by Dan Rix
Furious, he shoved off the bottom, and his hand struck something invisible. Then he saw it, skittering across the seafloor. The outline of the vial.
But Aaron’s stiff fingers hardly obeyed him. The vial vanished against the sand. He lunged for it, but only knocked it farther away.
He needed air. The sea swarmed with black spots. His lungs convulsed, tore at his chest. Aaron squirmed after the vial, but his fingers lost their grip on the flashlight and it nosedived into the sand—and the vial tumbled into the shadows.
Aaron stared at the narrow cone of light, the particles as they swirled like snow in front of headlights. The vial was gone. He couldn’t hold the air in any longer, and bubbles exploded from his nose.
***
But light behaves differently underwater. The index of refraction of fused quartz is lower than glass. If the vial had been made of glass, he would have seen it. But it wasn’t glass.
In salt water, a vial made of fused quartz was nearly invisible. At the bottom of the ocean, through a foggy pair of goggles, it would be like finding a poppy seed on a beach.
Yet right there, an inch from the flashlight and twinkling in its yellow beam, the vial had come to rest.
Aaron grabbed the vial, kicked off the bottom, and swam for the surface. Without the air in his lungs he was denser. He thrashed at the water, but it resisted him like syrup and he sank back after each thrust. The surface shimmered, miles above him.
But he kept going, willing the blood through his limp muscles. More air escaped his nostrils, deflating him further. His body was on the verge of collapsing in on itself.
Then he felt warmth on his cheeks, fresh air in his lungs, but by then he realized what was wrong.
His swim to the buoy, the dive sticks, the underwater flashlight—none of that mattered.
Aaron pried his fingers off the vial and looked straight through it. Of course he hadn’t seen it underwater.
It was empty.
***
The vial was Aaron’s last hope. There was nothing else to do, nowhere to go. In a world where everyone was paired with their half, he was alone.
Aaron drove home ten miles per hour under the speed limit, took a shower, and charged his cell phone.
Sunday passed. Absurdly, the digits on his clock continued to change. Around five in the afternoon, when yellow-orange light slanted in through the windows, Aaron laid the vial on his nightstand and sat with his back propped against his bedframe.
Amber’s perfume floated over him still. He wanted to feel her hair on his neck. He wanted to hold her, whisper in her ear. He wanted to see her green eyes sparkle.
Before they sparkled for the last time.
Aaron stared at the empty vial. Waiting. Just as he’d been waiting for his entire life.
Only there was nothing to wait for. His birthday had come and gone. He wasn’t seventeen anymore. Now, for as long as he lived, nobody would ever break the silence between his ears.
But he would always be waiting.
***
Aaron opened his eyes suddenly. He lay curled in a pool of sweat, still unable to sleep at three in the morning. Yellow haze trickled through the blinds from a solitary streetlamp. His heartbeat deafened him.
Then he felt it, like hot breath down his neck, something else in his bedroom—something alive.
Aaron kicked off his comforter and jolted upright. He scanned his room, wheezing, and his eyes narrowed on the black hulk of his nightstand. A single shiver crept down his spine.
The vial.
For a moment, Aaron lay very still, breathing in quiet gasps. There was something in it that woke him up. He snatched the vial off the table, jammed his feet into his shoes, and snuck into the hallway.
Outside, frozen moonlight drenched his yard. Aaron darted through the shadows and climbed into his car, parked just up the street. When he held up the vial, his breath misted on the quartz.
It appeared empty, but he knew it wasn’t.
At three o’clock in the morning, nothing moved outside his car. The black contours of hedges were fixed, frozen in place. Not a single leaf rustled. Aaron might have been the only living thing in the world.
Except there was something moving outside his car.
***
Aaron sat forward, hardly breathing. One of the shadows had changed positions, drifted closer—crawled. But now he wasn’t sure.
The road was too dark. The moon hid behind the trees, and the porch lights that hadn’t run out their timers barely flickered.
Then he saw it again.
Across the street, a figure darted forward and sank into the shadows between two trees. Closer now. Aaron’s heart pounded. Who was out there?
What was out there?
Aaron stared into the shadows, straining his eyes, but saw nothing. Then a soundless blur crossed to his side of the street—and he lost it at the neighbor’s hedge, five feet in front of his car.
It was pitch black, and Aaron couldn’t see a damn thing. He fumbled along his steering column for the headlight switch. Through the corners of his eyes he glimpsed motion, followed by eerie stillness. Then something hammered against his hood. The sound froze his blood.
He was only aware of a pale blur after that. Then a body slammed against his door, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. The handle rattled.
Crouching below the window, the thing outside yanked the door in every direction, trying to get in. And the driver’s side door was loose. In a split-second, it opened. Through the crack, Aaron heard gasps, a flurry of movement. He grabbed the door just in time, wrenched back on the handle, and for a moment thought the tendons would spring from his knuckles before the door slammed shut.
Whatever was outside scampered back to its hiding place. Aaron didn’t wait a moment longer. His fingers closed on the lever, and he flipped on his high beams.
Brilliant white light flooded the darkness in front of his car. Tree limbs popped into focus, leaves burned in the glare. The shadows dissolved.
And his headlights exposed a human figure crouched in the bushes. The figure raised a hand to block the light, but not before Aaron recognized who it was.
At first he felt relieved, bubbly almost, and he was about to let out a sigh when he realized what he was seeing. After that, it was pure terror. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
Crouching in the bushes in front of his car, shading her eyes against the high beams and shivering in a thin hospital gown—was Emma Mist.
TWELVE
Plus 1 Day, 16 hours, 30 minutes
Aaron brought her into his car, started the engine, and cranked up the heat.
He flipped on the cabin light. Emma’s pale skin was smudged with dirt. Her frightened eyes darted around the inside of the car, barely registering him, and Aaron noticed the sunken look to her cheeks. She hadn’t eaten in weeks.
“Emma—” Aaron didn’t know what to say. The last time he saw her she had been in a vegetative state, scarcely alive. Her half was dead; he had seen Justin’s corpse just two nights before.
She should have been dead too.
“Emma, tell me what happened,” he said.
She shook her head and hugged her knees to her chest. “I can’t remember,” she whispered.
“Do you remember me?”
She glanced up at him, and then buried her face in the gap between her knees. “Aaron, I shouldn’t remember anything,” she said.
“But you do,” said Aaron. “Buff Normandy and I came to see you a few weeks ago. Do you remember that?”
“I wasn’t there,” she said, sniffling.
“Where were you?” he said.
“Nowhere.”
“Are you hurt?” said Aaron.
She nodded. “I think there’s a hole—” She pointed to the back of her head and swiveled so he could see. “Will you check it for me?”
Her hair was crusted with flakes of blood, and Aaron was afraid to look. But the scab was small. It was her half who
had the hole drilled through the back of his head.
“It looks fine,” he said.
“I can’t feel him anymore. I think our channel broke,” she whimpered.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not supposed to be here.” Her teeth chattered.
“Emma—” Aaron pulled her into his arms to keep her warm. She was lighter than he remembered, and he lifted her right off the seat. Her skin was cold and sticky against him. She smelled like disinfectant. “Emma, tell me what happened?” he said.
“I woke up earlier . . . I didn’t know where I was—” her eyes froze on the vial, which Aaron had dropped in the center tray, and she trailed off.
Aaron looked down too. Miraculously, the vial was full now, glowing. The dazzling red fluid lit their faces, blinded them.
“But . . . but it was just empty,” he said.
The vial’s crimson reflection swam in Emma’s tear-filled eyes. “Can I hold it?” she said.
He held it out to her, and she lifted it off his palm. Her eyes tracked the red fluid as it scurried from one end to the other, trying to get to her.
Then she handed it back to him, and tears dripped into her lap. “Will you hold it, Aaron? Please.”
“What . . . why?” he said.
“Because you’re warm.”
Aaron stared at her as the words sank in. Suddenly, he understood. The significance of what he was seeing, what she meant. The vial held clairvoyance drained from her own half. She was holding what was left of it, still pulsing, in the palm of her hand. The part of her that belonged inside her half—trapped forever inside a cold glass vial.
***
Dr. Selavio had done this to her.
He had cut the other end of her clairvoyant channel out of her half. Now all she could feel inside her was the hole. The vial had been underwater for a month, and as long as it remained sealed, she was trapped, unable to die. This was Dr. Selavio’s “cure” for half death.
Emma watched him, transfixed by the clairvoyance in his hand. Aaron didn’t wait a second longer. He stumbled from his car and flung the vial to the road. It popped and bounced to the curb, leaving a red streak. He followed it, crunched the glass under his foot, and ground it into powder. The glowing fluid pooled and evaporated.
In the silence afterwards, Aaron heard blood jolting through his ears. He climbed back into his Mazda next to Emma, who looked like she was about to throw up.
“Why’d you break it?” she said.
“I set you free,” he said. “Now go find your half.”
Aaron drove her back to her parents’ house, let himself in, and carried her up to her bed. She was already asleep. By sunrise, she would be gone.
On the drive home, Aaron pieced together the facts, his mind a storm. Clearly, the vial alone hadn’t kept her alive. The headache, the bleeding from her head, the coma . . . Until yesterday, her symptoms exactly matched those of half death. Yesterday, though, she woke up.
Yesterday. The very same day Aaron recovered the vial. It wasn’t a coincidence. He recalled when he first handled the vial out at the buoy, how it brightened and appeared to fill up in his hands.
Aaron jammed the stick into third, and his Mazda screamed onto the deserted freeway. Emma’s half died that night, yet she didn’t keel over in class until weeks later. He also remembered the words of her father when Buff and Aaron visited her. How when she first felt her half go missing, something kept her going.
That something was Aaron, when he touched the vial right before it sank. Yesterday, he touched the vial again—and once again prolonged her death. Both times, he kept her alive
And he thought he knew why.
In the case of normal half death, her clairvoyance should have leaked through her half’s dead body into oblivion via their channel. But Emma’s channel was severed. She no longer had a half. Neither did Aaron. He and Emma were two loose ends, pulling at each other like magnets. Thus her channel had been rerouted to Aaron’s, temporarily plugging the leak and waking her from a coma. If not for the scar tissue blocking Aaron’s channel, they would have snapped together and become each other’s halves.
Even if it didn’t make them true halves, it probably would have been enough to convince the world—
A chill pierced Aaron’s spine, and his knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. Of course. It had convinced the world. Eighteen years ago, Dr. Selavio did exactly that to Amber and Clive. He used the machine on both of them, severed them both from their original halves and made them snap together. They were fakes, just like Amber said. Clive’s first half must have died. In response, the Juvengamy Brotherhood chose a pureblood replacement that would make him heir: Amber Lilian.
But Amber’s true half was Aaron.
So why didn’t he die? Once severed from Amber, Aaron should have lost clairvoyance fast, like Emma—a vegetable just days after she was severed. Maybe his severed channel had scarred over, sealing the leak, while Emma’s had not. At least that would explain the scar tissue at the back of his brain . . .
***
Aaron skidded to a stop in front of his house and ran inside. The Monday morning sun burned streaks along his wall. He yanked out drawers and tore through his clothes, searching. Searching for what?
What the hell could he even do?
His eyes darted to his cell phone, still plugged in. Now fully charged. And still off. His cell phone had been off since his birthday, and he hadn’t even checked his messages.
Aaron pounced on it, flipped open the screen, and waited for the messages to flash.
Two new voicemails.
He held the phone to his ear and listened to the first message from Buff. Apparently, Buff saw how it was and he didn’t want to be best friends anymore either. Aaron closed his eyes and waited for the second message.
His heart pulsed against the plastic. When he swallowed, his clammy cheek smeared against the phone’s screen. Aaron’s heart had almost scuttled up his throat and into his mouth by the time the message finally played.
It was Amber, breathless, on the verge of tears. Terrified. “Aaron, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this, I’m so sorry . . . you have to run away—” She was cut off.
Aaron shoved the phone against his ear, and the plastic dug into his skin. He wanted to hear everything—the brush of her cheek against the speaker, her heartbeat, the flutter of her eyelashes.
But it was Clive’s voice that stabbed his eardrum.
“Aaron Harper,” his voice drawled. “I do hope you get this message, for Amber’s sake. She agreed to do some things for me she isn’t proud of, just so she could call you—and you didn’t even pick up.”
The line clicked. Then silence—silence, leaking into his ears like the frozen, endless vacuum of outer space.
End of new messages.
Aaron closed the phone slowly. Every fiber in his muscles had gone limp.
***
Aaron called her phone.
It rang once, beeped, and then a recorded voice said, “We're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service . . . ”
Aaron’s hand trembled as he ended the call.
He dialed Clive’s number, but Clive didn’t pick up. He called from his dad’s phone, from his house phone. But he knew it was pointless. Aaron jammed his cell phone into his pocket and paced his room. Each time his volleyball got in the way, he kicked it as hard as he could.
Then he yanked his phone right back out and jabbed the buttons with his thumb. His heart clanged as he scrolled down his list of contacts.
He paused at Dominic Brees, not sure why he even had the guy’s number. Maybe Dominic knew where they were.
Aaron took a deep breath and dialed the rugby player. He lifted the phone to his ear. Two rings—three rings—It felt heavy now, unwieldy—four rings—five rings—
“Who the hell is this?” said Dominic.
“Put Clive on the phone,” said Aaron. “I want to talk to him.”
A pause. “You’re too late, number eleven. They’re not here anymore.”
His heart sank. “Where are they? Is . . . is Amber okay?”
“You know, there’s a rumor going around, number eleven . . . people saying they can’t find your half or something—Dr. Selavio won’t shut up about it. He keeps saying he can help you.”
“He can start by making me and Amber halves again.”
Aaron heard a girl’s whiny voice in the background, then Dominic snapping at her. “Hang on,” he said to Aaron, “Tina wants to talk to you.”
“Who?”
“Tina Marcello, fuckface.”
There was a long pause. Aaron clamped his cell phone even tighter and pain shot down his ear. A moment later, Tina spoke.
“Aaron, they left for their honeymoon,” she said.
His lips went numb. “Where?”
“We don’t know. They’re gone.”
Gone. The word was indigestible. “Where?” he repeated.
“After her birthday, it was like she gave up. She stopped trying.”
Aaron squeezed his eyelids shut. “Does Clive answer when you call?” he said.
“Only for Dominic,” she said, “but he won’t tell him anything.”
“Then you can get a message to her,” said Aaron.
“How?” she said. “Her phone’s disconnected.”
“Yell the message into Clive’s phone so she can hear it,” he said. “Yell it loud. Blow out Clive’s eardrums.”
She was silent for a moment. “Yell what?”
Aaron lowered his cell phone to his chest and scanned his bedroom. His lungs stung with each shallow breath. Yell what?
Amber had already given up.
No—that had to be a lie. Amber never gave up. He pressed the phone back to his ear.
“Tell her I love her,” he said.
THIRTEEN
Plus 1 Day, 20 hours, 42 minutes
“Are you nervous?” said Amber.
Clive dropped the cord from his hoodie, which he had been fidgeting with, and fixed his gaze on her. “I’m proud,” he said.
“Of who? Yourself?” The limo drove over a pothole, and she felt a spasm of pain in her back.
