Subject 624, Page 2

  7:34 a.m.

  Sarah Ferguson’s voice grew louder as she marched down the hall. My mom’s pending arrival reminded me of the dried blood on my shoulder.

  All traces of sleep flew away in a hurry. I grabbed the covers and rolled, pulling them over my torso just as she opened the door and swept into the room. I might be sixteen, but that didn’t make me exempt from motherly intrusions when I was going to be late for school.

  “You need to get up, Conor Paul,” she said.

  I groaned. Partially because of her use of my middle name, partially because I felt like an elephant sat on my head while blissfully munching peanuts. “Yeah, I’m gonna get up. A few more minutes,” I mumbled, pulling the covers further over my head. The initial jolt of needing to hide my wounded shoulder wore off in a hurry and I really just wanted to go back to sleep.

  “You’re out of minutes. Come on, or you’ll be late.” She patted my shoulder through the covers like that would wake me.

  It did, actually. I clutched the covers tighter, both to make sure she didn’t pull them off and to help keep from making a noise as the dull pain throbbed back to life deep inside my shoulder. Apparently, my fast healing wasn’t that speedy on a bullet hole. I took a deep breath and disguised it as a sigh.

  “Okay, I’m getting up.” I peeked out from under the covers. “Um, privacy?”

  “Mhmm. If you’re not up in five, I’m coming back with a glass of ice water.” She left the room, closing the door behind her.

  I had no doubt she would return with that water as promised, so I tossed the covers off with my good arm and pushed myself to a very droopy sitting position. I rubbed blurry eyes, let out a jaw-cracking yawn, and looked at my shoulder. The holes were nothing more than pale indentations in my flesh. Dark red spots covered my skin and sheets.

  With a sigh, I stood and tugged the covers all the way up to the headboard to hide the blood on the sheets. I didn’t have time to take care of it. I would later after the game. I didn’t have to worry about the dried blood being discovered. I had time. My mom washed the sheets in the house like clockwork. Every other Tuesday. It was the Monday after sheet washing days. There was basically two whole weeks until linen wash day.

  I crossed to my closet where I grabbed a random shirt from the dresser. I draped it over my clean shoulder and stepped out of my room, turning towards the bathroom.

  “You don’t have time, Conor.”

  I nearly jumped out of my jeans. I half-turned, moving my crusty shoulder out of view. “What?”

  “You heard me,” my mom said from the other end of the hall. “You don’t have time for a shower.”

  “Oh.” I pulled the t-shirt on as casually as I could, trying not to show how much moving my arm hurt. I raised my right arm to sniff my pit. “I think I’m good, anyways.” Wanna know a funny perk of having unnatural healing abilities? Bacteria find it hard to live on my skin. No bacteria equals no smelly sweat. Not much, anyway.

  I followed her to the kitchen where the twin snots sat at the counter waiting for their bus. Like always, they did their best not to be identical twins. It started a few years ago as a rebellion against Mom dressing them alike when they were younger. It ended up being their thing. When one wore a color, the other wore the exact opposite on the color wheel. For example, one wore a red shirt that morning, the other bluish green. They followed this opposite pattern any way they could. One had his hair spiked up, the other down and messy. One wore running shoes, the other sandals—with socks.

  I was too tired to try to figure out which brat was which. Not that I cared, anyway.

  “Wow, you look like crap.”

  “Harris, don’t start,” Mom scolded. “He just woke up.”

  “Yeah, Harry. Even just waking up, I still look better than you,” I said.

  “Oh, burn.” Mitchell rolled his eyes.

  “Yeah, you called me Harry. That’s so funny, just like the million other times you’ve called me it before,” Harris said.

  “Boys,” Mom said.

  “I bet you can look forward to another million times,” Mitchell said. “Our dear brother has a habit of hanging on to something if he thinks it’s clever and using it until that dead horse is the consistency of orange juice pulp.”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but Mom intervened. She shoved a breakfast bar in my hand and pushed my shoulder, steering me towards the door. I turned away to hide the pain that crossed my face.

  “I think your ride is almost here,” she said.

  Sure enough, I heard the distant thump of a steady bass rhythm. She followed me to the front door where my backpack sat propped against the wall. I stooped to pick it up and slung it over my right shoulder. The thumping grew louder.

  “Your dad said he would try to make your game tonight,” she commented.

  I replied with a grunt. Funny, it didn’t feel cold enough for hell to freeze over.

  She pursed her lips as Nathen Martin pulled up in his beat-up, yellow Toyota Camry. The bass coming from his sound system—which cost more than the car—rattled the windows.

  “Does he really have to play that thing so loud this early?” Mom asked.

  “I don’t know. Gotta go!” I pecked her cheek and bolted out the door. On the way down the steps, I flashed a look at Nathen and slashed my hand across my neck.

  He leaned to look out the passenger seat, raised his hands in confusion and mouthed what?

  I pulled the door open. The sound waves pulsating from the car nearly pushed me over. “Turn it down!”

  He twisted a knob on the dash. The peaking little lights pulsing on the radio lowered to blips one or two high. “What?”

  “Don’t you know what this means?” I made the motion across my neck again.

  “You want to slit my throat?”

  “No. Turn it off.” I swiped my hand again. “Turn it down.” Swipe. “It’s too much.” Swipe. “You’re going to turn my neighbors into an angry mob of villagers.” Swipe.

  “I get it,” he said.

  I climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door. It squealed on hinges in need of a heavy oiling. The door sounded like it clicked shut, but I gave it a nudge just to be sure. It seemed secure. Just a habit I picked up after the door swung open on me a couple of months ago while the car was still moving.

  “It’s not my fault they don’t appreciate fine music,” he said, shifting the car into drive and giving it gas. It stuttered before moving forward.

  “You know us white folk, we just don’t get the rap,” I said in my best preppy voice.

  “Plenty of white people like rap.” He shifted into second. A full three seconds passed before the car jerked a response.

  “All two of them in the Salt Lake City area,” I said. “You know, you probably should have put the money you spent on your stereo to better use. Like, oh, I don’t know, your transmission. I think it just fell out the bottom of the car on that last shift.”

  “What? Are you kidding? My baby runs like an antelope.” He slid his hand lovingly over the dash. He looked at his hand and wiped it on his gray jeans.

  “An injured one being chased by a lion?”

  Right on cue, he clunked it into third gear.

  “Man, I can’t take this quiet.” He reached for the volume knob.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I said. I didn’t have anything against rap and the drive to school was only twenty minutes, but the thought of the bass throbbing in my skull after only a few hours of sleep made me cringe.

  He glanced sideways at me. “Psht, next time I’ll leave your white butt to walk to school and I can listen to whatever I want.” He forced the car into neutral and the engine sighed with relief. He rolled a right turn through a stop sign before jamming it into second, then third gear.

  “You know you’re supposed to stop when you come to one of those big, red signs with the word stop on them, right?”

  “Nobody was coming.” He waved a hand.

  “Besides those t
wo cars behind us?”

  He glanced in the rearview mirror. “Who’s driving? Me or you? Me? That’s right. You just sit over there and look pretty for all the white folk we pass.”

  “What’s the hurry anyways?”

  “I don’t want to miss Clarissa.”

  “Are you still on her? Didn’t she already shoot you down twice?”

  “Three times. Not the point.”

  “What is the point?”

  “I. Don’t. Want. To. Miss. Clarissa.”

  “Just don’t get us killed, okay? I don’t feel like dying today.”

  “Man, I got this.” He held out a fist for me to bump. I ignored it. “Put some trust in me. I’ve been driving forever.”

  “Six months? Forever is a lot shorter than I thought.”

  I repositioned myself in the seat and tried to ease off the tension a little. I needed to relax to let my healing thing do its magic. A few moments later, I was out like a baby.

  1:13 p.m.

  I woke up sometime in fourth hour. Sociology. I’m not sure how I made it through the first three periods and lunch, but when I lifted my head off my desk, Mrs. Williams stood at the head of the class trying in vain to prompt the class into a discussion about—well, I had no clue what about. I sat up, leaning back. I stopped mid-stretch when pain lanced through my shoulder. I discreetly rotated it. The sharp ache came after long periods of not moving it. I’d have to keep working it.

  I glanced around the room. Judging by the numerous blank looks, I wasn’t the only one struggling with awareness. It’s not like Mrs. Williams was a particularly boring teacher. I think the subject material had more to do with it. I mean, it was sociology. It didn’t help that class was right after lunch. Most students were prone to a food coma to begin with, but add a less than thrilling subject into the mix? Forget about it.

  Mrs. Williams said something that caught my attention. Something about an assault.

  “...often in inner cities, assaults are nothing more than a physical release of pent up emotional anger. Who can tell me why inner city youths are more susceptible to these violent outbursts?”

  “What assault?” I burst out.

  “I’m glad you decided to wake up enough to participate in class, Conor,” she replied.

  I felt myself going red. “Sorry, long night.”

  “Of course.” She walked beside her desk and leaned a hip against it. “The assault was on the news this morning. The way the police figure it, a group of youths assaulted a man walking home from work. They were looking to rob him when another group came across them and a fight ensued. Two ended up with serious injuries to their arm and leg. As often is the case, when a fight is not going well, a participant will look for an upper hand. And very often, that means a firearm. The young man who grabbed and fired the weapon is in critical condition in the hospital.”

  I blinked, shock slamming into my head. Hospital? It never even crossed my mind I had seriously injured the dude.

  “What happened to him?” Stephanie, a girl two rows over from me, asked.

  Mrs. Williams perked up, happy to have some interest in the topic. The more she talked, the more her hands moved. It was like watching gibberish sign language. “As the police see it, somebody got close enough to use a bat on him. They cracked his skull and caused severe brain damage. He’s in intensive care at the hospital in a coma. At best, if he wakes, he’ll never fully recover, the doctors say. At worst, he won’t make it. He was only fourteen.”

  Others around the room sat up at that. The kid was younger than everybody in the class full of juniors and seniors.

  “Who here has an idea as to why such young kids would be driven to gun violence?”

  I stopped listening. Fourteen? What in the world was a fourteen-year-old doing out in the middle of the night beating the crap out of some guy? And why did I feel sorry for him? The little punk shot me! Did I really throw the bat that hard? I just flicked my wrist.

  I guess I really didn’t know my own strength. I slid a hand down my face, fully awake for the first time that day. I put somebody in the hospital. Somebody who might not make it. Wow. What a kick in the guilt.

  My shoulder throbbed. I rolled it.

  “If the kid shot somebody, he deserved it.” Justin’s statement from a few seats away brought my attention back to the class.

  A few of the other students nodded their agreement.

  “First off, the police aren’t sure if he shot anybody. There was blood on the scene, but they aren’t sure if it was from somebody being shot. Nobody has shown up at any of the hospitals with a gunshot wound.”

  Nor will they.

  “Police collected blood samples and are looking for the others who were involved.”

  I barely contained a groan. Great, now my DNA was going in some violent crime database.

  “Your statement brings up a good point, Justin. Do those who participant in violent crimes deserve punishment outside the legal system? Do they deserve ‘what’s coming to them’?” She wiggled quotations in the air with her fingers.

  Did they? Does anybody really deserve to be cracked in the head with a bat by somebody with superhuman strength? I slouched in my seat and looked at the clock above Mrs. Williams’ head, wishing for nothing more than that period to end, along with the discussion.

  Chapter 3

  1:32 p.m.

  I stared at the inside of my locker but didn’t see the haphazard stack of school books or crunched papers smashed against the back. I didn’t see the picture of my favorite motocross rider taped to the door. I didn’t see my lucky batting gloves hanging from a hook on the side. All I saw was a replay of the boy’s head snapping back while the bat I had thrown flew off in another direction. It replayed over and over again like a twisted viral Internet video.

  There’s nothing like the sound an aluminum bat makes when it connects solidly with a ball. I used to love that sound, but I kept hearing the ring of the bat as it ricocheted off the boy’s head. I pulled my brows together, wondering if the sickening sound of crunching bone was something new my brain put in with the ringing bat. I felt sick and fought back a wave of nausea.

  Something bumped into my shoulder. I clamped my teeth together to keep from crying out.

  “You look like crap,” Nathen said from behind me.

  “So I’ve been told,” I muttered.

  “No, really. Like crap with a capital KUH-rap.”

  “Thanks.” I shuffled some books around, buying time before I turned. I needed the pain in my shoulder to subside so it wouldn’t show on my face.

  “Seriously. I mean, you’re normally pretty pale as far as white people go, but you’re downright ghostly today.”

  “Okay, Nathen. I get it—” I swung around to face him only to find Carina Jacobs standing next to him. “Oh, hi.”

  “Hi.” She laughed. “He’s right, you know.”

  “What?”

  “You look like crap.”

  Nathen nodded with an I told you so look on his face.

  I opened my mouth to say something but closed it. I knew the only thing that would come out would be a cutting reply. I wasn’t in the mood. I had put somebody in the hospital! It would accomplish nothing to aim my irritation at Carina. Even though I had known her since seventh grade and she knew how I acted around friends, I was still always on my best behavior around her.

  “Can we just get to class?” I asked.

  “For sure, man. Definitely. Looks like you could use some more sleep.” Nathen smiled big, all bright and straight teeth.

  Carina smiled, too. But it looked more like a humoring smile than the fact that she found anything humorous about his humor.

  “Ha, ha, and ha,” I deadpanned.

  I bumped my locker shut and we turned towards physics class. We walked side-by-side as much as the traffic in the hallways would allow us with Nathen between Carina and me. I was about to silently curse Nathen for positioning himself like that when she stepped behind us and cam
e up on my side. Even with the press of odor coming from the crowd of teens, I could smell her vanilla sugar cookie body spray. It smelled amazing on her. I resisted the urge to lean over and take a big huff. That was a level of creeper status I needed to stay away from.

  “You really do look bad. You okay?” she asked.

  “I’m good.” I attempted a smile.

  “You have circles under your eyes,” she pointed out.

  “I just haven’t been sleeping very much lately. No big deal.”

  “Okay.” She put a hand on my arm as we walked. “But if you need anything, let me know. Have a good nap.” She flashed a smile even more brilliant than Nathen’s before peeling away and heading off to the right, down a different hall towards beginning trig.