Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy (28 page)

“Yes. Well, her mom has a reason to fight for me. She knows how hard it is and how few people I have in my life, a
nd she doesn’t want me to end up with strangers. No offense
to you guys. You’ve been more than good to me.”

Sue smiled. “Oh, I know you’re appreciative, Brian, and I understand you’re under a lot of stress right now. That’s very kind of her mother. I hope you and Alice last.”

“You and Thomas did. And we will, too,” I said, with a confident grin. “We definitely will.”

I poured two cups of English breakfast tea, added a spoonful of sugar and a splash of milk to each cup and then brought them outside.

Kareena pulled a stack of papers out of her bag and set them in front of me on the table.

“Look over these when you have time,” she said. “It will give you a better understanding of how exactly the process will work and what considerations the judge will take into account. My dad also highlighted some things you should be aware of. You’ll be under oath, too, so be careful about what you say.”

Alice sipped her tea and smiled at me with her eyes. I reached under the table to take her free hand, contemplating what I would give to spend another night with her.

“Heeeeeeey, Brian!” Peter shouted, jogging across the lawn toward us, his backpack bouncing up and down on his back. “Hey! Are these your friends?” He waved at Kareena and then Alice.

“Yeah.”

“
Wow. Your girlfriend’s real pretty, Brian,” he whispered
out of the side of his mouth while leaning toward me. No filter at all.
Cute
.

“Yeah. She is.” I laughed.

Alice blushed. “I’ve heard a lot of good things about you, Peter. It’s nice to meet you,” she said, offering him a hand to shake.

“No!” Kareena shrieked, lunging across the table to slap Alice’s hand away. She stared at Peter with widened eyes and her face went pale. “Don’t touch him!”

Alice and I stared.

We knew that face. The wild-eyed, holy expletive, I-just-saw-something-crazy-that-you-can’t face.

Peter was infected.

“Wh-what’s wrong?” Peter asked, frowning.

Alice tucked her hand away into her sweater pocket.

“Nothing,” I intercepted. “Alice is… a little sick, that’s all. Yeah. She’s got a cold. A
really
bad cold and we don’t want you catching it.”

Alice faked a sneeze.

“Oh. She looks okay.” He shrugged.

“Well, that’s how this cold is. You look fine and then all of a sudden…” I gagged, pretending I was dying of something horrible and then dropped my head down onto the picnic table with a thump. He got the message and backed away from Alice, moseying over to stand beside Kareena instead.

“Hi. I’m Peter,” he said, beaming.

“Hi,” Kareena muttered, rolling her eyes and shifting in her seat.

“Be nice to him, please.” I glared at her. And I meant it. Now more than ever.

If Kareena was right, things were starting to happen around us.

I wasn’t going to let Peter become part of this.

Chapter 10

I
stopped to look around, sinking back from the crowd of bustling students rushing off the bus. Alice wasn’t waiting for me in the parking lot.

I texted her.

No response.

I headed up the entryway stairs into the school. Down the hall. Toward our lockers. There I found her, crumpled over on the floor, her back against the lockers, knees pulled up to her chest and her face down in her folded arms. Sam sat beside her with an arm slung over her shoulders. My heart plummeted into my stomach.

“Alice!?” I knelt and tried to pry one of her hands out of
her lap. She wouldn’t budge. “Alice? What’s wrong?” Patches
of tear-soaked denim darkened her knees. I looked frantically at Sam.

“She’s been like this all morning,” she said. “Do something,
Brian. Maybe she’ll listen to you.” Sam stood and backed away to give us some space.

“Come on. You have to talk to me.” I nudged Alice’s shoulder gently. “Alice? Please?”

Alice brought her face up, cheeks and nose flushed bright
red. Her eyes shimmered with tears. Her lips were wet and quivering.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she murmured, then dropped her face back down onto her knees and continued sobbing.

“Do what? What’s wrong, Alice? You’re not telling me anything.” I tried to force her hands off her knees again, but
she jerked away and snapped back into her closed-off position
. I flopped down beside her and thrust my back against the locker doors. “I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me!” I crossed my arms.

I sat with her, silently watching students rush to class.
Anticipating the ring of the bell. Expecting someone to come
and scold us for being late.

“What’s going on?” Kareena approached and bent over slightly, looking down at Alice and tipping her head. “Wait. Oh my God!” She gasped and covered her mouth.

“What? What is it?” I straightened up. “Kareena?”

“I want to go home,” Alice muttered, turning her face toward me. “Brian, I just want to go home.”

“Please, tell me what’s wrong first,” I tried again, pressing my hand into her shoulder and scooting closer.

“They think they can do whatever they want to me,” she grumbled. “That I’m just a body. A shell. I’m not supposed to be a science experiment.”

“What did they do to you, Alice? What did they do to…” I lowered my voice. “The baby?” I came to my knees and flicked my hair out of my face. “Alice. Talk to me. I know it’s your body, but the baby—she’s
ours
. I
need
to know what’s happening.”

“There isn’t one,” Kareena said grimly.

“What?” I craned my neck back to look at her. “What do you mean?”

“The baby,” Kareena continued. “It’s gone. I don’t see the second light inside her. I think it’s gone, Brian. I think they…”

“Shit! No. Just like that? Without telling us?” I stood and reached down to help Alice to her feet. “Is this true, Alice? Did they…”

She jerked away from me.

“I don’t know. Maybe. I think.” She wrapped her arms around herself and hunched over. “I just… I feel… horrible right now. Empty. My stomach hurts. I want to go home. I want to be left alone.” Her shuddering breaths made my heart ache. Tears kept pouring from her eyes.

“Allie?” Sam stepped closer to us and reached a hand up to grasp Alice’s shoulder. “Please tell me what’s going on. Please. You guys are scaring me with all of this…
baby
stuff.”

“Kareena?” I looked at her. “Explain to Sam what happened, okay? Take her somewhere you can talk quietly. I need to take care of Alice right now.”

Jane wouldn’t be back from work for several more hours—
a staff training session had kept her from responding to any of my calls—so I had to take things into my own hands.

“Come on, Alice. I’ll take you home, okay?”

She finally looked up into my eyes.

“Thank you,” she murmured, and then sniffled loudly, her throat and nose congested.

“But I’m
not
leaving you alone,” I added firmly.

“I’ll tell the nurse she got sick so they know where you guys went,” said Sam, reaching to brush her fingers over Alice’s hand. “Take care of yourself, okay? Take care of her, Brian.”

“I will.”

Kareena looked at me, pity filling her eyes and making them go red. A frown tugging at her lips. Her eyeliner a little smudged.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

. . .

As soon as we got back to the house, I had Alice sit on the couch and then texted Jane to let her know what had happened. I also called the Jamesons. Sue picked up and then proceeded to threaten me with warnings about playing hooky from school with my court day so close at hand. I wanted to be honest with her—which is why I had called in the first place. But I didn’t need the third degree.

Eventually, she drove me over the edge.

“
Tell me the truth, Brian
,” she’d said, in a stern tone.

I glanced over at Alice, who had
collapsed
into a blubbering mess on the couch, and I decided to take the conversation
into another room so it wouldn’t upset her further.

Then I told Sue the truth about Alice—the pregnancy, at least. Well,
half
of the truth. Getting pregnant against her will. Losing the baby after she’d come to terms with wanting to keep it. I didn’t tell Sue the baby was actually
mine
.

“
Does her mother know?
” Sue asked.

“Yes. Of course. We told her a while back. As soon as we found out.”

Then she asked me why we didn’t go to the police about what had happened.

“It’s complicated. We’ve already done
everything
we can. Trust me.”

“
Oh…
” I heard her sigh. “
I hope she’ll be okay. It’s…
hard losing a baby. Especially in the second trimester. She’ll
need a little time to recover. But, you know, Brian, maybe
it’s best for you both. God’s way of helping her move forward.
Of helping you both start fresh
.”

Sue—a devout Christian—thought
everything
was God’s will, even the death of her beloved daughter Grace, as tragic as it had been. Grace had died in the line of duty. She’d sacrificed herself for others, just like Christ had. That’s what Sue had told me, at least.

By this point, she’d concluded that Alice had been raped—not
completely untrue, considering how the pregnancy had, in fact, been forced on her—and that I was stepping up to take responsibility because I loved her—also not completely untrue. She could think that if she wanted to. Anything to take the blame off Alice. Off me. It had never been our fault to begin with.

The (partial) truth put things into perspective for her, and she backed off after that, realizing how very important the guardianship issue really was for me—for us. I had to get away from my mother. I
had
to protect Alice.

“I need to go. I’ll be back as soon as I can, I swear. Please don’t tell anyone else about this. Tell Peter I got caught up at work so he doesn’t worry about me.”

“
I understand
,” Sue replied, and hung up.

I went back into the living room. Alice had nestled her
face against the arm of the couch and fallen asleep. I touched
her cold hand and then left the room briefly to grab a blanket
for her.

I sat on the nearby ottoman for a while, watching her stir
in her sleep, whimpering lightly. Digging her fingers into the couch periodically. She must have been in the middle of some horrible nightmares. Or memories…

It hurt me to see her in pain, but there was nothing I could do. Even I had grown fond of the whole baby idea, and now they’d snatched her away from us. Even if Alice had suggested they take the baby back, they didn’t have to do it without warning.

Poor Alice got the worst of it—the physiological effects of losing a baby. The Saviors likely had it locked up safe in some sort of cryogenic freezer. A little timer on the case set for Alice’s eighteenth birthday. Thinking about it made me sick to my stomach.

I wish they’d told us first. She’d had no chance to mentally
prepare—not that it was something we could have prepared for—but they’d waited longer than I’d expected them to. We thought they’d forgotten the request by now.

The Saviors had a way of doing that—making us forget about them and then stepping back into our lives right when our guard was down.

I leaned down to kiss her cheek.

She groaned and wriggled under her blanket, pulling it up to her nose.

As if the mental anguish hadn’t been enough, she was probably suffering from a sort of postpartum depression—something usually caused by giving birth, but also known to
occur after miscarriages and even abortions. With the Saviors
involved, neither had likely happened, but that wouldn’t stop the pain she felt over the loss.

KAREENA: How’s Alice?

ME: She’s… OK I guess

There wasn’t much to say.

KAREENA: Let me know how she’s doing

ME: I will

KAREENA: THX

KAREENA: Sorry :( Glad she has U

I tucked my phone into my pocket.

Alice went back to sleep. I stayed there, trying to come
up with a way to make her feel better. I felt so damn helpless.

Jane left work an hour early. I heard the car pull into the
driveway. She came in and tossed her keys onto the kitchen
counter.

“How is she?” she asked, looking at me first and then at her daughter. “Oh, my baby.” She knelt down beside Alice and caressed her cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sure the baby’s fine,” I said, trying to be optimistic. “They’re probably just keeping her temporarily.”

“Leave me alone,” Alice said, stirring.

“Alice?” I reached out to touch her. “Is there anything I can do at all? Tell me.”

“No.”

Jane looked at me and shrugged. “I think she needs time,
Brian. This is hard on her body. It’s trying to cope with the sudden changes.”

Grief takes time, but she needed time I didn’t have. I couldn’t stay with her all day. Or all week for that matter. Not until the petition had been honored.

“I want to be here for her, though,” I replied. “I feel so useless otherwise.”

“It’s okay. I’ll take tomorrow off and stay home with her so you won’t have to worry.” She forced a smile. “Will that make you feel better?”

“I guess.” I shrugged. Nothing could really make me feel better. Nothing but knowing Alice would be okay.

“I promise you I’ll keep a close eye on her. I won’t let her be alone. You can even come see her after school if the Jamesons are okay with it.”

“They will be. I… sort of told them what was going on.”