Payback (3 page)

Someone was watching her. She could feel hot snail-trails crisscrossing her body where their eyes touched her. Yana cracked open her eyelids and did a survey of her surroundings. Yeah. Uh-huh. Skeevy guy at four o’clock leering at her and thinking-she didn’t even want to know what. If she did, she’d have to soap out her brain.
Well, what’d you expect, sleeping in a bus station?

she asked herself.

She stood up slowly, her vertebrae cracking.
Note to self,
she thought.
Sleeping on a wooden bench sucks.
At least the drugs Aiden had pumped into her had worn off. Yana lightly fingered the bruise on the inside of her left arm. It formed a circle around the red pinprick where the needle had gone in. A few hours ago she could have been deep in conversation with a poodle or a trash can and thought it was her best friend. That’s how messed up she’d been.

Yana shot the skeev a dirty look, then headed over to the bathroom. She could see the little triangle-skirted woman on the door nice and clear, luckily. This wasn’t a place where you wanted to wander into the wrong john. She stepped inside, went straight to the closest sink, and splashed her face with cold water. Aaah! Even better. She was getting focused now. Getting sharp. She lo oked like hel - her bloodshot blue eyes were like some hideous Fourth of July decoration, and her skin was a sickly yel owish co lor. But in her head she was getting close to a hundred percent. Okay, that was bul . But she was past the fifty percent mark and moving up. Her next step was clear.

Yana looked around for some paper towels to dry her face. The place only had an air dryer. She stepped in front of it, cranked the fat nozzle up, and punched the button. With a roar, hot air hit her face. It actual y felt kind of good. Anything real felt good after the drug haze she’d been in when she’d broken out of the observation room Aiden had locked her in. Make that walked out when the security system crashed. The shape she’d been in, she wouldn’t have been able to break out of a plastic bag.

When the dryer kicked off, Yana combed her white-blond hair with her fingers, then headed out of the bathroom. She hurried di rectly to the ticket booth.
Okay, let’s see if I’ve still got it,
she thought. She smiled at the woman behind the counter. “I’l take a one-way to Atlanta,” she said. Then she reached into her pocket and pul ed out a Big Red gum wrapper.

That’s a fifty.
She imagined throwing the thought at the woman-like a softbal to the forehead. Would it work? Or had whatever crap Aiden had given her somehow spayed her?

Yana’s smile widened as the woman put the gum wrapper under the drawer of her cash register-where the big bil s went-and then started counting out the change.

By the time I get back to Atlanta, I’ll be at a hundred percent,
she promised herself as the woman handed her her ticket and change.
And I’ll be ready to do what needs to be done.
“For you, Mom,” she whispered.

“Okay, so right arm, turn head to left, left arm, turn head to right,” Rae said. “Anthony, hel o, are you listening?”

“Right arm, head left, yep,” he answered. He’d gotten so caught up in looking at her, her wet hair curling around her face, drop lets of water shining on her shoulders, her bathing suit-Rae stepped closer to him, moving through the half chlorine, half water of the Y pool. “What are you thinking about? Because it’s definitely not my swimming lesson.” She smiled, and her smile made him think that she knew exactly what he was thinking.

And that she liked it. Which was so friggin’ mind-blowing.

“Come on, tel me.” She looped her arms around his neck, and the old lady getting ready to swim laps gave them an “awww”

kind of look.

“I was thinking that you look good in that suit,” Anthony answered. He was pretty sure he’d choke if he tried to say any of the ot her stuff.

“Oh, real y? I-” Rae whipped her head to the left.

“What?” Anthony demanded, scanning the area around the pool.

“Nothing,” Rae answered, sliding her arms off his neck. “I just, God, I thought I saw Yana. But it was only that woman in the white bathing cap. She doesn’t even look like her.”

Anthony checked the big clock behind the diving board. “I should be able to head over to Yana’s in about half an hour. Her dad’l be up and functioning by then-even on a Saturday. You’l feel better when we can do something to find Yana.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right,” Rae said. But she didn’t sound convinced. “Let’s get out, okay? I’m freezing in here.”

Anthony was pretty sure the temperature of the water had nothing to do with the shivers ripping through Rae. But he didn’t cal her on it. He just fol owed her up the stairs in the shal ow end and over to the deck chairs they’d staked out. Rae grabbed a to wel, leaned forward, and started drying her hair. “Wonder what I’d be like if I’d grown up thinking my mom was murdered. Instead of a murder
er.
I mean, I could total y have turned out like Yana.”

“What?” Anthony demanded. He’d couldn’t freakin’ believe her. “What?” he repeated. He reached out, caught her chin in his fin gers, and gently raised her head until she was looking him in the eye. “Do you actual y think that you’d have tried to kil someone if you thought your mom had been kil ed?”

Rae bit her lip. “I wanted to kil Steve Mercer when I found out that he murdered my mom,” she answered. “If I’d known that my whole life, I’d probably have wanted to kil him a mil ion times more.”

“Fine. I get that. And I’d probably even have helped you if the agency hadn’t taken him out. But let me ask you this. Now that Mer cer’s dead, do you feel, like, any desire to find out if he had a kid and then kil the kid?”

“God, of course not!” Rae exclaimed.

“Wel , that’s exactly what Yana did,” Anthony reminded her, struggling to keep his anger in check. “She thought your mom kil ed her mom. But your mom was dead, so, Yana decided, ‘What the hel - I’l just kil the daughter. That’l make me happy.’”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right,” Rae answered. “It’s just…” She let her words trail off and started rubbing the drops of water off her arms. Rubbing so hard, it was like she wanted to take off a layer of skin, too.

“It’s just what?” Anthony pressed.

“I don’t know-she brought me doughnuts on my first day back at school because she knew how horrible it was going to be for me,” Rae mumbled.

“So we got doughnuts on one side.” Anthony stuck out his left hand. “And on the other side-” He stuck out his right hand. “We got Yana trying to
kill
you.” He moved his hands up and down, pretending to weigh both sides.

“I get it,” Rae told him.

Anthony dropped his hands to his sides. “Do you? ’Cause if you don’t, you’re not going to be careful enough.” He didn’t want to freak her out. Wait. Yeah, he did. If that’s what it took to make sure she kept herself safe, then that’s what he wanted. “Right now Yana’s out there coming up with another plan to make you dead.”

“I know. I get it. Al right? I get it,” Rae snapped. She wrapped her towel around her shoulders. “I’m going to go change.”

“I’l meet you right outside the locker-room door,” Anthony promised.

“You sure you don’t want to come in and watch me change?” Rae shot back.

“Is that an offer?” Anthony joked, his imagination already going there.

Rae smiled. “Sorry, but no.”

“I wasn’t trying to piss you off before,” Anthony said. “I know you can handle yourself. I just… worry.”

“Yeah. Me too,” Rae admitted.

“Last night I had a dream about Steve Mercer,” Mandy confessed. She pul ed an old sweatshirt out from under her pil ow. Rae recognized the sweatshirt-it had belonged to Mandy’s mom. “I don’t even know what the guy looks like, but in the dream I knew it was him. And I was some kind of superhero, but a sort of evil one. Like Catwoman, but without the skintight outfit. Anyway. I hur led Mercer onto the ground, and I stomped on him over and over. Until blood started to leak out of his ears.” Mandy used both hands to push her long, light brown hair away from her face. “Very nice, huh?”

“Very normal,” Rae answered, thinking about the conversation she’d just had with Anthony at the pool.

“So there’s not, like, a psycho kil er inside me, ready to pop out?” Mandy asked, without meeting Rae’s eyes.

“If there’s one in you, there’s one in me. ’Cause I’ve definitely had some nasty fantasies about torturing Mercer,” Rae told her.

“I… I know that you and Yana and I have a lot in common. Moms who were murdered because of the group. Genes that have be en messed with. But that doesn’t mean the two of us are going to turn out like Yana.”

Mandy held the sweatshirt up to her face, pul ed in a deep breath, then tucked the sweatshirt back under her pil ow. “She se emed so cool that time she was over here with you. She seemed to real y get how I was feeling about my mom’s death and everything.”

“I know. I felt the same way. When I thought I was going nuts-before I knew I had my fingerprint thing-Yana was…” Rae hesitated, flashing on the conversation with Anthony. He wouldn’t like to hear what she was about to say, but she said it, anyway. “Yana kept me going. I might have lost it completely if it wasn’t for her.”

“But it was al a big lie, right? From the beginning, she was out to get you,” Mandy said.

“Yeah. I’m sure getting herself assigned as a volunteer in the mental hospital was even part of her plan,” Rae answered. Except Yana had been so decent to-Stop. When are you going to accept that Yana completely played you? Rae asked herself.
Why are you still trying to believe
that some of your so-called friendship was actually real?

“Anthony’l probably show up soon with something of Yana’s. You want to give me some of your sister’s boyfriend’s stuff to to uch before he gets here?” Rae asked, going for a screeching subject change.

“That would be so great. I’ve got a whole col ection of Zeke skankobilia,” Mandy answered. She jumped off the bed and picked up a shoe box off the floor, kicking an empty Ben & Jerry’s container out of the way. “Here you go.” She dropped the box next to Rae.

Rae pul ed a Kleenex out of her purse and wiped the coat of wax off the fingers of her right hand so she’d be ready to receive fingerprint info. “Here goes,” she muttered. She picked up a Howard Stern coffee mug with her left hand and then ran the unpro tected fingers of her right over the mug’s slick ceramic surface.

wearing panties?
bitter/what was/dad home?/to couch/

Rae set the mug down. The taste of overbrewed coffee fil ed her mouth. And God, she felt… horny. That was the only word for it.

Like she’d just spent an hour kissing Anthony and-

“Wel ?” Mandy snapped her fingers in front of Rae’s face. Then she stared at her hand as if her fingers had snapped by them selves. “Sorry. Man, that was rude. But what’d you get?”

“Uhhh.” Rae didn’t want to tel Mandy that Zeke was thinking about whether or not her dad was home-probably because he wan ted to find out if Mandy’s sister was wearing panties. “Let me try something else.”

Rae pul ed the empty Doritos bag out of the shoe box and did a fingerprint sweep.

front clasp?
Dorito gunk/my house/the zipper/get it/

I’m surprised that I’m not setting off the smoke detector,
Rae thought. Her breath was actual y coming in fast pants.

“What?” Mandy demanded. “It’s something bad, isn’t it?”

“No,” Rae assured her. “He has sex on the brain. But he’s a guy. I mean, most guys Emma goes out with probably think about sex a ton.”

“That’s it? Nothing about dealing? Nothing about being high whenever he’s not asleep?” Mandy asked, her voice getting higher and higher.

Rae shook her head. “Not yet, anyway. I’l keep going.” She took a pen-one of those big fat ones that write in twenty colors-out of the box.

“Oh, wait, that’s Emma’s,” Mandy said. Her voice sounded far away, almost lost under the rush of not-Rae thoughts. /his name?

/daisies/no church/bal istic/married/

Rae gave the pen a half turn and moved her fingers over the new area. Her hands trembled with an excitement that wasn’t hers.

elope
white eyelet/why graduate?/Zeke can/soon/soon/no finals/

Mandy pul ed the pen out of Rae’s shaking hands. “It wasn’t just about sex this time, was it?” she asked softly.

Rae tried not to smile. This was serious. But Emma’s happiness was making her giddy. “It seems like… Mandy, I’m pretty sure Emma wants to drop out of school.”

“What?” Mandy cried. “That’s insane. I told you she’s been kil ing herself for that scholarship.” Mandy dumped the cardboard box onto the floor. “It’s because of Zeke. I’m right, aren’t I? It’s his fault.”

“Sort of,” Rae admitted. “I think-I think Emma’s considering eloping with him.”

I’ve barely even been in Yana’s house,
Anthony realized as he started up the front walk. And she’d only been to his house on ce or twice. They’d spent most of their time in one of their cars, usual y making out.

Anthony grimaced. Thinking about kissing Yana was like bad food repeating on him, bringing up a sour, rotten taste. How could he have been such a freakin’ moron? Yana had completely-The front door swung open, yanking Anthony away from his thoughts. “You got the wrong house,” Yana’s dad barked, clearly not recognizing Anthony. His sandy brown hair was sticking up, and his eyes were half glued shut with eye gunk. He must have just rol ed out of the sack.

Good morning to you, too, jerk,
Anthony thought. “I’m a friend of Yana’s,” he reminded him. The lie brought up the spoiled food taste again. He swal owed hard and kept going. “She borrowed some English notes from me, and I need to get them back. Is she around?”

“No, she’s-who the hel knows where she is,” Yana’s dad answered. He hitched up his sweats. “But I can tel you this, she’s not going to be happy once she final y decides to show up.”

He didn’t actual y sound like he gave a crap. Not that it would be so different at Anthony’s place if Anthony went missing for a few days. No, that wasn’t true. If Anthony pul ed a disappearing act, the rug rats would be screaming because there was nothing to eat and no one to referee the fights over the remote. His mother and Tom would actual y have to act like parents for once. So they’d be wanting him back. His mom would probably even get al teary. She stil cal ed him her baby sometimes, even though he was seventeen.