Teen Frankenstein (35 page)

“Tor…” Owen looked up from the pocket watch. “Come on…”

I couldn't believe that Owen was the one standing up for Adam. Especially after tonight. None of us spoke for a long moment until we heard the sound of three knocks on the hatch door.

“Who is that?” Adam hardened. The muscles in his forearm twitched.

Owen's screwdriver went still. He looked to me, then the stairs, then to me again. He seemed to make a decision. It took him three steps to reach me. He positioned his back to Adam. His fingertips were stronger than I expected as they applied pressure around my arm. His mouth was close to my ear. “You have to tell him, Tor. Tell him how it happened. He deserves to know at least that much about why he is the way he is. This isn't all his fault and you know it.”

Our cheeks touched when I shook my head.

“He might … remember.” His voice was low. “When…”

I swallowed. Before any of this, there was me. I killed John Wheeler. But I was too afraid to say it. Three more knocks came from above. Held breath burst in my lungs. I pulled away from Owen. My heart slammed against my chest.

“It's a surprise, Adam,” I said, trying to keep my voice light, a noticeable shift from moments earlier. This was the end, though. There was no point in acting mad. There was no point in acting anything. “You'll like it, I think.”

“A surprise?”

“Tor…,” Owen insisted.

“Did I hire you as my conscience? No? Then maybe you should stop trying to be one.” There was no turning back now, anyway, and I failed to see what telling Adam the truth would solve. I hurried up the steps, the smell of the cedarwood stairs thick in my nostrils, and turned the hatch lock. At first, all I could see was the moon half hidden by a cloud, like it was wearing a dirty sock. Then the silhouette of a girl cut a dark notch into the already dark sky. “I came as fast as I could,” she said.

“Did you park on the side road?” I asked, and eyed my mom's station wagon out in the drive. Through the curtains I could see the soft blue glow of the television set.

She nodded. “Can I come in?” It felt too late to say no.

All the words I possessed were colliding in my head, so when I moved aside, it was without saying one of them. I felt the end of something drawing near, and I wasn't sure that I was ready to let go or that I would be ready for what it meant to hold on. She stepped gingerly onto the first creaking step. I wondered what kind of girl went willingly into the basement of strangers.

The kind of girl, I supposed, who was a boy's last word.

She cupped her elbows, holding her arms tightly to her body. She wore the same white tank top that she'd been wearing earlier this afternoon. With her back to me, I noticed a raised scar like a cigarette burn on the back of her arm.

She stopped at the bottom of the stairs. For a second Adam appeared invisible to her. Her hand found the railing, and she leaned on it for support. “What
is
this place?” She took in the bowing shelves, shriveled specimens, mason jars full of viscous pea-green liquid, tubes that attached to crusted Florence flasks, life-sized skeleton, preserved rats, and rusty claw-foot tub.

“This is my laboratory,” I said, squeezing past her. “This … well … this is where I saved him.”

“Saved?” Her pitch shot up.

“Do you know her, Victoria?” Adam's shoulders were as hunched and tense as those of a guard dog.

Meg let out a soft cry.
“John?”
Her hands flew to her mouth. “It's you. Oh my God, it's really you.”

I waited, expecting him to remember something. And wanting to take it as some kind of sign if he didn't.

“Who is John?” Adam rose to his feet. He retreated back a few steps.

“What are you doing—I mean, how?” She pressed her lips together and pushed back her hair. Meg wasn't beautiful. She was a girl who looked as if she were still trying to grow out of her tomboy years. She had thin lips, a straight waist, and mosquito-bitten ankles. The whole of her looked like it'd been scraped together with not enough material. She wasn't a Cassidy. She wasn't the type who automatically went with an Adam. But based on the way she was looking at him, I knew that somehow she did.

Owen cleared his throat. “Perhaps you should introduce them.”

Meg's mouth fell open. “What do you mean
introduce
us? This is John. My John.”

I blinked, coming back to attention. Swallowed what felt like a thorn stuck in my throat. “Adam.” I cut her off. “This is Meg, she's, well, I think she knew you before.”

He extended his hand to meet her. “Hi, I'm Adam. I'm from Elgin, Illinois.”

She left his hand hanging in midair.
“Adam?”
She glanced between us like we were playing a trick on her. “This isn't Adam. His name's John. John Wheeler. John, tell her she's mistaken.”

“Victoria, why is she calling me the wrong name?”

I sighed. “Adam
is
his name … here,” I said. “He doesn't remember anything. Including any recollection of John.” Her eyes widened. “It's a long story. Way, way too long for what we have time for now. Trust me. But I found Adam late one night.” I avoided Owen's look. “He'd gotten into a car accident,” I said slowly, remembering the story I'd told Cassidy. “He was in bad shape. Dying. I didn't have time to take him to the hospital, but I was able to jump-start his heart. So to speak, anyway. I'd been working with animal anatomy previously and was able to transfer the findings over to him. Only, since then, he's had no memory of before.”

Meg took slow steps over to where Adam stood. The dark, cold look still lingered in his eyes. Her hand trembled as she raised it haltingly and touched his forehead, his cheekbones, the ridge of his nose, his chin. Adam's face relaxed under her touch. His eyes warmed. “You saved him?” Meg's voice was breathless. “But … he doesn't remember me.” I heard the heartbreak in her voice. I saw her knees quivering like she might collapse.

“How do you two know each other?” Owen asked. He had a problem with prolonged silences. They made him uncomfortable. Besides, I sensed his eagerness to move on from Adam, to do what we should have done all along—return him to his people.

A smile flickered. She didn't look away from Adam. “John's been in love with me since we were eight years old,” she said, and I thought I could detect the same hint of pride that I got when I talked about him. It was aimed at something completely different, but I still recognized it as there. “It took me a little longer to come around, I guess,” she said. She lifted her fingertip from his brow and quietly clasped her hands together. A pale pink rose to her cheeks. “I think I need to sit down,” she said. I gestured to a nearby stool that Owen dragged over for her. She perched on top and shifted her weight. “I always had a problem trusting men. It's easy to get that way where I come from. It was almost too late by the time I came around on trusting John, but the two of us”—she twisted her mouth sideways and gave a small shrug—“we were always—I don't know what to call it—meant to be. Like something out of the movies.”

“I—” My voice was hoarse. “Well—that's very romantic.” I coughed into the crook of my elbow, hoping to clear the cobwebs that had suddenly taken up residence on my vocal cords. My mind was spinning. None of this felt real.

“John…” Adam sounded out the name, trying it on for size. “Victoria? But—”

So much had happened today. I had to look away from him. I studied the skull of the skeleton dangling near the far wall. “It's true, Adam. I found a flyer just before the dance, and I knew the photograph was of you. Meg was searching for you.”

It's for the best
, I told myself.
This is what has to happen. The experiment has failed. Adam killed.
But it didn't feel right.

She shook her head and stared at her knees. “I … just can't imagine that he wouldn't remember me. Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful, but to have it all just be gone.” The last word was choked in the beginnings of a sob. She took a deep breath and recovered.

“He's in trouble,” I said, making sure to stare past Adam and directly at Meg.

She nodded. “I guess he seems to find trouble wherever he goes then.”

Adam looked between the two of us. Here we were, the most important women in his life. “I don't want to be in trouble. I'm good. I want to be good.” He knitted his hands together. “Victoria, I didn't mean to break the wall or the mirror or Knox. I'm sorry. I can fix them. Right? Can't I fix them? Victoria, you can bring him back. Put him in the tub. I know you know how.” The veins writhed in Adam's forearms, twisting like snakes.

“It's gotten a little bigger than you, buddy.” Owen put a hand on his shoulder. Owen gave me a small frown, meant to be reassuring.

“What kind of trouble?” I asked Meg. I probably should have offered her something. An iced tea. A Diet Coke. But I had nothing to give, and besides, the situation seemed beyond niceties.

For the first time, Meg looked grim. She took a deep breath and looked between Owen and me. “Like you said, it's a long story, but John took off after a … fire. He's wanted from here to the Mississippi, I imagine. I wasn't sure I'd ever see him again.”

“Fire?” Adam and I both said at once.

She studied us. “Yes … But I thought you said…”

“I've seen fire,” Adam explained, and I thought of him searching for the house, searching for numbers painted on a curb, searching for answers. “Bits of my memory. They come back. Mainly that one bit. The fire. I can see it sometimes. Victoria said she would help me find it, but she never did.”

Meg's shoulders fell. “Oh.” And I could see she was disappointed that his first memory wasn't of her.

“There hasn't exactly been a lot of downtime since Adam's arrival,” I said.

“Better that you didn't. I thought maybe you were dead.” I could tell she wanted to touch him again, but she held back. “There are some bad people after you. Some things you—we—got mixed up in. I would have come sooner, but I thought you were gone.” She looked down at her shoes, and when she looked up, the sparkle of tears danced in her eyes. “I guess you were, almost. When they found your car near Lake Crook, that's when I started looking.”

I felt Owen's eyes snap onto me. A fugitive on Lake Crook. I knew what he was thinking, but just because of Knox didn't make Adam the Hunter. The methodology was all off.

We waited several heartbeats when it began. It was soft at first, so soft we could have been imagining it. But then, from above, came the sound of sirens.

“They're coming,” Owen whispered. Light flashed over his glasses. We both cast fleeting looks around the room. The cellar felt like an animal trap. There was nowhere to go.

“What's happening?” Meg tilted her chin to the ceiling. “Are they coming for him?”

“You guys have to leave,” I said. Adrenaline took over. “Owen, grab the wires,” I commanded.

Adam looked at me, and it was as if an entire chasm had opened up between us. “But I want to stay with you,” he said, pushing past Meg. I turned my shoulder to dodge his touch. The specimens, the lab equipment, the maps, and notes, they all belonged here. Adam didn't. Not anymore.

“Wires?” Meg spun in place. Owen tugged at the ends of his hair and muttered to himself, but he retrieved the wires. We should have been more prepared for this.

I picked alligator clips from a surgical tray, then crossed the room and cupped them into Meg's hand. “Meg, the method to keep his heart beating, it's not permanent.” I zigzagged through the laboratory, every step familiar. I tore the kilowatt meter from the wall. The small generator. “Brine, Owen.” He retrieved jars from the shelves and pushed them into Adam's arms. “Salt will work in a pinch,” I said. “It's a conductor. You need water and then attach the wires to the notches in his chest. Adam, you remember how it works.”

“No, Victoria,” he said, but I knew it wasn't in response to my question. “No, don't leave me. I'm Adam.
Adam
,” he repeated.

My Adam
.

I steeled myself. “Your name is John,” I said. “John, you have to do the charge exactly as I've done it. You remember.” I stared intently at him. Adam wrapped himself in a hug, his fingers tucked into his armpits as he rocked back and forth, clearly perturbed. The sirens were a high-pitched drone now. I stared up at the ceiling. Time had run out. “Where are you staying?”

“Victoria,” he said. “Please. Don't make me go. Victoria.”

“It's Tor,” I said. “It's always been Tor.” And I felt my arteries snap and my heart drop to my bowels.

“At the Queen's Inn,” Meg replied, clutching the heap of supplies close to her chest. “A few miles down the road.” Everyone knew only truckers and lot lizards stayed at the Queen's Inn. The two-story motel bred cockroaches and venereal disease in equal quantities. I tried not to think about it.

I hovered at the bottom of the stairs. “Wait five minutes. Owen and I will buy you enough time to leave.” I tore my attention away from Adam's pained stare. The skin bunched around his eyes, and the image seared into my sockets like a brand. Adam. My Adam.

For once, Owen made no smart remark. Maybe there wasn't room for it. Maybe he was that scared or maybe the whole thing just wasn't funny anymore. Like at all. He did come to stand loyally at my side, though, my lead foot already starting up the staircase. “Good luck,” I said. “I'll … I'll come find you.” And it was a strange thing that I didn't know whether I meant that.

Adam was John. Adam—my Adam—had failed in some fundamental capacity, and I felt my heart closing up, like somebody sliding shut the seal on a ziplock bag. He wasn't my Adam anymore.