I scrubbed a hand down my face. “Let’s backtrack a little. He has a team?”
He snorted. “You mean he hasn’t asked you to help him?”
“Help him with what?” As with Mr. Ankh and Dr. Wright, I had my suspicions.
“The zombies.”
“No. Until a few minutes ago, I had no idea he was involved.”
“He’s not involved. He’s a menace.”
And Cole was one big bowl of confusion. “You’re not making any sense. He’s either involved or he isn’t. Which is it?”
Cole banged the back of his head on a shelf, sighed and said, “Listen up, because I will never repeat this. I shouldn’t be talking about it now, especially considering you’re dating him.”
I stomped my foot. “I’m not—”
“Justin used to be one of us,” he said, causing me to shut my mouth. “Then he met up with a group of people who claimed to want to destroy the zombies but have only ever tried to stuff the evil spirits inside of living bodies. Think possession,” he added, probably sensing my increased confusion. “Remember the way you returned to your body?”
“No, actually, I don’t.” I’d been in too much pain.
His chuckle was without humor. “That’s right. I had to do it for you. Anyway, these people say what they’re doing is research to discover ways to counteract the zombies’ infection, but how can we believe them when they’re willing to hurt innocent people to do that research?”
“How do you know that?”
“After Justin told me about them, I visited their lab, saw people in cages, each living person in different stages of decomposition. And we’re pretty sure those researchers are the ones who burned down my old house.”
Labs. Cages. Decomposition. Burning houses! “Justin works for the people in the hazmat suits?” Who were, apparently, just as evil as the zombies.
“Yes.”
“Well, he hasn’t mentioned them to me, I promise.” I wouldn’t give him a chance to mention them, either. I wanted nothing to do with anyone who was hoping to stuff something evil into something good.
Cole pinched the bridge of his nose. “Justin will tell them about my interest in you, so they’ll be contacting you sooner or later, in some way or another. They’ve contacted all of us. If you refuse to help them, they’ll try and convince you and it won’t be a pleasant experience.”
“I don’t care.”
A heavy pause. Then “Your grandparents will care.” A sigh. “Maybe you’d be better off walking away from me, Ali.”
What? “No!”
“Your life is about to change. You’ll be out almost every night. Probably be caught by your grandparents, definitely in constant trouble. Your free time will disappear, and your grades will drop. You’ll be hurt all the time, probably suffer broken bones. Sometimes you might even hope to die.”
“So?” I would be killing the very creatures that had destroyed my family—I would be stopping those creatures from destroying other families. That was a fair enough trade.
“So. I don’t want that for you. If you aren’t careful, social services will come knocking on your grandparents’ door. They’ll accuse them of beating you. That’s happened to a few of us.”
“I’ll be careful,” I said on a trembling breath.
“You’ll never be careful enough. Besides, training you will take too much time and until you know what you’re doing, you’ll only be a liability.”
He was saying this to see if it would scare me away. Right? He needed to know I was strong enough to defend myself verbally. Right? “You were a liability at one point. So was Frosty, and so was Mackenzie. But you learned, and you thrived. I can do that, too.”
“Besides everything else,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken, “you will make enemies other than Justin if you hang out with me, and they will strike at you every chance they get.”
Okay, yeah. He’d heard the rumors. “I don’t care,” I repeated.
I wished I could see his expression as he said, “Easy enough to say now, but one day you’ll crumble. I’ve seen it happen one too many times.”
“Well, that day isn’t today,” I blustered on, trying to ignore the hurt inside me. Hurt that was swirling, burning. He wasn’t testing me. He just wanted me gone.
“When it comes, and it will, it won’t be with me. We’re done.”
There it was. A straight-up admission. He wanted nothing more to do with me. Well, fine. Okay. I’d go.
But…I didn’t want to go.
“Is Mackenzie the one who’s telling everyone I nailed you and all your friends?” I asked. He owed me that much.
He shook his head, the darkness giving way as a small beam of light seeped from the crack in the door. How menacing he suddenly appeared, the expression I’d wanted to see haunted…and oh, so haunting. “That’s not her style. She’s very up-front in her dealings. When she dislikes someone, she doesn’t go behind their back. She gets in their face.”
Unconvinced, I splayed my arms. “Who else would tell everyone I slept with you and all your friends in the same night? Who else would know I was with your friends?”
“I don’t know who did it, but I’ll find out and take care of him. Or her.”
What he didn’t say: the damage was already done, and there was nothing either of us could do to fix it. “I don’t need you to fight my battles, but a little—” concern, compassion, fury on my behalf “—support would have been nice.”
I could hear him grating his teeth. “If I thought, even for a second, that Mackenzie was responsible, believe me, I’d have her in here and on her knees begging for your forgiveness. Just trust me on this. She’s not as bad as you think.”
“Do you still like her?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“Not the way you mean.” No hesitation from him, at least. “When she moved in with me and my dad, I broke things off.”
My mind snagged on two things. The first squeaked out unbidden. “You’re shacked up with your ex-girlfriend?” The second I refused to voice. If he’d broken things off with Mackenzie only because she’d moved into his home, he could still have feelings for her—could have been using me.
“Again, not the way you’re implying. We don’t share a room or anything like that. I haven’t slept with her since…”
“Since?” I prompted. Shut up! This isn’t any of your business. He’s trying to cut you loose. Trying? Ha! He has. Show some pride and let him.
He massaged the back of his neck. “Since a few weeks before school started. And that is not to be repeated. I don’t talk about this stuff with anyone.”
Less than a month, then. Hardly any time at all. “Why did you stop?” Enough!
Rather than issuing a rebuke, he said, “Because I didn’t need the complication of a live-in girlfriend.”
Not because he’d stopped caring for her. I might barf.
Just before my seventh-grade year, and only a few weeks after our chat about virginity, my mom had again sat me down and said, Alice, there’s one fact of life that is never changing. Boys think about sex a lot. As in all the time a lot. They will do and say anything to get you into bed, and not even half of it will be true. Be careful, and don’t forget another never-changing fact. You are a treasure, and you deserve to be loved rather than used.
All this time, I could have been nothing more than a substitute for Mackenzie, someone for Cole to pass time with until she moved out. “How did you guys end up in the same house?”
A shrug of those wide shoulders. “Her dad and stepmom were tired of dealing with her and kicked her out.”
Mackenzie, unwanted by the people who were supposed to care for her most. I so did not want to feel sorry for her, especially now that I knew she was living with Cole, but fine, whatever. I softened just a little.
“So. Yeah. This is it for us,” he said. “We’re not going to get to know each other better. We’re not going to hang out, and I’m not going to train you.”
I barely bit back my cry of denial…of pain. I’d lost so much already that I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him, too. No wonder I’d pushed him so hard, abandoning my pride.
“Why did you tell me all of this if you were going to kick me out of your life?” I shouted.
“I don’t know,” he growled. “All I do know is that this is for your own good. One day, you might even thank me.”
I’d give this one more shot. Just one. “What about the visions?” Please. Change your mind. Want me.
“For all we know, they’re glimpses of what we’re supposed to avoid.”
I flinched, his words echoing hollowly through my mind, at last breaking me. No, he wasn’t going to change his mind. And now, I didn’t want him to. He was done with me, and I was done with him. I’d tried, at least. He couldn’t say the same.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No. You should have. But I won’t thank you later. I’ll thank you now.” He might have broken me down, but I would never let him know it. I rallied my wits. I was stronger than this. “You were right. We’re no good for each other. See you around, Cole.”
The hinges groaned as I opened the door. Without a backward glance, I strode away from him. Though my vision was blurring, I could see that kids were milling around the kitchen, still drinking beer.
Someone grabbed my arm from behind, stopping me. “Do you have a ride?”
Cole had followed me out.
“Yes,” I said, sounding as far away as I felt. Well, I would have one. I’d ask Kat.
“All right then.” He let me go, moved away from me and disappeared around the corner.
