Struck

by Jennifer Bosworth

  “Definitely,” I agreed.

  We took off through the path the rottweiler had cut and didn’t stop until Tentville was behind us.

  10

  AS SOON AS we stopped running, I started crying. I couldn’t help it.

  I had failed. I didn’t get Mom’s meds, and now my only black market connection might be dead.

  Dead. Because of me.

  At least my tears cleared the remnants of pepper spray from my eyes.

  About a block from my house, I was able to get control of myself. I sniffed and wiped at my face and avoided Jeremy’s eyes. He was so quiet I finally had to say something to break the silence. I didn’t really feel like talking, but I figured it might help me get my mind off the fact that I was probably directly responsible for a man’s death.

  I had so many questions for Jeremy; I didn’t know where to begin. But when I opened my mouth, what came out was more of a statement. “You’re not actually enrolled at Skyline, are you.”

  He took his time deciding on an answer. “No.”

  “And you weren’t there for aid.”

  “No.”

  “So what were you doing there?”

  He glanced at me, but for once his eyes were unreadable.

  I decided to switch to a different line of questioning. Or accusing. “You’ve been hanging around my house.”

  Jeremy staggered a little and looked alarmed. “You saw me?” The blood disappeared from his face.

  “No, my mom saw you. And Militiaman Brent saw you after school today. He thinks you’re a stalker.”

  Jeremy looked confused for a second, and then strangely relieved. “Outside,” he muttered to himself. “They saw me outside.” He took a breath and let it out. “I’m not a—Who’s Militiaman Brent?”

  “One of the neighborhood militia guys. His name is Brent. He likes his Taser a lot, so you might want to steer clear of him.”

  Jeremy nodded, and the anger gathered in his eyes again. “I remember him. If he hadn’t run me off, I could have—” He stopped.

  “You could have what?”

  He ignored my question. “So you never saw me … at your house? Not that you remember?”

  “You I would have remembered,” I said, and then felt heat fill my cheeks. “I mean, because you don’t look like one of the Displaced, so you would have stood out to me. Not because of any other reason. Just … never mind.”

  Jeremy wrinkled his brow at me as though I were some foreign language he was trying to translate.

  We moved aside as a band of the Displaced approached on the sidewalk. They looked at us with pleading eyes. They all had the same hollow cheeks, and their eyeballs seemed loose in the sockets. Several of them had the raw, seeping sores around their lips and nostrils that came with earthquake fever.

  “Can you spare a few dollars?” asked a woman with ashes in her hair, holding the hand of a little girl sucking her fingers, like they might provide some sustenance.

  A few dollars wouldn’t even buy this woman a loaf of Wonder Bread anymore.

  Parker gave away enough money to the Displaced for both of us, so I said, “I’m sorry, I—”

  The woman cut me off. She spoke quickly, trying to get the words out before I could escape. “We’re so hungry. If we can’t get food today, we’ll have to go to the White Tent, and I don’t want to take my daughter there. I hear what goes on inside. People like us go in, and then come back out … different.”

  Chills shimmied up my spine.

  The other Displaced surrounded Jeremy and me, and I felt a surge of panic. I hated to think it, but I was reminded of feeding pigeons at the park. Once one of them realized you had bread, the rest of them gathered around and followed you wherever you went.

  I didn’t want to reach into my pocket and pull out my two hundred seventeen dollars in cash, afraid that one of these people might snatch it and run. But then I realized I didn’t have two hundred seventeen dollars in cash anymore. I didn’t have a single dollar in cash. The money I’d given the Dealer had gone up in flames in his tent.

  I clenched my fists at my sides. For a second I thought the tears would return at the realization of yet another failure, but the well was dry for the time being.

  “Please?” the woman begged. Her daughter continued to suck her fingers. Drool ran down the sides of the little girl’s mouth, cutting muddy trails through the dirt on her face. The Displaced pressed closer around us. Others began to hold out their hands. As one man murmured his plea for aid, the sores on his lips cracked open and oozed a mixture of blood and pus.

  “Please,” they said. “Please help us. Don’t make us go to Prophet.”

  “He does something to people like us.”

  “He changes us. Puts his hands on us and changes us.”

  “We hear the stories.”

  “Don’t make us go to him.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, swallowing my guilt. It filled my stomach, heavy and acidic. “I don’t have any money. I really don’t.”

  “Here,” Jeremy said, and pulled a wallet out of his pocket. He began removing bills one at a time, and turning in a circle, handing out one to each of the Displaced. I caught flashes of Benjamin Franklin’s face before the hundred-dollar bills disappeared.

  I stared at Jeremy with my mouth open.

  “Thank you,” the woman said, breathless with gratitude. She moved awkwardly toward him like she wanted to hug him or something, and then thought better of it and backed off. “Thank you so much.”

  The rest of the Displaced echoed her sentiment, one of them bowing a little like Jeremy was royalty.

  “Stay away from the White Tent,” was all Jeremy said in response.

  When they were gone, I turned to him. “Do you always carry a wallet full of hundred-dollar bills?”

  He shrugged, avoiding my gaze as he put away his wallet.

  I’d had enough of Jeremy’s evasive maneuvers.

  “Look,” I said. “You’ve been watching my house, and you’ve obviously been following me. I appreciate you helping me out with my, um … situation at the Dealer’s, but I could have handled it myself.”

  “No, you couldn’t have,” Jeremy said with such certainty that it made me blink.

  “What?”

  “He would have hurt you. He would have beaten you, broken your jaw, and dislocated your shoulder. Then, when you were unconscious, his bodyguard would have dumped you in an alley, and … the Displaced would have done the rest.”

  I stared at him, stunned. “You don’t know that.”

  “I do.”

  I shook my head to clear it. Why did he seem so certain? Maybe something like that would have happened if Jeremy hadn’t shown up, but he’d been so specific.

  “Fine,” I said. “Whatever. You saved me. You’re a hero.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “What did you do to the bodyguard? And don’t tell me ‘nothing,’ because I know you did something. Is it like what happened in Mr. Kale’s classroom?”

  He put on a blank stare, and I sighed.

  “You’re going to make me say it then, huh? Okay, here goes. After English, you know, when we were talking, and I … um … I touched your hand—which I didn’t mean to do, by the way—I passed out and had this weird dream, and when I woke up you were gone. Is that what you did to the guard? You …” I felt ridiculous even thinking it. “You forced him into some kind of dream state?”

  He put a hand on the back of his neck, kneading. “They’re not dreams,” he muttered.

  “Then what are they?”

  “You won’t believe me if I tell you. You’re not ready to hear it yet.”

  “How do you know what I’m ready for? You only met me a few hours ago.”

  “I just—”

  “You just know,” I finished for him, my voice rising. “Does this have something to do with the Seekers? You know, those crazy people you said you wanted to get me away from, and then instead you left me unconscious with them. Do you have any idea what they told m
e once I woke up from your little dream that’s not a dream?”

  Jeremy’s hand went from his neck to his forehead, his thumb massaging one temple and his fingers the other. The fingers quickly moved to the bridge of his nose, pinching there. His neck strained like he was in pain.

  “I’m sorry I ran out on you,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do.”

  “How about not run out on me?”

  His cheeks reddened. “I said I was sorry. Be angry with me if you want, but you have to listen to me, Mia.” His fingers pinched harder on the bridge of his nose. His eyes squeezed shut. “You have to stay away from the Seekers.”

  “That’s what they said about you.”

  “Don’t listen to anything they say.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re dangerous.”

  “You said that already. How are they dangerous?”

  “Now that they know who you are, they’ll try to use you.” His teeth clamped so tightly it seemed they might shatter like glass.

  Jeremy’s words took me back a step.

  “Who am I?” I asked in a voice so soft my own ears barely picked it up.

  Katrina’s words played through my mind.

  A girl standing atop the last tower, surrounded by a raging storm and lightning made of blood … the final portent before the end …

  “I told you, I can’t explain it,” Jeremy said. “But—” He lowered his hand. “I could show you.”

  Jeremy took a single step and closed the distance between us. I sucked in a breath as I felt a sort of tingling heat pouring off him, making fever erupt all over my skin. Was this the Spark? It sure didn’t feel like it. What it felt like was fire. Not like the fire that had turned the Dealer’s tent into an oven. Some other kind of fire. The kind you wanted to put your hand in. The kind you invited to burn you.

  Jeremy raised his hands. He was shaking. “Don’t be afraid,” he said.

  But I was, and I opened my mouth to tell him so. Then his palms pressed over my eyes. The thrill of his touch sank through my skin, and I was suddenly dizzy. I felt like I might fall to my knees. My mind filled with light, and then darkness and then—

  It was like one of those little picture books with images that become a movie when you flip the pages.

  Only these pages were about me.

  * * *

  I was surrounded on all sides by crumbled mountains of concrete and glass. There was a thick carpet of cement dust beneath my feet. Ahead of me in the torn and ruined street I saw the white pillar of the Tower, jabbing into the night sky like a blunt needle. I was in the Waste.

  Flip.

  I took a step and the ground beneath me disappeared. I looked down and saw I had stepped into a chasm in the street. My stomach rose to my throat as I began the fall into darkness, knowing this was my last moment alive.

  Flip.

  People dancing. Their bodies pressing in around me, moving in epileptic paroxysms to the heart-thumping electro beat. A beat like thunder. No … not like thunder. I turned my face up. We were on the roof of the Tower. The sky was heavy with wet black cotton clouds. Not like thunder. The beat was thunder. Lightning flashed … red lightning like blood-filled veins growing through the sky. My eyes burned. I blinked until I could see again.

  Flip.

  The dancers were running. Running for the edge of the Tower as lightning attacked the roof. Some of the dancers leaped into nothingness. I heard them scream through their fall. But others joined hands in a ring that grew until it circled the Tower. There weren’t enough of them to close the circle, and I was glad, because I knew somehow that if they closed the circle they’d be able to break the storm. And I didn’t want them to break the storm. This was my storm, and I wanted to live it. I raised my hands to the sky, feeling the thrill of what was to come.

  Thunder crashed.

  I felt my charge rising up to meet the lightning. To connect. To—

  Flip.

  “Hey! You! Get your hands off her!”

  Jeremy withdrew his hands. I found myself blinking as though a bright light had been shone directly into my pupils.

  “Back off, pervert!”

  Jeremy stepped back, holding up his hands again, only now to show they were empty and innocent.

  We stared at each other, both breathing like we’d come to a sudden halt after a sprint. But Jeremy was no longer shaking, and the pain was gone from his eyes.

  “Now do you see?” he asked. “Do you understand?”

  My skin sang with such intensity it seemed Jeremy would have to hear it. My whole body was burning with fever. I told my heart to cool down. It felt like a lightbulb about to pop.

  “Are you listening, kid? I said back up!”

  I turned around and saw Militiaman Brent jogging toward us, Taser in hand.

  “It’s okay,” I called to him.

  “The hell it is! He’s the stalker!”

  I turned to Jeremy again, and found him backing away, down the sidewalk. “What was that? What did you do to me?”

  “Get over here, kid!”

  “I better go,” Jeremy said, glancing nervously at Militiaman Brent. He began walking quickly back the way we’d come. I tried to grab his arm, but he kept moving.

  He looked at me over his shoulder. “Don’t go to the Waste, Mia. Stay out of the Waste and away from the Seekers.”

  He turned a corner and disappeared. I would have run after him, but Militiaman Brent reached me at that moment, looking pleased with himself.

  “Think I might have scared him off for good this time,” my self-appointed bodyguard said, puffing out his chest.

  I glared at him. “Yeah,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Come on.” He patted me on the back. “I’ll make sure you get home safe. Now aren’t you glad I gave you that pepper spray?”

  I set aside my annoyance with him and nodded. “You have no idea.”

  11

  PARKER MUST HAVE been watching out the window for me, because he opened the front door the second I came within sight of the house.

  “You should go,” I told Militiaman Brent. “We’ll be okay now.”

  “You sure?” He cocked an eyebrow. “What if the stalker comes back?”

  “He’s not dangerous.” I forced a smile. “He actually kind of came to my rescue today. I’m pretty sure he’s one of the good guys.”

  Militiaman Brent nodded. “If you say so. Take care, Mia Price.” Parker reached me at that moment. “Keep an eye on your sister, kid,” the militiaman said, and slapped Parker on the back hard enough to make him stumble. “You two stay out of trouble.”

  He saluted sharply before departing.

  “What happened?” Parker demanded when Militiaman Brent was out of earshot. “Your eyes are red. Have you been crying?”

  “I didn’t get the meds.” My voice scratched from my throat, still raw.

  I expected an I-told-you-not-to-go from Parker, but he only nodded. “It’s okay. We’ll figure out something else for Mom.” He hung his arm over my shoulder and walked me into the house. I realized for the first time Parker was now taller than me by at least an inch. When had that happened?

  Inside, I stared at my reflection in the decorative mirror that hung on the wall in our foyer. The mirror had fallen during the quake but had stayed miraculously intact, except for one long crack running diagonally through the glass. At least it hadn’t shattered completely. I figured that exempted us from the seven years’ bad luck clause.

  I barely recognized the face gazing back at me from the cracked glass that divided my image with a jagged, lightning-shaped line. My hair was frizzed out and gray with ash and sand. There was soot streaked on my cheeks. My eyes were more than red. They were blazing with veins, like the lightning scars on my skin had crawled into them.

  I turned my back on that image. I didn’t want to see myself that way.

  “How’s Mom?” I asked in a shaky voice.

  Parker shrugged. “She hasn’t come out
of her room, but I don’t hear the TV. I think she’s asleep.”

  I nodded and moved to the kitchen, where I opened the freezer door. The memory of Jeremy’s heat was still alive on my skin like a sunburn. I stood there with the door open, bathing in frosty plumes of air. I wanted to climb inside and shut the door behind me, shut out the world and exist in the cold and the dark for a little while. Sometimes the heat of my own body became so unbearable I just wanted to turn it off. Turn everything off.

  “What happened with the Dealer?” Parker asked.

  “He stole my money and kicked me out,” I said, keeping it simple.

  “All of it?”

  “Yep.”

  “What are we going to do now?”

  I didn’t have an answer. I closed the freezer door. “I’m going upstairs for a while.”

  “Mia?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I was thinking … don’t be mad, okay. I’m just suggesting something. Maybe … maybe we should take Mom to one of those revivals. The ones on the beach.”

  It took me a moment to register what he was saying. The revivals on the beach … Prophet’s revivals.

  Don’t make us go to Prophet.

  He does something to people like us.

  He changes us. Puts his hands on us and changes us.

  A cannonball-sized weight landed in my stomach. “Why would we do that?”

  “Well …” He took a deep breath and launched into his pitch. “I’ve been reading about religious mysticism. There’s all kinds of weird stuff that’s happened in churches and cults and whatever. People with tumors the size of softballs get a blessing and suddenly the cancer is gone, like it was never there. Or people walk through fire or across broken glass or get themselves bitten by deadly snakes and don’t get hurt. And there are tribes in Africa that do rituals to bring rain during a drought, and sometimes it works. A storm will just appear out of nowhere.”

  “Parker …”

  “Some people think it’s God working through these people to perform miracles. But others think it’s like … like you get enough people together who believe the same way or want the same thing, and what they want just happens. It’s called concentrated will or collective consciousness or something like that. You will something to happen and it does. Maybe it’s like the Seekers were saying about the Spark, and how it’s all about concentrated energy and the power of thought. It’s like these miracles are about what you believe and how strongly you believe it, see?” he continued. “So that might work with Mom, like it’s worked with those people who had earthquake fever. She believes in this stuff Prophet keeps saying, so maybe if she believes he can heal her—”