Page 55 of Uncontrolled

I expect an immediate yes or some other placation. Instead, for a long second he takes me in. “I will be,” he says.

Staring after him, I watch as he retrieves the laundry detergent.

“Be right back!” he calls to where I’m standing in the kitchen, arms crossed. He grabs his shoes along with a couple used towels to take to the main house’s basement, where there’s a coin-operated laundry machine I have access to.

I will be, he said, which implies he’s not now and leaves me wondering if what happened with Corbin messed him up more than he’s letting on.

Ploy

I can’t decide if I’m smart or not for insisting on meeting Nico somewhere public this second time. She’s draped across a bench, her notebook open in front of her, one bud of her headphones nestled in her left ear. There’s no way to hear what she’s listening to over the din of the stream behind us.

We’re not in the shade. The temperature’s easing while the humidity spikes, the threat of rain thick in the air. At least the streets are full, the crowds rousing from their lazy hungover afternoons to start the customary day drinking everyone seems to concentrate on when they visit Fissure’s Whipp. It’s cover. Yes, I wanted to meet somewhere public to not give Nico and her brother, East, a chance to off me, but I also don’t want to be spotted with them. Today’s the deadline Nico gave me to find info on Corbin. She hasn’t brought up the subject with any of her questions in the last twenty minutes, and I’m not about to broach it.

In my pocket against my thigh is the new wad of cash she gave me to loosen my tongue. When Nico started texting me this afternoon, I told Allie it was LowLow. At least I’ve got the money to keep this charade going without pilfering from the tourists.

“Let’s go through it again.” Nico’s pen poises above an already filled sheet of paper. “Start with the resurrection two days ago.”

“Her phone rang. I answered it,” I say. We’ve already gone over this. I gave her the area of the house, easy to pinpoint with the for sale sign in the front yard. Nico can scour the garage for clues all she wants; she won’t find anything of substance.

“You didn’t search her phone once the call unlocked it?” Nico asks.

The new question makes me pause. “By the time I finished taking notes, Allie was back in the apartment. There wasn’t any opportunity.”

Nico taps the pen against her lip as she studies me. A black dot of ink stains her crimson pout. “The bag she carries everywhere. You said it’s all of her medical supplies.”

“Right,” I confirm.

“But you’re not sure of what’s in there?”

“I am sure,” I tell her. She’s rephrasing, as if she’ll get me to slip up. It’s making me second guess myself. “I told you, gauze, Band-Aids, and basic first aid stuff.”

Nico’s expression is a perfect negative of mine. “Yeah,” she says, sounding vaguely uninterested. “Noted… What else? She uses her blood. That’s the consensus on the boards online. Did you learn how? Do you know how much it takes?” Her voice drops to a whisper as if she’s talking to herself, cautious about the chance of us being overheard. Not that anyone would take this conversation as anything but mad rantings, or a movie plot. “You’ve gone with her a couple times now when she’s brought a dead person back to life. You must have seen. I need details, Ploy.”

Examining me through her fire-engine-red bangs, Nico waits for me to fill in the blank. Sweat beads across my neck. I paw at it and then wipe my palm on my stained jeans. I have to bend the conversation to Jason Jourdain and where he might be, without burning bridges.

“Tell me the how of things,” Nico presses.

My shrug is apologetic. “She made me stay by the door,” I lie. “I’m basically security for her.” When she rolls her eyes, I fake annoyance. “Closer than you’ve gotten. I’m building trust!”

There’s a vendor set up across the square selling knockoff ghoulish renditions of the normal tourist fare—key chains with liquid inside them like blood and two vampire fang marks, postcards reading “We Went Crazy in Fissure’s Whipp!” with a stencil of a ghost in a straitjacket which is ridiculous given its non-corporeal arms. Keeley strides over from that direction, laden with slushies from a food cart.

“It’s cherry,” she says, passing me a squat cup of snow cone filling and a throwaway wooden spoon. “That’s my favorite flavor.”

Behind her are Zen and Quinn, carrying their own treats. Nico’s too caught up in her notes to notice she got skipped when Keeley takes a seat, licking sticky fingers.

Zen pokes at the mess of colors in her cup until she stirs them into brown sludge. She nudges her wooden spoon in Nico’s direction. “Takes her forever to be satisfied your guts are officially spilled.”

“Noticing,” I mumble, grateful for the excuse of shoveling cherry flavored ice flakes into my mouth to avoid the next barrage from Nico.

Zen’s prickliness is not for show, which I admire in a way she’s picked up on. We’ve reached a tentative cease-fire. We’re curious about each other, and Jamison’s at the center. He’s an exploitable weakness I can use to manipulate her given the opportunity, but part of me wants to know what happened between them.

Nico’s still mumbling as her pen taps against various things I’ve said over the last twenty minutes. She already had Allie’s address, so I gave it. I casually updated how often I stay overnight from a couple nights a week at most, to a more consistent pattern. The newness gives me plausible deniability on overhearing conversations, but I’m nervous about how closely they’re watching me and how long they’ve been at it. Keeley saw me kiss Allie, watched us fight. If she’s regularly following either me or Allie, I don’t want to contradict her surveillance.

“Good?” Keeley asks.

She’s been staring at me the entire time I’ve been lost in thought. I take a token bite of the slush. When I shoot her a nod and thanks, a blaze of red floods her from cheeks to neck.

Behind the bench, Quinn laughs. “Jesus,” he whispers.

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