The Awakening

Twenty

ONCE THAT BIT OF ugliness was over, I was—for the first time in my life—excited about going shopping. I couldn’t wait to get out of this damp, dark, cold place, reminding me too much of the basements I hated. Get away from that dead body, the vibes from it keeping my nerves on edge. Get warm clothing, get real food, and a real bathroom, with soap and running water and a toilet. Don’t ask what I’d been doing about “bodily needs” until now—the answer is really better left unsaid.

“If we get far enough from here that it’s safe, I want to try using my bank card,” I said. “My account is probably locked, but it’s worth a shot. We can always use more money.”

“We have some,” Derek said.

“Okay. If you don’t think it’s safe for me to try.”

“You aren’t going out, Chloe. We are. You’re staying here.”

“Where you’ll be safe,” Tori said. “We wouldn’t want you to break a nail using your card.”

“Tori…” Derek said, turning. “You’ve been warned. Leave her alone.”

“That slam was directed at you, wolf boy.”

His voice dropped another octave, almost a growl. “Don’t call me that.”

“Please. Can we stop the bickering?” I stepped between them. “If I haven’t proven by now that I’m careful and can look after myself—”

“You have,” Simon said. “This is the problem.” He handed me a newspaper clipping. I read the headline, then slowly lowered myself onto a crate, gaze fixed on the article.

My father was offering a half-million-dollar reward for information leading to my safe return. There was a picture of me—last year’s school photo. And there was one of him, at what looked like a news conference.

The night after my breakdown at school, my father came to see me in the hospital. He’d flown back from Berlin, and he’d looked awful—exhausted and unshaven and worried. He looked even worse in the newspaper article, circles under his eyes, lines etched in his face.

I had no idea what the Edison Group had planned to tell my dad about my disappearance. They must have fed him a story, maybe said I’d been transferred and he couldn’t visit me yet. They meant to cover up my disappearance, but they’d been too slow.

They were trying to cover their tracks, though. According to the nurses and my roommate, Rachelle Rogers—interviewed for the story—I’d run away.

Did my dad believe that? I guess he did. The article quoted him as saying he’d handled my situation badly—that he’d handled a lot of things with me badly—and he desperately wanted the chance to start over. When I read that, tears plopped onto the paper. I shook them off it.

“Half a million?” Tori read over my shoulder. “The Edison Group must be footing the bill, to get us back.”

Simon pointed to the date. Yesterday morning, when we’d still been in their custody.

“Okay,” Tori said. “They told her dad to make this big deal of her being gone so no one asks questions. He offers money he’ll never have to pay, because he knows where she is.”

I shook my head. “My aunt said he doesn’t know anything about the Edison Group.” I stared at the article, then folded it quickly. “I have to warn him.”

Derek stepped into my path. “You can’t do that, Chloe.”

“If he’s doing this”—I waved the paper—“he’s putting himself in danger and he doesn’t know it. I have to warn—”

“He’s not in danger. If they could have beat him to the media, maybe. But now, if anything happened to him, it would only attract more attention. He’s obviously not questioning their story about you running off so they’ll leave him alone…as long as he doesn’t find out the truth.”

“But I have to let him know I’m okay. He’s worried.”

“And he’s going to have to worry a little longer.”

“Do we know for sure he’s not in on it?” Tori said. “What did your aunt say? Did she trick your mom into the genetic modification? Or was your mom involved?”

I took out the letter and ran my fingers over it. Then I told them what it said—the parts that would matter to them.

“Anything about your dad?” Derek asked.

I hesitated, then nodded.

“What did she say?”

“That he wasn’t involved, like I said.”

“Which means it should be safe for Chloe to contact him, right?” Simon said.

Derek searched my face. Then said, in a low voice, “Chloe…”

“She said—My aunt said to stay away from him.”

I guess Derek trusted me not to run to the nearest pay phone and call my dad because all three went shopping after that.

Both my aunt and Derek thought I should stay away from my dad. Derek said it would endanger him; Aunt Lauren probably figured it would endanger me.

I loved my dad. Maybe he worked too much, wasn’t home enough, didn’t quite know what to do with me, but he tried his best. He’d said he’d stick around while I was at Lyle House, but when a business emergency called him away, I hadn’t been mad at him for leaving. He’d made arrangements to take a month off after my release instead, and that was more important to me. He thought I was safe at Lyle House, under my aunt’s care.

He must think that I’d been so hurt and angry that I’d run away. Now his schizophrenic daughter was wandering the streets of Buffalo. I wanted to call him, just to say “I’m okay.” But Derek and Aunt Lauren were right. If I did that, it might not be okay…for either of us.

To distract myself from thoughts of my father, I decided to check out the dead body. After what happened with the bats, if there was a way of honing my corpse-sense, I needed to start training now, so I’d know about nearby dead bodies before I accidentally slammed their ghosts back into them.

It did seem to work like radar. The closer I got, the stronger the feeling got. Which made finding the body sound easy, but it wasn’t. The “feeling” was only a vague sense of unease, a prickle on the back of my neck and a dull headache; and when it seemed to increase, it was impossible to tell whether I was detecting the body, my nerves, or a draft.

I couldn’t tell what kind of business had once run out of this place. Buffalo is full of abandoned buildings and houses. Drive down I-90 and you see them—crumbling buildings, boarded-up windows, empty yards. This one was no bigger than a house, with rooms like a house, though the outside didn’t look like one. The inside was filled with junk—moldy cardboard boxes, pieces of wood, broken furniture, piles of garbage.

I’m sure I could have found the body without using my powers—there were only eight rooms. But I used them anyway, for practice. I finally found it in one of the back corners. From the doorway, it just looked like a pile of rags. When I got closer, I saw something white sticking out from under those rags—a hand, the flesh nearly rotted away, leaving only bone. The closer I got, the more I saw—a leg, then a skull, the corpse mostly skeletonized. Whatever smell it gave off, my human nose wasn’t good enough to detect it.

The rags, I realized, were actually clothes, and not all that ragged, just crumpled around what remained of the body. The corpse wore boots, gloves, jeans, and a sweatshirt with a faded logo. A few strings of graying hair hung below the hat, and the clothes and body didn’t identify it as male or female, but I instinctively thought of it as “him.”

At some point last winter, this person had crawled in here to escape the cold, curled in this corner, and never gotten up. We couldn’t have been the first ones to find him. Had everyone else just steered clear, like we were doing? No thought of informing the authorities, getting him out and identified and buried?

Was he on a missing person’s list? Was someone waiting for him to come home? Had they offered a reward, like my dad?

Not quite as much, I was sure. A half-million dollars. That would bring out every crank in Buffalo. What was Dad thinking?

He wasn’t thinking. He just wanted me home safe.

I blinked away tears. Great. Even examining a corpse couldn’t stop me from worrying about my dad.

What about this guy? Someone had to be concerned about him. If I could contact his ghost, maybe I could relay a message. But I couldn’t risk accidentally summoning him back into his corpse, like I had with the bats.

A tap on my shoulder sent me spinning.

“Sorry,” Simon said. “I thought you heard me coming. I see you found our roomie. Trying to communicate?”

“Trying not to communicate.”

“Looks like he’s been here awhile.” He crouched beside the corpse. “We could play CSI, figure out how long he’s been dead. I don’t see any bugs.”

“Wrong time of year.”

He winced. “Duh, right. It’s still too cold in here. He definitely died a few months ago, meaning no bugs. I should have known that. Derek did a science fair experiment a couple years ago on bugs and decomposition.” He caught my look. “Yeah, gross. Kind of interesting, too, but I wouldn’t ask Derek about it. He was pissed. Only placed second in the city finals.”

“Slacker.” I backed up as he straightened. “I’m done here, though, so I’d better get farther away. Me and corpses don’t mix.” I considered telling him about the bats. I wanted to tell someone, talk it over, get advice, but…“I was just seeing whether I could use my powers to find it.”

“I’m guessing the answer is yes.”

I nodded and we left the room.

“We can find another place to stay,” he said. “Derek’s fine with that. Really.”

“I’m okay. Speaking of Derek, where is he?”

“Still shopping. He sent me back to hang with you.” He leaned down to my ear. “I think he just wanted to spend more time with Tori.”

I laughed. “Want to take bets on who makes it back alive?”

“Derek. No contest. Last I saw, he was ordering her to go find more blankets. By now, he’s probably on his way here, leaving her to find her own way and hoping she doesn’t.”

“How mad is he? About her being with us?”

“Mad? I’d rate it a five. Annoyed? An eleven. He’ll get over it. We all have to. At least until she gets bored and remembers a long-lost aunt in Peoria.”

When we got back to our spot, Simon set out a spread of the best a convenience store had to offer—juice, milk, yogurt, apples, wheat crackers, and cheese slices.

“All the food groups…except one.” He handed me a candy bar. “Dessert.”

“Thanks.”

“Now, if you’ll excuse me a moment, I’ll spare you the sight of blood and needles before dining.”

“It’s okay. That stuff doesn’t bother me.”

He still turned around, to test his blood, then give himself a shot.

“And I thought annual flu shots were bad,” I said. “Do you have to do that every day?”

“Three times for the needle. More for the testing.”

“Three needles?”

He put the pouch away. “I’m used to it. I was diagnosed when I was three, so I don’t ever remember not getting them.”

“And you’ll always have to do that?”

“There’s a pump I can use. Stick it on my leg and it monitors my blood sugar and injects insulin. I got one when I turned thirteen. But…” He shrugged. “I had a deal with my dad, that I could only have one if I didn’t use it as a license to eat whatever I wanted. Too much insulin isn’t good. I screwed up.”

“Too many of these?” I waved the candy bar.

“Nah. Too many carbs in general. I’d go out for pizza with the team, and I wouldn’t want to have only two slices if everyone else was scarfing down six. You get razzed about being on a diet, being such a girl…”

“Now there’s an insult.”

“Hey, I was thirteen. I know it was stupid, but when you’re always the new kid, you just want to fit in. I guess you know what that’s like. You’ve probably been in as many schools as we have.”

“Ten…no, eleven.”

“It’s a tie. Cool.” He took a bite of his apple. “Now that I’m approaching the very mature age of sixteen, though, I’ve gotten over that. Dad and I were negotiating for me to get the pump back again when he disappeared.”

“Simon?” Tori’s voice echoed through the building.

“So much for peace and quiet,” he muttered, then called, “We’re back here.”