Touch of Death (13 page)

Chapter 12

“Oh my God, Matt!” Melodie shrieked.

“Stop!” I grabbed her arm. “That’s a power line. If you go near it or the water around Matt, you’ll get electrocuted.”

“We can’t leave him there and do nothing!” Melodie cried. “Jodi, he’s my best friend.” She broke down, and I couldn’t take it. I turned and ran back into the house yelling something about 911. I ran right into the kitchen table and doubled over it. My breathing was labored. I looked up to see Alex in my kitchen. He dialed the phone for me, but then he held it out.

“If I call it in, the police might ask about me. They’ll want to talk to everyone who was here. You have to do it.”

I took the phone.

“911. What is your emergency?” the operator said. I really hated the sound of that.

“This is Jodi Marshall. There’s been an… accident.” I choked on the word. “A power line snapped. My boyfriend’s been electrocuted.”

“Miss Marshall, can you please confirm your address for me?”

Why was it that I could call for pizza delivery and they could tell my address from the phone number, but 911 needed me to confirm it for them?

“118 Pine Street.”

“I’ll send someone out right away. Please, stay away from the power line and the body. Do you understand me? If your boyfriend’s been electrocuted, then the wire is live, and it will electrocute anyone else who comes in contact with it.”

“I understand.” I hung up the phone before she could lecture me anymore.

Alex was gone. I was surprised that I wanted him here, but he knew the truth. He understood how I felt. Right now, he was the only one I wanted to talk to.

The back door opened, and Mom led Melodie in by her shoulders. She sat her down at the kitchen table. I turned away from her. How could I look Melodie in the face after I’d killed the guy she was secretly in love with? Mom made tea for everyone, not that we touched it. The paramedics and the power company arrived, and Mom showed them to the backyard. We stayed inside. Mom asked the paramedics to take Matt’s body around the side of the house. She didn’t want us to have to see him.

I sat at the table, across from Melodie, who was still in shock. Mom called Melodie’s parents and explained what had happened. Mom offered to let Melodie spend the night, but her parents insisted that they’d come get her. They wanted her home so they could make sure she was okay. Her dad showed up fifteen minutes later and took her home, saying he’d come back for her car in the morning. The house was eerily quiet after that. The silence of death hung in the air, and I’d put it there.

“Can I get you something, sweetie?” Mom asked.

“No.”

She sipped her tea, which must have been ice cold by now. “The guy from the power company said the wire looked like it had been snapped by a tree branch. They found one down in the woods behind the house. It must have been struck by lightning or something during the last storm. It was weak, and it finally gave.”

I wondered how Alex had done all that in a matter of minutes. Unless he had been working with a tree that really had been struck by lightning. Maybe he’d seen it during one of his stalking sessions. He’d certainly spent enough time hanging around my house to know if there was a tree that had been hit by lightning.

“The power company said this kind of thing is more common than you’d think. It—”

“Mom.” I raised my hands in frustration. I couldn’t listen to this. I didn’t want to think about Matt or the stupid fake story Alex had concocted to cover up the real way Matt had died. “Please, I can’t. Not now.”

“Sweetie, I’m sorry. I just don’t know what to say.”

“Let’s not say anything. Okay? Nothing we could possibly say is going to bring Matt back or change what happened.” But Alex had changed what happened. He’d covered for me, made it look like a freak accident. “I want to go to bed. Sleep the day away and escape this nightmare.”

Mom looked lost. “This is one of those times when I really wish I was older. That I hadn’t had you at sixteen. Maybe if I was older I’d know how to make you feel better right now. How to protect you from things like this.”

“Mom.” I hugged her, and she cried on my shoulder. “There are some things you can’t protect me from.” Like myself. “I’ll be okay. I just need time.”

She nodded and wiped her tears. “You go to bed. I’ll lock up down here.”

I knew she was going to sit at the table and cry for at least another twenty minutes. And the worst part was that she was feeling like she had somehow let me down because she couldn’t shield me from the bad things in life. She had no clue I was one of those bad things. She didn’t really know who I was at all. Hell,
I
didn’t really know who I was.

I slept late into the next morning, completely wiped out from the day before. But the first thought that popped into my mind when I opened my eyes was that Matt was dead. I’d killed him. I’d brought him back, and I’d turned him into a monster—an animal that tore a cute little bunny to shreds. I felt tears well up in my eyes.

“Don’t start that.” Alex’s voice made me sit up abruptly.

“What are you doing here? What time is it?”

“Almost noon.” He was leaning against my windowsill. “Your mom came to check on you about an hour ago. You were out cold.”

I looked at the nightstand. Mom had brought me a muffin and some coffee. There was also a note. “Jodi, I hate to do this to you, but I got called in to work. I told them I couldn’t stay long. That I had to be home for personal reasons. They weren’t happy, but I insisted. Please, eat something, and call me when you wake up. I love you. Mom.”

I sighed. “She went to work.”

“Probably better that way.” Alex pushed off the windowsill and sat at the end of my bed. “How do you feel?”

“Like I killed my boyfriend.”

He frowned. “I meant, do you feel drained in any way? Sometimes using our powers drains our energy. At least, when we’re first learning to use them. It doesn’t take nearly as much energy once we get used to it.” He ran his hand along the edge of my bed. “You’ve been using a lot of your power lately, without knowing it.”

“Thanks for the reminder. I guess to clarify my response to how I’m feeling, I should say I feel like I killed my boyfriend, a doctor, a nurse, and a bunch of innocent animals. Yeah, that’s more accurate.” I slumped back onto my pillow.

“I can help you pack if you want.” Alex looked around my room.

I covered my face with my hands, careful not to reopen any of my cuts, and shook my head. Was he seriously doing this to me now? I felt his eyes on me, so I sat up again and met his stare. “I’m not going anywhere. My boyfriend isn’t even in the ground yet. Everyone will expect me to be at his funeral. The police may even call me in for questioning. Who knows? I mean, I told Mom and Melodie that Matt had broken up with me. What if the police think we were fighting and things got heated? What if they think I had something to do with his death?”

“You did have something to do with it.” The words stung. “But the police will never know that. The power company said that tree had been hit by lightning. That Matt’s death was an accident. No one is going to believe you had anything to do with Matt’s death.”

Except, I did have something to do with it. “Was that tree really hit by lightning or did you do something I’m not aware of? Do you have other superhuman powers?”

He smirked. “It was hit by lightning. I actually saw it get hit last week in that bad storm we had.”

“Last week?” My mind started spinning. “You were spying on me last week? I thought Mr. Quimby just told you to start watching me a few days ago.”

Alex turned toward me, bending his right leg up onto my mattress more. Our legs touched, and I couldn’t help looking at our limbs resting against each other. God! What was I doing? Matt just died yesterday, and I was getting excited about my stalker touching my leg?

“Jodi, I was sent to watch you in September. After Mr. Quimby confirmed our suspicions—that you were an Ophi—I started camping out in the woods behind your house. Monitoring where you went, when you came home, who you went out with.” He said the last part like the words were painful on his tongue.

“September? You’ve been watching me for five months?” I felt violated. I was finally starting to kind of like him, to not mind having him around, and now this. We were right back where we’d started. I pulled my leg away from his, curling it under me and as far away from his body as it could get.

“I’m sorry that bothers you, but you have to remember we’re trying to do what’s best for you. Asking you to come with me is part of that.”

“Asking me? So, I can say no and that would be that?”

He hesitated. Somehow I knew it wasn’t that simple. Alex may not have wanted to force me into anything, but that didn’t mean the other Ophi wouldn’t. “I want to help you, Jodi, but you have to let me. I won’t force you.”

I knew it was childish, but I crossed my arms and turned away from him. “I’m not going with you. This is my life. I’m not leaving Mom and Melodie. I’m not missing Matt’s funeral. I owe him at least that much.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alex get up and go to the window. “If you need me, you have my number in your phone. I’m willing to bet you haven’t deleted my texts.”

He was right. I hadn’t. But why hadn’t I? Who kept messages from their stalker? Maybe to use as evidence, but I’d kept them hidden from everyone. I unfolded my arms and turned to the window, but Alex had already gone out it.

I couldn’t eat. The day passed, and I let it. Mom got home around four-thirty.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said, practically running through the door. “I was all set to get out of there after an hour, but there was a major crisis. The company is being sued, and if I didn’t pull my weight they were going to fire me and find someone who was willing to work on a Sunday.”

“Is that what they said?” I asked, staring at the blank TV screen, realizing for the first time all day that I’d forgotten to turn it on. I didn’t even remember coming downstairs.

“Oh, yeah. They said that. Can you believe it?” She hung up her coat and purse and sat down next to me. “I was thinking I’d make pot roast for dinner. If I start now, it will be ready for a late dinner, and we could throw in a movie and stay up all night. What do you think?”

She was doing her best to avoid the subject of Matt. I had to give her credit, but there was actually something I needed to know. “Have you heard from his parents?” Matt’s car wasn’t in the driveway, so they must have come for it at some point.

Mom sighed. “I guess you didn’t talk to Melodie today?”

I shook my head, feeling my throat close up. “I didn’t know what to say to her, and I guess she didn’t want to talk to me either.”

“Matt’s parents called me today. I was able to sneak off to the bathroom long enough to get the details.” She squeezed her knees. “They’ve already made all the arrangements. They don’t want to hold things up. They said it’s too painful, and they need closure.”

I stared at her, waiting for what I needed to hear.

“The funeral is tomorrow night. There’s not going to be a service before it.”

“No service? They’re just going to shove him in the ground and be done with it?” It was outrageous. “What kind of parents are they? What does Amber have to say about it? She and Matt were really close.”

“Jodi.” Mom put her hand on mine. “People grieve in different ways. I don’t know how I’d—” She choked on the words and had to blink back tears. “We have to respect what the family wants. Maybe it’s too painful for them to see Matt this way. Maybe they want closure so that they can remember him the way he was when he was alive.”

I stood up. “I’m going to bed.”

“What about dinner?” Mom called after me.

I stormed upstairs, slammed my door shut, and flopped face first onto my bed. I squeezed the pillow in my fists and screamed until my lungs ached. Mom didn’t check on me. My phone didn’t ring once. And Alex didn’t show up lurking in my closet or anything. I was alone. Me and my poisonous Gorgon blood. Toxic to those I loved. Had I loved Matt? Probably not. I’d never really been in love, but I definitely had strong feelings for Matt. When he kissed me, it was electrifying. I’d never felt so completely alive. It was why I’d kissed him back—why I hadn’t pulled away sooner. That kiss could’ve stopped time; instead, it stopped Matt’s heart.

By the time I picked my head up, my pillow was drenched in tears and my room was dark. The sun had set. I went to the window and searched for Alex. Was he still watching me? I guessed he was, but he wasn’t letting me see him. It didn’t seem fair. He was the only one I could talk to right now. Yet, I knew if I broke down and called him, he’d try to get me to leave again. I wasn’t ready to do that. I had to say goodbye to Matt first. Then, I had to find a way to tell Mom what I am, tell her that the daughter she gave birth to was really a monster.

I stayed in bed all night, staring at the ceiling and wondering how to do that. By the time the sun came up, I still didn’t have an answer. I heard Mom get up and shower for work. The smell of coffee drifted up to my room. My alarm buzzed in my ear, but I hit it until it gave up. Finally, Mom came in my room.