by Stacey Jay
“I do.”
“Then why are we wasting time Rollerblading?”
“This isn’t a waste of time,” he said, sounding irritated himself. “Life is short, Megan, shorter than I ever realized. You have to make time to play.”
“There are zombies killing people. A girl is dead! I don’t have time to—”
“Yes, you do. You deserve to have a little fun, even when things are bad. Heck, especially when things are bad.” He rolled closer, pinning me with those soulful eyes that made me certain he knew all of my secrets. “Promise me you’ll make time to enjoy your life, no matter what happens. I don’t want you to wake up in a crypt someday wishing you’d spent less time smoking up and more time living.”
“But I don’t smoke pot.”
He grinned. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah.” I returned his smile, but it wasn’t my happy grin. I was going to miss Cliff. He was the first new friend I’d made since Jessica tried to kill me. Well, and the Monicster, if you could call her a friend.
For the first time in my life I actually understood the lure of black magic. I’d never lost anyone I cared about so much before. It didn’t matter that Cliff had already been “lost” before I’d even met him, I still didn’t want him to go. If I’d known a spell to keep him from having to crawl back in that crypt, I would have been sorely tempted to cast it. Even knowing what I did about the consequences to my own soul and that a spell like that might change Cliff in some frightening way. Even knowing that Jess still wasn’t out of the woods for all the dark power she’d channeled last fall, I was still . . . tempted.
I shivered at the darkly seductive warmth curling through my veins.
I was a good person, I’d been raised to fear black magic, and I personally knew a girl who was having seizures and heart attacks as a direct result of summoning the wrong kind of mojo, but still, it called to me. I guessed maybe that was why Kitty and Elder Thomas needed proof I was innocent. No one was immune.
“Okay, enough heavy stuff,” Cliff said. “Let’s take this hill.”
“Agreed, but then we have to get down to business. I’m not trying to be a fun-killer, but we’ve only got forty-five minutes to get back to the bus stop before the last bus leaves.”
“We’ll be there in plenty of time.”
“I’m serious, Cliff, I can’t miss that bus or—”
“Megs, have a little faith.” He shook his head in mock disappointment. “I didn’t choose this spot simply for its beauty or astoundingly long, rolling slope alone.”
“You didn’t?”
“Our true destination also happens to a mere half-mile away, right at the bottom of this hill, and a block from a bus stop.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Wow, I’m impressed.”
“Good planning for a zombie, eh?”
“Good planning for a boy.” Even Ethan, the smartest guy I knew, seemed to have trouble doing more than one thing at a time.
“I’ve always been a good planner.”
“Maybe you’re just in touch with your girly side.”
“Or maybe you’ve just been hanging out with the wrong guys.” He was halfway down the hill before I could think of how to respond, which was probably just as well. Flirtation must be avoided at all costs. Still, Cliff was right—a little fun would probably be okay.
The thought made me smile as I pushed off, my pulse racing as I picked up speed and the cold air whipped through my hair. By the time I’d gone fifty feet, my nose was frozen and my teeth chattering, but I didn’t regret being here for a moment. There was just something magical about zooming down a deserted street in the dark, feeling the night come to life around you, knowing that—at least for a few minutes—all you had to think about was wind and speed and letting gravity take charge.
I wasn’t usually the sort to enjoy giving up control, but for the moment it was perfect. So perfect, I was sad to see the hill come to an end so fast.
CHAPTER 12
“You want us to break into my doctor’s office? Are you crazy?” I asked, looking nervously around as we walked. The parking lot was deserted, but just thinking about breaking and entering was enough to give me hives. I might push the limits when it came to Settler law, but when it came to the human variety I was a model citizen.
“We’re not going to steal anything.” Cliff paused near a darkened window and pressed his face to the glass. “Well, not anything that doesn’t belong to you anyway. I say your parents’ medical records are your business. After all, they have access to your records.”
“They’re my parents!”
Cliff turned to me, blinking in confusion. “So?” He pushed at the bottom of the pane, nearly giving me a heart attack. It was all I could do to not whip my cell out and call the police myself.
Monica was right—I was a hopeless goody two-shoes.
“Don’t touch that! There might be an alarm.” I grabbed the sleeve of Cliff’s sweatshirt and tugged him back into the shadows.
“If there’s an alarm, you can run and I’ll go in and get the records.”
“But what if there’s a security camera? The police could see. You could be—”
“I’m dead. What are the police going to do?” he asked. “Megan, this is no big deal. This building is old, and I doubt the practice is making enough money to go super high-tech with the security.”
“I don’t care.” I crossed my arms and glared. “I don’t break or enter, especially not to steal my parents’ medical records. It’s illegal and pointless. My parents are both perfectly healthy.”
Cliff cocked his head. “I never said your parents were sick.”
“Then why are we—”
“Listen, Megs, you love your mom and dad and they love you, but that doesn’t mean you can trust them. Parents lie too.”
My lips parted in silent shock. I wasn’t sure whether to be angry or hurt by what he was implying. I mean, my mom had been acting strange lately, and I suspected she wasn’t telling me something. But that was withholding, not lying. There was a big difference. “My parents wouldn’t lie to me. We’re like . . . friends. They don’t treat me like a kid.”
His eyebrows lifted. “And the ten o’clock curfew is because . . . ”
“That’s different. Sure I have a curfew and stuff like that. But in other ways they treat me like an adult, like I’m smart enough to understand things and be part of the decisions that are made for our family.”
Cliff’s face was a study in pity as he brushed a strand of hair away from my face. “Megan, those zombies you’ve been fighting lately aren’t the only things that are different. You’re different.”
“I know that.”
“Well, haven’t you ever wondered why?”
I stepped away, hating the way my skin lit up when his fingers lingered just behind my ear. What was wrong with me? Why did Cliff make me feel this way? I had a perfectly wonderful boyfriend, one who was alive and didn’t accuse my parents of being liars. I should turn around, march across the parking lot to the bus stop, and never look back.
But I didn’t.
Hadn’t a part of me been suspicious of Mom and Dad for days now? It wasn’t just Ethan’s announcement that the Enforcers had been looking into Mom’s file. Mom and Dad just hadn’t been acting like Mom and Dad. There was a good chance that only stress was to blame, but what if it wasn’t? What if Cliff was right and they weren’t just keeping private grown-up stuff private? What if they’d been lying to me?
“It’s just the way I am,” I said, but my weakening resolve was clear in my voice. I huddled deeper into Ethan’s sweatshirt, suddenly feeling the cold.
“Are you sure?” Cliff asked. “Are you sure there’s not an explanation, one your parents have kept from you? Maybe because they thought it would be best for you?”
Well . . . when he put it that way . . . no, I wasn’t sure. But neither was I sure I trusted Cliff, at least not more than my own mom and dad. “If you know something, why don’t yo
u just tell me? Why drag me down here to steal things?”
“You won’t believe me without proof,” he said. “Besides, I’m not exactly sure what we’re going to find. I just know we need to get our hands on those records. Specifically your dad’s . . . I think.”
“You think?”
Cliff sighed and leaned against the side of the building. “I told you, my visions don’t work as well as they used to. Even when I was alive, they didn’t tell me everything. They just sent me in the right direction. Now, it’s even more vague, like a dream I can’t quite remember.”
“A dream you can’t quite remember.” The eye-roll I sent his way was well deserved. “Then why should I—”
“We’re running out of time.” He cast a frustrated glance at his watch and then turned pleading eyes back to mine. “Please, Megan, let’s just get the records. If there’s nothing there, then I’ll admit I was wrong. I’m fine with being wrong. I just . . . I don’t want . . .”
“You don’t want what?”
“I don’t want you to die.” The desperation in his tone told me Cliff hadn’t been totally straight with me. Not about why he kept seeking me out, and not about his visions.
“You’ve seen it, haven’t you? You’ve seen me die.” My voice wasn’t much more than a whisper, like I could keep the words from being true if I didn’t say them too loudly. “Those weird RCs kill me, don’t they?”
“No, I didn’t see that,” he hurried to assure me. “But I’ve seen things that make me worry. A lot. There’s a fire, girls screaming. I see you running and then . . . and then there are these hands . . . on your throat . . .” He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t need to. “It makes me worry constantly. About you and about the people who will get hurt if you’re not around anymore.”
Our eyes held as we came to a silent understanding. We both knew I couldn’t afford to ignore his warning.
“So how do we do this?” I crossed my arms again, making it clear I still wasn’t thrilled with this plan. “I’m assuming you have experience with breaking and entering?”
Cliff smiled. “Come on, I think I saw something on the other side of the building.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me around to the front, pausing under a row of narrow windows about six feet off the ground. “I’m betting those are in a bathroom. What do you think?”
“No . . .” I closed my eyes, struggling to remember the layout of the Pleasant Mountain Family Clinic. “There aren’t any windows in the bathrooms. It’s been a while since I’ve been here, but I think these are in one of the doctors’ private offices.”
“Even better. They might have the files in there. Here, let me lift you up.”
“Wait a second, I—”
“Just push on the bottom of the window and see if it opens. Those look really old, and I’m betting they don’t lock from the inside.”
I sighed, but didn’t bother putting up a fight. I’d already agreed to do this—might as well get it over with. I stepped into the basket Cliff made with his hands, and for the second time that night let someone else boost me up into the air. The bottom of the window budged almost immediately.
“It’s loose. I think I can get in,” I said, not knowing whether to be excited or terrified. There was no way I’d be able to lift Cliff up high enough for him to slide in through the window. I was going to have to do it myself.
The knowledge made my heart beat faster, made my blood pump so loudly in my ears that I didn’t heard the footsteps until it was too late.
“Freeze! Little Rock Police,” a deep male voice ordered. Seconds later, the hands holding me disappeared. I was left dangling in midair, clinging to the window ledge as Cliff ran like a bat out of heck into the shadows surrounding the parking lot. He was gone before the men behind me could finish yelling for him to stop.
Great. My first act of juvenile delinquency and I’d not only been caught, I’d also been abandoned by my accomplice. Now I was going to get a ticket or thrown in the hoosegow or something even worse.
I dropped to the ground and turned around, hands in the air.
“We’re going to need your home phone number,” the second policeman said as he tucked his gun away in its holster. “We’re calling your parents.”
Yep, this was definitely something worse.
Too bad I hadn’t retrieved my parents’ files. It would have been good to have some dirt on them before they got the call from the police. Then maybe I would have had something to bargain with to keep from being grounded for the rest of my natural life.
“What the hell were you doing?” Mom asked through gritted teeth, the real interrogation starting before we’d even pulled out of the police station parking lot. Since I had a clean record, the cops had given me a stern warning not to trespass and sent me on my way. It had just been bad luck they’d spotted me and Cliff while they were out patrolling, and, strangely enough, I think they felt a little sorry for me for getting caught. I had nearly broken down three times while explaining that I’d never done something like this before and would never do something like this again.
In the end, I’d gotten mercy from the law, but I knew better than to expect the same from my mother.
“I had an Unsettled?” I winced when it came out as a question. I sounded like I was lying even when I wasn’t. This wasn’t going to go well, not well at all.
“So you decided to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night?”
“I didn’t think you’d let me go.”
“Damn straight we wouldn’t have. At least not alone. You could have been seriously hurt. What if there’d been another attack? What if you were—”
“I know. It was stupid. I’m sorry,” I said, sinking lower in the passenger’s seat. It was past two in the morning, but I wasn’t tired. Being in police custody had banished any shred of sleepiness. At this point, I was fairly sure I’d never close my eyes again. “He wanted to go into Little Rock to Rollerblade down this hill, and—”
“Don’t try it, Megan,” Mom snapped. “I want the truth, not some story about this boy falling and cutting himself and you needing supplies from the doctor’s office.” She jerked the car onto the highway with a squeal of the tires. Mom isn’t the best driver under normal circumstances, but when she’s angry . . . Well, we’d be lucky if we didn’t wind up in a ditch. “The police weren’t buying it and neither am I. Especially since I know it didn’t matter if that boy lost a leg on that hill as long as you got it back in his grave along with him.”
“Would you believe I had to use the bathroom?” I asked, stalling for time.
How could I tell Mom I was sneaking in to steal her and Dad’s medical records? Not only would the lack of trust freak her out, but I’d have to explain how I’d gotten the idea in the first place, and I really wasn’t up to telling anyone about Cliff.
“You’re lying.” Mom’s voice was chilly enough to make me shiver, even with the heat blasting in the car. “I’m not as stupid as you seem to think I am, and I don’t—”
“I don’t think you’re stupid. It’s just that . . . there are . . . things . . .” Crap, I sucked at this. I should just tell her the truth. Maybe she’d let me know what was in those records and it wouldn’t be any big deal.
“Megan, you know you can tell me anything, right?” she asked, her voice softer than it had been before. “If you’re in some kind of trouble, if you’ve . . . done something . . . even if it’s something awful. I will always love you. And I’ll—”
“God, Mom,” I said, that mix of anger and hurt rearing its ugly head once more. “You sound like Kitty. Do you think I’m guilty too?”
“No, of course I don’t . . . I just . . .” She trailed off and I did my best to stop sniffling. I really didn’t want to cry again tonight. “I just don’t want you to hide anything from me.”
I couldn’t have asked for a better opening. If I chickened out now, I’d never get a better chance. “And I don’t want you to hide anything from me. Even if you thin
k it’s for my own good.”
Mom spun to face me. The car swerved off the road onto the rumble strip, making the entire vehicle shake until she regained control. It wasn’t the reaction of an innocent woman, and I felt the first real crack snake its way through the bedrock of my faith. I’d always taken my mom’s honesty for granted, but now I wasn’t so sure.
Neither of us said a word as the exit for Carol came up and Mom turned left onto Main Street. Finally she broke the silence. “Have you been going through my things?”
Oh God, Cliff was right. She did have something to hide. “No, but I guess I should have been.”
“Don’t smart-ass me. There are things you don’t understand.”
“Duh! And whose fault is that?”
“You’re still a kid, for God’s sake. You’re too young to know some truths.”
“I’m not too young to go to Settler prison for the rest of my life,” I yelled, no longer trying to keep a lid on my freak-out. Screw my withholding explanation—she’d been flat-out lying to me. The woman who had drilled the importance of honesty into my skull since I was practically a fetus had lied. And she was still lying. “I know Enforcement has been looking into your past.”
“So what? I’m your mother, I—”
“And I’m not deaf, either. I heard you and Elder Thomas talking. What the heck was all that about? What mistake was she talking about?”
“That’s none of your—”
“Tell me, Mom. Tell me what you’re hiding.”
“Some mistakes are better left in the past, Megan. Leave it alone.”
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll find out on my own, and when I do, I’m not going to—”
“Don’t you dare threaten me,” Mom snapped, turning to glare at me while the car veered toward the median. “I am still your mother and I have never—” We hit a pothole on the side of the road with a loud thunk that made the car rattle.
“Shit, watch the freaking road!”
