Just then, he turned his head as though sensing someone looking at him. Their eyes met across the busy cafeteria. In that moment, Kate felt a sensation wash through her like nothing she’d felt before. It was like a bolt of electricity striking her, like every nerve ending in her body had been set on fire.
A group of younger kids walked past Kate’s table, blocking her view.
By the time they’d passed, Elijah was gone.
She craned her head, trying to see him exiting through the door he’d been headed toward, but she couldn’t see him at all. He’d disappeared.
“Guys,” Kate said to her laughing friends, “did you just see that?”
They all looked at her, confused.
“See what?”
“Elijah. He was there one minute, and then he completely disappeared.”
She kept looking at the spot where he’d been a moment before. There was no way he could have left the cafeteria that quickly.
“Elijah,” Nicole laughed, clutching her heart theatrically. Then she looked at Kate with mock aggression. “I will fight you for him, you know. Fists, hair pulling, nail scratching, the whole shebang.”
The girls started laughing again, but Kate didn’t join in. Her gaze was transfixed on the spot where Elijah had once stood. Her mind was reeling.
What had she just witnessed?
CHAPTER FOUR
Kate walked with the other girls back down the crowded halls, lost in her own world. Her mind was still reeling. The other girls didn’t seem to understand why she was so shaken, and every time she insisted that Elijah had literally disappeared in front of her face they found some way to explain it away. She’d gotten tired of trying to make them understand and had ended up leaving lunch in a huff.
By the time the school day was over, Kate’s stomach was groaning. All she’d eaten was a plain yogurt and a salad, and a couple of chocolates from the box Dinah had given her. Along with her emotional morning, the angry, fast cycle ride here, and the weirdness of Elijah disappearing into thin air, it was converging to make her feel weak and lightheaded.
She unlocked her bike and began her cycle ride home, making sure she took it easy; she didn’t want to fall. Her bag, filled with textbooks and gifts from her friends, was heavy, making the ride even more exhausting.
The sun wasn’t quite as painfully hot at three p.m. and there was a cool breeze coming up off the ocean. In the distance, Kate could see the mountains of Rattlesnake Canyon Park. It was one of her favorite places to go. She loved nature, the quiet, the beauty of it. She liked to go up there on weekends and think about life. It always reminded her that the world was vast and that her home life was just one tiny slither of experiences the earth had to offer.
Would she ever get to see the world though? Without college, how would she ever get to live the life she wanted? She couldn’t bear the thought of being stuck in California for another year, cleaning rich people’s houses like her mom did, stuck to her side like a shadow. It wasn’t fair! Why should she have to earn money for Madison’s tuition? Madison was nowhere near as studious as Kate; in fact, she probably only wanted to go to college to meet guys.
Kate decided then that she’d have to find a way to keep back some of her earnings so she could save up for a plane ticket to the East Coast and then just disappear one day. It seemed like a dramatic solution but what other choice did she have?
Kate was so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t noticed the group of people ahead of her before she was almost upon them. They were senior guys from her school and they were milling all over the sidewalk and road, shouting and shoving in a jumble. Kate was about to steer around them when she realized that there was someone between them. A boy was being battered around like a beach ball, jostled back and forth, from one guy to another. She noticed the guy’s dark hair and delicate features. It was Elijah.
“Hey!” Kate shouted, slamming on her brakes beside the group. “Leave him alone!”
One of the guys turned to her, scowling. “Run along, little girl,” he said, cruelly. “I don’t think your boyfriend wants rescuing from a girl.”
Just then, Kate got a proper look at Elijah. He was downcast. There was a tear in the shoulder of his T-shirt. But as the boys ignored Kate and went back to pushing him back and forth, he didn’t even stick up for himself.
“Elijah!” she shouted. “Fight back!”
He looked at her then, as though seeing her for the first time, but continued to walk. She couldn’t understand.
But Kate wasn’t about to leave Elijah to get his ass kicked because of some stupid masculine belief that girls couldn’t stick up for guys. She had a bike, which meant she was faster, and she could use it as a battering ram.
She hitched her backpack off, heavy and lumpy with textbooks. She swung it and charged at the gang of guys, smacking one of them across the back with it.
“Hey!” he shouted, stumbling forward. “Get off, you lunatic.”
He didn’t seem too ruffled by Kate, though she hoped he was just trying to save face in front of his friends.
Maybe it was dumb taking on a group of senior boys with nothing but her bag and bike as weapons, but Kate had been overtaken by some kind of force, like a protective goose looking after her nest. She was standing up against Elijah’s bullies in the way she wished Madison would stand up for her against their bully of a mom.
She doubled back on herself, cycling at them as fast as she could go, making them scatter all over the place.
“Who is that freak?” one of the guys was saying to another as he dodged out of the way.
“Isn’t she Madison’s sister or something?” another replied, laughing at the sight of Kate wielding her backpack.
“Ew, gross,” the first said. “But Madison’s so hot. She must be adopted, right?”
Fueled by their rude comments, Kate charged again. She smacked another guy with her backpack, so hard this time he staggered into another. They both fell to the ground in a heap.
Trying to save face, the guys began dispersing, like a bunch of kids leaving their ice cream to an irritating, persistent wasp. They’d clearly realized that Kate would make their attack on Elijah more hassle than it was worth.
Kate was panting hard from the exertion and anxiety, though there was a little bit of triumphant adrenaline coursing through her as well. She glared at the boys as they left, sauntering down the road, then turned back to where Elijah had been.
But Elijah had gone.
“Hey!” Kate shouted aloud. The least the jerk could have done was stick around to say thank you.
She craned her head around, trying to see where he’d gone. But the more she looked, the more it became apparent to her that there was no way Elijah had had the time to disappear from her sight. There were no houses or shops along this part of the road for him to go into, just a rocky mountainous patch on one side and a steep drop down to the roofs of the houses on the street below on the other. Where had he gone?
She looked around, squinting against the bright sunlight, but he was nowhere to be seen. Then she caught sight of a figure right down at the bottom of the hill, walking along in that graceful, precise way she recognized to be Elijah’s. She had no idea how he’d gotten so far in such a short space of time. She wanted to put it down to the adrenaline messing with her perception, but an uneasy feeling was starting to overcome her. It was just like in the cafeteria. Elijah, she was certain, could move across distances faster than possible.
Kate wasn’t sure what compelled her to chase after him. Maybe it was that whole being seventeen and not wanting to put up with so much crap from people, but she felt at the very least she deserved some gratitude from him for putting her neck on the line. She’d squashed the box of chocolates from Dinah while bashing the boys. They were seeping gooey pink sugar filling all over the inside of her bag. And her copy of Romeo and Juliet had a huge crease across the cover now.
She began pedaling in the direction of Elijah. It was a long road and at
points it became quite steep. All Kate had to do was lean forward and let gravity propel her down the hill. She was usually a slow, careful cyclist, not much of a thrill seeker, and it felt good to feel the wind racing through her hair as she careened down the hill.
“Hey!” she shouted when she thought Elijah might be in earshot.
He turned and gave her a puzzled expression. Once again, the moment their eyes locked, a strange sensation swept through Kate. There was an intensity in Elijah’s eyes, a haunted sort of expression behind them. If the eyes were indeed the window to the soul, Elijah’s soul seemed to be old before its time.
Dazed by the sensations coursing through her body, Kate squeezed the brakes on her handlebars. But she was going way faster than she normally would, her bike was old, the brakes were a little worn, and they didn’t engage as quickly as she would have liked. She was practically flying, approaching the end of the road at a crazy speed. At the bottom, she realized with dread, was the highway.
Kate’s heart began hammering as she realized there was no way she would be able to stop in time. She was heading right for the road.
Time seemed to slow to a painful pace as she raced to the inevitable, unstoppable conclusion that she was about to die. Her bike passed the stop sign, her useless brakes screeching and making the smell of burned rubber permeate all around her. Then she flew right over the white markings in the road—and right into oncoming traffic.
Kate caught sight of an RV heading right for her. She saw the eyes of the startled driver—and then she felt the impact.
Kate’s body slammed against the RV. She didn’t feel any pain at all but she knew from the deafening crunch noise that she’d broken something. Possibly everything.
The car’s horn began to blare as she bounced off the windshield, rolling up then back down again, all the way. Her bike was flying up into the air, then falling. She rolled off the front of the RV and hit the ground with a crash, head first.
Black stars danced across her vision. Her bike landed beside her, breaking into pieces on impact with the hard asphalt. Kate became aware of the sensation of numbness, of the metallic smell of blood.
But the pain didn’t come. She knew it was bad. Bad that she wasn’t moving. Bad that she wasn’t feeling anything.
Kate’s head fell to the side and her gaze found the glittering ocean in the distance. As though at the end of a long tunnel, Kate could hear the sound of cars braking, of car doors slamming and people crying out. She could smell gasoline and rubber and metal, and something burning.
Then, through all the chaos, she saw Elijah’s face appear before her and felt herself being scooped up into his arms. He was saying something, but she couldn’t make sense of the words. His expression was intense, panicked.
And just before her vision went black, she thought she saw fangs protrude from his mouth. She couldn’t move at all, couldn’t even scream. But there came the sensation of something sharp, hot, and wet on her neck, she was sure of it.
Then the world disappeared.
CHAPTER FIVE
The first thing Kate became aware of was an electronic beeping sound. She hadn’t spent much time thinking about dying, but she was pretty sure it sounded like this. It was soon joined by another noise; a squeaking. And then she became acutely aware of the sensation of moving forward.
Wheels, she thought. I’m on a gurney.
Then came a strange, overly clean smell, like bleach and detergent.
I’m in a hospital, she thought.
So not dead then, she realized. At least not yet.
Kate felt something in her throat and something else digging into her arm. Not painful but irritating. She tried to raise a hand but nothing happened. She could hear strange noises coming from above her, like people talking through water. As the seconds passed the distortions became less pronounced, and she began to pick out voices and words.
“It’s a miracle,” someone said. It was a voice she didn’t recognize.
“I’ve never seen anyone come back with these kinds of injuries,” another voice said.
“We’ll see if we can get consent from the parents to test her,” the first said again. “Because she was flat-lining when they picked her up, then all of a sudden she was breathing again. They hadn’t even had time to defibrillate her.”
Kate wondered how long it had been since the RV had hit her. Had she just gotten to the hospital or had she spent years in a coma? The latter thought made her start to panic. What if she’d been knocked unconscious on her seventeenth birthday and only woken up again on her thirtieth birthday? Or fortieth? Or eightieth!
She began getting increasingly agitated at the thought of coming face to face with Amy, Dinah, and Nicole, all married with children. She knew she was lucky to be alive, but the thought that everyone had moved on without her was terrifying.
Somehow, as though fueled by her intense emotions, she managed to get her eyelids to open.
“She’s waking up,” someone said.
“That’s not possible. She’s in an induced coma.”
“I’m telling you!” the first said again, more insistently. “She just opened her goddamn eyes.”
Kate could tell by the tones of their voices that something wasn’t right. The speed with which she’d been hit, the angle with which she hit the ground, the way her head had collided with the asphalt—she absolutely one hundred percent should have been dead.
Hearing their voices, knowing that she had somehow defied all logic to be still be alive, made her start to panic even more. She started blinking and began to be able to focus on her surroundings. White ceiling tiles were flashing above her and on either side were doctors and paramedics, all looking confused.
She tried to ask what was happening to her but she couldn’t move her tongue properly. There was something in her mouth.
She reached out with a hand, trying to grab one of the doctors. As she moved, she noticed the line coming from her wrist. It was some kind of needle, a drip or IV. The sight made her feel queasy—she’d never liked needles. There was dried blood on her arm.
Kate realized then that it was very soon after the accident. There’d be no blood on her otherwise, and no paramedics. They wouldn’t be rushing her down a corridor like this. If she’d been in a coma for years and years she’d be lying in some ward somewhere, completely forgotten by everyone, probably covered in dust and cobwebs.
Knowing that no significant time had passed calmed her down a little, but she was still unnerved by the doctors and the expressions on their faces.
At last she managed to reach out and clasp hold of one of the doctor’s sleeves. He looked down at where her hand was gripping him, bunching the fabric up. His face paled, as if he were looking at a ghost. He looked up at the paramedic.
“I thought you said her bones were shattered.”
The paramedic looked down at her hand, too.
“They were,” he said.
All at once he stopped walking, as though so completely stunned he could no longer carry on. They left him behind and he disappeared from view.
Finally, Kate felt the gurney turn a corner, and at last she came to a rest. The doctors were fussing round her, attaching her to different machines, all making their own kind of bleeping noise. She was prodded and poked. But with every minute that passed, she seemed to regain another faculty, or control over another body part.
She tried to speak but that thing in her throat was in the way. So she reached up and felt a sort of plastic guard around her mouth.
“Hey, hey, hey,” one of the doctors said, trying to guide her hand away. “That’s helping you breathe. Leave it where it is.”
She did as she was told.
“Let’s increase her propofol,” one of the doctors was saying to another. “There’s still a chance of brain swelling. A coma will give her the best chance of reducing damage.”
“She’s had the maximum dose,” the second said.
“Well then there’s been a mistak
e,” the first argued. “That paramedic seemed out of it to me. Probably wrote down the wrong thing. There’s no way that girl’s had the maximum dose.”
“Okay, fine, if you say so.”
Kate felt a tingling sensation from the place where the drip was inserted in her wrist. A weird feeling crept through her body, like the sort of tiredness you feel during a boring movie. It definitely didn’t feel like she was being anesthetized.
The doctors were all looking at each other now.
“There must be something wrong with the supply,” the first said. “Oh God, look into it, will you? The last thing we need right now is another lawsuit.”
One of the doctors disappeared, leaving just two behind.
One of them leaned down. He shined a flashlight into each of her pupils.
“Are you on drugs?” he asked.
She shook her head.
He didn’t look like he believed her.
“Because if you’re on anything that might interfere with the propofol we need to know. No amphetamines?”
Kate shook her head again. She desperately wanted the tube out of her throat so she could speak to them.
The doctors looked at each other, completely at a loss as to what to do. Just then, another person walked over to the bed. It was a woman in a suit.
“We’ve got an ID for the girl,” she said. “There was a card in her backpack. Kate Roswell from San Marcos Senior High School. The principal is going to get me the parents’ phone numbers.”
The doctors nodded.
“Or you could have just asked her yourself,” one of them said, gesturing to where Kate was lying in bed, wide awake, blinking patiently.
The woman faltered.
“I was told she was being put into a coma.”
“She was,” the other doctor said.