Zellie Wells Trilogy

by Stacey Wallace Benefiel

  He smirked. “You bring ‘em back from the dead and I’ll patch ‘em up.”

  Catching his eye in the mirror, I smiled.

  I’d made the decision even before he’d helped me in the shower; before he’d bandaged my wounds. I’d probably made it the instant I’d breathed in air and realized I was alive again. “Avery, can we...do you want to...um,” I shook my head and closed my eyes, embarrassed, which was completely dumb because we’d been naked and touching each other for almost half an hour. I took a deep breath. “Want to take a nap? And by nap I mean--”

  “Yup.” He dumped the supplies he’d been holding onto the counter and scooped me up in his arms. Taking five steps into the bedroom, he laid me on the bed. He walked over to where he’d left his jeans and pulled his wallet from the pocket. “I managed to keep a few of these before my mom cleaned out the truck.” He tossed the condom onto the bedside table. “Not that we need it right this minute.”

  I got under the covers and scooted over with my back to the wall, making room for him to lie next to me.

  “Wait,” he said, grinning, “one more thing.” He shut my bedroom door and the door to the bathroom and locked them both. Then he climbed into bed with me, taking me in his arms. “I believe you requested a bed and a room with doors that lock?”

  “Yes, I did.” He kissed me slowly, letting me know we had all the time in the world. Avery made me feel safe and mended. Hopeful. All at once I was overcome by our bond. Surprising us both, I rolled on top of him, straddling his hips. I kissed his neck, along his jaw line, taking his earlobe between my teeth.

  “Jesus, Zel, it’s going to be over before it gets started,” he moaned under his breath, sliding his hands up the outside of my legs to my waist.

  I nipped at his bottom lip. “Get it started then.”

  Grasping my waist, we rolled clumsily so that he was on top. He trailed his mouth down my body, flicking his tongue over my nipples and then moving lower. I fought the urge to put him in a headlock with my knees. As tired as I’d been, I was filled with electricity now. I’d had an idea that he could make me feel this good, but the reality was all-consuming. Suddenly, a rush of warmth radiated throughout my entire body. Now I knew why Claire thought we’d become sex addicted zombies. Little by little, my muscles relaxed so that I felt like I was sinking into the bed. Hazy, I looked down at Avery, expecting his expression to be self-satisfied, but he looked wild and suffering instead.

  He climbed up my body until his forehead rested on mine. “Zellie?” he pleaded.

  Knowing exactly what he wanted, my hand searched the bedside table, found the condom and slipped it into his hand. I was ready. He entered me as cautiously as he could, showing way better control over himself than I had earlier. When I didn’t yell and throw him off me, he fell into a rhythm.

  I’m not going to lie, it hurt, stung worse than getting the sand and asphalt washed off my back. I tried not to let it show, concentrating on his face above me.

  Opening his eyes, he found me staring at him. “You okay?” he asked, slowing down, “I’m not hurting your back...or anything?”

  I shook my head no and reached up, twisting my hands in his damp hair, bringing his mouth to mine.

  When it seemed like he could hardly stand to focus on kissing me anymore, he rested his face next to mine, hooking his chin over my shoulder. I wrapped my arms and legs around him tightly, waiting for it to be over.

  A little while later it was. He was heavy on top of me, but I didn’t move. I recognized the sinking into the mattress feeling.

  “Oh, God, I’m probably crushing you,” Avery said, coming out of his daze. He pushed up on his hands, his arms shaky.

  “Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but...” I smiled up at him.

  He smiled back at me, goofy now, and then dipped down and kissed me sweetly.

  “Cool?” he asked.

  “Cool,” I replied.

  “Am I smiling uncontrollably?” He giggled. “Because it feels like I am.”

  “You are, and I’m glad.” I giggled too. He was slap happy.

  He gently pulled away from me and collapsed onto his side. “You need anything? Water? More blankets?”

  “Sleep,” I said, overcome with exhaustion, “First we are gonna sleep and then when we wake up I want to try doing what we just did again.” I snuggled up close to him, resting my head in the crook of his elbow. “Sound like a plan?”

  Avery laughed and then kissed me on the forehead. “Sounds like a plan,” he said, his expression turning thoughtful. “And after that?”

  I slid my arm around to his back, holding him as tight as I could. “After that,” I sighed. “I have to figure out how to take down The Society.”

  The End

  Glow

  Chapter One

  The boy walked through the front door of the See-Saw diner, pulled up the edge of his threadbare gray t-shirt and wiped the sweat from his sunburned face. He paused, looking around the seating area, which was empty except for Melody and me sitting in a booth in the corner. Satisfied that we were nothing to contend with, he sat down at the counter by the cash register. Shrugging off his dirty orange backpack, he set it on the stool next to him.

  The diner owner’s daughter, Amanda, slid a menu down the counter toward the boy. “Let me know when you’re ready to order.”

  He pushed the menu away. “Can I have a water and a coffee?”

  Amanda nodded, putting the menu back by the register. “Do you want the coffee iced? It’s a scorcher out there.”

  “No thanks.”

  Filling a large glass with ice water out of a pitcher with one hand and pouring the cup of coffee with the other, Amanda spoke to the boy over her shoulder. “You been backpacking up the mountain?”

  He stared at the back of her head, making no effort to reply. She set the beverages down in front of him. “Coffee’s on the house; I’m going to have to toss the rest of the pot at the end of my shift anyways. You’re the only one drinking it.” She smiled and then went back to the other end of the counter where she’d been refilling salt shakers.

  Holding the water glass with both hands, he put it to his mouth and drank greedily. After he’d finished the water he got up, leaving his coffee and backpack behind, and went into the men’s restroom.

  He splashed water on his face and dried it with a paper towel, studying his reflection in the mirror. Pushing his greasy, sun-streaked blonde hair back from his hairline, he scratched at the edge of his forehead with his fingernail. The skin peeled back a few centimeters all the way down to the bone. A tiny bit of thick, gelatinous blood rose to the surface.

  “Damn,” he said, letting his hair fall back across his forehead, hiding the defect. He turned and pulled his shirt up his back; the space between his shoulder blades was rubbed raw, and the skin above the waistband of his shorts looked dead and gray.

  The boy returned to the dining area and put his backpack on the counter, unzipping it. Still standing, he downed the coffee.

  “Thanks for coming in,” Amanda said, smiling at him again.

  This time he smiled back. He sauntered down to the end of the counter and walked around behind it. Leaning in close to her, he grasped her wrist.

  “I’m going to need you to empty the register for me.”

  Amanda tried to yank her hand away. “What?”

  He grabbed a pair of scissors from a tray of empty bud vases on the wait station next to him and stuck the sharp points against her neck. “You heard me.”

  “Please,” Amanda said, her voice wavering, “I’ll give you whatever you want.”

  The boy pushed her roughly down the length of the counter to where the cash register sat. He turned toward my sister and me. “Don’t you two get any stupid ideas.” He nodded at us, all the while still holding the scissors to Amanda’s throat. “Bring me your cell phones.”

  Melody marched up to him and slammed her disposable cell phone down on the counter, cracking the battery. “T
here, assface.”

  “Shut it, blondie. What about her, the redhead?”

  “She doesn’t have a phone. We share one.”

  “Fine. Go sit back down and keep your mouths shut.”

  He turned back to Amanda. “What the hell are you waiting for?” He pushed the points into her neck, drawing a small bead of blood. “Open the damn thing!”

  Amanda fumbled with the buttons, causing the register to beep. “Sorry! I’m trying. Can you just take the scissors away, please?”

  The boy withdrew them from her throat and aimed the points at her chest. “That better?”

  The register sprang open.

  He nodded at his backpack. “Put the money in there.”

  She held up a twenty, a five, a small stack of ones and a roll of nickels. “This is it. Business isn’t very good in the summer.”

  “The hell it isn’t. A resort town like this?” He applied pressure to the scissors. “Take me to the safe.”

  Amanda tried to yank her wrist from him again. “I’m not lying! There isn’t any more!”

  “I guess I’ll just have to take it out of your hide, then.” He grinned and licked his lips. “You two,” he shouted at us, “get up, now.”

  I walked over behind the counter, Melody following. “It’s gonna be okay, Amanda.”

  The boy jabbed the scissors at me. “Go. In the back!”

  I opened my eyes.

  Melody exited the women’s bathroom and slid into the booth across from me. “I made the call,” she whispered.

  “Already?” I whispered back. “What if it takes the boy longer to show up than you think?”

  She raised one eyebrow at me. “Three words: Peters’ family picnic.”

  I’d been working hard on controlling my glimpses, my completely accurate mini-visions of the future, and was finally able to get them to work in tandem with my longer, more detailed visions...but the time between when my glimpse ended and the event occurred? I was averaging five minutes, but sometimes things still happened immediately afterward.

  I’d been confident I was having a five minute day back in May when I’d told Melody to wait to call the ambulance until after I’d finished glimpsing Mrs. Peters. She’d gotten her foot stuck in a hole during one of those races where you hold an egg in a spoon and try not to drop it.

  Oops. The event had commenced the moment I’d come out of the glimpse.

  What I hadn’t been shown was that Mrs. Peters didn’t just break her ankle. She’d stepped in a snake den. It was too risky with all of her family members and the other spectators around for me to do my Retroact thing and rewind time to before the accident occurred. So, my hope had been to cut down on her suffering while waiting for the paramedics to arrive.

  The timing is a delicate balance that I’m not sure I’m ever going to get right. When the police and ambulances show up too early, people get suspicious. When they show up too late...well, we all had to stand there and watch Mrs. Peters flail on the ground with a broken ankle while being bitten by a snake. The ambulance did show up about three minutes before it normally would have and Mrs. Peters turned out to be okay - the snake wasn’t poisonous. But yeah, not my best day as a Retroact.

  “Point taken.”

  Melody leaned to the side, trying to unstick her sweaty bare leg from the cracked vinyl of the bench. “Ick. Summer sucks.” She looked toward the door. “Hmm. I don’t see him. Yet.”

  I’d had the original vision of this event that morning while I was shaving my legs in preparation for this evening’s festivities. I’d already picked out what I was going to wear and when I saw that I was wearing the same outfit in the vision, I knew it was happening today. As a bonus, Melody and I had gotten to sit in the See-Saw drinking chocolate shakes all afternoon.

  “I forgot to ask you how Avery was doing, Zellie?” Amanda said from across the room as she hoisted a tray full of salt shakers onto the counter.

  We were in the same grade. That is, we had been in the same grade until my parents withdrew me from school last winter to keep me away from my boyfriend Avery. That plan had so not worked and they’d made me re-enroll at Rosedell High School for my senior year. Mom knew the head of the school board and she’d convinced him to let me take a placement exam, which I totally aced, instead of having me repeat my junior year.

  “He’s good. Today’s his birthday, actually. How’s Jackson?” Jackson was Amanda’s boyfriend and he and Avery played varsity soccer together. Otherwise, Amanda would have shown zero interest in me.

  While being a diner owner’s daughter was considered uncool by most kids in town, being a pastor’s daughter ranked even lower. Whatevs. She was a nice enough person and didn’t deserve to be robbed at scissor-point and then raped by some skeevy backpacker kid.

  “Jackson’s good too. We’re going swimming at the lake later. You guys doing anything for Avery’s b-day? You can come along, if you want.”

  “Thanks. That sounds fun.” It actually did. “We’re having a family dinner at Avery’s house, but maybe after that?”

  “Oh, yeah. We won’t even be there until nine or so.” She lowered her voice. “Much safer to get a buzz on in the parking lot after dark.”

  “You gonna get your buzz on, Zel?” Melody asked with a wry smirk.

  Amanda glared at my sister, shrugged at me, and went back to her task.

  “Oh, you know me,” I muttered. “I love the beer and the weed.”

  “Ha. Well, you were a high school dropout and kind of a slut,” she teased.

  “Please.” I took a sip of my shake. “You can’t be considered a slut when you’re only sleeping with one guy. Avery’s my soul-mate, there’s never going to be anyone else. That’s, like, the opposite of the definition of a slut. I’m the anti-slut.”

  Melody giggled and then her face went serious. “So, what’s it like?”

  “What’s what like?” I knew what she was asking, but was clueless as to how to describe what sex felt like or the emotions that went along with it.

  “It.” She took a long pull from her shake. “Don’t withhold info, Zel. I’m fifteen.”

  “You’ve been fifteen for, like, three weeks. You haven’t even kissed anyone yet, have you?”

  “So? I will someday, probably soon.” She pushed her shake away from her and took a drink of water. “I’m a Lookout. I help you keep people from dying - have been since I was thirteen. I’m not the same kind of fifteen-year-old that you were.”

  That was true. Melody was never going to be innocent and sweet and get flustered when a guy tucked her hair behind her ear. But I was already giving her the play-by-play of half the things that happened in my brain; she was going to have to discover sex for herself.

  “Why don’t you work on getting an awesome boyfriend first and then we’ll talk.”

  “I knew you’d say some big-sisterly crap like that. I’ll just ask Claire.” She sighed and checked the front door of the diner again. “I’m not going to have to raise you and Avery’s kids like Aunt Hazel did for Grandma, am I? I would suck at that.”

  I choked on my milkshake. “One: Avery and I haven’t even talked about having children since his death vision occurred and we realized it was Mom that was pregnant and not me. Two: If we do ever have kids in, like, fifteen years or something, they’ll know what I am, what he is, and what they could be. I would never keep all of this a secret like Mom and Grandma did. Three: You’ve held Wyatt maybe four times since he was born and changed exactly zero diapers. And he’s your brother. I get it. You’re not maternal.”

  She nodded in agreement. “So you guys are being safe, then?”

  “I thought we weren’t talking about this?”

  “Just answer the question, you owe me that much.”

  “Fine. Condoms and I’m on the pill. You have a less than one percent chance of becoming an aunt.”

  Melody tensed up.

  “I know math isn’t your best subject, but even you have to know that less than one percent-
-”

  “Here comes the boy. Get your head in the game.”

  I glanced at the clock on the wall above the pie case. Two and a half minutes, not bad. Peters family picnic my butt.

  We sat in the booth as the events I’d glimpsed took place exactly the way I’d seen.

  When he went into the bathroom, I leaned across the table. “Why do you think his skin is peeling off?”

  Melody shrugged. “He is sunburned pretty bad. You and Mom always peel when you get burnt.”

  “Yeah, but not down to the bone. And it didn’t make him bleed hardly at all. There’s something freaky going on here.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course there is.” She looked down at her phone. “The cops should be here in three minutes. Their response time out this way is running about nine minutes lately. Kinda sucky if you ask me. This town needs more cops. You won’t have to hold Amanda and Mr. Scumbag in the rewind long, though.”

  The boy exited the bathroom and walked over to the counter.

  “Get ready,” I whispered. “Wipe your prints from the phone.”

  “It’s handled.”

  “Don’t you two get any stupid ideas.” He nodded his head at us, all the while still holding the scissors to Amanda’s throat. “Bring me your cell phones.”

  Melody quickly slipped the phone out of its protective jacket and held it between her thumb and middle finger, halfway down each digit. She marched up to him and slammed the phone on the counter using the heel of her palm, cracking the battery.

  “There, assface.”

  I pretended to be super interested in the Formica tabletop in front of me. Melody sat back down. We were silent as he threatened Amanda into opening the cash register, preparing to do our jobs.

  “You two,” he shouted at us, “get up, now.”

  I walked over behind the counter, Melody following. I was ready to take this frickin’ idiot down.

  “It’s gonna be okay, Amanda.”

  The boy jabbed the scissors at me. “Go. In the back!”