Shudder Page 20

  Jason and I watched my wound. It was bleeding.

  He pushed the leaf away from it gently, so that we could look at it. “Doesn’t seem to be healing,” he said.

  I offered him my other arm. “Wipe down the knife and cut me without the knife so that we can compare.”

  He shrugged. “Okay.” He cut my other arm.

  Right away, I could feel the difference. It didn’t hurt quite as bad, and there was less blood. “I think that one’s already starting to heal.”

  Jason nodded. “You’re right. I think there might be something to this leaf theory.”

  “Why are you cutting Zaza?” piped up a tiny voice.

  Jason and I both whirled to see Chance coming around the side of the house with his backpack slung over one shoulder. He was just coming home from school.

  Jason snapped the blade of the pocket knife back into place and put it away. He looked at Chance with sheer terror in his eyes.

  Chance looked at both of us expectantly. “Do you need a Band-Aid?”

  I smiled at him. “It’s okay. We were doing an experiment. He didn’t hurt me.”

  Jason took a step backwards.

  “But you’re bleeding,” said Chance, pointing at my arm. The wound that had a leaf on it was indeed still bleeding, but the other one was already mostly knitting back together. “I thought you two loved each other. My mommy said you were like Hallam and Marlena. So why did he cut you?”

  Jason swallowed.

  Chance looked up at him. “You are Jason, right? I remember you from when you were asleep. I’ve been waiting to say hi to you.”

  Jason shook his head. “No. Look, kid, it’s better if you stay the hell away from me.” He turned and stalked away, moving more quickly with every step, until he was almost running.

  Chance looked shocked. He looked up at me. “He ran away.”

  I knelt down next to him. “He didn’t mean to.”

  Chance stared down at his shoes. “He doesn’t like me, does he? Mommy says he was lost when I was little, before the coma, but he’s a grownup, and I don’t understand how he got lost. Grownups can drive cars. They know how to get places. I think he didn’t want to see me.”

  My heart went out to him. “It’s complicated, sweetheart. He didn’t want anything bad to happen to you. He likes you, I swear.”

  Jude came around the side of the house with a ball in one hand. “Chance,” he called. “You out here?”

  Chance turned to him, brightening. “I’m here, Uncle Jude.” He waved both of his arms.

  Jude laughed. “Hey, hey, little man. You want to play catch?”

  Chance nodded. “Sure.” He pointed at me. “But Zaza needs a Band-Aid. Jason cut her with a knife.”

  Jude gave me a startled look.

  “We were experimenting with something,” I said. I pointed at the herb. “These leaves apparently have the ability to block the healing capabilities we have.” I offered him my arm. “See? Still bleeding.”

  “Interesting,” said Jude.

  “Then he ran away,” said Chance. “Maybe he felt bad for hurting you?” He cast his eyes in my direction.

  Jude ruffled Chance’s hair. “Jason’s weird sometimes. Don’t let it get to you, okay?” He held out the ball to Chance. “Here, why don’t you look for a good spot to throw the ball? I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Okay,” said Chance, taking the ball. He started to scamper off, but he threw over his shoulder, “My mommy has superhero Band-Aids, if you want, Zaza. Ask her, and she’ll give you one!”

  Jude grabbed my arm and scrutinized the wound. “This is a weapon, isn’t it? We could use this, if we go back?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But Jason still doesn’t want to do it.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s tied up with this weirdness with Chance,” I said. “He’s convinced he’s some kind of psycho, and that he’d be a bad influence on his son. And he thinks that if he goes back to try to fight the vampires, he’ll like killing so much that he’ll lose touch with reality and not be able to stop.”

  Jude shoved his hands in his pockets. “Well, maybe he has a point. He’s... You know what I’ve always thought about him.”

  “He shouldn’t be avoiding Chance,” I said. “That little boy thinks his own dad doesn’t like him.”

  “This is a guy who killed a lot of people, Zaza. He killed our mother, but not before he mutilated her first,” said Jude. “If he thinks he should stay away, I gotta say, I understand.” He started in the direction Chance had gone off in.

  “You shot Jason, too, you know,” I said. “You’re not innocent either. You don’t think you’d be a bad influence on Chance.”

  Jude half-turned. He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it and kept walking.

  I glared after him for a minute. Then I went back inside. I was kind of bleeding a lot.

  * * *

  With two superhero Band-Aids on my arm, I searched the house for Jason. I had to get him to go find his son. I knew that whatever he was feeling, I couldn’t allow him not to have a relationship with Chance. They needed each other, and Jason was being ridiculous.

  He wasn’t downstairs anywhere, so I headed up the steps.

  Sure, Jason had anger issues. I’d witnessed that first hand. And I wasn’t going to deny the fact that he and I had both done a lot of terrible things. But there was another Jason. He wasn’t all blood and guts and killing. He was also kind and loving. He was devoted to me. He would protect me no matter what. And I knew that he’d give anything to keep Chance safe. In fact, the whole reason he was staying away from the boy was for his well-being. That proved that he had Chance’s best interests at heart. If only I could get him to see that.

  But I couldn’t find him in any of the rooms upstairs, either.

  I did run into Boone, who was bent over a laptop in his bedroom, an expression of deep concentration on his face.

  “Hey,” I said. “You haven’t seen Jason, have you?”

  He looked up, startled. “Uh, no.”

  “Okay,” I backed out of the room.

  “Wait,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

  I went back into the room. Boone scooted over so that I could sit on his unmade bed with him. I looked at the screen of his computer. It was a website that said in big letters, “The Elixir of Life. Bitcoin accepted.”

  “What are you looking at?” I said.

  “The way they sell our blood,” said Boone.

  “They sell it online?” I said. “Just out there, a Google search away?”

  “Not exactly,” said Boone. “It’s a little more complicated than that. You can only get to this website through an anonymity network.”

  “A what?”

  “Like Tor,” said Boone. “It’s basically this thing that routes your internet traffic through a bunch of proxies and layers of encryption so that no one can see where you are on the internet. It keeps your identity safe. You can buy things on here, and no one knows who you are. I actually used to use Tor to surf websites my school blocked.”

  I nodded slowly. “Okay, yeah, I think I know what you’re talking about. Some of my friends used to do something like that to get past my school’s filters too.”

  “Same thing,” he said. “But this is more complicated. This underground world has its own currency and everything. It’s called a bitcoin. It’s untraceable as well.”

  “But you found this website,” I said.

  “I’m good at finding stuff like this,” he said. “They update it, and I’m working on picking up their trail that way. I think I can hack into their direct system.”

  “Okay,” I said. That sounded cool, I guessed, but I didn’t know exactly what was so great about it.

  “If we go back,” said Boone, “I might be able to get inside everything. The system that locks the doors is controlled by computer. I might be able to take control of that computer. So you could be inside, shooting and stuff, and we’d be on cel
l phones or something. You want a door open? I type some stuff, and... presto!”

  I looked at Boone with newfound respect. “Really.”

  “Tell me that wouldn’t be helpful.” He grinned.

  “It would be really helpful,” I said. “Awesome work, Boone.”

  “I’ll keep at it, then,” he said.

  I got up off the bed. “Thanks.”

  “Why were you looking for Jason?”

  I sighed. “He’s throwing a fit. He doesn’t want to go back, and he’s convinced he’s Freddy Krueger or something. I don’t know what to do with him.”

  “I was actually kind of surprised when he said that stuff about it not being our problem last night,” said Boone. “Because when we were trying to figure stuff out yesterday, he was really helpful to me and Grace.”

  “He is a good person.”

  Boone shrugged. “I think so. I mean, I’m not gonna deny the fact that he’s a little scary, or he can be, but that’s what we need against these guys. They’re scary too, with all those machine guns and the fact they’ve got no problem shooting us, since they know we won’t die. We need somebody like Jason, someone who can take them down.”

  I sighed. “I’m beginning to think that’s not going to happen.”

  “So, why are you telling me to keep working on this?” He pointed at the computer.

  “Because I meant what I said last night. I’ll do it without him if I have to.”

  Boone raised his eyebrows.

  “Maybe I’m not as scary as Jason,” I said. “But I can hold my own.”

  Boone nodded. “Yeah, I know that.”

  “But you don’t seem confident about it.”

  He shrugged. “No, I didn’t mean... Look, I want to help. We have to get the others out, even if we can’t shut these crazy vampires down for good. They hurt people, and they stole years of my life.”

  “We will,” I said. I started for the door. I hesitated before going back into the hallway. “Um, how’s Grace?”

  Boone set the laptop down. “Your guess is as good as mine. She’s been cold to me, ever since you admitted that you orchestrated the whole blackout thing.”

  How could I have forgotten about that? Guilt bloomed in my stomach. I looked at my shoes. “I’m so sorry, Boone. I really feel awful—”

  “You did what you had to,” he said. “Nothing bad happened, you know. Not really. And we’re out now.”

  “But I guess I made things confusing between the two of you.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “Things were already confusing.” He leaned back on the bed. “Look, it’s my fault anyway. I’m the one who took advantage of her. I’m older. I should have known better. Anyway, it’s okay.”

  “It is?”

  “We’re out now. She can find someone her own age. She has choices besides me. So, if she doesn’t want to talk to me, maybe that’s for the best.” He picked his laptop up.

  I stepped back inside the room. “Boone, how do you feel about Grace?”

  “I want her to be safe, I guess. I feel protective of her.” He peered at me over the screen of his computer. “If I was attracted to her, I think we can safely blame that awful place for screwing with our heads. She and I will both feel better after some time has passed.”

  I nodded. But somehow it made me sad. Boone was right, of course. There was nothing between Grace and him except the fact that they’d once not had any romantic choices besides each other. And there was an age difference. Three years wasn’t that much, but it was a bigger deal at their ages than it would be at mine. Overall, he was being pretty mature about it. But there was something about it that seemed almost tragic. Maybe, deep down, I’d been pulling for them harder than I thought I had been.

  I resumed my search for Jason, but I realized that I was also seeking out Grace. I wanted to talk to her. To see where her head was. If there was a chance for her and Boone, maybe I shouldn’t let them throw it away.

  I didn’t find Jason anywhere, but Grace was downstairs watching TV. She didn’t look up when I came into the room.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Go away,” she said.

  Okay. At least teenagers were always straightforward. You knew where you stood with them. “I guess you’re pretty pissed at me.”

  “You think?”

  “That makes sense,” I said. “I deserve that. And I’m really sorry. But Boone says you aren’t talking to him either. None of this is his fault.”

  She whipped her face around to glare at me. “Still trying to match us up, huh? You’re not working with them anymore, but you can’t stop trying to control us.”

  That wasn’t what I was doing at all. “No, that’s not...” I put both of my hands up in surrender. “You obviously don’t want to talk. I’m sorry I intruded.”

  “Because of you,” she said, “nothing he said to me was real.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true,” I said.

  “He wouldn’t have done those things if we hadn’t been locked up in that room. So, it is true.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be.” She turned back to the television. “But I don’t want to talk to you. I’ve got a lot of catching up on shows to do.”

  * * *

  When Jason wasn’t back in several hours, I started to get worried. We needed cell phones. I hadn’t had one since before the solar flare, even though they’d come back pretty quickly after Kieran and Eve took over. During their reign, we hadn’t wanted anything as traceable as cell phones, so it had been years since I’d even seen one. But we needed them.

  I was waiting by the door, hoping Jason would come home, and I was getting more and more nervous. Maybe it was the nerves, but I wasn’t feeling so well either. I felt tired and weak, like I was completely drained. I guessed that everything I’d been through had been pretty exhausting.

  Hallam came home from work. He was a college professor, even though the man had no formal education of any kind. I was sure he’d used forged documents provided by the Sons to get the credentials in the first place, back in 2009. Now he had experience, so I guessed that led more weight to the idea he was a Ph.D. or something. I had to admit that he was really well-read and super intelligent. Whatever their failings, the Sons didn’t skimp on a classical education.

  “Hey,” said Hallam, setting down his briefcase. “Did you guys try the leaves?”

  “Yeah.” I held up my bandaged arm. “They work. It’s healing at normal speed.”

  “Great,” he said, slapping me on the arm and going further into the house. “That’s useful knowledge, I hope.”

  “It is,” I called after him. “You didn’t happen to see Jason wandering around out there, did you?”

  He stopped and turned back to look at me. “He’s not here?”

  I explained what had happened with Chance. “He’s been so weird about the whole thing. You heard him in the hospital after we woke up. He’s afraid of screwing up his son, so he’s avoiding him.”

  Hallam rubbed his chin. “How long has he been gone?”

  “Hours,” I said. “We need cell phones.”

  “He probably wouldn’t answer anyway,” said Hallam. He looked a little nervous. “You know him the best, Azazel. Do you think he went out and... did anything to anyone?”

  All at once, I was hit by a rush of déjà vu. I remembered being in Bradenton, Florida, when Jason was missing. Hallam had been worried, and we’d gone looking for him, everywhere we could think of. Jason hadn’t come back until late that night, and when he had, he’d been covered in blood. Hallam had been convinced he’d killed someone.

  It turned out that he hadn’t, but that hadn’t meant that Jason wasn’t a killer. That had been one of my first real tastes of Jason out of control, giving in to the violence inside him. It had been terrifying.

  I shook my head. “He wouldn’t. He doesn’t even want to go back with me to get people out of that place we were being kept. He’s afraid of killing the vampir
es. Thinks it will turn some switch in him, make him go nuts.”

  Hallam looked relieved. “Good.” He patted my shoulder. “He’ll come back eventually. Don’t worry.”

  I hardly had the energy to stand anymore. I leaned up against the wall. “I don’t know if he will. He’s been making a habit of disappearing these past several years.”

  He cocked his head. “Are you okay? You don’t look good.”

  I sighed. “I’m tired.”

  “Why don’t you go lie down?”

  I wanted to be right at the door when Jason came in, but maybe Hallam was right. I could use a rest. I wasn’t going up to my room, though. The thought of going up all those steps was too much. Instead, I’d go to the living room and lie down on a couch. I pushed away from the wall.

  But when I started to take a step, the strangest thing happened to me. I felt like I couldn’t keep myself upright, like my head wasn’t properly attached to my body. I teetered on my feet for a few seconds, scrabbling for balance.

  Hallam was next to me, holding me upright. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “I... I don’t know.”

  “I thought that blood was supposed to make you invincible. I figured you wouldn’t even get sick anymore.”

  I clung to Hallam. My whole body felt... wrong. Misaligned. “I need to lie down.”

  He helped me take shuffling steps to the couch, which was welcoming and soft as I sunk into it.

  Hallam hovered over me as I lay there. “Better?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “I’m going to get you some water,” he said.

  While he was gone, something else went wrong. I lost all feeling from my neck down. I couldn’t move either, like I was paralyzed. I could barely move my head, but it hurt.

  He came back with my water, but I couldn’t reach for it. “Something’s wrong,” I told him. “Something’s very wrong.”

  “Your neck,” said Hallam. “How did you get it...”

  I realized that my chin was resting against my chest. That wasn’t right. What the hell?

  Hallam snatched up my bandaged arm. “The leaves!”

  “What?”

  “They block the power of the blood,” he said. “You’re losing its influence.”