Escaping Grace: A Turning Grace Novel (10 page)

I placed my bag in the sand and walked over to him. I couldn’t remember the last time I rode a bike. Although this bike wasn’t going anywhere, it was kind of nice to be on one again.

I sat down, resting my feet on the pedals and my hands on the handlebars.

Number One placed a hand on my chest (just above my boobs) and a hand on my back and pushed. “You’ve got to maintain a good posture while you workout. Keep your back straight and your abs tight,” he informed me.

I did what I was told, feeling an urge to say, “Yes, Sir”.

He left me to do my thing while he moved over to the weight bench. He laid back and lifted the bar up above his head, not flinching one bit as he maneuvered it up and down above his chest.

I peered out into the ocean.

Wow.

I completely understood why he would want his gym equipment to be outside, besides the fact that he probably couldn’t fit it in his Smurf hut. It was absolutely stunning to watch the light from the sun reflect off the crystal clear water that twinkled in the distance.

The view mixed with the warm breeze dancing through my hair made me feel like I was filming one of those fitness shows that came on early in the morning.

Number One had a nice set up here.

“What’s your name?” I felt like an idiot asking him what his name was after all this time, but I was getting tired of calling him Number One in my thoughts.

He continued lifting the bar up and down about five more times before answering. His feelings were perhaps hurt.

Geez, I was a horrible person. This man was probably trained to stand in front of a bullet for me, and I didn’t even know his name.

He sat up and reached for a white towel to wipe away the beads of sweat from his forehead.

“Vito.”

Good Lord! If this man wasn’t Italian, then I didn’t know what was. Scenes from the movies
Casino
and
The Godfather
flashed before my eyes. And the more I stared at him in that moment, the more I could see him cast in one of them. He really did look like an Italian mobster.

“So, Italian?” I asked, just to be sure.

“Yes.”

“Are you from Italy?”

“No, but I have family there. I’m from New York.”

That was kind of surprising. I didn’t hear the usual accent from up there.

I nodded once and looked away, trying to think of another question regarding his personal life before the subject was changed. “How did you end up here?”

He walked over to the weight stand again and picked up a dumbbell. He then lifted it up over his head and laid it on his back, pulling it up and down behind him.

“You want the full story?”

Um, yes please! Number One…er…Vito, barely even spoke. To hear him utter more than two sentences at a time would be a treat.

“Sure,” I mumbled, trying to mask my eagerness.

“I was in the Corps for four years. Served in Desert Storm. When I got out, I met my wife and we got married. Had a kid not long after. I joined the Academy and ran the street beat for a while. Met a group of guys who were into diving and decided the try it out.”

“Diving near Cocos Island was a dream that we decided to make real. And that’s when I met Dr. Roberson.”

It was as if he had told this story a million times before, and was just tired of telling it. But I really doubted anyone would ask him about his life. The only people I have ever seen him speak to were Dr. Roberson and I.

The questions were building and building inside me. “You were a cop.” This was more of a confirmation.

“Yes.”

“And you came here to dive, which was when you met Dr. Roberson.”

“Yes. We met and just started talking. He mentioned he needed security for his facility, so I took the offer.” He moved over to the weight bench again and laid back.

“You just decided to pick up and leave America? What about your wife and kid?” There must have been a divorce, because Cocos Island wasn’t a hop, skip, and a jump away. And even then, he must have to travel often to see his kid.

When Vito didn’t answer right away, and the speed in which he was lifting the bar of weights over his chest increased, I knew something wasn’t right.

He lifted one more time, holding the bar high above him for a moment before setting it back on its rest. He sat up and leaned forward, wiping his forehead with the towel again. It actually looked like the wind was sucked right out of him.

And then…he finally answered. “They died.”

Lovely. Of course I had to be the one to drum up dark thoughts in someone who clearly walked around every day with sad memories and the weight of a thousand tons on his shoulders. This explained so much of how Vito carried himself. He was in pain. Constantly.

I was expecting the conversation to end right then and there, but shockingly he continued.

“It was a car accident. Drunk driver ran them off the road.”

My chest sunk in, and I fought the urge to go over and give him a hug. His sentences were so short, but there was so much meaning behind them.

I tried to look him in the eyes, but his head was hanging low. This man lost his wife and his child within the span of a single day. And although he was so severe and serious the majority of the time, I knew all along that somewhere deep down inside him was a simple, loving man. Maybe even a teddy bear.

“How old was your…” I knew asking this question may cross some emotional boundaries for him, but I wanted to know more about him now than ever before.

“My daughter. She was twelve. It was five years ago.”

Holy crap! I was twelve five years ago! She would have been my age. Vito could have been my father.

He stood up and headed toward the treadmill.

I kept pedaling my way to nowhere as I watched him begin jogging with his perfect posture. His eyes focused intently on what was in front of him, but I knew he couldn’t actually see anything. He was remembering his life with his wife and his daughter.

Of course, the sincere part of me wanted to know her name. Maybe somehow I could reminisce about his daughter with him so he wouldn’t feel alone. But I didn’t ask. He had already revealed so much to me, and there was no doubt in my mind that it was a grueling task for a man like him to show his emotions.

Instead, we continued our workout together that day and the months that followed.

Chapter 9

The Birthday

Every day that I woke up in my comfy bed, it took me a moment to remember exactly where I was. It was still almost unbelievable, even after months of being here, that I decided to pick up and leave everything I knew. Everything that was home, that was familiar and comfortable and easy. Well, I wouldn’t say that the days leading up to my departure were exactly easy. They were horrible actually. There wasn’t a passing day that I didn’t think about Phoebe and Eric and my mother, even through getting acquainted with my fellow Zombrids and the food and Everlasting Paradise in general.

As for Tristen, I hadn’t heard a single word from him. Not a text message, an email, a phone call…nothing. I tried calling him, but it would either go straight to voicemail or ring till it did. I tried calling his parents to be sure that he, at the very least, made it back to the States safely, but they seemed to have been avoiding me as well.

When I spoke to Mom, I asked her to check up on Tristen for me. The only information she could get was that they were moving, and that was only because she went to their house and saw the For Sale sign.

I still wasn’t really on speaking terms with my mother, but I spoke to her at least once a week. Yes, I was still upset with her. But I figured, out of respect, she should at least know that her daughter was doing okay. 

Besides missing home, my life at the facility wasn’t all that bad. I started taking classes to finish up the rest of my senior year. Classes were every day and taught by two different professors, both of whom had general knowledge in pretty much everything. According to V (I decided V suited him better than Vito) there were more professors at one point. But since the “incident” that resulted in moving most of the Zombrid population to East Cocos, there was no use for that many at the moment.

Mr. Hernandez and Ms. Price lived on the second floor of El Matador. Other than seeing them in class and sometimes in the courtyard, they pretty much steered clear of the rest of the compound. Destiny mentioned that they traveled quite a bit to Costa Rica to volunteer and do other types of work. I was leaning more toward them just not wanting to be around a bunch of starving, skin-eating Zombrids. I wasn’t even completely sure if they knew what we were.

There was apparently going to be a graduation ceremony for those who finished school, which was only Destiny and I. She missed a ton of school on account of her drug addiction and homelessness. Maddi was still in grade school. Charlie had already graduated and earned some sort of hairstyling certificate in her past life. She was more or less the resident hairstylist…and a kind of stepmother to Maddi. I wasn’t completely sure why (we were still not on a friendly level due to her aversion to me), but she was all about Maddi. Which, I guess, was a nice thing. Having a mother-figure wasn’t at all a terrible thing when you are going through such changes in your life.

Ian finished his college classes about a year ago, but he still took some classes here and there. I guess for something to do. As a matter of fact, he and Destiny both decided to take advantage of my gift from Dr. Roberson. Every Tuesday and Thursday a professional makeup artist would come to teach us all about the world of movie makeup.

It was beyond what I ever imagined I would be doing. Learning how to apply prosthetics and blending and making plaster molds was amazing. Not to mention, the three of us had a blast doing it together.

I wanted so badly to tell Tristen all about the class. Evidently, it would seem that he didn’t care anymore. Just all of the sudden. Out of the blue.

It bugged the crap out of me till no end! Not knowing what the hell I did wrong or what his problem was with me ate me up inside more than my growing hunger.

Over the months I decided that he left not only because his parents wanted him to, but because he wanted to. I read his letter a million and one times, trying to somehow understand why he chose that method of communication to break up with me. And then lie about contacting me once he got back. 

Thankfully, between classes and hanging out at the beach and learning about my hut-mates and eating, there was a slight lessening of the
whys?
in my head. But just a smidge.

Destiny and Ian did help to relieve some of the stress regarding Tristen. They were both funny and fun to be around; Destiny with her witty yet slightly-creepy-cause-of-all-the-goth banter and Ian with his goofiness. They were both naturally amusing, but both not afraid to tell it like it is. I liked that about them very much, but actually felt closer to Ian than I did Destiny. He was silly and laid back and just went with the flow of things. He seemed as though he didn’t have a care or worry in the world. Maybe it wasn’t that I felt close to him. Maybe it was that I wanted to be like him.

There was certainly NO love blossoming there, though. While Ian was smooth and sexy and had a smile that could melt your heart (you know, the one where the top lip kind of curls and you either want to pinch it, kiss it, or bite it), I wasn’t looking for any kind of romance. Tristen was still heavily on my mind and to be honest…I missed him.

But with Ian’s alluring accent and hot, everything, he was certainly on my list of guys I would so date.

There was a rumor, well…I didn’t know if you would call it a rumor per se. Destiny seemed to be the gossip queen in the group and since the group was really small, I kind of believed it. Anyway, the rumor was that Charlie and Ian hooked up at some point. The way they carried on as friends didn’t necessarily prove that to be true, however according to the Goth Princess, they were only friends with benefits, if you know what I mean.

True or not, that alone encouraged me to stay away from flirting or doing anything even close to that with Ian. If we were speaking technically, I did steal Tristen away from Sonny. Add in the hatred that Charlie already felt for me (for reasons that were not my fault), flirting with her ex-beau would only be a motive for a physical altercation. I had enough drama between Sonny and me. Not that Charlie was anything like Sonny, personality wise. She was smart and tough and drop dead gorgeous. And I was not trying to say Sonny was none of the above.

Sonny was more or less the typical blond bombshell and socialite of our town. I could see Charlie as more of the sexy badass leader of an all-women’s motorcycle gang, which is the main reason why I wouldn’t want to piss her off. Although, biting probably wouldn’t be involved if we did get into a fight. But I don’t know, would we try to eat our own kind?

Speaking of eating, that was no longer a problem. Well, the act of eating was never a problem, just the stupid passing out and all those fantastic effects from
not
eating. I kept true to my food intake schedule by dining on five meals and at least two snacks a day. It turned out Estelle was on this schedule too, and we had our very own special menu. I thanked God for this, because I certainly worried about the others feeling like I got special treatment. Plus, it helped Estelle and I develop a nice friendship. We usually met up in Newport to have our meals together.

She was such a fascinating woman! After that moment of silence happened while we demolished the delicious grub on our plates, we tended to sit and talk for hours every single day. Actually she would talk, I would listen. A person has not truly lived unless they’ve been alive for one hundred and fourteen years.

I listened attentively while she narrated the story of her life. She was born near the beginning of the 1900s, and had seen everything from the Great Depression to the Age of Radios to war. She was there when Martin Luther King Jr. shared his dream and she was there to watch the first non-silent movie. She was involved in the Harlem Renaissance, performing in all-black plays as a singer and a dancer. She flew planes and drove boats, even rode elephants while on safari in Africa. And traveling was an understatement. She has literally been to the ends of the earth and back, traveling to almost every part of every continent. Not to mention, she still had time in between to meet a dashing Navy man during Fleet Week, marry him, and have six children, all of which are grandparents themselves.

This was why I completely understood her desire to…die. It justified the reasoning behind why I didn’t agree with immortality. There will come a time when an immortal has done everything there is to do.

Estelle’s exact words were, “I’m ready to take a long, long, nap.”

I tried to not think about being immortal. Besides that and Tristen, there wasn’t much to complain about at this moment in my life. I was feeling good and healthy. I was making friends with some very interesting people. And Everlasting Paradise was indeed a…paradise.

There was a knock at my door. I got up from my computer, grabbing my bottle of red liquid goodness. I did miss Mom’s famous pomegranate juice (which turned out to contain human blood too), but this was better. Drinking pure blood straight out of a bottle took some getting used to, except it didn’t really take that long. It was sort of like an energy drink for us Zombrids. Ian coined it “Z juice”.

“You ready?”

“Yup.”

Ian and I walked out into the courtyard to wait for everyone else at one of the picnic tables. It was Maddi’s birthday and we decided to celebrate with presents and cake. There wasn’t a mall or a store available where we could just go and buy whatever we wanted, but there was Amazon and they delivered to the facility, believe it or not. I think Dr. Roberson made some kind of deal with the company.

I learned that Dr. Roberson had more money than he could ever count. Apparently he was a doctor, bestselling author, philanthropist, and founder of a few charities. He was also already wealthy from the beginning, having come from a very successful family.

He definitely was not afraid to spend his money either. He made sure that every one of us had everything we would need on an island in the middle of nowhere. We had cell phone service, an internet and cable provider, the best technology gadgets, and all of the essentials to make it feel like we weren’t miles and miles away on a remote island.

We each had our own money too. I had money that was put into my bank account by my mother every few weeks, but for the people who didn’t have parents or family that could do that, Dr. Roberson would give them a sort of allowance. Did they have to work for it? Nope. Being here was more than enough reason to earn an allowance, according to Dr. Roberson.

Since we did have money, Estelle, Destiny, Ian, Charlie and I decided to surprise Maddi with a glass display cabinet for her seashell collection. Not something someone would normally buy a girl turning twelve years old, but we knew she would cherish it just as much as her shells.

We also threw in some other gifts like clothes and toys to mix it up a bit.

“Hey, when is your birthday?” Ian asked while we waited for the rest of the gang to join us.

“It’s June 10
th
. You?”

“April 14
th
.”

“How old are you?” I asked curiously. He had to be in his early twenties.

“How old do I look?”

I sighed. “Really? Estelle is over one hundred years old and I would have never guessed that if I didn’t know. I have no idea! You could be two hundred. I’m not even sure how this whole birthday thing works anymore.”

Ian tried to contain his laugh, but failed. “What do you mean? They work like any other birthday.”

“Well, yeah. But do we age or are we like…vampires? Will I always be seventeen?” It may have sounded like it wasn’t a serious question, but it was. First of all, I really had no clue what the serum could have done to my aging process. Although she turned at an already old age, Estelle did look a whole lot younger than she was. Did it stop us from growing older? Did it reverse the aging process?

And second, I honestly didn’t know if we could be compared to vampires or not. My mentioning of vampires was actually an attempt to get some kind of conformation of whether or not vampires were even real. Apparently we lived in a world where zombies were real, so…

Ian turned his body toward me before he began his explanation. “Okay, so vampires aren’t real. Let’s just get that out of the way first. And no, you will not be seventeen forever. You will still have birthdays. We grow older to a certain age, which is when we hit adulthood. After that, as long as we get the food we need, we’ll look that way forever.”

“So, Maddi won’t look like she’s twelve forever,” I stated.

“No. She will get to her adult age, and then stay there. Estelle was already much older when she got the Z. But because she eats what she’s supposed to, her body is in great shape and looks it too.”

I suppose that made sense. Essentially, we were half dead. If we didn’t get what our bodies needed, we would just…die. Well, without actually dying. Deteriorate. Decompose.

“Do you understand now?”

“I think so. This is all still just so surreal. It’s hard to keep up with everything sometimes,” I admitted.

“I know. It’s gets easier.”

At that moment, the rest of the Zombrid crew came out to meet us at the picnic table. Maddi was all smiles as she came to sit next to her pile of presents. But her eyes were set on the big one, the display cabinet. It was wrapped, so I was positive she was dying to tear it open to find out what it was.

“Are we ready to sing Happy Birthday so Maddi can finally open her gifts? I think she might explode!” Ian said.