Vesper: A Deviants Novel Part 15

"No, not me," I stammered. "It was Nighttime Emily, it wasn't-"

She waved her hand dismissively. "Whatever. Go take your shower."

"Can you call Jared and tell him I'm all right?" Megan turned away from me, disgusted. "Fine."

I watched as Megan took out her cell, and then I walked slowly across the hall to the bathroom. Setting my clean clothes and gla.s.ses on the counter, I bent over the tub and cranked the "Hot" k.n.o.b all the way, steam curling up to fill the bathroom and fog the mirror.

I lifted the destroyed dress off and let it fall to the floor. My body aching, I climbed into the shower, shut the plastic curtain. Hot water sliced into me like heated needles, turning my skin pink. I closed my eyes and scrubbed myself with my loofah, washing away the filth of the night, cleaning the splinters from my back, scrubbing the gra.s.s stains from my feet.

And then, letting out a gasping sob, I sat down in the tub and clutched my knees.

I struggled to breathe as tears burned at my eyes. Everything in my life had changed so rapidly, and I didn't know how to handle any of it. A week ago I had been the same person I'd been all my life-quiet, reserved, geeky little Emily who spent her days dreaming about being like the other teenagers and having the confidence to do more with my high school years than stay shut up in my room all the time.

Be careful what you wish for, right?

Sitting there with the harsh water pounding against my face, I felt afraid for the first time. Nighttime Emily's antics were often way out of line, but whatever worry I had about that change was always tempered by a giant dose of excitement-of enjoyment at my new confidence, my new ability to kick b.u.t.t and take names.

And maybe I hadn't even been afraid about turning into a werewolf-a frickin' werewolf. There was something about the werewolf thing that made my head reel with wonder, because it still didn't feel real. It felt more like another fantasy made reality-turning into something better and stronger than myself.

My main memory of my time as the wolf the night before was, with the exception of the shadowy figures I'd seen, a sense of fearlessness unlike anything I'd ever felt before, even as Nighttime Emily. To be able to let the wolf side of me take the driver's seat? That was actually sort of... neat. And so my stupid geeky side actually sat there and thought, Cool! even as my rational side realized that my life had just become a lot more complicated.

No, what had me shivering with fear was the man in the alley. The dark figure with the gun and the gravelly voice, luring me, targeting me. Just like he'd snuck up on Emily C. and Dalton. I'd felt bullets fly by my face, narrowly missing me, and though Nighttime Emily had only felt p.i.s.sed off, now that I was me again, I felt way too mortal. I couldn't die. I just couldn't.

It was only then, sitting in the shower, the little textured fish cutouts rough against my skin, that I realized I wasn't anonymous anymore. Not just for getting crazy at a party, or for dancing wildly at a club. Someone out there, someone I didn't know, wanted me dead. He didn't care that I wanted to grow up, figure out who I was meant to be.

Someone wanted to take that from me, and even though Nighttime Emily could throw Dumpsters, and Werewolf Emily had terrifying teeth and claws, most of the time I was Daytime Emily and I would be helpless. It wasn't an idle What if it was me? any longer. It was a dreadful, crushing When will it be me? I could go outside and he could be there, as shadowy as the ghostly figures I'd seen when I was the wolf. He'd raise his gun, pull the trigger...

I couldn't think about Nighttime Emily just then. Couldn't think about whether I was going crazy or still hallucinating or if I was actually a monster.

I had no one to talk to about those things, and thinking about them now, with the threat of that man with the gun still out there, would drive me insane.

But I could talk about the shooter.

Maybe not with my parents or the police or even Deputy Jared, not without them discovering my secret lives, realizing I was some freak of nature and turning me over to scientists to slice me open and discover what I was. But I could talk with Megan. I could always talk with Megan.

She couldn't understand the change into Nighttime Emily, and I wouldn't dare tell her about the werewolf change, but this ... maybe she could help me.

Grabbing the edge of the tub, I pulled myself to my feet. I wiped my eyes, then rinsed my face in the water before turning the shower off. Toweling myself dry and putting on my hoodie and gla.s.ses, I snagged the dirty dress from the floor and tiptoed across the hall back to my room. Megan was gone.

I snuck downstairs as quietly as I could, discovered the remnants of our milkshake movie evening in the living room-the open Scream DVD case, Megan's empty gla.s.s with melted ice cream congealed around its base-but did not find Megan. She'd left and was probably halfway to Seattle to go collect her car by herself.

I sat down on the edge of the couch and buried my head in my hands. On top of everything else, I'd alienated Megan, maybe for good.

I was on my own.

I ended up falling into a restless sleep in my room for a few hours before waking up and having the whole night wash over me all over again. But this time, it didn't seem quite as bad. It's amazing what your mind can rationalize before it snaps for good.

Still, I couldn't help but feel like I would look out my window and see the shooter, his rimmed hat shadowing his face as he leveled a pistol at me, prepared to snuff me out forever.

I hid in my room for half the day, not even going downstairs to eat despite my aching stomach. My dad came to check on me after a while and I lied, telling him I just had a lot of schoolwork that I wanted to get done, convincing him to give me back the cord to connect my computer to the internet so I could do research.

I gathered all the books I'd checked out of the library and spread them around me on my bed. Clutching Ein in my lap, I skimmed through them, trying to find variations on the theme that would explain what was happening to me. But the legends were all the same-a werewolf bites a person, person then transforms into wolf at the full moon, yadda yadda.

Nothing about the transformation beginning with a crazy mood swing, or turning into a wolf when the moon was at half-mast or nonexistent, or turning without even being bit by a hamster, let alone a wolf-man.

Frustrated, I tossed the books aside and instead dug through my DVD case. I had a number of werewolf movies: Dog Soldiers, Art American Werewolf in London, Teen Wolf all three Ginger Snaps, Cursed. With the exception of Teen Wolf the stories were pretty much the same-man (or woman) turns beastly, ma.s.sacres frightened humans, has to be put down.

Rea.s.suring.

Okay, so DVDs weren't really going to help me out all that much either. I could find similarities in books, in movies, but nothing felt right, and once again I found myself feeling alone. I didn't feel hopeless because of this, not really. I was just frustrated. It was bad enough to have originally been the geek who liked things no one at my school had ever heard of, and that I'd alienated half the school by acting like a stripper on crack at Mikey Harris's party. Now I had this to deal with.

Every teenager changes when she grows up. Develops new senses and new emotions, grows hair in new places. But not quite like this.

Tossing the DVDs to the floor, I slumped onto my bed and lay back, arms spread wide. The ceiling above me was b.u.mpy and white, though I could make out little yellow spots where once glowing neon stars had been stuck with Sticky Tack.

And then I realized: I wasn't alone, was I? The night before, what I now knew were the wolf instincts had whispered to nighttime me that I needed to find my "fellow's." Others like me? Perhaps I'd been right yesterday when Megan told me about how Emily C. was killed and how Dalton was shot.

Both of them had gone through changes, like me, and now all three of us had faced off with the killer. That wasn't a coincidence.

And I couldn't forget-there was Patrick. Mysterious, brooding Patrick, who had smelled so right, had smelled remarkably like the other werewolf I'd seen last night....

There was something happening. Something going on here that I didn't quite understand, but that meant I wasn't alone after all. At least, not before the killer found the mysterious male werewolf I'd seen running through the woods last night. Not before he finished off Dalton and found me again.

I fired up my computer and began doing searches for "Emily Cooke,"

"Emily Webb," and "Dalton McKinney." I only found a few results for all of our names together, and those were just pages listing all the juniors at Carver High. Yeah, thanks, Google, I already knew we went to the same school.

I deleted my name from the search and tried again. A few more links popped up, all about various clubs and organizations the two had been in.

There had to be something here I was missing.

I thought back to what the man had said to me last night before raising the gun.

Emily Webb? Daughter of Caroline and Gregory Webb?

My parents. That was strange. He'd mentioned my parents. Maybe ...

I didn't know Emily C's or Dalton's parents' names, so I just typed in "Cooke" and "McKinney" and "Skopamish, WA." Shaking my leg, I clicked Search.

Results popped up.

The first: a link to the employee page of a company called BioZenith. For some reason my heart pounded as I followed the link. Under "Notable Employees" I found two familiar names: Harrison McKinney and Marshall Cooke. Relatives of Dalton McKinney and Emily Cooke, perhaps?

There was something here. This couldn't be a coincidence. But the website didn't give much more information beyond the company's accomplishments, using scientific terms that I didn't understand.

I clicked through to the main page of the website, read their little blurb.

BioZenith was some sort of bioengineering laboratory dedicated to improving the science of agriculture. You know, making grapes seedless and all corn yellow, things like that. Unfortunately, there wasn't any line on the page that said, "And oh yes, we have some werewolves on staff. Ask us how to join our howlingly fun team!"

So there it was, a connection: two men I was sure were related to Dalton and Emily C. had once worked together, or at least for the same company.

The only problem: That connection didn't include me. My dad was a construction worker, my stepmom was a librarian, and before my mom had died she'd worked for Microsoft in their publicity department.

So maybe the connection between Emily C. and Dalton was a coincidence.

Maybe there was something else I was missing, unless I'd been kidnapped by crazed corn-altering scientists and that somehow made me a werewolf, made me someone who needed to be killed.

My stomach growled, and I realized I'd grown ma.s.sively hungry. I also realized it had grown dark outside.

It was almost eight o'clock.

My body seized with fear. I couldn't go through it again, the change into Nighttime Emily, into the ... the wolf. Not with that man out there waiting for me, wanting me dead. I knew if I didn't do something fast, Nighttime Emily wouldn't be nearly as cautious as I was. She'd probably do a smash-and-grab at a p.a.w.n shop, steal a pair of bra.s.s knuckles, and go hunting for the guy who'd tried to shoot me.

And she'd end up getting herself-getting me-killed in the process.

Was this my life now? Would I have to spend every day filled with dread, knowing that when night came I'd turn into some version of myself I couldn't really control? How could I live like that? How could anyone?

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, struggling to think, trying to focus on today because thinking further ahead than that would drive me crazy. I needed to figure out a way to keep myself from going crazy for the fifth night in a row.

If I was right about Dalton and Emily C. being like me, that they were also werewolves and that was why the killer went after them, then wouldn't it have been all over the news when Dalton had spontaneously transformed into a wolf-man in his hospital bed the past two nights?

The difference between me and Dalton? He had been unconscious both nights I'd turned into a werewolf. Which meant maybe, if I could get unconscious as well...

I ran into the bathroom and dug through the medicine cabinet. Finding my stepmother's sleeping pills, I once again snapped open the lid and stole two. Gulping at water from the faucet, I swallowed them down, only then considering that maybe there was another reason I'd turned into a wolf and Dalton didn't.

But it was too late now. The pills were already in my empty gut, dissolving and swirling into my bloodstream, making me drowsy.

Back in my bedroom, I changed into my pajamas, flicked off the light, and lay down in bed. The last thing I saw before I fell asleep were the glowing numbers on the clock reading 8:04, and the last thing I thought was, Please let me be right...

Chapter 15.

Communist Herrings, Huh?

I snapped awake the next morning with a sharp intake of breath, adrenaline surging through my veins, certain that the shooter would be standing over me, gun pointing at my head, preparing to blow my brains out.

I was, of course, alone. I was still in my pajamas, I wasn't covered in mud or drool or scratches. For the first morning in several days, there was no sign that I'd run wild outside.

The pills had worked.

I got up from bed, almost stepping on the pile of DVDs and books I'd unceremoniously tossed to the floor last night. Talk about personal changes- movies and books are sacred to me, seriously. I'm the type of person who files my movies and books by t.i.tle and/or author and keeps them in the most pristine of conditions. I even keep a little log of everything I own on my computer, from Books: Adams, Douglas all the way to Movies: Zodiac.

Totally a.n.a.l, I know. But I've always liked lists, even before my dad got married to Katherine the librarian, a lady with a serious crush on organization.

For the first time in a week I felt rested, my head clear. What had caused overwhelming confusion the day before now seemed ... almost normal already. Turning into a liberated party girl? Old hat. Werewolf? Who hasn't changed into a mythical beast at least once? I could think about these things as though I was thinking about someone else entirely-as though I was watching a movie where some doppelganger actress was the one teasing older men and running through the woods sniffing for her mate.

But I couldn't feel that way about the shooter. I was slightly less paranoid than the day before, but he was still out there, still waiting...

I got on my computer and did another search: "Emily Cooke/' Maybe there had been a break in her murder case, a new article detailing some previously unreleased evidence found on the scene. Something that would connect her back to me. Or maybe I'd get lucky, find out they'd caught the shooter and had him behind bars.

The only new article I found was an obituary. It said little more than who Emily C. was survived by and that she would be missed. And also that her funeral was to be held that day at noon.

I looked at the clock. It was a little after eight thirty.

I sat there, thinking about Emily Cooke. Here is the sum total of what I knew about her life before she died: She was pretty. Her parents were wealthy. A lot of people liked her. And she and I shared the same first name.

That was a pitifully small amount to know about someone.

It was strange, but I suddenly felt a deep, hollow loss. Nothing had changed about our nonrelationship in the past week, with the exception of the day I had feared she was hovering around me, waiting to possess me. But now I knew that even though it wasn't what I'd originally imagined, there actually was some connection between us that went deeper than our names.

Something it seemed only a handful of people had shared. And now I'd never get to talk to her about it.

Maybe I was being presumptuous, I don't know. Or just being overemotional because it felt like the only people who cared about me all hated me at the moment due to the way I'd been acting. But if I was right, if the reason Emily C, Dalton, and I had been targeted was something unique to us, something that caused us to change as night fell, our bodies to transform as we ran under the stars ... then I'd missed out. I'd spent so much time being ignored by the other kids at school that I forgot that I was sorta kinda ignoring them, too.

It was too late to get to know Emily C, to talk girl to girl about our shared, monstrous secret. But I could at least pay my last respects.

After lunch, Dawn drove me to the church where Emily's funeral was being held. She wasn't exactly keen to go, but when I told her that I was going anyway, even if I had to walk there, she insisted on driving me.

I was dressed in black slacks and a black blouse that billowed in unfortunate places-an outfit borrowed from my stepmom's closet. I peered out the window of Dawn's car as she pulled into the church's parking lot. It was a clear, bright day. Next to the church was a park. It wasn't a seesaw-and-slide park, just a nice, open field with evergreens and birches swaying in the cool breeze, flowers still in bloom around a latticed gazebo.

The park usually hosted weddings, but I could see figures dressed in black sitting inside the gazebo, crying on one another's shoulders. I guessed that Emily C.'s casket would be moved to a cemetery somewhere else after the ceremony.

The church lot was so full of cars that Dawn had to park along the sidewalk out front. We filed through the square doors into the chapel, all the pews already filled with somber mourners. I saw teachers from school, including Ms. Nguyen, sitting side by side with friends of Emily's, like Mikey Harris and Mai Sato. Mai cried openly, tears streaming down her cheeks. I don't think I'd ever seen her cry, not even when she'd broken her leg the year before during a track meet.

At the very front of the chapel, set atop a draped table beneath a modern stained-gla.s.s window, was a closed coffin. Emily C's coffin. Next to the coffin there was an easel set up with a blown-up black-and-white photo of Emily Cooke. It was artistic and incredibly well composed (says me, the girl who digs movie cinematography): She sat on a porch step, pensively considering a lake. Half her face was cast in shadow, as though the picture had been taken as the sun set, and she had a little half smile on her face, like she'd posed super serious but had started to crack up just as the camera snapped.

Looking around at everyone sitting in the pews, I felt completely and totally out of place. I didn't recognize a lot of the people there, but the people I did recognize-mostly the teenagers-had really known Emily Cooke. It was like I was invading another private party of theirs, and for a moment my heart fluttered, afraid that someone would turn around and see me, think I was going to ruin Emily C.'s funeral like I had Mikey Harris's party.

Ducking my head, I grabbed Dawn's hand and led her to stand against the back wall. It was crowded enough that there were a few other people standing as well, so it didn't seem that odd.

The service began with a pastor talking about ashes to ashes, dust to dust-the sort of thing you hear on TV funerals. Guess those are true to life, after all.

The sermon done, Emily Cooke's friends and family stood up in front and talked about her life. Mikey Harris, wearing an ill-fitting suit and with his hair slicked down, nervously fiddled with note cards as he talked about how Emily Cooke was always trying to take everyone's photo, that she dreamed of going professional. He revealed that the photo on the easel was actually one she'd taken with a timer-a self-portrait. So those photos I'd seen on her web page were ones she'd taken. She'd been talented.

Mai went up next, tears making little rivers down her cheeks. She recalled how after she broke her leg Emily Cooke would write her long emails every single day, making up short stories about Mai gaining a bionic leg and beating everyone's b.u.t.t when she got back on the track, or just fabricating intricately long jokes with stupid punch lines to make her smile.

More family and friends stood and shared stories, talked about trips they'd taken with Emily Cooke, about how funny she was, how creative. She wasn't perfect by any means, her father was quick to point out-she was always so busy thinking of things she wanted to do, that Emily often forgot all about the things she was supposed to do, like the time she offered to give her little sister a perm, then went off to take photos, leaving her sister in the chair, a garbage bag over her clothes and chemicals in her hair. That year, Emily Cooke's sister had to sport a really short haircut.

I laughed along with everyone else at that story, and I realized something: Megan was wrong about Emily Cooke. And I'd been wrong too, thinking she was just about style with no substance. Emily Cooke wasn't just some insipid rich girl. It was funny-I'd spent so long hiding from people like Emily Cooke that I never knew that she and I might actually have some things in common.

That we could have been friends.

I also felt sorta guilty, you know? Here I was, meek little me, with no real goals beyond staying alive long enough to see the next Batman movie. The other Emily had real dreams, real talent. All taken away by two little bullets put into her by a man whose image was now burned into my brain.