Evernight Teen ®
www.evernightteen.com
Copyright© 2017 Caroline George
ISBN: 978-1-77339-275-2
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer
Editor: Audrey Bobak
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
To those who have shown me the truth and challenged me to see the unseen, and for every person who’s been crazy enough to say what no one wants to hear.
THE VESTIGE
Caroline George
Copyright © 2017
FIRST LAYER
Chapter One
“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“What’s your blood type?” Jack yells over the intense rattles and rippling slosh of a red sea. Blood type. Mom didn’t tell me. She kept that sort of information stored in Dad’s filing cabinet.
“I … don’t know.” Air leaves my lungs and doesn’t return. A metallic liquid pollutes my throat—I choke. I roll over and vomit blood. The floor’s star-shaped grooves dig into my forearm, branding me with this hell. Flesh peels off my fingers as I claw at the metal ground. How is it possible to be in so much pain? Am I breathing? Am I screaming? Maybe. Not sure. The tires crunch and squeal. Police sirens wail in the distance. They’re alive—I won’t be for much longer.
“So if you don’t bleed out or die from sepsis, my blood will kill you. Great.” Jack kneels with an armful of first-aid kits, flashlights, and alcohol. He braces himself against a stainless steel toolbox and inserts a needle into his forearm, attaches a tube, and then connects the opposite end to my central vein.
Thirty minutes ago, I was meeting Jon. I was wearing a floral print sundress. Now it’s all ruined: my life, my illusion, my dress. This doesn’t happen to people like me. I get good grades, I brush my teeth—I’m a good girl. What did I do?
Jack feels beneath my ribcage. His fingers are vultures picking at my necrotic corpse. “The bullet must be lodged beneath your false ribs, within your external oblique muscle.” He uncaps a bottle of vodka. “This is going to hurt.” Before I have a chance to respond, he pours the clear liquid onto the wound. A searing pain spreads through me. Yes—I am screaming.
Tremors of resilient determination replace the hot agony, and an icy sensation numbs my limbs. Death—this is what dying feels like, isn’t it? Help. Mom. Dad. Jon. Sybil. Save me. Please. Someone. Anyone. Don’t let me die. I’m not ready to die.
My dress gets wetter and the world spins, mixing blood with vomit, faces into the cosmic roar. Angry voices and sharp pain. Dust and crimson plasma. I never got to try the new brand of hazelnut flavoring that just arrived. Where did I put those shells we collected? Jon promised he would keep me safe. Liar. I’ll never believe him again.
“You better move fast. She’s going into shock.” Tally glances back from the driver’s seat. “Wow, that’s a lot of blood. How is she not dead yet?”
“Be quiet.” Jack lifts the vial of alcohol to my mouth and forces me to drink. There must be something wrong with his voice. It’s muffled. Wait. Why is his face blurry? Why can’t I taste the vodka or feel pain? I really am dying. This is happening. Right now. No, I can’t die yet. God, don’t let me die. I’m too young. There’s so much I’ve yet to do.
Jack unwraps a package of scalpels. “Stay with me, Julie.”
I’m in the ocean, rocking back and forth with a surging current. These waves are safe, warm. They embrace me in a sort of unnatural quiet. I’ll stay and swim for a while. Maybe Jon will show up to dive for sand dollars. He likes how they fit in his hands.
Jack removes his t-shirt and tucks the fabric between my teeth. “I don’t have any anesthetics so once I begin surgery, you’ll feel everything. The pain’s intensity should make you pass out. Stay still. If I make a mistake, you could die.” He sticks the blade of his scalpel into my flesh and cuts.
The wad of sweaty, blood-drenched clothing straddles my teeth like floss—putrid, boy-tasting floss. Death sears through my nervous system as Jack digs into me. It’s more severe and harrowing than anything I’ve ever felt. This is torture, torment. Dying might be better. No more suffering. No more heartbreak. I want to die now. Please let me die.
Jack curses when a gust of blood explodes from the incision. His bare chest and arms are splattered with red. He clasps a hand over his mouth, clutches his head. He seems to be scared. Because he’s covered in me. Because I am about to leave the world. “There’s a tear in the abdominal wall. Julie, I need you to be still while I make sutures.”
“Make her shut up,” Tally’s voice echoes with ferocious authority.
“She hasn’t passed out yet.”
“Duh, that’s why she is still squealing like a freaking baby. Do something.”
Angry voices. Pain and numbness, sharp and dull—they twist inside me. Something stifles my screams and then eyes. Those eyes, blue. No cobalt. Indigo? Azure? Sapphire? No just cold blue. Hateful eyes. Cold, hard blue eyes. Eyes that were so pretty an hour ago. Eyes that sparkled and laughed.
His face is pinched, serious, and I hate it. How could you? Jon loves you. Jon believed you and you’ve betrayed him. Stabbing pain … an angry face. A face that only a few seconds ago I thought was my friend. A face I had finally started to trust.
He removes his hands from my torso and lifts me into his lap. “You’re not going to die. I’m a good surgeon. I will keep you alive.” His bloody fingers rest directly above my collarbone. “Don’t give up. Keep fighting. This isn’t over.” His grip tightens. The universe spirals. I’m saturated in safe, warm waves—slowly, and then all at once.
****
If I had known what would happen to me, maybe things could’ve been different, but that’s what we all believe, isn’t it? That awareness of future events offers us a chance to make changes to our fate, that knowledge gives us power to play God? If Jon hadn’t come home, if I hadn’t met Jack, if we had been at a different place at the right time—maybe things would have been different. None of those scenarios matter now, though. What happened, happened. I can’t change the past, so I must look to the future while drowning in memories.
Rewind. Repeat. Relive.
There are certainties, small infinities this world offers like ocean breezes, skies streaked with white lines like mega Etch-A-Sketches, people’s voices as they rush like currents through civilization. Life will forever exist, no matter what happens to us or around us. The sky will remain blue, wind will still blow, and somewhere a voice will mutter. Jon says my obsession with simple things is cute, but when things aren’t simple and certain, I get hurt. Cling to what is infinite. Avoid change.
I roll over and stare through the dark lenses of my sunglasses at the manicured green space nestled between Porter’s Lodge and Randolph Hall. Students lounge on the lawn, basking in the midafternoon heat. Their white-noise chatter, the clip-clop of horse hooves, and the occasional car horn blaring from the streets outside the College of Charleston create a rhythm, and I tap my foot to the beat.
When my cell phone alarm detonates, playing a repetitive acoustic strum, I climb up from the ground and fold my quilt into a neat, grassy wad. Students glance at me with upturned noses. Whatever. They’re jerks, whispering
about how my handmade sundress looks like it belongs to a grandma, gossiping about my dead sister and semi-crazy parents. I don’t care. Well, maybe I do. Just a little.
Everyone wants to deny what hurts them the most, to be strong and untouchable, but it’s easier to fall than stand upright, easier to break instead of stumbling through life wrapped in my own duct tape, easier to accept what I see in the mirror rather than let the pain of someone else’s tongue tear me down. Easy isn’t always best, but what’s complex is hardly ever worth the struggle.
I move toward the antebellum arches of Porter’s Lodge where my vintage, 1950 Schwinn Spitfire is propped. With a swing and a shove, I peddle down George Street and arrive at The Grindery moments later. It’s a coffeehouse located on Broad Street—a pastel-blue building with yellow trim and massive, arching windows. A full-grown palmetto sprouts from the curb.
Missy sighs when I enter the café. “There you are. This place has been a madhouse all day.”
I grab a red apron from the employee coat rack and fasten it over my dress.
“Whew, it’s too warm outside for people to be drinking this much brew,” Dax says as I restock the mini-fridge with milk. Her t-shirt and jeans are caked with grounds.
“Julie, you didn’t leave your bike out front again, did you?” Philip strides from the back room with a crate of fruit. “Trees are not bicycle racks.”
“I parked in the alley.”
“Good girl.” He pats my shoulder and unloads the produce onto a concrete counter. Good girl—the stereotype has ruined my social life. Good isn’t fun. Good isn’t interesting. Good gets you home and in bed before ten, decent grades, respect from adults, and zero friends your own age.
Missy leans against me and lowers her soprano voice to a muffled whisper. “Want to hang out in the park tonight? I have things I need to tell you.”
“Anything wrong?”
She shrugs. “Your mom was in here a few hours ago. She bought an Italian soda and showed me a picture of her latest masterpiece…”
Missy isn’t a secretive person, quite the opposite. We’ve been close friends since my first day as a barista, when I accidentally spilled coffee grounds onto Philip’s favorite couch. Missy spent hours helping me clean the upholstery. It was the first kind deed anyone had done for me in years and since that moment, she’s been like my sister. In appearance, we are a great contrast. She’s tall and full-figured with long, braided hair and a smooth, chocolate complexion. I’m barely five-feet-six-inches, flat-chested with dyed blonde hair and skin in desperate need of a summer tan.
I reach under the counter and remove a stack of new magazines to replace the tattered copies on the rack. Their glossy covers are adorned with thin bodies and white teeth, perfect except for a single flaw. The same model plasters three issues of Vogue. Was it an editorial mistake? Did they only have enough money to hire one gorgeous, freak alien model?
For the next few hours, Missy and I mix lattes and seep herbal teas. I clean the grinder and make an espresso for a man playing his guitar. She wipes tables and dusts sugar over a batch of lemon squares.
Some drink coffee to complete their stereotype: that woman in the corner attempting to write a novel and the teenager pretending to be a philosophical poet. I drink coffee because I like its warmth, its consistency. The bitter taste that ignites my blood with caffeine.
As I swirl whipped cream onto an iced coffee, Missy grabs my bicep in a crazed death-grip. Her eyelids stretch apart and her jaw drops. She motions to the café’s threshold.
“Holy … wow, I didn’t know they could look like that,” she says.
I follow the path of her focus to a man standing near the coffeehouse’s entrance. He looks to be around my brother’s age—twenty-three or twenty-four—with a perfectly chiseled body and short brown hair. His eyes are blue, a shade so unnaturally cobalt they must be contacts. Framed beneath thick, arching eyebrows and matted by stalwart features, his irises contrast like stars in the night sky, like Missy and me. He’s beautiful. I know men aren’t supposed to be, but he is.
The stranger moves toward us with his gaze transfixed on the menu above our heads. For a man so incredibly handsome, he’s dressed plainly—denim jeans, a gray t-shirt, sneakers, and a leather jacket similar to Philip’s. He sways back and forth, hands stashed in his pockets.
“I’m surprised his shirt hasn’t burned off,” Missy whispers.
That’d be a sight—guy in a coffeehouse, t-shirt rolling off his sculpted abdomen in a cloud of ash. I laugh, and then my stomach twists with a hurricane of hormonal butterflies and I can’t breathe. I’m not this shallow. Good looks do not affect me. Even so, the closer he approaches, the faster my heart beats. Stop looking at him. Be professional. He’s not an explicit image from a trashy tabloid. He is a human. Treat him like a normal, coffee-loving human who isn’t at all attractive. Think of Jon. Okay. Better.
“What can we get for you today?” Missy props herself against the counter and leans far enough forward to showcase her not-flat chest.
“An espresso, double-shot.” He places a ten-dollar-bill near the cash register.
“Sure … are those real?” My friend leans further to inspect our customer’s blue irises.
“Excuse me?”
“Your eyes. Are they real?”
He takes a step back and flashes his bleached smile. “Yes, they’re real.” A chain hangs over the collar of his t-shirt—ID tags. He’s in the military, like my brother, Jon.
“You can sit down, if you want. We’ll bring your drink to you,” I say.
His pupils explode, melt, and evaporate me all at the same inconvenient time. They decipher my expressions like mathematical equations. Then, the intensity of his hypersonic analysis subsides. His lips twitch into a small, understanding smile. “Keep the change.” He moves to a table set against one of the many antique windows, pulls a book from the pocket of his jacket, and flips through its stained pages.
Missy needs to turn on the air conditioning. It’s too hot in here. Sweat beads on my neck, slides into my dress. I hold a chilled gallon of milk to my chest where lungs sink against the back of my ribcage, expand and ache. Blue eyes touched my skin, reached into my head. Now they linger by the window, probing a more interesting open book. If I could, I’d ball up on the cool, tile floor and hide from them because I know better than anyone that to be truly seen is to be changed or hurt.
“Go talk to him,” Missy says and offers me a cup of espresso.
“No. You should take him the coffee. My shift ends soon and I promised Dax I’d clean the toilets.” I slide past her and scoot toward the bathroom. Wiping up pee and soap spills are preferable to speaking to a dagger-eyed, hot-bodied customer. Besides, no one wants to watch pathetic me try to converse with a man way out of my league, like in another universe out of my league. A simple hello would be so embarrassing, it’d evoke the apocalypse.
“That won’t be a problem. I’ll go clean the bathrooms and you can give that pretty boy his espresso.” She shoves the mug into my hands and leaves me to confront the stranger, his soul-rupturing eyes, and my hurricane of hormonal butterflies alone.
I hold a breath captive behind smiling teeth and stand up straight. Boys sense fear—they’re like dogs or bears. There’s no reason to be afraid. He is a normal, coffee-loving human. But what about me? I’m the problem. I have a tendency to trust easily and I get hurt. At first, the betrayals and rejections only knocked me down for a short time, like tripping and scraping a knee. Then it became harder for me to get up after falling. One day, I didn’t get up. I stayed with my face pressed to the pavement. It seems like I’ve been lying on the ground for years, incapable of trusting anyone.
Why am I shaking? Gross, I have sweat stains underneath my armpits. Ugh, I’m going to throw up. What’s wrong with me?
“Here’s the espresso you ordered.” I lower the steaming cup to his table. “Let me know if you need anything else.” Maybe he’ll be a jerk and not respond. Please le
t him be a jerk.
He looks at me. It’s as if I’m transparent. “Your name is Julie?” He motions to my nametag.
I nod because the violence of his stare makes speaking impossible. After several seconds of word vomiting, I say, “I’ve never seen you here before. What’s your name?” Stupid. I should’ve said yes and left. It’s the southern girl in me—I love people even when I hate them. I mask distain with cordiality, disgust with compliments, and stabs in the back with sweet hugs. Geez, I’m so passive aggressive.
“Jack,” he says and shuts his book—some obscure zombie novel. “Was the espresso made with Ethiopian Harrar? It smells like it was.” He sips the coffee like fine wine. Crema gets stuck in the stubble above his lip and glistens. Would it taste good? Ugh, gross thought. Back pedal. Refocus.
“Yeah. We purchase and import the beans from a special seller.”
“Awesome. I’m sort of a coffee snob. People don’t realize the importance of a quality bean, you know? Generic-brand grinds from the local Walmart do not make a decent cup of coffee.” He lifts his tattered novel. “Do you believe in the possibility of a zombie apocalypse, Julie?”
“Uh, not really.” My heartbeat roars within me. It says to stare at him, lower my guard, and flirt. Really flirt. Like a smitten teenage girl. But I can’t. He is so beautiful, looking at him seems like an insult to God. And I don’t want to insult God.
“Yeah, me neither. There are a million other more likely things that’ll kill us first: nuclear bombs, disease, global warming, aliens, the closing of all fast food chains.” His pupils look me up and down like the airport’s full-body scan. “You’d be one heck of a zombie slayer, I can tell. You’d blast my brains with your old-fashioned shotgun before I could eat you. That’s a compliment, just so you know. I rarely let somebody kill me in my doomsday scenarios. Besides, if there did happen to be a zombie apocalypse, I wouldn’t be a zombie. I’d be the leader of a hardcore survival clan.”
The Vestige Page 1
