Tainted Read online

“And Bree’s birthday party,” Em reminds us.

  “Aw crap,” he mutters under his breath. Jason’s face falls, he seems to sink under an enormous weight. Em laughs, and climbs into the front seat. “You don’t have a gift for her yet, do you?”

  “No,” he almost groans the word.

  “Don’t worry. I’m sure Alex will go to the mall with you. Right?”

  The mall. Days before Christmas. Packed with people. Shoot me now.

  “Yeah, sure.” I can’t tell Jason “no” when he looks so hopeful. “I have some shopping to do for my Gran, anyway.” And a ton for Emma.

  He puts his cocky smile back in place. “At least I won’t suffer alone, right?”

  “Misery does love company.”

  A whirl of snow obscures his retreating form as Jason hikes through the shin deep white stuff to his garage and disappears inside. I settle into the driver’s seat, and wait until he flashes the garage lights signaling he’s inside. Then I reach toward Emma. “Alone at last.”

  No answer.

  She’s sound asleep again, sitting up, arms curled around herself, her head tipped to the side. My jacket catches on the steering wheel when I tug it off, then I tuck it around her. A shimmer of white skin at my wrist brings back all the horrors my dad put us through.

  The memories are always worse when I’m alone. Who I was before the lab accident, and who I became after my father revived me. I’m not perfect, but I’m better because of it. Still, his choices, his crimes, will forever tarnish the miracle he performed. The guilt makes me sick at times, keeps me up most nights.

  Pushing down gently on the gas pedal, I aim the Acura toward the apartment complex near the edge of town. The Gentrys are staying there while they recover from the fire that took everything. The fire my father paid to have set.

  My grip tightens on the steering wheel until my knuckles crack. He left me with so much to atone for. Most of it I can’t change, or clarify. God knows we tried. The police grilled us, searched Ascension Labs, but all my father’s files were gone. I have the folder of what he did to Daniel, and how he remade me – Gran begged me not to give it up, Grandpa hid it so I couldn’t. Hailey alluded to stealing the lab’s files “for safe-keeping”, and replaced the true files with dummy folders incriminating Josh and my father.

  Since the fire, I’d left the pharmaceutical division running. Despite Hailey’s bitching and investor’s complaints, I forced a shutdown of activities relating to my father’s research. It’s like putting a bandage on a puncture wound. The bleeding is contained, but the wound is deep and infected. If the authorities knew what my father had actually done, they would swarm the place, confiscate everything and any chances of my formula being produced would be gone.

  Is it wrong to keep those things secret in the name of self-preservation? I battle with it daily.

  The myriad far-reaching implications of my father’s research falling into the wrong hands are what terrify me most. He was obsessed with reviving me – he succeeded. This knowledge, in the wrong hands, could make the crimes he committed look like amateur hour.

  My car nearly drives on autopilot while I mull over the debt I acquired when my father died.

  Not monetary. Apparently mad scientist doctors with genetics labs make stupid amounts of money. I could never work a day for the rest of my life and live comfortably on my inheritance. He tied my hands, however, by ensuring I don’t get full access to it until I’m twenty-one. Family friend and Dad’s fellow scientist, Paul Stanton, is the executor of the estate until I’m of age.

  Rather, it’s the sins-of-the-father kind of debts that keep me up at night.

  A wake of destruction trailed my father as he searched through guys my age, hunting for the proper match to replace everything wounded or dead in me. He tried to kill Emma because she got in his way. He destroyed her home and all of her family’s belongings. We hardly escaped the blaze, rescuing nothing but an emergency backpack and her cat, Renfield. My grandparents would’ve taken them in, if there was enough room.

  Not for the first time, I wish there was a way to rewind time. I would keep Em and I alive without my dad, but go back and give the Gentrys their house.

  A light is just beginning to dawn in my head, a possible solution to some of the guilt gnawing at me, when we arrive at the West Shore Apartment Complex on Colby Street. Two long, two-story, brick-faced apartment buildings sitting in an L-shape, so common, so unlike the cozy home they lived in on Seventh Street.

  “Where are we?” Em asks, her voice thick with sleep.

  “Home,” I say, a lie she confirms by saying: “This isn’t home.”

  “Either way,” I point to the upstairs window casting light onto the snowfall, “your mom is up there waiting.”

  Mrs Gentry openly watches every move I make as I hop out and crunch along the packed snow to the passenger side of the Acura. A smile warms Em’s sleepy face when I open the door for her and extend my hand.

  “You don’t have to keep opening my door for me, y’know,” she teases.

  “And you don’t have to date me.”

  “Yes,” she says, all sense of play gone. “I do.”

  I take her hand in mine, guide her snug to my side, as though her mother’s glares are going to tear us apart if I don’t hold on. At her door, she nestles her head against my collarbone, pulling my jacket aside to remove one of the barriers between us.

  A flicker of something darkens her eyes. Her smile droops, making her look sad and tired. “Text me later, OK? When you do, tell me something true.”

  “What?” I’m an open book for her.

  Emma slings a quick look at the door like she has X-ray vision and can see her mother, striding closer through the panel.

  “It’s just… It sounds crazy,” she says, her bottom lip pouting a little like it does when she thinks about something sad. Em drops eye contact for a moment, fidgets with my jacket zipper. “I feel like we’ve always been together, but at times I feel like we’re just starting out.” She looks up and continues, “So, when you think of me, text something true about you I might never have known.”

  “That,” I promise, “I can do.”

  I steal a quick kiss when I hear the chains on the door being removed. Her mom throws it open, gaze narrowing to just short of a glare. My father might have been an emotional terrorist, but this woman scares me.

  “Morning, Alex,” she says.

  I notice a distinct lack of “good” in her greeting. “Hi, Mrs Gentry.”

  She gestures toward the living area, and Em staggers past like she might drop and sleep on the carpet.

  “Thank you for bringing her home,” Mrs Gentry says, then casts me a level, long look as she shifts between me and Emma. Em lifts a hand in farewell, and my heart clenches in the same weird stutter it does whenever I leave her.

  The ache must be visible on my face. Her mom’s expression softens, and she tells me, “Have a good Sunday,” before closing the door.

  “You too,” I answer, even though no one is listening.

  212. My dad, in his madness, reduced their lives to Apartment 212.

  The Gentrys should be living in a house, garden covered in snow, porch boards creaking as I walk away. Renfield should be peeking through the living room curtains. My right hand curls into a fist. It’s not right. Not in any world, in any life.

  I want, in the worst way, to fix things for them, to make some kind of reparation for what my father did to them. I want to give them back their house. That’s when it dawns on me. Thanks to my inheritance, I am in the position to do something about it. Well, I can’t do anything involving my inheritance until I talk to the man left in charge of it. Like a subordinate, like my father always wanted me to be, I have to ask permission first.

  I doubt Paul will agree to my idea, but I have to try.

  Stairs click by mindlessly as I dig my cell phone from my pocket. Then I pause, a step from the bottom. My fingers hover over the keypad. What’s Paul’s number? It’
s just… gone. Why can I see him, white T-shirt under a blue button-down and face all smiles, at a big Ascension Labs party before my mother died, but I can’t remember his damn phone number? My mind tries to recall it, but there’s a hole where it should be.

  His number isn’t the only thing I’ve lost.

  Frustrated, I go to my Contacts menu, scroll through to Paul Stanton and press the phone icon. The first ring is overshadowed by me opening the building door. The second ring cuts off in the middle, with, “Hello? Alex?”

  “Hi, Paul.” Should I call him Mr Stanton? Calling him at all, especially to ask for money is so awkward. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”

  “Woke me?” His voice has a frazzled edge. “What time is it?”

  “About 6.30…”

  “That late?” he asks.

  “Don’t you mean early?”

  “Not if I’ve been at the lab all night.” For pulling an all-nighter, he sounds more alert than me. He exists almost completely on caffeine. I’m surprised the coffee pot in the employee lounge hasn’t died by now. “I think I’m really on to something here,” he explains. “I should have some numbers to show you soon.

  “So,” he continues, “what has you calling me so early on a weekend? Aren’t you teens supposed to be sleeping until noon?”

  “Some of us, maybe. We just got out of an overnight lock-in, though.”

  “So, you’ve had as little sleep as me. How about bringing me some coffee and we can talk?”

  What’s wrong with the phone? There’s distance, no visuals of the strained expression on Paul’s face. No struggling for something easy or nice to say and watching the other person reaching for the right words too.

  Instead of avoiding it like part of me wants to, I say, “The coffeemaker in the lounge die again?”

  “Second one this year,” he confirms.

  “What kind of coffee do you want? I think Mugz-n-Chugz is open.”

  After taking down his order for a large black coffee “and maybe some food,” my stomach reminds me how long it’s been since I’ve had anything substantial. After months of being reliant on the injections and massive charges needed to activate them, my body has fallen into a pain-in-the-ass rhythm of too awake, alive and hungry for the first couple days, then fading through the rest of the week. And this being two days after injection makes it a hungry day.

  Familiar houses loom out of the dawn light, their edges fuzzed with the fresh snowfall. I turn off the main drag through town and down the side street leading past Shelley High. Hitting the corner of our school’s block, a smile grows and I don’t bother fighting it.

  This is where I met Emma. This is where my new life finally made sense.

  The Acura bogs down a little when I turn into the snow-choked drive of Mugz-n-Chugz. Even with the car windows closed and heater on, the coffee-shop smells of coffee and churros and bacon tease my nose.

  I can’t come here without thinking of Emma. The first time I got a decent look at her, she was standing by the Walk-Up window. I will never forget the feeling in my chest, the warmth and life spreading beneath my ribs, like for the first time I was really alive.

  Cruising around to the Drive-Up window, I idle in line behind a beat-up truck and a little foreign car. The menu board is a waste of space for me. I’m going to order the same thing I always do on the weekends: Two number three breakfast combos, and a drink. Today, I’ll make it three number three combos, and two drinks, one of each for Paul.

  Before I can move forward in line, my phone rings. A hot shudder runs through me, starting from my clenching jaw and rocketing to my tightening fists. Emma’s sleeping. Paul never calls. It has to be Hailey.

  One look at the display screen confirms it.

  “Really surprised to see your face in a church,” I scoff when I answer. I half-thought she might catch fire stepping on holy ground.

  “Well,” she says in a smooth voice, “never hurts to try something new.”

  Her tone, her voice on my phone, her presence in the church irritate me. Really not good when I’m starting to feel tired. I can match her cranky. “What,” I ask, “do you want?”

  “So testy.” I bite my tongue and don’t bark back that it’s her fault. Then she answers me:

  “I want what I’ve always wanted, Alex. You.”

  “You can’t have me. I’m at Mugz-n-Chugz, though. Want a coffee instead?” I hear people have burned themselves when they’ve spilled it…”

  “Nice try. Your new girl is very pretty–”

  “Leave her out of this,” I snap.

  “Ooo,” she teases. “You are very grouchy. I think I’ll call when you’re in a better mood.”

  “That’s really not necessary.” And will never happen when she calls.

  “Of course it is.”

  The line goes dead, leaves an angry fire burning in my gut and no way to put it out.

  “Bitch!” I yell, and then stuff my phone away before I smash it on the dashboard.

  Stewing, chewing on all the things I should’ve said, I ease the car forward and order three number three breakfast combos. I’m not sure how much I give the person at the Drive-Thru window, or even if my order’s right. I’m too frustrated with Hailey to focus.

  The Acura throws snow when I floor it out of the driveway. Cold air pours in the still-open window, cooling my temper. The evaporating anger leaves a gnarling pit in my gut. Driving and eating isn’t safe in good conditions, it’s stupid in the winter. I do it anyway. By the time I pull into Ascension Labs parking lot, half my food is gone, and the edge’s off my hunger.

  Snow breezes past my windshield while I sit and stare at the building. We kept it operational because Ascension creates and manufactures life-saving medicines and is on the front line of cancer research. Still, it exudes the same sense Hailey did earlier, like it’s not through with me. Maybe it’s the horrid events that took place there leeching through the cinderblock and wires. Maybe it’s Paul’s allusions to this lab being only a part of what Ascension’s become.

  Whatever it is, I don’t like it. The brooding aura scrapes my oversensitive nerves as I step out and dash across the yards of plowed asphalt to the door.

  “Hang on,” Paul’s voice comes tinny and distant through the speaker by the door. “I’ll buzz you in.”

  The speaker buzzes, and the multiple security locks release. Balancing the bags on my arm, with the drink carrier wedged to my chest, I push the door the rest of the way open. Inside, the building smells like bleach and sparking wires and something alive and wrong. Chills climb the ladder of my spine, goose bumps rise on my arms.

  Paul stands at the end of the hall by the main office. Other than a few pounds, and a few gray strands in his dark wavy hair, he looks like the guy in my memory. His smile’s the same as I remember, too: genuine and happy. The expression tugs at deep-seated memories of all the Ascension parties my parents threw that Paul had been invited to.

  “Come into the office,” he suggests, stepping aside and letting light pour into the hallway.

  Anything’s better than the main lab and the warren of halls and rooms beyond. The funk hanging here intensifies beyond the lab doors, the smell of chemicals and lab animals becoming oppressive. It’s even worse now, since I insisted on the shutdown of the fringe science research my father had championed. The sense, the stink of unfinished business, reeks in this place.

  Paul’s office is a bit of normal in the creepy lab, even if it looks like a flashback to the late Seventies. Dark wood paneling, and book shelves make his office feel more like a den. There should be a TV, a fireplace, maybe some shag carpet. My grandparent’s farmhouse still has a den like that. It’s my favorite room in the entire house.

  “Here,” I say and hold out the bag and the coffee, “a partial antidote to all-nighters.”

  “Thanks, kid.”

  Paul drops gracelessly into his battered leather chair, pushes aside file folders to make room for his breakfast. I take the chair across from
him, at an angle to avoid some of the eye-to-eye awkwardness. He seems oblivious to any weirdness I feel, and inhales his breakfast.

  “OK,” he says, fixing his hazel eyes on me after tossing his wrappers in the trash, “I’m sure this isn’t just a social visit. What can I help you with?”

  So open, honest. Somehow, Paul reminds me of my mom. Not in looks. He has her same easy-going, no bullshit manner. With me, it highlights the difference between him and my father. Paul wants to help. My dad just wanted to manipulate and control. I open my mouth to speak and all my good intentions jam up.

  He nods slightly, steeples his fingers and waits. Instead of talking, I glide my gaze over his bookshelves. Medical journals and books, geeky science trophies and a few blurry snapshots scattered throughout. Photos of his few friends, his brother, his motorcycle and snowmobile, and his wreck of a junker car from high school.

  One picture always draws me in: Paul, my mom and me, weeks before her death. It’s all smiles and sunlight. Next to the posed, professional Franks family portrait on the adjoining shelf, the pictures tell a story I can’t quite grasp. I stand, walk to the bookshelf and pick up the snapshot with Paul in it.

  “You and Mom looked so happy,” I mutter, more to myself than to him.

  “Yes,” he draws the word out like a question.

  I cast a look at the staged, perfectly posed family on the next shelf. One so full, one so empty.

  “We don’t look anything close to happy.” I jab a finger at the Franks family portrait. “It’s my dad’s fault, and I want, I need, to help make it better.” There’s no way to make it “right” ever again. They’ve lost too much.

  “What are you suggesting, exactly?”

  “I don’t know. I just know I want to make them happy again.” My fingers tighten around the picture frame, my gaze freezes on my mother’s image. “I want to give them back some of what my father took.”

  “There’s money.” His thin chest juts out when he clasps his hands behind his back and paces. “But that’s so…”

  “Inadequate?” I suggest.

  “Yes.” He pauses at my shoulder, looking down at the photo full of warmth, and comfort. “What can we do?”