Stray (2 page)

Laughter from the bedroom rises above the bassline. My pulse steps up its tempo. Kaylee, Imogen and Lila have arrived. I’ll have to leave the bathroom. “It could be worse,” I tell myself. Though I can’t imagine what that might look like. A bikini?

From the top of the stairs the scene in the foyer looks like a deranged film set. The Gallaghers have gone all out with decorations. The lighting is low with wreaths of fairy lights and blood-red candles burn in candelabras. Cobwebs matt the stair banisters and drape from the chandelier, tarantulas and bats and all.

The whole effect makes the plastic decorations April used to haul up from the basement year after year seem pathetic. I ignore the numb ache in my chest. Miriam – my
real
mom – made a big deal of my first New Hampshire Halloween, like I was seven not seventeen, overcompensating for the distance from home and the absence of my used-to-be-mom. I’m glad Miriam went to her friend’s place tonight, instead of joining the Gallaghers. Glad and guilty. Whatever. I need the break.

The boys mill about at the bottom of the stairs talking, laughing, posing for photos. Dracula, the Phantom of the Opera, a centurion-looking guy and Batman. A lot of capes. Is Jamie wearing a hat? I can’t quite make out his costume with the other girls in front of me. Leonard and Barb come from the dining room with trays of food and non-alcoholic beverages and smiles. My heart squeezes for Mr and Mrs Gallagher and everything they’ve been through. After surviving the last few months with their daughter being stalked by a genetically engineered killer, a high-school ball is a change in pace. They’ve even gotten into the spirit of things. Leonard looks dapper in a pinstripe suit and spats, his hair slicked back and a cigar to complete his Gomez Addams. Barb wears a raven wig and an ink-black sheath dress as Morticia.

Seeing the Gallaghers enjoying themselves gives me an instant hit of happy. I stand behind Kaylee as we take in the view and can’t help grinning at the back of her strapless gold bustier, caramel shoulderblades divided by the spill of her caramel hair. It wasn’t that long ago she was calling
me
Morticia. She’s warmed up since the start of the semester, forgiving my odd manner and the way I hogged Kitty’s time, though I’m not sure she’s over my crime of taking Jamie off the market. I smile to myself. At least her jaw-dropping Xena get-up makes me appear reasonable by comparison. Lila’s Sailor Moon skirt is blessedly skimpy on the hemline too. Only Imogen has proper coverage in her romantic gown and I wish I had thought of something flowing or knee-length, back when there was time for creative control.

Wolf-whistles rise below us. I snort and shake my head then grip the balcony rail with the tipsy rush of blood. The rail creaks.
Oops
. I loosen my hold but don’t let go. I picture careening into the girls, sending them tumbling like bowling pins. It makes me giggle.

“I know, right?” Lila says, thinking my laughter is because of the boys. “You think there’ll be pageant questions to answer at the bottom?”

I wave my hand down my body. “I call swimwear.”

She pats my arm. “Swimwear would be lucky to have you.”

Booze may not fix everything but it has at least dampened the instinct to cringe and hide. I love not caring and wonder if I should store vodka in my locker at school, which makes me snigger because everything seems funny.

“Come on.” Kitty leads the way.

In a champagne fug, I need eyes on feet to navigate the stairs. Were there always this many? Why do they feel so steep? The heels on my boots aren’t that high. I don’t release the banister until I find the last step and I’m sure of gravity. Then the screen provided by Imogen and Kaylee parts. He’s right there, lips tugging at the corners, eyebrows raised. Jamie.

He wears a dark brown fedora and lifts something coiled in his hand. A whip. He uses it to tip the brim of his hat. “Ms Croft?” His accent round and crisp like his sister’s.

“Mmm.” My smile is slow, neurons too occupied with the feast of looking to supply speech. Jamie tilts his head and narrows his eyes and I feel parched. “You know who I’m supposed to be?”

“I am a bloke. You know, the Bishop still has a Lara Croft screensaver.”

I grimace and Jamie’s smile comes and goes, a brief flash of teeth. A trademark smile. His full leonine grin saved for rare occasions, which is probably for the best given its brain-scrambling effect.

Six foot four in his stockinged feet, shoulders, jaw, that full lower lip. Eyes like graphite, grey and dangerous. Brown isn’t the right word for Jamie’s hair. Dark gold? Basically, he’s a tribute to nature and science. Evil. Genius. Science. The Optimal gene modification only selects “favourable” DNA which is pretty much science mumbo-jumbo to justify politically incorrect design features. When Miriam warned me that activated Shields grow stronger, smarter and more “attractive”, I thought she was joking. When she explained my enhanced pheromones were part of the pre-reform Affinity Project’s legacy plan – to insure the passing on of the synthetic gene – I wanted to puke. When she broke it to me that I would now suffer a weekly hour-long power-period on account of my hopped-up fertility I was ready to go on a killing spree. Clear skin and bumping up a cup-size is no compensation for the rest of it, but I can’t deny Affinity nailed it where Jamie’s DNA is concerned. Looking at him makes me want all kinds of things the now reformed organisation won’t allow – “no unsanctioned affiliations”. If he reaches full signal maturity he may as well be chiselled from stone and set on a pedestal. If. There is another option, but I refuse to think about
Helena
and her miraculous counter-signal or the fact that she could give him a normal life.

Along with the fedora and whip, he wears a brown leather jacket over a pale khaki shirt buttoned halfway, a tease of flesh in the gap. The strap of his satchel cuts diagonally across his chest. Dark pants and boots complete the costume.

“Indiana Jones.” I want to lick my lips but press them together. “It suits you … though, isn’t that kind of the eighties?”

“Shhh.” He lowers his voice, and tips his head at his twin. “Gestapo about her theme.”

“Don’t criticise the theme.” Kitty raises her claws where she gleams beside Pete, dazed in his Batman suit. “The Nineties Halloween was unanimously approved by the student council. The theme is good.”

Jamie ignores her and bounces his eyebrows at me.

I sift for words I can say aloud, words that aren’t crazed with hormones. “I look ridiculous, don’t I?”

“If only,” he says, in his deadpan drawl. He directs a narrow glance at Gil Bishop, who I hadn’t noticed till then. Gil blinks at me in a gormless manner. Jamie jabs him in the stomach with the handle of his whip. Nearly losing his fangs, Gil laughs and coughs, raising his hands. He winks at me and grins at Jamie. With a flourish of his Dracula cape, he turns and swoops Lila around the waist. She squeals and straightens her skirt and wig.

Unsure what to say, I make a dismissive noise. My outfit’s not that bad, is it? Though I could go another drink. A drink of anything. Jamie makes me thirsty.

“Hmph.” Jamie watches Kitty and Pete, his sister trailing a talon over Batman’s chest.

Taking his face in my hands, I turn him back towards me. “Don’t be like that.”

With a grumble, he pulls me against his chest then laughs when he finds the fake grenades on the back of my belt.

I press up on my toes, brushing my cheek against his, searching for the spot at the edge of his jaw where it dips beneath the ear, eager for the warm scent of his skin. If I could go around all day with my nose pressed against Jamie’s neck, I would. The scent of his skin is like some kind of DNA-related catnip – my favourite symptom of our Synergist connection. I draw deeply for the subtle fragrance, but what hits me is a pheromone bomb that makes my head swim. “Whoa.”

Jamie grips my waist to keep me from swaying and squints at me. “You all right?”

I’m generally against public displays of affection but my whole body hums and I wish we were alone. Jamie arches an eyebrow as he reads my expression. “Better hold your breath, love.” His lips are soft, the kiss lingering and the sensation like dissolving from the inside out. His smile stretches over mine. He leans back, smacking his lips and suspicion contracts his brow. “Everton, have you been–”

“Come on, you two.” Jamie’s mother appears beside us with a tray of finger food.

“Yum.” Distracted like a child presented with shiny things, I disengage from Jamie and scoop an hors d’oeuvre straight into my mouth. “You’re a genius, Barb,” I mumble, mouth full. “Love the wig.” I put my arm around her waist and kiss her cheek, a salty pesto kiss. She squeaks, nearly up-ending her tray as I jostle her.

Jamie catches it before it falls.

“Oh!” Barb cries.

“Whoops.” I giggle. “Sorry.”

“You don’t know your own strength.” She smiles up at me. “It’s good to see you happy, Evangeline.”

Is it that unusual? I giggle again.

Jamie tugs my hand. “Everton.”

I love his low, urgent voice, the way his eyes get all intense, the vertical creases forming above the strong line of his nose, the concern parting his lips–

Leonard steps forwards with his camera in hand, trying to be heard above the noise of the crowd.

I can help. I blow on my fingers, a short, sharp, shriek of sound that makes everyone flinch.

Leonard wiggles a finger in his ear and chuckles. “That’ll do it.” He waves at the staircase for couples shots.

Jamie growls in my ear. “You’ve been drinking.”

“Eric, Kaylee,” Leonard calls. The muscular, brown-haired centurion in breastplate, helmet and flowing cape is from Kaylee’s Spanish class. He looks almost dumbstruck by his luck and pleased to have the opportunity to put his arm around his date.

“So?” I shrug at Jamie and smile at the antics on the stairs, still tingling from where his breath has warmed my skin. I want him to do it again.

Jamie groans and lowers his face into his palm.

“Pete, Kitty.” Leonard waves his daughter onto the bottom step. My chest flutters inside, the echo of an old anxiety, the wish for Kitty’s happiness. Pete has featured in Kitty’s late-night texts to me over the last couple of weeks. “Not entirely committed to the idea of Pete but open to it,” she’d said. I’m pro Pete, myself. Someone to take her mind off recent events. Someone to make her smile. I remember her flirting with Aiden and shiver a little.

Jamie rubs his face. “Miriam will kill you.”

“Pfft.” I raise my palms. “Who’s going to tell her?”

Gil and Lila go next, delightfully disproportionate, his mass, her tininess, and I laugh with everyone except Jamie as Gil pretends to bite her neck. I wonder if tonight their flirting might become the real thing.

Jamie sighs. “Miriam will kill me.”

I swivel to look at him, my head sloshing with the sudden movement. “What are you talking about?”

“Abe, Imogen,” Leonard calls and the flourish of Abe’s Phantom of the Opera cape catches my attention. My vision blurs as I follow the movement, my balance out.

Jamie grabs me before I can right myself. “You’re drunk.”

I roll my eyes and pretend not to wobble. “Hardly.”

“Completely.”

I pull away, coming out of my happy daze, feeling his frown like an affront. “Barely.”

“Right, you two,” Leonard claps his son on the shoulder and the others turn towards us. Jamie cloaks his concern with immediate ease.

“No cape, Skipper?” Gil calls.

“Who needs a cape?” Jamie unfurls the thick length of the whip with a lazy flick. The lash of the tip cracks the air, parting the crowd. Squeals and shouts echo off the triple-height ceiling. Quicksilver adrenaline releases nervous laughter in the aftermath.

Gil rescues his fangs and snorts. “Overcompensating.”

Drawing my fake guns, I press against Jamie’s chest, not liking the turn in mood. Damn it, I had been starting to enjoy myself and everything. So what if I’m a bit tipsy? Big deal. I arch my back and lift my foot behind me, nearly losing balance in the pantomime. Jamie wraps the whip around my back, the cord as hard as bone, bracing me. I blush at my unsteadiness, needled by my own embarrassment. “I’m fine.”

“Clearly.” He smiles at the camera and speaks through his teeth. “How much have you had?”

“Relax.”

Leonard lifts the camera strap from his neck. “I think that’s it.”

“Limo’s here,” Kitty calls, darting into the living room to fetch jackets.

“How much?” Jamie releases me from the whip.

“I don’t know.” I copy his clipped tone. “A few?”

“You don’t know?”

Kitty brings me a floor-length pale blue coat with furred hood and cuffs. “Lara wears this when she’s on the ice.”

“Small mercy.” Jamie slings the whip over his shoulder, snatches the coat from Kitty and has me in it before I know what’s happening. He starts buttoning from under my chin.

“Don’t be like that.” Kitty nudges him. “She has her public to think of.” She winks at me and I scowl. You break the Governor’s son’s nose and you’re never allowed to forget it.

Jamie isn’t in the mood. “Did you give Everton champagne?”

“Shhh.” Kitty darts a look over her shoulder. “So?” She screws her nose up and marches off.

“Brilliant.” He swears at the buttons on my coat and I bat his hands away, making him wince and rub his fingers.

I
finish hooking the last loops, leaving the parting for my long booted legs. “What’s the deal, sergeant major?”

“I should take you home.”

I stare at him.

“You could hurt someone.” He sucks his bruised knuckles.

I keep staring.

“Not on purpose.” He spreads his hands. “Obviously.”

I can’t stop looking at the corners of his lower lip where they tuck in, the meaning of the furrows in his brow.
He
is frustrated with
me
. I fill my chest, straining the toggles on my coat and grit my teeth. “I’m-getting-in-the-limo.” I turn and march out the door, the coat flapping my stride into a flounce.

It’s chilly and dark already. The sky presses low above us, no stars. Only the rising moon, a pale circle, glows fuzzily behind thick clouds. Jamie and Kitty’s parents are on the front porch. Everybody lines up to thank them. I stride right past, jogging down the wide marble steps, relishing the crunch of hard-soled boots on fine gravel, letting my heels drive divots in the path with steps like punches. I climb into the limo, dizzy and squinting against the pink neon floor lights tracing the underside of the leather seats. Jamie comes after me. “
Everton
,” he says, removing his hat to duck through the door. He lands beside me. I cross my legs and my arms, my head spinning, and glare past him to the porch where Leonard draws Pete aside, pinning him around the shoulders with his long arm. Kitty waits down on the drive giving her father a black look.