Nearly two hundred miles away.
So what is he doing here? In this town? On this street?
Heather seems completely oblivious to my reaction and the strangeness of the situation. Meanwhile my brain is scrambling for an explanation. When I saw him staring at me on the bus, I assumed he recognized me from the news. So I lowered my baseball cap and turned around.
But I can’t do that now.
I can’t just turn away and ignore him.
I observe him carefully until we pass and then I whip my head around and continue to study him through the back window. He’s stopped walking. He stands in the middle of the road, watching Heather’s car as it turns into the driveway.
I fumble with the ramifications. Whoever this man is now knows where the Carlsons live. Where I live.
Chances are, he’s just another one of those media-hungry people that Kiyana warned me about in the hospital. Chances are, he just wants a photograph of the girl who fell from the sky and lived to tell the tale.
But it’s not these options that cause my stomach to tie in knots.
It’s those other options. The ones I don’t know about. The ones my imagination creates.
‘There are people looking for you, and trust me when I say, you do not want them to find you.’
A strange sensation floods through my body. My muscles are tingling. Almost as though they’re warming up for something. Anticipating. My arms and legs vibrate. My head feels light. Almost dizzy. My fingers twitch.
I eye the car door, feeling a sudden urge to shove it open, leap from the moving vehicle and run. Run until I’m far away from here.
I grow antsy. Jittery. My legs burn. Like there’s a fire lashing inside them. I can’t make sense of what I’m feeling. I can’t think. All I know is I have to get out of here. I have to get out of this car. Now!
My breathing has become ragged and fast. But Heather doesn’t seem to notice. She continues to steer the car down the long driveway towards the house. We’re almost there. Only a few more seconds. My whole body is trembling now. I rest my shaking hand on the door.
When the car finally pulls to a stop, I yank swiftly on the handle and kick open the door, readying myself to run. But I’m stopped by a startling noise. A horrible crunching, grating sound. Like metal ripping and glass shattering.
Heather gasps and drops the box of leftovers she brought home from the restaurant, splattering red pasta sauce everywhere.
I glance down. The entire car door is lying on the asphalt driveway.
20
DEPARTURE
Night has long since fallen but the house is still awake.
Cody is in his room. I hear the soft patter of his fingertips. I believe he’s playing another game on his cellphone. Heather and Scott are having a heated conversation in their bedroom one floor below.
And I lie on my bed . . . listening.
I can tell by their hushed whispers that they don’t want anyone to overhear their discussion. But I don’t seem to have a problem. I hear it as easily as if they were standing at the foot of my bed.
Heather is really upset about the car-door incident. She hasn’t said as much to me but I can tell. She acts differently around me now. Almost skittish. And as soon as Scott returned home from the drugstore, she ushered him into their bedroom and closed the door. I haven’t seen either of them since.
Even if I couldn’t hear them right now, it wouldn’t be difficult to surmise that they’re talking about me.
But fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) I can.
‘You should have seen it, Scott,’ Heather is saying. ‘One minute the door was there. The next it was lying on the ground. She kicked the whole thing off like it was made of tinfoil. Don’t you find that just a little bit odd?’
‘I think you’re blowing this whole thing out of proportion,’ Scott tells her. ‘There’s obviously an explanation for it. Did you ever stop to think that maybe the door was already loose? That something was wrong with the hinge and it just happened to fall off at the same time that she opened it.’
I don’t believe this explanation and I don’t expect Heather to either.
I close my eyes and imagine Heather shaking her head. ‘No. There was nothing wrong with the door, Scott. Car doors don’t fall off for no reason. I’m starting to think there’s something strange about that girl.’
‘Yes,’ Scott says gently. ‘She lost all her memories in a plane crash. She’s not going to act like you and me.’
‘A plane crash she mysteriously survived!’ Heather’s voice rises and Scott immediately shushes her. When she speaks again, she’s back to an intense whisper. ‘When no one else survived. I can’t put my finger on it but something is not right.’
Cody’s laptop is still sitting on my bed. I eye it hesitantly and then finally pull myself up and turn it on. Once it has fully booted up, I follow Cody’s instructions until I find myself staring at a little white search box.
A short vertical black line blinks expectantly at me. It’s waiting for me to point it in a direction.
I sigh and start to poke at the keys with my index finger, one letter at a time, until a word forms:
Diotech.
The company Zen told me about. The people he claimed are looking for me.
I stare down at the razor-thin black tattoo on my wrist, trying to imagine how this tiny mark could possibly be used to track me.
I click Search.
The page reloads but the results are extremely disappointing. Nothing seems to be even remotely related to the company Zen described.
And apparently even Google is discouraged with the outcome of the search because it asks me if I really meant to search Biotech instead of Diotech, clearly assuming that I must have made a mistake since there’s so little information to be found.
If this is such a massive and powerful corporation, why is there absolutely no mention of it on the Web? Cody said the Internet is where you go to find everything. But there’s not even a single reference to a technology conglomerate called Diotech.
More proof that the boy was lying.
I grunt and lean against the headrest, glaring at the unhelpful screen. I think back to the conversation I had in the dressing room. With the boy who calls himself Zen.
‘When I first met you, you were living in a lab . . . On a compound for a company called Diotech. They’re a massive technology conglomerate. You were involved in one of their research projects.’
I screw my mouth to the side and then slowly sit up straight again. I pull the laptop towards me and enter a new search. This time I throw in every halfway-relevant word I can think of:
Diotech + compound + technology conglomerate + research project
And then, as a final afterthought, I quickly add:
Seraphina + Zen
I’m highly doubtful that anything will result, but I click Search anyway, and wait.
The screen refreshes, revealing one result.
I hurriedly click on it and am sent to a website called Beyond Top Secret: A Common Ground for Conspiracy Theorists.
It appears the search has brought me to something called a message board. In the centre of the page is a grey box with white text. It reads:
The rise of Diotech will be the fall of humankind. This massive corporation will fascinate some and infuriate many. Citizens will willingly fall prey to its allure. Governments will crumble under the weight of its sovereignty. In only a few short years, Diotech will change the world as it is known. We will never be the same.
My hopes crash to the ground as I frown at the screen. What does that even mean?
I scan further down the page and find that the post was submitted by someone who calls himself Maxxer. Next to his name is a photograph of a man with a long face and silky snow-white hair that falls to his shoulders. One of his eyes is dark brown while the other appears to be made out of blue glass.
The image unnerves me.
Just underneath the post is a line that say
s Tags. I flinch when I read it:
Diotech, compound, technology conglomerate, research project, Seraphina, Zen
These are my exact search terms. Word for word. In the same order I entered them into the search box. As though whoever wrote this knew exactly what I would search for.
As though whoever wrote this . . . wrote this for me.
The thought makes me shudder.
I hastily close the lid of the laptop and push it aside. I return to lying on my back and close my eyes. One storey below me, Scott and Heather are still arguing in hushed tones.
Scott exhales a heavy sigh. ‘We knew when we signed up to do this that it would be difficult. But we need to try to be supportive. We’re all she has right now.’
‘I am trying,’ Heather insists. ‘I really am. Sometimes she’s sweet. And I can see a normal human being in there. Then other times, she opens her mouth and it’s like she’s a . . . she’s a –’ her voice gets very quiet – ‘a robot.’
I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling.
I’m not angry. I don’t blame Heather for feeling the way she does. For being afraid of me. I’m afraid of me too right now.
With all the surprises and strange discoveries, no one ever knows what will surface next . . . including me.
I think about the car door lying on the ground and how it got there. Regardless of the more realistic explanations Scott tries to come up with, I know the truth. That door was on the ground because of me. Because I kicked it. I kicked it so hard it tore right off the hinges.
Without even trying.
And I also know that, like so many things about me, the ability to kick car doors off hinges is not normal.
Which leaves me with only one solid conclusion: whoever I am, I’m not safe.
I’m volatile and unpredictable. Something came over me when I saw that redheaded man. Something I can’t explain. Nor could I control it. It was . . . instinctual. An impulsive reaction.
Not to mention, if there are people out there looking for me, I can’t lead them here. I have to go. I can’t risk something happening to Heather or Cody or Scott.
I stand up and walk over to the dresser, opening the top drawer and retrieving the only two possessions I have. My locket and the yellowed piece of paper with my handwriting on it.
Trust him.
I walk back to the computer, flip open the lid, and enter a new search term:
1952 Bradbury Drive
‘Meet me there and I will explain it all to you.’
I hit Enter. Then I chew on my fingernail. Just like I saw Brittany, the gate agent, do. And now I know why. It has a sort of calming effect.
The search results begin to generate, but before the page can fully load, I slam the laptop shut again.
It’s better that I don’t know. It’s not like I’m ever going to go there anyway.
Come to think of it, maybe it was that boy who posted the thing on the Internet about Diotech. Using some fake picture and some fake name. Because he knew that I’d look for it. Maybe he did it to try to prove his crazy lies. To gain my trust.
But it won’t work.
I crumple up the note and toss it in the trash in the bathroom. As soon as I do, I feel a pang in my chest and my forehead starts to heat up again. I turn on the faucet and splash cold water on my face until the sensation goes away.
I change out of my purple dress and pull a tank top and a pair of pants from one of the shopping bags Heather and I brought home from the mall. The top is white with blue trim and the pants are sort of a light brownish colour with lots of pockets down the legs. Very functional. I like them.
I fasten the locket around my neck, then sit on the edge of the bed and wait.
As the minutes tick by on the clock, the house finally begins to go to sleep. Heather and Scott finish their discussion and soon I hear the gentle sound of their steady, rhythmic breathing. Cody’s pattering fingertips silence. The light underneath the bathroom door is extinguished. I wait for his soft snores.
Then I tiptoe down the stairs, carefully ease open the front door and exit into the night.
21
BROKE
I don’t know where to go so I just start down the road that Cody and I took to the bus station yesterday morning and Heather drove to get to the supermarket and to the mall. As far as I can tell, it’s the only way into town. Wells Creek is completely shut down except for a diner at the end of the main street. I didn’t eat much at dinner and it’s only now I realize how hungry I am so I step inside.
The place is mostly deserted apart from a few customers who sip coffee at a counter. A woman in a blue apron sees me come in and shuffles over.
‘Well, aren’t you a pretty thing?’ she says. It’s evidently loud enough for all the customers to hear because they glance up to confirm her assessment.
I flash a quick smile and bow my head, scolding myself for not taking Scott’s hat with me when I left.
‘Just one?’ she asks, glancing behind me.
I nod. ‘Yes.’
‘Counter or table?’
I peer once again at the people lining the counter. All of them are still giving me a once-over. The man closest to us is doing a more thorough job than the others. ‘Table,’ I decide.
She nods, grabs a menu and beckons for me to follow her. I do. But it’s not until we reach my designated table at the back of the diner that I notice the man sitting at the other end of the counter.
Tall.
Red hair.
Matching beard.
It’s the same man I saw on the bus yesterday in Los Angeles and again near Heather and Scott’s house on the way back from the restaurant. His face is buried in a newspaper. He looks up momentarily and gives me a half-smile. My whole body freezes and I consider running again. Maybe I should just get out of this town as fast as possible and stop to eat later.
But then he goes back to his reading, seemingly unconcerned with me, and I remind myself to stop being so paranoid. He’s probably a harmless local resident.
Who happened to be in Los Angeles yesterday.
It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
Or maybe I’m simply confusing him with someone else.
I choose the side of the booth with the best view of the counter so I can keep an eye on him – just in case – and slide in. The woman places the menu down in front of me and I scan it in one glance. ‘Grilled cheese sandwich, please,’ I say as she’s about to walk away.
She smiles, nods and takes the menu back. ‘You got it.’
Then I wait. I rest my chin on the palm of my hand and gaze out the window. There’s not much to see but the dark parking lot. I think about where I’m going to go. I have no plan. Except to figure out who I am. But I have no idea where to start. I suppose I should go back to Los Angeles. Maybe talk to Brittany again. Or see if I can find someone who can tell me more about the locket.
I feel its weight against my collarbone. I reach up and touch it, sliding my fingertips over the curious raised symbol. The endless knot.
‘I’m the one who gave it to you . . .’
I blink and look away from the window, choosing to focus on the tabletop instead. If I’m going to have any chance of figuring out who I am, I have to start over.
I have to toss out any clue or piece of information that came from that boy.
I have to figure this out on my own.
‘I know you,’ comes a deep male voice, interrupting my thoughts. When I look up I fully expect to see the redheaded man addressing me. But his face is still buried in his newspaper. Instead, it’s the man who was sitting at the front of the diner – the one who seemed the most interested in me when I walked in.
He’s out of his seat now and stalking towards me.
I don’t know what to do or where to look so I just pretend I didn’t hear him. But the closer he gets, the harder that is to do.
‘Yeah,’ he says almost ominously. ‘I know you. Hard to forget those purple eyes. I’ve never
seen eyes that colour. Have to be contacts, right?’
I shake my head ever so slightly. I don’t know what contacts are, but I don’t exactly want to let him know that.
‘Don’t try to tell me they’re real!’ he says with a loud snort. ‘God don’t make eyes that colour. It’s not natural.’
He slides into the booth across from me and I feel my whole body stiffen again. I also notice the redheaded man look up from his newspaper and watch us with curiosity.
‘You’re that girl they pulled outta the ocean,’ the man continues. He has a large, bulky build and light brown hair that only covers half of his head. The rest is skin.
‘The one who survived that plane crash.’ He keeps talking. ‘A regular celebrity. We don’t get many of those round here. You really don’t remember anything, huh?’
I grip the edge of my seat and shake my head again.
‘What a shame.’ He makes a clicking sound with his tongue and drums his fingers on the tabletop. His hands are large, rough and covered in unsightly calluses.
‘What you doing up here in Wells Creek, of all places?’ he asks me.
I keep silent. There’s no way I’m going to tell him the real reason I’m here. The last thing I want to do is draw attention to the Carlsons.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asks. ‘Did you forget how to speak too?’ He starts to laugh. It’s a horrible cackling that sends tremors through my arms and legs.
‘Leave her alone,’ comes another voice. This time it is the redheaded man. His newspaper has been folded and placed on the counter and he’s rising up from his seat. He walks over to us and stands tall in front of the table. ‘She clearly doesn’t want to be bothered.’
The balding man throws his hands up in the air. ‘Whoa-ho!’ he calls out in a rugged voice. ‘I didn’t know her daddy was here with her.’ The cackling starts again and the muscles in my legs tighten, like loaded springs. I can feel my whole body preparing to leap. Almost as though it’s not even my choice. The reaction is automatic.
Exactly like what happened in the car – I feel the sudden unyielding urge to run.