“What happened?” she says again. “Who attacked you?”
All I can think of is that janitor looking at his phone, and then at me. I think of what he said, “It’s too much money. I really need it.”
It’s too much money…
Too much money…
It floats up into my mind, the sudden suspicion.
“Amanda, get out your phone.” My voice sounds hoarse and strange to my ears.
“Wait, someone went after you here?” Conrad demands, drawing closer to me. “Who?”
“Get out your phone and ID me on it,” I tell Amanda.
Confused, Amanda pulls open her cell phone. She glances at the screen. “It says you’re an anathema, but…” Her mouth drops into a round ‘o’, her eyes going wide.
“What?” I demand. I snatch it from her, twist the screen around to look at it.
My face is there. Anathema identified, is there. My bounty is listed as…
As five thousand dollars.
Five thousand.
Ice sweeps through me.
“Oh my God,” Amanda says. “Who did that?”
My gaze shoots up to Conrad. I know immediately. “Your mom.”
“What?” Conrad says.
“What?” Amanda says.
“It was your mom.” I’m sure of it. “She did it. It was your mom, Conrad. She threatened me at your birthday. She said I had to get out of your life or she’d get me out. This is what she was talking about.” Four thousand dollars is nothing to Ms. Alton. Nothing at all.
“No way,” Conrad says, just as Amanda breathes, “I’ll strangle her.”
He turns on her. “Don’t say that. My mom didn’t do this.”
“I will strangle her,” Amanda repeats again. “She paid money to Kat’s bounty, all because she can’t let her precious boy date an anathema!”
“Shut up, you’re wrong!”
I can’t take this. The walls of the movie theater seem to be folding in, closing down on me. My legs turn me around and begin carrying me towards the door, a great rushing sound in my ears. I don’t notice when they stop arguing. Barely notice them rushing to catch up to my side. The janitor could come at me again and I wouldn’t even notice through the haze in my brain.
For the first time ever I realize how likely it is I’m going to die.
I won’t escape this.
It’s like I’ve wandered into someone else’s life and I’m not sure how to escape again.
Amanda jerks open the passenger side door to her car, and I hear her blistering words lash out, tell Conrad, “We’re fine, she made it to the car alive, no thanks to your mom. Now just go away. Go away!”
It doesn’t occur to me until I’m hunched down in my seat, and we’re on Highway One again, that Conrad isn’t there with us. “What will he do?” I ask Amanda numbly. “We can’t leave him.”
“It’s my car, and I’m leaving him. He can hitchhike. Or pay for a taxi. Or get a free drink with a medium popcorn. Maybe his beloved mommy can give him a ride. Who cares.”
“I care. That’s my boyfriend.”
“He’s an idiot. His mom did this and he won’t admit it.”
A sigh escapes my lips. There are no cars around, so I dare to sit up and gaze through the cold glass. Far below us, the ocean throws itself against the jagged cliffs. My throat hurts. The janitor’s sad-eyed, apologetic smile burns inside my mind.
“It’s not personal, lady. I really need the money.”
People will do truly awful things for money.That website was right. The glass is half-empty from now on.
“Do you need to go to a hospital?” Amanda asks me.
“No hospital. I got booted off Mom and Dad’s health insurance as soon as I lost citizenship. It’s some sort of rescission clause.” My voice sounds distant to my own ears. Dead.
“This sucks.” Amanda hits the steering wheel with the flat of her palm. “This really sucks. You’re never going to have a normal life again.”
My head throbs dully.
“So how’d you fight him off?” she asks me.
“The manager intervened. He said the janitor guy shouldn’t be hunting at work.” My bitter laugh hurts my sore throat. “He said there are young mothers and children around. They didn’t come to the movie theater to see people killed.”
“Of course they don’t want to see you killed,” Amanda says. “You probably look like those women’s daughters. Or remind them of themselves when they were younger. If you think about it, your best chance of survival lies in the fact that everyone who knows you likes you.”
It was nice of her to say. It’s a huge exaggeration, though. Just look at Siobhan.
Then Amanda says something else that shocks me. “Or maybe you should just get a patron.”
For a moment, I don’t understand her words. Then they materialize into something that makes more sense in my mind, but they can’t really be the right words. “What?”
“A patron, Kat. You know, like those websites where rich old men hook up with young anathemas—”
“I know what a patron is!” I erupt. “How is having sex with some old creep a solution?”
“It’s a trade.”
“Yes, a trade called ‘prostitution’.”
Amanda blows out a breath. It flutters her chestnut fringe. “A trade for protection. You could get someone who pays you enough to hire a bodyguard, and I just want you alive,” she finishes, glancing at my face as we wind down the road. “It’s not like you’re a virgin. You and Conrad have been doinking since Junior Year.”
“We’ve been together since ninth grade. Just because I’ve reached that point with my long-term boyfriend doesn’t mean I’m ready to run out and have sex with creepy old men. How exactly would I explain that to Conrad?”
“Oh, come on. You and Conrad are a habit for each other now. You can’t tell me you’re madly in love with him.”
“I get that you guys just had a fight, but don’t project what you feel towards Conrad onto me.”
“You didn’t stop me from driving away without him.”
“I was in shock!”
“Conrad is his mom’s little darling boy, Kat. You become an anathema and have slightly more to think about, and suddenly he’s flirting with Siobhan. That’s not a great boyfriend. And you know what? I don’t think it bothers you all that much.”
“Of course it bothers me.”
“Oh, please. If you really liked him, you never would have inflicted him with that Elena Swilling movie.”
She’s changing the subject, trying to lighten my mood. I let her. “It was awful, wasn’t it? Not even in a fun way.”
Amanda nods. “It was an abomination. I bet while I was still watching the movie, you were out having a better time in the lobby. You know, being strangled.”
Despite everything, that pulls a laugh out of me.
That’s what a real friend can do: make even a glass that’s half-empty look full enough to sustain me after all.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It’s the middle of the night. I’ve been shifting under my covers, unable to get comfortable.
A sudden rattling sound knocks away any semblance of sleep.
Instantly I am awake. My muscles are all locked with terror, my ears plucking out the sound. There’s a squeak now. And now a creak of someone’s weight shifting on the roof outside my window. The scrape as someone tries to shove the window open.
Someone is trying to break in.
I peek toward the window, clutching my covers. There’s a shadow shifting outside my window. I’m not imagining this. My heart jerks frantically against the cage of my ribs. This can’t be happening. He tracked me down. He followed me. The guy from the movie theater. A scream rises in my throat but I’m too terrified to give voice to it.
And then the window opens and terror seizes control of me. My muscles spring me out of bed like I’m not the one directing them. I trip and crash into the dresser. The scream tears from my throat. “D
AD! MOM!”
“It’s me!”
The girl’s voice startles me. I flip on my lights, frantically heaving for breath. My eyes squint against the flood of light. A familiar girl is propped against the window. Outside my room, footsteps creak in the hallway. My parents. Mom’s voice is frantic. “Kathryn?”
“What’s wrong?” Dad bellows. “Open the door!”
My head whirls. It’s Noelle. Noelle who broke in. She’s pressed a finger to her lips, her dark eyes wide and imploring. She doesn’t want me to tell my parents she’s here. I jerk clumsily towards the door to the hall. I’m not sure what to do. I shove open the door and step into the darkness of the hallway.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” I tell my parents quickly, seeing Dad in a bathrobe with a bat in his hand, Mom with her hair in curlers, fists curled, ready to punch. “I had a nightmare.”
Dad lets out an audible sigh. Mom seizes me in a frantic hug, patting me down as though feeling for injuries. My heart swells with affection for both of them. We gabble reassurances to each other, and then they’re back in bed.
I return to my room and close the door behind me. Noelle is wearing a black hoodie, ripped jeans, and large workman’s boots. Her dark hair is slipping out of its ponytail as she examines my Susan B. Anthony poster. Her gaze roves onward. She reaches out with thin fingers to lift photos of me and my friends at the Junior Prom, all in gowns and tuxes.
Other pictures are strategically arranged on the wall. Noelle gazes a long time at a big snapshot from our last Disneyland trip. It’s from the Tower of Terror when we all dropped. Amanda’s hands are flung in the air, a laugh frozen on her lips. Conrad and Russell are both shouting with glee. I am out of sight, ducking down in fright as it plunges. Siobhan is gazing down at me sourly. I’ve never liked roller coasters. My friends find it funny. They bought the picture for me.
“Your life is perfect. Like something out of a TV show,” she finally remarks.
Maybe it used to be, I thought wistfully.
“What are you doing here?” I ask her.
“You shouldn’t hide a stepladder near your window,” Noelle says. “It’s like inviting someone to come in and kill you.”
“Thanks for the tip.” I’d hidden it behind our garage before sneaking out to the party. I’d forgotten about it afterward. “How did you find me?”
“Finding you wasn’t hard. You told me your name. My brother goes to your school.” She paws through the papers on my desk now, homework that I’ve half-completed. “I have one of his old student directories. You never moved.”
I watch her thin back, my mind making sense of that. Her brother. The anathema.
But the only other anathema at our school is…
“Alexander Metz? He’s your brother?”
Noelle darts me a wary look. “We’re twins.”
And now I can see Alexander in the angles of her face. They have the same piercing gaze and long, sooty lashes, the same full lips. Their builds are very different. He’s a wall of strength and intimidation, but she’s slim, sly and cagey.
“Noelle Metz,” I say, trying it out.
“Langley. Alexander ditched our dad’s last name after I killed him.” She was silent a moment. “I thought about it, too, but it didn’t seem to matter now I was an anathema anyway. I didn’t even bother going to school anymore, either.”
I can’t tell from her tone whether she regrets it or not.
“You never wrote the article,” Noelle says suddenly. “I thought you were doing an article about the anathema experience. That’s why I talked to you. I’ve checked the school newspapers people stock in the local cafes, and I know you haven’t done it.”
“Noelle, I just lost citizenship. I helped you before you…” Before she killed him. “I’ve been a little busy.”
Noelle bites her full lower lip. “I remember what a mess it was around my trial.”
“How do you survive this?” She obviously doesn’t have an army of friends and family protecting her, sheltering her. She clearly doesn’t go to school. She can’t just spring up and take every hunter by surprise. There have to be some other tricks.
“I spend most of my time in the Waste.”
The Waste is the rocky stretch of beach where the cliffs begin to climb up from town. Various companies leased it in the eighties to use as a dumping grounds for industrial chemicals, garbage, whatever they chose. No one liked it, but it’s a free market. The companies paid more to dump than anyone paid to keep it pristine.
Since Mayor Alton took over and the crime rate dropped, Cordoba Bay’s become a bastion of very wealthy families. The practice of dumping has stopped. The Waste remains cordoned off, as empty of beachgoers as it was back when my dad was young. I’ve heard rumors of disreputable people there, though, and my parents always warned me away from it as a kid.
A few times, especially around Halloween, my friends and I would dare each other to walk into the Waste. It smells like rotting seaweed, the entire area. We always got creeped out and ran away.
“There really are anathemas there?” I ask her.
“The wrong sort of anathemas,” Noelle says. “Wasters are the sort of anathema most hunters are afraid to face.”
“But wouldn’t hunters target some large group of anathemas?” I ask.
“They don’t know we’re there. Every so often one of us will get tracked and followed by a hunting guild.” Grim amusement floods her face. “It doesn’t work out well for the guilds.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is, if you’re ever being chased, then you know where to go. We protect our own at the Waste. Just bring a lighter. Make a ‘S’ if you’re alone and safe. Otherwise, just wait. Wait and we’ll come.”
So that’s the life I’d face if I didn’t have my friends, my family. That’s the life of a typical anathema. Seeking safety in numbers. Holed up together to fight an entire world set against them.
Her eyes flick towards the hallway, where I can still hear my parents moving outside. “I should really go.” Noelle draws towards the window and slings her leg over the ledge.
“Wait,” I call. “Is that really the whole reason you came here? To ask about the article?”
She looks back at me, her dark hair slipping over an eye. “Believe it or not, I had something to gain from the article, too. I want to do right by my brother. I committed a crime, but he didn’t. I just want him to get his life back. With all the rich kids in Cordoba Bay, I thought… I just thought maybe…”
I understand it. “You thought the right person might see his story. Someone who could do something for him.”
She looks down. “Sometimes people wrongly convicted can get them overturned. If they have enough money. Or if someone with enough money helps them out. I know you’re an anathema now, too, but you’re not like us. You have all this. He has nothing. This is the only way I could think to help him.”
“Okay,” I whisper. “I’ll help him.”
And with that, Noelle crooks me a half-smile and disappears out into the night.
The look on her face the day at the festival plays through my mind. The determination that stole over her face when she chose to talk to me. Even then, she was thinking of her brother, not herself. I move to my computer and search in the hunting databases. Now that I know her last name, I find her: Noelle Langley.
My eyes skim down her statistics to her hazard index.
Hazard Index: Level 4: History of violence. Likely to be armed. Approach with caution.
Bounty: $10,055
Perhaps the extra money comes from the friends and family of that single dead hunter, but I doubt it. She’d moved with such practice, such ease, jamming that ice pick into him. There could be any number of hunters who fell for the frightened, helpless girl act and regretted it. She definitely is at least an HI-4.
My mind moves to her brother. To Alexander. He tried to take the blame for his sister and it ruined his life.
I don’t care
what he says to me. I don’t care if he flashed that knife in my face or told me stay away. I understand him now. I understand him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Why are you staring at me?” Alexander speaks his first words to me in weeks.
He’s leaning back in his chair, letting me work the way he always does. I didn’t think he noticed me watching him.
“I wasn’t staring,” I say quickly. “I was lost in thought.”
Actually, I was lost in thought about him.
He’s taken on tragic proportions in my mind since talking to Noelle… An innocent victim of miscarried justice, every bit as wronged as his sister. If Alexander had lost some mystique since I’d actually spoken to him, he’d regained it again. I don’t have siblings myself, but the depths of his devotion to Noelle makes my throat clench.
“Maybe you should pay more attention to your code,” he says, his clear blue eyes flitting up just briefly to my screen. He wears an abstracted frown. “That doesn’t look right.”
I don’t point out that he’s unlikely to even know what I’m doing on the screen, since he’s leaving all the work to me, paying no attention. Instead, I simply say what I’ve been thinking. “I just want you to know that you tried to do a great thing for your sister. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about what happened to you two.”
His sharp gaze spears me. “What?”
My voice drops to a whisper. “I’m friends with…” Well, ‘friend’ is not the right term. “I’ve met Noelle. Long story.”
He looks around us, then leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees. Suddenly despite the calmness of the computer lab, something sinister and brutal seems to rear up from within him. His voice is hard and dangerous. “How do you know my sister?”
“She talked to me. Noelle wants me to write this article. About you two, I mean. I meant to do it weeks ago but I—”
His eyes flash, his voice soft and dangerous. “An article?”
There’s a strange feeling prickling through me. I had it once when I was younger, when my friend’s dog, normally friendly, decided to bite my leg. A sense like some dangerous turn had taken place and my instincts are screaming a warning at me but I don’t know why. It’s like I’ve been walking through tall grasses in a field and two predatory eyes have appeared somewhere before me, a danger just ahead.
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