Undead Much (24 page)

  Of course, just reading about psychotic breaks was enough to make me
certain
I was having one. Because I was just
that
crazy. Here I’d thought I was just a little high-strung, but now I knew I was a breakdown waiting to happen. I was a freak, a virus-ridden freak whose parents had lied to her her entire life. It made me feel like I was suffocating. Dad couldn’t
not
be my dad. I loved him so much, and I’d assumed he loved me.

  But what if he didn’t? What if he secretly hated me for being someone else’s kid? A psychopath’s kid? A diseased psychopath’s unholy offspring-

  “Megan, I couldn’t find the backpack. I think I left it in my locker at school like an idiot. You want to come with me to grab it?” God! Not Aaron again. Couldn’t he take a freaking hint? “Hey… are you okay?”

  I shoved the file back in my purse as fast as I could, keeping my face down. “Fine, I’m fine.” I didn’t want anyone to see me crying, especially not Aaron. His idea of comfort would no doubt involve his hands in places I didn’t want, and I just couldn’t deal with that right now. I’d probably punch him in the nose because that was what people on the verge of a psychotic break did.

  “You don’t sound fine. Are you crying?”

  “No, I just… I think it’s something I ate.” I swiped at my cheeks and slung my purse over my shoulder. I had to get away from Aaron. Now. “Or maybe something I didn’t eat. I didn’t have time to grab anything after practice. I think I should go hit the tents before we get started.”

  “I’ll come with you,” he said, following me onto the ice in his street shoes.

  “I’d really rather be alone right now, but thanks.”

  “Come on, let me buy you a funnel cake. We can eat it in my car.”

  “No thanks, I-”

  “I bet you’ll feel better if you sit in a warm car for a few minutes.” He reached for my arm, but I managed to slip away before he could catch my elbow.

  “No,” I snapped, skating faster toward the tents, not sure where I was going to go when I reached the edge of the ice, just knowing I had to get away from Aaron. What was
with
this guy?

  “What about some hot chocolate?” He caught me this time, his infuriating paws closing around my waist.

  “Aaron, leave me-Ah!” My one hundred and eighty-degree turn to face Aaron turned into a three hundred and sixty-degree spin into a major fall. I hit the ice chin-first with a very unladylike “oomph.” Though I doubted anyone noticed my grunt, considering my skirt was suddenly up around my armpits.

  I scrambled to right myself, but between the slippery ice and

  Aaron’s efforts to “help” me up, I couldn’t seem to get my kilt back down where it was supposed to be.

  “Omg! Granny panties, much?” The high-pitched voice was met by giggles. I looked up to see Nina, the new flyer for the cheerleaders, doing her best to earn her gold scrunchie of evil. Kimberly, Kate, Lee, and a couple other cheer-witches stood next to her, laughing, quickly drawing attention to our side of the pond.

  By the time I got to my feet and pulled my skirt down, half the student body of CHS had seen my “granny panties.” And they
were
grannyish. I hadn’t had time to do laundry in nearly two weeks and was down to my comfy briefs, which were big on fabric and extremely low on sex appeal.

Like it would have been any better wearing a black thong?
The voice of reason was so dead-on. There was no “right” underwear to be wearing in a situation like this. Just like there was no “right” response to the laughter floating toward me from what felt like
every
direction.

  Still, I was pretty sure running from the ice in tears wasn’t the coolest choice I could have made, especially since I tripped again at the edge of the lake and nearly bit the dust a second time. I was halfway to busting my face in the frozen dirt when two hands grabbed me and set me back on my feet.

  “Come on, this way.”

  I clung to the hand Cliff slipped into mine and followed him through the woods, away from the sound of Aaron’s voice calling my name, not even caring that I shouldn’t. No matter how strange it was to feel more comforted by the hand of a dead boy than by that of an alive one, there was no denying I’d rather be here in the woods hiding with Cliff than with Aaron. I was just lucky he still wanted to be around me.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, sniffing as we found an isolated place under the trees, far from the crashing sound of Aaron pursuing me through the fallen leaves in the opposite direction. “I’m really sorry I said those mean things earlier.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry too… about your dad. I should have told you this morning,” he said, finding a sheltered place behind one of the larger trees. “Last night, after I left the clinic, I had a vision, the biggest vision yet, really. I knew what you were going to read in that file-I even saw you fall down on the ice. I should have told you instead of letting you find out while you were alone.”

  “No, it’s okay.” I sniffed again and swiped the last of the tears from my face. “I don’t think there is a good way to find out my dad isn’t my dad.” Oh crap, shouldn’t have gone there. I was going to start crying again, and after I’d just gotten myself relatively cleaned up.

  Cliff pulled me in for one of those hard, loving hugs like my grandmother always gave. My maternal grandmother, who was still my
real
grandmother. God, I hadn’t even thought about all my dad’s family not being my real family anymore. This just kept getting worse and worse.

  “Of course he’s still your dad-genes don’t change that,” Cliff said, hugging me even tighter. “That other dude is just a sperm donor.”

  “But I have a virus,” I said, my voice cracking.

  Cliff laughed. “You make it sound like a death sentence. From what I’ve seen, that virus only makes you stronger than other Settlers. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.”

  “It’s also supposed to make me break psychotically.”

  “Nothing could make you break psychotically. You’re too tough.” Cliff pulled back to look me in the eyes.

  He was short enough that the action put our noses a few inches apart and our lips only a little further away than that. I knew I shouldn’t have been thinking about his lips, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. As powerfully as Aaron skeeved me out, and as much as what I felt for Ethan scared me with its intensity, Cliff put me at ease just as powerfully. He made me feel safe and weirdly relaxed, a little dizzy, and more than a little… curious.

  “Did you hear me, Megan Berry?” he asked, his words a warm whisper that caressed my parted lips. “You’re strong and smart and you can handle anything that comes your way. You’ve got to handle it, because-”

  I shut him up by pressing my lips to his. I hadn’t consciously decided to kiss him, but I just couldn’t deal with hearing about what I
had
to handle. I didn’t feel like I could handle anything right now-not my family, or my boyfriend, or Settling, or even getting up the courage to go back out on the ice and face the people who had seen my underwear.

  And I certainly couldn’t handle learning that Cliff was a way better kisser than I’d imagined.

  He didn’t hesitate for a second, simply cupped my face in his warm hands and pulled me closer, like he’d known exactly how he wanted to kiss me for a long time. His lips were confident, but at the same time unbelievably gentle. Cliff didn’t make me feel pressured-he made me feel alive and warm and wonderful.

  Dizziness spun through my head, and that giddy, low-blood-sugar feeling descended with a vengeance, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything but-

  “Megan?”

  Oh God, no. It couldn’t be. But there wasn’t much chance I was mistaken. We’d only been going out for few months, but I would have known that voice anywhere.

CHAPTER 18

I
read in a book one time that a woman’s voice was “dripping with pain.” I remember thinking it was a weird way to describe a sound. But now I understood. When Ethan said my name, I could feel his pain dripping all over me, like some sort of horrible acid that burned my skin and made my heart feel like it was going to explode.

  I jumped away from Cliff, but it was too late. The shock and hurt on Ethan’s face left no doubt he’d seen what I’d been up to.

  “Ethan, I-”

  “Don’t. Just don’t,” he said, swallowing so hard I could see his Adam’s apple bob up and down.

  “Please, don’t go,” I called after him. “I’m sorry, I never meant-”

  “I don’t care what you meant.” He stopped and spun around, glaring at me with what looked like tears in his eyes. “This isn’t going to work. I won’t let you treat me like some sort of rapist while you mess around with another guy behind my back.”

  “I wasn’t messing around, I swear,” I hiccupped, tears streaming down my face. This couldn’t be happening! I couldn’t have ruined everything with the boy I loved with one stupid kiss. What had I done? “It was just one time.”

  “One time is enough,” he whispered. “I’m done.”

  “Ethan, I-”

  “I don’t want to see you anymore.”

  “Ethan!” I tried to follow him as he stormed away, but I was so dizzy that I would have tripped over my skates and fallen if Cliff hadn’t caught me a second time.

  This time, however, his touch didn’t make me feel better. It just reminded me what a horrible person I was. It suddenly hit me that I was just like my mom-a cheater. A lying, filthy cheater too stupid to think about how many lives I could screw up with just one kiss.

  “I’m sorry, I just…” I pulled away and buried my face in my hands. I couldn’t stand to look at him right now. It wasn’t his fault, but that didn’t make it any easier. “I’m awful. I can’t believe I-”

  “You just got some horrible news. You weren’t yourself,” he said. “Once you talk to Ethan and let him know about your dad, he’ll understand this was an accident. A reaction to stress or a moment of insanity or-”

  “But it wasn’t,” I whispered, using my sleeve to clean up my face. Gross, but better messy sleeve than messy nose. “I wanted to kiss you.”

  Cliff was silent for a second. “No, you didn’t. Not really.”

  “No… I think I-”

  “No. You didn’t.” Cliff’s voice was way firmer than anything I’d ever heard from him before. “This is my fault. I should have told you.”

  “Should have told me what?”

  He sighed and shoved his glasses back up his nose. “I haven’t been coming to see you because I need Settling or even because I want to help. I mean, I
do
want to help, but that’s not… It’s just… Man, this is harder than I thought.”

  “What’s harder than you thought?” I asked, knowing I wasn’t going to like what Cliff had to say. God, I was
sick
of everyone hiding things from me! “Tell me!”

  “I-I’ve been feeding on you. I
have
to feed on you or I’ll-”

  “
Feeding
on me?”

  “On your energy. Sort of like a battery?” He blushed bright red, clearly as embarrassed as I was skeeved. “Your power is what’s keeping me out of my grave, what’s making me strong so I can help you. It’s
connecting
us, which might make you feel… I mean, it’s certainly made me feel… Though I think I would have felt that anyway because I just think you’re-”

  “You’ve been lying to me.” I felt something deep inside me freeze over. “This whole time.”

  “No! Not at first. I didn’t know at first, but then I had that vision last night. More like a visitation really. It was like nothing I’ve ever-”

  “Great. Congratulations.” I spun on my skate and headed back toward the ice, needing to be far away from Cliff and the dizziness and guilt and anger he inspired.

  “Megan, come back. We have to get down to the river. In my vision, I saw-”

  “I don’t care,” I tossed over my shoulder. “You’re a liar!”

  Leaves crunched under Cliff’s feet as he ran after me. “Not about this. I swear! And I swear I’ll tell you everything, I just-” I heard Cliff cry out and turned in time to see his eyelids fluttering and his eyes roll back in his head.

  “Cliff?” He groaned as he fell to his knees, clutching at his head. “Are you okay?”

  “Run, Megan. Get to the river. You have to get to the river. They’re coming. Tonight. They’re-”

  “Who’s coming?”

  “They’re not like the others. But if they rise… You have to go. Don’t let them stop you, don’t-” He cried out and fell the rest of the way to the ground, toppling into the fresh snow.

  “Cliff?” I squatted down and pressed a hand to his cheek. He was burning up, and when I touched him flinched like he was in pain.

  “
Habeo are transit
.”

  “What?”

  “
Habeo are transit.
It’s a spell you have to remember. Hopefully we won’t need it but-”

  “What the heck? Now you’re some sort of magical expert?”

  “No, but I’ve been hearing those words in my head since that day we went for a walk outside your house, and now I know what they mean,” he said, the intensity in his eyes scaring me a little. “It’s a spell, and it’s the way you’ll be able to get the one heart you need if-”

  “One heart?” The words made me shiver.

  “If these zombies rise tonight, you’re going to need a heart to put them back in the ground. I’m not sure how you’re going to-”

  “A heart? Great.” I rolled my eyes and backed away. “God, Cliff, that’s basically black magic. Messing around with blood and internal organs and stuff? You’ve got to get a special permit to get anything like that and then drive up to this SA-approved slaughterhouse in Missouri to-”

  “Not an animal heart, a human heart.”

  “Shit.” I shook my head, feeling sick just thinking about what he was saying. Human sacrifice. That was black magic-midnight black-even if you got the heart from someone who was already dead. “No freaking way.”

  “I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner and let you get used to the idea,” he said.

  “I’m never going to get used to the idea because-” I broke off, something on the wind demanding my attention.