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CHAPTER EIGHT

Landon’s voice tickled my stomach and burned my cheeks as I remembered him in his boxers. “Hey, Sis. What’s up?”

“Not much,” Elle said.

“Abby with you?”

Her eyes swung toward me. “No, why?”

“Sure she’s not. You know I can find out.”

“Whatever,” Elle quipped. “What do you want, Landon?”

“Pick up first. I hate being on speaker.”

She sighed and unclipped her watch, putting it to her ear. “Yeah?”

My stomach knotted as her annoyed expression turned to bewilderment and then surprise; I knew he had told her. What would I say? That I’d planned to tell her later, off record?

After she hung up, I forced a smile. “What did he want?”

“It’s like he’s got a sixth sense or something.”

I chuckled, speechless, waiting for the signal to put on the muffs so she could chew me out. She put her hands on the steering wheel instead. “Car, I’ll drive.”

“So?”

Shifting to manual, she studied her reflection in the rear view mirror, making kissy faces as she put on her lip balm. I held my breath. She flipped the mirror up and waggled her brows. “It was nothing important.”

I internally sighed, until she tapped her lips twice with her index finger, our secret signal that she had something to tell me later. Confused, I wondered what that could be. The EA monitored phone conversations, too, so did Landon tell her or not?

The silence ticked on and I gnawed on my nail, until Elle clicked the radio on. Music from the 80’s poured out.

“I love the oldies,” she said, humming along. “Do you want to stay over for dinner?”

I put my hand in my lap, unsure what to do. Eating with her family would be far better than being under the curious stares of my parents, but then if Elle found out Landon caught me, that would be worse. But with my state of mind, I couldn’t keep from busting into tears once I saw Mom.

“Sure,” I agreed reluctantly.

“Good.”

I quickly sent Mom a text as Elle parked the car in the garage.

Me: Having dinner with Elle tonight. Is that okay?

Mom: Sure, but come home right after. I’m dying to know what happened today.

Me: It went fine.

I cringed at my lie.

Mom: That’s great! I’m so proud of you!

Me: Thanks.

I shook my head at myself, feeling crappy for my lies. Though Mom followed all the rules like I did, she’d understand if I wanted to talk off record, but how would I tell her I might not ever wear her wedding dress, or give her a grandbaby in the future?

 

~ | ~

 

 

Dinner with Elle’s family was the perfect distraction and afterward, we reconvened in the family room with homemade peach cobbler and an old (EA approved) movie: The Wizard of Oz. I’d wolfed mine down in seconds and Elle’s mom looked over at my empty plate.

“There’s more in the kitchen if you want,” she whispered.

I smiled, embarrassed. Mom never let me have seconds, but after today, extra was warranted. I rounded the corner and started to scoop up a helping when I heard a noise behind me.

“Hey there, mouse.” Landon’s husky voice sent a shiver up my spine.



The serving spoon clattered into the glass pie plate and I swiveled around. His coy smile pinned me in place. I hadn’t expected to see him so soon. He moved forward, predatorily.

“Did you leave me any?”

“There’s plenty,” I said, my voice raspy.

“I forgot to wish you a Happy Birthday. You’re legal now, right?”

I smoothed my trembling hands over my pants, remembering him with that girl. Thank God for the cat. But what would I tell him if he asked why I was in his closet? Alone.

“Yeah,” I parroted.

He moved next to me, his body brushing up against mine. “I had an interesting visitor today. Know anything about it?”

I gulped and sidestepped away from the heat building between us.

He moved closer, whispering, “Not the best way to start out your first days as an adult.”

“I—I—”

He put his index finger to my lips and shook his head. “Not now.”

My heart was sprinting so fast, time had to be zipping off my life. Months for each second. This was so unwatch worthy; he was so unwatch worthy. Why was I standing here?

With a quick glance at my wrist to see the damage, Landon grabbed my hand and tugged me toward him. He held me there, inches from his face, his full lips smiling down at me.

“What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?” he whispered.

I pulled away from him, my cheeks heating. “It was a dare, just like you thought.”

“Abby.” Elle’s head popped from around the corner and I jumped out of Landon’s vicinity. She gave him a weird look, then stuck out her tongue at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you, too.” He smirked. “Funny thing. You’re cord was attached to my computer today.”

“Oops.” She laughed. “Come on, Abby. Leave my doofus brother alone. I need to show you something.” She flashed me the sign to steal home, then disappeared. Her heavy footfalls continued up the stairs.

Landon waggled his eyebrows as he took the spoon from my plate and ate a bite of my cobbler.

“Hmmm.” He replaced the spoon, then winked before he headed toward the door, stopping one last time. “I’d be good for you, Abby. Remember that.”

Once alone, I clutched the counter with my free hand, working to regain steady breaths. Sure enough, just like he’d hinted, my DOD had gained three months.

How does he do that?

As soon as I entered Elle’s room, she took the plate of cobbler from my hands and snapped a muff over my DOD.

“Okay,” she said, eyes fiery.

“I meant to tell you—” I hesitated, anticipating her to yell at me.

A crease formed between her eyebrows. “Meant to tell me what?”

I blinked at her, trying to formulate a sentence. “Landon—”

“I already know you’ve got a crush on him.” She smiled. “But that’s not important now. I have an idea.”

I coughed, choking on the spit I’d aspirated. “I do not.”

“Do too.” She leaned forward, eyes bright. Ideas to Elle were like mixing water with hot oil. “I think we should try to arrange a meeting with that blue-eyed guy.”

My mouth dropped open. “What?”

“It totally came to me just now. If you spend the night here tonight, we can sneak over to the park and check out the hole in the wall. Then—”

My heart sprinted into overdrive and I crossed my opened palms in rapid succession. “Oh, no. No way. Not with the zombies. Uh-uh.”

Elle rolled her eyes. “Come on, scaredy cat. I have my brother’s rubber bullet gun and if we dress in black, no one will see us. Once on the other side, we can shimmy across the ground like he did.”

I held up my hands firmer. “Whoa. Going to the wall is one thing,” if she only knew, “but there is no way I’m going under the wall.”

“Not even to find out what he knows?” Her brown round eyes poured into me.

I closed mine tight and shook my head, groaning for affect. She knew which buttons to push, which freaked me out. I did want answers, just not like this, mostly because zombies terrified me and I wasn’t about to sacrifice myself out of curiosity over a stupid note.

“Look,” she patted my hand, “your friend seemed to get in and out no problem, and I’ve watched the cameras for like a bazillion hours looking for zombies and I’ve never seen even one. Neither has Landon. So, I think we don’t have anything to worry about, besides…” she dragged her teeth over her bottom lip, her excitement far too heightened for my liking, “I have something to show you.”

She bounced over to her mattress and pulled something from underneath. In the air she waved a small slip of paper.

“Elle,” I said, breathless, clasping my hand over hers to stop this madness. “Where’d you get this?”

“I’ve been hoarding it for such a time as this,” she continued with a devilish smile. “If he doesn’t happen to be around, we can leave him a note instead.”

“A note?” My head wobbled as if tethered in a swing and I had to sit down.

“We’ll set up a time for us to meet and because it’s on the other side of the wall, it won’t matter if it’s obvious, like pin it to a tree or something. We’ll totally put it out of view of the cameras.”

I swallowed down the lump growing in my throat. “Doesn’t the EA patrol that part of the zone?”

“Not that I’ve seen.” She grabbed my hand. “Abby, we have to take a chance. There’s a reason why your blue-eyed friend reached out to warn you. Something is going on; something huge. And if you don’t want to go, that’s fine, but I’m going tonight with or without you.”

I blew out a long breath, afraid of what would happen to her if I didn’t agree.

“Nothing is going to happen,” she finished as if reading my mind. I deadpanned her winning smile.

I wanted to believe in her optimism, but I knew better. This wouldn’t be as simple as leaving him a note. This would be the beginning of something that was over our heads, and if we got caught, we’d never be trusted again. If only I didn’t care. Blue Eyes had reached out to me and knew enough to warn me, and for that, I needed to at least try to reconnect with him, though I’d failed to follow his advice.

“Uh,” I finally said against my better judgment. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.”

She quietly yelped a “whoo-hoo,” and gave me a huge hug. “I promise this is all going to be worth it.”

Then the words from my Complement came to mind. Don’t ever leave the walls, Abigail.

With a wicked smile, I high-fived Elle. Nothing pleased me more than the thought of pissing off my future Complement especially on the eve of my meeting.

 

~|~

 

 

Shortly after 2 AM and dressed from head to toe in black, Elle and I snuck around the trees lining our ball field. The déjà vu couldn’t have hit harder. To my left, Landon’s window glowed; the lone light against the rest of his otherwise dark line of condos. Was he making good on his threat to find out why I’d snuck into his apartment or was he just entertaining another female companion? The thought of the latter made my stomach hurt.

The pang of guilt forced me to come clean. “I have to tell you something.”

“Can it wait until after we do this?” Elle said, her voice hushed.

I stumbled on a rock. “Yeah, I guess so.”

We clung to each other, maneuvering down the dark ravine. Elle held out her gun, pointing it at anything that moved. Newly upturned dirt filled the night air. The tall grass was mashed down as well.

“This looks different,” I said, squinting into the darkness. Above us, the light from the turret filtered through the trees, brighter than I’d remembered the night before.

Once we reached the creek bed, Elle tiptoed to the wall. Then she plastered her body against it with an awkward hug.

“No,” she whispered, a hard edge to her voice. Once I got closer, I saw why. New concrete filled in the space, sealing up the small hole completely.

I spun in a circle, studying the ground and the surroundings. They must have come today, but when? We should have seen them earlier. Now we were too late. I scanned further down the wall on both sides for new cameras, just in case.

Elle knelt down, grasping at something on the ground.

“There’s no use.” I tugged at her arm. “We can’t dig under it. We should go.”

“I know. Hold on.” She stood up and messed with something in her pocket. Then she cocked back her arm.

In a flash, she lobbed what looked like a stone over the wall. I watched in awe then cringed in terror, expecting gun fire. Nothing happened.

“Why’d you do that?” I hit her in the arm. “Are you nuts?”

“Okay, let’s go.”

I didn’t like the new calm hinted in her voice. “What did you throw?”

“Let’s just say that we accomplished our mission.”

My mouth fell opened. “What?”

I knew what she’d done even before she had a chance to explain. If I’d checked, I’d find the note was no longer in her pocket, but somewhere on the other side of the wall, wrapped around that blasted rock.

“You. Didn’t.”

“Hey,” someone yelled from the top of the ravine. “Who’s down there?”

“Run,” Elle whispered, before she disappeared into the trees.

Me, on the other hand, stood like a stupid deer caught in the beam of the stranger’s flashlight. Frozen.

 


Date: 2015-02-03; view: 576


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