Fear My Mortality (11 page)

Mom’s voice was a whisper, a hush in my ears. “Isn’t there another way?”

There was a murmur from the person standing behind her, something I couldn’t make out.

Dad’s response was quiet. “We have no choice. We can’t let them use us.”

“But they’ll use Ava, instead.” Mom’s hand was pressed over her heart.

The other person drew closer, not so close I could make out her face, but her words were audible. “With you both, they could have an endless supply of mortal girls. The damage would last millennia. Far beyond what they could do with Ava alone.”

“Can’t we take her with us? Please!” Mom’s voice was like cracked china, breaking apart.

The other person shook her head, receding. “This is the only way.”

Mom gasped. Dad wrapped his arms around her, holding her upright. She said, “I can’t bear it. How will she survive?”

“I don’t know.” Then Dad sounded certain, strong for the first time. “But she’ll understand. I know she will.”

Mom sobbed. “I can’t do this—”

Her blue cardigan blurred and her voice was sucked into a void. They were gone in a whir of movement, a vague memory.

I descended into darkness again.

A
tap-tap
at the window cut into my sleep. I squinted gritty eyes against the brightness shining into my bedroom. I’d forgotten to close the blind and the summer sun cast a painful glare onto my bed. I struggled to my feet, teetered my way across the carpet, and grabbed the cord. The tapping bird balked and took flight, soaring out over the street and up toward the sun.

I puzzled over how bright it was. It looked like midday out there. When I checked the alarm clock by the bed, it read 3:00 p.m. How could it be the afternoon already? I stumbled over to the door, headed across to the bathroom, and faltered down the stairs. Something squishy had replaced the bones in my legs. I grabbed the railing and tumbled down the last steps.

The first thing I noticed was Mom’s study opposite the bottom of the stairs.

No desk. No computer. No bookshelf. Just dents on the floor and marks on the walls where the furniture used to be. I forced myself to rush into the living area. Same thing there: no dining table, no couch, no coffee table. Just more empty space and indents. Turning left into the kitchen, I rushed around the table and threw open the cupboards. A few cans of food, pasta, spices, a couple pots and pans, they were still there, but all the kitchen appliances were gone, even the toaster. Mom hadn’t gone shopping for a few days and the fridge was half empty. I leaned against it, trying to draw breath.

“Mom? Dad?”

Then I realized what I needed to check. I ran from the kitchen, back past the stairs and Mom’s study, around the corner to the connecting door to the garage, sliding it open with my heart up near my voice box. The empty gray concrete garage glared at me and the contents of my stomach heaved. My legs were numb as I made it to the front window to see that Josh’s car was gone too. My head was going to split open.

Stumbling back to the kitchen, I finally focused on the charge card lying on the table. A note rested under it. Mom’s handwriting was a faint scribble:
For food
. I stared and stared at those two little words.

They’d packed up the house and left me behind. They’d taken everything with them except food and some plates. And me. I tried to remember waking up in the night and my room had been full of blurry shapes standing watch. People snatching my parents away, and now Mom and Dad were gone.

Then I realized, the night before, when Mom leaned in and gave me a kiss, she hadn’t said goodnight.

She’d said good-bye.

My head dropped to my hands. My temples pounded. I slid to the floor in front of the kitchen table, staring at the empty space around me.

The drink that my parents gave me before they said goodnight must have had something in it to make me sleep.

But … had they chosen to give it to me or had someone forced them?

They’d both been crying when they kissed me goodnight. They’d said they loved me and the looks on their faces told me they needed me to believe it.

They would never leave me willingly.

Someone must have taken them. Whoever it was could have been in our house when Mom and Dad gave me the drink. It could have been Reid or someone working with him. Maybe he arrived after I snuck out to the dance studio and threatened to hurt me if my parents didn’t do what he wanted. But, if it was Reid, I wondered why he would leave me behind and not take me too.

And why would he want my parents?

I tried to remember what I’d heard when I woke up in the night. Mom asked if I’d be okay. Dad said I’d understand. I tried to, desperately. Mom and Dad had two mortal children, despite being normal themselves. That made them different, and if they were different, then maybe people would think something was wrong with them too.

I gasped at a new thought: had the Bashers taken them? I was the very definition of weakness, so maybe they’d come for my parents as a way to get to me … but that didn’t make sense because, like Reid, there was no reason they would take my parents and leave me behind.

I rubbed my eyes with my hands, trying to make sense of it all. I had to get rid of the after-effects of whatever I’d taken and water was my best bet. I needed to flush it out of my body so I could think.

Determined to make myself move, I grabbed a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water. My head swam like the bubbles from the aerator tap.

I didn’t know how much money my parents had left me or how long it would last and what would happen when I couldn’t buy food. Maybe Lucy would still let me waitress at the café under the dance studio. Except that my face was all over the news. I wondered if she would be afraid of me like everyone else.

The glass overfilled in my hand, water gushing over my knuckles. I gulped down the whole cup and filled it again.

After my second glass of water, I sat on the floor with a third clutched in my hands. The decorative strip in the tiling above the stove was visible and I started counting the little tiles.

I told myself:
By the time I get to the end of the row, I’ll be okay.

Bang! Bang!

I jumped so hard that my head hit the edge of the table. The sound echoed from the front of the house. It was the front door, thudding with the force of what sounded like someone trying to knock it down. I peered around the corner of the table, seeking the dining room window on the other side of the room.

The vertical blinds were only partly pulled and there was a flash of color and movement, followed by another. Quiet footsteps, lots of them, and I knew what they were doing. Surrounding the house.

I leaped to my feet, dumping the glass into the sink, crouching and desperately seeking a place to hide in a house emptied of furniture. The bare walls stared back at me. There was another flicker of movement and I ducked behind the table again, hoping beyond all hope that they hadn’t seen me. But I’d seen them.

Green uniforms and wasp drones.

The person at the front door shouted. “Ava Holland! It’s the Hazard Police! Open up for your safety!”

I gave myself two seconds to consider the risks. If they were really Hazard Police, and not operatives like Reid in disguise, then they could be there to protect me and take me somewhere safe. The reporters outside the recovery center, people on the air screen, even people who knew me like Ms. White were all scared of me—afraid of my mortality. They’d looked at me with disgust and fear, but I wondered if fear could turn to hatred and violence. Could they be so afraid that they’d try to hurt me? Was it that kind of hatred that fuelled the Bashers? The mere fact that I was different, that I could die, could cause people to not only shun me but to take their fear out on me.

But if Reid was among the Hazards outside my house, then they wouldn’t take me somewhere safe. Nowhere was safe with him. And right then, that threat was more real than the chance someone might attack me in the street.

The knocking stopped and there was more movement around the sides of the house.

My hiding place wouldn’t last long. The house was open-plan with wall-height windows at intervals along the dining and living room walls, and most of the blinds were open at an angle. Mom used to boast about how “light and airy” it was. It was the first thing visitors would say and Mom would gush about it, all “I know, don’t you just love it?”

If the men took the time to peer inside—if a drone stopped to assess the windows—they’d see me.

All that light was going to get me killed.

I tried to remember if I’d passed any open windows, but I’d stumbled straight down the stairs into the kitchen. I didn’t know about Mom’s study or any of the upstairs bedrooms.

All it would take was one open window and the drones would swarm inside.

It was now or never. I scooted along to the far end of the table and scrambled left around the corner, headed for the laundry, only a few feet away. It was tucked at the back of the house past the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom. It was the only place in the lower house with frosted glass windows—and a broom cupboard.

I slid around the corner, not daring to close the laundry door in case it banged behind me and attracted attention. The broom cupboard was in the far left corner another ten feet away. Just as I propelled myself toward it, there was movement outside, and I ducked and pressed myself against the laundry sink under the windows, right next to the back door. I told myself to stay calm. As long as they hadn’t seen me through the glass, I was safe.

I held my breath, waiting for a shout that would tell me I was discovered. I was about to crawl across the floor to the broom cupboard, I was already on my elbows, when I heard voices and I almost choked.

“Is this the only back door?” It was Reid. Cool and in control. He was using them to get to me. He’d take me back to the green room, back into the underground, and everyone could forget that my brother had died and get on with their lives, knowing they were safe, that my mortality couldn’t affect them anymore.

“Yes, sir. This is the only exit on this side of the house.”

“Break the window. But keep the drones back.”

“Sir?” Doubt and concern plagued the other officer’s voice. “Our orders are to bring Ava Holland in safely for her protection. I’m not sure that this is the best—”

“Your orders are to do what I say! Break the window. Now.”

The next moment, glass shattered and sprayed. I hadn’t made it anywhere near the broom cupboard and now I had no choice but to curl my head into my knees, protecting my face. Pieces of glass landed on my head and my shoulders, and wedged behind my back. They settled in my hair and between my neck and the collar of my polo shirt. I tried to shake them off and shuddered as they prickled my skin.

If the other officers thought they were there to help me, to take me somewhere safe, Reid knew the truth. He said, “The next one, too.”

There was a second crash, and another shower of glass shards, this time larger. They clattered and cracked against the cupboards against the far wall. Something dropped directly onto my neck, a late shard, and I bit my lip to stop from crying out as it stuck in my upper back. I stayed still for as long as I could bear. Outside, there was silence.

If I moved even an inch forward, I’d be outside the concealment of the laundry tub and he’d see me. Then the drones would come after me.

Reid sounded perplexed for the first time. “Guess she’s gone.”

I closed my eyes, hoping the officers would go away now. If they thought I was gone, then surely they would leave.

He continued. “Let’s check anyway. Break the door. Search the premises. If she’s here, I want her brought out. You, check the perimeter. I don’t want anyone disturbing us.”

Obedience this time. “Yes, sir.”

I jumped with the force of the door being kicked. It was followed by a loud crack. My head whipped upward to see the door handle hanging loose.

The bullet must have missed me by a sliver.

I had seconds to move if that. But with the now-gaping windows, it would take a miracle for the drones to miss me. And where would I go? The broom cupboard may as well have been a mile away because I’d have to get across the floor. Even if I tucked myself into the cupboards on this side of the room, I’d have to veer out into the open, and then they’d see me. That plan had only worked while the windows were intact.

I glanced upward and caught sight of the air duct in the ceiling. Again, I’d have to move into the open. Even if I made it up there, they’d follow me in and I’d be cornered with nowhere to go.

But up was the right way to go. I knew it was. The sky could protect me.

The men thought I was gone, and the drones would only go where they sent them. If I went in the least likely direction, there was a slim chance I’d be safe. Very slim, but it was the only option I had. I judged how fast I could get back through the door to the living area, past the kitchen and to the base of the stairs.

The door rattled again. It began opening, pushing glass in my direction.