my way up the stairs to the doors. I’d like nothing more than to not have to attend another day of high school now that I’ve found Caden, but I also don’t want anything to happen to him, either. I still have that feeling of things not being quite right, and vigilance and caution are two things that have kept me alive all these years.

So another day of Horrow High it is.

Trudging to my class, I realize that I don’t know anything about Caden. The little I do know tells me that he is nothing like Cale. It confuses me. Still, what did I expect? They’re not exactly the same people – made even more dissimilar by the whole nature-versus-nurture thing. But the truth is, I don’t need to know anything about him. Why should I care? He’s a target, and one that I need to get back as quickly as possible.

“Hey, Riven! How’s the leg?”

“Thanks for the general announcement,” I growl sourly just as Caden walks alongside me with two of his football friends in tow. “It’s fine.”

“Guys, this is Riven. New girl,” Caden says to his friends with a wide grin. “But be warned–”

“Hey, I’m Jake,” a redheaded boy interrupts with a smile. “I was there the other night with Cade when you trashed your bike…” Jake trails off at the dark scowl on my face.

Caden laughs out loud. “As I was saying, just don’t mention her riding skills or ask her about anything personal; she gets a little touchy about that. And she’s not interested in making friends, so forget I introduced her and move along.”

I shoot him a withering glare just in time to see a willowy blonde swing her arms around Caden from the back. Her demeanor is not friendly, nor is the acid warning look she launches in my direction. My body tenses immediately, and already my brain is calculating the distance to exits and casualty ratios of the dozens of kids swirling around me. I force myself to relax.

She’s a kid, not a threat.

The adrenaline seeps from my system as the girl tosses an icy smile in my direction, her designer white pants like a second skin and a pink shirt unbuttoned enough to show a lacy pink bra, leaving little to the imagination.

“Who’s your friend?” the blonde says to Caden, her tone dripping venom. My hand hovers over the blade wedged into my belt. No metal detectors in this school makes it a hell of a lot easier to deal with threats, unlike the public schools in New York, which had been an eye-opening experience. I’d received detention for a week because of a concealed knife in my boot. Forcing my hand to my side, I try to act normal.

“Hey Sadie, this is Riven. She’s new,” Caden says and turns to embrace Sadie, who jumps up to wrap her very long cheerleader legs around his waist. I want to laugh at her overt territorial display, but something inside tells me that this will probably not be the best thing to do. Still, I can’t quite help myself, and the side of my lips twitches into a smirk. Sadie’s eyes narrow and I bend my head, biting my lip to stifle my amusement.

“Nice name,” she drawls after a minute, her tone indicating that my name is anything but nice. A cutting response rises to my lips, but provoking this girl won’t accomplish much, other than to serve my own ego. And I need to keep a low profile.

“Thanks,” I say instead and quicken my step. “Catch you later, Caden.”

“It’s just Cade, remember?”

I shoot a hand in the air and keep walking. Cade, Caden, it makes no difference to me.

“Where’d that one get dragged in from, juvie rehab?”

Sadie’s scornful words reach me as I walk into the classroom, but I don’t hear Caden’s response. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if he said that I was a foreign transfer. This time, I can’t hold back my laugh, and it comes until I feel tears running down my cheeks and the sides of my stomach ache from it. They couldn’t imagine just how foreign I actually am. I am still snorting even when class begins and Mrs Taylor’s eyes laser me with a quelling look.

“Class, please sit in your designated project groups. We will be working on them during the second half of class today.”

Groans mix in with the noisy screech of chairs as students move around, shuffling to other tables, and for the first time I look around the classroom, staring at faces with interest instead of my usual detached assessment of potential danger. I see them as people instead of targets or threats, and I am surprised by how young they all are. Not that I am much older, but truth is, I feel older.

Harder
.

Half of these kids haven’t felt the sharp edge of hunger or had to fight for anything in their lives. They are plump, satisfied, and ignorant. Where I’m from, our training begins the minute we are born, and we face survival tests far worse than a quiz on Shakespeare before the age of five. Education is mandatory, but so are other things – physical education, weapons education,
life
education.

I realize that I’m judging once more and give myself a shake.
Be fair
, I think. It’s not their fault that they are the way they are, and have evolved in a different world under a different set of rules and circumstances. They are people, the same flesh and blood as I am.

Well, maybe not Sadie
, I think with a grin,
she’s pure venomous angst
.

The ones in my group seem likable enough: a girl, Charisma, who is quiet but friendly; Caden, of course; and another jumpy thin boy, Philip, with an overbite and fingernails bitten to the quick. His head is already buried in his physics textbook. Leafing mentally through my slang file, he is what most in this world would call a nerd or a geek, but where I’m from, Philip would be a coveted asset. Someone with his skills would be selected in a heartbeat. My father would have loved him.