by Kate Morris
“Depression? I don’t know of any depressed people who fly off the handle and start killing people. They mostly just seem content to harm themselves. Nana Peaches said they’re holding a memorial at the school this coming week for the kids who were killed.”
“That’s always their answer to fixing problems like this. What’s that supposed to do? Anyway, I tried to argue, but my mom didn’t want to believe me. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. What if you’re right, Roman? What if this is going to…I don’t know. I don’t even understand this, let alone know where it could end up.”
“Want to go somewhere with me tonight?”
“Like the quarry? I’m not so sure you make the best plans,” she reminded him as she ate her shrimp pasta.
Jane Livingston had a downright ornery side that he never knew about. She was sarcastic, said things in a deadpan tone, and seemed to relish teasing him. Could she possibly like him? Even just a little? He sure hoped so.
He chuckled. “Right, I know. But this could be bigger than the quarry.”
“More dangerous?”
“No,” he said. Then he amended that. “Well, hopefully not.”
She shot him a wary look that let him know she was not fully trusting him.
“My mom used to work at a hospital. She did that for years before she branched out. Now she works doing the same job she did at the hospital…”
“What’s she do? I mean, other than fly around on planes all week.”
He smiled. She always had a lot of questions. It was nice. Most people his own age were self-absorbed. “She used to teach the personnel of the hospital human resources department and all of their sister branches the software she helped develop. Her hospital was a part of the Cleveland Clinic chain…”
“Who isn’t?” she joked.
“Right. Mega hospitals. My dad complains about that all the time. Anyway, blah blah blah, she took a big promotion and now works for the software company directly. That’s why she travels so much. She goes around the country and sometimes other countries teaching big-wig human resources people this new software.”
“Sounds boring,” she commented bluntly.
Roman laughed. His mother would probably agree, but there was no way she was turning in her high six-figure salary to pursue something interesting.
“I’m sure it is,” he agreed. “But, anyways, I used to go when I was a kid to the hospital with her a lot when she worked late, which was all the time. I’d run the halls of the hospital when I got bored, which usually took about ten minutes of sitting in my mom’s office and playing on my tablet.”
“Really? You were allowed to just roam around?”
He grinned. “Not really, but I was sneaky. Plus, my mom ran the H.R. department. Who was gonna tell me not to?”
“Probably true.”
Roman took a bite of his pasta, having ordered the same as her. He liked shrimp, too, so it wasn’t a sacrifice.
“I got to know my way around. I used to pretend I was a spy on secret missions…”
“How old were you?”
“Seventeen.”
She looked at him, realized he was joking, and burst out laughing. He joined in. It felt good to laugh for a minute. It was better than what they had been going through lately.
“No, I was just a little kid. I probably hung around there for about four years, so the nurses and some of the doctors even got used to me showing up. But, like I said, I wanted to be invisible, so, I’d sneak around. I learned all the secret places, the storage rooms, the back entrances, the best hiding places. I was on a mission, remember, with orders from the queen.”
“The queen? We’re American.”
“Yeah, but that wouldn’t have worked with my fake British accent,” he said. “Remember, I was a spy.”
She laughed again.
“Wanna’ go over there with me tonight? On a mission from the queen, of course,” he said with a smile.
“Go sneaking around the hospital at night? Um, no!” she said with finality and obvious surprise that he even suggested it. His smile extinguished.
“Why not?”
“Because it sounds illegal…”
“Why would going to a hospital at night be illegal?” he asked and watched her right eyebrow shoot up. “Okay, so maybe it’s not a hundred percent legal.”
“Probably not illegal, either. But visiting hours don’t go very late. I do know that much.”
“Uh-huh, but you’ve never been to the hospital with Roman Lockwood, queen’s number one and most trusted spy.”
“Oh, boy,” she remarked with sarcasm. “This sounds like bad decisions and dumb mistakes, which by the way, doesn’t hold up in court as an excuse. I know firsthand.”
He chuckled. “We could go in without being seen.”
“Why? Is this some sort of weird thing you do with your dates?”
“At least you’re admitting this is a date,” he said and then rushed to add before she could backpedal, “I want to do some research.”
“Research? What kind of research? For that English paper?”
He grinned at her sass. Then he sighed and rubbed his forehead, “I wanna’ know what the hell’s going on, Jane. Don’t you?”
She bit her lower lip. He was learning that it meant she was conflicted. He also liked that he was getting to know those little things about her.
“I know you do. You don’t even have to answer. I want to know what’s going on with the people we know who are sick. It seems like the police, government officials, and doctors are hiding something. And I want to know how many more are sick. I also- I also think I can hack their database.”
“What? Why? And how, how do you know how to do something like that?”
“I just do,” he answered evasively. “I’m going tonight. You don’t have to go. I’ll go by myself. I just thought I’d give you the option.”
“What if we get caught?”
“We won’t. I wouldn’t even take you with me if I thought there was the slightest chance we would. But I understand if you don’t…”
She shook her head and looked into his eyes, “I’m in. What’s the worst that could happen, right? We’ll get put in hospital jail?”
He offered a grin. “We won’t get caught. It’s Sunday. The place will be very empty. Eat up. You’ll need the energy.”
They finished their meal, and Roman paid the bill, even though Jane tried to pay her half. He drove her home so that she could put leftovers in her fridge. Then she left a note for her grandmother. It left out the part about their mission to the hospital.
“Do I need to wear all black for our secret mission, Johnny Cash?” she asked him standing in her kitchen.
“No, I don’t think that’s necessary,” he said. “You look great in anything, so it doesn’t matter.”
She rolled her eyes as if she didn’t believe him and turned to go. He didn’t like her lack of belief in herself. Roman stepped quickly toward her, grasped her hand in his, and spun her back toward him. It was fairly easy to do. There wasn’t much to her.
“What are you doing?” she asked nervously and tried to back up.
Roman held her hand so that she couldn’t dash away. She was always moving and fidgeting.
He’d noticed her last night taking care of Amy, someone who wasn’t particularly friendly to Jane. Hell, nobody was. Just Destiny. He’d also noticed Stephanie and her friends. They were all standing back either screaming or running away. Even most of the boys his age were either freaking out or trying to get away. Not Jane. She was trying to help a girl who, like everyone else at their school, was nasty to her. It only spoke to her character.
“Just looking at you,” he admitted as he took in her beauty.
Even though she fidgeted a lot when he stared directly at her, Jane had a stillness within her that he liked. She knew who she was. She didn’t need designer label clothes or ten pounds of makeup or hair extensions or breast implants. Stephanie was just
jealous of Jane’s figure. So were a lot of her friends. He’d heard their comments, especially the last year or so. Steph had a lot of insecurities. He knew that all too well from dating her. It got old stroking Steph’s ego and trying to boost her self-esteem. Jane wasn’t like that at all. It probably came from the fact that nothing she ever could’ve done would have changed people’s minds about her. Over the years she must’ve learned to accept it and move on. She didn’t have a lot of confidence and mostly hid herself away and tried not to get noticed, but it didn’t matter. He’d heard plenty of locker room comments about Jane Livingston the last couple of years about her body, or how ‘hot’ she was, or about the crude things his fellow male classmates wanted to do with her. With her, there was no artifice, though. She wasn’t stuck up or stuck on herself, just shy and maybe a little backward. Her looks were refreshing compared to the other girls in their school. Her hair was always simple, not highlighted with chemicals or cut in some intricate manner. It was a simple light brown with natural sun highlights and hung just below her shoulders in soft waves. She had high cheekbones and eyebrows that matched, which made her seem inquisitive. Her mouth was full, but not from fillers and plumping serums like Steph and her friends used. As a matter of fact, he was pretty sure she didn’t wear much other than lip balm. She had a pert little nose. Also, not the handiwork of a plastic surgeon. She didn’t need makeup or slutty clothes to attract men. Jane was also completely unaware of her sex appeal, her beauty, and her body. It made her unattainable to other boys who were intimidated by her, but to Roman, it made her all the more appealing, tough yet charming. She’d certainly charmed him.
“Well, don’t,” she told him and scowled. Then she looked at her feet again.
“Maybe I find you interesting. Ever think of that?” he asked warmly.
She shook her head, pursing her lips and wrinkling her nose. It seemed unbelievable to the girl who never made eye contact and kept her head down most of the day. She’d be surprised to know he wasn’t the only guy in school who found her something worth looking at.
“Make sure you dress warmly,” he told her. “I don’t want you to get cold tonight.”
“Okay,” she said and furtively slipped her hand free.
She left and came back wearing a black turtleneck and matching hoodie.
“Better? Do I look ready for some covert mission now?” she joked.
She’d also pulled her hair into a ponytail. It made him long to press a kiss against her exposed neck.
Instead, Roman cleared his voice and said, “Yep. Looks great. Where’s your grandma? She’s gone a lot.”
“Yeah, she has a lot of friends,” Jane said.
He could see why. Her grandmother was really cool. She reminded him of his Korean grandmother on his mother’s side. Although, she’d passed away four years ago.
“Will she be upset if you’re out late?”
“No, she’s fine with it. She’s not like that. She trusts me,” she told him. “I hang out late with Dez a lot. Will yours?”
“My mom texted and said they need her to set up before her Monday meeting, so she’s taking a red-eye out tonight to Vancouver.”
Jane nodded knowingly. He could tell she understood. There was something in her eyes, something about her that made him think she probably understood a lot about people and suffering and loneliness. She was always on the outside looking in since she was an outcast. She probably got really good at reading people by observing them.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Where? The hospital?”
He stopped in his tracks and turned to face her. “Hey, secrets. You can’t just blurt it out like that,” he teased, getting a grin. “But no, not the hospital. Not yet. It’s only almost nine. We need to wait a few hours to go over there. On the midnight shift, there’s hardly ever anyone around. It’s like a graveyard,” he said. Then frowned, “Wrong analogy.”
“Gross.”
He smiled and nodded. “No, let’s go to my house. I taped the kook network. He was having that doctor on again at eight. It should be almost over. Let’s see if there’s any new news on it.”
“Okay, but I don’t know if we should go by something as reliable as the ‘kook network’,” she joked.
“Better than the ‘real news’,” he said, copying her air quotes move and getting a smile.
She pulled on worn gym shoes instead of her boots and followed him back out to his black Range Rover. The signature whirling, whipping sound of helicopter rotors caused him to look up as three Sikorsky’s flew low over Nana Peaches’s farm and past his own neighborhood. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen them recently. Sometimes they did practice runs out of Dayton Air Force Base, but this was the third pass over in their area today. Roman felt a sense of foreboding come over him as he pulled away from her farm. What if these were not practice drills?
Chapter Thirteen
Nobody was at home at Roman’s, for which she was thankful because she was pretty sure his mother did not like her.
“Want something to drink?” he asked as they passed through the kitchen. He opened the huge fridge. “Coke? Beer? Wine?”
He shot a grin over his shoulder down at her. She returned it, looked away, and shook her head.
“Just water,” she said.
They went up to his room, and she asked since he hadn’t said, “Where’s your family?”
“I think they were going out for dinner then taking Connor to see the new Disney movie.”
“Oh, sounds fun,” she remarked.
“Ha, not for my folks,” he said. “They usually pawn that crap off on me. I’ve seen enough Disney movies to last me a lifetime.”
He opened his bedroom door, walked in, and then froze.
“What is it?”
He looked around, opened a few drawers, and said with a bit of anger, “Unlawful search and seizure. No due process here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing, just my mom. She searches my stuff sometimes. They found out about me smoking pot back in my bad phase. She started doing random searches of my room.”
“Oh, wow. That sucks.”
“Not for someone like you,” he said, placing his Coke on his dresser.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re squeaky clean, a good girl.”
She frowned, “Maybe I’m not.”
“That wasn’t meant as an insult. I’m glad you’re not like I used to be. A lot of my friends are still into pot…and other stuff. But anyways, she sometimes goes through my stuff. I guess I don’t blame her, but I just don’t know when I’m gonna earn her trust again.”
“Maybe sometimes once trust is broken it’s hard to give it back. She just cares about you or she wouldn’t even check.”
“Alright, Livingston, if I wanted your common sense and logical advice, I’d ask for it. What I want right now is an equally outraged teenager.”
“Oh, sorry,” she said with a grin and acted more dramatically. “Man! What a jerk! Your mom sucks!”
“That’s more like it,” he agreed and sat on the end of his bed with his feet drawn up and resting on the padded bench in front of it.
His bedroom was bigger than hers and Nana Peaches’s combined. He patted the bed beside him, and only because she trusted him did Jane sit. If this were some other boy from school, no way. Then he turned on the television. He used the remote and pressed fast forward to the spot where the doctor came in toward the end of the program.
Jane took a sip of her water and screwed the lid back on. She was nervous, not just because she was sitting next to Roman, who seemed like he wasn’t just befriending her to discuss this epidemic flu. He held her hand a lot. Other than the nature of their bizarre conversations about diseases and the possible end of the world from those diseases, their time together was starting to seem like something more. He said he liked looking at her, which was super weird. She was nothing much to look at. She wasn’t stupid. She saw t
he girls in his crowd. She was nothing like them at all. He seemed actually interested in her. Of course, that was probably her imagination running away with her. She’d called to talk to Dez earlier today about it, but she never got around to the topic. All they’d discussed was last night’s terrible event at the quarry. Brian was still very shaken up about it.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she said, causing him to pause their show. Roman turned to look at her, which always made her very nervous and her stomach do flips. His stare was confident and direct. “I talked to Dez today. She said Brian’s in bad shape.”
“Yeah, I talked to him this morning. I think his parents are gonna take him to their lake house for a few days to get him out of here. It’s good we’ve got school off tomorrow, too. He needs to deal with what he did.”
“Right, I forgot you’re friends,” she said, feeling stupid. “Duh. Sorry.”
He just shrugged as if he didn’t mind. “How’s Dez?”
Jane was surprised he’d ask. They weren’t that close. “She’s not great, either. She’s not used to that kind of violence. She’s always lived a very sheltered life here in your gated community, and her parents keep really tight tabs on her.”
He grinned lopsidedly, “Jane, I don’t think anyone’s used to that sort of…it was crazy.”
She nodded but shrugged.
“What?” he asked, picking up on what she wanted most not to discuss. “What? What are you not saying?”
“N-nothing,” she stuttered and looked away.
He was nothing if not persistent. He placed his hand on her knee, causing her to jump. Roman didn’t remove his hand, though. He just repeated, “What is it?”
Jane cleared her voice softly. “Let’s just say I didn’t grow up in a gated community.”
“I figured, but what’s that got to do with last night?”
She shrugged. “I just learned to process things differently, bad things.”
“You were scared, too. You were scared before when Randall acted the same way at Terry’s party.”
She nodded, her dark brows pinching together, “I know.”
