Touched (19 page)

“Nick, stop it!” someone called down the hall. Taryn. I turned to see her running toward me, two teachers and a security guard on her heels.

I released him. “Freak,” he sputtered, clamping his hand over his bloody nose. “You broke my nose. My tooth.”

“You’re rotting. Go to the doctor. He’ll tell you,” I muttered as the security guard grabbed me from behind. The bell screamed overhead as I turned to follow.

Sphincter’s arm candy, the other students in the hall, Taryn … Everyone was looking at me in the same way as the guard led me away. Like I was, just as Sphincter had said, Crazy Cross. It wasn’t anything I wasn’t used to. Strangely, it was a relief to stop pretending and finally own up to what I really was.

“Suspended on the first day of school,” Nan said under her breath as we pulled up the driveway. We were both sitting in the back of Bill Runyon’s Land Rover, being chauffeured like celebrities. She’d had to call around to get someone to drive her, and Bill was the lucky winner. I could tell the second she came to pick me up that she was pissed, because she didn’t bother to say hello to the ladies in the principal’s office and her face looked like she’d sucked on lemons. Bill was cordial when I’d first gotten into the car, but eventually he fell under Nan’s spell and just drove, though I caught him inspecting me a few times in the rearview mirror. After fifteen minutes of icy silence, I was kind of relieved when words finally erupted from her mouth.

I didn’t answer. I was busy staring at my knuckles. They were red and ached. Maybe my hand was broken.

“For an entire week, no less,” she said when Bill threw the car into park in front of the house. She pulled open the door and thanked Bill.

As I got out of the car, Bill whispered to me, “You know, kid. Take it easy. You’re going to be the death of her.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I mumbled, slamming the door with unnatural force. I rolled my eyes and they caught on the sky. The clouds were perfectly round and white in the shockingly blue sky, like stepping stones to heaven. I pulled open the front door and trudged into the house. The floorboard at the doorway to my mom’s room creaked. I knew she was standing there, waiting to give me crap. I climbed the stairs quickly, but she’d already begun her assault: “Suspension? Nick! You will mess up your life!”

“You already took care of that,” I muttered, slamming the door behind me. It was about a thousand degrees in my room. I opened a window and stripped off my T-shirt and jeans, then lay in bed in my boxers, clenching and unclenching my fist, massaging my knuckles. Okay, maybe my hand wasn’t broken. But that still didn’t stop the rest of me from feeling like crap.

About ten minutes later, someone knocked on the door. “Go away,” I muttered, figuring it was Nan bringing me crackers or a cool washcloth or whatever it was she felt I needed at this time. I tried to convince myself I didn’t need anything from anyone, that all I wanted was to be left alone. But the thought of being alone felt like stumbling down a long dark hole with no idea what was at the bottom.

The door opened a crack. Leave it to Nan to never listen to my pleas for privacy. I looked up, about to yell at her, and instead of Nan’s wizened face, I saw platinum blond curls. “Can I come in?” Taryn asked softly.

“What? No.” I stumbled over my words, then realized I was practically naked and did a visual check for my jeans. All the way on the other side of the room. Great. Luckily my T-shirt was within arm’s distance, mingling with some dirty socks and underwear on the floor. I grabbed the shirt and threw it over my head. “Why—why are you here? You should be in school.”

She opened the door wider. Her hair looked as if she’d ridden all the way here in Sphincter’s convertible, and who knew? Considering his weakness, maybe she had. But her eyes looked heavy and her skin had a sickly green tinge to it. She cleared her throat and it looked like she was swallowing marbles. “I cut out. I need to explain.”

“You don’t have to explain to me. You and I are … nothing,” I said, almost choking on the word. “You should be in school.”

“No, this is important.”

“School is important. I shouldn’t be.”

“No,” she said, closing the door tightly behind her. “You seem to know I have trouble saying no. But I do know how to say no when it matters. So I’m not going anywhere.”

“Suit yourself,” I said, shrugging in an “it’s a free country” kind of way. But it wasn’t possible to ignore her when we were the only two people in a nine-by-nine-foot room. I knew I should kick her out, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t possible.

“What did you get?”

“Suspension. One week.”

She nodded. “Brutal. But not entirely unjustified. You nearly killed him! Considering how sick he is. Where did you get those Ali moves?”

Great. First she gets cozy with Nose Ring Dude, and then she pours sympathy on Sphincter. Not what I wanted to hear right now. “I did him a favor,” I muttered. “Now he’ll go to the doctor and find out what’s wrong with him. Maybe it won’t be too late.”

“It’s already too late. The tumors are spreading. They won’t be able to stop it,” she said softly. She dropped her bag and sat down on the edge of my bed. She must have noticed the dump trucks and airplanes on the sheets because she smiled a little but didn’t say anything. Then she looked around, probably trying to find out what other things I had in my room that the normal four-year-old would go crazy over.

“I have glow-in-the-dark planet stickers on the ceiling,” I offered. “But you can’t see them since it’s daytime.”

“I have them, too!” she said brightly, then started to cough. It was a horrible, wracking cough, like that of someone with TB, and it went on long enough that I wondered if I should get her some water or smack her on the back. Then she wrapped her arms around herself and said, her voice weak, “Well, I had them at my old house, in Maine.”

She stared up at the ceiling for a long time, and finally I said, “You were about to explain something? Something about why you were getting with that guy in the hallway? What was his name?”

She blushed. “His name’s Kent. Kent Something. And we were not with each other!” she said, slapping me on the shoulder.

“Okay. Well, Kent Something looks charming. I can totally tell why you’d get with him.”

“Stop being so smug. You know he’s far from charming. And if you say I was getting with him one more time, I will smack you. It’s all perfectly innocent.”

I stared at her. “Don’t tell me he’s your brother. That excuse has been pretty much done to death.”

“No. He is not my brother,” she whispered. “And he’s gross. Seriously.”

“You were the one getting with him,” I said, emphasizing the words she didn’t want to hear. Just because.

“Clearly, you’re an idiot,” she mumbled, smacking me again on the shoulder, which was starting to hurt. “I needed skin-to-skin contact to see what was going on with him.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You mean, he’s … Touched?”

“No, but he wants to be. He’d been following me around ever since yesterday. He really has a need. It’s so strong. And I was trying to figure out what it is, if maybe I have the Touch he’d want.”

“Do you?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t have a chance to process it. It happened so fast. I saw you and I felt so terrible.” She sighed, but then ended up coughing the last bit of air. “I am really sorry if I made you feel bad in front of Bryce and his friend. Is that why you ran away?”

I shrugged. “It’s not that. It’s … you’re right. I want to protect you. The vision—the bad one.”

Her eyes widened. “It’s still there? But we changed—”

“I know. I don’t get it. Maybe it’s going haywire because that’s what my Touch does around you. Maybe I’m seeing things in my head that aren’t real. I have no idea. But to be safe, I think we have to stay away from each other.”

She threw up her hands, exasperated. “What? Why? Really, Nick, you’re so infuriating. Every time we talk about this you keep saying you need to stay away from me. But you never do. I mean, what’s the deal? Do you want to stay away from me?”

I shook my head immediately. “No way.”

“But that’s what you make me think. I don’t want to stay away from you, either,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “I like you. You make me happy. When you aren’t avoiding me or thinking I’m trying to get with other guys.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t do a really good job of that.”

She nodded. “Yeah. You pretty much suck at that.” Then she surprised me by leaning forward. She lifted up a small chain around her neck. “See what I got for my birthday?”

She was so close. I tried to concentrate on the piece of jewelry, a silver butterfly or a dragonfly or something, but the only thing registering in my head was that she smelled so good, apples again, and that she wouldn’t be this close if she didn’t want me as much as I wanted her. So I kissed her. “I meant to tell you … happy birthday,” I whispered into her hair.

She looked a little dazed, probably as dazed as I felt, when she finally pulled away. She smiled.

“Better than Kent Something?” I asked.

“I never …,” she began, and then she sort of fainted. She leaned backward, closed her eyes, and then straightened up and shook her head. “Whoa. I feel sick.”

I fanned her face. “Want some water or something?”

She shook her head, a small, embarrassed smile on her face. “No, I’m good.”

“I have that kind of effect on women,” I joked. But then I realized something. “The Touch. You haven’t performed it yet?”

The corners of her mouth turned down. “No. Tonight. Hopefully. Grandma has the person all lined up. But it’s … I’m so nervous.”

I nodded. I got it.

“I mean, what if the person doesn’t show up? What if they change their mind? That was why I was … with Kent … I thought maybe he could be my backup.”

“Calm down,” I said. “Don’t worry. They’ll show up. Do you know who it is?”

“No. But it’s not just that,” she said. “Grandma says this person wants a whole different Touch. So I had to learn a new spell. And it’s a hard one. I didn’t have a lot of time and I’m not really sure I know it. And I feel so weak. And—” She stopped and buried her face in her hands. “Nick. It’s terrible. This whole thing is so terrible.”

I took her in my arms and that’s when she started to cry on my shoulder. So of course it went without saying that I would be there tonight. I had no doubt about that. “I’ll be there for you, okay? I promise. Even if my family bars my doors because of the suspension. And I won’t get in the way this time.”

She sniffled. “Okay.”

“And if this person doesn’t show up, I’ll kidnap some poor loser off the street and you can perform the Touch on them. Okay?”

She laughed. “But nobody should have this Touch,” she said into my T-shirt. “It’s the really bad one. Invisible Assassin. The one that scares me the most.”

The You Wills told me I’d meet with resistance while trying to leave the house, and as usual, they were right. “You don’t think you’re going somewhere tonight,” my mom remarked from her room as I appeared at the top of the stairs in a clean T-shirt. It was like, not only could she see the future, but she had radar and Spidey sense, too. Or maybe she could just sniff my shaving cream and deodorant and hear the jingling sound of my house keys going into my pocket. “You’re grounded for as long as you’re suspended.”

“I need to—”

“Should have thought of that before you got yourself suspended,” she snapped.

I stared at her, hard. Funny that she would pick now to play mother, when she never did the other 1,439 minutes of the day. “Fine. Guess I’ll just go downstairs and watch TV.”

“Fine,” she answered, and I could hear the groaning of her mattress as she settled into it to watch whatever action movie she had picked out.

That was the good thing about having a mom who was confined to her bedroom. Sneaking out was no problem. I didn’t even feel bad about it; if she wanted to keep tabs on me, she could get up and come downstairs.

Nan was watching
Wheel of Fortune
with her broken arm supported on an old velour pillow. “You don’t think you’re going out?” she said, but her voice was a lot gentler than my mom’s.

“I have to,” I whispered. “It’s important.”

She studied my face. “All right. I’ll cover for you. But only until ten. Even if you aren’t going to school tomorrow, it’s still a school night.”

“Right,” I said, taking care to make as little noise as possible when I opened and shut the screen door. I walked my bicycle down the driveway because I was afraid my mother would hear the sound of it kicking up gravel, but the second I was on the sidewalk I raced away. It was late; the sun was setting, and in the distance it looked like more storm clouds were bulging over the mainland. The air was humid but carried that icy chill that usually comes on early September evenings. I shuddered as I sailed up the ramp and onto the boardwalk.

Taryn was waiting for me outside the arcade, our prearranged spot. She looked even worse than before. Her face was the color of old snow, which was a huge contrast to the bloodred rims around each of her eyes. She tried to wave to me, but her hand only made it to hip level before she let it fall. She didn’t smile.

“You ready?” I asked, which was a stupid question. I realized too late I probably shouldn’t be reminding her of the task ahead. She was worried enough as it was.

She just nodded and looked down at the ground.

“You want something to eat before you go on?” I asked, remembering how she ate when she was nervous.

I started to fish through my pockets for money, but she wrinkled her nose and said, “I’m all set.” It was a good thing, since all I had in my pocket was a crumpled dollar and a Trident wrapper. I hoped she was more prepared than I was.

The You Wills had me checking the clock in the arcade, so I did. “Ten minutes. Guess I’ll get back there. I’ll see you after, okay?”

She nodded looking dazed, small, and lonely.

“Hey,” I said to her, taking her by the hand and just soaking in that feeling of peace she gave me. “It’ll be okay.”

She looked into my eyes. “I know. I believe you,” she said, and she tilted her head up and gave me a small kiss, nothing like the one we’d shared earlier that day. Her lips were cold and so weak, I could barely feel their pressure on mine. “See you.”

And she turned and walked to the tent, disappearing beneath its folds.

All I could think of was how stupid it was as I made my way over the arcade wall. That because of this family curse, she’d die tonight if she didn’t Touch someone else. There was no question in my mind—she had it worse than I did. I might not have been able to live a normal day in my life because of my curse, but I didn’t hold another person’s fate in my hands.

I lowered myself into that dark void and smelled the incense and sea as I opened the curtain a crack. It looked like Taryn was alone. She glanced in my direction and sat down in the chair, then let out a small sigh. I thought about saying something to her, something to make her relax, when a rough voice came from the corner of the tent: “You are late. Open the book.”

“Yes, Grandma,” she said. I instinctively shifted backward.

As Taryn did what she was told, her grandmother shuffled into sight. Though her back was to me, I could reach out and touch her. I could smell something like sour milk and mothballs as she moved near me, something that combined with the incense to make my eyes water. I rubbed them and swallowed. I realized this space was like a tomb, something that captured scents and never let them go. I pulled my T-shirt up in front of my mouth and crouched lower, wishing I’d brought a can of Coke with me. Wishing someone would pull back the entrance flap to the tent so that more of that cleansing sea air would come in.

Everything around me felt damp, sticky. It was darker than usual in there and I could hear thunder rumbling over the buzz and ringing of the arcade games. Suddenly the sound of a thousand hoofbeats started to pound above me. Rain. More than rain. Downpour. Taryn said something, but I couldn’t hear it amidst the pounding on the roof. The flap opened, and rain and cold air swirled in.

The client was here. A shape stood in the doorway, shaking the rain off itself like a dog. It was too dark. I couldn’t see more than a hulking black shape. “Freaking rain,” a voice rumbled. It was a man. A young one. He moved forward. Taryn’s grandmother nodded at him and he stepped under the lamp to sign the book.

I was so busy trying to figure out who it was, what kind of guy would want something like Invisible Assassin, that I almost didn’t notice Taryn, sitting there, shaking. His face came into view under the chandelier just as I realized she was yawning. But there was nothing about her face that was tired—she was sitting bolt upright, her eyes wide with fear. She yawned again—what did a yawn mean?—and I finally took in the face that was standing over the table, the face that belonged to the man who was signing his life away.

Bryce Reese.

And the yawn.

Get out.

She wanted me to leave.

Her grandmother and Bryce were busy standing over the book, so I opened the curtain a little and shrugged at her. She looked carefully at the two of them, then nonchalantly turned to me, biting her lip. Her eyes glistened in the minimal orange light from the chandelier. Then she ran her hand through her hair. “Grandma, before we start, I have to use the bathroom.”

That was another signal. She wanted me to meet her out by the crane game. I hoisted myself up and hurried over there. By that time the rain was pouring down in sheets. Taryn’s hair hung in her face in wet ropes. She didn’t wait for me to be standing next to her before she began to sob. “He’s going to use it on you,” she wailed. “The Invisible Assassin.”

I swallowed. “Wait. What? What is the Invisible Assassin?”

“It’s so horrible,” she said. I tried to grab her hands, but they were wet and trembling so much I couldn’t get hold of them. She tried to get more words out but instead another sob caught in her throat. Finally, her breathing calmed enough so she could speak again. “It allows him to target people, and he can just walk away. It will kill their family. And it will kill them. In the worst ways you can imagine.”

“You mean …,” I started. I suddenly thought of my visions, or the lack of them. “Why would he use it on me?”

“You know why. Emma was always his world. And you saw him.” She sighed, but the last bit of air came out as a cough. “And he kind of … He’s not all there. He’s crazy and he hates you.”

“It kills my family, too?” I asked. I thought of Nan and Mom.

“All of them,” she sobbed.

“But my mother never leaves the house.”

“It doesn’t matter. It will find her.”

I studied her. Oh, she was still beautiful. She’d always be. Fifty years from now, if she lived that long, she’d still turn heads. But now, she was dying. Her hair was no longer golden and platinum but frizzy and strawlike, and her pretty features were all sunken in her colorless skin. Then I looked out toward the sea. Everything beyond the boardwalk was gray, the color of nothingness. “You’d better go back in there. He’s going to wonder where you are.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I can’t. Nick. I can’t do it to you. To your family.”

I grabbed her wrist with a lot more force than I meant to. “You have to.”

“No. I’ll find someone else. I’ll—”

“Who?” I demanded, dropping her wrist. “You’ll be dead in three hours if you don’t. Go. Do it. And don’t worry about me and my family. I can take care of us.”

“But you can’t. How can you—”

I didn’t know how I did it, because my heart was beating its way out of my chest, but I managed a smile. “It’s okay. I can see the future, remember?”

She bit her lip. She started to leave but then ran toward me, pushing her lips against mine. When she pulled away, her eyes didn’t meet mine. Maybe because she was ashamed, or maybe because they were so filled with tears she couldn’t see straight. Her voice was barely a whisper when she spoke. “I love you, you know.”

Before I had a chance to tell her that I loved her, too, she was gone.