Head Rush (13 page)

I pull away, shocked. “Packard!” I exclaim. My mouth falls open. He didn’t do it. “Packard,” I say, this time in recognition.

He whooshes out a breath, gaze bright. “Oh God, Justine,” he breathes, relieved, kissing my cheek, my neck.

I want to laugh, to cry. I
know
Packard. I know he hates the smell of curry, and that he loves bossing people, and swimming in the ocean. He loves dry humor and kicking snow clumps off the bottoms of cars. And I know he didn’t kill Avery. It’s as if my knowing got covered over, and now I’m pulling off the layers.

Up above, car lights bounce dimly off the highway undersides that stretch up into the night. I want to stay with him in this humming hideaway forever, peeling everything away until it’s just us.

I hear Shelby groan, but I don’t care. Shamelessly, happily, I drink in his lips, his body. Feelings roar through me as powerfully as the thousands of cars above.

I pull away and look up at him, at the unsure smile hidden inside his big, boyish lips, as the thinness of the memory becomes even more apparent. “I was revised!” I exclaim. “That whole memory—it’s made of nothing! You didn’t kill him.”

“No, I didn’t.” He keeps his hands on my arms. I’m none too steady. “Justine—”

I’m outraged I’d ever believed it. “You’re innocent, and I falsely accused you!”

And
I love him
.

The realization is stunning, terrifying. I look into his green eyes, feeling as if I’ve stepped into a wildly extravagant reality, but at the same time, the love feels like it’s an ancient part of me.

“You were revised,” Packard says.

“How—” Even in the face of the truth, I can barely believe it. “A fake memory was in me this whole time. I should’ve known!”

“You couldn’t help it.”

“I should’ve.”

Packard shakes his head. “You couldn’t.” Even so, his gaze shifts away; it’s the minutest of flickers, lasting a bare moment. Most people wouldn’t catch it, but I do.

Hurt.

How could he not be hurt that I would believe such a thing?

“I don’t know what to say…” I spin around. “Shelby…you knew?”

“Of course.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“You cannot tell revised person they are revised,” Shelby says.

“You could’ve tried! I would’ve told
you
. I rely on you. Christ, there was even this one time when I even thought,
well, if my friends thought I was revised, they’d say something.
”

“So we would simply say something?” Shelby glares. There’s a new hard edge to my friend.

“Yeah. You would say something.
Hey Justine. We think you were revised.
It’s not that complicated.”

“For us, is very complicated,” Shelby says. “Very much. When she killed your memory, she killed the Justine who might have recognized revise.”

“Well, obviously
this Justine
recognized the revise.”

Packard pushes my hair back. “It’s not something you can tell a person.”

I turn to him. “
You
tried.”

“I had nothing to lose. And it didn’t work so well, did it?”

I say, “We have to tell Otto you’re innocent. We have to make this right.”

His face darkens. “No—”

“What? I falsely accused you!” I’m also thinking about the wedding. How can I marry Otto after I had this surge of feeling for Packard? After I kissed him like that? “I have to tell Otto.”

Shelby and Packard exchange glances.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Jordan says, coming at me with a wand-like device. “Yuck. You’re covered in sludge.”

“Take it easy,” Packard snatches the wand from her. “You might be tracked,” he says to me. “You mind?” He touches my hand, lifts it so my palm rests on his.

“Oh.” I lift my arms out to the side, and he waves the wand around. “I got sludge all over you.”

“I don’t care.”

He didn’t do it. He’s innocent.
I wonder vaguely why they’d focus on trackers when we need to make this right, and for the twentieth time, I wish for boots instead of skates.

“They were smart not to tell you about the revise,” Jordan says to me. “Sophia obliterated the truth from your head, and no amount of reasoning or new information could ever trump what she put in there. And a planted memory like that grows roots, links up with genuine memories. It could only be trumped from inside, because nobody can revise emotions. That’s likely the source of all that pain in your head too. Internal conflict. Head versus heart.”

Jordan sits down, opens a laptop. Shelby takes something out of her pocket and hands it to her. Flash drive. Data from the computers on the seventh floor.

Packard snaps off the wand. “Clean.” Again I get that hit of hurt off him. I believed he killed a man. How could I?

“Simon said you were tracked,” Shelby says.

“
All
of you were in on this? And I’m walking around like an idiot?” I feel this spark of shame.

“Not like an idiot.” Packard puts a hand on my arm. “You had your head messed with. You’re going to be reeling from it, feeling crazy, feeling angry. But you came back, Justine. That’s what’s important.”

I do feel crazy and angry.

Shelby grabs his sleeve, telling him about the seventh floor. He converses with her, but stays looking at me until she pulls him over to look at her bag of weapons.

My mind races. All this time they all knew I was revised. They let me tell this preposterous story, and I had no idea it was false. But my heart knew it was false. Because if I’d seen Packard kill, I wouldn’t love him like I do.

He looks over at me from across the fire where he’s listening to Shelby’s report, and the breath goes out of me. I just want to go to him, and for things to be simple, but they’re not simple. I’m getting married the day after tomorrow, becoming Midcity’s first lady. I’ve dedicated myself to a nursing career, to Otto. Horses and carriages have been rented. My accusations put Packard on the run.

What have I done?

I say, “You guys, if Sophia revised me, it means she knows who the real killer is!”

Shelby and Packard say nothing. Across the fire, Jordan taps away at the computer.

“We have to tell Otto so he can question Sophia,” I say. “Oh no, wait,” I say. “Could
Sophia
have killed Avery?”

Jordan snickers: “Getting warmer.”

“You think this is funny?” I catch Packard exchanging glances with Shelby. I know that look—they’re keeping things from me. Why are they treating me like an outsider?

But then again, I accused Packard, betrayed him. A new thought comes to me: what if that’s all Packard wanted? For me to help clear his name? Was that what the kiss was for? My heart sinks as I remember all the times he’s taken advantage of my feelings for him to get what he wants. He seemed relieved, but wouldn’t anybody be relieved when their accuser recants? I ruined his life!

“I’ll make an official statement at the police station. Whatever you need.”

Shelby says, “We think you saw the killer.”

“And Sophia blanked out my memory,” I say.

“Yes, yes,” Shelby says impatiently. “I mean, we think you were
with
killer and Avery.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come here,” Packard says. “Sit.”

“I don’t want to sit.” I fight back the tears. “Otto’s going to be upset if I’m gone.”
Otto.
Our life seems a world away. How can I marry him now?

“What do you remember of the day after the kidnapping?” Packard asks. “Anything special? You see the falseness of the memory. Does anything else…” he pauses, and my heart fills the space with pounding. “Does anything…feel different?”

“Just everything.” I move nearer to the fire, balancing tentatively on my wheels, hoping to warm my slime-drenched, winter workout clothes. The warmth, at least, is true. It withholds nothing. Unlike my friends. Not that I can blame them. I’ve become untrustworthy.

I rub my arms, feeling so foolish. But why should I begrudge Packard for wanting to clear his name?

Packard touches my arm. “Are you okay?”

“Of course,” I say cheerfully.

“You knew the memory of me killing Avery was fake,” he tries, “on an emotional level. But is there anything else? From that day? That you remember or…feel anything about? Anything significant?”

I sigh and launch into what I recall of the day. “When I woke up, Otto was still sleeping. I went down to the hotel lobby. I was having coffee in the hotel lobby by myself, killing time. I decided to go for a walk, and I ran into Avery. And we walked…” I try to remember things from the walk. “We walked along the lakeshore. Some city blocks.” I try to recall what we talked about. We were walking, looking at Midcity sights. It seemed perfectly normal, but why would Avery and I take such a long walk? “We had a burger at the McDonald’s on 4th and Maxbert.”

“With
Avery
?” Shelby says. “Avery would stab pin into his eye before he would go to McDonald’s.”

I stiffen. She’s right. I think back on the walk, trying to remember what we talked about. Avery was a fascinating, fiery thinker, and we would’ve talked about interesting things, but all I can recall are streetscape images and random stuff about the shops. The walk doesn’t feel false in my heart, the way the Packard killing did—I guess there’s no emotional conflict—but it’s definitely out of character. Could it, too, be a revise?

I recall something else: “I was wearing those flimsy clothes from the hospital free box,” I say. “It was all I had with me. And it was so cold…I wouldn’t have wanted to walk so far in those clothes! And if I woke up at around nine, and Avery…”

“Death was four-eighteen,” Shelby says flatly. “You walked for six hours? Seven?”

More revision? I’m feeling double crazy. Is there anything I can trust?

Jordan says, “Hmm,” at something on the computer, mumbling about country roads in Iowa. Surveillance.

I try to focus. “Avery and I wouldn’t take a seven-hour walk in the cold, or stop at McDonald’s.” I start to feel sick. “Did she take the whole day? Oh God—coffee. She likes to erase back to the first cup of coffee.” I look around, frantic. “If she erased back to when I drank coffee, that means she took a whole day from me. What did I do that day? What the hell did she take?”

Packard casts a dark look in the direction of the fire. “You have no idea what she took.”

“You know?”

“You weren’t on a walk all morning.”

“Where was I? What happened?”

“It’s not something I can just
tell
…”

“Why not?”

He gets this strange look. “Can you—there’s nothing—” he looks at me, pleadingly almost. “Anything you can recall? Emotions…”

I feel this surge of anger “No, Packard. It’s all gone. G-O-N-E, gone.”

He looks away.

My heart sinks.
It’s something horrible.

Shelby watches Packard; they seem to be communing. Like they’re deciding between themselves if it’s okay to let me in on the big secret.

“Hey,” Jordan says from across the fire.

“
Why
can’t you just tell it? Why not?” I demand, ignoring Jordan. I feel like such an idiot! And I still love him. I feel the tears sprout, but I refuse to cry. “Nothing ever changes, does it?” Sure, Packard wouldn’t kill, but he’s always been out for himself. I point at him. “You’ll never be up front with me. This is almost comical. Almost.” I turn to Shelby. “And my BFF.”

She turns to Packard. Like he gets to say what I’m allowed to know.

“Great,” I say.

“It’s not so simple, Justine,” Packard says. “To tell…”

“Hey,” Jordan interrupts. “Who’s Fawna?”

Shelby stills. Packard goes pale. It’s as if everything drains out of the moment.

Fawna.

“What did you just say?” he asks hoarsely.

Jordan straightens, startled by Packard’s tone. “Fawna,” she repeats softly. “You know her?”

There’s only one Fawna I know: the powerful little telepath who lived in the old school ruins with Otto and Packard and the rest of the kids. Taken in the night some twenty years ago.

“What
about
Fawna?” he says.

Jordan taps some more. “There’s all this stuff about Fawna in Otto’s private account. This e-mail from a Fawna, forwarded a million times. Emails
about
Fawna. ‘Re: Fawna. Re: Re: Fawna.’ Several files about Fawna. Norman, Smitty. All his guys. They’re obsessed with this Fawna.” She hits some buttons. “Even the surveillance seems connected to Fawna.”

Otto’s private account?

Packard stalks around the fire and leans in behind Jordan, peering at the screen. “Open the emails from Fawna. Whatever’s from Fawna.”

Jordan hits some keys. “Only one is actually
from
Fawna.”

Shelby goes over and stands by Packard.

“Scroll down.” He points. “Try another.”

“The little girl kidnapped from abandoned school,” Shelby says.

“Yes,” Packard says.

So Shelby’s heard the story now, too. Otto and Packard once had a solemn pact to keep that boyhood episode a secret—how the two of them fought back against the men who’d kidnapped their friends, and it ended with Otto basically massacring the men. Otto didn’t fully understand what he was doing, but Packard did.

I stay. “I don’t feel right about you guys reading Otto’s email,” I say.

Nobody answers me. Like it doesn’t matter.

“Seriously. Breaking into Otto’s private e-mail?”

“Here’s the original one from her—see?” Jordan says. “Just a few weeks ago. This started it. ‘Dear Henji, I am bringing you your coon hand. You need the coon hand, because there is danger. The danger comes from your inner circle, and the ground will run red’.”

Silence. Their faces look eerie in the light of the screen.

Packard stands, stares into the fire. “She’s back. And she’s prognosticating.”

“I thought she was a telepath,” I say.

“Long-term prognosticators always start as telepaths. From reading the minds of people to reading the mind of the future. Of fate. She used to get visions of the future, even as a child, though sometimes she confused them with daydreams. But then they’d come true.” Packard gets this distant look. “And the coon hand, God. That’s a bit of raccoon skeleton Otto decorated with ribbons—a gift for Fawna, a good luck charm. And now she’s bringing it back to him.”