But Finn’s different. My redness didn’t drown him, but it did make his revival as much a curse as a blessing.
I look at Martin. ‘Do you agree with your parents? What do you think should be done about Finn?’
He doesn’t hesitate. ‘I think when he turns sixteen and becomes an adult, then he should decide himself.’
Three years feels like a lifetime. By then I’ll be almost finished at university, perhaps already hired by MI-X – if I choose to join them.
‘When that day comes,’ my father says, ‘Finn would need to be deemed mentally capable of making such a decision. But if he is, you could give him the choice then.’
‘Dinnae worry,’ I say, never taking my eyes off Martin. ‘I will.’
Chapter Eighteen
Date: 20 December
Weight: 70kg
Hours of sleep last night: 1
Passports in hand: 2
Condoms in suitcase: 19
Days since 3A: 117
Days until Aura: 0
In the dark centre of the second longest night of the year, a taxi arrives at my house to take me to the airport. A light mist is falling, one that can’t seem to decide whether to be rain or snow. It makes glistening halos around the Christmas lights on the neighbours’ houses.
I walk out the front door alone, locking it behind me. This is it. If all goes right, I’ll be with Aura in six hours and twenty-eight minutes. Approximately.
So many things need to go right. Aura needs to escape the US without the DMP and Nighthawk realising she’s headed for Dublin instead of Glasgow. The false IDs that MI-X made for us need to pass inspection at customs and immigration. My driving skills need to get us from the airport to our bed and breakfast, despite the fact I’ve been behind the wheel exactly once since returning home, only to get my driving licence.
Most of all, I need to hold it together, through the crowds and the castle and the unforeseen challenges that will meet us. In some ways, I feel less normal than ever now that I’m on the road to recovery, if only because I’m realising how long that road is, how much work there is to do, and how I’ll never get halfway to healed until I can tell the world what I went through in 3A. Until I find justice.
I climb into the taxi. Turns out it’s not empty.
‘Awright, mate?’ Martin sits in the far seat, still wearing his shirt and tie from the pub where he works.
‘You’re off early for a Friday night.’
‘Just a wee bit. Told Tina it was a special occasion.’
I look up and down the road as we pull away from the kerb. ‘What happened to the taxi I called?’
‘We told him tae piss off. Right, Sully?’ The driver gives him a thumbs up. Martin looks me over, then kicks the side of my foot. ‘Nervous?’
I nod quickly.
‘You’ll be fine,’ he says. ‘Just remember: LOL.’
I made the mistake of asking Martin for advice on losing my virginity with Aura. He offered some practical tips: relax, take it slow, and above all, LOL. Which turned out not to stand for Laughing Out Loud, but rather Lots of Lube.
‘That’s not what I’m nervous about,’ I tell him now, ‘but thank you.’
Traffic is sparse, so we arrive at the airport before I’ve found words to elaborate on thank you. But perhaps I never will.
The driver gets out, sets my bag on the pavement, then returns to the car to wait for Martin.
‘Well,’ I say, ‘I guess this is—’
‘Ach, who’s that?’ Martin points past me at the terminal door. Four guys are standing in front of it looking our way.
‘Is it—’
‘Hooligans. I wouldnae trust them if I were you.’
I pick up my bag and walk towards the entrance. ‘Fuck’s all this?’
Graham raises a hand for a high five. ‘What sort of mates’d we be if we let ye go without a parting gift?’
‘Happy Birthday, Zach.’ Niall presents me with a large manila envelope, tied with a wrinkled red ribbon.
‘What’s in here?’
‘Open it when ye get on the plane,’ Frankie says.
‘It’s against security procedures.’ I start tugging on the ribbon. ‘If they ask, “did anyone gie you a package to carry aboard?” I’ll have to say “aye, these suspicious-looking eejits ootside.” Then it’s MI5 ruinin’ all yer Christmases.’
I tear off the ribbon and peer inside the envelope. Even in the low light at this angle I can see a ream of notes accompanied by very descriptive illustrations and photographs.
‘Martin said you needed a few beginners’ tips with the lassies.’ Roland nods to the envelope. ‘That’s volume one of sixteen. When you get back, you can read the rest.’
I shrug. ‘When I get back, I can write the rest.’
They laugh and clap me on the shoulders, cuffing me upside the head like I’m a wee pup. Then they start talking over one another, bits of advanced-sounding advice that must be part of volume sixteen. I wonder if I should take notes or if they’re just blethering.
‘’Mon, taxi’s waiting,’ Martin calls out after a minute or two. ‘Zach’s got a flight, and I’d like tae sleep some time the day.’
The others wave goodbye and head for the car, shouting a few last pointers. I’m glad it’s too dark for them to see me blush.
I slap Martin’s arm with the envelope. ‘You’re a mad wee prick, so you are.’
‘Aye. Be well, lad.’ He hugs me, in the effortless way I wish I could’ve hugged him when I arrived here months ago. As he pats my back, he whispers, ‘Just remember how I taught you tae breathe.’
I hang on to him for an extra second. ‘I will.’
Then I pick up my bag and turn for the terminal. I want to look back but resist the urge until I hear the taxi door shut and the driver put the car in gear.
The red taillights fade into the veil of misty rain. My heart lurches instinctively at being alone. I pull in air slowly through my nostrils, counting aon, dhà, trì, ceithir.
After the second breath, my pulse turns slow and even. I enter the terminal and head for the closest emerald-green kiosk to print my boarding pass.
Martin did teach me to breathe again. He resuscitated me. He kept this body alive in Glasgow the way Logan kept my mind alive in 3A.
And now, in Ireland, Aura can resuscitate my soul.
* * * *
While I wait for Aura at the Dublin airport, I stay calm by counting and recounting the roses in my hand. Seven red, five yellow. Almost like the bouquet I brought her one year minus two days ago. Back then there were six of each colour, representing our relationship’s perfect – and perfectly confusing – combination of passion and friendship.
Now I’ve tipped the balance. I hope she approves.
A half hour ago, Aura texted me from the plane saying she’d landed. She’d still needed to go through baggage retrieval, then customs, then immigration. Or is immigration, then customs? I can’t remember, and I was just there myself a few hours ago.
Americans are coming through the gate now, their various accents washing over me. The voices of the self-assured. Even the poorest and weakest of them know they’re on earth for a reason. Their desperation is never the quiet sort.
I keep my back to the pedestal, one hand holding the flowers and the other wrapped around the phone in my pocket, in case Aura texts me again. The crowd thickens as it floods past, but there’s still no sign of her. Part of me wants to run from the massive press of flesh. But I stay where I am, grinding my teeth so hard my jaw cramps. I would walk through a thousand of these hells to see her again.
Something brushes my sleeve from behind. I jerk my arm, ready to strike out.
It’s Aura.
My mouth can’t even utter both syllables of her name before it meets hers. But words don’t matter now. Nothing matters.
The Atlantic Ocean is no more.
* * * *
I wonder if Aura and I look twenty-one, the age on our fake passports. I feel abou
t half that at the moment, so nervous and happy I could explode. It’s all I can do to take three steps in a row down this airport corridor without stopping to kiss her. But every delay keeps us from the castle.
I take a quick glance at my phone to see if I’m on schedule with my meds. Dr McFarlane warned me that travelling makes it harder to remember, and harder to get the regular food, drink, and sleep I need to ensure the prescriptions work as well as possible. At home I’ve three people to nag me into compliance; here, none.
Or, perhaps, one. If I can open up that much to her. Perhaps this wall of secrets could lose a brick or two without collapsing.
‘Aura, I’m going to send a file to your phone.’
She gives me a saucy grin. ‘Ooh, secret spy document?’
‘No.’
‘Pictures of you naked? I won’t need those while we’re here, but maybe once I’m home again.’
‘You can take all you want this weekend.’ I smile as I convert my calendar to a text file and click Share.
She shifts the roses to her other arm and pulls out her phone. ‘It means more when you take them yourself.’
I fill in her number, let out a deep breath, then hit Send.
‘I will also accept pics of you in nothing but a kilt,’ she says, watching her screen. ‘That’d be even better than one hundred percent naked, to tell you the – oh, here it is.’ Aura’s pace slows as she scrolls through the document with her thumb. ‘What is all this? Is it even in English? I can’t pronounce half of—’ She stops, no doubt recognising the name of a well-known antidepressant. ‘Zach, are these—’
‘Prescriptions.’ My mouth has gone dry again. ‘Things I need to take to keep me … ‘ Strong. Stable. Standing. ‘To keep me with you.’
Time slows as she stares at me, searching behind my eyes for the chaos in my head. Is she terrified of being trapped in a car, then a room, with someone who might snap? Does she still see me behind all the long, unpronounceable medication names?
Aura’s face melts into a smile, and she says, simply, ‘Good.’ Then she stands on her tiptoes to bring her lips to mine.
I close my eyes and breathe in the scent of her skin, her hair, and the roses in her arms. The flowers get crushed between us as she embraces me.
You’re free. You’re safe. You’re home, I tell myself again. And this time, I believe it.
About “Shattered,” Zachary, and Jeri
“Shattered” is a companion novella in the Shade trilogy. The full-length novels in the series are Shade, Shift, and Shine. “Shattered” takes place concurrent with the middle third of Shine. (Click the book titles to purchase them for your Nook.)
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Shade Chapter 1
Shift Chapter 1
Shine Chapter 1
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Zachary on Twitter
Martin on Twitter
Logan on Twitter
Aura on Twitter
SHADEboys Tumblr
Kilt and Keeley (SHADE fan site)
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Digital Edition 1.0 © 2013 by Jeri Smith-Ready
Cover design by Reece Notley © Jeri Smith-Ready
ISBN-10: 1940607000
ISBN-13: 978-1-940607-00-9
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Where such permission is sufficient the author grants the rights to strip any DRM which may be applied to this work.
Read on for a special sneak peek at Jeri’s next YA novel, This Side of Salvation, coming April 1, 2014!
Chapter One
Now
If this were the last night of my life, I could be at peace with that.
That, and everything else, as I walk hand-in-hand with Bailey out of the pool house and back into the blare of the party. Her long hair brushes my elbow, stirring memories of reaching, fumbling in the dark, memories so fresh they feel more like dreams, not etched as events in my past, but posed as possibilities in my future.
Future. A word that stumbles off my tongue lately, like a phrase in a new foreign language.
The sandstone clock on the side of the pool house shows four minutes after two. The final hour.
I try to put myself in the place of my parents and the others who think the Rapture will take place in fifty-six minutes. They’re waiting for that moment when the true believers, living and dead, will be raised up from earth before all hell literally breaks loose.
Are they scarfing their favorite foods—pizza, cheesesteaks, TastyKakes—or are they already dreaming of that heavenly banquet? Are they playing their favorite tunes on infinite loop, or are they dreaming of that angelic choir? Are they having sex (not my parents—the thought makes me gag), or are they dreaming of that divine embrace?
Part of me wishes I’d never lost that all-consuming hunger. My soul still craves the unseen, unflinching love that was there for me in my darkest hours. Sometimes my lungs still need it to breathe. But even the sweetest faith can taste sour when it’s used as poison.
Bailey and I return to our towels, spread on the lawn not far from the gazebo where three seniors are karaoke-ing the prom’s theme song. It’s a bouncy, triumphant tune that idolizes our bright future.
End of the world or not, things change tonight. I can feel it in my bones, in my skin, and every cell in between. The future is mine again.
Bailey stretches out beside me, then slips on the corsage I gave her. The red rose doesn’t match her pink-and-blue paisley bikini, but she doesn’t care. As she inhales the rose’s scent, her blue-gray eyes smile at me through the sprigs of baby’s breath.
On my other side, my best friend, Kane, is too preoccupied with his prom date to notice we’ve returned. Or maybe he knows that anything he said right now, after where Bailey and I have been, would embarrass us (by “us,” I mean me).
I lie down on my back and take Bailey’s hand, feeling the itch of flowers against my wrist. I should tell her I need to leave soon, but this moment’s fragile perfection won’t allow words, especially not those that speak of limits.
So I close my eyes as sounds of the night wash over me. In the gazebo, my sister, Mara, belts out a Florence + the Machine song, to the delight of the crowd. To my right, Bailey hums along softly. To my left, Kane and Jonathan-not-John laugh together, then kiss, then laugh again. It feels like the whole world is happy.
* * * *
I hear the wahp-wahp of sirens, see the blue-and-red flash of lights through my eyelids, and realize that I am dead. Not heaven-bound dead, cashing in on my undeserved eternal ecstasy. Dead as in, if I’ve missed curfew—and therefore the non-end of the world—my dad is going to kill me.
Here on Stephen Rice’s lawn, “busted” echoes in a dozen panicky voices. I sit up quickly as barely dressed juniors and seniors scurry past, tripping over scattered beach towels, pouring out the contents of their plastic cups. I pity the grass its imminent hangover.
“David, the cops are here. Are you sober?”
I turn to blink at Kane, sitting beside me. His sharp blue eyes examine my face. On his other side, Jonathan-not-John looks ready to run, but for Kane’s reassuring hand on his arm.
Bailey asked me that same question earlier. I’d said yes, when it was most important.
It’s still true. “Yeah, I fell asleep.” I fumble for my phone, before remembering I didn’t bring it with me. “What time is it?”
“A little after three.” His eyes widen. “Uh-oh. Were you supposed to be home at—”
“Two thirty. In time for—wait.” I look down at my hand, p
alm pressing grass that’s still green and alive. In the clear sky above the pool, stars are shining, not falling.
No trumpet blasts. No demon locusts from hell. No horses with lion heads and serpent tails shooting flames and smoke and sulfur from their mouths. My parents’ dream of the End Times—and my recurring nightmare—is a big fat no-show. Hallelujah.
But I’m still late. I twist to my right to kiss Bailey goodbye, since I’ll probably be grounded for weeks.
She’s gone. Her abandoned corsage lies in the middle of her bright yellow towel.
“Where’s Bailey?” I ask Kane.
“Maybe in the bathroom? I didn’t see her leave. Hey, don’t panic. There’s no law against being at a party that has booze if they can’t prove you drank it.”
“I had one sip an hour ago.”
He laughs at my concern. “By this point, that’s the same as none.”
The cops enter the backyard through the front gate of the tall wooden privacy fence and onto the patio through the sliding glass door, blocking off two escape routes.
Not the third, though. The partygoers stream toward the back gate, where I came in, behind the pool house.
“David!” Mara lurches toward me in her short black prom gown, silver sequins flashing in the light from the tiki torches. “We need to go. Now!”
No need to ask why. It’s obvious where my sister got the courage for that balls-to-the-wall karaoke performance that was thrilling the crowd when I fell asleep. Mara is hammered. She may be a year older than I am, but at seventeen she’s still way underage. If I don’t get her out of here, we’ll have bigger problems than angry parents.
But I’m barefoot and wearing borrowed swim trunks. “My clothes are in the pool house.”
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