“Number two, leave her alone.”
“But—”
“Leave her alone.”
“What if—”
“What’s rule number two, Jax?” Riley growled.
“Why’d you point her out to me, then?”
“You’d wonder why I was hooking up a generator to Mrs. Unger’s house. And I wanted her to know she shouldn’t be afraid of you.”
“Why would she be afraid of me? I just want to meet her.”
“She doesn’t want to meet you.” Riley flipped the switches in Mrs. Unger’s electric box. “I’ve lived here for years, and she’s never spoken to me.”
Jax’s eyebrows shot up. “She’s never talked to you, but you’re giving her electricity?”
“It’s a courtesy. And sometimes, when she feels like it, I get a courtesy thank you. You’ll see.” Riley motioned him over. “C’mere, and I’ll show you how to do this. That way, if I ever have to be gone on a Grunsday again, you can hook up both houses.”
Riley talked him through the procedure, and they started up the second generator. “They’re quieter than I expected,” Jax commented.
“I paid extra to get the quietest on the market. Didn’t want to attract attention.”
Jax looked around. “Who would hear it?”
Riley didn’t answer. “The gas stove works, and we’ve got public water, so that works. But the only way to have electricity on Grunsday is to supply your own. The power companies are run by computers, and anything with a computer chip is dead today.”
“Why?”
“Because processing chips measure time, but Grunsday exists on a timeline they don’t recognize. Unfortunately, almost everything has a chip these days. That’s why we have to keep the old refrigerator from quitting.”
“Ohhhh.” Jax nodded. “And that’s why your motorcycle is a piece of junk.”
“Junk? The Honda 350 is a classic!”
A classic piece of junk. “But wait,” Jax said. “There’s electricity in town. The traffic lights are on, even if they’re stuck, and the emergency lights were on in Walmart.”
“That’s an afterimage of the light that was there at midnight on Wednesday.” Riley picked up the gasoline can and walked it to the shed. “The lights in Walmart—did you have trouble seeing by them?”
“Actually, yeah.”
“Don’t break into a store again. If it’s an emergency, there are other ways to get what you need.”
“I thought it was an emergency,” Jax said indignantly. “I’m not a thief.”
“I’m not a thief either,” Riley replied. “But I have stolen when I needed to.”
As much as Jax wanted to hold himself above those ethics, he couldn’t. He had a closet full of Walmart goods that proved otherwise.
Riley spent the afternoon working on his bike. Jax kept his eyes on the windows of the house next door. He wanted to ask Riley what the girl did in there all day, but if she refused to talk to Riley, he probably didn’t know. So instead, Jax asked a bunch of other questions Riley couldn’t or wouldn’t answer.
Why hadn’t Jax’s father told him about this extra day? Did other Aubrey relatives have the same ability?
“Do you have other Aubrey relatives?” Riley asked.
Not that he knew of. His father had been an only child, and his Aubrey grandparents had died before he was born. “Why are you my guardian?”
“Your dad knew my dad.”
Jax watched Riley check the fluids on his bike. “Your dad’s dead, isn’t he?”
Riley didn’t look up. “My whole family’s dead. At least you have cousins.”
“Can I still go live with them?”
“Eventually. I was gonna talk to Crandall’s dad about it. We were all so sure you were going to be a Normal. Now . . .” Riley stood and picked up his helmet. “We can’t let you go without some training.” He mounted his motorcycle, then paused. “You can come along. If you want to.”
Jax didn’t want to go to A.J.’s house, and Riley didn’t want to bring him. Jax could see it on his face. “No, I’m gonna ride my bike and look around.”
“Stay within the town limits. It’s safe for you here.”
“And it’s not safe outside of town?”
Jax watched Riley’s expression. He seemed to be mulling over how to answer that question. “Just stay close,” he said finally, turning the ignition and revving the engine. “And leave the girl alone.”
The motorcycle was hardly out of sight before Jax whipped off a note to the mysterious girl and shoved it through Mrs. Unger’s mail flap. Then he spent the rest of the afternoon kicking himself for not waiting until he came up with something less stupid than:
Hi, I’m Jax Aubrey. Maybe we can hang out sometime and have a soda. I’d like to meet you.
He wondered if she would read the note or just leave it lying by the front door for Mrs. Unger to find. Mrs. Unger would think Jax was nuts.
When it was obvious the girl wasn’t going to introduce herself—or even come to a window again—Jax took a bike ride through town. It wasn’t as interesting as he’d thought. In fact, it seemed like the extra twenty-four hours were going to be pretty dull. He could ride his bike on the empty roads and wander into stores that had been open at midnight. He also could walk out with anything he wanted and snoop in neighbors’ houses.
He wasn’t tempted. The fact that he’d searched the Ramirez house while Billy and his family were kinda-sorta there made his skin crawl. And even though he guessed the security cameras at Walmart hadn’t been working last Grunsday, Jax still wasn’t convinced the police weren’t going to pin the burglary on him.
Riley returned in the evening and showed Jax how to disengage the generators. When they shut down the one at Mrs. Unger’s house, Jax found a basket of freshly baked cookies left nearby. “She thanks you with baked goods?” Jax rummaged through the basket to check for a note. There wasn’t one.
“Not very often.” Riley sighed glumly. “I guess I have to share them with you now.”
Jax stayed up until midnight to see for himself what happened. A few minutes before twelve, he sat on the front porch with his father’s Rolex on his left wrist and Riley’s Timex in his right hand.
Riley’s watch ticked steadily until exactly twelve o’clock and then stopped.
The Rolex started.
Across the street, a pit bull went berserk, running up and down the length of its fence, barking and growling at Jax. From the dog’s perspective, he’d just popped into existence from nowhere.
“You’ll get used to it,” Riley said from behind him.
Jax held up both watches. “But they’re mechanical watches! There’s no computer chips in them!”
Riley shrugged. “Every time-measuring device is affected by relativistic change, and, like the car you saw on the highway, a lot depends on the perspective of the observer.” When Jax’s mouth dropped open, Riley grinned. “Einstein’s theory of relativity. What, did you think that because I work at a garage, I’m stupid?”
Well, yeah, actually. He had.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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7
THURSDAY WAS DISTRESSINGLY NORMAL, full of teachers and classes and work. Jax wondered how he could have an extra twenty-four hours that bored him silly and still be annoyed by a regular day. Either Grunsday should be more exciting, or Thursday should be more satisfying.
When he got home from school, he scoped out the windows of Mrs. Unger’s house. If what Riley said was true, the girl wasn’t there today. She wasn’t anywhere today.
A.J.’s truck was parked in front of the house—A.J.’s old truck, which, like Riley’s motorcycle, had no computerized parts. Hefting a plastic bag of milk and orange juice, Jax went into the house and was greeted with “Heeeere’s our little Walmart burglar. Went back for more, did ya?”
Jax glared at
Riley. “Did you have to tell him?”
“Steal anything I might like?” asked A.J.
“I took canned goods and water and batteries, you jerk. How was I supposed to know Thursday was still coming?” Jax walked stiffly into the kitchen. He wasn’t proud of what he’d done. The refrigerator wheezed when he opened the door to put away the milk and juice. It sounded like it had emphysema.
There were two pizza boxes on the counter. With A.J. in the house, he expected them to be empty, but there were four slices left and Jax grabbed them all, piling them crisscross onto a plate.
Riley came in and broke up the boxes.
“I have more questions for you,” Jax said around a mouthful.
“I’ll bet you do. But that’ll have to wait until later, if you feel up to it.”
“Why wouldn’t I feel up to it?”
“It’s tattoo night!” A.J. hauled a leather case into the kitchen and onto the table. He unbuckled it and whirled it around to face Jax. The case was filled with tattoo guns, needles, and bottles of ink.
“You’re giving Riley another tattoo? Where?” Riley pretty much had tattoo sleeves up to his armpits.
“No, I’m giving one to you,” said A.J.
When A.J. wasn’t driving equipment for a strip-mining company, he worked part time at a tattoo parlor. But that didn’t mean Jax wanted the big doofus sticking needles into his arm. Just because they shared this weird Grunsday thing didn’t mean he liked A.J.—or Riley. “It can’t be legal to give me a tattoo,” Jax said.
“It is with the permission of your guardian,” said Riley. “Trust me, Jax. This is traditional. Your first Grunsday. Your first tattoo.”
Jax hesitated. The idea of a tattoo was cool, although not the needle part. Jax hated needles. And what would Naomi say, when Jax finally went to live with her? “I’ll pass,” he decided and started walking out with his slices of pizza.
Riley stepped into his path and gripped his arm. “Sit down, Jax. You’re getting a tattoo.”
Jax shivered and sat down.
He looked at A.J.’s equipment.
He was getting a tattoo.
“I’ll have a snake,” he volunteered.
Riley let go.
A.J. burst out laughing. “You can’t have a snake!”
“Riley has a snake. And a tiger, and a bunch of other things.”
Riley held up both arms for Jax to see. “These are camouflage. The only reason I have these is so people don’t bother to look at this one.” He extended his left hand, and for the first time Jax noticed a family crest in blue, gold, and red ink on the inside of his wrist. It was so well surrounded by other, more interesting tattoos that it practically faded into the background.
For a moment, Jax felt dizzy. “My dad had a tattoo just like that. Except—”
“Yeah, I know. He had your family crest, and this one’s mine. You have to have it, Jax. We all have it.” Riley looked at A.J., who rolled up his shirt sleeve and turned his arm over. He, too, had a crest inked on his wrist. Jax had never noticed that one either, not that he looked at A.J.’s arms that much—or any other part of A.J.
“All Transitioners are marked this way,” Riley continued, “and you’re never going to reach your potential without it.”
A.J. leafed through his stencil paper. “Do you have the Aubrey crest for me to copy?”
“Jax has it. Go get your father’s dagger, Jax.”
Jax was out of his seat, up the stairs, and into his room before he realized it. Only when he was halfway down the stairs with his father’s dagger did he pause. He didn’t want to put this in A.J.’s hands, and he wasn’t sure he wanted a tattoo.
Instead, he wanted to know what Riley meant by “potential.” He wanted to question how there could be an extra day and scientists not know about it. He wanted to know more about the girl he’d seen in the window of Mrs. Unger’s house.
Jax looked at the dagger.
He wanted to know if his father was expecting to die when he signed Jax’s custody over to Riley.
“Jax,” hollered Riley. “Bring the dagger.”
Jax ran down the remaining steps, into the kitchen, and handed over the dagger.
Billy would’ve thought this was the coolest thing ever—hanging out with Riley and getting tattooed. Jax watched A.J. copy the design, then extended his arm for the stencil as if it were someone else’s arm. When the tattoo gun came out, he squirmed in his seat, but Riley stood behind him and placed both hands on his shoulders. The machine whirred when A.J. pressed his foot to the pedal, and the needles bit into Jax’s arm.
They stung, like little hornets. Jax watched the ink sink into his skin and blinked rapidly. A.J. wiped away tiny droplets of blood. “I feel sick,” Jax whispered.
“Turn your head,” A.J. said.
He did, but the room grew dim.
He heard Riley’s voice: “Whoops. There he goes.”
And A.J.’s: “Makes my job easier.”
Then somebody turned out the lights.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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8
THE VOICES FADED in and out, and it took a while for Jax to focus on the words.
“Why don’t we all move someplace else? The Emrys girl too.”
“Camouflage works best when you stay in one place, Crandall. Start moving and all bets are off.”
“Yeah, but in this case . . .”
“Jax is awake.”
Jax could’ve sworn he hadn’t moved. But now he opened his eyes. His left hand tingled, and when he looked at it . . . “Hey!” he shouted, sitting up and finding himself on the living room sofa. “I passed out and you finished the tattoo?”
A.J. shrugged. “You were nice and still.”
His skin looked puffy and red, but the Aubrey crest was now inked into his wrist. It must have taken hours to finish the job. Was it normal to be out cold that long? Jax looked accusingly at the other boys.
But his eyes were drawn back to the tattoo. It was undeniably cool. A.J. had gotten creative with the design: the eye on the scroll was fancier, he’d made the bird a bald eagle, and the flames were colorfully inked in red and gold. But it was basically the same family crest that Jax’s father had tattooed on his wrist and engraved on his fancy dagger.
* * *
ART (EMBLEM)
TK
* * *
“There’s one more thing to do.” A.J. picked the Aubrey dagger off the coffee table. “Come over here . . . and kneel down in front of Riley.”
“No,” said Riley.
A.J. frowned. “I know he’s young for it, but how else are you going to protect him?”
“Gimme that.” Jax stood up and snatched the dagger from A.J.’s hand. He didn’t know what they were talking about, but he didn’t like the sound of it. Kneel to Riley?
A.J. turned toward Riley. “You said you were going to look out for the kid.”
“I will,” said Riley. “The oath I made to his father covers that. I don’t require anything else from Jax.”
“I don’t know what you promised my dad,” Jax said, “but you’ve been a lousy guardian.”
“Is that what you think?” Riley replied.
“You haven’t looked out for me.” Jax scowled. “You haven’t explained anything to me—why we get this extra day, or who else gets it, or how there can be people who live on only one day a week.”
“Those are a lot of questions.”
“I’ve got more.” Jax held up his sore arm. “Why do I have to have a tattoo with my family crest, but you camouflage yours?”
“You’re right. We do need to talk about that, but not tonight.” Riley removed his dagger from its sheath and balanced it on the palm of his hand. “Getting marked takes a lot out of you,” he said, looking up from the dagger and meeting Jax’s eyes. “I might be a lousy guardian, but I know you’re tired and need to
go to bed.”
I am not, Jax wanted to say. Instead he swayed, and his eyelids got too heavy to hold up. He would’ve fallen into the coffee table if Riley and A.J. hadn’t grabbed his arms. They hauled him upstairs, Jax mumbling protests all the way, and when they dumped him into bed, his eyes closed and stayed that way.
“You’ll sleep till morning” was the last thing he heard Riley say.
In the morning, Jax woke with a sense of panic. His arm was sore but not so puffy anymore. He tried to remember why he’d held out his arm to A.J. and all he could think of was: he hadn’t wanted to. It made him shudder to remember how eagerly he’d asked for a snake when seconds earlier he’d wanted nothing to do with those needles. He pulled on a long-sleeve shirt and left the house for school without stopping for breakfast.
“Jax?” Riley called out from the kitchen as he passed by. “Hey, Jax!”
Jax didn’t answer. He quickened his pace and walked down the street to catch the bus at Billy’s house.
The long sleeve shirt didn’t fool Billy, who spotted the tattoo on the bus. Jax had to give a partial explanation, and Billy was hurt. “If A.J. Crandall was doing home tattoos, why didn’t you call me? My mom would’ve killed me for getting a tattoo.” He said the last as if it were an honor Jax had denied him.
Jax couldn’t tell Billy about Grunsday, and he couldn’t explain how Riley and A.J. had tattooed his arm against his will. “I passed out, all right?” he finally said. “I would’ve called you, but I fainted as soon as A.J. stuck a needle in my arm, and I was embarrassed.”
“Dude, you didn’t.”
“Like a girl. I fainted like a girl.” And stayed passed out for the next three hours.
Billy crowed with laughter. Jax tugged down his sleeve and asked, “Can I stay at your house this weekend?” Suddenly, Jax was afraid to go home—afraid of Riley.
“Sure. Unless . . .” Billy’s eyes lit up. “Do you think A.J. would—”
“You’d need permission from your parents,” Jax said promptly.
The Eighth Day Page 4
