A Girl Called Dust (21 page)

Fletcher nodded. “Okay. Let’s go to my
house.” I had only been to Fletcher’s that one brief time, and I couldn’t
honestly say I was looking forward to going back.

Fletcher’s parents were out. He grabbed a
package of baloney and a soda for himself from the fridge and led me upstairs
to his room.

His room was painted a beautiful deep
green with brown wooden furniture. It was simple. A bed. A desk. A dresser and
a nightstand with a lamp. He handed me the pack of baloney. “Make yourself
comfortable.”

I took a couple of slices of meat from the
pack and inhaled them. I wanted more. More of anything that tasted like meat,
but I refrained. That was too beastlike, and the thought of becoming more like
one of those things was terrifying.

Fletcher and I sat on his bed
cross-legged, facing each other. I had no intentions on leaving his house that
day without all the answers I needed. “I have a lot of questions for you.”

Fletcher rolled up a baloney slice and
held it to his eye like a telescope. “Okay.”

A vision of him kissing that girl flashed
in my mind along with the thought of him taking trips to see her when he told
me he would be watching TV. “I could punch you right now.”

“Go ahead.”

I was tempted but decided to refrain.
Punching him wouldn’t solve anything. “Nah.”

He sat up straight and squared his
shoulders. “Do it. I won’t hit you back.”

“I’m not going to hit you, but I want you
to tell me the truth. Why are you my friend? Are you just pretending? Why do
that? Why not just stay away from me?” I wanted to ask him why he was playing
games with my heart, but I didn’t. Truthfully, he hadn’t been. Fletcher had
told me straight up from the beginning that he could never love me. I was the
stupid one who thought I might change his mind.

He swallowed his baloney. “I didn’t mean
to. I tried to ignore you, but you came after me that day in Gerdy’s. I tried
to walk away, but you followed me and kept on asking about the bus thing. I
figured that once I told you the truth, you would think I was weird or crazy and
back off, but you didn’t. You kept coming around, following me and asking
questions, and then . . .”

“Then what?” I demanded.

“Then I started to like you. I knew we
shouldn’t have been hanging out, but I liked you, Arden. You’re my friend. My
real and only friend. None of that is pretend.”

My shoulders relaxed. I believed him, and
knowing that our friendship hadn’t been pretend was a massive relief.

“But I’m not your only friend. I saw you
with her. The blond girl.”

Fletcher paled, more so than usual. “That’s
. . . she’s . . . her name’s Rose.”

My throat felt dry. Even her name was
perfect. Beautiful and delicate like the flower she was named after. Before I
could stop them, my eyes welled with tears. I wanted to run from the room, but
I couldn’t. Fletcher and I finally had this time together, and he was being
honest with me. There was so much I needed to know.

“I saw you kissing her. Hugging her. You
told me that you could never love anyone like that. Why did you lie? If you
didn’t like me in that way, all you had to do was say so.”

Fletcher reached forward and wiped one of
my tears away with his thumb. I wanted to push him away, but I didn’t.

 “It’s not like that at all, Arden.
You don’t understand.”

“Then help me understand.”

“Did they tell you about Geminis?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Have you ever met Rose before?”

I shook my head. That girl, I would have
remembered.

“Well, she’s met you. She’s seen you,
smelled you, she says you’re her Gemini.”

“What?” That would mean this girl was my
exact opposite, and if she were to die, I would have the power to save myself,
to control the Wendigo inside of me.

“Yeah, she told me. And Arden, there’s
something else.”

“What?”

Fletcher pressed his lips together until
they were white. “That girl, she smells just like your father.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

“What are you saying?” I needed to hear
him say it plain and simple.

“She smells just like your father.”

Of course. The girl looked like Paige and
Quinn. She would slide perfectly into my spot. “She’s their daughter,” I
squeaked. I had never held so much jealousy for someone I had never even met in
person. Not only did she have Fletcher, but my parents were truly hers, not
mine. No matter what they said, I knew Mom and Dad thought about her every day,
wishing she was there with them instead of me, the beast.

“Anyway,” Fletcher said. “She told me she
passed you one day at the mall. She got one whiff of you and she knew you were
her Gemini.”

I had to learn how to do that. Not having
the sense of smell they had was truly going to put me at a disadvantage.

Fletcher’s explanations didn’t help my
confusion. “Okay, so she knows that I’m her Gemini, and that made her attractive
to you? That made you say ‘I need to make this girl my girlfriend’?”

“She’s not my girlfriend, and anything you
saw me do with her, I did for you.”

“Huh?”

“Creatures haven’t practiced Gemini duels
for some time now. We’ve called a truce, and everyone just keeps to their own.
But now that two Givers have been murdered, the Givers are about to call off
the truce. You’re my friend, and you knew nothing about our world or what was
going on, so I couldn’t just let her come after you when you didn’t even know
what you were. I figured the closer I stayed to Rose, the more I could convince
her to leave you alone or warn you when she was going to make a move.”

I wanted to believe him. His explanation
sounded plausible, but I wasn’t sure. I thought about what Hollis had said
about Fletcher being loyal to his kind over me. Was he keeping tabs on me for
this Rose girl? Would he really give me a warning if she planned on hurting me?

“Arden, I meant it when I said we couldn’t
be together. It has nothing to do with not liking you. Givers and Takers can’t
mix, so I wanted to squash those feelings right away. But I am sorry about
lying to you.”

I guess I had to accept that. “Hollis says
there are creatures all around us in Everson Woods.”

Fletcher nodded. “There are. Some kids
that go to our school. I can smell most of them, but some of them I can’t. Even
though we know what the others are, we don’t show it. Not at school.”

It was hard to believe that non-Human kids
were walking around Everson High every day. “Like how many?”

“I know at least twenty.”

“Who?”

Fletcher shook his head. “I would be doing
you a disservice if I told you. Once they teach you how to sniff them out, you
need to know how to identify them yourself, not because I told you.”

I didn’t think I would ever be able to do
that. I wasn’t a bloodhound. I smelled body spray and cologne, maybe sweat
after PE, but that was it. “Do the other kids know about me?”

Fletcher sighed. “No one’s ever mentioned
anything. I’m sure some of them don’t because your scent’s off from living with
Humans. We don’t talk about that stuff at school anyway. Really, we don’t talk
about it period. You know those meetings your parents go to every Thursday
night?”

“Yeah, my dad told me about them. Why
don’t your parents go?’ I asked.

The corners of his mouth lifted into a
small smile. “Let’s just say my parents don’t play well with others.”

“Fletcher, you know I’m not the one
killing people, right?”

He nodded but said nothing. I couldn’t
tell if he believed me or not.

“Are the Givers planning to come after me
because they think I’m the one doing this?”

He looked down at his comforter and pulled
at a loose thread. “I don’t know. My parents won’t tell me stuff like that
anymore because they think I’ll tell you. Really, we’re not supposed to discuss
those types of things. It can get us both in a lot of trouble. What I will say
is that if it’s not you, you need to find out who it is right away.”

On the way home, I decided to stop by
Bailey’s. There was a slim chance Mrs. Benson would let me see her or that
Bailey wanted to see me, but I had to at least try. There were a couple of
reasons for my visit. One, even after all we had been through, Bailey was my
friend. I needed to see how she was doing with my own eyes. Also, that night at
the Halloween party, she said I was the one who had attacked her. I needed to
know why she thought that and if she had told anyone else.

The Bensons lived three blocks from my
house. Mrs. Benson answered the door after the second ring. She stood in the
doorway with her lips pressed tightly together, smoothing the sides of her
perfect caramel-colored bob.

Mrs. Benson looked me up and down and then
adjusted her sweater. “Arden, long time no see.” It wasn’t the warmest welcome,
but it wasn’t that cold either. At least she hadn’t slammed the door in my
face.

“Hi, Mrs. Benson. I was wondering if I
could see Bailey. Just for a few minutes. I haven’t seen her since—well, since
what happened, and I wanted to see how she was doing.”

Mrs. Benson looked me up and down. “Bailey
doesn’t take visitors at the present moment, but let me check with her. Wait
here.”

Mrs. Benson closed the door, leaving me to
wait on the porch. I wiped my sweaty palms on the sides of my dress. I hadn’t
realized how nervous I was. A minute later she came back. “Go on up to her
room. You know where it is.”

“Thank you.” I stepped inside and removed
my boots, because that was the rule in the Benson house. I placed my boots by
the door next to a brown pair of men’s loafers. The house still had the same
scent, a mixture of lavender and Pine-Sol. I’d made it halfway up the stairs
when Mrs. Benson called to me. “Arden?”

“Yes?”

“She has a lot of scarring. It’ll be
shocking to see at first, but please don’t make a big deal about it.”

It couldn’t have been any worse than the
way she’d looked that night, but that would have been a stupid thing to say out
loud. “Of course, Mrs. Benson.”

Standing at Bailey’s door, I thought back
to Halloween night. Her slashed face was an image I would never get out of my
head. No one from school had seen Bailey since. I told myself that no matter
how taken aback I may have been by her appearance, I couldn’t show it.

I tapped lightly on the door.

 “Come in.”

Opening the door and stepping inside, I
tried to look everywhere but at Bailey. The last time I had been in her
bedroom, it was painted bubblegum pink. Now it was a sky blue, and her white
kid’s furniture had been upgraded to silver grown-up furniture. I shut her door
and stood awkwardly in front of it. “Hi.”

“Hey. You can sit.”

I moved her backpack from her desk chair
to the floor and took a seat, studying her plush purple carpet. “How are you?”

“Arden, you could have just called if you
weren’t going to even look at me.”

“I couldn’t have called because you
blocked my number,” I said. I had been avoiding her because I was afraid of
what I would see. Finally, I looked up. Bailey was propped up on her pillows
with a textbook opened on her lap. The top part of her face was perfectly
normal. Her nose didn’t look much like a nose anymore, only a small mound of
flesh with two holes. Deep red gashes ran across her cheeks and down her neck.
I wondered how many stitches had been needed to close them.

Despite any effort on my part to keep it
from happening, my eyes welled with tears. The shock of seeing my friend
disfigured again was too much. Bailey hadn’t deserved that. “Bailey, I’m so
sorry.”

She smiled, but her eyes glistened with
moisture. “It’s a lot better than it was. I try to stay away from mirrors. Next
week I’m having the biggest surgery yet. They’re going to fix my nose and most
of the scars.”

“Does it hurt?” It looked extremely
painful.

She shook her head. “Not anymore. Well,
once in a while it might, but I have meds for that. The good stuff. How’s
school?”

“Same old same old. You’re not missing
anything.” I had the urge to tell her about all that had been going on with me,
but I didn’t even know where to start. She wouldn’t have believed me anyway.

Bailey sank deeper into her pillows.
“Marley calls me from time to time, but I haven’t heard from Lacey or Trista.”
She swiped a tear that rolled down her cheek.

I wanted to tell her that was a good
thing, but I didn’t because she was obviously hurt by it. My gaze landed on a
pink poster covered with colorful bubble letters that read

“Get better, Bailey.

We miss you daily.”

Bailey rolled her eyes at the poster. “Compliments
of Mary-Kate and her band of do-gooders.”

I laughed. “Well, it rhymes.” Awkward
silence hung in the air. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Do you
remember that night?” I hated to bring it up, to make her think about the worst
night of her life, but I needed some sort of clue as to what was causing these
attacks.

“Some things. Not much.”

“What do you remember?”

She breathed deeply and closed her eyes.
“I remember making out with Trent.” Her voice cracked at his name. “We heard
something, like a low growl, but we didn’t pay attention to it. Kids were out
there acting like idiots. We thought it was someone spying on us and playing
around, so we ignored it.” Bailey laid her textbook beside her and pulled her
knees to her chest. “Lacey showed up and ruined the whole moment. She started
yelling at me about being a traitor and at Trent for being a cheater. After she
left, Trent said he was over the party and ready to go. We were making our way
back when something just came charging at us.”

Bailey stopped talking to take a tissue
from the nightstand beside her bed. She dabbed her eyes. “I didn’t even get a
good look at it. I just remember seeing teeth and claws, but whatever it was,
Trent jumped in front of it to shield me from it. That’s why he’s dead. Because
he was trying to protect me. That thing was coming for me.”

My heart ached for her. She had really
liked Trent, and I couldn’t imagine what it felt like to watch a person you
cared about die in such a gruesome way. Still, I had an important question to
ask. “Is that all you remember?”

She nodded.

“Bailey, I found you in the woods. When I
asked you what happened, what had attacked you like that, you said it was me.”

Her eyebrows went up. “I don’t know why I
would say that. Of course it wasn’t you. I was probably so out of it. Really,
they pumped me with medication after that, so I don’t remember.”

I wanted to feel relieved that she no
longer thought I had hurt her, but something was off.

Bailey picked her book up again, and I
took that as a hint to change the subject. Bailey hadn’t been on medication
when I first found her. Something had to have happened for her to think I had
something to do with her attack.

We talked a little about the upcoming
holidays, and Bailey cracked a joke about coming out of her surgeries looking
like the actress Jamie Chin. I could tell she was worried about what she would
really look like and whether or not the doctors would be able to get rid of all
the scars. Who wouldn’t be?

“I’m sure you’re going to look as beautiful
as you always have,” I told her before I left, but I was lying. I didn’t think
Bailey would ever look like Bailey again.

It was Friday, and I had missed another
counseling session. Mom hadn’t said anything about it, and I wasn’t about to
remind her. Maybe now that I knew my secret, I wouldn’t have to go anymore.
There was nothing going on in my life that I could tell Scarlett about. If I
went in there talking about Banshees and Wendigos, she would have me committed.

I went into Dad’s office, where he had
been holed up since he’d come home from work, which was unusual for him to do
on a Friday night. I opened the door and immediately remembered that I had
forgotten to knock. Dad had been resting his face in his hands. He looked up
suddenly.

“Sorry. I should have knocked.”

Dad looked as if he had aged ten years
just that week. “It’s okay. Come on in.”

I sat in the chair in front of his desk.
As soon as I sat down, I thought about Rose. How would my parents feel if they
knew I had seen her? Did they know she was my Gemini? Would they try to trade
me for her if they were given the chance?

“Dad, I know the truce is in danger of
being called off. I also know that you guys think I’m the one who killed those
people and hurt Bailey.”

Dad shook his head. “I know you have
nothing to do with that, Arden. You haven’t even changed yet, and the damage
that has been done has been the work of a full-grown beast. When you wake up at
night, you don’t even leave the house.”