Dead Set (8 page)

“You said before that he didn't ask for anything, but I don't know if you were telling me the truth. People like Emmett, they always ask for something.”

“How do you know?”

“I see a lot up here.” Valentine nodded to the telescope propped against the tree.

Zoe looked out at the spinning carousel. “I gave him a tooth.”

Valentine whirled around. “You gave him one of your teeth?” Valentine said, fear or anger edging into his voice.

“No!” said Zoe. “I gave him a tooth. Not my tooth.” It felt like everyone was after her tonight.

Very quietly, Valentine said, “What do you think he wanted with one of your teeth?”

“I don't know. He's a lonely old weirdo who bribes girls for souvenirs. He probably beats off to them when he goes home.”

“I wouldn't be so worried if that's all it was.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there's only one reason someone like Emmett would want a tooth from someone like you. That's to gain power over you.”

“What kind of power?”

“I don't know exactly,” said Valentine. He crossed his arms and frowned. “The point is that anyone who asks you for something like that isn't your friend. Emmett is dangerous and he wants a lot more from you than a tooth.”

“But he sent me to see Dad. He's going to let me take Dad's spirit home tomorrow.”

“And what does he want for that?”

Zoe bit the inside of her cheek. It hurt immediately, so she stopped. She wanted to yell at Valentine the same way she'd yelled at her mother. She'd come here to share something wonderful with him and he was spoiling it by being more scared of a silly old creep than she was of snakes. And snakes were real and could really hurt you. Zoe wasn't scared of Emmett. She'd handled jocks trying to cop feels in the hallways at school and her friends' stepfathers when they got too touchy-feely. Zoe knew she could take care of herself, but knew Valentine wouldn't believe her. It was still Valentine, though, and she didn't want to lie to him again.

“Some of my blood,” she said.

“Blood,” said Valentine flatly. He shook his head. “You can't see him again. No matter what he promised you.”

“Look, if he's as bad as you say, then I can't leave Dad with him.”

“Father can take care of himself. He wouldn't want you putting yourself in danger.”

“I don't believe this,” said Zoe. All the frustration and anger she'd felt earlier with her mother was coming back. “What do you mean control me? For what? You think he wants to rape me or something?”

“Maybe,” said Valentine evenly. “But there are some things even worse.”

“Like what?”

Valentine shook his head and walked to the far end of the platform.

“I'm only going back one more time,” said Zoe. “Then I'm never going to see him again.”

“You're in danger already.”

“You know what? I don't care,” Zoe shouted. “I've seen a lot of stuff in the last few days and I'm willing to sacrifice a little of my safety for Dad because I know he'd do it for me.”

Valentine picked up the telescope and walked around to the far side of the tree without saying a word. When Zoe came around the tree, he was holding the telescope up and was looking at the mountain.

“Want to hear something funny?” Zoe asked.

“Always.”

“A girl told me she wanted to kiss me.”

Valentine slid the telescope sections in and out, focusing it. “I can see that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you're pretty. Why wouldn't she want to kiss you?”

Zoe looked away, embarrassed by the compliment.

“Is she cute?” Valentine asked.

“Yeah. You'd like her.”

“You'll have to introduce me sometime.”

Zoe grinned and leaned back against the tree. “Anyway, I just wanted to tell someone.”

Valentine came over and hugged her. “Thanks,” he said. Zoe nodded. She reached up, grabbed a low branch, and lifted up her feet. She hung there until her arms got tired and she had to put her feet down again.

“Come here,” Valentine said from over by the railing. He pulled a book of matches from his back pocket. As Zoe came up next to him, he struck a match and let it drop. The match became a microscopic meteor streaking to the ground. But before it could hit, a half-dozen snakes struck at it. He lit another match and dropped it. The snakes struck at that one, too. He handed the matches to Zoe and let her toss a few. Each time she tossed a burning match toward them, the snakes attacked. She remembered Mr. Danvers saying that snakes had lousy eyes, but could sense the heat their prey gave off.

“See? They're easy to fool,” said Valentine.

When Zoe got bored teasing the snakes, she gave the matches back to Valentine and looked over the field to the rides. “It's too bad we can't go over there.”

“That's okay,” Valentine said. He was back looking through the telescope. “It'd be kind of weird with whatever's on the mountain.” He handed the telescope to Zoe and pointed to the mountain, at a spot near the peak. Zoe put her eye to the lens and peered through.

The mountain was still swallowed by mist. It raged in brutal gusts, forming a slow whirlwind like a procession of angry ghosts. Through the mist, Zoe could just make out a shape that looked like a man hunkered down in the snow. There was a glint of something shiny nearby. The mist cleared for a second and Zoe got a better look at him. The man's face was covered, but she saw that he, too, had a telescope. And he was looking right at her and Valentine. She remembered something Emmett said: “I watch people.” But she knew it couldn't be him in her dream, so she pushed the thought out of her head.

“I don't want you to go see that Emmett guy again,” Valentine said. “But I know you will, so you need to be careful.”

Zoe looked at him. “I still have Dad's razor.”

“Keep it with you for a while. Don't let it out of your sight.”

Z
oe got up early and went straight to her closet. At the bottom of the box where she'd retrieved her baby teeth, she found her father's shaving kit. She'd found it in the trash when they were packing up the old house, which had really pissed her off. Her mother had been on a rampage to get rid of sharp objects, and maybe there was good reason for her attitude at the time. Zoe had been a little crazy during the weeks between the funeral and the sale of the house. But so was her mother, she thought, which maybe explains why she thought it was a good idea to throw away the whole kit. Good thing that Zoe had made a point of sifting through the trash cans during the night, looking for lost treasures.

She took the straight razor from the shaving kit and went to hide it under the T-shirts in her dresser. When she opened the drawer she could tell that the T-shirts had been moved. She always stacked the East Coast and West Coast punk bands in different piles. Now they were mixed together, which meant that her mother was looking for contraband in her room yesterday. Good, she thought. She's already checked the drawer, so it's the perfect place to hide something. When she'd slid the kit under the shirts, Zoe tucked the straight razor into her back pocket and put on one of her father's old Fear T-shirts, one that hung low and loose over her hips. She checked herself in the mirror and nodded, satisfied that the shirt covered the outline of the razor.

There was a soft knock at the door and her mother stuck her head in. “You ready to go?”

“Yep,” Zoe said, grabbing her backpack from the floor. She tried to look cheerful on the way out but felt too weird, so she settled for trying to look relaxed.

The drive to school was mercifully short. The car wasn't even too embarrassing—a relatively new, red, four-door Honda Civic. Zoe found a song she liked on the radio, but when she turned it up, one of the speakers in the back crackled and died. She sighed and turned it off. They rode the rest of the way in silence.

She was hoping that her mother would drop her and speed away in the rented car. She had to suppress a groan when, after they stopped, her mother shifted the car into neutral.

“Thanks for the ride,” Zoe said, and reached for the door handle. Her mother put a hand on her arm.

“I have to go see the lawyers today and then I have a second interview at a place I went last week,” she said.

“That's great. Good luck,” said Zoe.

“Thanks. Promise me you'll go to your classes and be good. I'll pick you up at four.”

“I promise,” she said, feeling funny and wondering how she could possibly keep the promise and still make it to Emmett's.

“I know there's something else going on that you're not telling me about,” said her mother. “I won't push you on it. When you're ready, I want you to know that you can talk to me and tell me anything.”

“I know. Thanks,” Zoe said, feeling gratitude for her mother reaching out, but fear that the timing was all wrong. “See you later.”

She got out of the car, feeling pure relief as her mother drove away.

I
t was like she had a fever all day. Zoe felt hot and her classes were all a complete blank. She'd sit through English or history, and as she walked out the door realize that she hadn't heard a word or remembered a thing that anyone had said. Not even Mr. Danvers's class got through the fog that enveloped her brain. He was talking about reptiles again, but her mind kept leaping from one thought to the next, one problem to another.

How was she going to get to Emmett's and back without breaking her promise to her mother? Not that breaking promises or lying had stopped her from much of anything recently . . . And if she did ditch her afternoon classes, could she make it back to school before four?

And if she did make it to Emmett's, then what? She kept playing Valentine's warning over and over in her head. She wondered about the man on the mountain, looking at them through a telescope. Had it been Emmett? Why would it be him? She'd gone back to him day after day and given him what he wanted. Well, except for that last time, she thought. Still, he got a tooth, another creepy trophy for his collection. What more could he want from her? Then she shifted in her seat and felt the razor in her pocket, which brought back Valentine's warning.

Absynthe wasn't helping. Sitting a couple of rows ahead of Zoe, Absynthe could always find the perfect moment, when the other kids were distracted by one of Mr. Danvers's skulls or a drawing on the blackboard, to turn and shoot Zoe an inquiring look. She mouthed, “How did it go?”

Zoe just shrugged and mouthed, “Talk to you after class.”

When the bell rang, Zoe lost Absynthe in the mad rush as people ran off to lunch or the bleachers for a beer or weed break. When she didn't see Absynthe by the lockers or in the hallway, she went outside and around the building to the staircase that Absynthe had led her to yesterday. Sure enough, Absynthe was there, leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette. Her hair looked very blue in the sunlight. She wore a black thrift-store little girl's party dress, trimmed in moth-eaten white lace, and green-and-black-striped tights tucked into the tops of shiny thick-soled boots covered in laces and buckles. They looked like something from a science-fiction movie. Zoe smiled to herself.

“What are you smiling at?” asked Absynthe.

“I like the Aeon Flux boots,” she said.

Absynthe put her hands together with her index fingers steepled like a gun and made shooting noises with her mouth. Zoe grabbed her chest and fell against the wall like she'd been shot. When she was done dying, she leaned against the wall looking down the cul-de-sac at the other girl.

“Listen, I didn't mean to freak you out or anything yesterday,” Absynthe said. “About the kiss thing.”

“Don't worry about it,” said Zoe. “It's fine.”

“We still friends or whatever?” Absynthe asked. The question surprised Zoe. It was funny thinking of Absynthe as uncertain about something.

“We're cool,” Zoe said. “I'm much more tweaked about other things today.”

“Then come over here and tell me about it.” Absynthe sat on the steps in front of an old fire door and patted the space next to her. Zoe came over and sat down.

“So what's the big deal about today?”

Zoe sighed. “Aside from being grounded, I need to see someone and get back to school before my mother gets here later.”

“Is this about your mystery man?”

“Which one?” said Zoe, and laughed ruefully.

“There's more than one? Damn, girl. Here I was thinking I was corrupting a little suburban girl and you've got a secret harem.”

Zoe leaned back against the pockmarked surface of the fire door. “I wish it was that simple. There's one guy I'm worried about helping and another I just have to deal with to do it. And I want to finish this all up today so it's over with and I don't have to see him anymore.”

“Then why don't you just go? Do the deed and get back before your mom's any the wiser?”

Zoe shrugged. “I wasn't before, but now I'm a little weirded out by the guy.”

“Did he hurt you?” asked Absynthe. There was real concern in her voice.

“No. He never did anything but what I asked him. But he's always been a little weird and yesterday someone warned me about him.”

“Maybe you should take the advice and forget about this guy.”

“That's the problem. I can't. He has something of mine, and I really need it. I don't know what I'll do if I didn't get it back.”

Absynthe puffed the cigarette, dropped it on the ground, and stubbed it out. “Then do it fast and do it now. It's daytime and people aren't as crazy as they get after dark. Don't chitchat, just do what you have to do and get out.” She leaned forward on her knees and clasped her hands together. “I can wait for you. If you like.”