Freaks Like Us

by Susan Vaught

  “A road trip.” Dad’s voice crackles a little on my cell. “With Eli Patton.”

  “Yeah.” I grip the phone too tight, but I can’t help it. I can’t help anything right now and I’m almost about to drool because I took an extra dose of fuzzy pills all on my own, the day after Sunshine’s birthday, the day after she turned eighteen.

  I’m not leaving, Eli, because back in the VFW your ears didn’t turn red and he gives me a look but I point to his ears and say they always turn red when you’re upset and mad so when Mr. Watson ran you weren’t really mad were you because you knew it wasn’t him and he says you’re crazy but I say I’m not going anywhere because I know and I know because she told me and I know because the knives try to kill me whenever I think about it and I know because his name wasn’t on the list and I know because she left me this locket and you know she wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t want me to remember

  Eli’s ancient Ford rumbles and bucks and shakes and belches, and every few minutes it slows down, then speeds up all by itself. The air in the cabin smells like burned oil and dead gym bags and I’m probably getting carbon monoxide poisoning and I don’t care.

  “Did your mother let you do stuff like that before she went back to the Middle East?” Dad asks, kind of nervous. He’s been tense around me, but I’m staying at his place again, for now.

  “Yeah.” My breath curls out in a puff of chilled white air. No heat in Eli’s junker. Could have figured that one, right? And it’s November now, almost Thanksgiving, and cold as frozen snot. I’ve got on two coats and two pairs of gloves. “Mom let me be independent, Dad. Sort of.”

  Dad hesitates. Takes a loud breath. “Let me talk to Eli.”

  “No. I’m nearly grown. You can talk to me.”

  Eli gives me a sideways stare from the driver’s seat, as slit-eyed as any Drip can fire at me. But he’s also kind of smiling.

  “Oh,” Dad says. Then, “Okay.” And I sort of feel sorry for him, which is all right because Dad’s not really a bad guy. He didn’t ask for a kid with an alphabet, did he?

  Eli says you’re not going to go away are you Freak and I say NO and he says you’re never going to give up on this NO you won’t let it go NO and he grabs my collar with fingers that read PAIN and HOPE and he shakes me but only once and then he says fine then come back the day after her birthday and don’t say a frigging word to anybody you got me or I’ll bash all your teeth down your throat you got me YES and PAIN and HOPE let me go and

  “When will you be home?” Dad asks.

  I glance at Eli, who mouths, Tonight, so I repeat that to Dad. Then I tell him it might be late so he won’t worry in case we really are late.

  When I hang up, I’m pretty sure I’m getting frostbite on my nose. We’ve been driving two hours already. I don’t know how many more we have to drive and I don’t ask because it’s better if I don’t know.

  Why didn’t you ever tell anybody why didn’t you get her help or get him arrested or something but Eli looks away from me and he doesn’t have to answer because I already know what he’ll say I already understand he stayed quiet because nobody listens to alphabets and less than nobody listens to delinquents and if I really did want to die I’d hug him but I can’t hug him even though when he looks at me I can see Sunshine in his eyes and

  And two hours later, Eli’s car slows down on its own and this time, it doesn’t speed back up again. Eli fights the wheel and limps the dead old car to the side of the freeway, where it clatters and rolls and lurches, then stops with a way-too-final-sounding ker-thatter.

  Eli and I get out. He raises the hood and does some serious swearing.

  Then it starts to snow.

  Thank God for extra fuzzy pills or my head would be a mess right now. Okay, so my hands shake like hell and my tongue’s lead and huge and my eyes don’t really want to stay where I put them—crap like this, I can handle. I think slow, but I think well enough to find an option, because the stupid car and the stupid snow, none of this is stopping me because I won’t stop. I will not stop. Not happening.

  Sunshine’s locket seems to burn against my chest, safe from the snow and the cold, under my shirt and all my coats.

  Nothing’s stopping me today.

  I pull out my cell again, and the card, and I call the number. It doesn’t go to any kind of voicemail system or punch-this-or-that menu. It goes right to him and I’m so surprised I pull the phone away from my ear and gaze at it and Eli watches me, cold fog rising all around his head, mingling with the hissing steam frothing out of the car’s engine.

  “Jason?” he asks through the phone, sounding worried. “Is that you?”

  “You said you wouldn’t let me down again,” I tell him. “You said you’d help. Now’s the time.”

  It takes so long for him to get here. Hours. Four, then five. I have to whiz on the side of the road twice and it takes so long but he doesn’t let me down and then he shows up driving a black car with government plates and we get in and the last hour is so quiet I’m not even sure I’m in my own head. There’s whispering. There’s muttering, but I can’t really hear it and I can’t really care because we’re almost there. I don’t know it, but I feel it. It’s spreading out like a warm blanket, covering my legs then my belly and my chest and my arms and shoulders and even my face. I’m thawing. I’m getting unfuzzy. I’m getting alive.

  We’re almost there.

  “Here,” Eli says, and Agent Mercer turns off at the exit Eli shows him.

  We don’t talk. Not a word except for here and there and left and right.

  Eli and I haven’t spoken since I told him Agent Mercer was coming to help us, to drive us the last part of the way and make sure we get there and make sure to do whatever we’ll let him do and Eli started to throw a fit and—

  He gave me back the locket

  —And that’s all it took.

  “There,” Eli says, pointing to a little charity-looking thrift shop and Agent Mercer turns in and I think I’m going to climb right out of my skin and I do climb right out of the car before it even stops moving and Agent Mercer hits the brakes and turns it off not even in a parking spot and he gets out saying, “Slow down, Jason.”

  But I can’t slow down because this is it, this is where we’re stopping and I’m opening the door and going in and there are rows of clothes and aisles of dishes and fridges and microwaves and the sign over the cash register says PROCEEDS TO WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN PERIL.

  There are two women behind the registers and the nearer one sees me and then she sees Eli coming in behind me and her eyes get slitty and her face goes a little pink and she says, “Wait, you agreed—”

  But the other girl behind the other register sees me and I see her and it’s all done then and everything’s over and I don’t even try not to cry and she lets out a happy-surprised sound not a word because you know she doesn’t really do words in front of most people but I’m not most people and here she comes here she comes here she comes and she’s here and she’s throwing her arms around my neck and I feel her through the numb and I feel her through the fuzzy and I know my alphabet will never block her out because no amount of crazy could ever keep me away from Sunshine.

  She cries and she smells like honeysuckle and I hold her and she’s soft and I barely notice that other woman as she shuttles us out of the main store and tucks us into a little closet with clothes pitched all over the floor, and she closes the door and I sort of hear her jawing at Eli and Agent Mercer’s calm tones, maybe reassuring, maybe saying something stupid like, “FBI, ma’am, and I assure you, she’s of age, there’s no issue, all of this is completely confidential,” but I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care.

  The room wants to gag me with musty old clothes and dusty old books, but I ignore that and a heartbeat later, the only thing I notice is the sweet, sweet smell of Sunshine. She’s so beautiful, even in the light of the dusty old bulb hanging toward us from the ceiling.

  We’re sitting together on a sta
ck of wrinkled shirts and jeans, and she’s right in front of me, and I’m staring into the bright black of her eyes. Her hair’s short. Cut and dyed with blond streaks to make her look different and she’s wearing makeup she doesn’t need with her perfect soft skin and the lipstick makes her mouth seem bigger when she reaches up and touches my cheek with her fingertips and says, “I knew I’d miss you but I never knew I’d miss you this bad.”

  And she tries to apologize for leaving and upsetting me, but I don’t let her, and I try to apologize for remembering everything she told me even after I promised I wouldn’t and for remembering what we—

  But you know, it’s hard to think past what we did, to think past touching her—

  And she won’t let me apologize, either.

  “It’s done now, Jason,” she whispers, her words like rippling grass in my head, swaying and shooshing and soothing everything. “It’s okay if you remember. It’s okay if you remember everything.”

  I tell her about the search, about Linden and Roland going to jail. She tells me about how Eli found this underground network for her, how he scoped it out and got people lined up to drop her off with a woman who did pickups for Women and Children in Peril when things got too bad for Sunshine to stay home one day longer, when she just couldn’t take another second of—

  Of him.

  Farkness Biter, my head whispers, only I’m pretty sure that’s my actual voice and not my alphabet. Evil tree, evil bastard—whatever, it all fits, and I hope Karl Franks and his sad mopey face and his sad mopey mustache get eaten by something more terrifying than anything my crazy can dream up. No amount of knives or black clouds will keep me from knowing what he is now—total filth, not even worth the air he breathes.

  “I couldn’t tell you about leaving. I just couldn’t.” She holds my hands in hers. “It’s the rule here. It’s the deal we sign and if we don’t keep our word people could die,” and she tries to apologize again but I don’t let her because it’s okay, it’s really okay and everything is completely okay now.

  “Agent Mercer will get your stepfather,” I tell her, wishing I could kill him myself and not go to prison and have to be away from her.

  “You really think so?” she whispers.

  “I know so. You and Eli, you might have to testify, but Agent Mercer will get him.”

  She glances down. Away. Then back at me. “You trust him that much?”

  “Yes.” And to prove it, even though she might not totally understand the full history of it, I slip the locket out from under all my coats and my shirt and I unfasten it, and I slip it back around her neck, right where it belongs.

  “There,” I tell her. “It’s because of him you have it back. It’s because of him that I’m here.”

  “No,” she says, and she doesn’t move. “Agent Mercer might have helped you, but I know if you’re here, it’s because of you.”

  She keeps her gaze fixed on mine the whole time, and my hands shake, and I’m pretty sure I’m not drooling, at least I hope I’m not, and I finally, finally manage to get the locket fastened.

  The second it’s done, she seems to relax into herself, to be even more Sunshine than she was the second I saw her running out from behind that cash register. Her fingers brush the gold of the locket, and a smile brushes the edges of her mouth.

  “I knew you’d find this, Jason. I think I hoped you’d find me, too, even if it broke all the rules. If you trust Agent Mercer, then I’ll trust him… but… I need to stay here for a while. They’ve got counselors and they’re helping me, and I’m getting my GED and everything.”

  Oh.

  Um.

  Oh.

  My ribs and chest aren’t as busted up anymore, they’re lots better, but it hurts again, all of a sudden. I had thought that if Mr. Franks went to jail, that she’d come back home, that she’d come back

  To me.

  But… that’s okay, too, because I could come here, maybe.

  “Can I—” I begin, but she shakes her head.

  “No. Please don’t ask. If you do, I might leave here with you and then—”

  Then she’d always be an alphabet, like me. And she’s not like me, not completely. She can get better—a lot better. And my heart twists and tears into tiny pieces but I tell her, “No. You’re right. You have to stay.”

  A breath passes.

  And a tear. Hers. Maybe mine.

  “I’ll come back to you.” She touches the locket, and then she touches my face again. “I promise.”

  “You don’t have to.” I didn’t want to say that but I had to say it and I have to mean it. It’s the right thing, and this is Sunshine, and I have to do the right thing no matter how it chews me up and swallows me whole.

  “That’s what I want,” she tells me, and she leans forward, and she kisses the freckles on my cheek, the ones that don’t taste like chocolate. “When I’m ready. If it’s what you want.”

  YES. But…

  But…

  I close my eyes.

  “Sunshine, I’m not—I’m never going to be—”

  “Normal?” She laughs. And then she says, “Good.”

  And then she doesn’t kiss my freckles. She kisses my lips like she did before we—before we—

  Before we were together.

  The weekend before she left, when she told me she loved me, when she told me she needed me, when she asked me to show her just once, just one sweet time, that love could be soft and beautiful and right, and I showed her. It happened. It really did happen, it wasn’t my imagination, and it was right, and I hope I was all she needed me to be.

  She kisses me again and again, and in between the whisper-sweet, quiet-soft touch of her lips, I get my instructions, which go like:

  Take care of Drip and explain all this to him if the bastard really does get arrested, but don’t tell Drip or anyone else where I am.

  Give your dad a break.

  Make your mom help my brother join the army.

  Graduate.

  Pick a college because yes you are going to college because state schools have help for alphabets.

  Don’t study engineering because you suck at math so bad.

  “Jason.” Agent Mercer sounds gentle, almost like a dad when he comes to the door. “Son, we need to go now.”

  But I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go but I should I know I should and—

  Someday somewhere I’ll get there Jason I’ll get better and I’ll meet you along the way when I’m ready when I’m able it’ll be okay Jason because you have a future and I have a future and somehow we’ll find a way because we always find a way and

  —And I can’t pay attention to the last kiss, to the last hug, because that really would kill me but I listen to every breath and heartbeat and every word she says and I watch out the back window of Agent Mercer’s car until the place cradling my Sunshine is nothing but a blur, then a speck, then a bright, soft place in my mind.

  When she’s able. When she’s ready.

  I push my fingers under my coats and my shirt and I touch my throat, touch the tingly warm spot where I wore the locket, and I’m scared and I already miss her, but I touch the spot, and I touch it again, and—

  It’ll be okay Jason because you have a future and I have a future and somehow we’ll find a way because we always find a way and

  —And I smile, because she’s Sunshine—

  And because she’s Sunshine, I believe her.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  No book comes whole into life without many people working hard and making sacrifices. My family and my parrot stoically allow me to be absent from responsibilities and the world for hours and days at a time, my agent works on the contract, my editor reads and advocates and suggests (then tolerates my attempts at) revisions, copyeditors get involved, cover artists struggle to find the right image, marketing works on visions and strategies—and I know I’m leaving out dozens whose labors get even less recognition. Thank you all for your effort and patience.

/>   Massive appreciation to teachers and librarians and bloggers and reviewers, who scour dozens of novels every month and talk them up to teens and anyone else who will listen. Books have to compete with movies, gaming, sports, music, and other entertainment vying for attention and dollars. Without advocates, books might fade into history. I hope the printed word will always have a place in society, and book warriors work to ensure that. You’re the best, even when you hate my stories.

  As for my readers, you’re why I write, and thanks for reading. You know the real secret—that we’re all Freaks at heart, and there’s nothing wrong with that, no matter what anyone tries to tell you.

  Also by Susan Vaught

  Stormwitch

  Trigger

  My Big Fat Manifesto

  Exposed

  Going Underground

  The Oathbreaker saga

  with J B Redmond

  Part One: Assassin’s Apprentice

  Part Two: A Prince Among Killers

  Copyright © 2012 by Susan Vaught

  All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

  First published in the United States of America in September 2012

  by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers

  Electronic edition published in September 2012

  www.bloomsburyteens.com

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to

  Permissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010