Authors: Brenna Yovanoff

The Replacement (8 page)

BOOK: The Replacement

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We stood in the green glow of the sign, staring at each other. His grip hurt, but I let him hold on. Maybe he was camouflaged onstage, but down on the floor, it wasn't smart to be so exposed. I could pass most of the time, but his eyes were too dark. His teeth were sharp and narrow, crammed close together. I kept still, ready to do whatever it took not to make a scene.

He leaned over me so the brim of the hat shadowed us both. "You're pale and you're cold, and you reek like steel." His voice sounded tight, like the words were getting stuck behind his teeth. "Don't pretend you're not infected or that it doesn't hurt. It's on your breath and in the whites of your eyes. It's in your blood."

I stood there, helpless to look away as he leaned in closer. He tightened his grip on my jaw and whispered hoarsely, "Do you really need a wretch like me to tell you that you're dying?"

CHAPTER SEVEN

DYING YOUNG

M
y pulse hammered and I put out a hand to steady myself. The whole building seemed to surge in on me and then roll out again. I just kept my eyes on the guitar player and my hand on the wall. I didn't want to do anything that might suggest to him that he was right.
Dying?
The idea was so enormous it was disorienting. I might be sick, but
dying
?

Deep down, though, I knew the declaration had some truth to it. I thought about all the times I'd had a bad reaction to a car ride or the steel counters in the science wing, how it was always a little worse than the time before. When you got down to facts, I wasn't actually
supposed
to be alive. Under ordinary circumstances, I should have just worn out my welcome, buried years ago like Natalie Stewart.

No. Not like Natalie--like the thing that had been buried with her name.

The air was cold suddenly, and I started to shake. The man hunched over me and smiled--almost kind. His nose was uncomfortably close to mine. "I could change your life," he whispered. "Come with me tonight and I'll save you."

But on the stage, Concertina was playing a song called "Kill All Cowards," and no one had saved Kellan Caury. It didn't matter that county justice was just murder with a different name or that he was harmless. You couldn't go around associating with strangers. If you did, you might wind up swinging.

I put my hand on the man's wrist and twisted away.

His eyes were just dark pockets of shadow, but suddenly they burned ferocious and hot under the brim of his hat.

I turned around fast, before he could grab me again, and went back the way I'd come.

My heart beat hard and panicky as I shoved my way through the crowd, back to where Roswell laughed too loud and waved his hands around when he talked and could almost always make me feel normal.

But I knew that this time, it was going to take more than pretending everything was fine. I could still hear the guitar player's voice. It reverberated in my head like a tinny echo,
You're dying.

When I came up to the pool tables, Drew was terrorizing Roswell at nine ball, sinking numbers one after another, then starting another round and doing it all over again.

"So, what was going on over there?" Danny asked, jerking his head in the direction of the floor and leaning on his cue.

"Nothing," I said, clearing my throat. "Just a misunderstanding."

Danny gave me a hard look. When a situation started to get too weird or too bad, he could generally be counted on to turn it into some kind of joke, but he wasn't smiling now, not even close. "Kind of a strange place to have a misunderstanding, though. What did he want?"

You're dying. You're dying.

I glanced in the direction of the fire door without meaning to. The doorway was empty and the green exit sign still glowed over it, flickering a little.

Danny was watching me with a blank expression.

What did the guy want? He wanted to take me somewhere, or to tell me something or give me something. He said that he wanted to save me, and I wanted that too, only not in the middle of the Starlight where everyone could see, and not by someone with black, flashing eyes and yellow teeth. I couldn't shake the way Danny was looking at me, like he was waiting for me to show myself.

I was saved from answering by Tate. She came back to the tables breathing hard. Her face was shiny with sweat and there was a rip down the shoulder of her T-shirt where someone in the pit must have grabbed her by the collar.

She pushed herself up to sit on the half wall just as Alice came down the steps behind her. I figured they must be hanging out together, even though I never saw them talk in class, but Alice walked right past Tate and came over to me. "Hey, Mackie! I was looking for you. You seemed kind of rough yesterday. Roswell said you went home. Are you feeling better?"

I wasn't, really, but I shrugged. "It was no big deal."

She looked up at me, tucking her hair behind one ear. "So, I kind of wanted to ask you--Stephanie's having that party tomorrow night. Do you think you'll go?"

I looked down at her and smiled. It felt good to smile. "Sure, maybe."

From somewhere to my right, I could feel Tate's eyes on my face. It made me want to look at her and also made me want to be someplace else.

Alice sighed and leaned against the wall so that her arm was touching mine. In the dim glow from the lamp above the pool table, her hair looked like bronze. "So, did you go up by the stage at all? It's
crazy
tonight. I mean, some guy actually pushed me into the soundboard--on
purpose
. I'm not some sweaty hard-core, okay? I'm a
girl
!"

Tate slid down off the ledge and gave us both an annoyed look. "Then don't go in the pit."

Alice opened her mouth like she was going to say something back, but Tate just stalked away and yanked Roswell's cue out of his hand.

Alice sighed, and when she turned to me, her eyes looked sad. "Wow. She is in so much denial about her sister. I mean, she just keeps acting like nothing happened."

I didn't answer, because that was not actually the case. It was just that the thing Tate thought had happened was different from the thing everyone else thought.

Tate was racking for eight ball, slamming balls into the plastic triangle. Suddenly, I wanted to apologize. I wanted to tell her that I was sorry for not being brave enough to listen to her, for letting her be the one to stand alone in front of the whole class when it should have been me.

Alice leaned against me, watching as Tate lifted the triangle. "So, do you know what the deal is with her family? I mean, she should be home right now, processing or grieving or something, right?"

I shrugged. The twins had been hanging out with Tate since junior high, but the thing was, you couldn't really know her unless she let you.

"Hey, Mackie, you want this one?" Drew said, jerking his head at the table.

I shook my head. Drew shrugged and tossed the cue to Danny, who chalked it and lined up his shot. The break was only okay, and he didn't sink anything.

Tate gave me a hard, clever smile and I got the impression that she was imagining how I'd look with a piece of rebar through my chest. "Just so there's no confusion, I would have destroyed you," she said.

I nodded, but there was a nasty little whisper in my head. It went,
You wouldn't have to. I'm dying anyway.

For a second, we just looked at each other. Then, without warning, she chucked the cue in Drew's general direction and stalked up to me, looking apocalyptic. Alice must have seen it too because she backed away.

Tate stood with her toes almost touching mine, staring up into my face. "Okay, I've had about enough. You need to start talking to me."

I wanted to sound assertive, but I had to look over her head to keep my voice from cracking. "We don't have anything to talk about."

She grabbed my wrist and yanked me closer. "Look, maybe you don't give a shit about any of this, but I'm not going to sit around and act like everything is normal and fine!"

"Tate, I don't know what you're talking about."

She shook her head and looked away. "You believed me today. You believed me and it scared you, and now you're just too much of a pussy to man up and say it." She was standing with her shoulders slumped and her eyes downcast, but her fingers were digging into my wrist. "Why won't you just
say
it?"

I stared down at her with my mouth open. Her jaw was hard, but I knew without a doubt that she wasn't nearly as mad as I was--not even close.

You don't get to tell me what I should do.
That's what I should have said. You don't get to be self-righteous, because you have
no idea
what it's like to be me. People get beaten to death for being me. People have close, personal relationships with lynch mobs for being me. I am on the outside all the time, with no chance at a normal life, no way to be average or to fit in. Free weights in PE constitute a medical emergency, food poisoning means anything that comes in a can. Oh, and by the way, there's a really good chance I'm dying, so
that's
pretty awesome.

I just looked at her, and when she didn't say anything else, I jerked my arm out of her hand. Alice was standing against the half wall, watching us with a stunned look. I wanted to tell her I was sorry for the interruption, that my life was not usually this bizarre, but my throat was so tight I knew I'd never get the words out. I just walked out of the lounge and into the crowd to find Roswell.

He was over by the bar with Stephanie and Jenna. I grabbed him by the back of his jacket and pulled him away from them. When he didn't shake me off or ask why I was acting like a lunatic, I thanked God and started for the door.

My getaway wasn't clean. It should have been a speedy, decisive exit, but I didn't have that kind of discipline. I glanced back--just once. But it was enough. Tate was standing in the lounge where I'd left her, with a pool cue in her hands and the most painful look on her face.

CHAPTER EIGHT

IN NEED OF SAVING

W
hen Roswell dropped me off at home, I waited until his taillights had disappeared around the corner. Then I sat down in the driveway and put my head between my knees. The air was cool and I sat there breathing it and listening to the rain.

My heartbeat was pounding in my ears and the look Tate had given me as I left the Starlight felt caustic, like it had left this huge raw spot in my chest. After a little while, I stumbled my way inside and tried to hang my jacket on a wall hook. It fell and I left it there because picking it up again seemed way too complicated. I had to stop halfway up the stairs to rest. The dark was lonely but familiar, and I fell into bed without pulling back the covers or taking my shoes off.

The dreams were worse than they'd been in a long time. Dreams of being left alone, leaves brushing the window screen. The curtains snapping on a sharp, dry breeze.

My joints ached, and even half asleep, I was uncomfortably aware of my heartbeat racing, lagging, stuttering. Slow, slow, fast. Nothing.

I dreamed about Kellan Caury. I dreamed that the Gentry lynch mob broke down the door to his little downtown apartment and dragged him out into the street. The picture was fuzzy and overexposed, like I was getting it confused with the windmill scene in
Frankenstein
. The townsfolk all had torches. I dreamed about the outline of his body, hanging from an oak tree at the end of Heath Road.

In the morning, I woke up late, feeling thirsty and worn out.

I dragged myself down the hall to the bathroom and got in the shower. After standing under the water for fifteen minutes without actually reaching for the soap or lifting my hands, I toweled off, got mostly dressed, and went downstairs.

In the kitchen, my mom was rattling a copper pan back and forth on the front burner. The sound made me want to climb out of my skull.

I watched her as she opened a drawer and dug for the spatula. Her hair was fine and blond, slipping out of its ponytail. Her expression was the same one she usually had, calm, patient. Completely unconcerned.

"Did you have breakfast yet?" she asked, looking at me over her shoulder. "I'm frying potatoes, if you want some."

I shook my head and she sighed. "Eat something."

I ate dry cereal out of the box and my mom rolled her eyes but didn't say anything.

Outside, it was gray and rainy, but in my current state, the light seemed indecently bright, coming in the windows like a flash bomb. Fall leaves jittered and twitched, reflecting the slow, incessant rain.

I sat at the table, eating cereal in little handfuls. I wanted to put my head down on my arms or ask what time it was, but I couldn't think of how to phrase the question. My joints felt brittle.

"Where's Emma?" I said, staring into the open cereal box. It was dark inside.

"She said something about a lab project. She was going over to campus to meet a friend. Janet, I think it was."

BOOK: The Replacement

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