Davis clapped his hands together and motioned for everyone to turn around. “Okay, okay! Now that we’ve gotten that settled, Mr. Sloan, please return to your place in line. And, Miss Hamilton…” He shook his head, scratching his hair. It looked a lot like a toupee, but no one could prove it.
“I really thought you were different from your brother. I thought surely you weren’t disruptive. Don’t prove me wrong. Make your way into the cafeteria quietly, please,” he said, walking in the direction of his office.
You’ll be okay, Abigail. Rylan’s voice slithered into my head. I used to hate when he did that. It felt invasive. But now I took comfort in knowing he was so close.
I’ll come find you after. It’ll be fine. But as the nurses came out to take down our names on their clipboards, I noticed that a hint of doubt slipped into his voice. Before I could say anything else in our defense, he was following a man across the cafeteria while a woman led me to a table set up behind a flimsy blue curtain.
She had me take a seat while her cold hands swiped an antiseptic wipe over the inside of my wrist. There was a bright red mark on the inside of her arm. I really hoped it was only a rash, but somehow I doubted it.
“On a scale of one to ouch, how much will this hurt?” I asked.
The nurse gave me a sad smile. “Honey, I’m not sure you want to know.”
* * *
Rylan and I returned to his guesthouse when it was all over, where I shakily lowered myself into a chair in the corner of his bedroom. There was a bump in my arm and tears in my eyes, and no matter how hard I rubbed I couldn’t get either to disappear. Once the nurse had pulled out a six-inch-long needle, I looked away, but I still felt the burn when the microchip entered my wrist, like my skin had been blistered with a blowtorch.
And this was the thing that my dad was convinced would make Morriston safe?
After the nurse was finished with me, I had lingered in the hall for a while, waiting for Rylan and watching groups of students leave the building, rubbing their arms at their injection sites. Most didn’t seem to care much, but every now and then, a few would shoot me dirty looks, like Mayor Hamilton’s precautions were somehow my fault.
Even Sarah had looked a little pissed off as she headed out the doors. And that almost never happened. I’d thought about grabbing her, telling her what we knew, but I didn’t have to think twice to know that would be a horrible idea. It was bad enough she thought city hall was treating her and the rest of Morriston like potential criminals. If I let it slip that something was wrong with the metal chip bulging under the skin of her forearm, Sarah would panic. And if Sarah panicked, everyone in the city would know about it. Her screams couldn’t be quelled.
As I settled into the armchair in Rylan’s bedroom, I asked myself if I had made a mistake keeping another massive secret from my best friend. I didn’t have an answer.
If lies were dollar bills, I’d be a millionaire.
A shadow appeared above me, and a handful of peppermints fell into my lap. “Eat some sugar,” Rylan said. “It helps.”
“Thanks.” I popped one into my mouth, studying Rylan as he gingerly poked the lump under his skin, disgusted. “So what’s your grand master plan for taking these out?”
Instead of answering, Rylan pulled a thin, shiny object out of his backpack and headed for the bathroom. I followed apprehensively, my heart thudding double-time.
Like most things in the megamansion, the size of his bathroom easily doubled my own. It was spotless, smelled sweet like lavender, and housed both a shower and a massive claw-foot tub. Because why not take off your clothes and mix it up a little?
“So … um … I should probably practice on myself first. Can you make sure this towel stays in my mouth?” Rylan tossed a white hand towel across the room. He was now in the process of disinfecting something in the sink. Upon closer inspection, I noticed a gleaming silver scalpel.
“Rylan, you’re kidding!”
“Hmm?”
“We’re cutting the chips out?” I started to feel queasy. I couldn’t do this to myself, and I couldn’t watch him do it either. I may have stitched him up after the subway flood, but this felt different. I had known Rylan longer now; I was emotionally invested. Seeing Rylan harm himself, in my mind, was infinitely worse than seeing Rylan harmed.
“We shouldn’t have even gotten them. You have such a superhero complex! What if we get infected?” I clutched my forehead, pacing in front of his toilet.
“You’re in the clear. I can heal you just fine.”
“But what about you? Oh God, what if you slice an artery?”
Rylan took the towel from me and bit it between his teeth. “Oooh gun?” he asked.
“What?”
Pulling the towel out, he tried again. “You done? I’d really like to get this over with.”
I glanced at the chips under our skin. Looking closer, I could just make out the pulsing of a faint blue light. I knew we had to do this whether I vomited all over his bathroom floor or not. Who knew what those nanobots could do to us. To everyone.
“What do you need me to do?”
Rylan held out his left arm. “Just hold this steady for me. I don’t want to flinch.”
I gulped when he poised the sharp tip of the scalpel over his skin. It was impossible to tell whether mine or Rylan’s hand was sweating more.
The blade glinted under the lights, and before I knew it, a scarlet line dotted his flesh. Rylan moaned, the noise slightly muffled under the towel. He made another cut perpendicular to the first, forming an L. A tear streaked down his cheek.
Rylan’s fist squeezed my fingers, and I feared they would break. Sweat flecked his hairline. Another grunt beneath the towel yielded two clinks in the sink. The first, the scalpel, blade stained with blood. The second, a red—formerly silver—microchip.
“Shit!” Rylan spit the towel to the floor. The underside of his forearm was a bloody mess.
Rylan disinfected the scalpel. He reached for my arm, but I swayed, suddenly too dizzy to feel much of the pain.
The steady drip, drip, drip of Rylan’s blood soaked the marble floor. I dove for another hand towel, clenching it between my teeth as he dug in with the scalpel. My blood and another microchip joined his seconds later.
I spat out the towel. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.” My stomach quivered with the cafeteria hot dog I ate for lunch. I didn’t think I would make it. Oh, no way. The hot dog was getting its revenge.
“Oh shit…”
I reached the toilet just in time.
* * *
“You have such a superhero complex,” I muttered. We moved from the bathroom to his bedroom after I purged my lunch and brushed my teeth. I was surprised to find he slept on a waterbed. How 1980s of him. I sat down, scooting against the headboard to put some space between us. Rylan had been trying, unsuccessfully, to heal my arm for the past five minutes.
“It’s not a superhero complex,” he insisted. “It’s just a decent human being complex. Now let me see your arm.”
“It’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine, but I knew what healing did to him. I picked at the towel wrapped around my wrist, wound tight enough to make the cut burn. Rylan had his own pain to worry about. I wouldn’t add to it.
“Whatever, Abigail.” Rylan sat beside me with a sigh, dropping a roll of gauze bandages into my lap. “At least help me with mine, would you?”
I leaned toward him, unraveling the gauze in a long spiral between us. Just as I was about to tie it around his arm, he jolted forward, ripping away the towel covering my cut to place his palm over my wrist.
“Gotcha.” He grinned, but it was strained as he leeched out my pain. After a few seconds he sat back, wincing as he massaged the underside of his right wrist. Predictably, my skin had knitted back together, like the scalpel never even touched it.
“Superhero complex,” I repeated, rolling my eyes as I secured a strip of gauze around Rylan’s cut.
“You know I had
to do it. Your intentions, though noble, wouldn’t have worked if your dad saw a huge scab on your arm. He’d know you took the chip out.”
“And what’s going to happen if someone sees the huge scab on your arm?”
“They won’t. I’ll wear long sleeves, I guess. I don’t think anyone’s really looking anyway.”
I taped the bandage in place, watching Rylan roll his wrist in a slow, painful circle. I’d never wanted superpowers, but I wouldn’t mind having them just this once, if only so I could heal his wound and repay the favor.
“That’s going to leave one gnarly scar,” I pointed out.
Rylan snorted. “Yeah it can match the one on my head.” He tugged his hair. I could hear the rough scraping of nails against his scalp.
“You always scratch at it, you know.”
“Do I? Bad habit.” As he spoke, he did it again. Nails against skin. Like he was trying to erase something that no longer existed. Or trying to erase the memory of it. “Does it bother you?”
“Not at all.” The waterbed formed around the contours of my body as I relaxed into it. I closed my eyes and bounced a little, the bed sloshing loudly beneath me. When I opened my eyes I found Rylan lying on his side, grinning at me.
“Does it ever hurt?” I asked. I brushed my fingers through the hair at the back of his head.
“It feels numb a lot, so no. I used to think it was disgusting when I first got it.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Man, did I hate it. But now I don’t mind as much. The scar isn’t me. I’m me. The scar is just something that’s there. It took a while to figure that out.” He paused for a second. “Scars say a lot about a person, you know. What you’ve been through. What you defeated before it defeated you. Your fears. Memories. Strengths. Weaknesses. The things you love, the things you hope will never slip away. They tell a story,” Rylan said. “And I’m always a sucker for a great story.”
He always had such a unique way of looking at things. It would be easy for him to stay bitter. To shut down instead of opening up about his past. But the right thing and the easy thing are rarely the same. I think Rylan knew that.
“You could always tell people you got it in a fight with a super. You won, obviously.”
Rylan smirked. “Clearly.”
“Say you fought Iron Phantom. They’ll love you forever. They might even throw a parade in your honor.”
“True. I’ve always hated that guy.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Peel off all that spandex and I bet he’s a real sweetheart underneath.”
Rylan’s eyebrows raised. “I’m not sure how I feel about you ogling other men, Abigail.”
He held a straight face exceptionally well. Though, I guess the whole secret-identity thing helped his acting chops. “Okay. I guess I’ll have to give Iron Phantom a call and break up, then.…”
“Don’t do that; I’m pretty sure he’d do something crazy if you broke his heart. Like cry or something emasculating.” He scrunched up his nose. “He doesn’t seem like a crier.”
“Are you sure? I’ve seen him cry before.”
“He must really like you then—to let you see him like that. Vulnerable.”
My eyes lowered. “I really like him too.”
“He’ll be pleased. I’ll inform him immediately.” Rylan winked. “I bet he’d ship it.”
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be horrified. “I’m pretty sure that’s Sarah’s favorite phrase.”
Rylan shrugged. “I’m sure she’d ship it too. I would. Wouldn’t you?”
I grinned so wide my cheeks hurt. “Definitely.”
We grew quiet. I brushed my fingers over the healed skin on the underside of my wrist, trying not to think of what had been buried in there less than an hour before. Trying not to think about what would happen next. Somehow Rylan and I would have to find a way to cope with it, whatever it would be. We wouldn’t have a choice.
The soft tick of Rylan’s alarm clock filled the room.
“Rylan … I’m scared.”
The smile curving his lips disappeared. His eyebrows furrowed. “Me too.”
“I keep expecting the worst.”
He reached an arm around my shoulders, pulling me to his chest. He smelled warm and safe, though I knew we were anything but. “So do I.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
We didn’t get many chances to talk the following week. Opening night of Hall of Horrors loomed closer, and if Rylan and I weren’t stuck in rehearsals until an ungodly hour, we were slowly digging our way out of piles of homework, papers, tests, and presentations.
In short: Tech week was miserable. Commonly known as “hell week” in the theater community, it consisted of late-night rehearsals, nearly twenty costume fittings, and standing onstage doing absolutely nothing for an hour while Mrs. Miller patronized Rylan over whether yellow or pink lighting best complemented my skin tone. Yellow won out, much to Rylan’s dismay.
Wednesday’s rehearsal was the least painful. No one (specifically me) fell, the cast actually knew their lines, Jimmy Stubbs didn’t slice off any more of his extremities, and Isaac’s singing sounded better than ever. He totally nailed one of my favorite moments in the show—“My Hunger,” a song where his character Prince Arthur debates whether he should give up the throne and turn in his family for cannibalistic crimes against the kingdom.
Isaac and I didn’t even mess up our big dance number during the finale. I spun downstage and gracefully landed in his arms without causing injury to myself or others.
“Hey, that was great,” he said during our break. “Good job.”
“Thanks, Isaac.”
“My pleasure, Hamilton.” Isaac patted my shoulder and smiled. He had been on a nice streak lately, which made the hours I spent with him during tech week actually bearable. As I watched him walk backstage to grab a snack, I started to have faith that maybe this show wouldn’t crash and burn after all.
Friday rolled around, and along with it came opening-night jitters. Morriston High had an early dismissal due to a faculty luncheon, so I had the entire afternoon to myself until showtime.
Rylan returned home to check on the nanobots. After weeks of testing, he hadn’t determined their purpose. So far, no one in Morriston exhibited questionable behaviors or strange illnesses, which put my mind slightly at ease, but many citizens were still taking action. Plenty were accepting of the microchips, but that didn’t include the protesters with their handmade signs, the rioters overturning vehicles, the groups staging sit-ins outside city hall. As far as anyone could tell, the crime rate remained unchanged. If anything, it might have gotten worse, although I suspected that was only because the chips hadn’t been activated yet. The Morriston City Police Department had been tasked with using census data to ensure everyone received an injection—even those who hid at home hoping to avoid it. Last I heard, my father said everyone was accounted for.
Except Rylan and me.
I’d expected my house to be deserted when I kicked off my shoes at the back door, but my dad apparently had other ideas. He was seated in the living room, grasping the sports page of the newspaper between his fingers, holding it far enough away so no ink would stain his crisp white shirt. I didn’t know whether to ignore him or scream in his face. Because of city hall, Rylan had a scar the size of Texas on his arm, and I could barely sleep with the terrible thoughts racing through my head in addition to my usual nightmares.
But when my dad dropped the paper from his face, all thoughts of yelling and temper tantrums vanished. A wide smile formed wrinkles around his eyes. It wasn’t his politician grin—that one was sly, like a snake. It could convince anyone of anything. But this was his real smile. It spoke of bedtime stories, campfires, chocolate chip cookies, and kisses with Mom under the mistletoe. It had been ages since I’d seen it.
“Hey there, Abby!” He waved me over to the couch. Dad noticed when I hesitated, and his smile dropped for a fraction of a second before coming back even brighter. “Come on over! I ha
ven’t seen you in a while, honey.”
I took the comics section when he offered it, skimming them over. My dad used to read the comics to me every Sunday, even before I was old enough to understand most of the jokes. That tradition stopped once he ran for reelection.
“Aw, man, that Charlie Brown gets me every time.” Dad laughed and squeezed my shoulder. I tensed up. Chastising myself, I relaxed. This was my dad. This was fine. But why was I so nervous?
“So, what have you been up to, Abby?”
“Oh, nothing … nothing much. Been busy with school. Things have been pretty stressful.”
Dad furrowed his brow. “Really? Anything I can help with?”
“No. Just—” I’d planned on crafting a stupid lie. Boys, classmate drama, maybe something girly that would have him turning back to the comics without question. But this was my chance. Rylan told me no, but surely I could ask one tiny question about the EDDs without raising suspicion? “Actually, the EDDs seem to be making a lot of people really anxious.” I yawned, hoping to convince him my inquiry wasn’t cause for concern. “Why do we need them anyway? I get that they’re for premeditation, but I’m not a criminal. Connor obviously isn’t a criminal either.”
Maybe my overactive imagination caused me to think he flinched when I mentioned the chips. Maybe he was just taking his time folding the paper before answering. Maybe I needed to calm the heck down.
“Well…” He smiled at me. It was his politician’s smile. “I don’t want anyone thinking I’m giving you or your brother preferential treatment. And there’s really no harm in getting one, even if it’s not necessary. It won’t hurt you.” He glanced down at my wrist. I bunched up my sleeves in my hands, covering my skin even though Rylan had made sure there was nothing to see. I searched my dad’s arm to see if I could find the soft blinking of a chip under his skin, but his cuffs covered his wrists.
“Don’t worry,” he continued. “I know people are angry. Change is an adjustment, but it won’t always be this way. Pretty soon this will just be a thing of the past.” Somewhere between his rubbing of my shoulder and his encouraging words, his grin morphed back to his real smile—the Dad Smile. “I can’t tell you how excited I am about the E.D.D.s, Abby. They’ll change the city forever! Finally, we’ll be able to put an end to crime. Morriston will be a better place.”
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