B.C. Johnson - Deadgirl

“You know sign language?” I asked them both.

Puck bobbed his fist in time with Morgan's grin.

"My cousin Lance?" Morgan said.

I bopped myself on the forehead. I’d completely forgotten that her cousin was deaf—still, she’d never mentioned the fact that she knew sign language. Figures. Tall, gorgeous, sporty philanthropist. And me, well I’m…not that. Moving on .

Puck smiled at me and touched my shoulder. He had an uncanny ability for setting me at ease.

“He isn’t deaf,” Morgan said. “He just can’t speak.”

A revelation popped in my head.

“Did you get Morgan because you knew she knew sign language?”

Puck laughed without sound and clapped his hands together once. He nodded furiously, and something akin to pride beamed from his face. Morgan, standing next to him, looked more freaked out than anything.

“How’d you know she knew?”

Puck took a deep breath, looked at Morgan, then began signing.

“He says… ‘I know more about you than you think, Lucy. I mean, in a not-creepy kind of way. We had an exchange…’”

Morgan couldn’t have looked more perplexed. She glanced back at Puck for confirmation. Puck smiled softly and re-signed the end of his sentence.

“...I think he said ‘we had an exchange in the Grey. You know about me, too, if you try hard enough.’”

Morgan looked at me sharply, “What the hell? An exchange ?”

I held out a palm to her, effectively hushing her. I only had time for one ridiculous thing at a time, thank you very much.

“Just…wait. I know—”

Her mouth turned into a white line, and she flashed me a glare that could peel paint.

“I know I’m being an asshat,” I said. “But something…abnormal happened to me last Friday. And Puck knows more than I do.”

Morgan’s lip twisted, and after a beat, she nodded. She didn’t look happy about it, but she did turn to watch Puck’s hands.

“Oh…of course. What’s your name, Puck? Your real name.”

He made four sharp gestures. Morgan laughed.

“P-U-C-K,” Morgan said.

I glared at him.

“‘You knew my name the same way I knew your friend knew sign language,’” Morgan translated.

My eyes popped open. So I hadn’t made up the name—was that possible? I’d picked up on his thoughts without even trying? Or his memories, maybe?

“‘The things we do…are even easier with each other.’”

Morgan frowned, “Are you like…a superhero?”

Puck laughed silently again and shook his head. I rolled my eyes at Morgan.

“Well, I don’t know,” she said. “This sounds like two freak-show psychos to me. If I hadn’t known you since diapers, Lucy D., then I would have already fled for my life and called the cops.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

I thought of the one question that mattered, and the one I didn’t want to ask him. Especially not with Morgan there. I didn’t have a choice though, did I? I took a deep breath, trying to still the spiky nervous feeling pricking at my skin. Do it. Just do it, Lucy.

“Puck,” I said, trying not to look at Morgan. “Am I…did I die?”

“What?” Morgan said, and jerked toward me. “What does that mean? What happened to you?”

“I don’t know—”

Puck began signing, but neither of us were looking at him. After a beat he clapped his hands together, and Morgan and I swung our heads around toward him. He pointed behind us, turned, and bolted into the shadows.

“Puck!”

The sliding glass door trundled open. Morgan and I snapped around to see Sara standing in the doorway. Behind her, the press of people were frantic, moving as one toward either the front of the house or the living room.

“Luce?” Sara asked, tentatively, staring into the dark.

I jumped up onto the porch, and I heard Morgan crunching behind me.

“What?” I asked.

“Morgan?” Sara asked.

“What’s going on?” Morgan asked.

Sara looked confused by Morgan’s presence, but she shook it off and pointed over her shoulder.

“Everything. Benny and Tyler are fighting.”

Morgan and I exchanged glances and raced through the door. Sara grabbed my hand, and I grabbed Morgan’s, and the three of us plowed through the stumbling mass.

It was like charging into a cattle drive. The press of bodies ground together, threatening to throw me off my feet, bouncing me between the unintended shoulder-checks of a dozen strangers. From the front, Sara’s baseball-bat grip welded our hands together, but from behind I almost lost my grip on Morgan three times. She eventually grabbed my wrist with both of her hands.

Everyone shouted, blaring everything from words of encouragement to insults to well-meaning but ridiculous-sounding critiques.

“Fight, fight, fight!” A classic, and I allowed myself the indulgence of wondering who the first person ever to say it was. Probably a testosterone-drenched caveman, witnessing a brawl between two forehead-heavy fellows over who will rule the Clan of the Cave Bear.

“Queer! Fucking fight him! Punch him, come on!”

Sara yanked us out of the press of people, into the eye of the storm. Benny lay on the floor, holding both arms crossed over his face. Tyler, easily fifty-percent bigger then Benny, squatted on his chest, raining fists into Benny’s struggling defenses.

Sara ran forward, and I heard Morgan behind me. Sara made it two steps before another thug, dressed remarkably similar to Tyler stepped out from the crowd and shoved Sara with both hands. She stumbled and collided with an end-table, and the guy turned and grabbed both of my shoulders and pumped. Surprising strength took me back, throwing me into Morgan, knocking her into the crowd.

I grabbed the people around me, but their bouncing and jostling made it impossible to get back to my feet. A knee smacked me in the side of the head, and white star-bursts exploded in my eyes. I looked up in shock, trying to hold a hand feebly above my head, but I realized I wasn’t being attacked, just trampled.

I pushed up against the crowd, but it was like trying to shove a brick wall. I came down hard on my hands and knees, which protested with bright red stabs of pain. Something soft but unyielding cracked into my head, and my elbows buckled, forcing me into a bastard-version of the downward dog. I shoved and struggled, but the ocean of flesh tugged me down like the worst riptide. My left hand, its fingers splayed wide against Benny’s parents’ glossy hard-wood floor, didn’t last long. A brown-and-red sneaker came down like a piston on my fingers. I heard them break before I felt them. A dry machine-gun burst of cracks, four in total.

Agony. Bile rose in my throat, and a strangled animal-scream squeezed out of my mouth. The sneaker came up, and I yanked my mangled hand out and shoved it tight to my stomach to protect it. My fingers were engulfed in flame, throwing sickening pulses of pain up my entire arm. I wanted to look at it, but some well-equipped part of my mind told me that now wasn’t the time. I tried to curl up as best as I could, to resist the crushing machine of people.

Something grabbed the back of my shirt and twisted the fabric, tugging and pulling.

Then I was being lifted by the twisting hand, yanked back to my feet. A huge arm wrapped around my waist, holding me steady against the press.

I looked up at my savior. I wish I could have felt surprised.

Zack wasn’t looking at me. He held me to him against the battering sea of blood-thirsty teenagers, but he stared off toward the center of the circle, his eyes small and calculating. It had all the imagery of a romance novel, I realized. Dashing figure, whimpering maiden, eyes cast to the sea. I would have been disgusted if he hadn’t just saved my life.