“Oh. See? You’ve already recovered your sense of humor.”
“I wasn’t…” The nurse fell silent.
“If only dealing with that Gillmansen girl was this simple. But she’s off the menu.”
“She’s his pet,” the nurse reminded.
“It seems she’s the pet of a few. You wouldn’t expect it, looking at her, would you?”
I blinked.
“But Derek does get a charge out of strange things.”
The nurse chuckled—almost on cue. “Charge. He calls her his favorite battery.”
“He’s made such a mess of things,” Jones muttered. “But to realize his potential—it’s as amazing as finally finding these werewolves.” There was a pause. “Fred. Jeremy. Get a mop and a bucket.”
Heavy footsteps clumped away.
“Your stitching’s clumsy,” Jones confided.
Stitching? Like, the stitches I’d seen on the arm?
“Jeremy’s new bit will work just fine. We’re not stitching for cosmetic improvement.”
“Touchy, touchy. As long as they wear long sleeves and long pants it isn’t really noticeable, I guess. They run through replacement parts quickly.”
Replacement parts?
“Must be bad circulation. Their systems gum up easily.”
“These are still functioning a lot better than the first.”
My head snapped up. By first pair did she mean—my original guards?
“Jessica’s still too self-absorbed to notice much of anything outside herself, anyhow,” the nurse pointed out.
Crap. Murder and multiple insults.
“At least there’s no shortage of parts.”
“Quality would be better than quantity. And frankly he needs to be trained to feed on the living. And let them keep living,” Jones clarified. “Good, Fred and Jeremy. Mop that up. I mean, injecting some misery into people’s lives to get something back—it’s nothing more than our own government does every April fifteenth. But the way he finishes…” Her words trailed off.
“Everyone’s following the Teen Train Track Suicides story. It makes us a little more high-profile than I like.” Jones paused. “But it’s worth it. The werewolves … no. Jeremy. Get a fresh bucket. We’re not trying to paint the floor, but clean it.” There was a clunk and a slosh. “We’re close to replicating the code that makes them so changeable. But Jamieson is a stranger cocktail of capabilities. He makes his parents look like nothing.”
Derek’s parents?
“That goes down on my list of things I never thought I’d hear,” the nurse admitted. “The high school football star’s more amazing than Soviet-created werewolves.”
“His services are invaluable. If we can just get him to only feed from her … or better yet, some other battery altogether. Then if she’s troublesome we can eliminate her. Everything’s set for that possibility.”
“What about that Sarah being his battery?”
“She’s too stable. Too happy being nasty. But Gillmansen? She’s a roller coaster of emotions.”
Niiice. I was officially less stable than my psycho ex-BFF.
“Nice job, boys. We should spray the hall so it doesn’t smell. Now where did we—”
I forced myself into a crouch. They were going to search for disinfectant spray. I needed to hide. The room was nearly empty except for an industrial-sized refrigerator that took up most of it. Great choice, Jess. Hide in the one room with no closets.
“I’ll check here—”
I sprinted to the fridge, staying low, and pulled the massive door open to slide inside. I snatched the papers off my clipboard and stuffed them between the two lock sections so the door appeared closed but didn’t seal me in.
Taking a step deeper inside, I decided to wait them out. Not registering closed, the light remained on. The fridge puffed out a fresh round of cold air, fogging my surroundings.
The chill caught up to me, and I rubbed my arms and moved my feet. Maybe if I walked in a tight circle …
I paused at the first set of shelves.
A black bag—a long black bag—stretched most of its length. I knew of no produce needing a bag that size.
Cold as I was, my heart pounded faster as the doctor’s and nurse’s words came back to me: replacement parts.
No shortage.
My hands trembled. It was official. I was living a nightmare. Still, I reached out—needing to know …
Fingers quivering with cold and dread, the bag—so much like the leaf bags lining Junction’s suburban lawns this time of year—rattled under my touch, noisy and stiff as it opened.
I stepped back and fought my rebelling stomach.
In the thick, black plastic bag, in the huge refrigerator, lay the train-bludgeoned remains of Jack Jacobsen.
Frozen on his bruised and waxy face was a smile. Like he’d just won Homecoming, not like he was ready to embrace an iron horse on a short ride to death.
I swallowed hard. Okay. Jack’s body was in cold storage in the local asylum. “Get a hold of yourself, Jess.”
I could do this. I could figure out what was going on and help … somehow. I made myself step forward and reclose the bag over Jack’s euphoric face.
Derek was feeding. On his friends. He’d definitely gotten a charge out of me and made me believe things I shouldn’t have with just a simple touch.… What if…?
The thought disconnected and spun, loose, in my head.
I’d forgiven a lot of people’s mistakes recently. And some I’d tried to forgive.… Maybe in Jack’s last moments he believed he had won Homecoming.
At what point did we become unforgivable?
I wanted to tug at my hair, urge my sluggish brain to go faster, but I couldn’t stand the thought of touching myself with the same hands that had just opened that bag.
I paced.
We had a group trying to cure the werewolves and one trying to replicate them. We had my guards—slow to function and needing replacement parts of the human variety. How much could you get out of a body that had been partially pulped by a train?
“Oh.”
Quality would be better than quantity.
My gaze skimmed the other shelves. Filled with black bags. Different sizes, with different volumes of—contents.
Parts.
I looked at the door. How soon could I leave? How long had I already been here, stunned? Taking in a deep breath, I realized I had no answers. Except the most disturbing ones.