The Gifting (Book 1 in The Gifting Series)
Page 17
Chapter Sixteen
Revelations
Our knuckles brush together and there’s a spark of heat, like flint on stone. I slide my hands in the front pockets of my hoodie, unsure what to say. We walk side-by-side up the middle of the street. There’s not a car or person in sight, but Luka’s posture is erect, almost vigilant, as if he expects someone or something to jump out of the bushes and attack.
All of this has me very … aware. Of my body. Of his. Of the night air on my skin. The subtle whisper of a breeze. His familiar scent. The sound of our shoes padding against the pavement. Being this close to Luka—listening to the smooth pitch of his voice as he answers my questions—does funny things to my body temperature.
“Do you think it was real?”
“I’m not sure.” He squints at the sidewalk. “I always used to think I was crazy. But now …?”
“Now you don’t?”
“Now I don’t know what to think. I’ve never met anyone who sees what I see.”
I nibble my lower lip. “I don’t get it.”
“Me, neither.”
“No, I mean, if you really saw what I saw, then why didn’t you react? That man came right at us and you just sat there.”
“I’ve trained myself not to react.”
“Trained?”
“It’s not safe to be crazy.”
I think about my grandmother. When speaking with my parents, we never got around to how she died.
“A few months before we moved to Thornsdale,” Luka says, “I overheard a conversation between my parents. About that pregnancy screening. I had no idea mine came back abnormal or that my mom had terminated a previous pregnancy. Supposedly, my parents took a big risk when they went against the doctor’s orders. My dad had to pay a lot of money to cover things up. Make sure the records were erased from the system.”
“Wait a minute. You mean women are required to proceed with treatment if the screenings come back with an abnormality? I always thought the decision was ultimately in the hands of the parents.”
“Almost everyone chooses to abort. Mothers rarely decide to have the child.”
Abort. Child. Luka is using language the world at large would not approve of. “But your mom did.”
He nods. “At first, they assumed the test was wrong. I was a healthy baby. A healthy toddler. My dad considered suing. But then I started to see things nobody else could see and my parents reconsidered. Maybe the screening wasn’t so wrong after all.”
The blood inside my veins turns hot. “So what? Because you aren’t perfect your parents regret their decision? They think people like us shouldn’t be allowed to live?”
He stops, curls his fingers around my wrist, and turns me to face him. Moonlight reflects off his face. “If my parents regret any decision, it’s listening to the doctors the first time.”
“I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply—”
“It’s okay.” He lets go of my wrist and we stand in the thick of an awkward silence. I wish more than anything I knew how to fill it.
Luka puts his hands in his back pockets. “Have you ever asked your mom about her pregnancy screening?”
“I’ve never thought to.” But if my screening came back abnormal, I can’t imagine my mom going against the doctor’s advice. My parents are pretty by-the-book.
Luka glances over my shoulder, toward one of the manicured lawns within Forest Grove, then jerks his head for us to keep walking. “After I overheard that conversation, I knew it didn’t matter if the things I saw were real or not. I had to find a way to hide it. It took a while before I could tell the difference between what everyone could see and what only I could see. Sometimes it’s obvious—like at the pep rally and in class. Sometimes it isn’t so clear. You have to look for tells.”
“Tells?”
“Little things that tell you what you’re seeing isn’t …” The furrow in his brow deepens. “Human.”
“Like eyes that are all white?”
Luka gives me a slow, singular nod. “Once I was able to differentiate, I trained myself to ignore things.”
The memory of what happened in Mr. Lotsam’s class makes my shoulders deflate. I’m pretty sure I’ll never be strong enough to ignore something like that.
“The summer before sophomore year, I told Dr. Roth the hallucinations were gone. My parents were relieved. Dr. Roth had his doubts, but his doubts didn’t matter. I wasn’t showing any signs of abnormality, so he had no choice but to dismiss me.”
We walk a few more steps. “Do you trust him—Dr. Roth?”
“Sometimes I felt more like a science experiment than one of his clients, but I think he sincerely wanted to help. And thanks to my very existence, my father’s passionate about keeping the government away from patient files. The staff at the facility knows this. Dr. Roth would lose his job in a heartbeat if he shared your case with anyone.”
Maybe this should make me feel better, but honestly, all this talk about pregnancy screenings and governmental control and mental abnormalities sits like a dead weight on my chest. And really, how secure can the place be if a seventeen-year-old boy can break in?
Crickets chirp. The temperature is perfect. The night is beautiful, with stars and stars and stars freckling the black sky. Never in a million years would I envision me taking a midnight stroll with Luka Williams. But despite the perfection of the scene and the perfection of this boy, I can’t shake the feeling that the world is about to come crashing down.
“This is going to sound crazy.” He shakes his head. “Or maybe not, considering. But the reason I came to the facility yesterday is because of a dream I had last night.”
I stop.
So does he. “You were in it. We were on the beach. And you told me you were going to the—”
“Edward Brooks Facility.”
His eyebrows draw closer together.
“I had the same dream.” I let out my breath. Run my hands back through my hair. “How is any of this possible?”
Clouds sweep in front of the moon and night darkens his face. I don’t know why, but I have the distinct feeling that Luka is holding something back. Like he’s not telling me the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He looks around again, as if he suspects we’re being followed, then continues walking.
I follow after him. “What do you think it is—the things we see?”
“I have a couple theories.”
“Like?”
“Do you believe in God?”
I dip my chin. “Do you?”
He shoots me a sideways smile. “I asked you first.”
I twist my mouth to the side, forcing myself to consider the question. I don’t want to be flippant, even if science and the government would scoff. Do I believe in God? I know how my dad would answer—ever the logical-minded atheist, a man who believes miracles are never truly miracles. Then there’s my mom’s sister, Vanessa, who despite everything, believes in spirits and reincarnation. There’s those people on street corners, declaring the end times. And then there’s the flash of light in that gym auditorium and a myriad of other unexplainable things I’ve seen since as far back as my earliest memories. “Honestly?”
“Always.”
“I don’t know.”
We keep walking. I wait for him to elaborate, but we’re getting closer to our houses. His isn’t more than thirty yards away.
“Why—do you think God has something to do with this?” I ask.
“When I was a little kid, we went to church.”
My eyebrows shoot up my forehead. I’ve never met anybody who’s gone to a real church. Leela’s the first person I’ve met that admits to having a religious background, and even they don’t go. It seems so … taboo. “Really?”
“My grandparents didn’t approve. They thought my dad was putting us in unnecessary danger, but my parents were actually pretty devout for a while there. Sometimes, the pastor would talk about a spiritual realm.”
“A spiritual realm? You
mean like angels and demons and stuff?”
“I know it sounds weird, but it’s better than my other theory.”
“Which is?”
Luka looks at me, an entire sky worth of stars reflected in the depth of his eyes. “The doctors are right. We’re both crazy.”