“I’m sorry!” she said. “I didn’t know it would be weird. I thought…I don’t know.”
“You weren’t thinking, most likely. And why is he even over here? I thought you were studying.”
“I was. But he called and wanted to talk. And I panicked. I mean, of course I want to talk to him, but what was I going to say? I haven’t been alone with the guy in months. I mean, did he want to talk about us? Is there even an us anymore? Or did he just want to hook up? So I said I would talk to him later because I had to study. And he said, ‘you don’t study.’ And I said, ‘well, someone’s coming over to help me study because we have a big test tomorrow, but you can come, I guess.’ Kenzie, what was I supposed to do? Matt is the only guy I’ve ever dated, at least seriously. I’ve never done this before.”
I sighed. “I’m sorry. Maybe I overreacted. But next time you invite some celebrity over to your house, just warn me, okay? I don’t like getting starstruck in front of people. It’s weird.”
She smiled. “It’s a deal. Come on, I’m going to make you the best soup you’ve ever tasted.” She nudged me back toward the door. “Go keep him company for a little while.”
So I went back to the living room. Matt turned around again. I sat on the couch, removed my shoes, and crossed my legs. I glanced back at him; it was hard to see in the dim light, but he was kind of cute. He glanced my way and our eyes met, but he turned back quickly; I had a feeling he knew what Jacey and I had been talking about in the hallway.
“Sorry I ran out on you earlier,” I said.
“It’s okay. I’m used to Jacey and her friends acting strange around me.”
I nodded. “So what did Jacey tell you about me?”
“A lot. But most of it I already knew. You’re Fred Palmer’s granddaughter.”
“Doctor Fred Palmer,” I corrected him, but smiled back so he wouldn’t take me too seriously.
“My parents loved his book. They think it should be required reading in high school. So teenagers will see how hard it is to raise kids. Sort of a literary birth control.”
I snickered. “Literary birth control. That’s a new one.” I wasn’t sure grandpa’s book was good enough to be required reading, but maybe I was just modest on his behalf.
“Well, what about you?” I said. “I hear you’re quite an accomplished poet.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Well, Jacey seems to think you’re pretty good. And so did the panel.”
“Well, Jacey is kind of…”
“In love with you?”
He didn’t respond. Yikes. I looked back toward the TV, where some news broadcast was wrapping up. “So what’s on tonight?”
He picked up the remote and scrolled through the channels. “Not much. I don’t watch a lot of TV.”
“Me neither,” I said. “Back home, we mostly just watch the news. It’s so different here.”
“I know. I’ve been here four years and I’m still not used to it.”
“Having so many TV channels?”
“Having so much…anything.”
I smiled. “Matt, I think you and I are going to get along just fine.”
Twenty minutes later, the three of us sat in a circle at the kitchen table. Even though Jacey’s mom made a pretty good living at City Hall and Jacey, of course, had her grant money, they only had one full-time servant and she was gone for the night. Jacey’s mom was at some benefit or another and hadn’t even called. We had the house to ourselves.
“So Matt,” I said. “Jacey said you were home schooled.”
“Yep. I’m supposed to be a sophomore, but I almost have enough credits to be a senior. I’m going to graduate early.”
Thanks to Jacey, I knew Matt was a year younger than me, so it made sense that he would be a sophomore. That made his level of credits all the more impressive. “What are your plans after graduation?”
“I want to go to college and study English. I don’t know what I’ll do with that yet, but I figure why not get a degree in something I love?”
This was even more impressive. Immortals rarely went to college anymore; with the lifelong grant money that allowed them to not only earn a living but live lavishly, why would we need to?
“Matt’s a poet,” Jacey said.
“I know. You already told me.”
“You’ve been telling her about me?” he asked.
“It’s been positive,” I responded. “Most of it, anyway.”
Matt laughed but quickly looked down at his soup. Jacey changed the subject to some TV show I had never watched and, judging from Matt’s silence, he hadn’t either. I had a feeling if we took Jacey out of the equation, Matt and I could actually have a decent conversation and maybe even be friends. But Jacey wouldn’t allow us a moment’s peace.
I didn’t even want to talk about how he became Immortal, a topic that was usually as common among Immortals as talking about the weather or a favorite new restaurant. Most people who kept up with Immortals even casually knew what most of us had done to join. But Jacey had always been uncomfortable when the subject came up. Not only did the general public not know how she became Immortal, but I didn’t either. The first (and only) time I had attempted to ask her, she just said ‘I did a really good deed,’ and looked away. Most Immortals had gotten in for some good deed or another, or at least something that was twisted by the panel to seem good. How twisted was Jacey’s past?
chapter two
Matt left after he finished his soup. As soon as he was gone, Jacey said she didn’t feel like studying anymore. I should have known; we rarely ended up doing schoolwork when I came over, even if we specifically planned it. Though that night was the first time we had sat down to dinner with her ex-boyfriend. We usually ended up doing something menial, like painting our nails.
She didn’t mention Matt the next day, and didn’t seem too concerned about how she did on our test (which was multiple choice and not nearly as bad as I had feared, so I figured I did okay too). But it was Friday night, and she insisted that I come with her to a place called The Lab. I spent enough time thinking about class during the week, and wasn’t interested in spending any more time there, until she explained that it was actually a night club. “So if your parents call you and you don’t want them to know you’re out partying, you can just tell them you’re in the lab!”
“What about the people who aren’t taking classes that require a lab?” I said. “Or the parents who think their kids are going to a meth lab or something? And if you’re going to lie to your parents about where you are, why not just lie about it entirely? Tell them you’re at the movies or something?”
“Who knows. See you tonight.”
She picked me up just after nine, and she wasn’t alone. Elizabeth, one of her friends from our biology class, sat in the backseat, along with another Immortal I had only seen on a few news programs. She introduced herself as Paige, and couldn’t have been more than fourteen or so. I didn’t know much about her other than Jacey referring to her as a ‘little girl,’ even though she was just a couple years younger than us. She was cute, though, with dark-ish skin and long, black hair.
We were almost on the highway when Paige turned to Elizabeth and asked if she was going home with us tonight.
“Come on Paige…you know that won’t happen.” They roared with laughter.
“Well, I’m just glad you seem to be over Gage,” Jacey said from the front.
“Oh please. I would barely even call it dating. It was more like a few prolonged, glorified make out sessions. It wasn’t going to work anyway. I’ll be fine.”
“Gage is pretty cool,” Paige said. “But you guys are better off as friends. Besides, there are going to be so many hot guys there tonight.”
“Who says it has to be a guy?” Elizabeth said, and the three of them burst into laughter.
We parked in a lot outside what looked like a prison. I was about to open my door when Jacey leaned back and grabbed something from the back po
cket of her seat. It was a syringe, filled with what I presumed was TNV. She pumped it a couple of times and shot a dose into her forearm.
Paige cringed. “How can you stand to stick that thing in your arm?”
Jacey shrugged. “It’s not that bad.”
I had never heard of an Immortal not liking needles, but I guess that was why the had the pill option. Sure enough, Paige pulled a prescription bottle out of her coat pocket. Jacey tossed the needle to Elizabeth, who jabbed it into her arm. Part of me still cringed when I saw people sharing needles, but I knew the TNV would cure whatever diseases the needle might cause.
Elizabeth gave herself a triple dose. “Guess I’m planning on drinking a lot more than you guys,” she said and passed the needle to me. “You might want to give yourself an extra dose too.”
“Kenzie’s not much of a drinker,” Jacey said. “She might not need it.”
“Well, you never know. She might drink more than you think. Anyway, you can never have too much TNV. Better safe than sorry, right?”
“Why do we need so much?” I asked.
“Just a precaution,” Elizabeth responded.
“A precaution? Against drinking too much?”
“Yep. Last week I drove home and almost hit a pole.”
Paige snickered.
“Oh shut up! It would have cost me a freaking arm and leg if I had so much as scratched the bumper. That quadruple dose probably saved my ass. And my bumper.”
I didn’t even know where to begin expressing the thoughts running through my head and was sure nobody wanted to hear them, so I kept quiet. If Elizabeth had driven drunk without TNV, she probably wouldn’t even have a car to worry about anymore. I pumped a dose and a half into my arm and passed the needle back to Jacey, who said, “You might want to leave your jacket in the car. It’s going to get hot.”
I was in a red three quarter length dress that came to my knees and black high heels. I'd done my best with Luke’s club attire advice, but still wasn’t sure if I was dressed appropriately for a night on the town. A church service, maybe. Jacey, Elizabeth, Paige and most of the other girls we passed were all in low cut dressed with their hair delicately pinned and curled. Some of them had draped themselves over guys in collared shirts and half a tube of gel in their hair.
Even across the parking lot, I could hear music the whole way over. Once we got inside, I could barely hear myself think. A few minutes after we started to dance, Jacey screamed something in my ear that vaguely sounded like, “Want a drink? I’m buying.” It took me a minute to remember the legal drinking age in The Necropolis had been lowered to 18, and even that wasn’t really enforced. I nodded and she came back a minute later with something that looked like soda but tasted like soda mixed with shoe polish. I took a few more sips, mostly to be polite, and managed to ignore the shoe polish taste.
I'd managed to get rid of almost the entire drink when Paige left and came back with a second round. This one was pink and a lot stronger, but I was starting to like the buzz I was getting and the shoe polish taste was easier to ignore. I had to pee like crazy and didn’t care to stumble over dozens of sweaty bodies to get to the bathroom. But the alcohol did make it a bit easier to be complacent when two equally tipsy guys started grinding on Jacey and me.
A couple of hours after we arrived, I finally made it to the bathroom, but couldn’t find Jacey or anyone else when I got back out. I knew I should have asked her to come with me, but the buzz was intense now, and I could barely walk upright, let alone think straight. So I did another stupid thing. I walked back to the car by myself. Fortunately it had been left unlocked, and I fell on the backseat and promptly passed out.
I woke up when I heard the passenger door opening. I felt my feet being pushed to the floor and groaned. “Oh, is that you McKenzie? Sorry.” Elizabeth giggled and slid into the seat where my feet had previously been. She hiccuped and banged her head on the roof. “Couldn’t take it anymore either? Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. I couldn’t hold my liquor at first either.” She giggled again and fell onto the seat.
She didn’t say anything else, and I wasn’t really in the mood to talk. “I’m going to sleep now,” I grunted, closing my eyes.
She didn’t protest. “Good night, Kenzie. If I throw up on you, just kick me or something.
Gladly, I thought, but didn’t respond. She didn’t say anything else, and I lay there for awhile, wondering if I would be able to fall asleep again before Jacey and Paige decided they’d had enough.
I did manage to fall asleep after awhile, despite the urge to pee coming again. When I woke up, I was lying on my living room couch and Luke was brewing coffee.
Even though an extra dose of TNV cured my pounding headache and nausea pretty quickly, I spent Saturday morning on the couch. But I felt fine later that afternoon and tagged along with Luke on a rare trip home. It was only my third time coming back since moving in with him. I suspected Luke living in The Necropolis was the only reason mom had even let me go. After dad died and grandpa left the Immortals, she had had somewhat of a bias against them. I knew the life hadn’t been right for grandpa, but why did that mean it wasn’t a good fit for me?
But subconsciously, I knew why neither mom or grandpa wanted me to become Immortal. The system was corrupt, and everyone knew it. When a person was accepted into the Immortals, we were given monthly, lifelong grants that would allow us to live in luxury. And for us, lifelong meant…well, forever. We were sucking up the country’s money, taking it away from people who worked hard every day to simply earn a living. And all because we supposedly deserved it…but did we? Still, neither of them gave me grief about it, at least not in front of me. Grandpa was actually surprisingly supportive.
I found him in an easy chair. He lived up the street but spent a lot of time at our house. He was in front of some news program, already dozing off. Luke said a quick hello to him, then went to his room, probably to fire up his video games.
I didn’t have any homework left to do, and didn’t really care to watch TV in my own room, so I joined mom on the couch and watched some boring news program. Most of the news today followed the more notorious Immortals who were forever partying or cheating on their significant others, usually with other Immortals, but sometimes with Underground people. I had seen Jacey, Elizabeth and even Matt on there a handful of times — though it was usually for silly things like appearances at a new night club — but apparently none of my antics so far had been deemed newsworthy. Granted, the most newsworthy thing I had engaged in so far was a passing out drunk in the backseat of a Porsche. Mom and grandpa might have raised their eyebrows if I told them about that. But in comparison with what some Immortals did daily, it was borderline praiseworthy.
“So Kenzie,” mom said as the program ended, “How is The Necropolis?”
“Fine.” I decided to leave out my escapades the previous night, which didn’t leave many interesting stories. “I got a perfect score on my last chemistry test. It wasn’t that hard, but the teacher said I was the first person in ten years to do it.”
“Well, congratulations dear. That’s impressive.”
I nodded. “Oh, and I met Matt Cavanagh.”
“Oh, the poet? He’s cute.”
“Yeah, I guess. We mostly talked about how he wants to go to college. And his parents really like grandpa’s book.” Grandpa was asleep by this point, so he didn’t get to hear that part.
“He sounds like a winner,” mom said. “You should ask him out.”
“Mom…no. My friend Jacey is practically in love with him.”
“Well, are they dating?”
“No…not anymore.”
“Well, they’re young. They’ll get over it.”
“Mom,” I said, laughing, “I’m not dating Matt. He reminds me too much of my friends from high school.”
“Oh, so he’s big into math and cute boys?” she teased.
I laughed again, then stopped. “Seriously mom, he’s pretty much the only oth
er person I’ve met who actually care about the same things I do. Everyone else just cares about partying.”
“Well, wasn’t that what it was like when you went to school here? Most people seem to care more about hanging out with their friends than studying. You were always the exception.”
“Most people, yeah. But not everyone. It’s like a completely different world over there.”
She ran a hand through my hair. “Sweetheart, you’ve only been there for a couple of months. Give it some time. You’ll adjust.”
“You really think I should stay?”
She sighed. “Kenzie, you have no idea how proud of you I am. Not just for becoming Immortal, but for a lot of things. You’re a good kid. You know that, right? And you can do whatever you put your mind to. If you want to stay in The Necropolis and become Immortal, then I’ll fully support you. But if you don’t, no matter what sort of crazy things you’ve gotten yourself into, you can always come home. Always.”
I thought the whole ‘you can do anything you put your mind to’ speech was a bunch of bullshit parents spewed at their kids so they wouldn’t get lazy. But she was right about one thing — I did have a choice. I could stay Immortal and enjoy an eternal life of fame and luxury. Or I could come home, finish school, have a career, and never have half of what I had before. It seemed like an easy decision, but it wouldn’t seem like that for long.
chapter three
Luke and I spent the rest of the weekend at home, even going to church with mom and grandpa the next morning — something I hadn’t done since moving to The Necropolis. Church attendance there was practically nonexistent. If you were never going to die, why worry about what happens to you in the afterlife?
We drove back to The Necropolis Sunday night. Monday meant back to school and homework. I got to bio early Monday morning; Jacey came in five minutes after me and took her usual seat next to mine.
“Did you have fun Friday night?” she asked.
“Yeah, I did.” Because even though the ride over had been uncomfortable and I certainly didn’t enjoy feeling like I could puke up my entire digestive system, the dancing part had been somewhat enjoyable.
The Immortals Page 2
