by Stacey Jay
“Monica told you about the weird RCs, right? That’s what this is about?” I settled into my chair with my Sprite while Kitty pulled a tiny tape recorder from her pocket. Mom set the Doritos down between us and then returned to puttering around the kitchen, clearly intending to eavesdrop, which was fine. I had nothing to hide from her or anyone else.
“She did, and she was thorough. As usual.” Kitty winked at me and I smiled. “But I’d like to confirm everything with you. On the record.” She pressed the record button and got her official voice on. “Interview with Megan Berry. January thirteenth, approximately twenty-two hundred hours.
“Due to the late hour and the fact that Miss Berry suffered head trauma earlier in the evening, this interview is purely for the confirmation of the incident, as per regulation four point three, subsections a and b. Are you ready, Megan?”
“Um, yeah. I mean. Yes.” I cleared my throat, catching a bit of Mom’s anxiety.
It was hard not to be anxious when Kitty started sounding like the FBI-type person she really was. I made a vow right then to keep my voice friendly when conducting Enforcer interviews. Assuming, of course, that I ended up becoming an Enforcer like everyone and their sister’s friend’s dog wanted me to be.
“Okay.” Kitty smiled again, obviously trying to put me at ease. “When did you first notice the Out-of-Grave Phenomenon?”
“About ten minutes after I got to the car wash. Probably around five? I smelled something funny, then heard groaning, so I grabbed Monica—um, Miss Parsons—and we headed into the woods.”
“You smelled something? Could you be more specific?” she asked, and I did my best to describe the smell of the herbs I’d noticed. “Great. So you entered the woods unobserved by any human witnesses?”
“The other members of the pom squad and the guy getting his car washed saw us.”
“But they didn’t see the Out-of-Grave Phenomenon?”
“I don’t think so. No one came to look for us until we’d joined power and—”
“We’ll get to that in just a second. First, could you tell me how many Reanimated Corpses you observed and briefly outline any unusual traits they may have had?”
I took my time describing as much as I could remember about the strange RCs—their fast movements, the lack of red eyes, the pink cheeks and apparent absence of grave dirt or any real signs of decomposition.
“So you’re saying they appeared to be alive?” she asked casually, as if that weren’t a huge weird deal.
“Well . . . I guess. I mean, the two I got really close to were pretty pale, but their skin wasn’t cold or stiff.” I hadn’t thought of it at the time, but Shorty and Baldy’s hands had been warm. “But they were both really strong, like zombie strong, and they definitely wanted a piece of me.”
“They tried to bite you?” Kitty’s eyes narrowed just the slightest bit and a shadow passed over her face. If she were someone else, I would have said she doubted my honesty. But this was Kitty. She knew I wasn’t a liar, especially about something like this. So why was she looking at me like that?
“Several times. I managed to stop them, but it wasn’t easy. None of the commands were working, even the pax frater. I don’t know what we would have done if combining our power for the reverto spell hadn’t worked,” I said, a hint of accusation creeping into my tone. “You never told us there were RCs that didn’t respond to spells. That would have been a good thing to know, you know. Like, before we almost died.”
Kitty sighed and took off her glasses to rub her eyes. “All Reanimated Corpses will respond to Settler commands if there’s sufficient power behind the spell and a manageable number of Out-of-Grave Phenomenons. Never in the history of our people have we had a documented case of—”
“But, I swear, there were only seven, four at first, and they didn’t—”
“Never have we had a documented case of Reanimated Corpses behaving as you’ve described.” Kitty slid her glasses back into place and nailed me with her clear gray eyes. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more at this time, but be assured your training in how to manage the Undead has been thorough.”
“Then what were those things?”
She looked sorry for me for a second, but apparently not sorry enough to answer my question. “Megan, could you tell me one more thing?” she asked, suddenly very interested in typing something into her BlackBerry. “Where were you between four o’clock and five o’clock this afternoon?”
“I was—”
“She was right here. Eating lasagna with her family, ” Mom interrupted in a supremely pissed voice. She’s a vegetarian and normally way more hippy than militant, but once you make her angry she can be pretty scary. “And this interview is over.”
CHAPTER 5
“Jennifer, please,” Kitty said. “I’m not trying to—”
“Oh, I know exactly what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to trick an innocent sixteen-year-old with a head injury into being interrogated without the benefit of representation.” Mom grabbed the chips from the table and set them down on the island behind her with loud thunk. Clearly, hospitality time was over. “If Megan is a suspect, you’ll need the proper paperwork, and we’re going to need a mediator.”
Settlers don’t have lawyers, but mediators are basically the same thing. They step in and made sure people suspected of wrongdoing are treated fairly until their guilt or innocence is determined. After SA had decided to try Beth and Jess in Settler court, a mediator had been responsible for getting Beth’s sentence transmitted to a stay in a mental facility instead of Settler Affairs prison. Tests had shown she was dealing with a bunch of different disorders and was a good candidate for rehabilitation once her memory had been wiped by Enforcement.
If Mom thought we needed a mediator . . .
“Okay, let’s just calm down,” I said, certain the maternal unit was overreacting. Kitty was my friend. She’d never think I had anything to do with those weird zombies. “I didn’t do anything wrong and I’m sure Kitty and—”
“Don’t say another word,” Mom said, pointing a firm finger at me before turning back to Kitty. “I’d like you and your team out of my house.”
“Mom! Please, stop it.”
“Be quiet, Megan, and . . . and go to your room!”
“My room is full of Enforcers!” I jumped to my feet so fast my chair clattered to the ground behind me. “And this is crazy! I didn’t make those zombies, if that’s what everyone’s thinking. Use a lie-detector charm on me, I swear it will—”
“I doubt the charm would work, Megan. You’re too powerful.” The way Kitty said the words made it clear she didn’t think my power was all it was cracked up to be. Great. Neither did I.
“Then find some other way to test me. I’m telling the truth.”
“Megan, listen to me,” Mom begged. “You need to be very careful what you say.”
“But I—”
“Your mom’s right. You shouldn’t say anything else.” Kitty flipped off her recorder with a soft sigh and pushed back her chair. “I’ll have the paperwork filed by tomorrow morning. You’ll get your copy by early Thursday at the latest. After that, it will be your responsibility to file a petition for representation. In the meantime, it would probably be best if Megan didn’t discuss this with anyone other than family members who, as you know, can’t be called upon to testify against her in a felony case.”
“Felony?” It felt like all the air had been sucked from my lungs.
I’d bent the rules a few times, sure, but what made Kitty and her team think I’d committed a felony? A felony was like . . . using black magic to murder someone or something horrible! Even the time SA thought I’d accidentally summoned a bunch of RC clones, no one had said anything about mediators or felonies.
An accident! Maybe this was something I’d done by accident. I still didn’t have total control over my power, so it was possible.
“What if I did something without knowing I did it?” I asked, hurrying on b
efore Mom could tell me to shut up again. “Like the time they thought I made those clones?”
“Not this time.” Kitty’s tone allowed no room for argument.
“We’re finished in her room.” Barker, another of my Enforcer trainers, appeared in the entrance to the kitchen.
He was so tall his head nearly hit the top of the doorframe and so wide he had to stand at an angle to keep his shoulders from hitting the sides. The dude was big enough to be flat-out scary and usually had a scowl on his face that completed the “fear me” look, but now he just looked sad. And disappointed.
My Sprite gurgled sickly in my stomach as I realized I was the one who had put that look on his face. Or whatever he thought I’d done. The man could barely look at me, which made me sad. And angry.
What had I ever done to make him and Kitty so ready to believe I’d raised those weird zombies? There had never been a Settler convicted of using black magic, so why were they assuming I was going to be the first? I might not have been the most eager little pupil, but I’d done my best to make them proud. I’d trained my ass off and studied until my brain felt like it was going to leak out of my ears, yet still, here we were.
It had to be my stupid super-Settler power getting me in trouble again. That was the only explanation that made sense. I was a suspect because I was capable of doing things the average Settler couldn’t, not because I’d actually done anything.
“Did you find anything?” Kitty asked.
“No. It was clean.” Barker didn’t sound as happy about that as he should have. He probably thought I had stashed the evidence of my evil somewhere else. The jerk.
“Thanks.” Kitty stood up and turned to face my mom and Elder Thomas, who had come to stand beside her sometime during the interrogation. “Please understand that we all care very much about Megan and your family. But as it stands—”
“As it stands, Megan is innocent. She didn’t raise those zombies.”
“Maybe not. We’ll have to wait for all the lab work to come back to be sure,” Elder Thomas said. “But we both know she could have. Don’t we, Jennifer?”
It was exactly the thought I’d had a second ago, but for some reason it made my mom suck in a shocked breath, then dart a quick look in my direction before turning back to Elder Thomas. Like it was news I was weird? We’d known this for a while now. “That’s . . . I thought we . . . This is crazy, Megan is innocent.”
“Megan may be innocent, but mistakes have been made—”
“Are you suggesting . . . I can’t . . .” Mom turned her back on me and dropped her voice to a whisper. “You know what? I’m not having this conversation. No one in this house did anything wrong, and I refuse to call that decision a mistake.”
“I think we both know that—”
“Get out.” Mom pointed a trembling finger at the door. The words were soft but infused with more rage than I’d ever heard in my mother’s voice.
“We’ll be in touch.” Elder Thomas headed toward the door, followed by a rather embarrassed-looking Kitty and a still sad-clown-faced Barker. The front door slammed seconds later and our house was suddenly disturbingly quiet.
But for some reason, I was afraid to break that silence. Maybe it was the fact that my mom was starting to cry, silent tears that leaked down her worried face. Or maybe it was the fact that, during her and Elder Thomas’s decidedly odd conversation, I’d seen the look in Mom’s eyes. It hadn’t been anger or confusion I’d read there—it had been fear.
She was afraid of something. Afraid that Elder Thomas was right about me going over to the dark side? Afraid of whatever this “mistake” was? Afraid that the Enforcers would nail me to the wall whether I was innocent or not? I couldn’t guess, and she didn’t stick around to explain herself.
“Go to bed, Megan. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”
“But Mom—”
“Just go to bed. Please.” She fled into her and Dad’s room and slammed the door, but I could hear it when she started to cry even harder. Then Dad mumbled something in his deep voice and the sobs were muffled. Probably by his chest. He was probably giving Mom a hug, and telling her everything was going to be okay.
Meanwhile, I was out in the kitchen with no one, feet tangled in my overturned chair. Alone, the villain in this night’s drama even though I’d done absolutely nothing wrong. For a second, I thought about calling Ethan and begging him to come over and let me sob on his chest, but realized it would be useless. No doubt he was still busy with Protocol duty and would be for the rest of the night. And even when he was finally dismissed, he might have been given orders not to see me. Girlfriend or not, I was apparently now a suspect in a felony, and surely SA wouldn’t want one of their cops fraternizing with the enemy.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if I learned we were on a relationship time-out until this mess was sorted out. There would be no Ethan hugs, no Ethan kisses, no Ethan common-sense talks that always made me feel so much better—not even a big, warm Ethan hand to hold.
The thought broke down the last of my upper-lip stiffness. By the time I got to my bathroom and turned the shower on, I was crying like someone had died.
How could I have gotten in so much trouble for something I hadn’t done? Why was I the only suspect when I knew they had no evidence to prove I’d raised those RCs? Sure I was the only super-powered Settler in our part of the country, but there had to be someone else who could have done this, because someone else did do it. I couldn’t believe Kitty, at least, hadn’t started to consider other suspects.
And what the heck was up with Mom and her “mistake” and this felony I’d supposedly committed? Trying to kill someone with zombies was a felony charge, but I was the one they’d been trying to bite! But then, the zombies would have tried to bite me if I was the one who raised them and a Settler had worked a reverto spell on them—a reverto spell sends them back to their maker for a bite of the blood that summoned them from their grave. So maybe that was why Kitty thought I was guilty.
Still, there had to be something more or everyone wouldn’t be so sure I was the only one who could have done it.
There were obviously things going on I didn’t understand. And whatever those things were, I was going to have to figure them out—fast. Sure, Mom seemed determined to stick up for me, but then, she was also withholding some kind of info and in her own room crying instead of in here rubbing my back. That just wasn’t normal Mom behavior. And if I couldn’t count on her for something as small as a back rub, how could I trust that she was going to keep me from going to SA prison for a crime I didn’t commit?
The answer was, I couldn’t, which made me cry even harder.
Wednesday morning dawned bright and horrible. My head felt like it was going to explode and my parents were still acting totally weird. I did my best to make a bunch of noise in the kitchen making breakfast, but even the smell of coffee percolating didn’t summon the beasts from their lair. Mom was usually a freak about me drinking coffee, insisting it would decrease my bone density and infuse my cells with toxins and blah blah blah, but apparently she was too exhausted to worry about my vulnerable adolescent skeleton.
I had a huge to-go cup of French roast in my hand when I opened her door and said goodbye. All she did was mumble, “Be careful” and something about seeing me later, and then roll over to hug Dad—who was also still abed even though he should have left for work at the airport a good thirty minutes ago. He was never late and Mom never slept in. It was strange. And scary.
My mood was foul before I even arrived at school and only grew fouler as the day wore on. I was so not in the mood for acting normal. English and world history seemed utterly pointless. Why did I need to learn about popular trends in twentieth-century literature or the evolution of Islamic culture when I could end up in jail for the rest of my life?
And who cared about the brilliant fund-raising event Monica and London had organized for Friday night? Sweetheart ice skating was not a giddy-making idea when you
might have lost your sweetheart. Ethan hadn’t called or sent a text all morning, and he had to know what went down. If he was allowed to contact me, he would have done it by now.
By lunchtime I hated my life and all the people happily chattering in the cafeteria. I hated raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens and all that crap. I also hated ravioli and green beans from a can and brownies that weren’t heavy enough. A brownie should be thick and weighty, not light and fluffy like some sort of cake. Brownies are NOT cake!
“Put the brownie down and step away from your lunch tray.” He was whispering, but I would have known that voice anywhere.
“You’re here!” I jumped off the chair I’d claimed in an abandoned corner of the lunchroom and flung myself into Ethan’s arms, squeezing until he groaned in pain. God, he smelled so good, like that spicy soap he used and shaving cream and boy. My boy, my boyfriend who hadn’t been told not to see me after all!
“I’m here, but I’m not supposed to be, so let’s sneak while the sneaking is good,” he said, leaning down to grab my backpack when I finally released my death hold.
“You’re not supposed to be?”
“Nope. Good thing I’m not a compulsive rule follower anymore.” He smiled and grabbed my hand, but I could tell he wasn’t feeling any more lighthearted than I was. “Come on, I’m parked at the bottom of the hill. If we hustle, we’ll blend in with the rest of the people headed out to lunch.”
Only seniors were supposed to go off campus for lunch, but I didn’t hesitate when Ethan pulled me out into the bright January day. My coat was still in my locker, but I didn’t care about freezing my butt off either. All I cared about was being with Ethan and away from school.
“You know what? I don’t want to come back,” I said, a spring coming into my step as we made it past the teacher on duty without attracting attention. “I’m going to skip the rest of my classes.”
“Sounds good,” he said, though usually Ethan would be the last one to encourage ditching school. It was just another reminder that I was in a heck of a lot of trouble. “That will give us more time.”
