Stray (19 page)

“Holy–” she whispers. “I actually did it.” She holds the tracker between her thumb and forefinger so I can see. A tiny metallic sphere with ridges around the circumference and a blinking yellow light, covered in blood. My insides turn. I retch into the sink. Kitty drops the tracker in the pinkish bile. I slump over the vanity, rattling the whole frame. Taking the broken piece of mirror, I drive it into the tracker, smashing it. I open the faucet, blood on my palm, and the bile and broken pieces slip past the glass and down the drain.

“Evs, you don’t look good.”

My stomach won’t stop heaving, though there’s nothing left for me to bring up and painful contractions keep me slumped over the sink.

“Aiden,” Kitty says. “Hold her. I need to cover the wound.”

“I’m fine.” I’m not. I can barely hold myself up.

Aiden moves beside me and supports my shoulders, swaying himself. “She needs stitches.”

“No!” I spit into the sink. “There’s no time. I’ll heal.”

Kitty quickly cleans away the blood and fixes a thick bandaid over the wound. I go to stand, but the bathroom spins away from me, everything goes black and I hit the ground. I can still hear Kitty calling my name, Aiden asking her to move out of the way, my own groaning as he hoists me up into his arms, banging me against the vanity, then on the doorframe, but I can’t see a thing. He drops me onto the bed, almost landing on top of me. I curl on my side, my whole body quaking, painful palpitations contracting my chest.

“She hasn’t slept in two days. I don’t know when she last ate. I think she’s exhausted,” Kitty says, her weight behind me, her hand on my arm.

“Carrying me all that way can’t have helped,” Aiden says.

“I didn’t think they could get sick.”

“I’m n-not sick,” I say, mumbling into the quilt. I’m spent, my system taxed beyond its capacity. I’ve denied it fuel. Food. Water. And let’s face it, Jamie. A day without contact can give me withdrawal tremors, our signals now so accustomed to Synergist Coding.
Dependant
. I push that thought away. It’s the backlog of sleeplessness, dehydration and adrenal fatigue that tipped me over the edge.

How did I let it get to this?

Why didn’t I force myself to eat?

You would have brought it up anyway
.

Miriam’s warnings about my metabolism taunt me.

The short-term solution is Fretizine to suppress the adrenal gland, supplement healing and maximise signal regeneration after trauma, but the cost is weakness, dulled senses, slow reflexes.

I cry out in frustration.

Kitty strokes my arm. “What do you want us to do?”

“You should take her to hospital,” Aiden says. “She needs–”

“No!” I jerk my head up and glare at him, but I can only see black swirls and popping lights. “I need Fretizine, there’s another dose in the … in the case. Just … hurry, we–”

A blackout.

Blissful nothingness.

…

The prick of a needle.

The sweet sting of Fretizine.

And I’m back.

I blink once, twice, and the black swirls gain some blurred colour. Panting, I say, “We have to go. We have to go now. Aiden, you think you can drive? I can’t see properly. Kitty, you have to stay here. Call your folks. They’ll come for you.”

“Are you out of your mind?” she says. “There is no way I’m letting you go by yourselves. Aiden’s half-stoned! How are you going to get the blood sample to Doctor Sullivan? It’ll be hours before you can drive.”

It’s like a punch to the gut.

How
will
we get the sample to Doctor Sullivan before they come for us? I planned to take it to him myself. It’s the middle of the night in Hicksville; it’s not like we can call FedEx and wait.

“Evie’s right,” Aiden says. “It’s not safe. You should stay here.”

“You don’t get a vote! It’s my car and I’m the only sober driver!”

“I think I saw something that time.” Aiden, from the back of Kitty’s car. His speech sounds less slurred or maybe my hearing has grown less muddy. I squint up at him from the reclined front passenger seat, curled on my side, my vision clear in the centre but fuzzy on the fringes. He leans his forearm on the driver’s seat. “Is it KMT or KMH?”

Kitty’s focus shifts briefly from the road to Aiden. Her fingers tighten on the steering wheel. I watch her but I don’t think it’s fear, more like heightened awareness. She bites her lip and looks back at the dark, wet road to Boston.

It’s been raining since we left the Daisy Chain. I glance at the clock. We’ve been on the road forty-five minutes. The drive out of Roxborough, a breath-held nightmare. Aside from a couple of big rigs we saw no other cars until we hit the freeway. I’m tempted to turn on the radio but I don’t want to hear any news reports. I can’t check my phone because I left it at the motel. Kitty left hers too, in case they try to track our cell signals like they do in movies. It cut me in two parting with mine, the archive of photos of Jamie and me lost for good.

“It’s KMT, my physical memory. Though with drugs in my system my transference is probably crap. Rain messes with the reading too. Even if I was touching you, I’m not sure it would make much difference.”

“Can we try?” Without waiting, he takes my hand and closes his eyes.

Kitty and I exchange a look. His hand in mine gives me a warm feeling in my chest and I think stupid blubbery thoughts like
this is my brother
. Kitty presses her lips together, not quite a smile in the context of fleeing in terror but an expression of empathy.

I try to relax, reaching into the bandwidth for his signal. My brain is slow and it’s hard to know what to show him. I don’t want to go back to anything that might upset him and I dodge memories of our confrontation at the Gallaghers’ estate. I decide to keep things recent and focus on my break-in at the detention centre. The details fill out in my mind. I’m back in the moment, my foot punching through reinforced glass; I press the image forwards.

Aiden grunts, his hand tightening around mine, but he doesn’t resist it, letting the Kinetic Memory Transfer play out. I reach the part where I take the guard in a headlock and Aiden draws air through his teeth. “Whoa.”

I release my hold on his signal and hand. He opens his eyes, an involuntary smile parting his lips. “That was definitely clearer. It’s unreal. Like a body snatcher thing.”

“Ergh,” Kitty grunts.

“I mean, it’s like being in someone else’s skin. Seeing everything. Feeling everything. Like you’re them. It’s – it’s unreal.”

Nodding, I smother a yawn and let my head loll back on the rest, enjoying Aiden’s animated face. He seems to be shaking off the effects of the Fretizine.

“So there’s Transfer and Harvest, neither of which I seem to be able to do but I can receive okay, then there’s all the strength and speed stuff which I have a bit of.”

“Trust me, you’re plenty strong.”

“Explain precognition again. I didn’t have that when I was–” He cuts off, his face stricken, and pulls his arm away from Kitty’s seat. “Kitty, I’m so sorry.”

She shakes her head, her voice low but certain. “It’s okay.”

He sits back, rubs his face. “It’s not.”

She gives me a pleading look.

I sigh. “No one’s saying it was okay, Aiden – the way things were for you before. We’re all clear on how not okay it was, but can we take it as a given that you wanting to kill Kitty was no more your fault than me wanting to protect Kitty was a reflection of my moral character?”

“Thanks very much,” Kitty says.

Aiden flinches at “kill” and scowls at the rest, before slumping into a sullen stare out at the darkness and rain. If I could convince him to agree, I’d try, but his dedicated self-loathing has worn me out since he came to at the motel. I let silence settle. I can’t take his burden from him. I’ve told him what I can about the origins of our condition, leaning heavily on the core loss of free will that comes with the activation of the synthetic gene. I’ve rehashed Miriam’s tutorials on the Affinity Project, butchering most of it. None of it helps. None of it alleviates the crushing truth; it didn’t when Miriam explained it to me.

Thinking about Miriam turns the icy weight in my stomach. Knowing Affinity will take her because of me is unbearable and I wonder if they’ve gotten to her yet. I wonder what they’ll say, what she’ll say and whether they’ll punish her because of me. I dig my nails into my palm.

“What
was
it like?” Kitty asks, her soft voice filling the silence. “Before.”

Aiden stiffens.

Kitty’s gaze lifts to the rear-view mirror.

Their eyes meet. He winces and looks away. She bites her lip and frowns at the road.

“Like … losing my mind … my body.” He sounds distant and distracted as though speaking to himself. “Like being possessed. Half the time I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing.”

“But you seemed normal at school,” she says, and her tone’s so matter-of-fact that I have a moment of surreal dislocation as my Spark and her Stray discuss his mental state and the weirdness of it swells in my head. Their voices take on a distorted quality, like I’m listening from another room, or hovering above the scene, detached from all the right emotion. Where’s my horror, my sympathy, my raging sense of injustice? Kitty’s voice breaks through, “… just seemed so normal.”

“I did? I didn’t feel normal.” He grows quiet for a moment then draws a shuddering breath. “The dreams were … I don’t know how to describe it. Like being in a nightmare and waking up and not being sure if I was really awake and then finding out I was – I don’t know – the monster, the Wolfman.” He lowers his head.

Wolfman
.

A terrible bubbling laughter rises inside me. So inappropriate. So wholly irrational and yet it grips me deep in the belly. I don’t look at Kitty. I can’t bear to. Aiden’s just ripped his guts open, for crying out loud; genuine confession in the most vulnerable way before the one person who has every reason to despise him. The building pressure makes my face hot and then it’s too late, my shoulders start bouncing and the geyser rises and I shake in my seat.

Kitty reaches out to me, one hand on the steering wheel. She squeezes my hand and makes shushing sounds. I can’t make out Aiden’s expression, with tears streaming from my eyes. “It’s okay, Evs … Everything is …” Her head swivels towards me. She whips her hand away. “You’re
laughing
?”

“I’m sorry!” I burst out, rocking in my seat. “I’m not. Not really. God, Aiden. I’m sorry … It’s just … it’s just–” Overcome by another hysterical wave, wiping away tears. “
Wolfman
.”

“Evangeline!” Kitty smacks her hand on the steering wheel. “It’s not remotely funny.”

“You’re right.” I squeeze my sides for control. “It’s not funny. It’s terrible. It’s just …
Wolfman
.”

Aiden makes a noise of disgust.

“Ignore her,” Kitty mutters. “Your sister has lost her bloody marbles.”

Then her shoulders begin to shake and it’s all over.

* * *

At the station we gather by the ticket machine, me wobbly on my legs and woozy about the head. There are a few early morning commuters arriving, shuffling, grey-faced. No one pays any attention to the three of us, though we’re all on edge. Aiden wear his Dartmouth cap pulled low. Kitty has pulled her beret down around her ears and I have my hoodie up, hunching my shoulders as though resisting the cold. It’s hard not to look for security cameras.

“Don’t wait,” Aiden says. “It’s freezing and you should get back. Kitty’s parents must be freaking out.”

The thought of leaving him at the station for half an hour before the first train doesn’t sit well with me at all, but I can’t ignore the growing urgency and dread I feel about getting back to New Hampshire and Doctor Sullivan. I can’t think about Barb and Leonard, Miriam and Jamie or the police until we get the sample safely to the lab.

The police will want to interview us. Kitty and I were the last people to see Aiden in any official capacity. It would make sense for them to interview us. I imagine questions like, “Was Aiden acting strangely when you saw him? Had he ever talked about anyone who might want to hurt him? Do you have any idea who would want to break into the facility and take him against his will?” My insides churn with what might have been captured on the security feed at the detention centre, my stupidity in calling out to the guard. What are the chances we make it home to answer their call?

Tucking my hands in my pockets, I nod, wondering what the etiquette is for farewelling one’s newly met fugitive twin.

“I guess we should hug it out?” The corner of Aiden’s mouth twitches up.

“I guess, yeah.”

He makes the move, surrounding my shoulders so that I clasp him around the waist. My throat tightens and I hold my breath. “No fair,” I say, croaking. “You’re taller than me.”

“I have to have at least one advantage.” He pulls back and narrows his eyes. “Which of us is the eldest?”

I make a face and he chuckles.

Kitty produces a soft laugh and he gets that uncertain look she provokes in him. “I hope they go easy on you, Evie.”

They won’t. “You’ve been over the map?”

“Kitty talked me through it.”

“You’ve got the key and the money.”

“I hope I get to pay you back.”

I snort. “Live and we’re square.”

“Thanks for everything,
sis
.”

I step back a few paces to allow Kitty her goodbye.

Aiden tenses as she moves into his personal space and he swallows. “Thank you for your … help. You’ve been very … generous.”

“You’re welcome.”

An intense pause fills out, their eyes locked. Aiden balls his fists into the pockets of his sweatshirt and drops his gaze. “I hope you won’t be in too much trouble.”

“It was worth it.”

His frown buckles tight.

“Take care, Wolfman.” She gives his arm a lingering squeeze. As she walks away he looks on, stunned. She doesn’t meet my eye, her cheeks and the tip of her nose glowing bright pink.

The shop lights fizz overhead. I shuffle down the sticky aisle of the 7-Eleven, like my head’s in a fishbowl, tiredness distorting my vision at the edges even though the Fretizine has mostly worn off. For the first time in days I feel like I might be able to keep some food down, though the only reason I agreed to stop was to fill the car with gas. Now Kitty’s making me nervous, taking her time in the rest room. I wonder if she’s in there rehearsing a speech for her parents or praying God will keep them from killing her, killing me, grounding her for life. Beyond the grimy windows the horizon grows pale before the sun and I scan the road for signs of a black van.