Intertwined (4 page)

“We’re back,” Ryder called nervously. He must have known what they were doing.

“Gone for hours, huh?” Aden said.

Ozzie cursed and scrambled to hide the joint, tossing it inside a metal container. He slammed the lid over it to contain the smoke.

Seth grabbed a can of air freshener and sprayed in a circle. Terry tossed the pillows back onto the bed. Brian scrambled around, looking for a way out. And Shannon remained in
place, resting his head in his upraised hands. Then Ryder was striding inside the room, red hair standing on end, lips peeled back in a scowl.

Dan was right behind him. He stopped in the doorway beside Aden, thumbs hooked in his belt loop, baseball cap low on his head. Disapproval clouded his deeply tanned features as he sniffed the air.

“I’m trying to save your lives, boys. You know that, don’t you?”

A few of the dregs gazed down at their feet in shame. Ozzie just smirked. No one spoke.

“Finish cleaning up and then I want you to do something useful. In fact, each of you will pick a book from the box I gave you last week and read at least five chapters. You’ll tell me what you read tomorrow morning at breakfast.”

Groans erupted.

“None of that, now.” Dan studied each of their faces, one by one. When he reached Aden, he blinked in surprise, as if he hadn’t realized Aden was there. “Let’s take a walk,” he said. He didn’t wait for Aden’s reply, but pounded out of the bunkhouse, the door slamming shut behind him.

“Tell him where my stash is,” Ozzie growled at him, “and I’ll cut your throat.”

“Try,” Aden said, and pivoted on his heel.

Did you have to antagonize him?
Eve asked, clearly frustrated.

“Yes.” He didn’t react well to threats.

Outside, clean air once again enveloped him, and he
breathed deeply. The sun had fallen some more, casting a gloomy haze around him. It was the perfect contrast to his suddenly bright mood. For the first time in perhaps forever, Aden was hopeful his life could change for the better.

Dan was a few feet ahead, strolling toward the north pasture, and Aden rushed to catch up with him. Even though Aden was just above six feet, Dan towered over him.

A few times over the past week, when Aden thought no one inside his head was paying attention, he’d pretended Dan was his dad. They certainly looked like they could be related. Both of them had pale hair (when Aden didn’t dye his to stop the blond jokes), lips almost too full for a boy and square jaws. When he’d realized what he was doing, though, he’d forced himself to stop. Surprisingly, stopping had made him depressed.

What did his real father look like? Aden didn’t have any pictures. Didn’t even have memories of him. Only thing he knew about the man was that he’d given Aden up. Which meant, he, too, had considered Aden a freak. At least Dan didn’t treat him like a mentally unstable child in need of confinement.

“Let’s get to the heart of the matter, shall we?” Dan said when Aden reached him. He tipped his hat for a better view of the land. “What have you been up to today?”

Aden gulped. He’d expected the question, had even planned his answer. But the only word he could force out of his mouth was, “Nothing.” He hated lying to Dan, but it couldn’t be helped. Who would believe he’d been battling corpses?

“Nothing, huh?” Dan arched a brow in disbelief. “Nothing
is the reason your face is smeared with gunk and your neck is eaten up with bite marks? Nothing is the reason you’ve been gone all day? You know you have to keep me informed.”

“I left a note telling you I was exploring the town.” There. Truth. He
had
explored. Wasn’t his fault he’d stumbled upon the living dead. “I didn’t do anything illegal or hurt anyone.” Again, truth. There was no law against killing people who were already dead, and you couldn’t hurt a corpse. “You have my word.”

Dan removed a toothpick from his shirt pocket and anchored it between his teeth. “Exploring on your day off is fine, encouraged, even, if you gain my permission first. You didn’t. I would have sent my cell phone with you, so I would be able to get a hold of you if necessary. But you didn’t give me the opportunity. You dropped the note on my kitchen counter and snuck out. I could call your caseworker and have you picked up for this.”

His caseworker, Ms. Killerman, was the reason Aden was here. She was hellishly old, probably thirtysomething like Dan, and struck Aden as, well, cold. She’d been assigned to him while he’d been wasting away in the last institution. He’d had a tutor, of course, but he hadn’t been able to leave the grounds.

He’d complained. When Killerman told him about the D and M and placed a request for his admittance, he’d been shocked. And when a spot had finally opened up, he’d been overjoyed. To think that he could now lose that spot as he’d feared earlier,
without
Dan even seeing that decimated graveyard…

“Aden. Are you listening to me?” Dan asked. “I said I could call your caseworker about this.”

“I know.” He peeked up at Dan, whose features were hidden in shadow. “Are you?”

Silence. Dreadful silence.

Then Dan reached over and mussed his hair. “Not this time. But I’m not always going to be a pushover, you got me? I believe in you, Aden. I want good things for you. But you have to obey my rules.”

The gesture was unexpected, the words wonderfully shocking.
I believe in you.
Something burned his eyes. Aden refused to believe it was tears, even when his chin started trembling. There might be a girl inside his head, but he wasn’t a wimp.

“Are you still taking your meds?” Dan asked him.

“Yes. Of course.” A lie. Truth, half truths or even omissions wouldn’t work this time. To Dan, admitting he flushed his pills down the toilet would be worse than sneaking into town. Besides, he didn’t need the pills. They made him weak, tired, his mind foggy. Which he was starting to feel anyway, he realized, swaying as a wave of dizziness assaulted him. Stupid corpse poison. Still, with the dizziness came a sense of urgency. “I actually came looking for you when I returned. I—I—”
Do it, just say it. Put it out there
. “I want to go to public school. Crossroads High.” There. Done. There would be no taking the words back.

Dan’s brow furrowed. “Public school? Why?”

There was only one explanation that sounded believable. “I’ve never been around normal, average kids my own age, and I think it could be good for me. I could watch them, interact
with them,
learn
from them. Please. I haven’t missed a therapy session since I got here. Twice a week. Dr. Quine thinks I’m doing good.” Dr. Quine was the latest to try and fix him. Aden actually liked her; she truly seemed to care about him.

“I know. She keeps me apprised.”

Which was why Aden guarded his words around the well-meaning doctor, as well. Another wave of dizziness hit him, and he rubbed his temples. “If you’ll just call Ms. Killerman, she can sign the necessary papers and I can be in class by next week. I’ll only have missed the first month, and it’ll be the beginning of my new, normal life. A life you said you wanted for me.”

Dan didn’t even take a moment to think about it. “Good in theory, but…No matter what you tell Dr. Quine, you’re still having conversations with yourself. Don’t try to deny it, because I heard you just this morning. You stare out at nothing for hours, disappear, and even though I just found you with the other boys, you were stiff and angry, so I know you haven’t made friends with them. I’m sorry, kid, but my answer is no.”

“But—”

“Nope. That’s my final verdict. In time, maybe.”

“I haven’t made friends because no one here is interested.”

“Maybe you’re not trying hard enough.”

Aden’s hands clenched at his sides, a red haze clouding his vision. He didn’t know whether it was from the poison or his anger. Maybe he
wasn’t
trying hard enough, but why should that matter? He didn’t
want
to make friends with Ozzie and his sheep.

“I know you’re angry, but this is for the best. If you were
to hurt one of the students, you’d be incarcerated, no more chances. And like I said, I don’t want that for you. You’re a good kid with a lot of potential. Let’s give you a chance to reach that potential and shine. Okay?”

Some of Aden’s anger drained. How could it not, in the face of Dan’s kindness? His determination, however, only strengthened. He
had
to attend that school, had to spend more time with Mary Ann. Yeah, he could “accidentally” run into her in town, but when? How often? School was in session five days a week, seven hours a day. There, he’d have a better chance of learning about her, about how she, well, temporarily fixed him.

And, for those seven blessed hours, he’d be at peace. For
that
, he’d do anything. Even…He gulped, not liking where the thought ended.

“Are you sure?” he asked, giving Dan one last chance.

“Very.”

“Okay, then.” Aden scanned the pasture, then glanced behind him to gauge just how well the dregs could see him from the bunkhouse if they happened to be watching from the windows. A direct view. That was unfortunate but couldn’t be helped. Hopefully, if they were watching, they would assume the drug they’d just smoked was causing hallucinations.

Are you really going to do this? he asked himself. A million things could go wrong. People could learn the extent of his abilities, decide to test him, lock him away forever. A tremor slid the length of his spine, and he nervously licked his lips. Yes. Yes, he was. There was no other way, the outcome too important.

I know what you’re planning, Ad, and it’s not a good idea.
Had Caleb possessed a body of his own, he would have been gripping Aden’s shoulders and shaking.
Actually, it’s a terrible idea. I don’t have to be a psychic to know that.

Last time he’d done something like this, he’d spent a week in bed, cold, shaking, afraid of every noise, every touch against his skin too much for him to bear. And with the toxin even now traveling through him, the aftermath could be a thousand times worse.

Aden
, Eve begin, a lecture clearly imminent.

“I’m sorry, Dan,” Aden said…just before stepping
into
Dan’s body.

He screamed at the agonizing pain of morphing from solid mass to inconsequential mist, which in turn caused Dan to scream. They fell to their knees, dizzy. Colors were blurring together, the green of the grass with the brown of the cows, the bright red of the tractor with the yellow of the wheat. He was panting, sweating, his stomach threatening to revolt.

Deep breath in, deep breath out. Several minutes passed before he found a center of gravity. The pain ebbed, but only slightly.

Now you’ve gone and done it
, Caleb snapped.

“He won’t remember this.” It was weird, knowing he was talking but hearing a different voice come out. “We’ll be fine.” He hoped.

Well, do what you want to do and let’s get the hell out of here
, Julian said.
God, I can’t believe you sometimes.

Elijah moaned.
If anyone ever learns you’re capable of doing this…

“They won’t.” Again, he hoped. Aden forced Dan’s hand to dig into his pocket and remove his cell phone, as if the body were his own. The hand was shaking but he managed to scroll through the address book and find Tamera Killerman. Her number was on speed dial.

Gulping, nervous, Aden connected them.

“Hello?” his caseworker answered after three rings.

You can still walk away, honey. You don’t have to do this, don’t have to risk being found out.

“Hi, Ms. Killerman.” He experienced more of that dizziness, more of that churning in his stomach.
Concentrate
. “This is Ad—Dan Reeves.”

A pause. A giggle.

A giggle? From calm and collected Killerman? He’d known her over a year, yet she’d rarely even cracked a smile. Aden blinked in surprise.

“Ms. Killerman, is it?” There was a breathless quality to her voice that made Aden’s stomach curdle. “Yesterday you called me sweetheart.”

“I—uh…”

“So how are you, baby, and when will I get to see you again?”

Baby? Why would she—Realization slammed into him, and he scowled, nearly overcome with disappointment and anger. Dan was married. Dan should only ever be called “baby” by his wife. A wife Aden liked. Meg Reeves cooked wonderful meals, had a smile for everyone and had never scolded him. She even hummed while she cleaned her house.

Just then, Aden wanted inside Dan’s memories; he wanted
to know why the man would betray such a wonderful woman. But mind reading seemed like the only ability he
didn’t
possess.
Doesn’t matter. Finish what you started before you’re too sick
. “Listen, Ms. Killerman. I want to enroll Haden Stone in the local high school. Crossroads High.”

“Haden?” Shock dripped from her now, and Aden imagined her pretty but cool face pinching in confusion. “The schizophrenic? Why?”

His teeth ground together in irritation.
I’m not schizophrenic!
“Interacting with the other students will be good for m—him. Besides, in the short amount of time he’s been here, he’s improved so much I’m not even sure why he’s here.” Too much?

“That’s great, but are you sure he’s ready? When we talked yesterday you said he was progressing slowly.”

He had, had he? “Yesterday I wasn’t talking about Aden. I was talking about Ozzie Harmon.” Take that, dreg. “Aden is totally ready.”

“Totally?” She laughed again. “Dan, are you all right? You sound a little…I don’t know, unlike yourself.”

He swayed, barely caught himself. “I’m fine. Just tired. Anyway, if you could set this into motion for me, I’d really appreciate it.” Surely that was something Dan would say. “Okay?”

“Okay. I guess. But do you still want Shannon Ross to attend Crossroads, as well?”

Shannon? Why Shannon? And why had no one been told? “Yes. Talk to you later,” he added before she could ask more questions. “Baby.”

Click.

For a long while, Aden stared down at the phone, struggling to breathe, his shaking intensified. Thankfully, Ms. Killerman never called back.