“Impossible,” Quinn mutters.
I don’t ask what happens if I’m not successful. There’s no need. I just have to get the information to Allie.
Allie
Exhaustion shakes Talia’s muscles as she raises the weighted barbell.
“Come on! One more!” I’ve got my fingers under the metal, spotting her as she lifts, just as she’d done for me earlier.
With a grunt of struggle, she pushes the weights one final inch skyward and racks the bar.
Talia sits up on the weight bench, elbows on her knees as she catches her breath. Sweat trickles through her hair to drop from her forehead to the padded tiles before she swipes what remains away with her arm.
I circle to the front of the bench and take a seat beside her. At my feet is a water bottle so reused the plastic has gone cloudy. I unscrew the scratched cap and drink before passing it to Talia. Hers is still in her gym bag in the partitioned-off changing area.
“Thanks,” she says. She drains half and hands it back. “How are…” There’s a delicate pause before she forces herself on. “How are you and Ploy? Smooth things over after you got home last night?”
The effort of asking about him is costing her, even if I still can’t get her to call him by his actual name. Today, I let it slide.
I pick at one of the few remnants of label left glued to the bottle. “I don’t know,” I admit.
After unlocking the door to the apartment last night, I was sure he wouldn’t be there. Seeing him sleeping seemed more a mirage than ever when I woke up this morning to find him gone. No word, no text, no note, his pack against the couch the only proof he’d been there or would return. I’m not the type of girl to sit around waiting so I’m here. Real mature way to solve your problems, Allie, I think.
“Oh? Trouble in paradise?” Talia asks and there’s no denying the sliver of hope in her voice. Wincing, she rolls her shoulder and groans. “Didn’t take to being told our business was none of his?”
I decide to cut her some slack. I need to talk this out, and Talia’s my only option.
“We haven’t discussed it.” Getting up, I perch my hands on my hips and start to pace, telling myself it’s to stretch. “He was asleep on the couch like usual when I got home and gone when I came out of my room this morning.”
For a moment Talia says nothing. When she does, it’s a single word. “Couch?”
“He sleeps on the couch,” I say.
“Wait.” She leans back to take me in, braced on the bench. “You two aren’t sleeping together?”
“In the bed? No.”
A giggle breaks from her. “I didn’t mean in the bed, Allie.”
Heat floods my neck. “Oh, and you’re so experienced!” I shoot back. Talia’s never had a boyfriend, either. “You’re just as behind as I am!”
Her laughter fades to an awkward chuckle and then stops. “Fair point. But I figured after I busted you two dry humping on the fold out when you stayed at my place…I mean no rush, he’s your first real boyfriend.”
A sigh escapes me as I fiddle with the bottle’s lid. “Technically, he’s not even that. He keeps dropping hints about us being a couple or official or whatever, but Talia, this life…my life…and he’s…”
He’s hiding something. I’m not naïve enough to act as if he and I have ever had a moment where we didn’t keep secrets from each other, but this is different. I know what lies look like on him. How he closes off in the tiniest increments. Before Talia called last night, he’d wanted to tell me something. “He’s off,” I finish.
“Off as in he’s not doing the dishes when you ask or off as in he’s a villain, romancing you to exploit any trust he gains?”
It would be funny if it wasn’t precisely what happened two weeks ago. It would be funny if I knew for sure.
She waits for me to fill in the details. Her black eyebrow wings upward to spur me on. I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have kept my mouth shut. There’s no way Talia’s letting this go without a full explanation. “Spill it,” she says as if to prove my point.
I sip my water to buy time and collect my thoughts. “The last two days he’s been getting text messages,” I say. “The thing is, if I’m around, he ignores them. No reaction. It’s like…” I search for the right words. “You know how little kids think when they close their eyes, it makes them invisible?”
Perplexed, she nods.
“He ignores the texts,” I go on, “and I’m supposed to pretend I don’t notice them either.”
“Okay,” Talia says, stretching out the syllables. “Ploy has friends, true?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I met one of them. From the Boxcar Camp. His name’s LowLow.”
“Not a Kyle in the bunch, huh?” It’s an obvious attempt to break the tension. When it doesn’t work, Talia studies me. “You think he’s seeing someone else?”
“No,” I say instantly. He’s chosen me over and over. In the cabin. In Jamison’s cellar. Why can’t I let this go? How many times will I make him prove himself to me? “Am I being irrational?”
She shrugs. “Does it matter? You’re breaking things off. At least he made it easy on you,” she quips. “He’s perpetually packed.”
Instead of being annoyed or mad, all I feel is dread. “About that,” I say halfheartedly.
“You are ending it, Allie.”
It’s not a question. Talia paws at the new sweat that’s sprouted to drip from her hairline. I say nothing.
“Allie?” she presses.
“I don’t need to end it!” The admission leaves me, scarcely more than breath. “You told me they would scrutinize the three of us if I didn’t step up,” I say, trying not to sound defensive. “I’m stepping up, aren’t I? He and I came to you when he was followed. And last night I helped you with CJ.”
“You came to me! You helped me!” she says in disbelief as she pounds a fist against her chest. “That’s not stepping up. That’s bare minimum involvement!” She sucks a lungful of air and I know we’re in the eye of this hurricane. “Have you dug up anything on the hunters? Have you done a single resurrection alone? Have you reached out to the other clusters in any way? The members of our cluster?”
“No.”
“No,” she repeats.
Before Sarah died, I was done with this life. Now, with no income and no backup plan, I can’t drop it so easily. I can almost rationalize it as selling the skills I have to people who need them, ignore that I’m taking advantage of terrified families who have no other choice, profiting off sorrow. I’m—
Not doing this, I tell myself. None of it matters.
“Next job’s mine, then,” I declare.
“Is that wise?” From the note of satisfaction in her voice, it’s obvious she saved whatever’s coming to lord over me. “You said you were having nightmares. Ploy said you weren’t sleeping. But the panic attacks?”
Last night was bad. Still, I carried through and the job got done. “Under control.”
She takes me in for a long moment, dubious. “You’ve fought me every step of the way on this and now you want to jump in, both feet?”
“Yup.” I pop the p.
“Why?”
“I’m ready. I’ll run this cluster. I’ll annihilate every hunter. I’ll guarantee no one has a reason to dig into what happened with Jamison,” I say, the argument draining my remaining energy. “If keeping Christopher off everyone’s radar means resurrecting, that’s what I’ll do. Whatever it takes to keep him alive, I’ll do it.”
Hurt crashes across her face. “You’ll do it for him,” she says in a sharp whisper.
“Stop,” I caution. Her attitude grinds through my bones until I’m gunpowder, a fuse, a sputtering spark. Grenade, Christopher’s voice whispers and my thoughts spiral out of focus.
“You can’t hide him forever. What happens when this goes bad?” Talia demands.
I channel every bit of calm I can before I answer. “No one will find out we lied,” I say. “Even i
f he and Jamison have random history together that comes to light, it will not come down on you. For all anyone knows, he came into the picture after the farmhouse. I’ll be the one that catches flack for not having him background checked and cleared immediately.”
“Flack?” Talia smacks the black vinyl covering of the bench in frustration.
The water fountain at the back of the gym cycles on, it’s droning the only sound until Talia breaks the silence.
“We lied about him!” she starts. “Our complicity snowballs every day we don’t admit we know what he is. And it’s not if they find something, it’s when. Keeping Ploy around is a death sentence for both of us!” Her voice rises to a jeer. “He’s not a good person, Allie! He lies! He scams and steals and wriggles info out of you he should never know!” She pauses, exasperated. “He is literally from the wrong side of the tracks!”
Layered over the noise in my head, a part of me argues there’s a way through this mess to the other side for me and him. I only have to find it. Christopher’s a survivor. We could make it, the two of us. A team, like he said.
He’s chosen me over and over, every time. Now, it’s my turn to choose him.
I meet her rage with determination. “You’re wrong about him, Talia.”
Her frustrated swear reverberates through the room. “You’re already convinced he’s hiding something!”
When I don’t react, she draws a breath to ramp up her argument but I hold up a hand.
“No, I’m done talking about this,” I say, struggling to keep from exploding. “Aren’t you tired? Because you’re exhausting to be around!” I rocket the bottle toward the cinderblock wall. It spirals until it smacks with a crackle of a thud and drops to the floor. “Just stop, okay!”
Movement at the corner of my eye draws me short. We’re not alone.
“Allie,” Talia starts. My fingers snag her arm to silence her.
CJ hovers in the doorway. He hikes the gym bag he’s carrying. “Sorry,” he says. “I promise I didn’t hear anything. My mom dropped me off.”
Time stretches. The water fountain clicks on again.
“Damn it,” Talia mumbles.
“Hey! Hi!” I say. My enthusiastic greeting only adds to the awkwardness. “No worries! We were just arguing about whether to go another round.”
CJ’s not buying it. He watches as Talia stands and stalks the space behind me, all coiled rage with no outlet.
“On the way home last night, you mentioned plans to be here. I was hoping,” he drawls as his attention slides to me. “If you have time, can we go over defense moves? That guy caught me off guard yesterday. I don’t want it to happen again.”
This is me stepping up, I think. This is me leading. “Absolutely. Set your stuff down.”
While he turns his back, I catch Talia’s eye and give her a nod loaded with unspoken apologies. Her frown digs deeper and then she nods once, heading toward the walled-off section that serves as a makeshift locker room. We’re not finished, but we’re okay for now.
“Don’t go easy on the kid,” she adds over her shoulder.
“You know I won’t,” I call before I round on CJ. “All right. First lesson. Each job you go on should teach you something new and improve your skills.” I give him a once over, his nerves blatant under my assessing gaze. “What’s one thing you learned yesterday?”
He tips his sneaker onto its toe. “Double knotted,” he offers.
“That’s my boy,” I say as I start us toward the mat.
Ploy
It’s almost two before a pre-paid cab drops me off at the same spot where I met Quinn earlier. My head’s a mess of exhaustion and adrenaline. All I want is Allie. After how I left this morning, I might not be welcome. It doesn’t matter.
“Thanks, man,” I say as I peel the lone five-dollar bill off the stack Nico gave me as a tip. I step onto the curb and watch the driver until he’s out of sight. I’m postponing the inevitable.
I’ve got to come clean, tell Allie what I learned today, how the hunters sold one of her people, how they’re searching for Corbin and Jamison.
She’ll see I was right. She’ll understand I can be an asset.
I make it up the stairs and down the hall, dragging my fingers along the wall. My palm bounces over the trim of the entrance to the unoccupied apartment on my way to hers. From outside her door, I hear her ringtone. Guessing she’s on the other side, I knock to save myself the trouble of getting my key.
“Allie?” I call. “Can I come in?”
The phone goes on ringing. Stops. Starts. It takes me almost the entire run through her ringtone before I fish into my pocket for my key. Half a second later, her phone goes off again.
She has to be in the shower.
I grab the knob, unnerved when it twists in my hand without me unlocking it.
The hairs along my arms prickle. They got her.
I replay the strategies Nico outlined after they agreed to give me my two days, the information she craved, all the ways she kept me in the house, minutes dragging into hours. The longer the conversation went on, the more agitated East seemed until he disappeared at some point. Could he have come here?
“Allie?” I call as I open the door. Her phone is on the end table near the armrest of the couch. “Allie?”
She doesn’t answer.
The ringing stops. A notification blinks. Six missed calls. The screen lights up with the same number as it rings again.
I carry her phone with me to the kitchen, my steps quickening as I hook my fingers on the threshold to her bedroom and do a quick visual sweep. Empty. The bathroom door is open, the light off.
She should be here. She wouldn’t leave the apartment unlocked any more than she’d go anywhere without her phone. You blew it, Jamison whispers.
This isn’t happening. I scan the room as if Allie will manifest and then hit the button to accept the call. “Hello?” I say.
Silence.
My grip on the phone tightens. I wait. It’s Nico. They decided I wasn’t worth the shot or East overruled and went solo to the source like he wanted. Allie’s gone. I’m too late. They’re calling to… What, torture me? Brag? Tell me to keep the cash and enjoy the free place to stay? My tongue darts to wet my lips, voice rough as I force the words. “Do you have her?”
Whoever’s there exhales. “Oh thank God. No one answered! I called and called and no one answered.”
My body unclenches. I don’t know who’s on the other end, but it’s not Nico. So where is Allie?
“You fix things? This is the right number?”
As if I don’t have enough on my plate, the universe piles on another spoonful of problems. Why did I answer her phone? “Um, did you need—how’d you get this number?”
There’s a pause. “I bought it,” she says. “On the dark web.”
“Seriously?” I ask. I mean, it makes sense. It’s just not the answer I expected. I probably shouldn’t have even asked. “Okay, so you’ve got the right number but she’s not available at this exact second.” I’ve got the presence of mind to head toward the kitchen for a pen and some paper. Something tells me I’ll need it. I’ve never heard Allie take a resurrectionist phone call. I don’t know what secrets they keep and what they reveal. “Listen,” I say. “I’m going to ask you questions.”
A shuddering breath blots the background noise, a moan, then a clatter.
“What address do you need her to come to?” I ask, opening a drawer for a pen I don’t find. I swipe my hand over the top of the fridge before I spot a magnetic marker attached to a shopping list stuck to the freezer door.
The woman rattles off the name of a street and house number. It’s right down the road from us, but I’m not about to tell her. “What happened?”
“He’s in the garage. In the car.”
I’m grasping at all the things important for a resurrection. “Do you know how long ago he—” I cut off. I can’t bring myself to say it.
“Um… Not long?” It’s
as if she’s trying to invent the answer she thinks I want.
“Okay,” I say. “Not long is good. We’ll be there soon, all right?” I’m about to start searching for Allie again when something else occurs to me. “Is the garage closed? Did anyone see him besides you?”
“No,” she says. Except I heard noise earlier and I’m not sure if her answer was to my question, or someone else’s. If others saw this guy dead, as far as I know, Allie isn’t supposed to do the resurrection.
“Hold tight. We’re on our way.”
“Two of you? Who is this?” she asks.
I hang up, tearing the address free. The last of the grocery list—grapes? stuff for tacos, bread—comes off with it.
The door to the apartment opens.
“Allie?” I call, aware I sound a little frantic.
Thumbing through the mail in her hand, she freezes when she hears me. Her hair’s wet and bunned, as if she’s fresh from a shower. Her bottom lip is swollen. “You’re here,” she says, carefully. “You were asleep when I got back and then this morning—”
I hold her phone like an offering on my palm. “I’m sorry. I answered it. It kept ringing, and I thought—” I thought someone took you. I swallow hard. I almost said it. “It was for a resurrection.”
“Oh,” she says.
“I took notes?” It comes out a question as I hand her the torn sheet.
She reads over it quickly. “Give me that,” she says, grabbing for the phone and by her reaction I screwed up big time. I’m not sure if she’s mad about our fight yesterday, or this.
“Allie, I—”
“It’s not your fault,” she says, dialing. “This is Talia’s work.” As she trails into silence, Talia’s end clicks over to voicemail. “Who is predictably not available.”
“Why didn’t Talia take this resurrection?” I ask.
For a moment she stands, eyes closed, silently fuming. “Because the next job’s mine,” she says. When she speaks again, her voice is clinical. “I have to get my stuff. I’ll take care of this and I swear, I swear we’ll talk when I’m done.”
Something Grave: The Resurrectionists Series book two Page 12
