B.C. Johnson - Deadgirl

“Let go,” I said, struggling against his chest. “Let go!”

He did. I reeled back and went to slap him, but he deflected the shot with a lightning-fast forearm. His face hadn’t changed—he didn’t look mad at the attack. He’d barely registered it—the block had been instinctual.

“What is it?” he asked. “What happened?”

I backed away from him. My back hit the chain link fence at the edge of the grass, and I saw the jaundiced parking lot again. I thought of being cornered, of being attacked. I sucked in huge gasps of air, but I couldn’t catch my breath. I knew I was losing it, but I didn’t know how to stop. My head felt light and my arms and legs oddly heavy. Zack blurred—the school behind him blurred. I couldn’t catch my breath, no matter how much air I swallowed. I couldn’t—

—grey…—

No . I opened my eyes. I was beginning to lose consciousness, something I didn’t know I could even do. If I didn’t get my breathing under control, I was going to be hurtling back toward the Grey Meadows. And if I did that in front of Zack…if I just disappeared…

Well it would be a whole lot worse than just the simple humiliation I was facing now.

I grabbed the chain fence behind me, trying to let it ground me, trying to let its cold aluminum sink into my hand. Breathe, Lucy. Slow down and breathe.

Zack took another step forward and grabbed one of my hands. His touch burned in mine. My heart fluttered in spite of everything—it felt like it was climbing up into my neck. My arms tingled, then my legs. My breath slowed but grew more ragged. He grabbed my other hand too, crushing it into his. I looked up at him.

"Shouldn't you be in class?" I asked, my breath in tatters.

“I saw you bolt out of the counseling office. Seemed more important than the proper use of the formal usted. Señor Halloway's working on his detention slip right now, I imagine."

"That's not…very honors student of you," I said, but I sounded more hysterical than witty.

"Stop. What’s going on, Luce?” he asked me. “What can I do?”

I wanted to tell him a hundred things. He gripped my hands with a force that made me feel dizzy.

“Please kiss me,” I said, horrified the instant I said it but unwilling to take it back. “Don’t ask me anything. Just kiss me. Just—”

He did. His lips crushed mine, and the hands holding mine tugged me close to him. I had to crane my neck up to kiss him, and for just a brief second I wondered what an average height girl would have to go through to reach him. I used my toes to push myself into his lips, and I could taste his breath. Like spearmint, maybe Doublemint. I breathed it in. I could see myself, suddenly. I took another deep breath, and saw myself crushed into his arms, kissing him from the other side. Vertigo .

Zack’s hands let up, suddenly, their grip on my hands slacking. I opened my eyes, wondering what was wrong. Zack looked paler, and his hands were going limp. He swayed, his eyes still squeezed shut.

“No,” I said, and yanked myself away from him. I slapped a hand over my mouth.

Zack’s eyes shot open, and his skin darkened considerably. He stood up straight, but a look of dazed wonder painted his face red at the cheeks.

“What…are you okay?”

My hand still clamped my mouth shut. I couldn’t let it go, couldn’t let it hurt him. Couldn’t let me hurt him. I backed away, my other hand held out to him, pleading.

“Just…I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be,” he whispered. He had the look of someone who had just walked clean and healthy out of a car crash. “That was…awesome.”

I felt the tears coming. No. Not now . I shook my head.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I have to go.”

I turned and fled across the grass. This time, he didn’t try to stop me.

Chapter Eleven

Party Hardly

“No Taser, no party.”

I stared at my dad in horror. He sat calmly—his arms folded across each other in a little lazy X on the kitchen table. The dying sunlight streamed in through the window above the sink, back-lighting him, throwing him in sharp silhouette. He didn’t look angry, but he wasn’t joking either. Dad radiated Zen as he pushed the little black plastic box toward me. It slid across the table, two metal fangs bared.

“Technically a stun gun, honey,” Mom said as she floated by, dangling an empty coffee cup from one finger. “The Taser fires the barbs.”

“Thank you, honey,” Dad said. “No stun gun , no party.”

“Dad! You’re a freak,” I said, and stood up from the table.

“Sit, young lady.”

I sat, but I wasn’t happy about it. I rattled the table with my knees as I crossed my legs. The little black stun gun jumped on the table as if to say look at me .

“You were nearly killed or worse—”

I tried not to smirk at the “or worse.” Typical fatherly priorities.

“—and I’m still letting you go to a party, because I’m a good guy. And this particular good deed is going unpunished, do you hear me, Lucy?”

I sighed.

“You are carrying the stun-gun from now on, everywhere except school.”

“Is this even legal?” I whined. I could hear the teenage-girl-scorned in my voice, but I had no desire to disguise it. “Can a minor even carry one of these?”

Dad shrugged. “I’d rather a cop give you trouble than a thug or a murderer.”

I rolled my eyes.

“This isn’t an argument,” Dad said.

“No stun-gun, no party, right?”

“Right.”

“Then no party. I won’t go.”

Dad laughed.

“All right, I didn’t expect that,” Dad said. “But you still have to carry the thing.”

I groaned. It was actually the answer I expected—I’d much rather go to the party anyway, even if I had to carry it. Mostly I was just calling his bluff.

“Then I’m going,” I said, quickly.

“I figured,” Dad said.

“But I’m not—”

“Take the damn stun gun, baby,” Mom said and sat down next to me. “Keep it in your purse, no one will see it. Just…stop arguing.”

I groaned and scooped up the stun gun. Before I could put it into my purse, Dad stopped me.

“Wait,” he said. “Push the trigger.”

“Dad—”

“I want to make sure you know how to use it,” Dad said. “Push the trigger.”

It wasn’t hard to find. The button nuzzled my index finger when I grabbed the stun gun. I touched it, and a little blue arc zapped between the metal fangs. It made a horrific clacking noise, and I nearly dropped it.

“Upper shoulder, under the ribs, or above the hip. Got it?”

I rolled my eyes again and dropped it into my purse.

“I gotta go shower,” I said. “The girls will be over soon.”

Dad nodded and waved me away. I ran up the stairs to get ready.

As I showered, I let my mind wander.

I’d left school early after my disastrous kiss with Zack—I didn’t even want to think what would have happened if I’d let the kiss go on any longer. Would it be possible to hold my breath? Was it even air I was breathing?

I wasn’t exactly able to go home without incurring parental wrath. I’d hung around the Orient Express take-out, because I was both hoping to run into Puck again and I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. By the time school ended I trotted back over and intercepted Morgan.

I deflected most of her queries about my truancy, just explaining that Ms. Crane had asked a few questions I wasn’t happy with and I’d bailed. Morgan frowned at that—I had promised to explain to her the reason I’d fled to her house in the middle of the night, something I’d yet to do, and I think the continued secrecy was digging at her. Still, she listened, unhappily, when I told her to keep the information from my mom. As far as she was concerned, I was at school all day.