“Um, I’m all right,” I say, not taking my eyes off the sleeping werewolf.
“Good, cuz one werewolf is so more than enough, thank you. Sorry we didn’t get here sooner, but he was going super fast, I couldn’t keep up. Are you sure you’re, like, okay? You look super pale.”
Not in control of my body, which feels as if it’s made of air, I walk over and kneel down beside the wolf. His eyes are still open, but they look like glass. The world turns even blacker for a moment, but I blink the feeling away. Before I can stop myself, I’m stroking the top of his head between the ears. God, he’s so soft. My head is weightless on my shoulders, it’s floating away. “This is so surreal.”
“Yeah, well,” she says with a scoff, “welcome to the F.R.E.A.K.S.”
The black of oblivion envelops me before I hit the ground.
ELEVEN
OKAY, SO I MADE A MISTAKE
Something cool wipes my face. It feels nice as it crosses my forehead, down my right cheek, then the other. Just like—
“Will!”
My eyes fly open as I jerk up into the sitting position. What …
I’m in the back seat of a car wrapped in a blanket. Where are the woods? Where’s Will? Carl stands by the open car door, white washcloth in his gloved hand, staring at me. He seems as confused as I am. Behind him, Bridge Stone is lit up like Las Vegas. Police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks line the streets with their flashing lights. People with varying wounds sit in cars and on sidewalks being attended to by the cavalry. And on the streets, something I never thought I’d see outside of a movie. Men in silver fire suits use flamethrowers on twitching body parts. When one body part is thoroughly doused, they move on to the next, a burst of orange flame shooting from the tip of the silver baton. Cool. I woke up in a Rambo movie.
“Are you okay?” Carl asks.
Arms, legs, eyes, check. “I think so. What happened?”
“You passed out. Do you feel sick, or are you seeing spots?”
“Not anymore,” I say, feeling the bump on my head. I’ve grown an egg. “How long have I been out?”
“About half an hour. We would have sent you to command, but Doc said it was only a mild concussion. She said you passed out from shock and exhaustion.”
“Wonderful.” I notice my bites are re-bandaged but blood is already seeping to the surface. God, they throb.
“I had to clean and re-dress the bites. You were bleeding all over the place. I think you might need stitches, but you’ll have to wait until morning. Their hands are full right now. You’ve had a tetanus booster, right?”
“Yeah, six months ago.” Great, scars by my second day. “Was anyone killed?”
“Agent Konrad didn’t make it.”
“I know. I’m really sorry.”
“He was only here for a few months, so I didn’t really know him, but … ”
“He was still one of us,” I finish. “The others?”
“The rest of the team’s fine. Two civilians suffered severe blood loss. They didn’t make it. Another had a heart attack, but he should be fine. A few more had broken bones or serious bites, and they just left for the hospital.”
I look back at the wounded on the street. This must be what a war zone looks like. Fires, shattered windows, blood on the pavement. A living nightmare. An old woman holding a bloody rag to her cheek rests her head on her husband’s bandaged shoulder. He strokes her head. “Who were the two?”
“I think I heard a middle-aged man and a teenage girl.”
My body tenses. “A teenage girl? What did she look like?”
“I don’t know. Blond, thin, had on a blue sweatshirt. Why?”
“Oh, no,” I say under my breath. “I knew her, I met her. She told us about Graham and Carrie. She was so sweet.”
“I’m sorry.”
I thought I saved her. Why didn’t she run after I stopped them?
“Are you okay?”
“It’s just … so unfair,” I say more to myself. “What did she do? She just wanted to see a movie!” I shout. “What kind of sick freak would put all these people’s lives in danger? I just—”
“Calm down.”
“She was seventeen! Seventeen! She’ll never get to go to prom or college and why? It’s not fair!”
“No, it’s not, but you need to calm down. There is nothing more that you can do.”
I turn away, my breathing jagged. I really don’t like being talked down to. This is not okay. A young girl is dead, it is not okay. Something needs to be done. “Can you leave me alone for a little while? I’m just—I’m not—”
“No problem. I’ll be over there if you need me.” He half smiles and walks toward the medics.
Pretend distress melts to righteous anger. She’s not getting away with this. No way. You don’t kill teenagers and get off scot free. Not if I can do anything about it. Okay, Columbo, how do we find the witch? Call her? Worth a try. I unclip my cell, which miraculously survived my tumble, and dial 411 to get Carrie’s number. Luckily she’s listed, and I press the button to be connected. The tension in my body grows with each unanswered ring. After the fourth, the machine picks up. “Hi, this is Carrie and I’m not here, as you know. Leave a message or call my cell at 555-3674.” I hang up and dial the new number. She picks up after the second ring.
“Hello?” she guffaws into my ear. There is a lot of background noise: laughing, rock music, and loud talking. Club or bar.
“Hi, Carrie, it’s—” I mumble. “Where are you?”
“Guys, it’s Kate,” she says. “Down at McGinley’s. Hey, do you know what’s up in town? We heard a trillion fire trucks go by.”
“No idea. Gotta go.” I hang up. She’s at a bar, probably toasting her latest victory. Bitch. No amount of hair flipping or smiling is going to save her tonight.
God is smiling down at me on my quest. The keys dangle from the ignition, just waiting for me to turn them. I jump out of the back, make sure nobody is watching, climb into the front, and start the car. Starting slow so as not to draw attention, I roll down the street. I make it a few feet before, in the mirror, I see Carl running after me, mouth moving and arms flapping. He disappears quickly enough as I race down the road, maneuvering around the roadblock the police have set up. McGinley’s bar is only a couple miles outside of town right off the interstate. We’ve passed it a few times.
I don’t have a plan. I realize I’m not really thinking. This is pure rage and instinct. Twice in one night I’ve felt this and been in a justice-driven zone. I almost wish I had my machete.
I pull into the bar’s full parking lot a few minutes later. The place practically pulsates with the music and laughter. Those patrons are having a good time while people lie bleeding on a sidewalk. So wrong. A man and woman walk out of the bar, laughing and holding hands. Another man notices me staring and makes a kissy face at me as he passes. I push him with my mind hard enough that he falls onto the pavement. As I get out of the car, I turn back to the confused couple and smirk. Guess I don’t need that machete.
The place is jumping for a Thursday night. Not a stool is empty, not a surface is devoid of a glass or bottle. A thick gray smoke fills the air like a putrid cloud. “Tainted Love” plays on the jukebox, almost drowned out by laughter. Nearby two men are playing pool while two women watch, one of them with blond hair I intend to rip out in huge clumps. With my jaw set and hands clenched, I worm my way through the inebriated patrons. Each person I pass stares then steps away as if touching me would infect them. Carrie sips her beer but sets it on the pool table when she sees me. Her sweetest smile emerges. I stop at the end of the pool table, my face hard as diamonds.
“Hello, Agent … ”
“Alexander.”
“Right, yeah.”
“God, what happened to her?” one of the men asks the other.
“No offense, but you look like shit,” Carrie giggles. Her perky friend in a tube top joins in.
I crinkle my nose, and the beer bottle in f
ront of her explodes, shards flying into the foursome like fairy dust. “What the fuck?” the other man shouts, jumping back.
Moving nearly as fast as Oliver can, I’m in front of a wide-eyed Carrie, backing her into the wall. She falls into the pool cues, the wooden sticks clattering against each other. Her friends just stare. Smart people. With my thumb and pointer finger holding her chin, I move her eyes to mine. She refuses to meet them. “Look at me.” Her scared eyes look into mine. I let her face go. “Three
people are dead. They are dead and you are here getting drunk.”
“I don’t—”
I squeeze her throat without moving my hands and her words stop. “You don’t get to speak, you get to listen.” I release her throat. Her hands pat her neck checking for hands. “You,” I say in a low voice, “are a monster. A teenage girl had her throat ripped out by one of your buddies tonight, and you don’t seem to care. You are a selfish bitch with a black hole where your soul should be. Was it worth it? Do you feel better now for being rightfully dumped for an older woman? How many bodies will that take? Ten? Twenty?” Carrie looks at me, her whole body trembling. “You may speak now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she almost whimpers.
“Liar!” The pool table behind me rumbles as if caught in an earthquake. The crowd grows quiet. “Valerie. Davis. He dumped you for a middle-aged bank teller, and you couldn’t take it. You lost it then like you lost it tonight!”
“You’re nuts! Leave me alone!”
She tries to move past me but instead slams against the cues then remains held by my invisible force. Her eyes double in size as she struggles against my kinetic blanket. The whole bar is quiet, but nobody moves toward us. I guess chivalry really is dead. I lean into her ear. “I know what you are. I know what you can do. And I am going to make sure your friends drag you into their graves right with them. You can count on it.”
“Fuck you, you freak!”
The energy pours from me as I look into her eyes, flowing into the anatomy of her brain. She starts whimpering. I’m doing this, I’m killing her, but I don’t care. I really don’t. A drop of blood rolls out of her nostril, then another. Tears stream out of her increasingly bloodshot eyes. Not so pretty now. She clutches her temples, almost clawing them, but still I feel no remorse. She’s a child killer and deserves no sympathy. High squeals escape her mouth.
“Someone do something!” someone shouts.
“What’s happening to her?”
“Someone call an ambulance!
Carrie falls to her knees still clawing and screaming. “Help me!”
Arms wrap around my torso and arms, hands meeting at my stomach. I don’t take my eyes off Carrie. “Alexander!” I’m spun toward the slack-jawed patrons. Carrie stops screaming as soon as she’s out of my view. “We’re leaving,” Carl whispers in my ear. The barflies part as if Moses was before them. Still holding me, Carl pushes me through the bar past the staring people.
“But Carrie—”
“Shut up.”
He releases my right side to open the door and literally pushes me outside. “Are you out of your goddamned mind?” he shouts when the door shuts. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“She doesn’t even care! She’s in there drinking and playing pool an hour after she killed three people!”
“Alexander, you could have killed her!”
“So what? Isn’t that what I was hired to do? Kill monsters so they don’t kill again? If anything deserves it, it’s that thing inside!”
“No, she doesn’t!”
“Then who the hell does?”
“Right now … you.”
I scoff. “Don’t you dare compare me to her. She is just going to keep killing whoever she likes!”
“No, she won’t, Alexander. That’s the point. She isn’t the necromancer.”
My stomach drops to my feet. “What?”
“She isn’t our perp.”
“No, she—” I shake my head, “she has to be. It all fits.”
He steps toward me. “Wolfe was following her. He was in the bar watching her when he got the call about the cemetery. It cannot be her.”
Oh God. No. No. The world topples in on itself, folding like origami. Oh God. Oh God. I double over and what little is left in my stomach comes out onto the asphalt. Carl kneels beside me. “Christ, are you okay?”
I hold out my arm to stop him from getting closer. If he touches me, I’ll totally lose it. I wipe the spit off my chin. “Are you sure about—”
“Yeah.”
“Oh God,” I whimper. “I was gonna kill her. If you hadn’t come in … Oh God.” I shake my head. I can’t deal with this. Not now. Push it away. Bad thoughts, go away.
“Alexander?”
“Are you going to arrest me now?”
“What?”
“I assaulted a civilian.”
He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds then sighs. “Look, you’ve had a really crazy couple of days, you know, with … everything. You lost it, it happens to all of us. Just don’t do it again. Ever.”
“I won’t. Never again. Never.”
“Then it’ll be our secret.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now get up. I better take you back to the hotel before the police show up.”
“What about Carrie? I may have really hurt her.”
“If it’s bad, they’ll take her to the hospital. You didn’t touch her, did you?”
“Only once, but not when … ” I can’t finish.
“Good. I’ll check on her tomorrow.”
“Thank you.” I manage to stand. “What a night.”
“Yeah.”
“Is it always this bad?”
“No. Most of the time it’s a hell of a lot worse.”
——
Taking a shower was not one of my best ideas, and after what happened tonight, that is saying something. Note to people with multiple zombie bites: hot water plus open wounds equals intense pain. Each of my four bites feels like a dozen bees are stinging them at once. The one on my arm and shoulder still bleed, but the others simply throb. Still, the feeling of all that sticky embalming fluid and blood sloshing off my body is worth it. I’ve only been in here for five minutes, four of those getting said goo out of my hair. I can spend maybe thirty more seconds in here before screaming in pain. The last of the conditioner is out and so am I.
The hotel room was empty when Carl dropped me off. We didn’t talk the whole way here. I was thankful for that. He didn’t come in but waited until I was at the door before he took off to clean up my mess. What a guy.
I made it all the way to the bathroom before I literally peeled off my clothes. It will take about ten dry cleanings just to get the smell out. Not that I’ll bother. They’re ripped up to heck. Too bad, those pants were so slimming.
I hate hotel towels. Not only are they about as soft as broom bristles, but they barely fit around my whole body. I tie one around my chest and hope it holds. The first-aid kit Carl gave me sits on my roll-out bed. It comes back into the bathroom with me. I clean and bandage the bites. The one on my left forearm is the worst: a welt of red pulp the size of a quarter. My very first scar. I cover it with Neosporin and an oversized Band-Aid. Out of sight, out of mind. For the one on my shoulder, I need the mirror. Eww. Bad idea. Bruises dot my arms, back, upper chest, and shoulders. Don’t think about it, just bandage.
Everything in me aches to the bone. There isn’t an inch of me that doesn’t feel like road kill. I’ve probably done enough physical activity to equal a marathon. My head is killing me too with an alteration of throbbing and stabbing pain. The two headaches I had tonight decided to join forces in an effort to kill me. Not like I don’t deserve it.
After I’m done patching myself up with a fair amount of whimpering, I flop down on my lumpy fold-out bed—avoiding the bitten areas—and stare at the slightly water-damaged ceiling. I don’t want to think, but I can’t
bear the noise from turning on the television. Maybe I’m bleeding internally and will be dead by morning. Wouldn’t that be nice.
I close my eyes. Carrie’s contorted face greets me. Then Agent Konrad’s mangled body. Will stalking toward me, teeth everywhere. My eyes fly open. Okay, I will never close them again. Ever. I curl into a ball with my knees up to my chin. I can’t do this. Who the heck was I kidding? I’m no monster hunter. I want to go home. I want my Nana. I want to crawl into my purple bed in my peach room with my Brad Pitt poster staring down at me. I want all of this to be nothing but a bad memory. If wishes were horses …
Well, maybe I can ride a wish horse right out of here. I’m a secret. The whole organization is a secret. It’s not as if they’ll drag me into court for breach of contract. They won’t do anything. Heck, let them try, I don’t care.
Not even bothering to get dressed, I go around the room and bathroom picking up my few belongings and tossing them into my suitcase. If I forgot something, I’ll buy a new one. My clothes from the night go into the trash. I would throw it all out, every reminder of the last few months, but I have to wear something. I’m pulling out some clothes, not caring if they match, when someone knocks on the door. Crap, so much for my quick getaway. Should I get it? They might get suspicious if I don’t. I toss the covers over my suitcase and peak out the hole.
Oh, crud. I open the door a crack.
Oliver leans in the door frame with his stupid smirk present. I have to stop myself from smacking it off his face. “What?”
“I heard someone knocking about in here. Thought it might be you. Do you greet everyone in a towel?”
“Go away.” I shut the door but feel it open again and sure enough, Oliver steps in. “Get out of my room!”
“I thought you would be curious to know about Will. I just left him.”
Will. His name makes my stomach tense up. Not good or painful, just weird. “Is he okay?”
“He is sleeping soundly at mobile command. I heard you faced him without losing a limb.” He sits on my bed then lounges, supporting his head on his fist. “It would seem that beauty has once again tamed the beast. What am I lying on?” Oliver sits up and pulls back the covers. Crud. He glances down at the suitcase then back up at me. “Planning on stealing away into the night?”
Mind Over Monsters Page 17
