8
“Maddy, Do You Know?”
I’M HALFWAY ACROSS the parking lot when I hear footsteps behind me. Next to the pay phone, I look over my shoulder and see Dane and Chloe walking my way. I turn around, my Greenbriers Grocers bag held up defensively, but they just laugh and hold their hands up.
Dane says, “Maddy, do you know?” “Know what?”
“Know what you are?” Chloe asks. “A …high school junior? A …Capricorn? A …Geico safe driver? I’m all those things.”
Dane chuckles while Chloe fumes. Dane takes a step forward, and I lower my bag. His eyes are gentle as he takes down his ever present black hood. Instantly I see the dark circles under the eyes; then I see the pale skin. He takes off his hoodie and hands it to Chloe, who takes it without comment.
I stare at the ratty white T-shirt he’s been hiding. “What is this?” I ask, trying to sound brave and flip and, I’m sure, merely coming off as too loud and annoying. “Strip grocery shopping? If it is, I have to tell you, I’ve got on 16 pairs of underwear, so you’re going to lose big-time—”
He reaches out a hand, and I stop joking. Gently, he touches my bare arm. I don’t know whose arm is colder: his or mine. (And I didn’t think anybody’s arm could get colder than mine.) He opens my stiff fist carefully until it’s fingers out, palm down; then he guides my hand toward the center of his chest. I try to pull back, but for a skinny, pale, Goth boy, Dane is actually pretty strong. My body follows where my hands go, my sneakers squeak-squeaking on the concrete as he guides me toward him with some superpower tractor beam or something.
Finally he has my hand flat against his rock-hard chest, right over where his heart is. Or, at least, where it should be. “Feel that?”
“Feel what?”
He smiles, leaving my hand there even as I try desperately to wrench it away, to avoid hearing what he’s about to tell me, to avoid hearing …the truth.
“Exactly.” He sighs. “No heartbeat.” Finally he lets my hand down and, before I can slap his away, reaches for the precise spot above my sports bra and shirt where my own heart should be felt beating. I struggle to get away, but he follows me, back, back, his hand square over my dead, lifeless heart.
After a few minutes, he asks, “So, do you know …what …you are?”
I finally shove his hand off and stumble back a safe distance.
Chloe steps up. “You have to know, Maddy. Why else would a preppy girl like you be out so late at night buying brains at Greenbriers Grocers?”
“I-I-I’ll tell you what I told the cashier.”
“Yeah, yeah, your grandpa’s coming into town, yadda yadda. That’s bull, Maddy, and you know it. What’s more, Dane and I know it. You’re a zombie, Maddy, just like …us.”
I open my mouth to protest, to yell, to holler, to deny, to …cry, but don’t do any of those things. Instead I simply say, “How’d you know?”
Dane puts his hand back over his heart. “You can’t fake a heartbeat, Maddy.” He slips back into his hoodie. “Come on, we’ll give you a ride home.”
“Really,” I say, backing away, “it’s not very far and I’ll be just—”
Chloe steps toward me. “We weren’t asking.”
I gulp and hold my bag-o-brains closer to my chest as I stumble along between them, Dane in the front, Chloe right behind me.
Dane leads us to a beat-up truck with primer splatters all over it. With an embarrassed smile, he says, “Your chariot awaits, madam.”
Chloe slugs him on the arm and shoves me inside before climbing in next to me. Dane swiftly rounds the corner and slides into the driver’s seat so I’m safely wedged between them.
“First things first,” he says, strapping me in. “We need to get those brains on ice. Secondly, you need a copy of The Guide. Lastly, you need to meet the Elders, stat.”
“What’s the—?”
Chloe interrupts me with an elbow jab to the side. “We’ll explain on the way.”