Thirteen Days to Midnight

  SEVEN…

  SIX…

  FIVE…

  FOUR DAYS

  TO MIDNIGHT

  8:20 AM

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 15TH

  I didn’t see Oh again until Monday morning in the hallway at school. She looked tired but beautiful, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. There were dark circles under her eyes, like she’d been out partying all weekend long, and it worried me.

  “Hey, handsome, date any girls while I was gone?”

  Her voice was as disarming as ever, so I played along.

  “All seventeen of them.”

  “I’ll have to think twice about leaving town again. I had no idea you were such a player.”

  “How was Eugene? You look worn out.”

  Oh shrugged and leaned against my arm heavily as we started walking toward our science class with Mr. D. “The football game was fun. Lots of college guys hitting on me, which drove my dad crazy.”

  “Glad I missed that. Did I mention the seventeen dates I had?”

  She sighed, as if the fun had gone out of our banter.

  “I took the police scanner with me.”

  Miss Pines had kept my phone all weekend, so there’d been no way to reach me.

  “You should have given it a break, taken a couple of days off. It did wonders for me,” I offered, feeling like she was letting the power take over her life and needed to back off. This seemed to anger her.

  “Things happened, Jacob, things I could have changed if I’d had the power. I was useless down there.”

  She still wasn’t looking at me as we walked at a snail’s pace toward the main T in the hallway.

  “Miss Pines had my phone.”

  “I know, Milo told me. Obviously he didn’t relay my messages. I don’t think he’s as committed to this as you and I are.”

  “Or maybe he just wants to take it slow until we understand things better.”

  She stopped and looked at me, heated, confused, hurt.

  “You left me out there without protection, Jacob. People were in trouble and I couldn’t help. You have no idea how that feels.”

  We had come to the T, and she shook her head, back-pedaling away from me.

  “Come on, Oh. We can’t save everyone.”

  Oh looked like she might start crying. I wanted to reassure her, but she wasn’t interested in being comforted.

  And then she turned away, wiping a tear that had bloomed under her eye but never fallen, and I knew I could never let her go. The thought of losing her made me so lonely inside I couldn’t even let myself imagine it. She needed me to save, I could see that now. I needed to come partway toward her or risk losing everything.

  I thought of her striking eyes, the part of her that had drawn me in from the beginning, how they were ringed in darkness like they hadn’t been before. How many times had she tried to reach me? How long did she sit, hunched over the police scanner, searching for death in progress? No wonder she was tired and depressed.

  An hour later Miss Pines gave me my phone along with a dire warning to keep it in my pocket or lose it for good. There was a part of me that almost wished I hadn’t gotten it back. Life was way less complicated without it.

  We learned something new on Monday afternoon.

  It started with Oh’s police scanner: an old man having a massive heart attack. Oh was becoming a superior fact finder, and within five minutes she traced the street address to a real estate records file online, found the man’s name—Lloyd Randall—entered it into multiple search engines, and found a picture of him. He worked for a local auto dealership. His picture was displayed as salesman of the month on their website.

  I gave Lloyd the power, but the heart attack had already occurred.

  Lloyd wasn’t dead when I slipped him the diamond, but seven or eight minutes later, I felt the familiar scratching against my insides much more violently than ever before. It wasn’t like the other times, when it merely wanted back in. This time it was more like it was a lion ripping me open, intent on crawling in whether I liked it or not.

  I checked my watch, and Oh, ever the researcher, was able to find the time of death through some online wizardry I don’t even want to know about. I got the power back at 9:13 PM. The time of death was 9:16 PM.

  Had I killed Lloyd Randall by taking back the diamond?

  “No,” Oh said, but she looked bereft. It didn’t help.

  Milo jumped in. “No, she’s right,” he agreed. “The diamond protects a body from injury, doesn’t heal an injury. In a case like this, or a stroke after it’s underway, or a patient in a hospital… the injury has already occurred. So, the diamond can’t, like, cure cancer. It all makes sense.”

  Milo’s revelation was another tough fact I’d have to learn to live with: once someone was badly injured or really sick, it was too late for my kind of help.

  In the days that followed, we began to realize that it was going to be harder than we thought finding dangerous events in which the outcome wasn’t already determined. Like we heard about a seven-car pileup on the I-5 in L.A. The trouble was, the accident had already happened and people were already dead, which made my power useless. The ones who hadn’t died but were injured? I was also useless there, because the power couldn’t change what had already happened.

  It was a tricky business finding events that were in process where I could actually be of some help, and it drove Oh crazy whenever she found a horrible event online that had already occurred. Not being able to wrap her hands around death and rip it away was almost more than she could bear.

  And then there was the depressing dilemma of wondering who, specifically, could be saved in a really big, catastrophic event in a place where I didn’t know anyone. A hurricane is coming and it’s probably going to kill some people. Who would I choose to protect? No clue. There’s a war on, bodies piling up, which side would I choose? And then once I’ve chosen a side, which one person would I give the power to?

  I wouldn’t be able to handle that kind of decision unless someone flat-out told me who to save. And then what would I be? Someone else’s tool for someone else’s life-or-death judgment.

  “Might as well pick me up and use me as a hammer.”

  That was how a really big fight got started between us early in the week.

  “Fine by me,” Oh responded. “I’ll tell you who to save and when.”

  “Is that all you see me as, a tool?”

  “Oh, you’re a tool all right,” Milo said, trying to make a joke that fell totally flat and got rewarded with Oh’s smoldering gaze.

  “Milo, I swear to God, if you don’t stop with the stupid jokes, I’ll kill you.”

  “Jacob, quick, give me the power. She’s gone insane.”

  “Shut up!” Oh yelled a little overdramatically. Milo threw up his hands and walked out of the room. I expected Oh to go after him, but she seemed almost relieved to have him gone.

  “He’ll be back,” she said, staring into a computer screen in search of an event in which I could be used. The dark circles from the weekend hadn’t left, and I was starting to wonder how much sleep she was getting.

  “Oh, listen, you have to stop taking this so seriously. You just about ripped Milo’s head off.”

  Oh and I argued over this kind of thing for days. She was always arguing for more, more, more, and I was always asking her to slow things down. It became a sticking point for us, her mood growing darker at times. We were turning into that couple no one wants to be around, always fighting, and Milo chose to spend less time with us when we were together.

  On Tuesday Oh heard about a meth lab bust on the scanner at an old barn and knew there was a chance of an explosion. Apparently that stuff is very unstable. She’d gone to some trouble rounding up photos of most of the local police officers by the time I got to her, and when the call was radioed in, Sergeant Flowers was the first to arrive. There were other officers there as well, but protecting Flowers was the best I could do.

  There was
no explosion, so it didn’t matter in the end—and this seemed to bother Oh a lot more than it should have. It was almost like she’d wanted an explosion to occur, and I had to remind her that no one had died, including Flowers, and that was a good thing.

  Every time I slipped someone the diamond, it was harder to let it go. The clawing and scratching I felt increased the longer I left the power out, and sometimes I didn’t think I could hold on as long as I needed to. This thing—whatever the hell it was—felt like a living, breathing monster of some kind. It would go out, save a life, then return angrier than ever, like it was pissed off at me for making it do its job. It was like a lion ripping at the door, totally enraged until it got in. I started to actually imagine it as a real lion like it had been somehow forced into my consciousness.

  And there was something else, something really terrible that only I had to deal with. I had a full dose of good old Catholic guilt going full tilt 24-7 that Oh and Milo were immune to. They didn’t have the power to save people; I did. And not helping people in danger every second of every day meant that people were dying needlessly. Every time I read something online about a catastrophe at sea or a hurricane blowing into a village, I felt I should have done something to save someone. By Wednesday I was avoiding the Internet altogether.

  But that didn’t stop Oh from finding more and more opportunities for heroism.

  On Wednesday, it happened.

  Wednesday was the first time I killed a guy. Officially, that is. Well, I didn’t really kill him, but I could have saved him, so in a sense I was responsible for what happened. I chose, he died. Not a good feeling.

  The problem was timing. I had already given the power to one of two people who’d gone missing on Mount Hood and hadn’t been seen or heard from for two days. The weather had turned, and they were trapped on the mountain with search teams out looking. It was the hardest save I’d performed because it took a long time, but I knew the climber was alive. I knew, because I had a terrible chill all day.

  We watched the news online once school got out, and it seemed like they were making progress. There was talk on the scanner about them being found and trying to move them off the mountain. Right in the middle of all that, a headline appeared on Yahoo! News and Milo elbowed me on the arm.

  The story was front page, dead center, a picture of a woman crying. Her husband had been taken hostage at a bank after things went horribly wrong during a holdup. There were two gunmen, a ton of police officers, but only one bank employee held inside. I didn’t know what to do. We all stared at the story, which included the picture of the hostage and a name: Mike Farmer. I had all I needed to save him, a name and a picture. They could shoot him in the head and it wouldn’t matter.

  But I was freezing cold, and I had the feeling that if I stopped protecting the person on Mount Hood he’d die before they could get him off the mountain.

  “What should I do?” I asked, looking back and forth between Oh and Milo. If I saved one person, there was a real chance the other would die.

  “Which one is more likely to get killed?” asked Oh. Her eyes darted to the screen, and she started clicking through different news sites looking for more details.

  “You’ve been on that guy on the mountain all day,” said Milo. “I think they have him anyway. He’ll make it.”

  “For all we know, they’ve found him but can’t get him down,” I said.

  “At least he’s not alone. He’s with a friend.”

  “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I’m not keeping them both alive. Only the one that has kids, remember? We talked about this.”

  “I know, I know,” said Milo, exasperated at how few details were surfacing online and through the police scanner.

  “Maybe we need to think of this in a different way,” said Oh.

  “How?”

  “Well, which one deserves to live more?”

  Milo’s mouth dropped open. “You’re getting a God complex.”

  “No, I’m not,” said Oh, her face narrowing as she bore down on Milo. “I’m trying to help Jacob make the right choice here. All I’m saying is one of them went up into the mountains voluntarily and basically screwed up. He didn’t check the weather or whatever. He was thrill-seeking. Accidents happen. Plus he’s probably already saved anyway. This guy at the bank is different. He just showed up for work and his day went to hell.”

  “Maybe he beat up his kids before he left the house,” said Milo, turning sulky and irritable, like we were ganging up on him.

  It could have been the seven hours of feeling cold. Maybe it was the unrelenting claws digging into my bones like a cancer. Or maybe I just wanted to side with Oh even when she was being sort of a punk about the whole thing. Regardless of why, the moment came when I relented.

  “It’s done,” I said, feeling a wave of peace flow into my mind and body. I was warm, calm, happy.

  “Done? How do you mean, done?” demanded Milo.

  I got up and peeled off a coat, feeling sweat begin to trickle down the inside of my arm.

  “The guy on the mountain is officially on his own.”

  Two hours later we discovered that Mike Farmer, the bank employee, had been let go unharmed. An hour after that, the news from Mount Hood wasn’t so good. Both men were found dead, frozen to death in a snow cave of their own making.

  All three of us were devastated. Not only had we let someone die, a parent no less, but the person we’d chosen to protect turned out not to need it after all. The whole weight of every decision, in the end, fell on me alone. I’d killed a guy, maybe two, trying to save someone who didn’t even need saving. No matter how tightly Oh held on to me or how many times Milo said it wasn’t my fault, the guilt was eating me alive.

  The Mount Hood Bank Heist incident, as it came to be known between us, was not as traumatic as what happened on Friday.

  NOON, THURSDAY,

  OCTOBER 18TH

  It began on Thursday, when I was gobbling down cheese zombies at our usual table, passing the time with Milo, Phil, Nick, Oh, and a couple of other girls who had recently drifted into our hemisphere. I was ravenous all the time, downing two zombies and looking hungrily at Oh’s, which sat untouched on a paper plate. She wasn’t eating, wasn’t sleeping, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed her change in behavior. It was starting to become obvious to everyone that something was wrong.

  “You’re not going to believe where I’m going tomorrow morning,” said Oh.

  “The gynecologist,” said Milo. Nick laughed until a gob of cheese left his mouth and landed on the floor.

  “You’re both idiots,” said Taylor. Her friend June shook her head in agreement, but seeing Nick spit cheese was hard to ignore. Even Phil was laughing, which was saying something with so many girls piled around the table.

  “Try South Ridge,” said Oh, avoiding my eyes.

  “You’re screwing with us,” said Milo.

  Oh shrugged her shoulders as everyone begged her to reconsider. I didn’t say a word. I couldn’t even begin to imagine Holy Cross without her.

  “Look, you guys, I’m not going there. At least not yet. My mom is making me do it. I guess my dad has fallen behind on his payments a little bit. Too many football games.”

  “Me and Nick can go down there and beat the money out of his duck-loving weenie ass,” said Milo, sending Nick into another fit of giggles.

  “It’s not his fault,” said Oh, shaking her head and glancing at me for the first time to see my reaction. “And besides, this is nothing. I’ll mow lawns if I have to. I’ll get a paper route. Nothing’s keeping me out of Holy Cross.”

  “Unless they shut ’er down,” said Nick. “Father Tim’s got another summit meeting in Seattle with the head honchos this weekend. If they don’t fork over some dough pretty soon, this place is toast.”

  We all got quiet and awkward and ate our cheese zombies. It was one of those times I wished I could tell everyone what Father Tim and I knew about the money situation. But I cou
ldn’t. Better to let things play out naturally… at least until the end of the school year.

  “You know,” said Milo. “Your mom’s probably playing it smart. Good to have a backup plan. Mind if I tag along?”

  “Me, too,” I said, the words catching in my throat. There was no school at Holy Cross on Friday—a church holiday we’d all been looking forward to—but South Ridge would be open, and there was no way I was letting Oh in there without me. College guys at a football game I can deal with, but not Ethan and Boone and the rest of the Holy Cross defectors at South Ridge. No way.

  This was a silver lining, because Oh looked at me like she’d just gotten exactly what she’d asked for at Christmas. If not for the fact that I lived in a church house with a bunch of old farts, I think I could have taken her home and had my way with her, she was that happy I’d offered to go with her. I hadn’t seen her look at me that way in days, and even in the darkness that seemed to be overpowering her at times, those bright eyes still delivered a knockout punch. The old Oh was still in there, and I felt we were going to be okay. She would adjust, we would learn.

  We’d figure out how to bring the power under our control and get back to a normal life.

  THREE

  DAYS TO

  MIDNIGHT

  8:20 AM

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19TH

  Our timing was terrible when we arrived on campus in Milo’s crapper of a car. Ethan and Boone, along with a whole bunch of other football players, were standing in front of the school acting like jockstraps. There were girls hanging on and nerds swinging wide in order to avoid the possibility of being called out. Ethan was laughing obnoxiously. Same old, same old.

  Boone noticed us first and hit Ethan on the arm. Pretty soon the whole group of six or seven players were looking at us, most of them whistling at Oh.

  “It’s a mass exodus,” said Boone as we came within earshot. He and Ethan both stepped into our path and one of the other players cat-called to Oh.