daynight (4 page)

Blake scooped me up and shoved me into the truck, ratcheting it into reverse and accelerating to beat the fire. I choked on smoke that smelled of burning oranges, while trying to stop the worst of my bleeds without driving the glass further beneath my skin.

One forty-three a.m.
Fire fighters had surrounded the scene in attempt to battle the blaze. They evacuated Blake and me by force to a ‘safe’ zone—a neighborhood grocery store parking lot a couple miles from the Goodington estate. Paramedics patched our cuts and burns while police officers tried to take a statement. I nearly passed out when they removed a chunk of shrapnel from Blake’s wrist. I stared at the swirling lights of the police cars, and growing fire in the background with periodic bouts of fireworks-like displays. “How many kids were in that house?”, I heard the police officer ask. “A lot,” I’d eked out before my sobbing preventing me from further communication. In an attempt to calm me, the paramedic drew a needle, the second I’d seen in twenty-four hours. I became hysterical and it took three people to hold me down.

The bottom line—Tristan never showed. Nor did Bri or Lucas or Blake’s sister. And the other fifty? Seventy-five? One hundred? More? I struggled to get a handle on the magnitude of the tragedy. The firefighters confirmed our worst fears. No one survived other than Blake and me. Every one of my friends died in an instant. And I couldn’t bear the thought of life without them.

The only mystery that remains is the fate of Ethan. He wasn’t on the list of ‘confirmed deceased,’ but then again, there were dozens at the party who never showed up back home and whose remains were never found. In my fantasies, I imagine he’s still alive and we meet again. I remember him stuffing his hands in his pockets and rocking on his feet, running his fingers across his thumbs, taking deep breaths before answering my questions, and nervously laughing. And his smile that spread from right to left. Sometimes I think I see him and my stomach flutters as it did the first time I met him, but then the image disappears. The glimmer of hope’s too minuscule to compete against the mass of loss and despair. And guilt. Tristan and Bri, my two best friends in the world died and I still can’t get Ethan out of my mind. No wonder the universe hates me.

My eyes and limbs feel like concrete
as I feel myself being gently set onto a soft surface. “Where am I?” I mumble. I vaguely remember trying to leave SCI’s Unit 27 and being knocked to the floor.

“Shhh, Kira,” I hear. The voice sounds eerily familiar and I swear I smell a hint of cinnamon. “You were given a sedative to allow you to adjust to the schedule here. But you’re in your room.”

I try to open my eyes. My vision is hazy and the room is dark, and the shadow leaning over me fits the voice. But I’ve been prone the last two months to attributing every shadow, every voice, and every face to him. “Ethan? Is that you?”

“I’m sorry. So sorry. I wish things were different. Sleep well,” my benefactor says before leaning over and giving me a kiss on my forehead. I feel the drugs pull me under and I succumb to an imagined deep sleep in Ethan’s arms.

CHAPTER TWO

Ethan

I receive the call I never expected.

“Ted found a pure-bred Light
… not too far from you. Carmel Valley High,” the familiar voice purrs. “Her blood work was a work of art. I suggest you high tail it over there and check her out.”

“
A female pure Light?
Impossible. Even if that’s true, what’s the hurry? Why not wait until she’s there? I assume she’s headed your way at least,” I say, hardly jumping for joy. There’s nothing less romantic than a blood panel preceding every date. Thus, I’ve resisted my father’s archaic Cleaving process my entire life and don’t see any reason to succumb now, just because he’s finally dredged up a suitable candidate two years post-deadline.
 

“Two reasons. One, she’s reluctant to go—has a boyfriend tying her down or something. She’s going to need some
motivation
, which I’ve already got in motion
.
And two, you have competition. Ted
also
found a pure-bred Dark male with a cleaner medical history than you have. A classmate of hers.” I hear worry in his voice. Despite my father’s immense power in my hometown’s political climate, the rules are pretty clear. It’s unlikely I have a shot with her, even if I want one.

“I don’t see any reason to bother if there’s another heir apparent,” I say. “If I wasn’t suitable for anyone there, why would I be trusted with a pure-bred Light, the likes of which haven’t been seen in centuries?”

“
I
have yet to be convinced that either is suitable for our needs. You are the only eyes and ears there I fully trust. Watch them,” he says, following with very specific instructions as to my assignment. His tone belies his mistruth. He doesn’t trust anyone, much less me.

Disappointment looms. Either she’ll be dreadful and forced my way or spectacular and forced the other guy’s way. There’s yet to be a situation that clearly weighs in my favor.

The moment I see her my faulty heart swells with misplaced hope. Why couldn’t
the other Dark
have been born with a defective heart? My childhood was nothing less than pathetic. I spent my first dozen years locked in a one hundred-fifty square foot, sterile room to ‘protect my health,’ or realistically to hide the extent of my abnormality from the rest of my parents’ colleagues. As a result, I’m horribly claustrophobic.

Most of the human contact I had during my youth was with my parents and the medical staff. I spent a hundred times more time with Doctor Christo, my heart specialist, than my father. A wise, white-haired man, Dr. Christo augmented my standard-fare ‘home studies’ schooling with curriculum designed ‘for the very elite.’ My parents wanted me well versed in the family business and Dr. Christo wanted me well versed in ‘the great universal truths.’ This filled 8-10 hours a day.

My early years conspicuously lacked affection, playtime, supervision, or fun. From the age of twelve to fifteen my interactions with other kids were sparse, leaving me shy and awkward. My one consistent ‘friend’ aka forced playmate and classmate has been Jax, Dr. Christo’s son, a know-it-all boy with a superiority complex. As I kid, he forced me to call him King Jax and bossed me around incessantly. Still does. He’s infuriating, but all I have.

Eventually, after a dozen-odd surgeries, my health improved and my parents chose to foist me on my Uncle Henry, to ‘further’ my education and ‘prepare me for my destiny’. Forget free will. Forget personal choice. My parents assume their agenda trumps my agenda. Today’s the first and only day I’ve seen our agendas so much as overlapping, much less aligning. Every memory serves as a reminder of this important truth.

I vividly recall waking up post surgery number 9
at the age of eight to the rare sight of my parents and an all too familiar heavily sanitized hospital smell. My dad flanked my left and appeared to be frazzled with worry. My mother sat on the edge to my right, looking weary, with dark smudges detracting from her typically bright green eyes.
 

“Ethan, it’s about time,” my father said, tapping on his watch. “You took 37 minutes longer than anticipated to come out of the anesthesia.” I felt guilty for causing them such consternation. They’d surely been stressed that I wouldn’t wake up at all.

“I…I…I’m sorry, Father,” I whisper. “It hurts,” I said, referring to the incision in my chest. Dozens of tubes protruded from my frail body and machines whirred in the background.
 

“That’s what pain killers are for, Ethan,” he said, rising and rounding the end of my bed to grab my mother’s hand. “You’ve made us late for a Council meeting. We expect you to follow every order from the doctors and nurses and recover in a more timely fashion than your waking,” as if I’d had control over either.
 

“Dr. Christo’s the very best,” my mother said, patting me on my arm before standing. “We are investing in you. You are important. If we can just get past these little medical hiccups, you’ll be a major player in the future of our civilization. The doctors will keep us posted on your progress and time permitting, we’ll check in on you later this week.”

They never did check on me. Time rarely permitted where my parents were concerned. My doctors assured me that my parents were intimately involved in my medical decisions. I’m sure they considered it a medical necessity to keep me alive, lest their political aspirations suffer.

My father gave me crystal clear instructions about the girl,
none of which involved speaking to her, but I choose to selectively ignore the mandate to keep my distance. A pretty girl does not necessarily a suitable match make, and if she’s at all deficient on the personality front, I’ll happily let the medically sanctioned boy pursue her. I’m determined to undermine my father and manipulate the situation to my benefit, if only in some small way. Plus, the beauty has the whole damsel in distress thing going on and as a frequent victim myself, I can’t keep from offering her the compassion I was never afforded in my youth.

“Hey, I’m Ethan. You look kind of bummed. Can I help?”

CHAPTER THREE

Blake

“She’s the one.” The words and her face ripple through my head.
My life, and the life of my family, depends on some shallow cheerleader who isn’t even interested in the program. She refuses to ditch her senior year because she’s in love with a boneheaded jock whose future is sure to be closely tied to AA meeting schedules. Why am I worrying? They’ll never persuade her to go. Thank goodness for that, because the chick hates me just like everyone else. After all, I almost ran her over with my skateboard this morning in my hurry to get to the Test and I don’t think I even apologized, not out loud anyway.
 

Why am I so nervous anyway? I’ve been preparing for this forever and with my dad’s connections I’m a shoo-in. It’s not the Test, but the pressure of what’s coming and that I have to go back. My dad’s words haunt me, “We’re counting on you, son. All of us are counting on you.” Getting in isn’t the hard part anyway. Getting what they need and back out alive, that’s another story.

Kira Donovan. As much as I can’t stand Kira on paper, I have to admit that I loved watching Miss Goodie Two-Shoes go off on Ted Rosenberg. I mean wow—she told him she didn’t give a crap about his Test in front of everyone. Classic. Maybe she does have it in her. Man though, I wish I didn’t have to depend on her, wish I could do it alone.

Kira’s probably right where I’m headed, partying it up with the rest of the losers from Carmel Valley High. Or worse, hooking up with her jerk boyfriend somewhere in the Bailey Goodington’s freakishly big house. I’d vowed to
never
enter Bailey’s hallowed grounds again. When I first started at Carmel Valley High Bailey lured me over to her house for a ‘study date’ and I temporarily (well, in secret, for weeks) fell prey to her ice blue eyes, stick straight platinum blonde hair, and modelesque figure. She particularly liked to ‘study’ by her pool in a very tiny bikini that probably cost enough to feed a small country, and to my benefit her suit often ‘accidentally’ dislodged when she entered the pool. She gave me my first kiss (or two or hundred, I lost count) and a real education in baseball. I was head over heels. In a young love bout of insanity, I even gave her a promise ring. There weren’t just sparks with Bailey, it was a full-blown atomic detonation when we were together.

When my dear daddy caught wind that I had a girlfriend, however, he forced me to end things. I tried to fight him on it, but he used his fists to persuade me. The relationship-ending ‘why’ I gave to Bailey was lame, so I came across as a real dick. No one breaks up with Bailey Goodington. To gain vengeance, she spread every possible rumor to turn me into a social pariah. Worked for me, allowing me to drop off the radar and avoid my dad’s ire. Through the Baileyvine, I found out I’m currently a meth addict who prostitutes myself to kinky old men to support my habit. Ironic, given she liberally partakes of mind-altering substances and has a reputation for being easier than a first grade math test. First love or not, I hear Karma’s real vindictive and coming for you, Bailey, and I just hope I’m there to witness your downfall.

My thoughts revert to my current predicament. I’m pissed. I can’t believe my sister, Leila, agreed to go to the dance, much less this particular after-party. Now she’s tanked and I have to come pick up the pieces. If only she could better remember our previous circumstances and the sacrifice made to bring her into the world. Even though I was only three, I’ll never forget Leila’s birth.

We moved seaside when Mom bellied
to make it more comfortable for her as it was so freaking hot inland that she couldn’t function. We’d traded caves with an Interceptor who’d been injured trying to procure supplies from an Industrial City ship. I missed playing in the canyons and resented the confinement of the cliff residences, accessible one to another solely by rope ladders.
 

My dad taught me how to climb the ladders for safety, but playing on them was strictly forbidden. Even my father panicked at the thought of maneuvering them at night and no one could get far during the day without getting fried. I’d have hardly had the energy anyway, given kids in third world countries likely ate more often, and I had the protruded belly and skeletal figure to prove it. Well, perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration. We either had plenty or none based on the pirating success-rate. Fresh food didn’t last long without refrigeration and even the non-perishables perished in the heat.

I awoke to my mother’s screams and my father’s panicked pleas for help from our neighbors. Unfortunately, they’d all left on a supply run as it was shipment night and the community rations would be lucky to last another week. From the light streaming through the makeshift sunscreen woven of canyon brush I could tell it was mid-afternoon.

“What’s wrong, Mama?” I’d asked.

“The baby’s coming,” she’d replied, sweat streaming down her face, and blood covering her garments. Even though I had little sense of time, I knew it was too early for the baby to arrive. Scared, I’d climbed upon her matting and burrowed up to her, caring little that her long black hair was slippery with perspiration, and that the water my dad had sponged over her steamed into a stinky mist. I picked bed bugs from her face, squeezing them to their death before they could get to her mouth. Meanwhile, my dad paced furiously and cursed loudly as he’d tried to figure out how to handle our predicament.