I reach over and cup his cheek with one hand. “Nate?”
He swats away my arm with one limp wave. “All right, fine, I –“ He coughs hard, then says, “I believe you,” in a raspy voice.
It takes me a moment to understand what he's getting at. When it finally occurs to me that he believes me about my father being bodyswapped with someone else, I only refrain from smacking him on the arm due to the fact that I'd only be hurting myself, and quite literally at that. “Why, gee, thanks for that,” I drawl.
He cackles, that sly playful laugh of his. In my voice it comes out husky and mischievous, and for some reason I find myself glancing back at Hazel just in time to see her screwing up her mouth into an awkward grimace and forcing herself to look anywhere but at the front seat.
When I turn back to Nate, I catch him taking a good old-fashioned gander at his chest. Which used to be my chest. “Well, would you look at those?” he says, clearly more awed with my breasts when he's lugging them around than when I'm the one sporting them.
“I can, and do, and you won't, or I'll relocate your testicles.”
“Knock yourself out, peaches. What with my line of work, you'd be amazed how often I grow spares.”
I grimace, unable to resist squirming in the driver's seat at the reminder. “Didn't you get enough time to admire those when we switched?”
“Hell, whoever the son of a bitch was who killed me, he yanked me away from you, konked me on the head, and dumped my sorry dead ass somewhere before I could even register I was missing one pair and gaining another. I was a little busy having a cerebral hemorrhage to pay much attention to your chest, peaches.”
It's not exactly a story I want to hear, particularly with Nate's brand of down-home crassness. I can't help but fidget in my seat every time I catch sight of my chest and remember what we swapped.
Nate frowns. “What?”
“Nothing.”
I shift my weight again in a sorry attempt to get comfortable, and Nate yelps out a laugh when he figures out why I can't seem to sit still. “It ain't gonna get any more comfortable, Vera. Hell, just because I'm admiring these puppies don't mean I'm particularly enjoying the back pain that comes with 'em.”
“I hate this conversation more than words can say,” Hazel says, and punches the back of my seat a couple of times as a wordless signal for me to get out of the car.
The three of us get out of the Cooper with far fewer acrobatics and balloon animals than I was afraid we'd have to deal with when we arrived. Hazel scrambles out of the cramped back seat as soon as I yank the driver's seat forward, bursting out of the narrow space like the contents of a shaken soda bottle. Nate hauls himself out of the passenger side with all of the grace and dignity of a newborn giraffe. Pairing an unsteady gait with a new center of gravity, high heels, and a vastly different weight distribution leaves him swaying like a sailboat on choppy waters.
“Nate?”
My voice is low, but it's quiet out here, and his name carries.
In a rare show of politeness, Hazel pointedly takes a few steps away down the dirt road, turns away and fakes an exaggerated stretch. Nate says nothing, just rests his folded arms on the roof of the car and waits for me to speak.
I don't think I need to tell you just how strange it is to see yourself from outside of your own body – not in photos, not in a mirror, but standing not two feet away from you. You don't look like you imagine from what you see in photos and the mirror. The makeup's worn away and the dark curls have lost their luster, but underneath it all is me. My arms curve with too much body fat. My lips and nose are a bit too big, and the effect without makeup applied just so to lessen it gives my face a vague impression of having been assembled from all the wrong parts in all the wrong sizes. Age hasn't faded the long thin scar on my right cheek, or the notch in my left ear from having an earring ripped out during hardcore interrogation techniques by the Devil's Duo five months before I quit.
I smile. I can't help it, really.
I wish I could feel worse about it when Nate studies me just as intensely and his expression sags with resignation, but I just can't.
“I peeked in your wallet,” I blurt out.
“Aw, hell, Vera –“
“I needed cab fare! For heaven's sake, Nate, you didn't actually think that would be avoidable under the circumstances, did you?”
“The Brigade's got a car service,” he snaps, pushing away from the car and shutting the door.
“I just didn't want to avoid telling you.”
“Anything else you've been avoiding telling me?”
Well, there is that one thing, I think, with a quick glance over at the mobile home.
Instead of saying precisely that, I murmur, “Nothing that's my secret to tell.”
Something suspicious and curious flickers in his eyes before he closes off and lets slip the same familiar laidback ease I recognize even when it's on an entirely different face than I'm used to. Adjusting the dress clinging to his new curves, Nate sniffs and goes a bit green at the lingering scent of dead flesh. For a moment, I'm terrified he's about to start spewing vomit all over the place and not stop. Holding my own hair back for a solid round of praying to the porcelain god is not an experience I'd like to suffer through.
Nate walks past the car to sidle up beside me in front of it. “You weren't bringing me here to have a taxidermist stuff me, were you?”
“It's Morris's secret lair,” I sigh.
Both Nate and Hazel, who's taken up a spot on the other side of me, flash me the same dazed look. I've already told Hazel on the way here, of course, but not with the sort of bold bald-faced statement I just blurted out without warning.
“This one of those secrets that ain't yours to tell?” Nate drawls.
“Can we argue about this later? Because as long as you're in my body, you're the only one who's programmed into Morris's genetic security protocols and can get anywhere near the front door.”
“I don't even want to know, do I?”
I shake my head without looking his way. I slip the key I'd retrieved from my apartment before we left town from my pocket and hold it up for him to take.
Sighing, Nate swipes the key from my grasp, removes the heels he's still wearing, and takes a few cautious steps across the packed dirt of the worn country road. He pauses at the edge of the lawn with his toes barely touching the recently shorn grass. His arms hang down at his sides as his gaze locks on the grimy exterior, his limp hair tumbling over his rounded shoulders and his lips still stained with the blood he gnawed out of my currently unmarred neck.
It takes me a moment to catch the tremble in his fingers, the washed-out color of his skin. I try to remember if I've ever caught Nate being afraid of anything and draw a blank.
“You sure this is safe?”
His voice – my voice – is strangely deeper than I thought it was, the words rich like fine wine even as they shake and hitch. I step up beside him, tempted to take his hand to calm his quickly fraying nerves. “Fairly sure,” I say.
“Fairly ain't going to cut it, Vera.”
“Yes,” I blurt out, startled by the ice that threads through his bitten-off words. “Yes, I'm sure.”
The AI must have allowed Dad's body past the barriers and security protocols even though Dad wasn't actually taking up residence at the time, presumably because Morris wouldn't take a chance of truly harming Dad no matter what the consequences. It let me pass once without a genuine problem. If it can't tell Dad is not completely Dad, I doubt it will able to differentiate normal everyday me with Nate wearing a Vera suit grimy with things I'd rather not identify.
“I can't teleport,” he says, still not moving.
“You don't need to.”
His voice breaks a little when he says, “I can't heal, either.”
“Oh, for fuck's sake,” Hazel mutters behind me.
I resist the urge to warn her away from speaking right now, knowing full well that will only make things worse. Instead,
I lean close to Nate and whisper in my best Nate-drawl, “Peaches, nobody said you had to be fearless.”
The laughter bursts out of him, deep and rough, unexpected but amused. He shoots me a sideways glance while the corners of his lips tug slowly upward. After a moment he tosses his limp hair and slides his hands over the substantial curves of his hips.
He's ready, or as ready as he's going to be.
Nate places one unsteady foot on the grass, ignoring the ever-present hiss emanating from the depths of the lawn and the muffled whirr of readying blades from somewhere underneath us. The recognizable throb of Morris's security system shakes the air around us in an invisible tsunami of sorts. It rolls over all three of us before rebounding back to Nate and swirling around him like a draining whirlpool.
A moment later, he steps onto the grass with both feet.
I tense up as soon as he does. I wonder just how intelligent Morris's security system is, if it will suspect anything if Nate doesn't teleport his way onto the front porch like I would. These are the choices, I think wryly, let Nate walk across the lawn and possibly be sliced like an Easter ham, or let him attempt to teleport and hope I can locate him again if he accidentally ends up on some faraway island with no name from which I can't retrieve him.
Frankly, I'd rather let him take the chances with the lawn.
Hazel's hand darts out to encircle my wrist in a tight grip. Even without filling her in on the sordid details of what Morris's security system must entail, Hazel's encountered Morris at the cafe more than enough times for his sharp wits and impetuous moods to sink in. I dare a quick glance down at her, but she's not looking at me. I'm not the one she's worried about at the moment.
Nate's path across the grass is unbalanced and wobbly, once you combine the high heels with the soft unpaved ground. Even without the high heels, he lurches forward in slow determined steps, his mouth set in a thin nervous line as he approaches the trailer.
By the time he stomps up onto the porch steps, his face brightens with a wide smile. He hoots and hollers in such a Nate sort of way I almost forget it's my body he's currently occupying. “Hot damn!” he yells, and even Hazel's annoyed sniff covers up a low chuckle.
“Unlock the door, you idiot,” I yell.
He waves me off, then leans close to the door to jam the key in the lock.
A moment later, a row of flat squares of sod lift up from the lawn and flip over, settling back down to form a simple but effective stone walkway.
“Oh, now you gotta give a girl a sidewalk?” Nate says to the door as we catch up to him.
I dodge around him to open the door. “You are enjoying this far too much.”
“Which part,” he says, “the danger of death or the breasts?”
Hazel shoots him a dark look. “Please stop fixating on her chest.”
“You're not supposed to, either, if memory serves.”
Her frown turns on me, and deepens as well.
I turn the doorknob and throw open the door, allowing Nate and Hazel to enter ahead of me. I have a sneaking suspicion if I gave them the chance, they'd never just follow me in. Considering the current state of affairs, I don't want either one of them out of my sight for any longer than they have to be.
Hazel and Nate waste too much time being awed by the compact but technologically advanced interior of Morris's lair. Neither one of them pays me much mind as I weave around them to rush over to the main control panel. The monitors refuse to spark to life, possibly tweaked by Dad before he left for the city. It has to be Dad who did this, or whoever is inside of him at any rate. He's the only other one alive who knows about this place, and zombies make for a simple distraction. He tried to buy himself some time, but whatever he needed it for he obviously didn't need that much of it.
Thankfully, much like most other supervillains, Morris has never been one to forget a failsafe. Sure enough, flipping up what appears to be a wireless keyboard secured to the desk reveals three large unlabeled buttons hidden underneath; one red, one blue, and one green.
He's always got to make things so very complicated, I think with a sigh. Or least he tries.
I know Morris and his stupid psychological games too well to even bother debating which one is the failsafe. I slam my palm down on the blue button harder than necessary.
Three shrill beeps echo through the lair before the lights dim, and the computers lose their soothing hum. The antenna on the roof slaps against it as it whirs to a halt and flips down, sounding vaguely like retracting landing gear on an airplane.
At least, I believe that's what it sounds like. Needless to say, my experience flying anywhere on a plane is severely lacking bordering on nonexistent. Why waste hundreds of dollars on a ticket and hours crammed into an airplane seat when a single thought can pop me to France or Japan or Mars or anywhere else I want to go?
When I turn back around again, I find Hazel digging through drawers bulging with lab equipment and Nate running his fingers over the blueprints scattered across the counters. I hope Morris wasn't counting on keeping his precious privacy after death, that's all I've got to say.
“I can't believe Morris managed to hide all this in here,” Nate says.
Hazel laughs. “I can.”
Making a face, Nate tugs at the dress again, an odd discomfort sparking behind his eyes. “Well, I've had buckets of fun being dead and all, but it did one hell of a number on me, so if you ladies will excuse me, I'm just off to powder my nose,” he says, barely able to hide his growing smirk.
“Oh, you do not,” I blurt out.
He shoots me a pointed look. “Peaches, you can't tell me you didn't hit a rest stop on the way here.”
“I had a body in my passenger seat,” I say, growling out the words past clenched teeth.
“Side of some nice secluded rural road, then?”
My glare could melt glaciers. “I hate you.”
Nate just beams in triumph and saunters off in the general direction of the facilities, presumably to linger in the bathroom for a bit longer than expected in a concerted effort to make me paranoid. I almost wish I could give him the satisfaction of being truly worried that he'll do something that will push the boundaries of propriety, but Nate won't touch anything more than he needs to. Love-'em-and-leave-'em nature aside, the man's got enough decency not to play with toys that aren't his without asking nice first. It puts him one up on a lot of people, sad to say.
“I wonder if I should warn him about the nuclear weaponry in there,” I whisper to Hazel.
“Please be joking.”
I flash her a wily grin and wink, feeling a bit more like Nate at the moment than I care for.
A moment later, Nate hurries back into the room, fumbling in a dizzy sway towards us with a worried look on his face.
“That's not a bathroom,” he declares.
Hazel and I exchange a confused look, then trail after him towards the door to the bathroom. He flings it open, then gestures at the interior with an insistent wave.
We all peer inside. I can already feel Hazel's confusion brewing beside me at what looks like the expected cramped bathroom. The toilet features a fuzzy seat cover and the walls sport mock wood paneling. It's so painfully innocuous, it shouldn't look as sinister as it does, and doesn't if you're someone like Hazel. Except it's normal, a tacky sort of normal in a crisp modern world.
Any average person would suppose Morris had simply not cared enough to match a bathroom to the rest of the décor. As though Morris Kemp would suffer the indignity of a fuzzy pink toilet seat cover for longer than necessary. Much like the bedroom, if he really planned to use the bathroom for his own personal use and nothing more, he would have remodeled it into something a bit more modern.
Nate and I know better.
“Go on,” Nate says, nudging me with one elbow.
I narrow my eyes in his direction, and he raises his hands in surrender.
“Don't look at me. You're the one with the immortality, peaches.”
I s
hoot him a look that could melt kittens – well, it could if I were Lady Eyesore, in any event – then walk into the bathroom and shut the door behind me.
It takes a moment. There must be fantastic soundproofing of intergalactic origins in the walls, the bathroom stifling even the sounds of my breath and the steady drip of rusty water from the tap. No matter how unlikely it might be that Morris would use this pathetic excuse for a bathroom with its chintzy décor and musty air, he wouldn't leave the water unfiltered when he'd need it for his precious experiments.
I'm unsurprised when after a long drawn-out silence there's a demanding lock and a click followed by the whirr of unseen gears and pulleys. The entire bathroom twists and falls at the same time, the slow descent of an elevator combined with the slightly dizzying disorientation of a roller coaster.
When it finally stops and the door slides open, the revealed room contains something I definitely had not expected.
A tiny black girl sits at a child-sized table cluttered with crayons and picture books, her feet barely reaching the floor. Her clothes are clean and her hair has been arranged into two round dark puffs pulled tight on top of her head. The room appears tidy and well-kept but soulless, a nice bed with clean white bedding and a small television not making up for the lack of color or windows.
It's a cell, I think.
My mind can't drudge up anything much more coherent than that at the moment.
She lifts her head to look at me, and her wide sweet eyes hide behind thick glasses.
“Hi,” I croak.
The little girl smiles.
“Hi,” she says. Her voice is low and raspy. Maybe she's had a cold. “Are you here to take me home?”
My stomach sinks, a dark cold weight in my midsection.
I nod and open my arms wide, and she launches herself into them.
22.
Shutting down the antenna on the roof of Morris's lair succeeds in lowering the previously-raised dead, but unfortunately it doesn't quite lower them back into the ground where they belong. During the ride back to town, Nate weaves his way at a respectable speed around prone corpses crumpled in the road. His face twists into a frustrated pout I recognize from catching it in the occasional reflective surface during trying times.
Heroine Addiction Page 22
