The Awakening (6 page)

The stinging of my scalp intensifies. I attempt to scratch through the plastic cap. If offers little relief. I think about Leela at the station right now, either failing or succeeding in her mission, and an entire horde of butterflies unleashes in my stomach. I can’t think about Leela. Distraction is key. I glance at Luka, who has taken a seat on the edge of the bed and fiddles with his frayed hemp bracelet. “You look deep in thought.”

“I’m trying to figure out why we haven’t seen anything lately.”

He’s right. Where have all the white-eyed men gone? And what about the guy with the scar? I’ve slept two nights in a row without evil infiltrating my dreams. The more I think about it, the less sense it makes. “You’d think if evil were after us, we’d be easy targets here.”

“It’s almost like …”

“What?”

“I don’t know. It’s almost like something’s protecting us.” Luka shakes his head and stares down at his palms. “It’s driving me nuts, not knowing how I protected you.”

“You mean with the force-field thing?” He’s done it twice now. First in real life, when one of the white-eyed men lunged at me in the locker bay of our school, and again in a dream, while we were saving Pete. Both times, waves of light radiated from his palms and drove the darkness back. It was like a reaction, one he doesn’t know how to reproduce.

“I was trying to figure it out for at least two hours the other night in the alley.”

“Did you ever do it?”

“No, but it was exhausting work. I hadn’t planned on falling asleep.”

“You had a nightmare.” I pick at a hangnail on my thumb. He wouldn’t tell me about it yesterday, but maybe if I push now, with some distance between the memory of it, he’ll open up a little. “What was it about?”

“Nothing.” He’s lying. It wasn’t nothing. But he stands and holds up the now-empty hair dye box. “It’s been twenty minutes.”

Luka helps me rinse all the bleach from my head into the sink. I ring my hair out like a wet rag, then towel it dry. The sight of me in the mirror makes my eyes go a little buggy. “I look like an albino.”

“A very cute one.”

There it is again—one of those comments. They do funny things to my stomach.

“You sure you don’t want to keep it this way?” he teases.

“You prefer blondes, huh?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s more like white.”

“I think we’ll draw less attention to ourselves if I’m a brunette again.” I fill the second application bottle with the brown dye, pour in the golden booster, shake it up, and hand it over to Luka, who has put on a new pair of gloves. Not many boys his age could pull off the look. Luka, however, pulls it off well—wearing the perfect amount of amusement and self-deprecation.

Our eyes meet in the mirror’s reflection. One corner of his mouth curves up. “I have a thing for brunettes, by the way.”

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. Just how much would Summer and Jennalee mourn that statement? Once my hair is soaked in goo all over again, I don the second plastic cap and pick up the clippers from the vanity. “I’m assuming these aren’t for me.”

“Not unless you want a buzz cut.” Luka is still standing behind me, and the vibration of his voice tickles my ear. It makes me think of the warning on most side view mirrors—
objects are closer than they appear
. “It’s only a matter of time before I’m on the news too. Might as well disguise myself now. You ready to be the hair stylist?”

I’ve watched my mom give my dad haircuts with our clippers at home. This might be something I can actually do. “I think I can handle that.”

I stand. Luka sits.

“Just an all-around buzz?”

“Sounds good.”

It’s not a very flattering hairstyle. The lack of hair has a way of exacerbating every flaw. Even Pete, loved and adored by the girls, got a buzz cut in seventh grade and his nose went from endearingly crooked to distractingly crooked.

Maybe this will be good. Maybe a buzz cut on Luka will even the playing field a little.

I set the clippers to the lowest setting, let out a shaky breath, and get to work. The second I run my fingers through his hair, my body grows warm and fluttery. Neither of us speak. By the time I’m done and everything is even and his scalp feels like prickly stubble and my feet are surrounded by tufts of thick, dark hair, the room is so charged I have to take a quick step back just to catch my breath.

He shakes off the towel and brushes hair from his neck. “How does it look?”

“Um …”

“Uh-oh. It’s that bad?” He stands from the chair, sets his hands on the vanity, and leans closer to his reflection. He puts on his pair of black-rimmed glasses. In his well-fitting dark denim jeans and his white undershirt, he looks … incredibly sexy. There are no other words for it. The only thing the buzz cut has exacerbated is his perfection. He turns around and nods toward the clock. “Your twenty minutes is up.”

I grab my backpack and close myself inside the bathroom. I shower down, lathering and rinsing my hair. I dry off and dress quickly in a pair of jeans and my orange Crush t-shirt. I wipe the fog off the mirror and stare at myself. The color is so much lighter than I’m used to. I don’t look like me, and for the world I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or not.

“You gonna come out of there?” Luka calls.

No, actually, I’d rather not. But since I can’t hide in here forever … I take a deep breath and slowly step outside.

Luka wolf-whistles.

I blush.

“Ready for a cut?” he asks, wielding the scissors.

As much as I’d like to say
no, I’ve had enough change for one day, thank you very much
, the scissors are unavoidable. The more different I can look from the picture flashing about on TV, the better. I gather my hair into a long, wet ponytail at the nape of my neck and squeeze my eyes tight. Luka holds my hair in his palm and makes several slices right below the ponytail holder. When the slicing ceases, he holds up the ponytail no longer attached to my head. I take out the hair band and give my head a shake. The picture on the television screen showed a girl with long, dark hair. The girl in the mirror has chin length light brown hair. She is practically unrecognizable.

Luka tips his chin closer to my ear. “Mission accomplished.”

Goodbye

W
e eat bananas and beef jerky for lunch and spend the day pacing, speculating, studying the files, and fidgeting with the TV antenna. We’ve found a couple news stations, but the reception is so fuzzy we can barely make anything out.

One station airs a rerun of President Abigail Cormack’s victory speech after she won the election in November. My dad had us all stay up late so we could watch it together as a family. It’s a tradition—something we’ve done every four years—for as long as I can remember, a lot like Dad’s morning newspaper read-aloud routine. The Ekhart children will be nothing if not informed. But November had been a dark period—the month Dr. Roth asked me to keep a dream journal in exchange for information about my grandmother. I’d been so consumed with the quick deterioration of my life that I hadn’t paid much attention to anything our new president had to say.

Today, however, I find myself leaning closer to the screen, straining to hear the president’s words through the static. Everything she says sounds good on the surface, but my current circumstances have prompted me to turn her face-value statements inside out, and what I find underneath does not bode well.

“In these increasingly turbulent times, with the threat of war looming and political unrest abroad, we need to set down our differences. We need to cast aside those things that burden us. Those things that hinder us. We need to step past party lines and rise up together—united as one country. For we will only be as strong as we are united, as powerful as our weakest links.”

The crowd—democrats and republicans alike—rise up for a standing ovation.

She begins speaking about new initiatives and lofty plans and a fresh vision for our country. The audience is enthralled. They eat every promise from the palm of her hand. I vaguely remember my dad being impressed after it aired the first time, and he’s very rarely impressed.

Luka jabs the power button on the remote and the television shuts off.

President Cormack’s declarations must have rubbed him the wrong way, too. I stare at the black screen, chewing over her words. Is our president really concerned about weak links, or is she simply afraid of anyone who is different? It’s that kind of philosophy that got me locked up at the Edward Brooks Facility. It’s that kind of philosophy that birthed a place like Shady Wood. I recall the rooms filled with the living dead—rows upon rows of emaciated adults lying comatose in hospital beds, all in the name of rehabilitation. The image haunts me.

Luka peeks out through a crack in the vertical blinds, letting in a sunbeam. It’s not a common thing in Northern California. I lift up my hand and place it in the thin stream of light. I’d give anything to be outside. When Luka lets go, the blind swings back and forth, chopping apart the sun, then extinguishing it altogether. He joins me on the bed, sitting on the edge near my feet. I’ve never seen Luka’s wrist without his hemp bracelet. So when he slides it off and thumbs the three small stones woven in place, I’m a little more than attentive.

“Where did you get it?” I finally ask.

“My mom gave it to me when my visions first started.”

“What are the stones?”

“Jade, onyx, and red jasper.” He touches each one as he gives their name. “They’re supposedly protective stones. Red jasper is known to protect against fears in the night. Jade guards against misfortune. And onyx …” His green eyes meet mine. “Some people believe that the absence of light can be used to create invisibility.”

I can only imagine what my dad would say to that. “Did she believe it would work?”

“I think she wanted me to feel safe.”

I wait for him to slip the bracelet back on. Instead, he folds up the hem of my jeans and wraps it around my ankle. The feather light touch of his fingertips against my skin has my pulse skipping several beats. “Maybe you can borrow it for a while.”

My body goes warm. I can’t tell if it’s an emotional reaction from Luka’s sweet gesture, or if the bracelet really does have protective powers. I touch the stones, then fold down my jeans. The warmth remains.

We feast on dry cereal and raisins, talking about everything and nothing. Luka asks me questions—all kinds. About the places I’ve lived and the books I’ve read and the things that make me laugh. I’m positive I’m boring him, but he listens like he’s riveted. Like the things I say are the most interesting things a person could hear.

I ask him questions, too. He tells me about the time his first and only pet—a Bernese Mountain dog named Jack—ran away. He tells me about his first trip to the ER, when he ended up with thirteen stitches on his right elbow after attempting a barspin on his buddy’s BMX. He tells me about his favorite birthday to date—when he turned eight and his dad not only bought him a surfboard, but taught him how to use it. Luka rode his first wave on his fourth try and never looked back. The thrill was addicting. Listening to him talk about it makes me want to surf. He says someday he’ll teach me. I’ve never been more eager for
someday
.

Later in the afternoon, Luka starts to doze. I let him. After the lack of sleep he’s gotten over the past two days, he has to be exhausted. I lay on my stomach next to him, safely tucked away on my side of the mattress. When his breathing turns soft and rhythmic, I can’t help myself. I stare, fascinated by the relaxed way his arm curls over his head. The long, dark eyelashes fanning his cheek. The straightness of his nose, the flatness of his abs, the thin strip of exposed flesh between the hem of his shirt and the waist of his jeans.

My heart thrums faster.

Luka stirs.

I look away. I will not have him waking up to me staring. How creepy can a girl get? I page through the dream journals, my mind rabbit-trailing in a thousand different directions—my parents, Pete, Leela, Luka, and where I’d be if he hadn’t gone to Dr. Roth for help. I envision Dr. Roth swinging on the noose and then my grandmother, shackled inside a white box of a room, and suddenly, I am somewhere else. I’m still lying on the motel’s bed, because I can feel my body against the mattress. But I must be somewhere else, too, because the bed is surrounded by a bright circle of sentinel-like creatures.

Each one radiates the same light that Luka threw out with his hands, only their entire bodies glow with it. Beyond the circle is the man who calls me Little Rabbit. The man who no longer has one scar, but two. The second one is angry and red, running the length of his once unmarked cheek. He’s surrounded by an entire army of white-eyed men, and he’s directing them like a puppeteer, flinging out his hands so they charge at me over and over and over again, gnashing their teeth as they attack. The bright light keeps them away.

But surely, it is only a matter of time before one of them breaks through.

“Tess.” Someone shakes my shoulder. “Tess!”

My eyelids flutter. The light and the army disappear. I am lying in bed, surrounded by nothing but cheap motel décor. I sit up so fast my head spins. Somehow, the clock reads 8:55. I’m not sure how it’s possible, since I’m positive I never fell asleep. I was never unaware of my body on that bed. Yet three whole hours passed like a snap.

“Are you okay?” Luka asks, his hand on my arm.

My heart beats wildly. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

Luka’s face fills with the same suspicion I felt when he shrugged off my question about his nightmare. He will want to know what happened, but how can I tell him when I have no idea what happened myself? Was that real, what I saw? I scoot off the bed and pick up the phone from the nightstand. “It’s time to call Leela.”

*