He’d chosen to use Zellie and Ben as test subjects prior to exacting his revenge on The Society for many reasons, the first of which was because they were the least protected of all the young Retroacts. Zellie grew up with zero magical guidance, and after Laura’s fortunate demise, Ben was left alone with a Lookout that couldn’t keep him in check. They were easy targets and although Ben was only a few years younger than Christopher himself and Zellie not many past that, they both had barely begun to scratch the surface of what they were capable of. He would see to it that they didn’t live long enough to scratch any deeper.
Once he developed his mind control powers to their fullest and took out the two amateur Retroacts, he would go back to Los Angeles and start picking off members of The Society. Rachel Loughlin was on the top of his list. That old bitch was the one who’d convinced his mother to give him up for adoption, and as far as Christopher was concerned, the one who’d ruined his life. Hopefully the death of her granddaughter would rattle her and weaken her sensibilities - an added benefit to killing Rachel’s own blood; her own Retroact to shape and mold.
A spur of envy gouged his gut. Besides revenge, jealousy had been another reason he’d chosen Zellie and Ben. They both had something he could never have - they were completely accepted for who they were by their families. Like Ben, he had known from an early age that a wife and two kids weren’t in his future. Like Zellie, he’d grown up knowing nothing of his mother’s abilities. However, Ben’s mother had allowed him to love whomever he wanted and Zellie, a Pastor’s daughter no less, was being encouraged to hone her newfound abilities.
Christopher’s adoptive parents were deeply religious, extremely wealthy and not tolerant of his sexual preferences or his psychic visions at all. They thought he was damaged and attention seeking.
At the age of thirteen, when his first boyfriend and trigger, Liam, was stabbed during a mugging outside of a 24-hour grocery store just as Christopher had foreseen, his parents forbade him from going to the funeral.
Devastated because he hadn’t understood what the vision meant and hadn’t tried to warn Liam of the future, he spent the day of the funeral in his room crying, looking at pictures and keepsakes he kept in a shoebox under his bed. Late in the afternoon his mother burst into his room, pulled him to his feet, slapped him hard across the face, and demanded that he burn the contents of the shoebox. When he refused and tried to reason with her, tried to take her into his confidence by revealing the vision to her, his mother had squeezed his arm hard enough that her fingernails drew blood. She said nothing but her eyes were so full of rage, disappointment and hatred, Christopher felt in the core of himself that not a single person on the planet loved him.
At the age of seventeen, when his father caught him behind the boxwood hedge exploring the inner reaches of the gardener’s mouth with his tongue, he was immediately sent to a straight brainwashing camp. He supposed the hope was that he would miraculously realize the error of his ways and start liking vaginas as God had decreed he should.
Instead he’d developed a relationship with a gorgeous raven-haired dead boy named Wes who’d had the good fortune to successfully hang himself in the camp chapel the month before. Wes’s misfortune was that he had no one in the living world he had cared enough about to attach himself to at the time of his death, so he was stuck in the chapel. That was, until Christopher came along.
Wes had appeared to Christopher his third day at the camp. He’d taken to napping in the empty chapel in the afternoons under the guise that he was doing spiritual meditation. After one such “meditation” session, he had opened his eyes and found Wes staring at him, a curious expression on his face.
“Are you gay for real or just trying it out?” Wes eyed him suspiciously. “Do you have guilt? Because I’m not sure I can handle guilt, but you are really cute and I would love to attach myself to you and get the hell out of here.”
“Yes, I’m gay for real,” Christopher said. “No, I don’t have guilt and you’re nice to look at too.” He sat up and thrust his hand out toward Wes. “I’m Christopher. Don’t ever call me Chris. It bugs the shit out of me.”
Wes attempted to grasp Christopher’s hand, but his fingers sunk into his palm, giving them both a heady buzzing feeling.
“Whoa! What are you?”
“I’m a ghost,” Wes said cautiously, relief coloring his face when Christopher didn’t run screaming from the room.
“Oh. I have visions of the future and...I guess I can see dead people now too.” Christopher scanned the chapel.
“Looking for someone?” Wes asked.
“Yeah, my first boyfriend, Liam, he died four years ago. I just thought he might be around.”
“Sorry dude, he’s probably moved on by now.” Wes did look genuinely sorry. “We can either do the whole “go toward the light” thing and go kick it where we’re meant to end up, or we can attach ourselves to someone in the physical world and hang out here a little longer.”
Christopher considered this and while he felt hurt that Liam hadn’t attached himself to him, he couldn’t really blame him. “So, you’ve just been sitting in here waiting for someone attachment-worthy to come along?”
Wes nodded. “Going toward the light is not an option for me. Don’t ask. And in the month since I’ve been dead, you’re the first guy who’s had any potential.”
At Wes’s urging, after he’d attached himself to Christopher, they escaped from the camp in Southern Utah and hitchhiked to L.A. Once there, they spent most of their time in cemeteries collecting information from the spirits. That’s how they learned of The Society and what Christopher truly was.
Through the contacts that Wes made at the Woodlawn cemetery, he was able to set up a meeting between Christopher and Valerie, a minor Society member who could also communicate with spirits. She’d been a friend of his birth mother, Rita, and had filled him in on the circumstances that led to his black market adoption.
Valerie explained that it was policy for Society members to give up their male children. Retroacts like his mother were especially encouraged to give up their children regardless of their sex because the children would either have no powers or the less desired power of spirit communication. The male children were adopted and no care was taken to make contact with them again. The female children had a slight advantage. They were tracked in the hopes that when they reached adulthood they would give birth to a Retroact. Being male and the child of a Retroact, Christopher had two strikes against him when he came into the world.
At the time of his birth, the appointed enforcer of the policy was Rachel Loughlin. She had a reputation for being harsh and unsympathetic, having abandoned her teenage daughter without regret by faking her own death. Being a Retroact was the most important thing a woman could do with her life and if you didn’t agree with Rachel, you were summarily exiled from The Society.
When Christopher was born, Rita had been forced to give him up to the parents of Rachel Loughlin’s choosing. Tragically, Rita had died a year later at the age of thirty-five, and no one had received contact from her spirit since. Valerie gave him all of the files she could safely steal from The Society regarding Rita and her family’s medical history, five hundred bucks, and the reassurance that his mother had wanted to keep him. That was the day that Christopher decided that Rachel Loughlin and The Society were going to pay for what they had done. He and Wes had been working toward that end ever since and their plan was finally reaching culmination.
He took the stairwell that led to the back parking lot, the frigid wind attacking him as he opened the door. He burrowed his chin into the collar of his coat and jogged to his car. Fumbling with his keys, he finally got them into the lock. The stupid thing wouldn’t budge though, it was frozen shut.
“Here, let me help you out with that.” Pastor Paul dumped an almost full travel mug of hot tea onto the car door, melting the ice just enough for Christopher to turn the key.
He pulled the door open. “Thanks. I’d forgo
tten that trick.”
Pastor Paul shrugged. “No problem, Chris.” He held the door while Christopher got into his car, “You headed out for a bite to eat? I hear the lunch counter at the Hitch has cherry pie á la mode on special today. That’ll make you remember that summer does actually come back around again.”
“Sounds yummy, but I think I’ll just run over to McDonald’s.”
Pastor Paul nodded his head. “Okay, then. Enjoy your lunch.” He tapped the roof of the car twice and started towards his car.
Christopher reached out and pulled the door shut. He smiled and waved at Paul Wells as he drove away.
Chapter Four
Avery turned onto the blacktop from the gravel road. I noticed it had been well sanded in the past couple of hours, which put my mind at ease for Mom. It seemed like the road crews were good about getting to this road early on. Probably so business didn’t slow down at the Mt. Scott lodge, but it benefited the few people that lived out this way too.
“Sorry I hit Ben, Zel. That was totally stupid of me. I just couldn’t help myself. He was being such an ass.” Avery reached over and put his hand on my thigh. This time I didn’t protest. “I’ll get you home, you can rest, and we’ll figure this all out later.”
I took off my seatbelt and snuggled up to next him. He reached around me and pulled the middle seatbelt across my chest and latched it. I lay my head on his shoulder. “I wish I had my license,” I said, “then you wouldn’t even have to go to the meet up and see Ben again.”
“Oh no, I wanna be around whenever you’re with him. I still don’t trust that dude not to mess with you.” He sighed. “Even though what happened with his mom does suck.”
“Yeah, even I felt bad for him. What I don’t get is why he can’t see her. Mom couldn’t either. I wonder where she went?” I closed my eyes, resting my head on Avery’s shoulder, when a thought zipped into my brain. “I’m going to get Ben to teach me to see dead people.”
Avery swerved the truck a little and then righted it. “Uh, do you think you’ll be able to do that?”
I sat up and glared at him. “Hey, so I’m not the most experienced Retroact of all time, but if stupid Ben can do it, then so can I!”
“That came out wrong.” He patted my knee. “What I meant to say is that I would love it if you could talk to spirits.”
I continued my glaring.
“No, sincerely,” he said, smiling. “It would be a good ability to have.”
Now I saw his angle. “So that I could help you talk to your dad?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t love having to hold your mom’s hand to see him, but also, y’know, if anything happens to me again...”
“Oh.” I slipped my hand under his shirt and ran my fingertips over his chest. He didn’t have a scar, but I would always know where the bullet went in.
It was the worst moment of my life and nearly the end of his. If my abilities hadn’t taken over my body when Avery’s mom had accidentally shot him, he would be dead. “I hadn’t thought of that...I don’t really want to think about that.” I leaned in and kissed his neck. “No more dying.”
He kissed the top of my head. “Especially not before we do it, because that would be some serious torture in the afterlife.”
“No more dying,” I said again. It was all I could think of to say.
As of late I was having a hard time justifying why we hadn’t done it already. I was pretty sure I wanted to and I thought Avery was waiting for me to be ready. We both knew it was a big step, and maybe we weren’t ready four months ago when I came back from Portland, but now, I mean, right now I kinda wanted him to pull over to the side of the road and deflower me post haste.
That feeling was happening a lot more often. But, of course I couldn’t just tell him that, or do what girls did to let a guy know that’s what they were thinking. Which was what, exactly? Stick my hand down his pants the next time we were making out? Gift him with a large basket of condoms and Reddi-Whip? Oh my God, I could never do anything like that. Just thinking about it made my face hot. So, then maybe that was a sign that I wasn’t really ready? Ugh. Losing your virginity had to be one of the most annoying decisions ever.
Claire and Jason had gotten it over with by their third date. In fact, it may have been the whole purpose of their relationship. She assured me that it was not a big deal, that it freaking hurt at first and then it didn’t. She also thought that because of Avery and my strong physical connection we were destined to become sex addicted zombies once we finally did it.
I was supposed to tell her if I was even thinking about going all the way with Avery. She volunteered at Planned Parenthood and could get me all the condoms I wanted. In like...flavors and stuff.
“Hey,” Avery said, “do you wanna come over to my house? It’s closer and my mom’s in Bend all day at the doctor’s. We could take a nap together?”
See? We share a brain.
I snorted. “Forget torture in the afterlife!” I turned to him and batted my eyelashes. “At least I have these pretty red eyes to keep you at bay.”
“Yeah, they really don’t bother me that much.” He winked at me. “Kinda hot actually,” he joked, and then turned his focus back to the road.
I took a deep breath. He loved me; hell he wanted to take a nap with me. He didn’t care that my eyes were bloodshot, or that I was awkward and flip-flopping between being slutty and being a prude depending on what my brain was shouting at me that day. And I loved him, and we could just sleep or we could not.
“Okay.” I cleared my throat. “Let’s go to your house.”
“Really?” He looked skeptical.
I nodded my head. “Let’s nap.”
I’m sure he didn’t think I’d notice, but he broke at least three different traffic laws getting us there.
Chapter Five
The garage door went down behind us and I suddenly felt like I was gonna barf. Avery got out of the truck and headed inside.
I did not. I sat there staring at a tennis ball. It dangled on a string from the ceiling indicating how far to pull the car forward before you would drive into the water heater. The ball was neon yellow and didn’t have a mark on it. I imagined no one ever really needed it, just some weird precaution left over from Mr. Adams’ reign of terror.
A million freaking things were going through my head. Besides my musings on the tennis ball, I was back to flip-flopping between slut and prude. Although I knew it was okay to be either or both, what did I want to be now? What did I want at this exact moment?
I wanted to have sex, or at least what I thought sex would get me. For months now I’d felt trapped in my body, no physical release from a substantial rewind or from making out. I felt good with Avery, but then we’d get to a certain point and he would stop. We’d just sit there stewing in our chemistry, when I knew for sure that I could’ve kept going, at least to some next level.
How was he supposed to know what I wanted if I couldn’t tell him or show him? I’d never even touched it. Shouldn’t the touching of it be a jumping off point? And how do you even go about doing that? Go for it, ask permission, accidentally?
And if we got to that point, where I’d touched it and we actually had sex, what if I, like now, just froze and lay there and was a colossal disappointment? This was an experience we were both going to remember forever.
Freakier than the pressure of that was what if I was good at things I didn’t want to be good at? Did I have to keep doing them? Did I even know all the things a person could be good at in this context? I could think of a few things I absolutely wasn’t going to do, unless, maybe I would want to do them?
I also hadn’t taken into account until this very second that I had a body that did things independent of my brain. One moment Avery could be kissing me and the next my deep down inner animal could be trying to hump his leg. Oh my God, that made me pre-mortified.
Holy Christ on a cracker, I was not ready to do this. I needed to go home, get in my Minnie Mouse n
ightshirt and take a nap alone. I needed to wait until I could actually call a penis a penis.
Still, if I could get my glimpsing to work, maybe see how things were going to go? I stared at the tennis ball and focused on conjuring up Avery and our making out greatest hits.
My eyes snapped shut. I’d finally done it! Go me and my super awesome glimpsability...crap, what was my mom doing here?
Mom sat at the desk, slumped over, her head in her left hand, holding the phone to her ear with her right. “You’re sure that’s what was--”
“Yes,” said a woman with a voice I thought I recognized, but couldn’t place.
“Okay, no I believe you.” Mom paused and turned to look at Mr. Adams who was pacing back and forth behind her. She sighed heavily. “It’s not what I saw when I glimpsed it, that’s all I’m saying. They were old-”
“You owe me.”
“Yes, I understand that I owe you. I said I would go along with your plan and I will. Just be careful, this could backfire on us majorly and we could lose them.”
My eyes popped open.
Avery knocked on my forehead. Wha? I turned to look at him.
“Oh, good, you’re not frozen solid.” He smiled a crinkly-eyed smile at me. “I was beginning to wonder.”
“I...” I said brilliantly.
“Do you want to go home Zellie? I can take you home.” He waited. I stared at him, probably with my mouth open, probably drooling. My brain was trying to reconcile the glimpse world with my current world and doing a craptastic job at it.
He raised his eyebrows. “Home it is then.” He grinned, closing my door and going around to the driver’s side. He hopped back into the truck and put the key in the ignition.
Zellie Wells Trilogy Page 19
