Translucent (10 page)

“Do you think
we should have showed her?” Megan said when she pulled up to my house later that night to drop me off. She killed the engine. She’d been fidgety the whole ride home.

I nodded, staying in the car. “We should have called Major Connor.”

“Or kept it for ourselves.” Megan chewed her lip and stared absently at her fingers, then rubbed them together.

“Megan, you heard her. This stuff is freaky.”

“I don’t trust her.”

I shrugged. “She’s your friend.”

“She’s my sister’s friend.”

“I like her,” I said.

“You like everybody, Leona.”

I shot her a look. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Never mind.” She sighed and started her car again. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

My cue to get out. “Yeah, because you’re not being weird or anything.” I grabbed my backpack and climbed out, slamming the door behind me.

Her Ford glided up the street.

Inside, I knocked quietly on my parents’ bedroom, but they didn’t stir. I’d texted them earlier that I’d be out late with Megan, and they’d already gone to bed.

I collapsed on my mattress, head still reeling from the past few hours. Anxious thoughts rattled around in my brain.

The military had been trying to contain it.

They had filled the crater with concrete, stripped the paint off my walls, ripped up the carpet.

Even that hadn’t been enough.

It had stayed in my finger like a parasite.

And now I had let it out.

They had been there at ground zero with their helicopters and hazmat suits and all their equipment. They had it contained.

Defending Earth in the Worst-Case Scenario
.

And I had let it out.

I was beginning to worry I’d made a huge mistake. Was that what Emory’s dad had written about? How to stop an extra-terrestrial disease before it spread?

I could always ask Emory tomorrow at school.

After my confession, he’d been mercifully absent the past few days. But sooner or later—and I had the feeling it would be sooner—Emory Lacroix would come asking about his sister.

He found me
before school by the bike racks. Hot and sweaty from the ride in, I had just locked up my bike and shaken out my matted, damp hair when he startled me.

On the days Megan didn’t drive me in and I slept in too late to catch the bus—and because my parents refused to drive me now that I technically owned a car—I rode my bike to school like a loser pre-teen.

“Let’s talk.” He threaded his fingers through the chain link fence right in front of me, and I jolted backward. He stood on the other side.

I peered around, suddenly short of breath. Trapped inside the bike cage. “Right now?”

“It wasn’t a question.”

I finally worked up the courage to meet his gaze through the fence, realizing they might as well be jail bars. “I already told you everything I know.”

“Did you see who did it?” he said urgently. “Was it someone from this school?”

I could lie.

I could lie and make this easier on myself, play it off.
No, it wasn’t someone from this school. I didn’t get a good look at the driver.
Keep acting like I had a crush on him, and he wouldn’t suspect a thing. Maybe he’d even think I’d made up the whole story to get closer to him.

It would be a cinch.

But my body refused to lie, so I changed the subject. “Your dad works for that defense contractor, right? Rincon Systems?”

His eyes narrowed.

This
I could lie about. “I was looking you up on the internet last night, you know, because I have a crush on you . . . and he came up.”

“Where’s her body?” he growled.

“Does he know anything about dark matter?”

“Tons.”

“What’s that paper he wrote?” I said. “The one about defending Earth in the worst-case scenario? What’s it about?”

“It’s his theory,” he said.

I blinked. “You’re not evading my questions?”

“Why would I?” he said pointedly. “I don’t have anything to hide.”

His implicit accusation hung in the air. He raised a pack of smokes to his mouth and swiped one out with his lips, but didn’t light it, just raised an eyebrow. His penetrating gaze made me want to squirm.

“What’s . . . what’s his theory?” I asked, fighting the urge to swallow.

He took the unlit cig out of his mouth and crushed it between his thumb and forefinger. “You want to talk about my dad? Let’s talk about my dad. I can talk about my dad all day. He has this theory that if we ever did encounter a hostile alien life form, we wouldn’t even know it. Their technology would be so far ahead of ours, and they’d be so different from us, that the war would be over before we even knew what hit us. I agree with him. You want to go one and one? Let’s do it. You tell me something about my sister, then I tell you something about my dad.”

“No, no, no.” I shook my head, horrified at the thought. “I’m not going to bargain with you for that. You deserve to know what happened to her, and . . . and I’m going to tell you. But I can’t today.”

“Tell me
one
thing,” he said.

“I
can’t
.”

He stared at me for a long time. “It’s someone you know, isn’t it?”

At his words, I froze.
Getting hotter
. “I . . . I can’t . . .” my voice croaked.

He nodded as if he now understood everything. “You just did.”

“I have to go to class,” I blurted, rushing the gate.

He intercepted me, blocking my exit. “Why’d you want to know about my dad?”

“Nothing. I don’t care. Just let me go.”

“Leona . . .” 

“I saw a meteorite land in the woods,” I blurted. “And this stuff got on me, some kind of invisible stuff, and I have no freaking clue what it was.”

His smirk faltered. “Wait . . .
what?
”

“They came to my house—the government, the Air Force, whoever it is your dad works for—and they stripped my bedroom. They took everything I own.”

He edged away from me.

“Yeah, that’s right, Emory, I’m
infected
.” I spit out the word, making him flinch.

Now he looked concerned. “You want my dad’s number or something? I can give you his number?” He pulled out his cell phone.

So he did know something.

“Do you know why they’re trying so hard to contain it?” I asked, stepping up to him.

He stared at me, confused. “Contain it?”

“You know, why they’re trying to destroy dark matter?”

He gave me a strange look, like I’d misinterpreted something obvious and it bothered him. “What makes you think they’re trying to destroy it?” he said.

“Why else would they take everything I own that had dark matter on it . . . ?” I trailed off.

Oh.

They were collecting it.

“Sweetie, we’re leaving,”
said my mom, poking her head in my room. “You sure you going to be okay tonight?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” I said distractedly, only then realizing I’d been rereading the same two lines from
The Great Gatsby
for the last five minutes.

They weren’t trying to destroy it. They were collecting it
.

I had to be more careful around Emory.

“You should call Megan,” my mom suggested. “See if she wants to come over.”

“I did, mom. She’s busy. I’ll be fine on my own for two hours.”

“You can still come with us if you want. We can buy a standby ticket—”

“Mom, I’m
fine,
” I shouted, exasperated.

She hovered in the doorway in my periphery, peering around my stark bedroom before her eyes settled on me again, once again messing up my focus as I reread the lines for the bazillionth time.

“We should probably get you some new furniture this weekend.”

“Actually, I kind of like it like this,” I said.
To better complement my empty soul.

“We might be out late again, so . . . if we’re not back before you go to bed, then goodnight, Leona.”

“Good
bye
, Mom,” I said through gritted teeth.

Finally, they left, leaving me and my troubled thoughts in peace. They had another lecture tonight, part of a UCSB Arts & Lectures series. They loved that stuff.

Still on those same two lines.

I sighed and threw down the
The Great Gatsby
. Such a short book too, and I still couldn’t get through it.

Why were they collecting it?

My eyes slid to the contact lens case. The dark matter. So far today I’d resisted the temptation to open it, but now that my parents had left, I caved and unscrewed the cap.

I don’t know why it always gave me a nervous rush.

It was still invisible.

What did I expect to see?

I can show you things that will terrify you
, said a little voice in my head.

Whatever.

Five minutes later, a mechanical hum in the kitchen snapped me back to the present. The sound set my breathing on edge. Relax. Just the refrigerator kicking on.

More troubling, I’d been staring down at the dark matter the entire time, as if hypnotized. Feeling sheepish, I shut the cap and wedged the case under my bed, where I wouldn’t be tempted. The refrigerator cut off, leaving a lonely silence about the house, making me wish it kept going. I rose to shut my bedroom door.

That was when I heard it.

The faintest click, but not from the kitchen. I paused to listen, and caught another sound, like metal sliding against metal. My pulse drummed in my ears.

No other sounds.

I peeked into the hallway, toward the front door. Shut.

No movement.

A cool draft brushed my face, and goosebumps slipped down my arms. Instinctively, my hand went to the vent . . . and felt only stillness.

The draft hadn’t come from there. The furnace was off. Huh.

I crept down the dark hallway into the foyer and peered into the living room, the dining room. Both empty. The front door. I gave the handle a hard tug—it didn’t open—and checked the lock. Dead bolt engaged.

Nothing here, there’s nothing here.

Satisfied, I turned back to the hall . . . and saw movement out the corner of my eye.

My gaze flicked to the hooks by the door, the keys—my bike lock key, the spare house key, the shed key. They swung gently, as if recently disturbed.

Stop it, Leona.

I’d tugged the front door, which had shaken the walls. That was it. My hand went up to steady the keys, but my twitchy fingers only upset them further—

The floorboards gave a slow creak behind me.

I spun around, skin prickling. No one there. Just the house settling, wood shrinking as the outdoor temperature dropped. Still, my breath came in frantic gasps, echoing a little in the entryway.

No, not echoing.

Someone else breathing.

I held my breath, and the other sound cut off. I let the air out of my lungs slowly, and heard the whisper of exhaled air on my right. My gaze swiveled to the living room. No one there.

My eyes darted around the empty space, and I shouted. “Is there anyone else in the house?”

Now my voice
did
echo. The glass cabinets buzzed on their hinges before going silent. The breathing had stopped.

Just my imagination.

It’s not your imagination, Leona.

Panicking, I slid sideways along the wall, then barged through every room in the house, making as much noise as possible. My palm slammed against light switches, bathing the rooms in harsh yellow light. No burglar.

Just empty rooms. Night outside. In a window, I glimpsed my own ghostly reflection and nearly had a heart attack.

Suddenly, I didn’t want to be alone.

Hands trembling, I dug out my cell phone and called Megan. Maybe she could come over after her thing, or maybe I could meet her at her house.

Phone pressed to my clammy cheek, I listened to one ring . . . two rings . . . three rings . . .

My heart felt sick. She was busy. She’d told me she was busy. She wouldn’t pick up. Should I call my parents? No use. They would have their cell phones turned off in the lecture hall.

Before it went to voicemail, I lowered the phone, dread pooling in my stomach.

Another sound pricked my ears.

A faint buzzing. From the living room.

Huh?

I raced back into the living room and paused in the doorway, panting. My eyes honed in on the source, the couch, and I went after it like a bloodhound. The cushions, wedged down between them. Coins, popcorn kernels . . . and a smartphone.

It was buzzing.

I stared at the camo case, my unease growing, and flipped it over to see my own picture on the screen—an incoming call—before the call went to voicemail.

The phone fell silent in my hand.

Megan’s phone.

I set it on the coffee table, feeling hopeless. It must have fallen out of her pocket last time she was over. Now I couldn’t call anybody.

But wait . . .

I had texted her a few hours ago to see if she wanted to hang out. She had texted me back—on this phone—saying she was busy. What was it doing here?

A door slammed.

I jerked upright, startled. Then I heard footsteps in the dining room. There
was
someone in the house—a burglar—and they were walking brazenly into the living room.

My pulse took off into the stratosphere. I watched the doorway, waiting for a shadow to appear. The creaking footsteps came closer, and closer, and closer . . . so close they sounded like they were
in
the living room, then inside my head. I backed up, bumped the couch, and scuttled around to the wall, slid along it. The footsteps crossed the living room, gaining speed, coming straight at me.

My breath froze in my throat.

There was something else in the room with me.

I saw nothing.

The footsteps pounded closer, and I shut my eyes, wincing against an attack. The footsteps stopped abruptly, leaving only silence. My own thundering heartbeat. My eyelids opened a crack. Nothing. No sign of it. Gasping, I glanced around the room.

I was alone.

What the hell? I exhaled slowly and slid to the floor, every nerve buzzing with adrenaline. No one here, no one here, no one here.

Just me, just me—

From out of the empty air spoke a silky voice. “Leona, it’s me . . . Ashley Lacroix . . . remember that night you murdered me?”

I screamed.