“What?”
He must recognize my expression, because he raises his hands in surrender and says, “Oh, nothing, it’s just that I’ve been here five years and we’ve never had a chick come in and ask about Ben. I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Why?” Ben doesn’t strike me as the most outgoing guy I’ve ever come across and he’s more intense than most guys, but it’s not like he’s unattractive. I think of him in APEL and feel myself blush. I’m sure he’s had plenty of girls interested in him.
Kale shrugs. “He’s one of those too-smart types always reading some weird science book or something.”
S
o that was a bust.
I’m walking back to my car, wondering whether I should try to find out where the hell Ben lives or just wait until tomorrow, when I hear someone say, “You fucking told her!”
And it’s a voice I know.
The asshole apparently isn’t finished shouting. “What were you thinking?”
The voice sounds like it’s coming from around the back of the shop, so I lean against one of the cars illegally parked in front of a driveway and peek down the alley. And there they are, near the back, shadowed slightly because the sun is setting. Elijah Palma. Reid Suitor.
And Ben Michaels.
Who’s yelling back at Elijah. It’s more of a quiet, hissing yell, though, and I’m not close enough to catch all the words. I just hear, “… bigger problems…”
Elijah: “Oh, right, like that bitch isn’t going to stick her nose all up in our shit now!”
Reid says something, but he’s not yelling, and I can’t hear him at all. But whatever it is, it’s not something Ben wants to hear.
He pushes Reid away. “We’re
not
talking about Janelle.”
“FUCK!” Elijah screams, kicking up rocks and punching the air—as if that ever helped anything.
Ben says something I can’t make out, and I know I’m going to have to get closer to them if I want to eavesdrop.
Next to Kon-Tiki is a bar. I can go through it to the back exit and hang out there to see if I can hear them any better.
When I get to the back patio of the bar, rather than flatten myself up against the wall or do something that would obviously draw attention to myself, I sit on the edge of the railing and pull out my cell phone to pretend I’m texting.
“Aren’t you hearing me?” Ben says. “We can’t keep opening it. Not until we know how to keep anything else from coming through.”
“We don’t know that’s what’s happening!” Elijah says.
“I’m with Elijah on this,” Reid says, and my heart is hammering. I’m not sure what they’re talking about, but I don’t want Reid and Elijah to be on one side and Ben to be on the other. “We need to get home.”
“It’s getting worse,” Ben says, and there’s some shuffling, as if he’s the one kicking rocks now.
Elijah: “We don’t know that!”
Ben: “Oh, what, you haven’t noticed the creepy-ass shit that’s going on around here?”
Creepy. Ass. Shit
. If I were slightly less eloquent, I might describe what I saw in that house as creepy-ass shit.
“Look.” Ben again. “There are too many unknowns. I’ve gotta figure out where the hell we’re going and how to stabilize everything.”
“You’re too much of a pussy!” Elijah again.
I hear a sigh and there’s some moving around on the rocks. Even though there’s a breeze and it’s only, like, eighty degrees, a drop of sweat rolls down the center of my back. I have no idea if they know about that dead family—creepy-ass shit could describe a lot of things.
“I don’t know how close we are to Wave Function Collapse,” Ben says.
“You don’t even know if that’s real,” Reid says.
“It’s just some fucking theory!” Elijah’s scream makes me flinch.
Ben: “It might be a theory or it might not. But I’m not going to be the one testing it.”
Elijah: “You—”
Ben: “No! You need me; that means we do it my way.”
I’m clutching my phone and straining to hear whatever comes next, so I don’t notice when someone who works at the bar comes out onto the patio. So when he looks at me and says, “Hey, you got ID?” I’m completely caught off guard.
Which means I drop the phone and almost fall backward. I grab the railing, rock back, and manage to pull myself forward, but the phone isn’t so lucky. It shatters.
“Sorry, I was just waiting for a friend,” I say as I hop down and pick up the phone and all but flee the scene. I’ve got to get out of here. I move through the bar quickly, my pulse ringing in my ears even louder than the alternative rock they’ve got playing.
When I exit the front of the bar, I’m out of breath, dizzy, and covered in a thin sheen of sweat from all the adrenaline.
I’m also five feet from Elijah.
“J
anelle fucking Tenner,” he says with a smile. And it’s not friendly. But that’s okay, I can play this game.
“Um, hey,” I say, looking down like I’m planning to walk right past him, just as Ben says, “Janelle?” as if he’s not sure whether I’m an apparition.
I look over at Ben slightly too long, and Elijah steps into my path, so I sort of bump into him and stiff-arm him in order to get away. “What?”
“Where you been?” Elijah says with that same creepy smile.
“If you must know, I went to Kon-Tiki to see if Ben was there, and he wasn’t. I talked to Kale about buying a bike, and then I went and got a Coke,” I say, trying to stick as much to researchable truth as possible.
It might be working. Elijah’s looking at me, and I can tell he’s trying to sort out whether I’m lying or not. It’s awkward as hell and the timing sucks, but I’m not letting on that I just heard him talking about me.
“You were looking at bikes?” Ben asks, moving closer to me.
“Yeah, just for a minute,” I say.
“What kind of motorcycle would you want?” Elijah says with a smirk.
“Ideally, a Ducati Streetfighter S,” I say, and for a second I have no idea where that just came from. I’m pretty sure it’s the motorcycle Shia LaBeouf rides in that newer
Wall Street
movie, and it’s supposed to be some high-class superexpensive motorcycle.
“She’s got good taste,” Reid says to Ben before turning to Elijah. “I’ll drive you home?” he offers.
“I’m not going home,” Elijah says. “But you can drop me off at the house.”
Reid nods and turns his back, walking away. Apparently I don’t deserve a good-bye. Fine then.
Elijah looks at me again. “Well, I doubt you could really afford one of those today,” he says. “But Kon-Tiki’s got some damn fine bikes. Reid can wait. Want me to show you a few?”
I’m not fooled by his attempt to be charming. Elijah’s got the strawberry-blond hair and blue eyes that make him look like he might be a reformable bad boy, but I’m pretty sure he would pull me into an alley and try to beat whatever information I had out of me, if it suited his purposes.
Or it’s possible I’m exaggerating just because I think he’s scum. Either way, “I’d rather Ben show me.”
“Bitch,” Elijah says, the smile falling off his face. He turns to Ben. “Tell me you’re at least rounding third base for all this trouble.”
And then he’s walking away.
“Nice friends you’ve got,” I say.
“Give me a second,” Ben says, before jogging after Elijah. When he reaches him, they’re still in earshot, so I don’t have to inch forward like I was prepared to.
“I know how pissed off you are, and you’ve been my best friend for almost fifteen years, so I’m gonna forgive that,” Ben says. “But if you—”
“Aw, Ben, what the fuck?”
Ben grabs Elijah by the shoulders and pushes him up against a car. “I’m serious, man. You can’t talk to her like that. Get it through your fucking head.”
They stand like that for a minute, Ben holding Elijah against the car, and Elijah just … limp. I wouldn’t have expected that, and it makes me feel a little short of breath—because Ben just stuck up for me again, because Elijah’s actually listening. Elijah has a reputation for fighting, and he’s bigger than Ben, not taller, but more muscular, noticeably so. Yet he’s not fighting back at all.
Elijah nods. “Whatever you say.”
Ben backs off and drops his hands. “I don’t want to have this conversation again.”
“I said, whatever you fucking say.” Elijah looks back in my direction, and I tip my chin. I’m not afraid of him, whether I should be or not. He smirks and turns around, stuffing his hands in his pockets and walking off into almost darkness.
I hope whatever they’re involved with isn’t related to bioterrorism, because I might have just made myself an enemy of Elijah Palma.
W
alking back to me, Ben says, “Here, I’ll show you the most basic motorcycle we’ve got. It’s great for someone just getting into bikes.”
When we’re at the front of the shop with the lined-up bikes, I grab Ben’s arm.
“I don’t really want to learn to ride a motorcycle.”
He turns to me and cues the half smile. “I figured.”
“Why? Don’t I seem like the motorcycle type?”
“Not really.” He laughs, and for a second, I love the sound of it. Then a pang of unease moves through me, because I don’t know what Ben’s involved in, and that’s why I’m here.
“Yeah, I’m not,” I say with a shrug. “I think they’re reckless and dangerous and stupid. I mean, what’s the point of them, really? Why not have a car? Well, I guess if you’re commuting to L.A. and you don’t want to wait in traffic, it might make sense.”
Why am I rambling again? Everything about Ben seems to make me lose my composure. I appear to be destined to always embarrass myself in front of him.
Ben doesn’t answer. He’s just standing there with a line of motorcycles in front of him, his hand on the seat of the closest one. He’s definitely waiting for me to say something.
I’m
waiting for me to say something too. I should ask whether he knows about the people who died, something that’s supposed to be classified. I should ask if he knows about the radiation and if he’s involved, if he knows how it’s happening. I should ask what the hell Wave Function Collapse is.
But instead I just blurt out, “Do you know anything about genetically altering viruses? I mean, can you do that with, you know”—I wave a hand—“what you do?”
He runs a hand through his hair and shifts his weight. “Ah…” He looks up at me. “I don’t know anything about genetics, really. I don’t know if I could do anything with viruses, though I could try, I guess. The scientific theory should be the same, since I could change the cells. Of course, I probably could do more harm than good if I messed something up, though. It would take some research. Why, do you know someone who’s sick?”
“What?” It takes me a second before I realize he’s misinterpreted what I’m asking. “No, no … it’s not, never mind.” He had no idea what I was talking about, not at all, which means he can’t be involved with the bioterrorism or the UIED. I was just overanalyzing everything.
The relief that hits me is tangible—it’s heavy, like I need to sit down and just let go of all the worry I’d been carrying around for the past few hours. I still know he’s up to
something
, but he’s entitled to secrets. I’m not offering up my own, either.
I have the urge to fling my arms around him and bury my face into his chest, and thinking about it, I feel a little short of breath.
“Janelle?” Ben asks. “Are you okay?”
There are a million ways I can answer that—a million things I’d have to say to answer it right. Because the answer’s no. Of course I’m not okay. I came back from the dead, my dad’s working on a case that might be end-of-the-world big, and even though I’m relieved Ben’s not involved, I’m not at all closer to solving anything.
I still need to know what he’s not telling me. I need to know exactly what happened and what else he’s up to. And how he’s managed to get under my skin.
Instead of answering him, I ask, “Is what I saw real?” My voice cracks a little under the weight of the question. And it’s not until I ask that I realize how much this has been bothering me. Because the first part of my theory was right—I did come back to life—and now I desperately need to know whether those visions I saw of myself were real too.
“What you saw?” Ben asks, his face flushing. “What did you see?”
I’m not sure I can answer. I want those things to be real so badly my tongue sticks in my mouth.
I’m somewhere else. Everything is black. My head is throbbing, like someone just took a sledgehammer to it. There’s water
—
freezing-cold water
—
all around me, and my arms and legs are sluggish and unmoving. Panic threatens to overtake me as I sink deeper. I open my eyes, but the salt stings them and I can’t see. Even if I could swim, I don’t know which way is up. My insides burn because I want to breathe. I open my mouth because I have to
—
even though I know I’ll drown
.
It’s drown or let my lungs burst
.
An arm wraps around me and pulls me to the surface and I see…
Myself
.
I’m ten, wearing a pink flowered bathing suit because even though I hated pink that summer, my dad bought it for me, and he did the best he could. The sun is behind me, backlighting me
—
and I look like an angel
.
I take a deep breath and tell him. Because I need to know. Because whatever else Ben Michaels is involved with—whoever the real Ben Michaels is—I want my presence in this life to have mattered to
someone
.
“I felt like I was drowning, but then someone reached in, grabbed me, and pulled me up.” I pause because this is the part that sounds ridiculous and unbelievable. “Only the person who pulled me out was
me
, when I was, like, ten.”
He flinches and takes a step back. And his voice is strained, like he’s choking the words out. “That was me,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “I almost drowned when I was a kid. A girl pulled me out of the ocean and saved me.”