Damage (15 page)

“No … they wouldn’t.”

She bites her lip. “Do you think another drug could have something to do with it?”

“I don’t take drugs,” I say. “I have a beer once in a while with Trent or out at a bar or something, but they make us pee in a cup every month for sports.”

“All I take is my insulin or a Tylenol if I’m sore from dance class.” Her hand dips into the almonds. She has interesting fingers, long, thin spindles that seem like they’ll break if you look at them too hard. But they won’t. I’ve seen how strong she really is. “Maybe what’s happening is a side effect of drugs they gave us at the hospital when we were kids. Do you think we could have been on the same medicine? Even though I had diabetes and you had something else?”

“I don’t know what I was taking in the hospital. They didn’t bother explaining what they were doing to me. They just did it. I guess because I didn’t have a parent there to ask questions.” I shrug, uncomfortable with the look on her face, that same pitying look she gave me when I told her about my mom. “But I don’t see how something we took all those years ago would start messing with us now.”

“What if it’s like cancer or something, and it’s coming out of remission?”

“Both of us at the same time? And suddenly the things after us are stronger and so are we?”

She sighs and shakes her head. “You’re right. It doesn’t make sense. I still think we should go to the hospital.” She wipes her hands on her jeans. “At least it’s a place to start, and we’re old enough to request our own medical records.”

“Okay, I’ll—” I get quiet as one of the news anchors announces “an update on our breaking news story” and what’s left of our school bus flashes on the television screen by the sink. Fire trucks surround the wreckage, hoses trained on flames that still burn high enough to touch the bridge above.

Dani turns up the volume and the sound surges as the anchor announces that “twenty-four teenagers were killed, and six more wounded by the deadly explosion. Police are still looking for two students, passengers on the bus, who fled the scene soon after the crash.”

“Oh my God.” Dani’s hand flies to her mouth as our school pictures from last year appear side by side on the screen. I’m scowling and she’s barely meeting the eye of the camera. We look … strange. Crazy. Maybe even dangerous.

“If you’ve seen Jesse Vance or Danielle Connor, please call the police hotline at 662-9867. Any information on the students, or their whereabouts, is appreciated.”

Dani runs a shaking hand through her hair. “Are they saying—do they think—”

“They’re not saying anything yet.” I push away from the counter, anger and fear rushing in my chest. “But it’s pretty obvious they think we had something to do with the crash.”

“No! That doesn’t make any sense.”

An awful idea gets going in my brain, making the nuts I swallowed stick in my throat. “Vince said we’d be sorry if we didn’t come with him. He said that the people he worked for would get us locked up. I thought he meant locked in a cage or something, but what if he was talking about—”

“Blaming us for the crash? But we were in the bus, too. We weren’t driving the truck that hit us. We could have been killed! How could they make it seem like we—”

“I don’t know how they’d do it, but I bet they could. If you’ve got enough money, you can make just about anything happen. I bet it wouldn’t be that hard to make us look guilty.”

Dani’s eyes grow unfocused. The glass in her hand hovers between her lips and the counter and when she speaks, her voice is distant, haunted. “That can’t happen. I can’t let Mina’s family think I killed my best friend.”

“We don’t know that she’s dead.” There’s not much doubt of it, but I’m willing to tell a lie in the name of wiping that terrified expression from Dani’s face. “She might have made it out.”

“She was in the middle of the bus. She’s dead.” Dani sets her glass down in the sink. When she looks back at me, her eyes are strong, focused. I can see the fight in her again and I’m glad. We’re going to need every bit of fight in both of us to get out of this mess. “We’d better go,” she says. “It’s a long walk to the hospital.”

“I think we should try to get there faster.” I put my glass next to hers and follow her across the kitchen. “The place where my foster dad works is downtown. It’s only a few blocks from here and they always have cars sitting around. His boss fixes up beaters when they’re not busy. I know where he keeps the keys.”

She pauses with her hand on the door and turns to look at me over her shoulder. “We’re going to steal a car?”

“We’re going to
borrow
a car,” I say. “Unless you’d rather take the bus.”

Her lips press together in silent acknowledgement of my grim joke. “No. A car would be good.” She turns the knob and steps out the door.

I hesitate in the doorway. “Were you going to grab something else to eat before we go?”

“No,” she says, her voice soft. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

I let the door close. I’m not hungry anymore, either.

Dani

Fiorelli’s tow yard is a lot bigger than I thought it would be. It takes up two whole blocks behind the flea market downtown and is surrounded by a fifteen-foot-high fence topped with coiled barbed wire. It’s scary looking, but when Jesse tells me we’re going to climb over, I don’t hesitate. I just start up beside him, clinging to the chain link, barely able to feel the pinch of the metal against my frozen fingers. It’s December in upstate New York and Jesse and I should be wearing coats and gloves, but I haven’t noticed their absence until now. I’m not feeling the cold the way I normally would.

Maybe I’m going into shock. Maybe the insanity of the morning is finally getting to me. But then,
physically
, I keep feeling better and better. I can’t remember a time when I’ve felt so strong.

My muscles aren’t even shaking as I climb, and at the top—when it’s time to ease through a narrow space between the coils—I slide through without hesitation. My heart doesn’t speed a bit, at least not nearly as much as it did when Jesse and I were lying in the grass and he almost kissed me again.

I’d wanted him to, even though I’m not sure I trust him. How can I trust a boy who took money from Vince? But then … how can I not? There isn’t anyone else who can hope to understand what’s happening to me, and I don’t want to be alone.

Besides, I can understand why he did it. I’ve seen his house; I’ve heard enough to know he’s probably never had enough money to get the things he needs, let alone the things he wants. Can I blame him for taking Vince up on the chance to make some easy cash?

“You okay?” Jesse asks, reaching out to steady me as I jump off the fence.

“Yeah, I’m good.” My steady pulse picks up, and my skin clings to his warmth as he pulls his hand away from mine.

Trust him or not, I’m starting to crave his touch in a way I’ve never craved anything. It would be frightening if there weren’t a hundred scarier things to think about. Like death and prison and creepy grown-ups who might have hired a bunch of creepier grown-ups to hunt me and Jesse down.

And kill people. Like my best friend.

The increasingly familiar fire in my chest flares to life once more. Anger—no,
rage
—swarms inside of me. I’m going to make sure whoever killed Mina and all those other people pays for what they did. No matter what.

Jesse does a quick scan of the lot before hurrying across the hard-packed dirt toward a clutch of cars in the far corner. “There’s a blue Oldsmobile Mr. Fiorelli just got fixed up. Trent was talking about it the other day. He wants to give it a paint job and resell it to a friend of his. I think I can get it open and started without breaking into the shed to get the keys.”

“Then what?” I ask, keeping my voice low as I trot behind him. “How are we going to get it out of the lot?”

“We drive out through the front gate,” he says. “Mr. Fiorelli doesn’t come in until one or two in the afternoon unless he has to. They do most of their towing at night. He’s not in the office now or the light would be on.” He motions to the small white building at the front of the lot. “We should be good as long as I’m as fast with a hot wire as I used to be.”

“You used to steal cars?” I’m more shocked than I guess I should be. I’m starting to forget that Jesse is the bad boy from school. It’s hard to reconcile his dangerous reputation with the boy I’ve known today, the one who looks at me like I’m something precious he needs to protect, the one who said he was sorry and that he’s noticed me, even
liked
me.

“No, I taught myself how to do it on the cars in our yard the summer before I turned thirteen.” There’s embarrassment in his voice, and I feel bad for jumping to the wrong conclusion. “Summers were pretty lame around my house until I was old enough to get a job.” He stops beside an old car. The hood covering is peeling in long strips from the roof and the door groans when Jesse pulls the handle. It opens with a stiff lurch. “All right. Finally. Some good luck.” He sighs as he eases into the driver’s seat. “If he left it open, the key might even be in here somewhere.”

As Jesse leans deeper into the car, hunting beneath mats and inside faded compartments, I take another look at what we’re stealing. It’s definitely ancient, and not in the best shape, but it will blend in with the traffic around town. It bears the battle scars of an upstate winter, including several dents and rust that spreads like a nasty infection from the metal around the tires.

“Infection.” I only realize I’ve said the word aloud when Jesse turns back to me with raised eyebrows. “I was just thinking … ” My toes push inside my tennis shoes, lifting me up to relevé and back down again as my mind whirls faster than any dancer can spin. “What if this is some kind of infection?”

“Like a disease?”

“No, not a disease. Maybe infection is the wrong word. I just … I was thinking … ” My breath rushes out, leaving a puff of cold that lingers in front of my lips before it fades away. “I was thinking that maybe this isn’t happening because of medicine we took when we were kids. Maybe it’s something we’ve taken recently.”

Jesse sits up, long legs dangling out of the car onto the ground. “You think these people gave us something to make us crazy again?”

“We’re not crazy.”

“You know what I mean.”

I do. I absolutely do. I pace to the rear of the car and back again. “Yeah, maybe they gave us something that made Rachel and your dragon come back, something that’s also making us stronger, and—”

“Strong enough to survive a fall off a bridge?” Jesse shakes his head. “Assuming you’re right, and there’s a drug that could do that, how would they have given it to both of us? Slipped it into our food or something?”

I bite my lip. “I don’t know. I could ask my dad. I need to call him again soon, anyway.” The thought of calling my dad isn’t nearly as comforting as it was an hour ago. The more Jesse and I learn, the more it seems like no one will be able to help us, not even the people who care about us the most. “I just saw the rust around the wheels, and—”

“The wheels!” Jesse rolls out of the car and kneels beside the back wheel, reaching questing fingers underneath. A second later one of his Jesse smiles curves the edges of his lips, making my heart skip a beat as he pulls the key from its hiding place. “Got it.”

But before I can return the grin, his smile is blown away by a gust of surprisingly warm wind. Even before he opens his mouth, I know what’s found us.

His dragon is here, ready for round two of barbecue tag.

“Get in the car! Now!”

I dive into the car, scramble across the gearshift, and bruise my knees as I fling myself into the passenger’s seat. I turn back to search for Jesse, but he’s already slamming the door shut behind him and shoving the key into the ignition. The engine sputters, struggling to come to life as something hits the left side of the car, making it rock onto the right wheels before crashing back down again. I grab a handle near the top of the window and a fist full of the slimy blue seat and hold on, not bothering with the seat belt. We might need to get out of the car fast. If Jesse can’t get it started, we—

“Come on!” The engine grinds, but refuses to turn over. Seconds later, something heavy lands on the hood, ripping a cry from Jesse’s throat.

I can’t see what he sees, but I know it’s real. I can feel the jolt as the Thing makes impact, see the four dents in the metal where its feet have landed. No, not feet.
Claws
. I watch the scratch marks get deeper and longer as it digs into the hood. Then, suddenly, one set of tracks cuts off. Seconds later, the windshield pops as something big slams against it.

A crack slithers up the pane between Jesse and me, cutting us in two. A few more blows like that and his monster will be inside the car ripping us to shreds. Or maybe burning us alive, if it prefers its food cooked instead of raw. Acid rises in my throat, scalding away the scream trying to fight its way free. I am about to be killed by something I can’t even see. For some reason even Rachel seems better than that. At least with Rachel—

I love you too, Dani.
I spin to look over my shoulder and come face-to-face with Rachel’s horror of a mouth stretching into a smile. Blood leaks down her chin onto her dress and her eyes flash meanly in skin the color of a bloated fish belly.
Let’s be best friends forever!