The unadjusteds trilogy.., p.77
The Unadjusteds Trilogy: Boxset, page 77
Frowning, I try to clear my muddy thoughts, but can’t remember what I was last doing. Inspecting myself for clues, I see I’m wearing a pretty dress and strappy sandals. The dress is blue with a repeating pattern of a small white bird in flight, maybe a dove. There’s a sticky lip balm on my lips. I’m wearing a dress. I can’t remember the last time I wore a dress. Or strappy sandals.
Looking at Matt, his eyes shine a little brighter than usual, a sign he is tired, and his rugged five o’clock shadow bears more than one day’s growth. An unidentifiable, soft blue light illuminates the room. I clutch for the pendant at my neck and am reassured to find it nestled against my collarbone. I frown. I thought I lost it. But I can’t remember when.
“Are you okay? You’re bleeding?” Matt points to my nose and hands me a tissue.
I wipe at my nose and the tissue darkens, but there isn’t a lot of blood.
Tense, I brace myself for...what exactly?
A sheer blue scarf covers the bedside lamp. It was a birthday present from my mother. I always admired the scarves she wore and when I turned thirteen she said I was old enough to have my own.
I clench my teeth. There’s something familiar about the particular blue light that illuminates the room. Blinking rapidly, I try to adjust to the light, and when that doesn’t work, I rub my eyes. It feels like there’s a ton of sand in my eyeballs. Was I at the beach?
“I think I was dreaming,” I say.
“Me too.” Matt holds my hand.
“I think you were there, in my dream.” I swing my legs to the floor. Something seems off, but I can’t put my finger on it. Is it the dream, which I now can’t remember, or something else? I look at the blue light again. On the table beside the lamp is a framed picture. My mother. We were on vacation in the mountains and she had her back to the sun, her face in shadow, but I can still make out her magnificent smile. I thought I lost that picture. I haven’t seen it for...
“Knock, knock.” A voice sounds at the closed bedroom door, followed by a gentle rapping of knuckles on wood.
“Come in?” Confused, I can’t place the voice.
The door opens and my mother pokes her head into the room. She smiles at us. “It’s time, you two.”
I look blankly at my mother. Isn’t she dead? Isn’t everyone dead?
“You guys must have been tired.” Concern crosses her face. “Are you okay?” She steps into the room, coming forward, a hand held out to touch me.
“Fine!” I answer shrilly, wriggling away from her hand. Surely she’s not really here. I’m seeing things. “We’ll be out in a minute.”
“You’re sure?” Mom asks.
No longer trusting my voice, I nod.
“Don’t be long, everyone’s waiting.” Mom backs toward the door and closes it softly behind her.
“What the hell’s going on?” I wring my hands at Matt.
“Shhh!” He pushes himself off the bed and walks to the door, putting an ear to the crack. “There’s people out there. A lot of people.”
Lowering my voice, I twist my hands into the folds of my dress. “My mother is supposed to be catatonic. Or dead. I can’t remember… I don’t know…”
“I know.” Matt purses his lips. “What’s the last thing you remember?” He sits on the bed and looks at me with beautiful, blue eyes that are filled with trepidation.
“I don’t know. I remember rain. A storm. A blue light,” I say, as I glance at my bedside lamp again. It’s unnerving, that weird blue light. I pull the scarf off the lamp and the room is bathed in a more normal, artificial glow.
Matt lets out a breath as though he too is relieved.
“Yeah, me too.” Taking my hand, Matt frowns. “And animals. Black animals.”
“Oh my God!” The dream comes back to me. “The wave of beasts and the yellow-eyed monster...” I wrap my arms around my waist as I remember the terror. “But I thought I was dreaming. How did you have the same dream?”
“It wasn’t a dream. It was real.”
“Eli,” I whisper, remembering it all. It comes back to me like an electric shock.
“Eli and the yellow-eyed monster.” Matt shakes his head repeatedly.
“And Erica and Delta and Einstein,” I say. “Mason, Carter, Sawyer, Lyla,” I stutter over her name.
“Yeah,” Matt says, still shaking his head. Shoulders slumping, he picks up the blue scarf from the floor and winds it around his fingers. “And Earl and the altereds and the hellcats.”
“And my mother is okay.” I smile.
“And your mother is okay.” Standing, he turns in a slow circle, pausing to look out the window. “We’re in your old room. In your apartment building from before the resistance.” He pulls open the drawers of my bedside table, looks under the bed, opens the closet. “What the hell is going on?”
“But I blew up the city with my destroyer power,” I say, my headache pulsing. “This building doesn’t exist.”
“Exactly,” Matt says, as though I solved a tough riddle.
“Then how...?
“I have no freaking idea!” His hands fly high. He looks terrified, then understanding flickers in his eyes. “You’re blue bubble. The time thing.”
“It worked?”
“Come on you two.” My mother’s voice at the door again.
My chest tightens. My mother is here. Alive. Present. Okay. “Coming!”
“Who else is out there?” I ask Matt.
“I don’t know.” He rubs the back of his neck. “What happened?”
Closing my eyes, I think back to my dream that wasn’t a dream. “There was a wave of animals and the yellow-eyed monster and Eli and they were overpowering us and everyone was killed apart from you and me and Jacob and the baby.” I flick my eyes open. “Jacob and the baby.”
“Where are they?” Matt asks.
“I don’t know!”
“Are we even alive?”
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, I’m sure of that. The wave crested over us and my forcefield gave in and my destroyer power stopped working, but the blue bubble came. It belongs to both me and Patrick.” Glancing at my fingers, I see they are sparking with tiny electrical bolts. I blow a small breath at my hands and the mini lightning disappears.
“Still got the power then.”
“Yes,” I say, sitting on my hands. “I thought we were going to die.”
His eyes glisten. He pulls my hands out and holds them. “Me too. I wrapped myself around you.”
I smile at the tender memory. We braced ourselves for death, united. “Yes, and then I got another vision…something about Joe.”
“Joe’s dead.”
“Is he?”
We stare at each other, no longer sure of events. How can we be here, alive?
“But where are we now?”
Standing for the first time since I woke, I walk to my dresser on jelly legs and pass a brush through my hair. Looking into the mirror, at my silvery-blue eyes, I slap color into my pale cheeks. I touch up my lip balm. “Let’s go find out.”
I take Matt’s hand and lead him to the closed bedroom door. I run my fingers through Matt’s wavy hair in an effort to tame the kinks, and button a hole that’s come loose on his dress shirt. Leaning my forehead against his, I kiss him. I hold his jaw in my hands and kiss his cheeks, his nose, his ears, the crook of his neck where he always smells so good.
“I’m afraid,” he says, holding me. “My sister...” He looks at the closed door.
“I know.” But I have a good feeling about this. Somehow, we won the battle against the yellow-eyed monster and Eli. Somehow, we triumphed, against the odds, and have managed to bring the dead back to life at the same time.
We look at each other one last time before we place a hand on the door and turn the knob together. The door opens onto an empty corridor. Muffled voices and the clinking of glasses and laughter come from further along. It sounds like a party. Matt and I edge closer to the noise, toward the open plan living and kitchen area of my luxury apartment. Rounding the corner, we pause and watch. There is a sea of smiling, laughing faces. It fills me with hope.
“There you are,” my mother says from behind us, startling us both. “I was beginning to think I’d have to call the army to come and dig you out of your love pit.” Mom smiles. Her face is filled with love and warmth and all the things I so dearly missed.
“Oh, Mom!” I hug her hard.
“Silver! What’s the matter?” She pushes me away and holds me by my arms to examine my face.
“I’m so happy. It’s so good to see you!” Joyful tears blur my vision.
“You were only gone for a weekend.”
Something wet swallows my right hand and I turn to find a furry face nuzzling into my side.
“Einstein!” Matt bends to one knee and ruffles the dog behind his ears. “Do you think...?” Matt glances at the laughter and clinking glasses.
“Woof, woof,” Einstein barks softly.
“He says, ‘yes, go and see,’” I interpret.
Matt takes my hand and we enter the living area.
“Happy birthday!” Paige leaps on me, all sparkling, emerald eyes and dark hair flowing as though she came with her own personal wind-machine. She laughs and spins me in a circle. Paige is here. Alive.
“Thank you,” I stutter. “How old am I?”
She laughs and pecks my cheek. “What’s gotten into to you? It’s not every day a girl turns eighteen. Now you can vote!”
“I’m sorry,” I say, remembering our last conversation.
“What for, silly?” Paige presses a champagne flute into my hand and clinks her own against it. “Here. You obviously need it.”
Paige is alive.
My best friend is alive.
All I can do is stand and stare at her.
She shuts my mouth with her hand. “You don’t want to catch any bugs.”
After wiping my cheeks, I wrap my arms around her. “It’s so good to see you.”
“It’s only been two days! Does a romantic weekend away turn your brain to mush?” She disentangles herself from my arms and points to my champagne glass. “Drink.”
“I thought you were more of a whisky person,” I say.
She looks at me blankly before she’s swallowed by the crowd and other well-wishers take her prominent position. Does she not remember?
Matt squeezes my hand. He is speechless, his gaze darting over the room.
Koko is next. “Happy birthday!” She presses a small, wrapped gift into my hands.
Then Adam. Matt’s parents, his youngest sister Megan. Lyla pops up in the middle of them with Sawyer in tow.
“Thank God!” Matt mutters as he wraps his sister in a bear hug.
“You’re such a softie.” She socks him on the arm. “Go away for a romantic weekend and get all homesick?”
Matt’s parents embrace me warmly before they, too, are swept along with the tide of people.
During a brief moment of respite, Matt whispers in my ear. “I can’t believe...”
“I know. It’s a miracle.”
“Do you remember, during one of our arguments, when I told you to stop playing with your abilities unless you could bring the dead back to life and restore our world to its former glory?” Matt turns in a slow circle, fidgeting with the glass in his hands. “I was being sarcastic...”
A burst of laughter from the other side of the room snaps his attention away. I startle. They are soldiers and friends I recognize. Bulks. But they don’t look like bulks now.
“It wasn’t just me. It was the baby too.”
Matt and I look up at the same moment. Jacob approaches with Patrick strapped to his chest. He pushes his way to us through the crowd as he pats Patrick on the back.
“Thank God you guys are here. What the actual fuck is going on? Excuse my language, little guy,” he says to the baby, then looks back at us. “One minute we’re fighting the yellow eyes and the next we’re…. I don’t know what the hell we’re doing. Is it your birthday, Silver?”
“I have no idea,” I reply. “You remember?”
“Of course I freakin’ remember. But why doesn’t anyone else?”
Patrick smiles and emits a soft blue light.
“Where did you wake up?” Matt asks.
“Over there.” Jacob points to a leather armchair. “In the middle of the party. I was still wearing the sling but there was no Patrick in it and I was freaking out...”
“We’re still freaking out,” Matt says.
“And then I looked up and saw Paige, holding a sleeping Patrick and stroking his cheek and singing him a lullaby.” Jacob’s eyes turn watery. “I just stood there and stared, and she came over and gave me the baby and... I’m so glad to have her back.”
“He gave me the power,” I whisper, looking at the baby.
Jacob kisses the top of Patrick’s head. “And then you did this.” Jacob raises his glass to the room to include all the once-dead people, now alive, now resurrected and chatting and smiling in my apartment. My old apartment from the time before.
That’s when I see Erica, sitting in Sean’s lap, wearing his Stetson. He has his arm wrapped around her and whispers in her ear. She grins and throws her head back, allowing him to smother her neck with kisses.
My heart lurches. Erica is alive. Sean is alive.
I look for others and spot Luis, William, Kyle, dear, sweet Kyle, and Delta.
Circling the room, I look for one person in particular. I hope, I pray it’s possible.
“He’s not here,” Matt says. I wince against his words. He knew who I was looking for. Joe. A bulk. A fighter. He was one of the kindest people I ever met and he was my friend. He saved my life. Matt pushes my hair away from my face and kisses my nose. “I’m sorry.”
I glance at the kitchen to see my father refilling empty glasses and my mother beside him chuckle at some joke he just told, her eyes full of love for him and his for her.
“How is this possible?” Jacob asks.
“I don’t know, but I’m not going to question it.” Matt accepts a second glass of bubbling champagne from a waiter. “And pray I don’t wake up.”
“It’s the time power,” I say. “I don’t know how it works, and man, it almost killed me trying to use it, but it seems to have saved everyone, and wiped the slate clean at the same time.”
“I think,” Jacob gestures to the bulks, “the bulks are no longer bulks. They’re still army though.” He points at Sean’s army-issued dress trousers. “Do you still have powers?”
Nodding, I allow my healing light to glow and sparkle across my palm.
“I thought so,” Jacob says. “We’re the only ones left who remember. We were the last ones standing and so we’ve kept whatever abilities we had.”
I look at the bulks. The ex-bulks. Sean’s muscles are impressive, but they’re merely well-defined human muscles. He is not exceptionally tall, neither does he possess armored skin. None of them do.
“They could have it turned off,” I whisper.
“Look at Erica.” Matt nods in her direction. “Her wings were stuck, permanently exposed.”
She must feel our eyes boring into her back for she turns, and seeing us, waves cheerily. Sean throws her into the air and she laughs. She may not be a fairy anymore, but she still looks like one. She has a pointed chin and button nose. Somehow, her hair is still lavender with glistening silver flecks. Maybe she dyed it.
“You’re right,” I say. “So it stands to reason no one else has maintained their powers.”
“Welcome to the new, unadjusted society. How we always wanted it to be.” Jacob grins and strokes Patrick’s perfect head. “We’ve been returned to the time before. How did you do it, Silver?”
“I have no idea.”
The tinkling of a spoon on glass quickly hushes the room. All eyes swivel to my father and the words he’s about to impart.
“Well, this is quite a celebration we’re having,” Dad says.
“Hear, hear!” Mason calls, standing next to Carter. An image of them tumbling into the black wave fills my mind.
“We’re here to celebrate Silver’s birthday,” Dad says. The room erupts in applause and more shouts of ‘Happy birthday!’
Heat rises up my neck as everyone stares at me.
“I promised you a party,” Dad mouths to me.
I remember the conversation as we ran through the woods to the cave. He forgot my sixteenth birthday and promised to make up for it.
My mother appears in front of me holding a pink princess cake with eighteen glowing candles, expecting me to make a wish and blow them out.
“Don’t catch on fire!” Sawyer yells.
“Haven’t quite grown out of the princess phase have you, Silver?” Sean teases. But he doesn’t know that’s what my mother does. It was our thing, ever since I rejected her efforts of the perfect princess cake three times for my fifth birthday. Every year since she’s made me a pink, princess cake. I cherish each one.
Squeezing my eyes tight, my wish is that this reality is here to stay. Then I blow the candles out in one with a little help from an ability.
Mom retreats to the kitchen to slice the cake and hands it out on paper plates.
“But things are different,” Matt says, as normal conversation resumes around us. “It’s before, and the future, all at the same time, as if nothing ever happened.” He takes fast sips from his champagne flute.
“As if genetic modification never existed.” I clamp a hand over my mouth. It’s too good to be true.
“Is that even possible?” Matt asks. “And how do we all know each other? Most of us met during the resistance...and yet everyone’s here.”
“I don’t know,” Jacob replies. “We could spend years trying to figure it all out and drive ourselves crazy in the process. I suspect we’ll never know. I think we should accept it and marvel a little every day at the wonder of it all. Well, that’s what I’m going to do anyway.”
Another tinkling of glass quiets the room again. Dad clears his throat. Most of the crowd hold a piece of cake in their hands. Megan licks the frosting off her fingers. She is still in a wheelchair, how she always was. Mom hands me my own piece. It is the largest slice and contains a huge chunk of the princess’s dress.
I look at Dad, a strange trepidation filling my veins.
