“Respect where you are, Chelsan.” Elisha’s eyes met mine and there was a slight triumphant glint to them.
I was about to argue when Ryan leaned in and kissed me gently. “It’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” Then he hugged me and whispered in my ear so only I could hear, “Security doesn’t look all that tight. I’ll sneak into your room later tonight.” He pulled away and tried to act as disappointed as possible.
I could hardly contain my happiness at the news, but I didn’t want Elisha to suspect anything, so I played the role of annoyed girlfriend.
Nancy reached up to kiss Jason, but he turned away and kissed her on the cheek instead. It was the equivalent of a slap in the face to Nancy. She tried to hide her shock and pulled away from him, stomping past me and through the front door.
Jill hugged Bill before he could even react and raced after Nancy in seeming embarrassment.
The boys waved their good-byes to me and followed Doris to the next house over.
I turned to Elisha before I went through the door. “You’ll tell me everything tomorrow.”
“I promise,” Elisha said, but there was so much going on behind her eyes I couldn’t begin to guess what she was thinking.
Before she could say or do anything else I walked into the house and closed the door behind me. Inside, the house was pristine to the point of uncomfortableness. The first floor consisted of a living room to the right and a dining room to the left. There was a door in the back next to the staircase that I assumed led to the kitchen. The staircase was at the center right when I opened the door and led to the upstairs bedrooms. The couch and recliner in the living room were wrapped in plastic making the place feel like a museum. The décor was old-fashioned: dark stained floors and floral print furniture. I didn’t want to touch anything for fear of alarms going off.
Nancy and Jill were making their own assumptions, but from the looks on their faces we all felt uncomfortable at our surroundings.
“Let’s just go to bed.” Nancy had had enough and tromped up the wooden staircase like she was ready to collapse.
Jill went after her and I followed close behind. Through the arched windows I could see the sun starting to set so I knew it was only about five o’clock, but I just wanted to crawl in bed and fall asleep.
Upstairs there was a narrow hallway with two doors. Nancy opened the closest one to us and we were relieved to see four twin beds lined up against the far wall. Other than the beds, though, the room was empty. And I mean empty. There was no other furniture to speak of, just the four beds in a perfect row with sheets and top blanket tucked pristinely into place. To my relief there were three arched windows that I’d be able to let Ryan through if he couldn’t sneak in by the front door. I knew he thought security was lax, but I wasn’t so sure.
Jill plopped down on the bed farthest to the right.
“I’m freaking out right now! Did you see how Jason dodged me?” Nancy was pacing.
Oh boy.
“You know Jason, he’s just in reporter mode right now,” I said, trying to make her feel better.
No such luck.
“Did I imagine the whole thing? Did he or did he not kiss me in Mr. Alasater’s classroom?” Nancy was fuming.
“Yes, I definitely saw him kiss you.” I didn’t know what she wanted me to say, but I figured just backing her up was the best way to go.
“I didn’t see him kiss you,” Jill piped in.
Why? Why? Why?
Nancy whirled on her like a viper. “I don’t care about anything you have to say, Jill Forester so shut it!”
But instead of getting angry, Jill rolled her eyes, “Nancy, just chill for one second and let me finish. What I was going to say was, any idiot can see that the guy is madly in love with you. And that’s coming from a former enemy.”
That stopped Nancy in her tracks. “Well… You… Former? Not so sure about that,” she huffed.
“Yes, former,” Jill shook her head. “I’m sorry I blew up at you two. I was just thrown off by Turner’s news about being your granddaddy and all and when I saw that you already knew… well, I was angry.”
I knew how hard that was for Jill, and I also knew that she had already forgiven me because of our non-verbal exchange earlier, but Nancy hadn’t and I could tell she was starting to soften.
Nancy walked over and sat next to Jill. “Look, Jill, I’m not promising anything, but at least while we’re here I say we call truce. Deal?”
Jill practically laughed, “Of course it’s a deal, what did you think I’d say? We’re kind of all imprisoned here in freaky town.”
“Agreed, and agreed,” I said and sat down on the bed across from them. “Something is going on here and it’s more than just saving our lives. Elisha wanted me here, and I guarantee she blew up the school just to do it,” I said trying to think things through.
“Are you sure that’s why she blew up the school?” Jill asked thoughtfully.
“What do you mean?” Nancy was curious now, too. “You think she did it just for kicks?”
“No,” Jill mused aloud, “but it does seem like quite a coincidence that, right after Turner tells the world you’re his granddaughter, Elisha comes with the cavalry.”
Jill was hitting some invisible chord with me. I could feel that she was on the right track, but I couldn’t figure out what train I was on. “Yeah, but the damage was done. Why would Elisha need me if Turner already told everyone?”
“Maybe it wasn’t what he told the press. Maybe it was something he needed to tell you,” Nancy said. “I mean he was going to tell you something, remember? And all he managed to get out was that the twins weren’t brain dead. What does he mean by that anyway?”
“I don’t know. Their heads are just swirling black holes to me. I mean, what else can they be but brain dead?” I flopped back on the bed in frustration. “I just don’t know. Everything’s a guess at this point.”
“Well, let’s sleep on it, we’re all exhausted.” Nancy stood up and lay down on the other bed next to mine.
“Ryan said he was going to try and sneak over later, maybe he’ll bring the boys.” I tried to cheer the both of them up.
I was happy to see the both of them grin in the same goofy way. At least some things could be normal in my life! “Good night, guys,” I said and before I could even hear a response I fell fast asleep.
Chapter Four
Friday December 3, 2320
“I know what you think of me,” Roberta’s soft voice called out to me.
I knew I was still sleeping, and if I could groan in my sleep I would have. But something in Roberta’s tone made me pause. She sounded almost… defeated.
I opened my eyes in the dream. Roberta was sitting in a rocking chair in what looked like a nursery next to a wooden slatted crib underneath a large square window. The room was decorated in all shades of blue, from the carpet to the walls to the perfectly polka-dotted curtains framing the crib. A changing area and small wooden dresser were the only other pieces of furniture in the room. I was sure this was my dad’s nursery.
“I think you’ve made it quite clear that you don’t care what I think of you,” I said, wondering why she’d brought me to this place.
Roberta barely looked up, her stretched and frozen face impossible to read. She looked calmer than usual… well… less hostile anyway. “I’m beginning to feel something for you,” she said with a matter-of-fact tone.
I didn’t know how to respond to that, not verbally, nor mentally. “Okay.” So eloquent.
Roberta looked up at me then and actually smiled. (Or as much as her face could manage anyway.) “Franklin was the very first baby from the very first Baby Center. Did you know that?”
I just shook my head. I didn’t know much about my father.
Roberta nodded, “Geoffrey and I tried for years and years to have a baby,” she pointed to her grotesque face, “hence the state of my Felineness.” She paused, “Even though my heart’s desire was to be you
ng forever, I wanted a baby even more, so I put off taking Age-pro until I could get pregnant.” Her eyes were distant.
What was going on? Was this some kind of heart to heart with psychopath Grams? I didn’t even want to be standing there with the woman who made my mother’s corpse dance like crazed puppet for her own amusement.
But…
At the same time, I wanted to know more about my dad, and Geoffrey and Roberta Turner were the only two alive who could do that for me. I’d take what I could get, even if it was from cuckoo head.
“I had seventeen miscarriages. Do you know what that can do to a person?” she asked, but I got the feeling she wasn’t waiting for an answer so I simply shook my head. “As you can imagine, it was devastating.” Roberta paused again, rocking in the chair staring at the wall as if she were having this conversation by herself. “There were no other options for me. I had to find a surrogate. Surrogates existed in my day, but nothing as big as the Baby Centers. Back then, we would have been crucified for even thinking of starting a center like that. But over time, as the young ones started taking Age-pro and realized they’d have to age if they wanted children, a Baby Center seemed like an Godsend.” Her frozen face appeared to be smiling at the memory although it came off more as a smirk. “I only had ten eggs left. Just ten. If one of the eggs wouldn’t fertilize, Geoffrey and I would never be able to have children of our own.”
Roberta looked at me and there was actually full on emotion behind her icy face. I was still in mute shock. It was as if I didn’t belong there and she was confusing me with someone else. I just stood there waiting for her to continue afraid that anything I might say would make her flip out and turn back into raging-witch-Grams.
“The last egg. Franklin was conceived in the very last egg. He was our little miracle.” Roberta stared at nothing once again, lost in the past. “I can’t tell you why we kept him a child for all those years, but trust me, it was necessary. Her eyes hardened. “And when your mother took him from us, all our plans for him were destroyed. We were trying to keep him safe! We thought helping a poor girl like your mother would gain us loyalty, not betrayal.” Roberta was getting riled up, I could tell.
“Why can’t you tell me why you kept him a child?” I asked quickly to put her back on focus. I really didn’t want another Roberta tirade right now. I wanted information.
Roberta stood up, calm once more. She walked over to me and, in a very creepy moment, touched my cheek in what I can only describe as lovingly. “Because this will be a fresh memory for you. Geoffrey and I can’t tell you everything because Elisha keeps scanning your mind for a very specific memory. You obviously can’t keep her out, you don’t even know she’s in here half the time. I’ve been keeping her away from the memory she wants, but I can’t keep her out from everything. So, there’s my dilemma.”
Elisha has been in my head without me even knowing it? I wanted to think Roberta was telling me this to scare me, but my gut told me she was right. Which meant…
“If she’s seen all my new memories, then she knows…” I trailed off in a big gulp.
Roberta smiled as she held my face, “That’s right. She’s seen all these new memories with Goeffrey and me. She knows you don’t trust her, and she knows Geoffrey told you about the boys. The question is: What are you going to do about it?”
I didn’t know what to say.
I didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t even know how much trouble I was actually in.
How can you get scared about something when you don’t even really know what that something is?
Roberta pulled away and looked around the room with a grunt. “She’s prying again. I’ll keep the memory she’s looking for safe, but be a dear and try and figure out how to stop her from getting in.”
“You’re so full of yourself , Vaughn!” Bill’s angry voice woke me up with a jolt.
Vaughn? Was he really referring to Ryan by his last name? Bill was a pretty mellow guy and if he was in “last name mode” it meant he was pretty angry. I’d only heard him do that once before when he referred to Jill as Forester after she secretly fixed it for him to be Homecoming King.
“Maybe if you stopped drooling all over my girlfriend!” Ryan yelled back.
PUNCH!
Uh, oh.
“Did someone just hit someone?” Nancy’s voice cut through the silence.
“We better get down there,” Jill said, scuffling out of bed.
The three of us raced down the stairs and out the front door in seconds. I almost fell over from the head rush of getting up so fast, but my fear of Bill and Ryan fist-fighting made me push through it.
The two of them were rolling on the ground in between our two houses wrestling like a pair of idiots.
Seriously?
I ran up and tried to grab Ryan’s arm, but it was like trying to reach into a cyclone. I couldn’t even get near them without dodging a fist or a kicking foot.
It was eerie to hear them grunting and fighting in the near silence of Havenville. I wondered if someone would come out and we’d get in trouble for disrupting the peace.
Jason was just standing off to the side with his arms crossed, apparently fed up with us teenagers.
“Are you going to help me or what?” I whispered harshly to him.
Jason shook his head with exasperation and the two of us dove into the flailing arms of Bill and Ryan.
“Knock it off!” I screamed in their ears.
Ryan kicked Bill in the stomach to push away from him and stand next to me. We all could hear the air physically leave Bill’s lungs as he gasped from the blow. Bill was still on the ground trying to catch his breath, looking like he was about to make a running tackle toward Ryan, but I stood in front of Ryan to block Bill’s bull run.
“I said knock it off! Elisha could order security in a heart beat if she hasn’t already and I don’t want to give her any excuses to lock us up!” I said this to both of them, at first to scare them into stopping, but then as I said it I realized that it might actually be true.
Bill stood up and was still breathing heavily, but they both appeared to be listening to me, for once.
“He started it!” Ryan accused lamely.
“I did not! You’re just too freaking sensitive! All I said was that I should check on Chelsan, she is my best friend, you know.” Bill eyed Ryan with venom.
“Yeah, you said I should check on Chelsan like Jason and I didn’t matter or care if Chelsan was okay,” Ryan turned to me with almost desperate eyes. “Chelsan, you have no idea what Bill is like when you’re not around. He acts like he owns you or something. Like, just because he was friends with you for three years, he’s closer to you and the rest of us are just acquaintances.” Ryan fumed.
I had no idea what to say to that.
“Ryan, you know the sitch,” Nancy spoke up tentatively.
“If you’re trying to tell me I have to put up with Bill’s annoying possessiveness because he’s in love with Chelsan, I’m going to puke. I’m sick of it!” Ryan turned to Bill, furious, “Get over it! She doesn’t love you!”
Bill just stood there. He looked so hurt, it made me want to cry.
“Ryan, you’re way out of line,” I managed to say.
Ryan looked at me with the worst look I’d ever seen in his eyes. Betrayal.
Great. I’d managed to hurt two of the most important people in my life.
“I’m out of line?” Ryan repeated as if he couldn’t quite believe I had said it.
It gave Bill back his confidence, which wasn’t a good thing. He strode up to Ryan with an almost triumphant grin. “You heard her.”
“Bill, shut up.” I didn’t want him to use this situation to hurt Ryan more.
But it was too late.
Ryan shook his head and looked at me with more pain than I could ever have imagined. “I need to take a walk.”
And he turned his back on me and started to walk away.
“Ryan, don’t,” I called
out to him, but he just kept walking.
I moved to go after him, but Nancy grabbed my arm. “Give him a chance to cool down. You can talk to him in the morning.”
I knew she was right, but I couldn’t let him leave like that. I gently shrugged her off and ran after him. “Ryan wait.” I caught up to him, but he wouldn’t look at me.
“You always take his side,” Ryan’s voice was small and wounded.
“I don’t, but he is one of my best friends. You don’t think it was mean to say that to him?” I tried to reason with him.
Ryan stopped and turned to me with frustration. “He’s worse to me when you’re not around. He rubs his friendship with you in my face any chance he gets. I don’t care if he’s in love with you. I’m in love with you! And I feel like you’re split between the two of us. I think you’re lying to yourself if you say you don’t love him.” There were tears forming in Ryan’s eyes.
I was shocked. I didn’t love Bill. I loved Ryan.
“That’s not true,” was all I could say.
“Maybe, maybe not, but it feels true. Look, I just need to think.” Ryan started to turn away.
“Think about what?” I was terrified of his answer. “Are you going to break up with me?” My voice cracked.
Ryan wheeled around and kissed me desperately. “Never.” He pulled away and his eyes were distant. “I need to figure out how to deal. Bill’s not going anywhere and neither am I. I guess one of us needs to be the better man. I just didn’t want it to have to be me.” And he gave me a little smile at that last part. “I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
Ryan left before I could argue with him again. I watched him go and knew I’d be counting down the seconds for morning to come and everything would be back to normal again.
Famous last words.
I awoke with the sun streaming in through the large window above me like an annoying alarm of light. It was morning already and no Ryan. I tried not to be disappointed. I’d see him soon and everything would be okay again. Nothing a good breakfast couldn’t fix. Nancy and Jill were still fast asleep and I wondered what time it was. Knowing how tired I was, it was probably pretty early.
The Riser Saga Page 47
