Teen Frankenstein (32 page)

“Are those the things that make a person alive?” My eyes adjusted. “Look at me.” A shadowy outline of Adam reached up and snatched the wires attached to his chest.

I recognized the dark shift of mood that came over Adam after each recharge, but I still hated it and wished it away with a selfishness that was childish.

Our hands didn't leave each other. The darkness distorted my perception of the distance between us, but I sensed his closeness like a charge in the air. The short space between our two faces. The hairs on the backs of my arms raised.

“I saw fire,” he said. “The house.” His voice was strangled. “The one that I always see, it was burning.” He pulled his knees to his chest. “I heard people screaming.”

“And you're sure it's not, I don't know, a nightmare or a hallucination or something. It could be anything. It could—”

“I was there, Victoria. I can smell the smoke. I can feel the ashes falling in my hair. The fire's hot. It pushed me back. I couldn't go any closer or else I'd burn…” He trailed off. “They're screaming in there.”

I gulped. If Adam's memory was, indeed, returning, how long until he remembered how he'd died? I wanted to tell him. In the dark, here, when he couldn't see my face, but I was too chicken. And then the lights flickered on. Adam and I squinted against the sudden brightness. I felt woozy. The floor seemed to rock.

Someone pounded on the door.

“Let me in.” My head snapped up. Cassidy. “They saw you go in there.” The doorknob jiggled. I stood up and helped Adam to his feet. We looked at each other, then I searched for a window.

Too late. The doorknob stopped jiggling. A metallic click and the door swung open. Cassidy stood wielding a bobby pin, which she quickly returned to her hair.

Adam and I were now shoulder to shoulder in the bedroom opposite Paisley, Knox, and a very pissed-off Cassidy. Her fists made tiny balls by her sides. Her bangs fell askew across her forehead. “I knew it,” she said. Her accent came out thick and mad.

Paisley gasped. An accusing finger flew up and pointed at Adam, who, I realized at that moment, was standing dressed only in his boxers, dripping water onto the carpet. Tracks of silvery scar tissue left twisted rivers of raised skin across his stomach and ribs. Angry sutures pinned muscle and fat over bone. “
Freak
,” Paisley said.

Cassidy's eyes widened as she took Adam in. My shoulders slumped. “It's not what you think.” A hiccup punctuated the end of my sentence.

A boy. A girl. A party. A locked bedroom. Cassidy was good at math and she'd already run the calculations.

She tore her gaze from Adam's chest and focused on my face. “Everyone said I shouldn't trust you.” Tears pooled in her eyelids. Her pink-stained lower lip trembled. “And they were right.” She spun on her heel and pushed through the onlookers.

Adam snatched his clothes from the floor and tugged on the pair of jeans and jersey. Black paint ran down his cheeks. His raven hair stood on end. He was wild. He shoved through Paisley and Knox. “Cassidy!” he called. “Wait!”

“Nice scars, you mutant freak.” Paisley scoffed and then trained her cold blue eyes in my direction. “Now I see what he saw in you. The circus sideshow and the Whore of Babylon. You deserve each other.”

When Paisley turned to leave, her form split in two. I pushed the heels of my hands into the side of my head and groaned. The carpet seemed to be tilting at a sharp incline. The outline of everything multiplied like a TV with a bad signal.

“Turn the music back on,” someone yelled from the other room just before a rap song blasted through the surround sound speakers. The pounding bass nearly buckled my knees.

“You don't look so good.” I couldn't make out any of the features on Knox's face.

“I'm fine.” I staggered toward where he stood near the open hall. My shoulder banged into the doorjamb.
Deep breaths, Tor.
If only this house would stay in one place.

I followed Adam's path more slowly, leaning against the wall for support.

“Slut,” someone said to me as I passed. This garnered hearty chuckles all around that took on a fun house echo.

I made it down the hallway in time to see Adam punch his fist through drywall. The crunching sound reverberated in my head, and I had to shut my eyes against it.
Too loud, Adam
, I wanted to say. But my lips felt as if they belonged to someone else.

“Christ, dude! That's my wall!” Knox hollered over the music, which had revived into the soundtrack of my own personal nightmare.

I stretched out my arm, reaching for Adam and misjudging the distance, because now it seemed as though he was much farther away. So much space stretched between us. He tore out chunks of plaster when he jerked his hand, unfeeling, out of the hole he'd left, and went after Cassidy.

My chest tightened. My brain wouldn't function. All I could see was the crumbling of Cassidy's face. The tears splashing her cheeks. Adam's fist charging through a wall.

A sea of unfriendly faces glared at me. I swatted the air. My cheeks drooped along with the corners of my mouth. My tongue, suddenly too big for my mouth, was working up words. I wobbled sideways. The house zoomed in and out of focus. The judging faces surrounded me. Everywhere I turned. Mean. Nasty. “You don't know me,” I slurred. “I'm a genius.” I poked my finger into my chest. “A real live genius!”

Someone whistled. “All aboard for the train wreck.”

They laughed. They were all laughing. It roared inside me. I pressed my fists into my eye sockets.
Make it stop, make it stop
.

“Maybe you should lie down.” There were gentle fingers on my shoulder. I thought vaguely that they belonged to Knox, but I wasn't sure. I tried to remember why this mattered. “You can use my room,” the voice said. “It has a big, comfortable bed with your name on it.”

I whimpered at the mention of bed.
Yes, please. Bed.
Even the word sounded enchanting.
Yes, yes, let me crawl under the covers
. I thought I managed a nod. Wet sand filled every inch of my body. I leaned on the arm that was offered to me. It was too much effort to keep my eyes open, so I didn't. Instead, I caught flashes of carpet through my lashes. Muted footsteps. A lock clicked. A door creaked. Inside there was a dark room that smelled like cologne. I needed to lie down. There was that word, only now it was in object form and it was even more enchanting than when I'd heard it suggested.
Bed.

“You'll feel better in the morning,” said the Knox-voice. He led me to the great, big, fluffy bed. I dragged myself onto the mattress and fell into a heap on top of the comforter.

I felt like I was floating. I stretched my hand out in front of my face. It seemed as if it belonged to somebody else. There was something I was supposed to remember. Something important.

“Just for a second,” I mumbled. “Just need to lie down.”

He ran his hands through my hair. Only, it didn't feel like my hair. It felt like someone else's, too. How funny. I watched a shadow lean down, and then there was a warm mouth on mine. I didn't know what I did with my lips. I hated the taste, but I couldn't move. I was consumed by the bed, which seemed to have taken hold of me like a Venus flytrap. If Venus flytraps could be fluffy clouds of comfort.

“Knox!” A girl's voice drifted in to meet us. “Where are you?” I was drifting, too.

A finger replaced the lips. “Shhhh,” he said. I shut my eyes. I heard footsteps. “I'll be right back.” The door clicked again.

I wanted him to take his time. Finally, I could sleep.
Finally, finally, finally …

The weight of a deep, dark slumber wrapped itself around my torso and pulled me under. Conscious thought lapped at the edges of my mind. I was supposed to remember something. It was bothering me. Like an itch on the bottom of my foot that I was too lazy to scratch.

Sometimes I could lay awake for hours at night while my mind spun off into a dozen universes of thought. But this was the opposite. This felt like someone had poured Pepto-Bismol between my ears. My mind was quiet. Too quiet. Except for this one stubborn thought that wasn't a thought at all.

Why did I feel so funny? The answer rose slowly to the surface like bubbles.
Knox
.

My drink. Knox and my drink. I tried to connect the two ends, forcing myself to roll onto my side. I let out a pathetic moan and peeled open my eyelids. I was still in the dark room. On the big, fluffy bed. Knox's bed. The door was closed. I needed to get out of there.

I hoisted one leg over the edge, followed by the other, and slid to the floor. Somehow, in the last two hours, I had gained about a thousand pounds. Pushing myself to my feet, I stumbled for the door. It took me three times to grip the door handle and then to twist it. The light from the hallway nearly blinded me.

I started to close myself back into the room just to avoid the light but then remembered what it was that I was doing. Knox would be back any moment. My sense of time was gone, along with all my other faculties, so I had no idea how much time had passed since he'd left me sprawled on the bed with his leftover spit on my mouth.

I put one foot in front of the other, and when, after a couple steps, I grew tired, I slumped against the wall. The sound of voices and music amplified. I wanted to cry when I heard laughing. I didn't care if they were laughing at me. Blurry figures moved at the end of the corridor. I stretched out a hand. One of these figures was coming toward me.

“Help,” my voice rasped.

He was only inches from my face when I realized it was Knox and he was towering over me. “I thought I put you to bed, Victoria.”

I shook my head. Strands of hair got tossed over my eyes. “No.” I was working in slow motion, but I gathered all my strength and I pushed his chest. He didn't budge.

Knox, with his sharp teeth and wax-slicked hair, actually laughed. I didn't enjoy his laughing at all. “You know Adam's not your only ticket in,” he said. His fingers closed around the bones of my wrist, crushing them. His words tickled the peach fuzz on my ear. “I thought you had a thing for other girls' boyfriends.” His eyes danced. “It's the thrill, isn't it?”

Knox was towing me back toward the dark corner of his room. I dug my heels in and did the only thing I could muster. I sat down.

“You're drunk, Victoria,” he said loudly, like he was acting on a stage.

I shook my head. I shook it over and over. My head spun even more. I felt tears slide down my cheeks. Then I looked up, and Adam was on him. I thought I was dreaming. Knox's mouth morphed into a snarl, and it happened before I could blink.

“Don't hurt…” Adam grunted as his pawlike hands wrapped around Knox's shoulders. “Victoria.”

Knox's eyes bulged. His feet left the ground. Adam shook him.

I reached for Adam's leg. “Adam, stop!”

I was too late. There was a flash of recognition that appeared on his face before the feral pitch of anger broke and Adam released him. Knox stumbled. He was too far back on his heels and his footing too off-kilter to catch.

Almost in slow motion, he toppled backward. His right arm hit the floor at a sharp angle. There was a pop like the seal on a fresh canister of potato chips. He crumpled, and the arm disappeared under the full weight of his body.

Paisley rushed past me and kneeled by Knox, who shoved her away. “You broke his arm, you freak.”

Adam let out a strangled yelp.

“It was an accident,” I said. Then more loudly, “It was an accident. He didn't mean to.” There was no way to be sure I was saying these things out loud. The floor rocked beneath me. Then Adam was gone. As if into thin air.

Knox groaned. “You will pay for this!” he shrieked. “Don't think I won't find you, Smith. Don't think you can get away with this. I don't care who you are.”

I pressed my palms into the carpet. In the battle between me and gravity, gravity finally won. I sank onto the floor and forgot everything.

 

THIRTY-TWO

The subject has exhibited the telltale signs of retrogression in his impulse control that raise concerns that perhaps he is sliding into more primitive and instinct-based behaviors. A propensity for violence and aggression shows a marked change in the subject's behavioral evolution.

*   *   *

I woke up tangled in a heap of flannel sheets and a plaid comforter that smelled nothing like cologne. A puddle of drool soaked the blue pillow next to me, and I scratched crusted saliva off my chin.

“Good morning, sunshine.”

I propped myself up on my elbows. “Where am I?” My eyes darted around, still trying to focus. The hood of my sweatshirt drooped over the side of my face. A roaring pain erupted in my eye sockets, and I immediately lay back down.

Owen appeared over me, sipping a steaming cup of coffee. My stomach turned. “Casa Bloch. Welcome.”

The blurry room in which I found myself sharpened, and I recognized the poster of
A Brief History of Time
and the shelves lined with the complete series of Harry Potter.

My insides rocked like a deep-sea fishing boat. Maybe if I stayed very still, I wouldn't puke. “This is it, Owen. I'm dying. I need you to put me down like Old Yeller.”

He rolled his eyes. His hair stuck up at odd angles. He took another swig of coffee and shook his head. “Here, have some of this.” He handed me his mug. I wrinkled my nose and pushed it away. He insisted. “It'll help.”

Thunder rolled through my brain, making it impossible to think. I raised the hot cup to my lips and swallowed a mouthful of coffee. I wanted to hurl again but managed to keep it down and took another sip.

I looked around at the slender twin bed and narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “Where'd
you
sleep?”