Decay (27 page)

* * * * *

Orlando hated that dream. Waking from it was always welcome no matter what time of day it was. He groaned and rolled over, surprised to find himself in
his
bed back home. What was even more surprising was that he wasn't alone. When he looked over and saw a middle aged woman with dark hair curled in toward his side, he pinched himself.

“Mom?” he somehow managed to choke out.

The sound of his voice must have startled her awake because she jumped and rolled away from him. She
was
his mother. There was no question about it. He didn't see the woman often, but he'd recognize her anywhere because she never seemed to change much physically. Outside of a different hairstyle every so often, she was an older version of his sister. They had the same dirty blonde hair and bright blue eyes as him.

She rubbed his arm gently. “Yeah sweetie, it's me.”

“What are you doing here?” He blinked a few times, wanting to be positive she was, in fact, real.

“We came home as soon as your sister told us you were missing,” she said.

Mixed emotions moved through him. It touched him that he was important enough to drop business over, but it also frustrated him that it took such an extreme circumstance to bring both of his parents home again.

He turned away from her, rubbing at his eyes to dislodge the sleep from them. “I'm fine. You can go back to whatever it was you were doing. I'm sure your slave driver of a boss is missing you both over at...wherever you are this time around.”

His parents moved about constantly. They'd traveled the globe. He didn't even know what they did, and neither his mother nor his father offered up that information freely. Getting them to say anything about what they did was difficult. He'd given up on trying a long time ago.

With a sigh, his mother ran a hand through his hair in slow, soothing, strokes. He hated how much he liked it.

“Honey, I'm not leaving again,” she said. “Not for a few months at least. Even then, it may just be your father who goes. With everything that has been going on in your life, we both feel like it's best for us to stay home for a while.”

Orlando rolled his eyes. “Right, I totally believe that.”

“I know we haven't given you much reason to trust us.”

“No, you haven't.” The words she was saying were ones he'd heard at least a hundred times before.

She gave a weak smile. “There's a lot we need to talk about, but we'll wait until you feel better. Just know, I'm here now, and I'm not going anywhere this time.”

You shouldn't have ever left in the first place.
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to hold back all of his emotions. “Talking later would be best. Can't say I'm feeling too great right now. Kind of weak still, and tired. Oh, and hungry.”

“Let me make you something. I'm pretty sure you have a visitor or two anyway.” His mother leaned over him and kissed his forehead. That one action alone brought tears to his eyes. Thankfully, he was able to keep those back as well. He couldn't even remember the last time she'd kissed him. When they were home last summer, their goodbye had been rough and uncomfortable. Neither of his parents had expressed much emotion, and Orlando had been sure to do the same. To have her go from stiff and empty to compassionate was strange. Not to mention heartbreaking because he hated how much it took for his parents to notice either him or his sister were even alive.

He had guests, so there was no way he could have a breakdown. There was time for him to wallow in self-pity when he was alone later. Even then, it wouldn't be something he did for long. He'd gotten over his parents years ago. Outside of the fact that they created him, he had a hard time viewing them as more than two adults who came into the house sometimes and paid the bills.

His mother gave his hair one more ruffle before she stood up from the bed and left the room. Orlando took a moment to exhale slowly, preparing himself for whoever his mystery guest was. The moment Angela walked through the door, he relaxed. He didn't have to put up a front with her. Something about their relationship made it easy for him to bring down all of his walls. Tait had been good at doing the same thing until she betrayed his trust. Hopefully he wouldn't have to learn the hard way, again, that opening up was a bad idea. His teammates made him more secure. They'd gone through so much together. If anyone left, it'd probably be him and not them.

After shutting the door to his room, Angela pulled his desk chair up to the side of the bed, all smiles. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you're okay. What happened anyway? Cadence didn't say much over the phone.”

“I'm not sure how to explain it. There's a lot I'm still trying to piece together.” He sat up in bed and was startled by how heavy his body was. It took a lot of effort for him to move.

“Don't push yourself,” she said.

He shook his head. “I'm not. It's not like I'm in pain, just weak. Something she did to me...”

“She?”

“Nia,” he mumbled, then waved a hand. “She's a girl from my school. I'm not sure who tapped her, but she somehow has powers. Ones that can raise the dead.”

Angela's fists clenched. “I met her this weekend. She knows who I am, who JD is. We know who she is too, of course. Basically, we exchanged information. She works for the yellow tribe. If I'd known she was the one who did this to you, made you disappear, had us worrying so much, hurt you like this, I would have punched her in the face.”

He laughed. “That's a girl fight I would love to see. But honestly, she's not worth breaking your nails over. Let me continue though, because it's not all her fault. I agreed to let her do this to me.”

“Why?” Angela frowned so deeply, he didn't know what to make of it. No one had ever expressed so much concern for him before.

For a moment, he was quiet. Finding the right words to explain the entire situation was difficult. There was a lot to process still. “Sometime over the winter, she became buddy-buddy with my best friend.” He paused, licking his lips. “My best friend who died a couple of years ago.”

“Mildly creepy, but...whoa.”

“Tell me about it.” He closed his eyes. “They came up with this idea that she could bring him back to life for good. You know, make him more than just some kind of animated corpse. In order to do that, though, she needed to use the life force of another living being. Preferably a person because, well, we're sentient and have powerful energy or some kind of strange scientific thing I can't quite explain. They wanted to use me, and I agreed.”

“You volunteered your life to bring back your best friend?”

He nodded. “Because I felt like it was my fault he died in the first place. I understand better now why he did kill himself. He claims the actions rest on his shoulders alone, but I still sort of feel like they partly rest on mine too. We both could have done a lot of things differently.” She leaned forward but didn't say anything, and for that he was grateful. Side commentary was not welcome for the time being. “I don't know how much you know about Dallas, and I don't want to give you the whole story now of what happened.”

Angela raked her lower lip between her teeth for a few seconds. “The name rings a bell, but I wasn't in the high school then. Most of the gossip from that year never made it to my ears. Some of it still lingers. What I do know is there was a kid in your grade who committed suicide during your Freshman year, and that was the same year you 'flipped your lid' and became an outsider. I never put the two events together, but then, neither does anyone else.”

“Not many people do. Most are too shallow to make the connection.”

“Hey now!”

He laughed. “Present company not included.”

She sat back in the chair. “That's better.”

“Anyway, when the process was taking too long, not working, becoming too painful to me, Dallas decided he didn't want to be brought back anymore. We had our heartfelt gushy talk about life and death and everything in-between. I fell back asleep, and when I woke up, Cadence and Jaes were there. We teleported back here, and I passed out again.”

“That's quite the adventure,” she said.

Orlando nodded. “Tell me about it. My parents are here too. Feels kind of like I'm at some sort of dysfunctional life reunion.”

“Yeah, I saw your mom on my way up. I said about two words to your dad. He's kind of rough. Doesn't smile, and he gave me the impression that he wanted me to go away.”

“Don't take it personally. I get the same vibes. Only he doesn't want me to go away, I can just tell he has other places and other things to be doing whenever we hang out. According to my Mom they're going to be sticking around for a few months. I'm honestly not sure how I feel about that.” He picked at the lint on his bedspread.

Angela moved her hand closer to his. They didn't touch, not at first, because he could sense her hesitation as she rested it on his lap. After a few seconds had passed, she closed the gap and gave his hand a squeeze. “You're so used to not having them around, it's easier to have them gone. Is that it?”

He met her gaze with his own. “Something along those lines. I'm taking it with a grain of salt anyway.”

“You're okay, though? Nia didn't hurt you too much, did she? It's sweet, what you wanted to do, but don't do it again. Okay? Maybe you feel like it's worth the sacrifice, but a lot of people were worried sick about you. I've never been more scared in my life. And that's saying a lot because I met some weird people and saw some weird stuff too,” she said.

“I didn't realize...”

“Well now you do. I've grown very attached to you, so think about that next time before you decide to be all heroic.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah...”

She gave his hand one more squeeze before letting go. It amazed him how much he missed the touch the instant that it was gone. Her hands were soft and warm, comforting. There was something else going on too, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Regardless, he didn't want her to stop.

“Does she know who you are? I mean, that you're a part of our team and stuff?”

Orlando shook his head. “No, but I'm pretty sure Dallas does. He has the knowledge of the other realm, though, and mentioned something about stalking me in his free time when he was ghost. I don't know if he said anything to her, but if she does know, she acted oblivious to it. Then again, she didn't have issues with talking about having powers and all that stuff in front of me, so who knows?”

“I'm still going to punch her, I think.”

He chuckled. “Why don't you tell me about what I missed? You said you saw some weird stuff, like what?”

Angela played with her long, dark, hair, twirling it around her index finger. “Where to begin... I saw a guy get shot and heal himself. I should mention he's a cyborg, and I think he's also a traitor. That was fun. JD rescued some corpses and brought back a shiny gold box that's apparently important. That's what we went into the mission to retrieve from the beginning. It's some kind of Alturan artifact.

“I met a snotty girl named Gabriel, got hit on by the cybornetic guy, was shot at by a girl who makes bullets from her body and fires them without a gun, and purposefully threw up so I didn't get JD and I busted. Like, everyone was doing the grand identity reveal thing at the end of the mission. If I hadn't gotten us out of there when I did, they'd all know. And I don't think that'd be a good thing either. Not with my suspicions about the cyborg, who goes by the name of Drone I should add. Overall it was a good time, let me tell you.”

“Sounds like it,” Orlando said. “I miss all of the fun. I spent the whole time sleeping, yet I'm still tired.”

“I'll make it up to you when you feel stronger,” she said. “Oh, I got you something!”

Orlando raised an eyebrow. “You did? Why?”

He could have sworn she blushed, but it didn't last long. She got up from her chair and went over to his dresser. When she faced him again, he saw a small square box about the size of a volleyball in height, but thin in width, in her hands. Covering it were heart stickers and smiling faces. Without a word, she handed it to him. Curious, he opened the box and pulled out a dream catcher. It was unlike any other he'd seen before. Woven into the design was an image of a horse head. Long blue and white strings dangled off of the bottom, ending in black tipped white feathers.

Angela was still standing, and she fidgeted with her hands in front of her. “It made me think of that galaxy you like so much. And I know you'll probably never admit to it, but you seem like you could use some good dreams. Just a vibe I get. Anyway, it made me think of you.”

“Thank you. I honestly, don't know what else to say. I can't remember the last time I got a gift just because someone saw something and thought of me,” he said and traced the outsides of the circle with a few fingers.

She shrugged. “It's what friends do. I'll hang it up for you, and then you think about resting again. You need to get better, fast. Something tells me we're going to be having another hard mission coming up, and we're definitely going to want your help. Having you around for this past one would have made a lot of things easier. Plus, I just miss hanging out.”

“I have that effect on people.” He smirked. “Go ahead and put it over by the window.”

Smiling, she walked over to the large window across the room and found a place to hang the dream catcher in the center. “I'll stop by tomorrow to check up on you.”

“Thanks,” he said, settling back into his covers and laying back down. He watched her go, saddened. It was necessary, unfortunately. After he ate whatever his mother brought back to him, he'd want to go right back to bed. He'd apparently missed a lot while he was gone. There were so many questions running through his mind. What big plans did Alan's people have for this artifact? Who was this supposed traitorous cyborg who was hitting on Angela? Why did that even bother him so much? And finally, what was in it for Nia?