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  "Is she applying anywhere local?" she asked. Mike had a strong jaw-line, square and masculine and dusted with a tiny hint of blond stubble. What the hell is wrong with me?

  "Closest is Geneseo. That's like an hour away." And she probably wouldn't get in, which means even farther.

  "That sucks," she said. For Devon. It's great for me. For us.

  "Hey, meatloaf," Fey said from the aisle. "You're in my seat. Scram." Ani hadn't even realized the bus had stopped again. Fey gave Mike her best "and if you could die while you're at it, that'd be great" look.

  Mike smiled at her. "We're talking. There are other seats." He turned back to Ani. Fey widened her eyes at Ani. Ani looked at Fey, then Mike, then back at Fey.

  "Just give us a minute, Fey."

  Fey scoffed, rolled her eyes, and disappeared from view.

  Mike shifted closer, and Ani was enveloped by his presence. They talked about college dreams and absent dads, days gone by, and trigonometry. She felt warm, dangerous, protected. On a precipice. Alive. In love.

  The bus stopped in front of the school, and the brakes engaged with a sharp hiss. Mike stood and said, "Well, have a good day. See you in trig." He disappeared into the school, and her heart went with him. By habit, she inhaled a bit of water from her bottle before following him out into the cold.

  Ani expected Fey to be furious for blowing her off. She wasn't. She looked worried.

  "Not for nothing, but you're going to die when Devon gets back."

  Ani felt herself blush. Blush? How? "Why, who's telling?" She pulled out her compact and looked at herself in the mirror, pretending to check her lipstick. Same pale face, same dead eyes. It felt like a blush.

  Fey rolled her eyes. "Oh, probably the whole bus. On top of the Dylan thing, you're getting quite the reputation."

  "We were only—wait, what 'Dylan thing'?"

  Fey's lip curled up, more sneer than smile. "Dylan told Jake what happened at your house while your mom was out of town, and Jake told, well, everyone." Fey turned to leave, and Ani grabbed her arm and spun her back.

  "Ow! Jesus!" Fey pulled away, rubbing her arm.

  "Sorry," Ani said, wincing. "Just what exactly is Dylan telling people happened?"

  Fey's eyes widened. "Oh..." She looked toward the school, as if to escape. She fiddled her lip ring with her tongue. "Even I thought it was true."

  Now how could I be hyperventilating without a functional respiratory system? She forced herself to calm down. She closed her eyes and matched her breathing to her heart rate. In for four beats, out for four beats. She opened her eyes. Fey was still there.

  "You thought what was true?" Ani asked.

  Fey looked at the door again. "Shit. Ani. He said... that you and he...." She held up her left hand in the shape of an 'o', and put her right index finger through it several times.

  Is that why Mike was being so nice? Or was it coincidence?

  Ani growled and stepped toward the doors. Fey grabbed her shoulders. She focused on Fey's eyes, and steadied herself. "I'm calm. I'm okay. I won't do anything stupid. I'm just going to go into school, find Dylan, and break his neck."

  "Sweet," Fey said. "Dibs on his stash."

  But Dylan was absent again.

  * * *

  At eleven o'clock, she went to the nurse's office and dropped into a chair at her mom's desk. In hushed tones, she told her about Dylan's lie—leaving out that he was in their house—about her physical response to Mike on the bus, and about the blush. "I feel great, Mom, but I'm kind of freaking out."

  "Well, honey," her mom said, "you're not used to this anymore." She flipped on a penlight and looked into Ani's eyes, nodded to herself, and turned it off. "On the bright side the new serum seems to be working great. That means we're going in the right direction. A very positive sign."

  Ani nodded. "Yeah, it's great, Mom, but can I get a note to go home for the afternoon? So I don't do anything stupid? I'll hand in my homework before I go, get my assignments."

  Her mom spoke up for the benefit of the secretary, diagnosing Ani with a low-grade fever and signing an excuse for her to go home for the afternoon. The day had warmed up into the mid-forties, and home wasn't far, so she walked.

  * * *

  Ani didn't realize she was going to Dylan's house until she was halfway there. She wasn't sure what she was going to say, but they had to have a talk. Had to. The TV flickered through the living room window as she stalked up the sidewalk. She rang the doorbell, then pounded on the door.

  Dylan opened it, shirtless and surprised. "Ani!" He looked funny without his makeup, almost normal. She pushed past him into his living room, noting the cold pizza, the litter of Coke cans on the coffee table, and the paused X-box. He followed her in. "Hey." Like nothing's wrong.

  "Are you home alone?" she asked. She didn't hear anything but the bubbling of the fish tank.

  His smile was self-satisfied under his thousand-yard stare. "Mom's in Buffalo for the week, and she took my sister, so I figured a few days off school would do me some good. What's up?" This scrawny little jerk is telling people I slept with him?

  He gasped in surprise as she grabbed his chin with her left hand and forced him backward. He clutched at her wrist to dislodge it, but he didn't have the strength. The wall shuddered as his head hit it, and he groaned in pain.

  She spoke through clenched teeth. "We need to have a little conversation."

  He swallowed. "Ani, you're hurting me." He slapped at her arm.

  "I know." She lifted. His feet left the ground as he pried at her fingers, his knuckles white.

  "You going to kill me, Ani?" he said, his breath hot on her fingers. "Do it. I want you to." His voice enticed, but his eyes cowered.

  She slammed his head back, and he gasped in pain. "I'm not bluffing," she snarled. His heels banged against the wall as she schooled her voice. "You're going to go to school tomorrow. No piercings, no makeup, no black clothes. You're going to find new friends, and you're never going to talk to or about me to anyone, ever again. Because if you do..." She twisted her hand and his head bent to the side. She smelled urine, and a stain spread on his shorts. She lowered him to eye level, his legs dangling against the floor, and leaned in so that her lips touched his ear. "If you do, I am going to kill you."

  She left him sobbing in the fetal position on the floor.

  * * *

  Her hands shook so much that it took her four tries to get the key into the lock. I almost killed him. I really almost killed him. Once inside, she slid down against the door, held the world at bay, and sobbed without tears.

  Chapter 12

  Dylan came to school in a Dragonball Z shirt, his hair bleached blond. Ani didn't see him until lunch but had heard all about it from Fey. He hadn't said a word to her, or Jake, or any of the other emos. Perfect.

  "Look at him," Fey said around a mouthful of lukewarm goulash. "Sitting over there with his new friends like he's the shit." From the uncomfortable looks the other kids at the anime table gave him, Ani wasn't sure how friendly they all were. "Where the hell does he get off, thinking he's too good for us?"

  Jake blinked at Ani, then looked sidelong at Fey. "I thought you wanted him to leave you alone."

  Fey poked her fork toward him. "You don't get it. He's disrespecting us." She looked at Ani. "Am I right? It's disrespectful."

  Ani shrugged. "Sure, Fey. But who cares?"

  "Yeah," Fey said. "Screw him."

  * * *

  Ani took the next two weeks as they came. Dylan turned his thousand-yard stare on his new clique, and from what she heard was sprinkling Japanese into his conversations. They didn't accept him—several complained about how unnerving he was—but they had little recourse once he decided to force himself among them. He avoided the emo crowd like they were lepers. Jake was more depressed than usual. Ani thought he might have had a thing for Dylan. After she got over herself a bit, Fey called it good riddance, and if she'd connected the dots to Ani, she didn't say so.

 
Mike was his usual self, which meant he was nice when Devon wasn't around, and ignored her when she was. Keegan tried to strike up a conversation with her a few times, but they had nothing to talk about, nothing whatsoever in common. All he knew was sports, while she had to feign ignorance on the topic. And she hadn't forgotten the apple to the head on Halloween, his car speeding off into the night.

  Devon ignored her, but as Thanksgiving approached, she got clingier and clingier with Mike, to the point that she was always on his arm. She started to freak at him if he so much as talked to another girl, even Leah and Rose.

  After witnessing one of her psychotic tirades outside the gym, Ani leaned over to Fey. "Do you know what that's all about?"

  Fey rolled her eyes. "You need a life, that's what it's about. I might have one in my purse—I'll trade you for some smokes."

  "I'm serious."

  Fey raised her eyebrows. "You really want to know?"

  Ani nodded.

  She leaned in and whispered. "Well, Mary—you know Mary Forsythe?" Ani nodded. "Mary tells me she was at a party last week up at Alfred, and she sees Devon there. But not Mike. Devon gets all drunk and she's dancing and shit, and then she goes into a bedroom with a guy, doesn't come home at all that night. Now she's all afraid he'll return the favor." Ani's mouth hung open.

  "Does Mike know?"

  Fey snorted. "Who cares?”

  * * *

  The day before Thanksgiving was the first real snow of the season. Maybe four inches blanketed the town, but it was supposed to melt off by evening. Ani loved the snow, so she took a dawn walk, pepper spray in her pocket and good boots on her feet. She told her mom she'd be back by nine so they could do more tests.

  Most people skipped town for the weekend, so the streets were deserted. A splash of red in a leafless maple caught her eye. The cardinal chirped an alarm and fled to a higher branch. Chickadees scattered from a hedgerow as she walked by. Deer froze in Baker's lawn, then bolted for the copse of trees behind the house. The world was silent and peaceful under a cold blue sky.

  She'd been walking for a half-hour when she heard rapid footsteps, muffled by the snow, coming up behind her. She turned, her hand on the pepper spray.

  Mike jogged up behind her, glorious even in jogging sweats. He smiled, and it lit up his face. "Ani, hey. Taking a walk?"

  She suppressed the urge to make a Here's your sign joke. "Yeah. I love how everything looks in the snow, and it's not going to last."

  He slowed down to walk next to her. He looked around, a mock-sneer on his face. "There'll be plenty more where this came from. Wait until February."

  "I know, but I can't help it." She looked up and down the street. "Aren't you going to take shit for talking to me?"

  He shrugged. "Devon's in Georgia for Turkey Day. Besides, her insecurities are her problem."

  She chuckled. "They seem to be my problem, too."

  "Yeah," he said. "Sorry about that. I don't know why she hates you so much." Are boys really that dumb, Mike? Are you? "Not that you do yourself any favors."

  She stopped. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  He glowered for effect. "Said the girl with a billion piercings in her face." His grin softened the blow, but it still hurt.

  She looked at her feet and started walking again. "I'm the same girl you used to know, Mike."

  She saw the headshake in his shadow. "No, you're not. You're dark, moody, standoffish. You almost never smile, and you hang out with depressing losers." A crow cawed at her from a telephone line. She looked at it and it fled, squawking. She turned her gaze to Mike.

  "Those 'depressing losers' are my friends." Sort of.

  He shrugged. "Friends are supposed to make you happy. Are you happy, Ani?"

  She stopped again and turned to look at him. She shook her head.

  "Then why are you doing this?" Mom's rules. Survival.

  "I'm just being myself." And driving you away. It was so much harder than it used to be.

  "'Yourself' is Tiffany's toady?"

  "I don't badmouth your friends." She turned away from him and started walking again, each footstep marring the perfect blanket of snow. "Fey's good people, in her own way. And she doesn't like it when people call her Tiffany."

  "That's what I mean. She's kind of a bitch," Mike said.

  "I should hope so, given what she's been through. She's had it pretty rough."

  "What about you?" Mike asked. "How rough have you had it?"

  Oh, the usual... I've been dead for two years because my dad was infected when he knocked up my mom. I have to pretend to hate everything I love so they don't burn me. I cut myself to avoid eating people. She gave him a sad smile. "Aren't you supposed to be with your dad this weekend?" She bit her lip.

  He shrugged, but his eyes narrowed. "Uh-huh. He ditched me again."

  "At least you know him. My dad abandoned us when I was an infant." But not before he went cannibal and Mom blew his head off.

  "I know. And that sucks… But you can't let it eat you up inside. You squeeze what good you can out of life. Good choices lead to good places."

  You've been drinking the Guidance Department Kool-Aid. "You mean like abandoning your childhood friend when she's no longer one of the cool kids? That kind of good choice?"

  Mike stiffened. "You know what? I don't need this. I was trying to help." He took off at a jog, leaving her behind.

  "I DON'T NEED YOUR GODDAMN HELP!" she screamed.

  I need a cure, dammit.

  * * *

  When she got home, her mom had left a note that she'd gone to the store. She came back loaded with produce and a bag full of Boston Market.

  "What's that, Mom?" Ani grabbed the Boston Market bag and put it on the counter.

  "Tomorrow's dinner. No point in cooking a whole turkey just for me."

  Ani looked at her mom, then at the bag, and then at the floor. "That sucks."

  Her mom smiled. "Hey, one day, when you can eat without having to manually flush out your system afterward, we'll cook an outright Thanksgiving feast and gorge ourselves until we burst."

  "Sounds appealing," she said, putting the bananas on the counter and the rest of the food in the fridge.

  "It'll be great. In the meantime, why don't we get some work done in the basement?"

  Thanksgiving agenda: piss off the only boy you like, perform medical experiments on yourself, sleep in a furnace. Awesome.

  They worked until bedtime but weren't quite ready for the next serum, so Ani slept in the bath. They got to work at dawn and took a break for the parade and lunch. The serum was ready by five, and so Ani found herself chained to the recliner, listening to the audio book of Cassandra French's Finishing School for Boys on MP3.

  The clock read one-twelve a.m. when she heard rustling behind the steel door. The clink of glass being moved, the click of cupboards being opened and closed. She heard her mom's voice, clinical and dispassionate, and realized it was a recording of previous serum tests. Mom must be restless.

  She put it out of her mind until two-oh-five, when the door opened. Dylan stood there, dressed in black, his head brush-cut. His face was wet with tears, and in his gloved hands, he held her mom's shotgun. He stepped forward and hit 'stop' on the video camera. Ani didn't bother trying to struggle or to talk. That was the whole point of this setup. The best she could do was plead with her eyes.

  He stepped inside, eyes wide, pupils huge, and took in the room—the fuel tubes, the chimney. "So that's what the big red button is for," he whispered. He stepped forward and hit 'stop' on the MP3 player, then raised the shotgun. The hole in front of the barrel dominated her vision, a yawning black chasm ready to swallow her, to drag her into oblivion. Can zombies go to heaven? Is there heaven?

  He stood over her and pressed the barrel against her forehead, right between her eyes. The metal was cold against her skin. "Isn't this what we're supposed to do, Ani? With zombies?" His finger found the trigger.

  Please, Mom. Please. She moaned.
r />   He pulled the gun back, knelt, and set it on the floor. He looked at her, and his eyes were blazing, crazy. "I knew," he said. "I knew it." He shuffled forward to hover over her, and ran a finger down her cheek. "You're so beautiful, Ani. So beautiful."

  He leaned forward and she closed her eyes. His lips were warm and soft on her forehead where he had pressed the gun barrel. He kissed her eyelids, her cheek, her neck. She shuddered.

  "Shhh," he said. "I know. I know." He ran his finger along her lips, dry and cold around the bite guard. "I can't kiss you there, can I? One kiss and that would be it, the end. For me. For you. For Ohneka Falls. Quarantine and fire. Blood and death." He leaned in, his lips an inch from hers. Half an inch. His entire body quivered. She tried to pull away, but the chains held her fast. He pulled back, just.

  "We all pretend like we're embracing death, but you… You are death. Waking, breathing death." He put his forehead against hers, closed his eyes, and breathed her in. "So cold… So impossible… So perfect." His hand moved down, brushing over her breast, to the sash of her nightgown. "So very perfect." His fingers lingered on the knot, then his eyes snapped open. "I love you, Ani." He leapt back, spun around, and stumbled out the door. He didn't close it behind him.

  She heard him go up the steps, and then nothing.

  * * *

  "Ani?" Her mom's anxious voice flooded her with relief. She's okay!

  Mom stumbled down the stairs in a panic. "Oh, my baby, my sweet baby, are you okay?" She covered Ani's face in kisses, then hugged her.

  "Can you let me out, Mom?" It might have been understandable through the bite guard.

  She squeezed harder. "In just a minute. I want to hold my baby." They sat like that for a minute, Ani half-suffocated if she had needed to breathe, before her mom pulled herself back. She undid the clasp on the bite guard and started on the other restraints. "Tell me what happened."

  She did.

  Her mom, of course, freaked, no matter how much she downplayed it. Dylan wouldn't tell anyone, and no one would believe him if he did. It wasn't good enough.