Vial Things (The Resurrectionists Book 1)
Page 17
“Was it?” he asks. He crosses his arms and leans against the counter. His sigh is weary. “I don’t want to fight.”
“Lover’s spat?” Talia asks from behind us. She tosses me a hairbrush and my deodorant. “Thought you could use those.”
“We’re not lovers,” I say, shoving the toiletries into the bag.
Talia’s snort of disbelief tells me just how much she’s enjoying this and I wonder if she’s forgotten how dangerous any feelings I have for Ploy are. “You two sure looked pretty cozy when I interrupted you on the pullout earlier,” she says. The comment only amps up the rage boiling inside me.
“Talia.” I catch her eye. “Don’t.”
Any trace of humor drops from her face. “Sorry,” she mumbles.
Ploy, whether out of a sense of self-preservation or because he agrees with me, keeps his mouth shut for once.
“Do you need anything else?” Talia asks.
“No.” Now that it’s clear there’ll be no attack, my adrenaline starts to dwindle. It’s nearly five in the morning. “Let’s just get out of here.”
I lock up silently. We get to the car and I slip into the passenger seat without a word to Ploy. When we make it to Talia’s I plug the charger into my phone and flop down on the mattress, as far to one side as I can. After a trip to the bathroom, Ploy climbs in on the other side. Neither of us attempts an apology. Instead, we lay, wordless and fuming.
Talia’s bedroom door opens. “Allie,” she calls. “Can you come in here and help me fill out my casebook?”
It’s after five the morning, so it takes a second before the oddness of what she’s said registers. I’m burning for sleep. “Um, yeah, sure,” I say, sitting up. I hope Ploy doesn’t notice my confusion, though he seems to be steadfastly ignoring me. Talia doesn’t have a casebook. Logging in the cases would be my job now. She wouldn’t write in it.
“Shut the door behind you,” she says in a low voice when I get there. Once it’s closed, she scoots over on the bed so I can sit. Talia flicks a finger toward the closed door, the living room beyond where Ploy lays. “What’re we doing about that?”
I sigh hard. “The fight? It’s nothing,” I say. “We’re figuring out each other’s boundaries.”
She toys with the edge of the sheet. A desperate flutter fills my lungs and I know she wasn’t talking about Ploy and I arguing.
“Why bother?” she whispers suddenly. “I get what you were after with him. But that’s over.” She glances up and then her eyes dart to her dresser. Pictures are stuck in the crack where the wood frames the mirror, the chains of several necklaces hooked around one of the corners. For a second, she seems to be watching our reflections. Our eyes find each other. “Everything else aside, he’s a street kid. He’s broke. He’s got no job, no prospects and the only roof over his head is yours.”
She opens her mouth to go on but I hold out my hand, listing off on my fingers. My voice comes out too loud. “I’ve got no job, no prospects and the roof over my head was paid for by Sarah.”
The fierce determination in her eyes wavers when they meet mine. “Exactly! If you’re not taking on cases anymore, what the hell kind of life are your expecting with that guy?”
“That guy saved my life.” I think back over the last couple days, the gunshot wound, the fire at Sarah’s. “More than once.”
“While everyone else was dying.”
My lips part, but I’m too wounded by her words to come up with a retort.
“He thinks you’re weak,” she says.
I scoff. “Because I hoped Jamison was at my apartment and went in without a plan? That doesn’t make him think I’m weak. That makes him think I’m upset and not thinking clearly and it’s his way of calling me on it.” I’m practically yelling. He has to be able to hear that last line through the closed door. I’ve got to get myself under control, but he needs to know this as much as she does. “We’ve known each other for months. We were friends until I kissed him. And you know what he did? He stopped me. Because he was worried I was only doing it because I was upset about Sarah. Because I was scared.” Do you see why I’m torn? I want to scream. The fight runs out of me as quickly as it came. “I killed someone, Talia. Some old man who probably would have done anything he needed to get my blood. But I still killed him.” I stand up, the sheets sliding underneath me. When I speak, my voice is quiet again. “You’re gonna have to forgive me if I’m not exactly jumping at the chance to do it again. Let alone to Ploy.”
Talia’s words come out a whisper. “You’re in way over your head, Allie. He’s dangerous. He needs to be put down. If you can’t do it, I will.”
“You think I’m weak, too, then?” The retort is instant, past my lips before I think about what I’m saying. The wounded look on her face tells me I’ve hit a nerve. My voice shakes. “You think I don’t know what needs to be done?” I say lowering my voice.
Her shoulders are tight and drawn. She won’t look at me.
“He’s only alive because we need him to lead us to Jamison,” I say.
“And if we didn’t need him?” she asks in a hushed tone and then draws a breath. My aunt’s notebook is balanced on the knee of one of her crossed legs. Her hand trembles as she lays it on the cover.
My skin breaks out in goose bumps, adrenaline rushing through me. “You found something.”
“Your mother’s section.” Talia’s whisper is barely a breath. My throat goes dry as she hands the notebook over, her head down. I flip open the leather cover and tab to her section. “Eleventh page.”
My fingers brush past the dividers.
“There,” she says. The handwriting is the same scrawl that decorated my school lunch bags, birthday cards. My mother’s.
Alba Solorzano. Age 39. Son called after his mother fell down the stairs and told him my number before losing consciousness due to head wound (floor vs forehead). Resurrection within time period. No complications. Witnesses to death: Son, Jamison – age 15 Husband – age 38
His address is on there. Or, at least where he lived when it happened. A phone number. Christ, everything we need to find him. He might not be living at home anymore, but someone will know where to find him.
“We’re going after him. Now.”
“Allie—”
“He won’t expect it! We can get him, Talia!”
The look she gives me brims with pity. “Keep reading.”
My attention snaps to the page. Below it is a second entry. Then a third. “What?” I manage.
UPDATE: Alba Solorzano. Age 39. Treated with a transfusion after incurring an unhealing wound, it was later speculated that Solorzano’s injury was the direct result of experimentation after discovering the lingering effects of the blood. Account already past due. Advised of her options.
The loopy scrawl switches to tight script. The letters match the entries I’d flipped through to get to this page. UPDATE: by Sarah Vogel - Investigation and judgment have now been completed after my sister’s death. After bringing back Mrs. Solorzano a second time, Juliana and I had spoken about the woman’s decision to sell off her family land to pay the debt she owed. Juliana wanted to forgive it completely. I argued against this, as it would set a precedent. Juliana told me she’d scheduled a meeting with the woman to discuss further arrangements and repercussions for her late payment along with confronting her regarding the experimentation. That night, my niece showed up at my door, informing me her parents, my sister and her husband, were dead. Because of Solorzano’s case, the threat was deemed a non-relocation event and neutralized.
The entry is cold. Clinical. It’s not until I run my fingertips over my mother’s writing that I feel the circular wave patterns in the paper. Places where my aunt’s tears had hit the surface and dried as she wrote. I hand the notebook to Talia.
Jamison’s mother killed mine. And so we killed his. Now, he’s out for the blood, or revenge. Exhausted, emotionally and physically, I slump on the bed. “This is never going to end, is it?”
That’s not what I meant, but I don’t correct her. I’m running on fumes. I need rest and food and days we don’t have to heal wounds that can’t be seen. Everything inside me is ripped apart. “Do you think he knows? Ploy? About Jamison’s mom killing my family?” I ask.
“Does it matter?” Talia asks, and though I search for an answer, I find none.
“Tomorrow then,” I say quietly.
I’m at the door before she has a chance to respond.
“About Ploy,” she says. “Are you going to have the cleaners do it or are you strong enough to be the one who--”
“He’s useful,” I murmur.
“Not anymore.”
She’s right. I’ve burned through every excuse.
“Allie, you told me you could do this.” Her sigh is an accusation I can’t answer. My hand hesitates on the knob. “If you want to lead us, you’re going to have to grow the fuck up,” she says just loud enough for me to make out before I open the door.
I’ve been selfish. I’ve gotten people killed. But I can make it right again.
When I crawl back onto the pullout couch, Ploy’s facing the wall. The place is utterly silent.
Two hours pass. I don’t sleep. I think about what needs to be done. Killing him. But it’s not that simple. He’d heal. My imagination slides into an image of his heart, the one I celebrated when I started it beating again, as a bloodied dead thing in my hands. Dawn burns away the vision until all that’s left is an empty pit in my stomach. The sun lights the blinds with a pale glow.
Ploys voice startles me. “I just didn’t want you to get hurt. You weren’t thinking,” he adds.
He’s wrong. I had a plan. I wasn’t on some sort of suicide mission. I just wanted all of this over.
For a moment, I wonder if that’s not the same thing.
An eternity passes before he asks, “Are you awake?”
“I’m not asking for an apology,” I start.
“Good,” he says. “Because you’re not getting one.”
My insides twist with the unease of knowing where this is going, that I’m going to say something terrible and pretty soon we’ll be screaming and he’ll realize he’s made a mistake with me and I’ll see the rabid dog he’s hidden so well inside himself. That for the first time, I’ll be certain about Ploy, that he’s a threat that can’t be left unhandled. I soften my tone when I speak. I can’t get this wrong. I have to know where he stands. “Why are you here?”
He half rolls toward me, his expression hurt, almost sitting up before he seems to remember he’s supposed to be mad. “Are you telling me to go?”
“No.” I don’t bother with mind games. Making him wait. We’re beyond that now. There’s no time. All I want is honesty. “I like you, Ploy. I like you a lot. I just don’t understand why you’re still here, still...” I hesitate. “...with me when you know what that involves.” Make this okay, I think. Give up Jamison. Tell me you were confused, but you aren’t anymore. That you’re on our side.
That you’re on my side.
He sighs hard. “I’m not after what Talia says, a crash pad or cash or something if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“You heard that?” I say.
“Only a little,” he says quietly. “But it doesn’t change my answer.”
I roll over to face him. “Which is?”
“You actually seemed to want to be my friend,” he starts. “Not because I could get you things. Not because I was useful to you. And you invite me into your place, street trash who could’ve cut your throat while you slept.”
“You wouldn’t have done that,” I say. My chest aches for him. Is that really how he sees himself? “You are not trash.” I force my mouth closed before I say too much. You made mistakes. You can fix them.
He shakes his head. “You didn’t know. You still don’t.” The near caustic look he gives me crawls a chill up the back of my neck. “And then I found out why you wanted me there, why you let me in.” In the weak light, I can just make out his brown eyes. “You weren’t special or different at all, Allie. You were just like everyone else. Do you know how much that sucks?”
Nothing I can say would change the truth of it. Part of me wants to apologize. Another knows not to bother. It’s only going to get worse as this all reaches a head. I won’t say I’m sorry for keeping myself and the few people I have left safe and alive.
“I wanted to write you off. Bolt. But I...I get it, Allie. You and me, we’re survivors. We do what we think we have to. I can’t blame you for that.” He scoots closer and his hand cups my chin. For a second, I think he’s going to kiss me, but his lips stop short of mine. “I want to stay with you,” he says, the words confession soft. They hold more weight than I expect he wants them to, and definitely more than he intends. I just wish it mattered.
“We’re not stupid, you and me,” Ploy says. His thumb brushes my cheek. “We both know this is new. We’ve both got history on us. But right now...” His eyes fill with a fierce determination. “Right now I need you to promise me you’re not going to throw yourself at these people. This Jamison won’t hesitate to cut you down, Allie.” He pauses. “Not from what I’ve seen.”
Why is he trying to protect me? I think about the whispered parts of Talia’s speech in the bedroom, the things he didn’t hear. Why am I pretending his admission of guilt is going to do anything other than condemn him? I’m falling for a dead boy.
“You have to understand,” I say slowly, “that I’m not some weak damsel in distress. I’m not some little girl on a mission to right wrongs. He killed my family. He’s taken the things in my life that mean something. I won’t stand by and let it happen again.” I don’t know what more I can say to make him understand. “I’ll stop anyone who’s a threat to me and those like me. At any cost.”
“I wish you’d just walk away.” He kisses me then, finally, a tentative brush against my lips.
“I tried.” That’s the awful part of it. I told myself I was done with resurrecting, with charging, with this life. And now I’ll be leading them all with his blood on my hands. “I wish I could,” I whisper.
Before I can say anything else, Ploy gives me a single nod and then crawls out of bed. “Might as well get up,” he says. He meanders to the kitchen. “Think she’ll mind if I make us all some breakfast?”
“No, go ahead,” I tell him. The meal will be his last, I promise myself. I run lines through my head, the confrontation. I know who you are. But that’s not entirely true. I know what you’re after. Another lie. I watch, silent as he whips up some scrambled eggs and tosses them in a skillet. Finally, I give up and head over to my phone. I grab it and sit on the barstool on the other side of the island from him. He spatulas the eggs around.
“Can I ask you some questions about the resurrectionist stuff?” Ploy asks from the stove.
What’s it matter now? I reason. Talia will be searching the notebook for the number if she hasn’t already. When she comes out, Ploy’s time will be up and once I’ve proven to Talia my loyalties haven’t been compromised even if my heart has failed me, I’ll make the call and Jamison too, will be dealt with. “Depends on the questions, I guess,” I say distractedly.
“Is it a rare thing, this genetic twist?”
I’m sure I’ve given him this info before. Maybe he’s trying to ease into the questions. “Yeah. We tend to gather around each other. Strength in numbers and all that. I think there’s ten to fifteen around Fissure’s Whipp and the cities near it. There’s a cluster in Washington State. Another in Colorado,” I say, keeping things intentionally vague though there’s no point. I’m sure there are more clusters; my aunt would have known where. Those answers, like everything else in her house, are cinders and ash.
“And you’re in charge now,” he
says. “Of the resurrectionists around here.”
“Yeah.” I don’t know exactly what I’m supposed to be doing besides having the others call me about cases and handling cash. Sarah always seemed stretched thin. There must be more to it. Each resurrectionist doesn’t bring back more than one person every few months, and normally the number’s much lower. That’s why the income from resurrections goes to a central person to be equally divided.
“How did you guys realize you could even bring people back? I mean, it’s not like shoving a needle full of blood into a heart is a go-to medical procedure.”
Despite everything, I smile. In eighth grade biology, I’d been assigned a report on blood transfusions. I hadn’t even needed to crack a book. “They started out doing transfusions on dogs, back in 1665. A few years later they moved onto sheep, then sheep to human. In the 1800’s doctors tried cow milk as a blood replacement, and salt water. All sorts of weird things, just seeing what would work and what didn’t.”
Ploy balks. “Three cheers for modern medicine,” he deadpans and I laugh.
“Somewhere along the line,” I go on as he scrambles the eggs, “some distant relative of mine wound up on the giving end of one of those experiments. The recipient healed. The heart thing came later when we fine-tuned the process. One of the other clusters has pretty thorough genealogy on most of the lines. You’ve heard of Jack the Ripper, right?”
He shoots me an incredulous look. “You’re related to Jack the Ripper?”
“Nope,” I say, meeting his eyes. “His victims.”