Fear My Mortality (9 page)

“Nectar? I’ve never heard of that. No. They told us what it was … ” Dad frowned toward Mom. “What did they call it?”

Mom said, “I don’t remember. One of those drugs.”

Hallucinations? The green light, the leather straps, the cut on my forehead that healed as soon as they injected the nectar … the terrible heat that filled my body after the second dose, the terrible strength. My parents shook their heads, the certainty on their faces irrefutable, brushing away the possibility that anything had been done to me other than a harmless blood test.

I started to speak, to tell them that they were wrong, but Mom’s hand touched mine, trembling like a butterfly. She said, “The results came in, sweetheart. And it’s … ” She sobbed and covered her mouth.

Dad took over, his face grim. “It’s not good news, Ava. You and Josh, they told us you have a gene they’ve never seen before. It’s one in a million. It’s really unlucky, but, sweetie, it inhibits regeneration.”

I thought it through. I went over it in my head—a gene, regeneration. I had a gene that nobody else had, except for Josh, he had it too. And it killed him. Whichever way I looked at it, it led to only one question. “So if I’m killed … I’ll die?”

“Yes.” He dropped his head into his hands. “You’ll die.”

The room filled with silence the way that the last rays of the setting sun wink out when the light is gone and all that’s left is heavy quiet.

I’d die. I wouldn’t regenerate like other people. I wouldn’t heal. If I were shot, I’d bleed out. If I were strangled, I’d suffocate. If I dropped to the bottom of a pool and never came up, I’d drown.

I was drowning right then. “How long have I been here?”

“Just the night,” Dad answered. “They said we can take you home this afternoon.”

“All right.” I had a gene that meant I would die. Just like Josh had died.

Josh was right—I was a freak.

I woke to the sound of Mom screaming.

I tried to sit up as movement blurred in front of me. I caught sight of Mom’s blue cardigan, flung across the top of her chair. Then Dad’s brown hair flying as he dashed across the room to where Mom grappled with Reid. She grabbed him by the shoulder and tried to gouge out his eyes.

The sheets tangled around me as I scrambled to get to my feet. As I sat up, the room swam, sunlit windows slid across my view, the white light angled. I skidded across and touched my feet to the floor, pressing back against the bed to steady myself as the room stopped slipping, the threatening speckled dark receded, and I righted myself.

By then, Dad pulled Mom back and blood trickled from Reid’s cheek and nose, dripping onto his uniform.

Mom’s voice grated in the sudden silence. “You promised we could bury him.”

I tried to breathe as Mom’s words sank in. They weren’t going to release Josh’s body. There wouldn’t be a wake. We wouldn’t be able to say good-bye …

Reid touched a finger to his cheek and frowned at the blood. “Mrs. Holland. It’s an offense to strike a Hazard Officer.” As he spoke, tiny blue blood vessels became visible on his cheek and the side of his nose. In another moment, the wound zipped itself up, the skin sealed and the bleeding stopped.

“Where’s my son?”

Reid’s hand went to the tranquilizer gun at his waist and I waited for the wasp to arrive, but he just looked past Mom to Dad. “Mr. Holland?”

Dad pulled Mom further away, talking quietly into her ear. She struggled and tears streamed down her cheeks, grief pouring from her words. “But they said we could bury him. I need to bury him.” She pulled away from Dad, who struggled to restrain her.

“Mrs. Holland,” Reid said. “I won’t forgive you twice.”

Dad yanked Mom back and she howled like a wounded animal. She collapsed against him, submerging her face in his shirt.

It was Dad’s turn to become angry. “You said there was no biological hazard. You said it was genetic. Surely, we have the right—”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Holland. As I explained to your wife, there is a serious public health risk associated with your son’s body. There are any number of diseases your son could have carried and we simply don’t know what his remains will do now that he’s dead. We aren’t able to anticipate what kind of contagions his body might produce—or already contain. He must be quarantined at all costs.”

He took a step forward, a quiet threat, and Dad pulled Mom further back, keeping a distance.

Dad’s face was pale. His words were soft, an attempt to stay calm. “You’re saying that his body could endanger others. That his mortality could … spread.”

“Well, it shouldn’t, of course. We’ve always resisted viruses and bacterial infections. We know they exist—we’ve seen the deadly effect on animals of cancerous cells and bacterial infections—but no virus or bacteria has succeeded in harming a human being. Yet.” His face twisted in an expression close to disgust and he held up a warning finger. “Combined with a death gene, there’s no saying what could happen.”

Dad’s voice was worried. “What about Ava? Will she be okay?”

Reid shrugged. “There are theories that the first humans were mortal, that regeneration evolved over time. Some people believe mortals lived alongside us a long time ago.” He glowered. “Until we wiped them out.”

I tried to remember back to history class, or maybe it was biology when the teacher had eyed the religious kids sitting in the back row and declared that the curriculum required she teach at least two lessons on the theory of regeneration. She said that, according to the theory, we’d started out as microorganisms, slowly evolving into inferior pre-humans—just animals really, with primitive instincts—finally giving way to the smart, strong human beings we were today. Mostly, I remembered the kids interrupting and arguing that the theory was wrong: humans were given the gift of regeneration when Eve made her choice—Adam had lived for 930 years and that was even longer than we did now.

Reid smiled for the first time. “Mr. Holland, your daughter has existed in society without any consequences so far. So did your son. We have no reason to suspect that she is a threat to the community.” His smile broadened. “As long as she stays alive, that is.”

Dad glared at Reid and took a step in my direction, placing himself between my bed and the officer. He froze as his gaze slid from the empty bed to the floor where I crouched.

Mom and Dad’s faces were gray, and a smirk twisted Reid’s expression, as though he knew I was awake the whole time and he was just waiting for my parents to catch up.

Dad turned even paler. “Honey. We thought you were asleep. We didn’t want you to hear … ” His jaw clenched. He rounded on Officer Reid. “Thank you for the information, officer. We’ve taken up enough of your time already.”

“Of course.” Reid reached inside his suit and pulled out a card. “You know where to reach us if you have any concerns.”

I tried not to sag with relief when he was gone. All I wanted was to go home, leave the recovery center behind me, do something normal. Like calling Hannah or dancing or even loading the dishwasher. I had to get away from this place. I had to get away from that man pretending to be a Hazard and the memory of a green room that wasn’t supposed to exist. Then maybe I could get it out of my head, the feeling of Reid’s arm crushing my neck, pushing me into the chair, dragging me across the floor. Maybe I could convince myself that it was all a hallucination like Mom and Dad insisted.

I waved my arm in the air, flapping the IV line around. “Can I get some help with this, please?”

Dad raced to me, pressing the buzzer for the nurse, helping me back to the bed.

Within moments, the nurse reappeared, but she didn’t meet my eyes as she removed the IV shunt. This time, she wore gloves.

“Where are my clothes?”

“We brought you new ones from home.” Mom looked as if she was about to burst into tears again.

I snatched up the bag and raced into the bathroom, pulling on fresh jeans and a t-shirt.

In the bathroom mirror, my eyes had dark rings under them. My skin was stretched out, strained. If only Josh was still alive. I had so many questions for him: why was he with the Bashers? Why was he trying to take me away? How did he survive his Implosion, only to die at mine?

I pushed through the door to find Mom and Dad waiting. They gathered me up between them, Dad supporting both of us with his big arm reaching across my back, his fingers curling around Mom’s arm. Out of the room and down the corridor, the recovery nurses at their station watched us go. It felt worse than falling in the middle of a performance. Even in the spotlight, I could pretend it was deliberate—bounce right back—but there was no escaping this.

I was too busy watching my sneakers to notice the people crowding the front doors until Dad pushed them open and the shouting hit me.

Lights flashed. News drones hummed and hovered, broadcasting video live into people’s homes, my face splashed across air screens everywhere. Reporters rushed toward me, pushing at each other.

“Ms. Holland! Ava!”

One of them shoved a microphone into my face, hitting me on the chin. My hand flew to my face, aware that it cut me. There was a flash of red as I checked the wetness on my fingers before a stranger’s voice intruded.

“Ms. Holland! Is it true you can die?”

I opened my mouth to speak.
No comment
. That’s what I was supposed to say. That’s what everyone said when they had something to hide. But it turned out I didn’t have to speak because the crowd was suddenly silent.

Only Dad moved, pulling closer to me, still hugging Mom. He squashed me against him, ramming his body between me and the reporters while the guy who’d hurt me gaped at me.

No. Not at me. At my chin. They all were. Waiting for the cut to prove them right or wrong.

I sensed the warmth where the blood continued to pool.

“She isn’t healing.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Is the drone getting this? We need this footage.”

Another reporter shoved in, right up in my face, his voice an accusation. “Is it true that mortality is contagious?”

Then he paled, staring at the blood on my skin as though he’d just realized how close he was to me. He went from white to red as he backed away. “Let the drone get the footage.” Suddenly they all were looking at each other and then at me, their determination to catch the latest headline turning into something else—caution.

Dad crushed me against him, right next to Mom, and barreled sideways through the reporters. They scattered as drones buzzed and swarmed around our heads, trying to wedge between us. My face ended up pressed inward so nobody could see my chin. Except for Mom, whose eyes were filled with tears. She didn’t stop staring at the red smears on Dad’s shirt as though there was a scream in her throat that wouldn’t come out.

Finally, security arrived and cleared a way for us. All I wanted was to disappear into our car and wind up the windows. If only I had a hood, I could pull it over myself and hide behind it. I sank into the back seat as the security guard slammed the door.

A horrible, sliding, sick feeling filled my chest cavity. What if the crazy reporters followed us? What if we had a car accident trying to get away? What if Bashers blew up my house or my school?

What if I died?

I wasn’t ready to die. I had too much to do yet. I wanted to dance. I wanted to make it to the big league—all the way to the Conservatorium in the northern city, Glade. Hannah and I would go together. I wanted to travel, to leave Dell and see the other cities, maybe even go to the central region and see Evereach’s capital city, Chasm. And some day I wanted to kiss somebody—somebody who cared. But there wasn’t a boy in the world who’d come near me now.

We reached the tunnel and I closed my eyes before it made me remember the ride in Michael’s car. At least, so far, there weren’t any news vans performing stunts of insanity on the road with us. Instead, it was awfully quiet. Mom and Dad didn’t say anything and for an eternity, all I heard was the
swish-swish
of the tunnel.

When we finally pulled into our driveway, my chin had stopped bleeding, and I couldn’t believe how normal it looked. Josh’s car was parked out on the street as if he was at home. Not dead after all.

By the time I made it up to my bedroom, my heart was about to crack. The sight of my black dress confronted me. It was folded neatly on the top of my bed, washed and ironed.

I quietly gathered it up, took it to the bottom drawer, and placed it beneath everything else, hiding it away from sight, until I could imagine it didn’t exist anymore, that Josh hadn’t died, that I wasn’t mortal, that there hadn’t been fear in the eyes of the reporters when they looked at me.

I crawled into my bed and let go of the well of tears.