Awakening (8 page)

We’d been there over an hour when Liz came racing in with the news. “She’s not dead. Your aunt. She’s okay.”

From the excitement on Liz’s face, you’d think she’d just learned her own aunt had survived. It didn’t matter that Aunt Lauren was part of the group that murdered her. All she cared about was that this news would please me. Looking at her glowing face, I realized that as good as I tried to be, I could never be as selfless as Liz.

My relief was cut short by a fresh worry. What would they do to Aunt Lauren now that she’d helped us escape? Now that she’d betrayed them. Thinking of that reminded me of another betrayal. Rae’s.

I’d trusted her. I’d vouched for her to the guys, persuaded them to let her join us, and she’d turned us in.

Rae was the one who’d insisted that the boys weren’t coming back. She was the one who suggested I go to Aunt Lauren, who’d talked me into it when I’d hesitated.

I remembered the night we’d left, lying in our beds trying to sleep. She’d been so excited about her powers and not the least concerned about what lay ahead of us. Now I knew why she hadn’t been worried.

Aunt Lauren said Rae honestly thought she was helping me. Betrayal as tough love, forcing me onto the path chosen for me, certain she was right and I was just too stubborn to see it.

Now both she and my aunt were trapped with the Edison Group. Once the glow over her new life faded, Rae would see the cracks and pick away at them until she realized the truth. I hoped she didn’t. I prayed both of them would just hold tight and do whatever the Edison Group wanted until I could return. And I
would
return.

Finally Liz popped in to tell me that Dr. Davidoff and his crew had given up, assuming Tori and I had snuck past the front gates and were long gone. They’d left a guard behind, keeping watch from some hidden spot, in case Derek showed up, following my trail.

At five, the whistle blew, the workday ending. By five thirty, the building was empty. Still we waited. Past six, past seven…

“It must be dark out by now,” Tori whispered, crawling over to me.

“Dusk, not dark. We’ll give it another hour.”

At eight, we left.

W
E SNUCK PAST THE night guard, who was busy reading
Playboy
in the lunchroom. Liz stayed with him to make sure he didn’t hear us. He didn’t.

Luckily Tori and I had the good fortune to dress in dark clothes that morning—Tori in a navy American Eagle sweat suit and leather jacket, me in jeans and a green shirt. I only wished I had more than this thin jacket. With the sun gone it was freezing, made worse by an icy blast that had to be coming straight across the river from Canada.

Once inside the warehouse, we wouldn’t have to worry about the wind. Getting there, though, was taking forever. Liz was having trouble finding the Edison Group guard, so we had to go the long way around, scooting from hiding place to hiding place, to reach the real rendezvous point—the warehouse where Rae and I had waited for Derek and Simon.

As it had been the other night, the warehouse door was latched but not locked. Unless you knew a hot black market in cardboard boxes, crates, and wooden pallets, there was nothing inside to steal. All that worthless junk made it the perfect place to hide…and meant there were a million spots for the guys to leave a note.

After a few minutes of banging around in the dark, I gave up.

“We’ll have to wait until morning,” I said.

No response. I squinted around for Tori.

“This is my stop,” she said, somewhere to my left.

“Hmm?”

“This is where I get off.” Her voice was oddly monotone, like she was too tired to put any bite into the words. “My adventure, as fun as it’s been, ends here.”

“Just hold on until morning. If there isn’t a note, we’ll figure something out.”

“And if there is a note? I wanted to join your escape, Chloe, not your crusade to find Simon’s dad.”

“B-but he’ll—”

“Save the day?” She managed a sarcastic lilt. “Rescue us from the mad scientists, cure us, and take us to a land of lollipops and unicorns?”

My voice hardened. “Finding him might not solve anything, but right now, we’re a little short on options. What are you going to do instead? Go back to the Edison Group and say you’re sorry, it was all a mistake?”

“I’m doing what I planned all along. We needed each other to get out. But that’s all I wanted from you. I’d help you find the note, but I won’t stay until morning to do it. I’m going home, to my dad.”

That shut me up, if only because I was afraid I’d say something I’d regret, like ask if she meant her dad or her father. Did she know there was a difference? I doubted it.

“So your dad…. He’s human?”

“Of course. He doesn’t know anything about this. But I’m going to tell him.”

“Is that such a good idea?”

“He’s my
dad
,” she snapped. “When he hears what my mom did…? Everything’s going to be okay. My dad and me get along great. Better than him and my mom. They hardly even talk. I’m sure they only stay together because of us kids.”

“Maybe you should wait a day or two. See what happens.”

She laughed. “And join your band of superheroes? Sorry, but I’m allergic to spandex.” Her sneakers scuffed on the concrete as she turned away. “Say bye to Liz for me.”

“Wait!” I tugged off my shoe. “Take some money.”

“Save it. I don’t plan to ever get the chance to repay you.”

“It’s okay. Just take—”

“Keep your money, Chloe. You’ll need it more than I will.” She took a few steps, then stopped. For a moment, she stood there, then she said quietly, “You could come with me.”

“I need to get Simon his insulin.”

“Right. Okay then.”

I waited for a good-bye but heard only the slap of her sneakers, then the creaking of the door as she left.

When Liz returned from patrol, she said she’d seen Tori leaving. I explained, then braced for a chewing out. Why had I let Tori take off? Why hadn’t I gone after her? But all Liz said was, “I guess she didn’t want to hang around,” and that was that.

We were both quiet for a while, then Liz said, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. About me being dead.”

“I handled it wrong. I should have made it easier for you.”

“I don’t think there’s any way to make that easier.”

We sat side by side in the darkness on a piece of cardboard I’d dragged over. My back rested against a crate. I’d stacked more around me, like a play fort. A small, dark, cold fortress.

“Why’d they kill me?” Liz asked.

I told her about the experiment and the genetic manipulation and what the file said about terminating us if we couldn’t be rehabilitated.

“But I
could
have been rehabilitated,” she said. “If they’d just
told
me what was going on, I wouldn’t have been freaking out about poltergeists. I would have taken lessons, pills, whatever they wanted.”

“I know.”

“So why?
Why?
”

The only answer I had was that we didn’t matter to them. We were subjects in an experiment. They’d try rehabilitation because we weren’t animals, but Lyle House had been only a token effort, to prove to themselves that they’d made some attempt to save us.

They said they killed us because we were dangerous. I didn’t believe that. I wasn’t dangerous. Brady wasn’t dangerous. Maybe Liz and Derek, but they weren’t monsters. Derek had been willing to stay at Lyle House just so he wouldn’t hurt anyone else.

They played God and they failed, and I think what they were really scared of wasn’t that we’d hurt people but that other supernaturals would find out what they’d done. So they killed their failures, leaving only the successes.

That’s what I thought. “I don’t know” was what I said, and we sat quietly for a while longer.

Next time, I was the one to break the silence. “Thank you. For everything. Without you, Tori and I would never have gotten away. I want to help you in return—help you cross over.”

“Cross over?”

“To the other side. Wherever ghosts are supposed to go. The afterlife.”

“Oh.”

“I’m not sure why you haven’t gone. Have you…seen anything? A light maybe?”

A small laugh. “I think that’s only in movies, Chloe.”

“But you vanish sometimes. Where do you go?”

“I’m not sure. I still see everything here, but you can’t see me. It’s like being on the other side of a force field, where I can see—Well, I guess they must be other ghosts, but they seem to be just passing through.”

“Where do they come from?”

She shrugged. “I don’t talk to them. I thought maybe they were other shaman spirits, but I…” Her gaze dropped. “I didn’t want to ask. In case they weren’t.”

“Can you ask them now? Find out where you’re supposed to be?”

“I’m fine.”

“But—”

“Not yet. Just not yet, okay?”

“Okay.”

“When you do find Simon and Derek, I’m going to take off for a while. I want to visit my nana, see how she’s doing, and my brother, maybe my friends, my school. I know they can’t see me. I’d just like to see them.”

I nodded.

Liz wanted me to sleep. I closed my eyes to make her feel better, but there was no chance of drifting off. I was too cold, too hungry.

When she slipped out to patrol, I stretched and shifted. The chill of the concrete came right through my cardboard mat. I was crawling over to grab more layers when Liz reappeared.

“Good, you’re awake.”

“What’s wrong? Is someone coming?”

“No, it’s Tori. She’s in front of the warehouse. She’s just sitting there.”

I found Tori crouched between the warehouse and a Dumpster, staring at the rusty bin, not even blinking.

“Tori?” I had to touch her shoulder before she looked at me. “Come inside.”

She followed me without a word. I showed her the spot I’d made, and she settled in, crouching in her strange way.

“What happened?” I asked.

It took a moment for her to answer. “I called my dad. I told him everything. He said to stay where I was, and he’d come and get me.”

“And you changed your mind. That’s okay. We’ll—”

“I went across the street to wait,” she said, as if I hadn’t spoken. “I was in an alley, so no one would see me before he got there. The car pulled up and I started to step out and—and I didn’t. I kept telling myself I was being stupid, that I’d been around you too long, getting all paranoid, but I needed to see him first, to be sure. It was his car—my dad’s. It stopped right where I said I’d be. It idled there, all the windows up, too dark to see through. Then a door opened and…” Her voice dropped. “It was my mom.”

“She must have intercepted the call,” I said. “Maybe they switched cars. Or she got to his car first, knowing you’d be looking for it. He was probably on his way, in
her
car and—”

“I snuck away and called my house again, collect. My dad answered, and I hung up.”

“I’m sorry.”

More silence. Then, “Not even going to say ‘I told you so’?”

“Of course not.”

She shook her head. “You’re too nice, Chloe. And I don’t mean that as a compliment. There’s nice, and then there’s
too
nice. Anyway, I’m back.” She reached into her pocket, and pulled out something. “With food.”

She handed me a Snickers bar.

“Thanks. I thought you didn’t have any money.”

“I don’t. Five-finger discount.” Her sneakers squeaked on the concrete as she shifted farther onto the cardboard mat. “I’ve watched my friends do it plenty of times. But I never did. Know why?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Because I was afraid of getting caught. Not by the store or the cops. I didn’t care about that. All they do is give you a lecture, make you pay it back. I was afraid of my mom finding out. Afraid she’d be disappointed in me.”

A crackle as she unwrapped her candy bar, then broke off a piece. “Not really an issue now, is it?” She popped the chunk into her mouth.

O
NCE MY STOMACH HAD something in it—even a candy bar—exhaustion took over. I wasn’t asleep long before the dreams came—nightmares of never finding the guys, of Mrs. Enright killing Aunt Lauren, of Tori hog-tying me and leaving me for the Edison Group to find….

I awoke to the sound of voices. I leaped up, breath jamming in my throat, searching the darkness for men with guns.

Beside me, Tori was snoring.

“Liz?” I whispered.

No answer. She must have been out on patrol.

After a moment, I decided I’d dreamed the voices. Then the sound came again—a
psst-psst-psst,
too faint to make out the words. I strained to hear but could only catch that papery whisper. I blinked hard. The unending darkness became a landscape of black jagged rocks—boxes and crates. Only a pale moonglow made it through the thick grime coating the windows.

I caught a whiff of something musky, animal-like. Rats? I shivered.

The sound came again. A papery rustling, like the wind through dry leaves. Maybe that’s what it was.

Dry leaves in April? When the nearest tree is hundreds of feet away?

No, it sounded like a ghost. Like the scary movie version, where all you hear is a wordless whispering that creeps down your spine and tells you there’s something lurking just around—

I shook myself, then stood and stretched my legs. I scuffed my sneakers against the cardboard carpet a little more than necessary, hoping Tori might stir. She didn’t.

I exhaled, cheeks ballooning. I’d been doing well so far, facing my fears and taking action. This wasn’t the time to bury my head and plug my ears. If my powers were abnormally strong…

Uncontrollable…

No, not uncontrollable. Dad would say that everything can be controlled if you have the willpower and the will to learn.

The whisper seemed to come from the next room. I picked my way through the maze of boxes and crates. As careful as I was, I kept knocking my knees against them, and each rap made me wince.

With every step I took, the whispering seemed to move farther away. I was clear across the warehouse before I realized the sound
was
moving away. A ghost was luring me.

I stopped short, my scalp prickling as I peered through the darkness, boxes looming in every direction. The whisper snaked around me. I whirled and crashed into a stack of crates. A sliver jabbed into my palm.

I took a deep breath, then asked, “Do you w-want to talk to me?”

The whispers stopped. I waited.

“No? Fine, then I’m going back—”

A giggle erupted behind me. I spun, smacking into the crates again, dust flying into my mouth, my nose, my eyes. As I sputtered, the giggle turned to a snicker.

I could see enough to know no living person was attached to that snicker.

I marched back the way I’d come.

The whispers followed, right at my ear now, escalating to a guttural moan that made goose bumps rise on my arms.

I remembered what the necromancer’s ghost at Lyle House had said—that he’d followed me from the hospital, where he’d been dealing with ghosts pestering mental patients. I guess if you’re a sadistic moron who’s been stuck in limbo for years, haunting mental patients—or young necromancers—might seem like a fun way to pass the time.

The moaning turned to a weird keening, like the wailing souls of the tormented dead.

I wheeled toward the noise. “Are you having fun? Well, guess what? If you keep it up, you’re going to find out that I’m a lot more powerful than you think. I’ll yank you out of there whether you want to show yourself or not.”

My delivery was pitch-perfect—strong and steady—but the ghost just gave a derisive snort, then resumed keening.

I felt my way to a crate, brushed dust off the top, and sat. “One last chance or I’m pulling you through.”

Two seconds of silence. Then the moaning again, right at my ear. I almost toppled off the crate. The ghost snickered. I closed my eyes and summoned, careful to keep my power on low, just in case his body was nearby. I might get some satisfaction from slamming him back into his rotting corpse, but I’d regret it later.

The moaning stopped. At a grunt of surprise, I smiled and amped it up, just a little.

The figure started to materialize—short, chubby guy old enough to be my grandfather. He twisted and writhed like he was caught in a straitjacket. I pulled harder….

A dull thump nearby made me jump.

“Liz?” I called. “Tori?”

The ghost snarled. “Let me go, you little—”

Another thump drowned out the nasty name he called me—or most of it. Then came a weird skittering noise.

“Let me go or I—”

I closed my eyes and gave the ghost one big mental shove. He gasped and sailed backward through the wall, like he’d been thrown out of a spaceship air lock. I waited to see if he’d return. He didn’t. I’d cast him to the other side, wherever ghosts live. Good.

Another thump. I scrambled to my feet, the ghost forgotten. I crept past a stack of crates and listened. Silence.

“Tori?” I whispered. “Liz?”

Um, if it’s
not
them, maybe calling their names isn’t such a bright idea.

I eased along the crates until I reached a gap. Through it, I saw the pale rectangle of a window. The grime was smudged, like someone had haphazardly rubbed it away.

The scratching sound came again. Then the smell hit, like that musky odor in the other room, only ten times worse. The skittering came again—like tiny claws on concrete.

Rats.

As I pulled back, the window darkened. Then
thump
. I looked up too late to see what it was. Was someone throwing stuff at the window? Maybe the boys, trying to get my attention.

I hurried forward, forgetting the rats, until I saw a dark blob on the shadowy floor, moving slow, like it was dragging something. That must be what I smelled—a dead animal that the rat was taking back to the nest.

When something brushed the top of my head, I yelped, clapping my hands over my mouth. A shadow flew past and hit the window with that familiar thump. As it fell, I noticed thin, leathery wings. A bat.

The dim shape flapped its wings against the concrete, making a scratchy, rustling noise. Weren’t bats supposed to fly by echolocation? It shouldn’t hit a window trying to escape.

Unless it was rabid.

The bat finally launched itself again. It fluttered away, weaving and bobbing like it was still dazed. It headed for the ceiling, then turned and came straight at me.

As I stumbled back my foot slipped, and I fell with a bone-jarring crack that set my injured arm on fire. I tried to leap up, but whatever I’d stepped on was stuck to my sneaker, sending me skidding again.

The thing on my sneaker was slick and cold. I pulled it off and raised it into the moonlight. Pinched between my fingers was a rotting wing. The bat I’d seen still had both of its wings, so there must be another one in here, dead.

I threw the wing across the room and frantically wiped my hand on my jeans. The bat swooped again. I ducked, but my foot slid out and I fell. As I hit the floor, a horrible smell enveloped me, so strong I coughed. Then I saw the bat, less than a foot away, teeth bared, long fangs white against the dark.

The cloud cover shifted, the light streaming into the room, and I realized I wasn’t looking at fangs but at white patches of skull. The bat was decomposing, one eye shriveled, the other a black pit. Most of the flesh was gone; only hanging bits remaining. The bat had no ears, no nose, just a bony snout. The snout opened. Rows of tiny jagged teeth flashed, and it started to shriek, a horrible garbled squeaking.

My shrieks joined it as I scrambled back. The thing pulled itself along on one crumpled wing. It was definitely a bat—and I’d raised it from the dead.

With my gaze fixed on the bat creeping toward me, I forgot about the other one until it flew at my face. I saw it coming—then saw its sunken eyes, bloody stumps of ears, and bone showing through patchy fur. Another zombie bat.

I slammed back into the crates. My hands sailed up to ward the bat off, but too late. It hit my face. I screamed then, really screamed as the rotted wings drummed me. The cold body hit my cheek. Tiny claws caught in my hair.

I tried to smack it away. It dropped. As I clapped my hands to my mouth, I felt something tugging at my shirt. I looked down to see the bat clinging to it.

Its fur wasn’t patchy at all. What I’d mistaken for spots of bone were wriggling maggots.

I pressed one hand to my mouth, stifling my screams. With my free hand, I swatted at it, but it clung there, rows of teeth opening and closing, head bobbing like it was trying to see me.

“Chloe? Chloe!” Liz raced through the outside wall. She stopped short, eyes going huge. “Oh my God. Oh my God!”

“G-get it off. P-please.”

I whirled, still swatting at the bat. Then I heard a sickening crunch as I stepped on the other one. When I wheeled, the one clinging to me fell off. As it hit the floor, Liz shoved the top crate off a stack and it fell on the fallen bat, the thud drowning out that horrible bone-crunching noise.

“I—I—I—”

“It’s okay,” she said, walking toward me. “It’s dead.”

“N-n-no. It’s…”

Liz stopped. She looked down at the bat I’d stepped on. It lifted one wing feebly, then let it fall. The wing twitched, claw scratching the concrete.

Liz hurried to a crate. “I’ll put it out of its misery.”

“No.” I held out my hand. “That won’t work. It’s already dead.”

“No, it’s not. It’s—” She bent for a closer look, finally seeing the decomposing body. She stumbled back. “Oh. Oh, it’s—It’s—”

“Dead. I raised it from the dead.”

She looked at me. And her expression…She tried to hide it, but I’ll never forget that look—the shock, the horror, the disgust.

“You…,” she began. “You can…?”

“It was an accident. There was a ghost pestering me. I—I was summoning him and I must have a-accidentally raised them.”

The bat’s wing fluttered again. I dropped beside it. I tried not to look, but of course I couldn’t help seeing the tiny body crushed on the concrete, bones sticking out. And still it moved, struggling to get up, claws scraping the concrete, smashed head rising—

I closed my eyes and concentrated on freeing its spirit. After a few minutes, the scratching stopped. I opened my eyes. The bat lay still.

“So what was it? A zombie?” Liz tried to sound calm, but her voice cracked.

“Something like that.”

“You…You can resurrect the dead?”

I stared at the crushed bat. “I wouldn’t call it resurrection.”

“What about people? Can you…?” She swallowed. “Do that?”

I nodded.

“So that’s what Tori’s mom meant. You raised zombies at Lyle House.”

“Accidentally.”

Uncontrollable powers…

Liz continued. “So it’s…like in the movies? They’re just empty, re-re—What’s the word?”

“Reanimated.” I wasn’t about to tell her the truth, that necromancers didn’t reanimate a soulless body. We took a ghost like Liz and shoved her back into her rotting corpse.

I remembered what the demi-demon said, about me nearly returning the souls of a thousand dead to their buried shells. I hadn’t believed her. Now…

Bile filled my mouth. I turned away, gagging and spitting it out.

“It’s okay,” Liz said, coming up beside me. “It’s not your fault.”

I looked at the box she’d shoved onto the other bat, took a deep breath, and walked to it. When I reached to move it, she said, “It’s dead. It must be—” She stopped and said in a small, shaky voice. “Isn’t it?”

“I need to be sure.”

I lifted the box.