I deserve this. Rain froze then fell to the sky. Tires squealed, then with a splintering crash, Aaron’s car slammed into a grove of trees.
“No,” I coughed. The smoke made breathing difficult. “Please, no.”
Everything you asked for and more.
I gasped in surprise as flames licked flesh, covering me, consuming me, making me theirs. More screams filled the air, joining mine. Beyond the wall of flames, something dark moved among the football players like a shadow, ripping them into pieces.
Do you understand now? The familiar voice came from everywhere at once, within and without. I cried out as it assaulted my thoughts. What they did to you?
“Stop!” I screamed. God, it hurt! Blood dripped down my face and each drop met the fire with a hiss.
You have a choice to make.
The pain intensified, I couldn’t breathe around the smoke, and my heart felt ready to beat out of my chest. Oh, God, it hurt, it hurt so bad. Above me, the moon turned completely red. I wasn’t even supposed to be here. I was supposed to be home, with him. Derrick, I thought, and for a second, I could see him, sprawled out on his ugly, old lawn chair, binoculars dangling from his limp hand. Then, all at once, the pain faded into a blissful euphoria. An unfamiliar grin stretched across my face as the flames latched onto my skin. Even the fire felt good.
Chapter 36: Derrick
Sunday, October 2nd
DERRICK? TESS’S panicked whisper snapped my eyes open.
“What? Huh?” Blood dripped from my nose in a steady stream. Groaning, I let Tess help me to my feet. “What time is it?”
“Almost three.” Her dark eyes flickered over me, full of concern. “Derrick, are you okay?”
“We’re too late,” I realized, pinching the bridge of my nose to stop the bleeding. If my theory was right, the next football player had died at moonrise, nearly half an hour ago. “Who died?”
“Derrick . . .” She hesitated, not meeting my eyes, but I saw traces of horror on her face.
God, I was an idiot. She’d watched it happen, just like with the others. And she’d probably gotten a whole new batch of memories. “I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about it right now if you don’t want to, just . . . are you okay?”
Tess swallowed hard. “We should get you cleaned up.” Her narrow shoulder dug into my side as she pushed me toward the bathroom. When I almost fell over, she seemed to realize she should support my weight, not push it. She overcorrected, and we both almost fell to the other side.
“I’ve got it.” I shook free of her and stumbled into the bathroom to wash my face. Damn it, I was going to have to tell Mom about these nosebleeds. I probably had brain cancer or something.
She hovered at the doorway, watching me with an expression I couldn’t read. “I’m okay,” I assured her, drying my face before moving back to the hallway. “Hey, why were you in my room? We got you all set up in the office, remember?”
“I left my sketch pad.” She leaned on one side of my doorframe, so I moved to the other. “You about ready to turn in, or did you want to stare at those symbols some more?”
Her sketchpad? “I know you didn’t want to think about any of that stuff tonight, I’m sorry.”
“You’re doing it for me.” She cocked her head. “You’re doing all of this for me. Letting me stay here, hiding all of this from your mother, everything you did that night, everything you’ve done since. You care.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Well, yeah. Of course, I do.”
“More than a friend.” She ducked her head then stepped into my room. The darkness swallowed her up, softened by the presence of the hall light, but not erased.
“Tess?” My feet crossed the threshold. The darkness surrounding me felt comforting, like a cloak, hiding everything that was probably written plain as day on my face. Words caught in my throat with fear. If I said too much now, I’d change everything, and maybe not for the better.
She knows, I reminded myself. You know she knows. If she was bringing it up, maybe it meant she was re-evaluating that whole needing a friend right now thing.
Either that or she’d decided to finally address the elephant in the room and was trying to find a way to let me down easy.
I swallowed back my words. Better to let her take the lead.
Her voice sounded thick when she continued. “You care about . . .” She glanced down, hands pressing against her thighs like she needed to verify she still stood there. “Me. With every fiber of your being. Do you have any idea how powerful that is?”
Say something, you idiot. “I—”
“There aren’t words, Derrick. It’s like a force, a physical pull between your body and mine.” She took a step toward me as if illustrating her point. “Between your thoughts and mine. It’s a factor that must to be calculated into everything, like gravity. Physics breaks down when you leave it out.”
Physics? “Uh, Tess?”
She moved forward, erasing the space between us. Her body stood so close to mine that my nerves sang with anticipation. “We’re linked. I’ve tried to ignore that, to put you on the periphery and out of the way of all of this, but that’s not going to work. You’re a factor, and I can’t fight the impact your presence has. Plus, I’m not sure I want to. I’d forgotten how potent—” She broke off, glancing down, then looking back at me through thick dark lashes. Her fingers traced a line up my arm, setting every nerve on fire in its wake. “Tell me this isn’t in my head, Derrick. You feel this, don’t you?”
“God, yes,” I breathed, pulling her into my arms and kissing her. There were fireworks and every other clichéd description I’d ever laughed at, only they weren’t funny anymore because we were finally kissing. I wanted to savor every second, but then we stumbled toward my bed, and she tugged at my shirt, and everything felt very, very wrong.
“Wait, wait, wait.” I broke away, hating that even now, I couldn’t stop overthinking every detail. But I’d done a lot of reading over the past couple days in a desperate attempt to figure out the right stuff to say to Tess after what she’d been through. “This is really sudden, and I don’t know if you’re working through something or—” Yeah, there really wasn’t a good way to go into the whole needing to feel in control of her own body bit of self-help stuff I read, so I was going to stay away from that. Saying I didn’t want to take advantage of her seemed condescending, but . . . I mean, I didn’t. “This means something to me, Tess. And I need it to mean the same to you because I don’t think I can go back from this if you wake up tomorrow and decide it was all some big—”
Her mouth closed over mine, cutting me off as she guided my hands to where she wanted them. My brain stuttered. For a second, all that mattered was her body and my hands and the way her breath hitched at my touch, but then I found myself thinking again. Something about this wasn’t right.
Everything about this is right! My mind screamed as she pushed me onto the bed and straddled me. “Hang on, hang on, wait.”
“Why?” She pulled at my shirt. “You want this,” Her grin widened as she moved against me. “I can tell.”
And I did, God how I did. What was wrong with me? Why was I hesitating? This was everything. Everything I’d wanted for so long, everything I’d imagined. But instead of enjoying it, my brain kept throwing up image after image of Tess, like this was my last breath, and she was the life playing before my eyes. I saw every smile, every flip of her hair, the way she chewed on her pencils and tapped her soda cans three times before she opened them. The set of her shoulders, the lilt in her voice. I knew Tess as well as I knew myself, and this wasn’t Tess.
I let it kiss me, wrapping my arms around its slender frame and falling back on the bed before rolling and pinning it beneath me. “Hang on, I’ve got a—” I fumbled in the desk drawer with one hand like I was looking for a condom. My fingers closed on
the X-ACTO knife I’d wrestled from Tess the morning Harrison died. Before whatever was possessing her could react, I pinned both of its hands above its head and jabbed the knife against its throat. “What have you done with my friend?”
The creature laughed, a deep throaty laugh so reminiscent of Tess, it sent a confusing wash of heat through me.
“Oh, you are good,” the creature stretched its neck away from the blade. “I was wondering how long it would take you to figure it out.”
My pulse thundered so loudly in fear, I was surprised the room wasn’t vibrating. There was something terrifying about the way the thing stretched. Like it didn’t quite fit into her skin. “What have you done with Tess?”
Its grin stretched impossibly wide across her face. “She’s right here.”
“You are not Tess.”
“Not entirely, but this is her body.” The creature wiggled suggestively. “And I can assure you, she wants this every bit as much as you do.” It cocked her head, considering. “Maybe more.”
I pressed the knife harder against its skin in warning. “I’m going to ask you one more time, what—”
“I wasn’t being specious, you know.” Its voice took on a sing-song cadence so different from the way Tess talked, my breath caught. “This is her body. You can’t hurt me, but she’s a different story.”
I tightened my grip on the knife like that would somehow strengthen my resolve. “She can heal.”
“Only if I want her to.” Malice flashed in its eyes with such force that I had no doubt it would let Tess bleed out to prove a point.
Shit. I pulled the knife away from the creature’s throat and scrambled off Tess, holding my hands up and edging toward the door. “What did you do to her?”
“Me? Nothing.” The creature sat up and smoothed Tess’s hair. “She’s having a very pleasant dream right now, full of blood and fire. Have no fear, when she comes to, she won’t remember any of that business.” It tilted its head toward the bed.
I shuddered. “Why—what purpose did—?”
“Twofold. While I’m in this vessel, I’m subject to its whims. When you call to her, it is becoming increasingly difficult not to answer.” Tess’s shoulders rose in a jerky shrug. “Her last thought was of you. That forms a powerful connection that, for obvious reasons, doesn’t often get explored.”
Her last thought. My heart stuttered in panic. “You said she was dreaming, that she was fine. You said that—”
“She is, for now. I’ve given her . . . an extension, if you will. She has little time left, which brings me to my second purpose. You have proven yourself to be quite observant. I needed to see if you could be fooled.”
Bullshit. If all it wanted was to see if I could be fooled, then why hadn’t the dozens of times it tricked me into taking it to deliver cards sufficed? The only reason I’d found out it wasn’t Tess tonight was because it gave me a tell. Did it want to rattle me? Get me off balance? Test me to see how out of character it could take Tess before I noticed?
It continued speaking. “Most people justify inconsistencies if they are getting what they want. You, on the other hand—” The creature shrugged. “Are not so easy to placate.”
Throat closing, I thought back to the night of the eclipse. I’d heard her, felt her pain and panic. How had I forgotten?
“You are beginning to understand.” The creature’s voice softened in sympathy. “I am not your enemy, Derrick. I do not choose my vessels. They are chosen for me, and I am left to hear their innermost thoughts and suffer their agonies until they fade away. You can fight me, but you will lose and in doing so, bring her nothing but pain.”
“You say that like there’s an alternative.” I could barely get the words out, my throat felt so constricted. Think, I commanded myself. There was something more here. Some detail I was missing.
“You could take her place.” It smiled again, only this time, its smile seemed more like Tess’s. “She’s defective. Her body may not survive the process, but you . . .” It crossed the space between us and ran her hand up my arm. “You are much stronger. Your connection provided her with the strength to survive this much of the process. Finish it, and she’ll be free.”
“I—”
“What I ask is not small. You have some time left to think this over.”
“How long?” I asked, mind racing.
“A little over a week.”
“So if I take her place, she lives?” My voice sounded hoarse.
“Yes.”
“How do I know you’re not lying?” The words ‘last thought’ made it sound as if she’d already died. The thing said it gave her an extension, and I knew it had been healing Tess. What happened when it left her body? Would all the injuries she’d sustained during and since the bonfire return?
“I never lie.”
Limitation. This was a creature either created by or bound by ritual, which meant it lived by rules and limitations. Limitations were weaknesses. If it had weaknesses, it could be defeated.
You’re assuming it’s telling the truth about being unable to lie. Stop. Think. My mind raced, picking apart everything it had said to me. “A little over a week? What is that? Eight days, nine? What time?”
“You humans and time.” The creature shook its head. “When the moon enters the next full phase, her time will end.”
Full moon. The bonfire had been the first full moon in the cycle. Chris died on Waning Gibbous; Isaac, Third Quarter; Finn, Waning Crescent; Ryan, New; Harrison, Waxing Crescent; and someone died tonight during First Quarter. If I could figure out which of the remaining two players fit each remaining phases, I’d be able to . . . what? Warn them? Save them? Would that help her?
“So the nose bleeds? That’s because of you?”
“Indirectly. I didn’t choose you as anchor. She did.”
It had said it was looking for Tess’s sketchpad, but Tess had thrown out her sketchpad after the creepy card-making fiasco. It was a stupid lie to be caught in when it could give literally any other reason for being in my room . . . unless it actually was looking for Tess’s sketchpad. Either way, it meant this thing had limited awareness as Tess. It didn’t know everything she knew.
“If I do this . . .” I hesitated, choosing my words with caution. “You said she won’t survive, but could I?”
“There is no surviving the transition.”
I’d expected as much. Limits, limits. Think, Derrick.
“I couldn’t get into my house.” Tess’s hoarse voice echoed through my memory.
Did it need to be invited in? Was that why it had hand-delivered each card?
Easy enough to test. Focus on that later. “What if—?”
“I’m afraid I’m out of time.” The creature’s smile turned sympathetic. She sidled up to me, and stood on her tiptoes, kissing my cheek. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Tess’s body went limp. On impulse, I caught her before she could hit the ground.
Chapter 37: Tess
Sunday, October 2nd
WHEN I WOKE TO find myself in Derrick’s arms, I burst into tears. “Oh, thank God. I lost track of what was real for a second there. I thought—I thought—”
“It’s okay. You’re here. You’re safe,” he murmured, stroking my hair. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” I sobbed, burying my face in his shirt. “It’s not okay. I know what happened. I know what they did.” I recounted the dream in as much detail as possible in the futile hope he wouldn’t make me repeat it. “Oh, God, Derrick, it was horrible.”
His grip around me tightened, and for a second, I wondered why we were on the floor in his room, but I needed this hug too badly to ask.
“You thought of me, before you—?” He cleared his throat. “Before the pain stopped?”
“Yeah.” My
pulse pounded in my throat because this was so not the time for this. But when else? A few minutes ago, I’d been convinced I’d never see Derrick again. “I—I think I—” I broke off, almost losing my nerve. “I’ve been so stupid. I know how you feel about me, I know.”
He tensed in my arms, and alarm bells went off in my head telling me to shut up, that this was going all wrong, but the dam broke, and everything came spilling out of me.
“And I’ve tried so hard not to feel that way too because of all these reasons that suddenly seem so . . . stupid. Only I didn’t realize how little all my reasons mattered until I was dying. But then I was thinking of you, and it . . . it was like . . . a pull. Like a force, like—”
“Physics.” He broke away from me, rising to his feet.
“Exactly!” I stood, crossing and uncrossing my arms, plowing right past the voice in my head begging, pleading with me to shut up. “It’s terrifying how much I need you. That’s why I never said it before, but I need you to know, Derrick. I can’t believe I almost died without letting you know.”
“Would you just stop!” He stepped back until he reached the doorway. “What do you get out of this?”
What do I get out of this? “I don’t—”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re playing at, but it’s not going to work. If you think I can’t see right through you, you’re wrong. I am done listening to your bullshit.”
Oh, God. I’d screwed everything up. I’d misinterpreted the way he felt. I’d made a fool of myself. “Derrick, I—”
“Shut up!” Was he crying? “Just stop talking!” He flipped on the light and leaned against the wall, his head touching his arm, like he couldn’t even stand to turn and look at me. When he spoke again his voice sounded muffled. “You’re a leech! A parasite, and if you think for one second I’d fall for—”
“Der—” My voice cracked, and I swallowed hard, trying to bring enough life back into my dry mouth to take the words back. To select undo. “Derrick, I—”
“Stop saying my name!” He whirled on me, his neck cording.
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