He snorts. “I don’t carry it around for fun.”
No, I want to say. Do you know how to block when someone comes at you with their own blade, how to observe your opponent for weaknesses in technique, how to cut where it’ll count? Do you know how to use it, not how to flash it around to scare off a gutter punk after a couple dollars? I have half a mind to show him just how effortlessly I can disarm him and have his own blade at his throat. It’d wipe the patronizing smirk off his face pretty damn quick.
“Of course you don’t carry it for fun,” I grind out through clenched teeth and a pinched grin. That’s weapon training one oh one: Never carry a weapon unless you intend, and know how, to use it.
“I’ll be back around dark, cool?” Ploy says as he opens the door. I nod. I only need him here when I’m asleep. Otherwise, he’d probably just get in the way. “Listen…” His fingers brush down the edge of the frame and tap twice against the knob. He clears his throat and looks up at me, his voice lower than it was before. “Thanks for, you know, letting me stay and stuff.”
I can barely get the corners of my mouth to lift. “No problem,” I say. “See you later.” The probability of someone coming after me at the apartment is slim to nil. He has a much better chance of getting shanked under a bridge or something.
But he also has a right to know what he’s signing up for.
The second he closes the door, I twist the deadbolt and slide the chain into place. Even as I move, I’m pulling my phone from my pocket.
“It’s happening,” I say when Sarah answers. I pace the floor, worrying the hem of my shirt. “Just like it did with my parents.”
Sarah doesn’t ask what. There’s no need. “Tell me everything.”
I blast through the story Ploy told me in a single breath.
A deep sigh echoes through the phone line. I don’t realize until I hear it how much I wanted her to laugh off my concern, tell me I’m wrong, that it’s nothing. “The boy who told you this story,” she says slowly. “He doesn’t have his own place, does he? He stays at the old railway station?”
My breath catches. “How could you know that?”
“His friend’s name was Brandon. He came from Colorado some months ago under bad circumstances. He was attacked. Beaten. Because of that, he felt it was safer for him to stay off the grid. I didn’t argue as long as he was reachable.”
I’m stunned into silence.
“Allie, the house I sent you to last night? That was supposed to be Brandon’s job. He was the closest geographically only I couldn’t get hold of him. When you told me about the job last night…that the boy had been dead for hours… She wasn’t my friend’s daughter.” When we do a resurrection, we have to work quickly. There’s no time for background checks and vetting. It’s a loose system of knowing someone that knows someone who heard a rumor once about who to call for help. My God, I think. What would have happened to me if I’d stayed to do the job? “This boy, Brandon’s friend,” she goes on. “Do you trust him? There’s no chance he was the one who—”
“No,” I answer instantly. I stare at Ploy’s pack, leaning against the couch where he’d left it. “He’s had plenty of chances to kill me already.” The second the words leave my lips, I realize what they imply. Time together alone. Ties. Connections.
Damn it. I can’t tell her that I only offered him a place to stay because I’m scared. I’d argued hard to be on my own. I’d told her I was ready.
“And he’s not one of us?” she asks after a shorter pause than I expected.
“No. And I haven’t told him anything,” I add. “He’s just a friend.”
“All right. Where are you now?” she asks. “Somewhere safe?”
“In my apartment.” I swallow hard. “Are we going to have to evacuate?”
Our little cluster hasn’t always been in Fissure’s Whipp. Until I was five, we’d lived in Ohio. I have vague memories of fishing on a pier, Lake Erie spread out wide as the sky. But three resurrectionists had been found dead on the banks of that same lake, and we, along with several other families, had moved as far South as we could. Years later I’d learned another group had come in after us, one specially trained to flush out those after our blood and stop them. It hadn’t been the first time we’d disappeared in the night. And now it looks like it won’t be the last. This is why we’re secretive, why we put up a front of being cold, calculating, demanding of both favors and money. Fear keeps people from acting against us.
Most times.
Just because I understand it, doesn’t mean I have to approve of it.
A long pause passes as she considers the evacuation. “It’s been over thirteen years since we had to relocate. These people have lives here. Careers. Homes,” she says, her voice low and distracted. “We’re established. I want to be sure there’s no other choice before I make that decision. We wait for now.”
“Do you think it was a retribution killing like with—”
“I don’t know, Allie,” she says, sparing me from the memories of the fall out after my parents were murdered. They swirl up anyway, dark and lonely. Justice had been swift, and our territory declared safe again. But if this is different, if this is hunters...
“Are you going to come get me?” I listen for the sound of her grabbing her keys, the slam of a car door, an engine. If I have to abandon the apartment, even for awhile, I can leave an envelope with the key in it for Ploy. The rent’s paid through the end of the month. Someone might as well use the place. “Aunt Sarah?”
“I’m still here,” she says. “I don’t want you to worry, but I think you’re safer there rather than here. I’m having trouble today reaching people I shouldn’t have any trouble reaching.” She’s being vague, but the words send a shockwave through me. Sarah’s the go-to, the one people call. A central figure in this area for those with our blood. Any requests for help have to go through her. Any approvals for resurrections are her call. Sarah’s the one to keep track of all of us, keep us safe. She’s the law. No one blows off a call from Sarah.
“How many?” I ask.
“Enough to be concerned.” There aren’t that many of us. Those born with the autosomal dominant disorder, as opposed to simply being carriers of the mutated gene, are rare, maybe once in a generation per family line. My mom, aunt and I all being afflicted is an anomaly. Technically though, it’s just Sarah and me now. “You haven’t brought anyone back since you’ve gotten to Fissure’s Whipp, Allie. No one could possibly know what you are.”
I don’t know if she’s trying to convince me or herself. Except last night. That girl knows what I am. I’m not sure if it’ll help to bring it up again. Sarah’s usually a dozen steps ahead by the time I think to mention things.
“What do you want me to do?” I want to say I’m smart enough to have a plan already in place. Instead, I’m reduced to defaulting to Sarah. I might have more training now, but part of me will always be the scared fifteen-year-old that showed up on her porch. She must have a plan, though.