The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza

  Despite my trepidation, I reached across the space between us, took Javi’s hand, and squeezed it. His apology didn’t make his actions less horrible, but it was a difficult thing to look in a mirror and see the ugly parts of yourself clearly for the first time, and I think that’s what Javi was seeing right then. Whether it would change him remained to be seen, but for this one moment, he wasn’t so bad.

  “This isn’t a sign,” I said. “I’m not sending you any signals.”

  “Message received. Or, not received.”

  I let go of Javi’s hand and walked to the edge of the pond, leaving him to think for a while. The monster fish huddled together at the surface when I approached like they expected me to feed them or hoped I’d fall in so they could eat me. I didn’t hear Javi behind me until he spoke.

  “David Combs danced ballet,” Javi said. “Did you know that?”

  I shook my head.

  “He took classes in West Palm, probably because he didn’t want anyone in Arcadia to find out.” Javi’s voice was low now, almost a whisper. “Pete’s sister took classes at the same place, and one day Pete went to pick her up and saw David dancing. He recorded it on his phone and showed the rest of us at practice the next day. The thing was, he was really good. But then Clay got the idea to set the dance to some funny music and add glitter trails and other shit and post it on Snowflake. It didn’t even seem like a big deal. No one really saw it. But I heard David stopped dancing after that.”

  “You’re a horrible person,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Was that all?”

  “We stole his clothes a couple of times during gym. And Adam hung sugarplum fairy decorations all around his house over Christmas break.”

  From everything I’d learned, David had been as much of an outcast as I was. He could have sat with me and Fadil at lunch. I could have noticed him at Starbucks and tried to talk to him instead of Freddie. He’d still tried to kill Freddie, and that was on him, but maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t have wanted to if I hadn’t been too involved in my own world to see him.

  “Do you think he intended to only shoot Freddie?” Javi asked. “I heard he had a whole list.”

  “Where’d you hear that from?”

  “Ram. His dad’s a cop.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Is it my fault?”

  “If I say yes, I’d only be doing it to make you feel like the dog crap you deserve to feel like, but if I tell you no, it’d only be to make you feel better, and you don’t deserve to feel better, either.” I leaned my head back and looked at the stars. “I don’t know, Javi. I’m sure what you and your friends did to him didn’t help.”

  “I wish I could tell him I’m sorry.”

  “I wish you’d thought to tell him before he shot Freddie.”

  “Me too.”

  Our date was over. We weren’t going to kiss at the end of the night. We weren’t getting back together. Though Javi had to have known neither of those things was likely to happen, I imagine he’d hoped for them regardless. But we stayed at the botanical garden until they closed, gazing at the sky and not talking, because, for this moment, in this bubble of time, I wasn’t a freak and he wasn’t a bully, and we could be friends without anyone knowing, and at least for now, that was enough.

  TWENTY-TWO

  DEPUTY AKERS WAS sitting in her cruiser when Javi dropped me off in front of my apartment. He asked me if I wanted him to wait around, but I told him it wasn’t necessary. I wasn’t certain why Akers had decided to pay me a visit, but I figured if I was in trouble, she wouldn’t have waited for me to come to her.

  “Hi, Officer,” I said when she got out of her car. She wore jeans and a thin zipped hoodie instead of her uniform, though she still kept her hair tied back in that sad ponytail.

  “Evening, Elena,” she said. “Do you have time for a chat?”

  “It’s a little late.”

  “I’m not here officially.”

  “Oh.”

  Deputy Akers crossed the lot to stand in front of me. She’d seemed taller the day Freddie had been shot, but we were nearly the same height. “I only want to talk.”

  I weighed my options. Either we stood in the parking lot and discussed whatever it was she’d come to speak to me about, or I invited her into the apartment. Seeing as I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes, I figured it couldn’t hurt to talk inside. Mama’s car wasn’t in the lot, so Sean was still out, and I didn’t get the impression Akers meant me any harm.

  “My apartment’s upstairs.”

  “I was thinking we could go for a ride.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was get into the cruiser with Deputy Akers, but I didn’t know how to decline. If she wanted to arrest me, she would have done it already, but my brain spun out a hundred possible scenarios and none of them ended well for me.

  “Am I in trouble?”

  The deputy shook her head. “Nothing like that.”

  I pulled my phone out of my purse and said, “Let me just tell my mother I’m going to be home a little late.” Akers nodded, but instead of texting Mama, I tapped out a message to Fadil and then returned my phone to my purse. I’d told Fadil if I didn’t call him in an hour to call Mama and the police. Then I got into the car with Deputy Akers.

  “What’s this about?” I asked.

  “You’ll see when we get there,” was all the deputy said.

  Fear gnawed at me as we drove. I had no idea where she was taking me or what she was going to do with me when we arrived at our destination. I briefly considered throwing open the door when we were at a stoplight and trying to make a run for it, but I didn’t think I’d get far. Besides, Akers knew where I lived.

  We drove to Saint Mary’s Hospital in West Palm and parked in the visitors’ lot.

  Deputy Akers unbuckled her seat belt and climbed out of the cruiser. “Come on,” she said.

  I followed Akers into the hospital. The nurses on duty waved at her and smiled as we passed.

  “Isn’t it a little late for visitors?” I asked.

  “Being a cop has advantages,” she said. There was an aloofness to Akers that bothered me. She’d shown up at my apartment, she’d brought me to the hospital, but she was acting like she didn’t care whether I was there or not.

  We stopped outside a dark room in which a young girl a little older than me lay sleeping in a bed. She was thin, had no hair, and was connected to various machines by wires and tubes.

  “My sister, Ashlyn,” Akers said. “Leukemia. Doctors have done everything they can, but the disease is too aggressive and they’ve run out of options.”

  “You brought me here to heal her?”

  “If you can.”

  I’d imagined Deputy Akers was going to throw me in a dark room in an undisclosed location from which I’d never escape. That she would ask me to heal someone had never crossed my mind. I was still struggling with whether or not to help Justina’s brother, and now Akers was asking me to cure her sister’s cancer.

  “And if I refuse?”

  “Then I take you home.” The emotionless quality in her voice was maddening. It was like she’d brought me here and asked me to do her taxes instead of perform a miracle.

  How many people were going to disappear if I did this? I didn’t know, and that’s why I hesitated. I would be responsible for anyone who vanished as a result of performing this miracle. But they weren’t lying in a bed dying. Those hypothetical people weren’t standing beside me asking me to save their sister’s life. Ashlyn Akers was in front of me and I could help her right now.

  I walked into the room, took her hand, and closed my eyes. The girl’s light was so dim it was almost nonexistent. Where her light should have been I found spiders scurrying over her, driving their mandibles into her body and sucking the life out of her. They weren’t really spiders, of course. I didn’t understand how healing worked, but I guessed what I saw was my mind’s way of interpreting the illness. It was still creepy as hell. With
a single thought, I obliterated the spiders, killing them all. They would never hurt her again.

  Deputy Akers was still standing outside the room when I opened my eyes. “It’s done,” I said. “I think it’ll take time for her body to recover, but the cancer is gone.”

  “I didn’t see anything,” Akers said.

  “Were you expecting heavenly light or fireworks?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  Akers took a couple of steps into the room. “Her color looks better, but how do I know you really healed her?”

  “You could have her doctors run some tests?” I said. “I’m sorry, but how are you so calm about all of this?”

  Freddie had smiled, Fadil had been amazed, Mrs. Haimovitch had wept, but Akers wore an armor of stoicism. “All you did so far was walk in and touch her arm. If it worked, I’ll send you a fruit basket. If it didn’t?” She shrugged. “You hungry? I’m hungry.” She led me to the cafeteria and bought us turkey sandwiches. We sat at a table under the sickly fluorescent lights and ate.

  “I didn’t believe you, and I’m still not sure I do.” Akers caught my eyes when she said it. I imagined her strong gaze unnerving the criminals she questioned. “When you told me David Combs shot Winifred Petrine and then vanished in a beam of light from heaven, I assumed you were on drugs.”

  “I’m a drug-free zone,” I said. “Not even Mrs. Haimovitch’s brownies.”

  The deputy’s brow furrowed. “Brownies?”

  “Forget it.”

  “I’ve been treating what happened like a missing person’s case. Working under the assumption that David Combs ran away from home and that you and Winifred Petrine staged the shooting to help obfuscate his whereabouts.”

  None of what Akers was saying surprised me. I’d read the news and the statements from the Sheriff’s Department and had known that they were focusing on finding David rather than figuring out why he’d shot Freddie.

  “If you believe I helped David run away, why haven’t you been back to question me about it?”

  Deputy Akers resumed her thumb fidgeting. “I’d planned to, but I was removed from the case. My lieutenant handed it off to another officer and I was warned to drop it.”

  “I’m still not sure what you want from me, Deputy. Other than healing your sister, of course.”

  “Do you know a woman named Leslie Dippold?”

  The name didn’t sound familiar. “No, ma’am.”

  “You sure?”

  “Pretty certain,” I said. “Should I know her?”

  Akers chewed the bottom corner of her lower lip and nodded like that was the answer she’d expected, but was still disappointed. “Ms. Dippold disappeared from her office four days ago. She was last seen entering the restroom, and witnesses claim she never came out. The restroom had no windows or other exits, and her car was found in the parking lot.”

  Four days. I’d healed Mrs. Haimovitch’s hip four days earlier. I fought to keep my expression neutral, though if Akers was telling me about the missing woman she obviously believed I was connected.

  “Again, I thought it was a routine missing person’s case,” Akers went on. “People dissatisfied with their lives abandon them sometimes. They leave to start fresh in a new city with a new name. It happens.”

  “Why are you telling me all of this?” I said.

  Deputy Akers flashed me a chilly look that told me she knew I knew exactly why she was revealing this information to me. “Two days ago, I was removed from that case as well and warned to leave it alone. I became a sheriff’s officer because I enjoy solving puzzles, and I’m damn good at it. I wouldn’t have connected your missing shooter to Leslie Dippold if my lieutenant hadn’t made such a fuss about me staying away from the cases. So I did a little digging, and did you know that on the day you claim David Combs shot your friend, there were other reports of strange lights from the sky and missing persons? At least three around the exact time of the shooting, and more later that night.”

  “I was not aware of that.”

  “Of course you weren’t.”

  Deputy Akers finished her sandwich, pushed the wrapper away, and sipped her coffee. “The strangest part of all of this is that yesterday two agents claiming to be from Homeland Security showed up, spent ten minutes in my captain’s office, and left with all the files on you, Winifred Petrine, David Combs, and Leslie Dippold. Now, I didn’t know why Homeland Security would be interested in a missing woman or in you kids, but it didn’t sit right with me.”

  I suppressed a shiver from the glacier floating in my stomach. Homeland Security had taken over the case? Did that mean it was only a matter of time before they came to question me? Had they made the connection between me healing Freddie and the disappearances? They couldn’t have known that I’d healed Lucifurr or Fadil or Mrs. Haimovitch.

  “Did you bring me here to test me?” I asked. “What are you going to do with me?”

  Deputy Akers drummed her fingers on the table and stared into me. Her gaze made me want to confess to every terrible thing I’d done since I was a little girl. After what felt like forever, she said, “One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from being a cop is that the simplest explanations are nearly always the correct ones. If it looks like a man shot his wife, he probably did regardless of the convoluted story he spins. In your case, I’m either to believe that you and Winifred Petrine planted a large volume of her blood at the scene, faked a shooting witnessed by multiple parties, and also faked a pyrotechnic display in order to help David Combs run away from home, or the story you told about a shooting and miracles and lights from the sky. Neither is simple and one defies belief.”

  “You just saw me heal your sister.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “We’ll know after her doctors run their tests.” Akers swirled her cup and stared into the watery coffee. “Do people always disappear when you heal someone?” She cut me off before I could answer. “No, wait. Don’t answer that.”

  “If you didn’t believe me,” I said, “then why’d you bring me here?”

  Akers fidgeted with her fingers for a moment before saying, “After the last treatment, when Ashlyn’s doctors said they were out of options, I prayed. I was hoping for spontaneous remission or something. Instead, I got you.” She shrugged. “Like I said before, I’m still not sure I believe you, but I want to, and I don’t think it was a coincidence I was on duty the day of the shooting.”

  How was I supposed to respond to something like that? Akers believed I was the answer to her prayers. It was too much for me to wrap my mind around. “I’d like to go home now,” I said.

  Deputy Akers didn’t argue. She drove me back to the apartment. Neither of us spoke on the drive. Fadil was blowing up my phone, so I texted him that I was all right and promised to call him the next day.

  When Akers pulled up in front of my building to drop me off, she grabbed my arm to keep me from getting out of the car and said, “I think you’re in trouble, Elena. If you really healed my sister, I’ll do whatever I can to protect you, but you need to be careful either way.”

  “What would you have done if I’d refused to help her?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Just, watch your back, all right? If people keep disappearing, I think it’ll end badly for you, and I’d rather not see that happen.”

  Akers let go of my arm.

  “Thanks for the warning,” I said, got out of the car, and watched her drive away.

  After I’d picked up Conor and Sofie from Mrs. Haimovitch’s and gotten them to bed, Baby Cthulhu told me thirty-four people had vanished.

  TWENTY-THREE

  “SHE SERIOUSLY SENT you a fruit basket?” Fadil said on the other end of the phone.

  I hadn’t called him right after Deputy Akers had dropped me off because I was unsure what her warning meant for me and I needed time to think about it, but he’d pestered me all day Saturday until I finally filled him in on what had happened.
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  “I healed her sister’s cancer,” I said. “A fruit basket seems like a small price to pay for that.” I’d thought it was a joke or maybe from that creepy lawyer until I’d read the card.

  “Maybe you should tell your mom.”

  “About the fruit?”

  I could hear Fadil roll his eyes over the phone. “About what Deputy Akers told you.”

  “Mama’s got enough to worry about,” I said.

  “And you don’t think she deserves to know that men in black suits might bust down your door and kidnap you at any minute?”

  “If that were to happen, and I’m doubtful it will, there’s nothing she could do to stop them.”

  “Maybe you should hold off on healing Justina’s brother.”

  Tell him not to be such a whiney bitch. Your dark master will protect you. Baby Cthulhu had been in a good mood most of the day, likely because I’d healed Ashlyn Akers, but he was already growing impatient for me to get back to work.

  “Baby Cthulhu says he’ll protect me.”

  “Baby . . .” Fadil paused. “I’m worried is all.”

  “Weren’t you the one saying this was all part of a grand plan?”

  Fadil growled. “Anyway, how’d your date with Javi go? Did he tell you anything about David?”

  “It wasn’t a date,” I said. “And, honestly, it helped me less with understanding David than it did with understanding Javi.” I told Fadil about the nondate and he listened patiently until I’d finished.

  “Kids get bullied,” Fadil said. “Most of them don’t become attempted murderers.”

  “I told you it was a waste of time.” Only, it kind of wasn’t. No, I hadn’t found a definitive answer for why David shot Freddie or whether the voices had been involved, but I felt like Javi and I had gotten to a place where we could put the past behind us and become friends. Maybe. We still had a long way to go, but it was a start.

  “You said Javi mentioned a list with other names on it?”

  “What about it?”

  “If Deputy Akers wants to help you, she might be able to tell you if it’s real and who’s on it.”