The Aberration of Eden Pruitt, page 4
Eden laughed nervously, then cleared her throat. “Mom, this is Beverly’s daughter, Cleo. And this is … Cass.” As soon as she said it, her face went Florida summer hot. She could feel everyone’s stare. Even Jane’s was unwavering.
She was introducing her mother to Cassian Gray in front of a captivated audience. Her stomach twisted with nerves. Here was a boy who lived off the grid. Spent a decade of his life as a ruthless underground fighter, only to go into early retirement because he killed his final opponent in the ring. To pay off his debt for the advance he’d already been paid, he became a tracker for a bookie named Yukio, which was how he found her, and their lives flipped upside down.
She’d had seven days to fill her parents in on the details. But she hadn’t told them any of these particulars. And now, her mother was staring at Cassian with tears in her eyes. She stepped toward him, grasped his hand between hers, and said in the most genuine of ways, “Thank you.”
Cassian looked completely disarmed by the gratitude.
“For coming when you did,” her mother added.
His posture stiffened slightly as he gave Mom a curt nod.
Mom had expressed the gratitude Eden felt when her father squeezed her hand three days after surgery. She’d been flooded with relief. And appreciation. For it had been Cassian’s fast thinking that brought them to SafePad’s compound so quickly. With Dad on the brink of death, every second counted. In a way, he had saved her father’s life. But as the days passed without a word, her appreciation waned.
Now it threatened to return.
She steeled herself against it. “He found Mordecai,” she said.
“I found his name,” Cassian corrected, trying to catch her eye.
Eden refused to be caught.
He rubbed his jaw and addressed her mother. “He’s on the guest list for the Prosperity Ball.”
“I’m going to see if my mom can get us tickets,” Cleo said.
Her mother looked like a deer in the headlights. Barrett and Jane, awake. Cleo and Cassian, here. Mordecai’s real name. And the prospect of attending a national celebration on a day her mother never wanted to celebrate. “Your father’s asleep,” she finally said. “I’m hoping he’ll stay that way through the night.” She looked from Cleo to Cass to Barrett to Jane, still huddled in the corner. “This will be a lot to wake up to.”
5
Your father’s asleep.
Father.
The name rang in her ears. Amplified inside the confines of her skull. Until there was nothing but the shrieking sound of it, burrowing into the folds of her brain like sharp claws. Once fully entombed, the name expanded until she was consumed with a bloated need to escape. Stand up. Leave. Run through the wall. Fast, before Father wakes. Get out of this horrible room filled with horrible equipment.
Get out, get out, get out!
Instead, she pushed deeper into the corner. Wrapped her arms tighter around her waist. There was more than one Father. She had learned this a long time ago, from the books Mother had left her.
Mother.
Where was Mother?
She patted her pockets once more, but the picture wasn’t there. The picture was gone. These weren’t her clothes. And the woman with the crease on her face wasn’t talking about her father. The woman didn’t look at her at all when she said it. She’d been looking at the blonde.
Father was not here.
Father was not here.
So where was he?
A hand touched her shoulder.
Her eyes flew open.
She jerked away.
The man with the silver mustache was crouched in front of her. The man who had used some of that horrible equipment on the boy. He held up his hands, the blue of his eyes unsettling. She looked past him to the others. They were staring at her, every single one.
The tall, thin gentleman with bloodshot eyes and stubble on his chin. The woman with the red line on her face. The girl with brown skin and metal in her lip. The blonde with the sleeping father and the young man who kept looking at the blonde. Even the round-faced boy was staring—the one who’d woken up on a gurney the same as she had.
There were so many of them.
Too many of them.
Standing amongst all that disconcerting equipment.
“It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.” The mustached man spoke in a voice every bit as unsettling as his eyes. His name was Dr. Benjamin Norton. He introduced himself when it was just the two of them, after the blonde hurried up the stairs and the tall, thin gentleman followed. He had coaxed her to come outside with him. Now they were back in the basement, and he introduced everyone else. “This is Eden. Cleo. Cassian. Jack. Barrett.” He said the names slowly, nodding to each person in turn—the blonde, the girl with metal in her lip, the young man who kept staring at the blonde, the tall, thin gentleman with the bloodshot eyes, the boy on the gurney. “And this is—”
“Ruth.” The woman with the red crease lifted her chin and shot a quick glance at the blonde. “Ruth Pruitt.”
Dr. Benjamin Norton nodded, then turned back to her. “Can you tell us your name?”
No, she couldn’t. The words would not come. They were trapped. Deep down inside, where they’d been trapped ever since that awful day.
“We’ve been calling you Jane,” Cleo said.
Jane.
She knew a Jane. In one of the books that belonged to Mother. She tried it on in her mind. Wrapped it around herself like a heavy cloak that could hide her from all the bad things that came with her old name.
Jane.
Jane.
She could be Jane.
A new name. With new memories.
“I think it might be a good idea to get you two something to eat. You can shower and rest.” Dr. Benjamin Norton looked from her to Barrett, then stood from his crouched position. “We’ll have to come up with some new sleeping arrangements. There’s the den down the hall. It has a pullout sofa.” He turned to the blonde. “I can bring a cot into your parents’ room. If you don’t mind sleeping in there, that will free up another bed.”
“I don’t mind,” the blonde said.
“Can I call my parents?”
Everyone turned to look at the boy. Barrett. They did so in perfect unison, like they weren’t six individuals but a singular entity made of six parts.
“I need to tell them I’m okay.”
“You can’t,” Jack said in a voice much different from the doctor’s. In a voice more reminiscent of Father’s. “It’s not safe.”
“But I’ve been missing since July. I can’t imagine how worried they are.”
“Worried is better than dead.”
The blonde named Eden frowned at Jack. But she took his side in the end, telling Barrett about the bad guy named Mordecai again. About how he took her parents. He would have killed them too if she hadn’t gotten to them first. “I know it’s difficult, but you have to leave them out of this.”
“For how long?” Barrett asked.
“I don’t know,” Eden said.
The boy deflated.
Jane wondered if this was a trick. A clever skit performed to deceive her, compel her to stay until Father arrived. And this time, she would never get away. She would be trapped forever.
The doctor invited Jane and Barrett upstairs.
She followed quickly.
Whatever this was—whether a trick or the truth—she was eager to leave this room with the horrible equipment behind. He led them up a set of stairs into an open living room with big windows. Twilight was gone. Night had fallen.
The doctor stepped into the kitchen. “You can help yourself to whatever you’d like. I imagine you’re both hungry.”
“Is it weird that I’m not?” Barrett said with a deep furrow in his brow. “I mean, I’ve been asleep since July, but somehow my body has sustained itself. Do you think Mordecai was feeding us?”
“I’m not sure,” the doctor said. He smiled encouragingly at Jane, who hid behind her hair, convinced this was another trick. She’d never—not once in her whole life—been given free rein in a kitchen. Food had always been meticulously monitored and then, when she ran away, nearly impossible to come by.
She took a wary step toward the refrigerator.
Dr. Norton’s smile remained.
She took another step, then flung the refrigerator wide open.
The doctor did nothing. He just stood there, smiling placidly.
Without breaking eye contact, she grabbed a loaf of bread from the top shelf and tore it open. She pulled out a slice and stuffed it in her mouth. She followed this with two more. Then she tucked the loaf under her arm and took a gallon of milk, uncapped the lid, and drank. When she was finished, she wiped her chin with the back of her hand.
The boy gawked like he’d never seen anyone eat before.
The doctor didn’t bat an eye.
“What would you like?” he asked Barrett.
“A hot shower, actually,” Barrett said slowly, his eyes never leaving Jane.
Dr. Norton led him down the hall, and suddenly Jane was alone. After an entire year of picking through garbage cans and restaurant dumpsters, she was standing by herself in a kitchen filled with food.
She glanced over her shoulder, then dug in. She crammed more bread into her mouth. She chugged the milk until the gallon was nearly empty and her stomach was full and distended.
Voices and footsteps were coming up the stairs.
Jane scuttled away—down the hallway—like a bug seeing the light.
Directly behind her, a door opened.
With a yelp, she spun around.
Barrett stepped out into the hall with a cloud of steam and a towel draped over his shoulder—his dark hair wet and dripping, his light brown eyes as disconcerting as the doctor’s. He told her the bathroom was all hers. She quickly closed herself inside.
She stared at the shower stall, unsure how to use it.
Father made her wash in a barrel.
Then she ran away and hadn’t washed at all.
She sniffed her armpits.
Somehow, she was clean.
Maybe the bad guys cleaned her.
A shudder rippled up her spine.
A memory, too.
One that had started so blissfully—a rare, heavenly moment filled with warmth and wonder. She had discovered a treasure in the back of a dark alley. Babies. Darling little puppies, so tiny they could barely open their eyes. And their proud mama standing guard.
Then the memory went to rot.
Danger came like a sharp scent in her nostrils.
The dog could smell it, too, for its ears flattened and its hackles raised, and a low growl rumbled in the back of its throat. Jane had curled her hand around a broken piece of glass and turned to face the peril. She would defend this mother and her babies. She would not fail. Not this time.
A pair of men stood at the mouth of the alley, blocking her escape, one of them covered in tattoos. They looked from her to the shard of glass. Father must have sent them. This was the last thought Jane remembered having and then …
She rubbed a circle in the foggy mirror. She batted her hair from her face and stared hard at her reflection. What happened to the mother? What had become of the babies? What did those bad men do?
Her stomach rolled.
The bread and the milk revolted.
She pitched herself at the toilet. Grabbing the basin, she heaved. Over and over until the sick was gone and her stomach was empty. She flushed the toilet and rinsed her mouth at the sink. She splashed her face and patted it dry with the folded towel. It was so soft—that towel. Closing her eyes, she pressed it against her cheek. Then she turned around and faced the shower stall.
The nozzle was round. She tried twisting it—first one way, then the other. Nothing happened. She wiggled it, seeing if it might go up or down. Then she pulled. Water came streaming from the shower head and splashed against the floor.
Jane lurched back.
Hesitantly, she reached out and stuck her hand into the stream. It was cool. She turned the nozzle. The temperature changed to cold, colder, freezing. She turned it the other way. The temperature went warm, hot, scalding. Jane took her hand from the stream as more steam eddied into the air.
It’s a dangerous slope.
Father’s words came like a whisper.
Pleasure was a distraction.
Seeking after it—a descent into ruin.
And it wasn’t only her life at stake.
According to Father, the slope started with warm baths. Soft beds. Enjoyable food. It ended in hedonism. For Jane, there had been none of those things. She didn’t know there could be. Until Mother gave her the books. Until Mother brought her to town, and she saw how other people lived. Father had been furious. Jane was not supposed to go to town.
She was special.
Town would contaminate her.
Barrett had been amazed at the doctor’s story. Shocked, even. As though he’d never thought of himself as anything but ordinary. But she knew. She’d always known. It was why Father ran so many tests. It was why he caused so much pain. She had powers, and it was his job to unlock them.
Jane looked down at her upturned palms. She traced her finger up the length of her forearm. Her skin was smooth and unmarred. There were certain tests she always passed. Her body knew how to heal itself. She could do it without even trying. The other tests, however…
No matter how hard she tried, no matter how desperately she wanted her powers unlocked, she failed and she failed and she failed. And her words sank deeper and deeper and deeper until that awful day when they left altogether.
But something changed in that alley when the bad guys came. The power finally broke free. She had felt the shift. She smelled those men before she saw them, and they were standing at the opposite end of a very long alley. If only the powers had unlocked themselves sooner.
What happened to the dog?
What happened to the babies?
With the shower still running and the steam thickening, Jane opened the bathroom door ever so slightly. She closed her eyes and focused on her ears. She imagined casting them into the next room, where there was a deep, rhythmic breathing and the rustle of sheets and two beating hearts. She cast them further away, into the kitchen. Two more beating hearts and the crunch, crunch, crunch of masticating food.
“You’re welcome to crash on my futon.” The voice belonged to the girl with the metal in her lip. Cleo.
“I’ll be fine here.”
There was a heavy sigh and then, “I guess I’ll see you in the morning, then.”
Footsteps moved to the door, which opened. Then closed. And only one heartbeat remained. Jane walked her ears down the stairs. Into the room with the horrible equipment.
Two more heartbeats.
The clacking of computer keys.
Another conversation.
“Her network is different,” said the tall, thin gentleman with the bloodshot eyes. Jack. His heart beat faster than the others. “Do you have the initial images from when they were first brought in?”
“They should be in her file,” the doctor said.
Papers rustled.
Buttons clicked.
“What about Eden’s and Barrett’s?” Jack asked.
“They’re right here.”
A chair squeaked.
A long pause with more rustling papers.
“They were all the same,” Jack said. “Something must have happened to change hers.” Whiskers were scratched, the sound like peeling Velcro. “I’d like to run some tests.”
Jane pulled the bathroom door shut with a decisive click.
But her ears were still downstairs.
“Let’s give her some time first,” came the doctor’s reply.
She reeled her hearing in like a frantic fisherman, shaking her head all the while. Backing away until her shoulder blades met the wall behind her. With nowhere to go, the memory pounced. She felt the weight of it in her arms. The cold, lifeless weight. Her only friend since Mother left. Her best friend. Dead because she failed. Dead because of these tests.
And now these men were going to run more.
What happened to the dog?
What happened to the babies?
They wouldn’t survive without their mother.
She cast her ears down the hallway again.
The refrigerator opened, closed. Boots clomped across the living room floor to the door that led to a back deck. The door slid open, and the night sounds screamed. The young man who was going to sleep on the couch slid the door shut, his heartbeat joining another.
Jane peeked into the hallway.
Behind her, the shower was still running. The bathroom was a steam cloud. She stepped out and shut the door.
On silent feet, she hurried into the empty living room and the empty kitchen. A bowl of reddish-orange chips sat on the counter. Jane opened cabinets until she found a bag. She dumped the contents of a fruit bowl inside—bananas and apples. She dumped the chips inside, too. Another loaf of bread and a block of cheese.
Someone sneezed in the bedroom down the hall.
Jane stopped, then tied up the bag and ran on tiptoe to the front door. She opened it quietly and backed away, her ears inside, so focused on the heartbeats in front of her she didn’t register the one behind.
“Hey.”
With a jump, she whirled around.
Barrett stood on the lawn beneath the light of a lamppost, his eyes bright as he pushed his hands through still-damp hair. “This is so wild. I can hear everything. I can see everything, too. Look at that, over there.” He nodded toward an opened book leaning against the trunk of a far-off tree. The lamp light was too far away to illuminate the pages. There were only the stars. And yet, Barrett read the words like the book was right in front of him.
Then he wrapped his fingers around the lamppost. With a slight bend of his wrist, the post bent. He straightened his wrist and the post straightened with it. “This is made from cast iron, and I can bend it like it’s rubber. Even my sense of smell.” He inhaled through his nostrils. “Chimney smoke. There aren’t any houses nearby, but I can smell chimney smoke. And … barbecue.”
Jane hid the bag she was holding behind her back, as if this might mask the smell of the chips she’d dumped inside.
