The Gifting (35 page)

Movement awakens me. It’s a twitch at first. Then something bigger, like a jolt. My eyelids flutter open. I am wrapped up with Luka, tangled into a knot on the hard cement. We are face to face, our bodies pressed together. Only his eyes are closed. His face twitches. Then his eyes fly open. Before he can make a sound, I cup my hand over his mouth, trapping the noise inside.

His nostrils flare.

“Shhh, Luka. You were having a nightmare.” Something I know all too well. My nightmares are what put us in this position. He stares down at me with pupils so large, his irises are nothing but the thinnest ring of green. Slowly, his breathing regulates. His pupils shrink.

I remove my hand.

And without the slightest warning, his fingers twine into my hair, he pulls my face close, and his lips crush mine. A quick burst of intense passion before he pulls away and hugs me to his chest, where his heart crashes against my ear. The whole thing happened so fast, I barely had time to register it, let alone kiss him back. Three times now he has kissed me and three times now, they have come as complete surprises. He springs them on me when I least suspect, like in a crowded locker bay at school or on the dirty ground behind a dumpster. Perhaps this is a good thing. His method leaves no time for agonizing over how awful I must be at it.

He untangles himself from my arms and sits up, propping his elbows on his knees, digging his fingers into his hair, staring at some arbitrary spot on the ground. A white-throated sparrow lands on one of the fire escapes and lets out a wavering whistle.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He avoids eye contact.

I should probably push him, but honestly? I’m afraid of his answer. Luka has had dreams about me long before we first met in September. In every one, I’m in danger. In one of his dreams, I actually died. I’d rather not know if it happened again. I sit up beside him. The faint glow of early morning filters into the alleyway, softening everything around us—the dumpster, the trash cans, the brick walls. The night has given way to dusk. And I am desperate for answers. “Do you think it’s safe to go up now?”

“He said the morning. He never said how early.” Luka stands and pulls me up with him.

His grip tightens around my hand as we tiptoe toward the fire escape and climb the metal stairs on silent feet.

One flight.

Two flights.

Three.

Four.

We stop before landing on the fifth. Luka holds up his finger, his meaning clear. I am to wait here while he pokes his head inside the open window. We have a wordless argument with hand gestures. I don’t want to stand by while he puts himself in jeopardy, not when I’ve already put him in enough. But he refuses to let me go first. So Luka wins and I wait. When the coast is clear, he waves me over. He climbs through the window first, then helps me inside Dr. Roth’s apartment.

It’s too quiet. Too still.

Goose bumps march up my arms. My palms turn cold and clammy. What if this is a trap? What if Dr. Roth was arrested and the minute we open our mouths, the police will descend and the two burly men who dragged me out of Thornsdale High School will drag me away again. Only this time Dr. Roth and Luka won’t be around to break me out.

Luka pulls me forward, toward the bedrooms. I want to dig my heels into the carpet. Fear claws about inside my chest, scrapping and scratching for an exit. I have no idea why I don’t want to see whatever it is we are about to see. Until we round the corner and find him—the man with all the answers.

Hanging from a noose at the end of the hallway.

Close Call

F
ootsteps sound outside Dr. Roth’s apartment door. Luka clamps his hand over my mouth to muffle my scream and wraps his arm around my waist. There’s a knock. Something like a squeak issues from the back of my throat. Luka tightens his grip around my waist and half-drags, half-carries me up the hallway, toward the still, hanging body, and into a room. The same one I woke up in not more than twelve hours ago.

Another knock at the door. “Rise and shine, Dr. Roth. It’s the police.”

The room looks untouched and unruffled. Nobody would suspect somebody had slept in the bed recently. In fact, it looks as if the guest room is perfunctory and really, the doctor hasn’t had a guest in years. Luka pulls me toward the bed and the two of us hide underneath. I cup my hand over my mouth to mask the sound of my breathing.

“All right, I’m coming in,” the voice says. There’s a pause, then a loud bang. I jump. Luka tucks me closer. Another bang, followed by a thud, as if the door has swung open and crashed into the wall. “You awake in here?”

Footsteps draw nearer, then stop. Whoever it is clucks his tongue. “Well now, Doc, why’d you go and do a thing like this?”

Luka cups his hand over mine, whether to provide an extra sound barrier or as a gesture of comfort, I’m not sure. The frayed hemp of his bracelet bites into my skin. With eyes buggy and unblinking, I stare at the police officer’s shoes in the hallway. He pivots and walks out of eyeshot.

“Hey-a Manny, it’s Jake. Patch me through to the Chief, would ya?” Officer Jake is on his phone, calling the chief of police, which happens to be Leela’s uncle. How long before this place is swarming with cops? The floor creaks. It doesn’t seem possible, but my eyes grow wider. “Yeah-a, Bill? Looks like the doc offed himself … No, he’s hanging right here in front of me. Apparently, the threat of losing his license did a number on him.”

I picture Dr. Roth’s limp body hanging from the noose, his neck bent at a weird angle. I’m not sure I will ever be able to scrub that memory from my mind. He’s dead. The man with all the answers is dead.

More floor creaking. Officer Jake’s shoes come back into view. “Suicide’s a pretty safe bet, but the medical examiner will need to verify.”

Another pause, longer this time.

My mind buzzes in the silence. It doesn’t make sense. Dr. Roth would not have hung himself. He was waiting for us to return. He told us to come back. He called himself “a believer”. He said he had been gathering evidence.

“So now what? I can’t exactly question a dead man … No, there’s no sign of the girl, but I’ll look around. See if there’s any evidence that she’s been here.”

I swallow another squeak and press back into Luka. His grip tightens.

“A national alert, huh? I don’t understand why she’s so important. Have to imagine a teenager can’t be much of a threat … Right, I understand … I have a jump drive. I can copy all the files and bring it into the station. Hold on a tick.” His shoes shuffle past the doorframe. Beneath this bed, with my hand cupped over my mouth and Luka’s cupped over my hand, sound seems to be magnified. A chair groans. Computer keys clack. He’s accessing Dr. Roth’s computer files.

Luka nudges me, then points toward the nightstand. A crate holding two thick manila folders sits on the ground, as if Dr. Roth had been preparing for our visit.

More computer clacking. “Bill, there’s nothing here. His computer’s wiped clean.”

A memory floats to the surface. It all feels like a lifetime ago, back when my biggest problems came in my sleeping hours and Dr. Roth was nobody but a psychiatrist at the Edward Brooks Facility. I had questioned his archaic record keeping.

“Pen and paper doesn’t crash. It’s not nearly as accessible, either.”

A flood of gratitude toward the man washes over me. He knew all along that something like this could happen. That digital files were not safe or indestructible. He was protecting me from the very beginning. But as soon as the relief comes, so does the panic. Because all Officer Jake has to do is walk into this room and he’ll see the files that are not more than five feet from our heads. Not only will he come into possession of extremely confidential information, he’ll see us as soon as he bends down to get it.

“Either he erased them or somebody else did … Yeah-a, I’ll look around … is the medical examiner on his way?” Something snaps shut, like a laptop. “Ten-four. I’ll be waiting here. See ya at the station.”

A chair squeaks, followed by a stretch of silence.

I feel immobilized, paralyzed. Even my thoughts are frozen. I wonder if Luka feels the same way, because he does not move behind me.

“Tut, tut, Dr. Roth. Just what were you hiding?”

My heart thuds so loud I’m terrified Officer Jake will hear it. I can cup my hand over my mouth to silence my breathing, but there’s nothing to silence my heart.

“You don’t mind if I use your bathroom, do you? I didn’t think you would.”

The man is having a conversation with a dead body. A psychiatrist, to boot. If I weren’t having a silent panic attack, if Luka and I weren’t in such horrible danger, if our only ally wasn’t the one hanging out in that hallway, the situation would be laughable.

“Now, you stay there. Don’t move. I’ll be out in five and we’ll see if I can’t find where you hide your secrets.”

Officer Jake’s shoes appear in the doorframe again.

Please don’t see the crate … please don’t see the crate …

His shoes keep going, followed by a soft click of a door latch and a tuneless whistled melody from the bathroom beside us.

Luka goes from statue-still to a flurry of silent motion. He releases my waist and my mouth, then quickly and silently shimmies out from under the bed. I want to pull him back under, because—is he nuts? We can’t be seen. If we’re seen, we’re dead. I will be locked up in Shady Wood and he will be put into prison and our keys will be thrown away. There will be no escaping this time.

“Luka,” I hiss.

But he pulls me out alongside him, grabs the two manila folders, takes my hand and leads me out into the hallway. A strip of light shines beneath the bathroom door, the man’s whistling muffled by the droning of a fan. Without hesitating, Luka pulls me toward the window. We climb out. I hold my breath while Luka shuts it as quietly as possible and we tear off down the steps.

Away, away, away … as fast as we can.

*

Not until the entire length of the alleyway is between us and Officer Jake do I dare talk. I huddle against the brick façade of a building, my words escaping in huffs and puffs. I’m not used to sprinting. “We need … to get … out of here.” And by here, I mean Thornsdale. In five minutes that apartment is going to be crawling with police, which means we need to put as much distance between us and this place as possible. Much easier said than done when all we have is our feet and our backpacks, and now, these two folders containing who knows what.

Luka swings his backpack off his shoulders, unzips the zipper, and pulls out two baseball caps and a pair of sunglasses. “Hide your hair in there and put these on.” He pulls his hat over his hair and stuffs the folders inside his bag.

I do as he says, stuffing my hair up in the hat and putting on the glasses. I try not to think about Officer Jake’s words about me and a national alert. I can’t process that right now. Or Dr. Roth’s death. All I can think about right now is making it to safety. Wherever that is.

“All we have to do is make it across this street. Walk normally. Do you see that alley over there?” Luka points to the other side of the street, toward an alleyway between an insurance building and liquor store.

I nod.

“I’m pretty sure it will lead us to some more. Once we’re out of Thornsdale, we can find a motel and figure out what to do next.”

“What if somebody recognizes us?”

“They won’t. Not if we stick to the alleyways.” He grabs my hand. “And not if we hurry.”

“Luka,” goose bumps march across my skin, “that wasn’t a suicide.”

“I know.” He squeezes my hand and we step into the hazy sunlight.

*

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