Every Other Day

“When you talked that chupacabra out of my body and into yours, it was nothing. And when you passed out at the skating rink, it was nothing. When you went through the windshield of my car and I thought you died—nothing. So, come on, Kali, share. What kind of nothing is it this time?”

The urge to answer her question fully and honestly took me completely by surprise. I wasn’t exactly the bare-my-soul type, but Bethany had just rattled off her sordid family history like it was some kind of halftime cheer. She’d let me in, and for the first time, I actually wanted to do the same, to tell someone the truth.

That I wasn’t normal.

That I wasn’t human.

That even though I was used to being something else, being bitten by a chupacabra had changed things, changed me.

And that, somehow, Chimera knew—maybe not about me specifically, but about the fact that people like me existed and that being bitten by a chupacabra had a different effect on us than it had on normal people. If Bethany was right and Chimera had been infecting teens on purpose, then chances were good that they were either systematically looking for people like me—or trying to create them.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said out of habit, unable to make myself say anything else. Talking made me feel like I had the dry heaves, and all I wanted was to just throw up the truth and be done with it. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.” Skylar caught my gaze and held it, and even though her face still looked pixie-young and innocent, there was an alien weight to the set of her features, like she was a thousand years old instead of fifteen. “And it does matter. Everything that’s happened, everything that’s going to happen in the next twenty-four hours—it matters. You matter, and whether you want to believe this or not, you can’t do this alone, Kali.”

She paused and cast her eyes downward, her voice going very quiet. “You shouldn’t have to.”

I wanted to believe her. I wanted to tell her everything, tell them everything. I opened my mouth, and—nothing. I’d been keeping secrets for so long that I wasn’t entirely sure I knew how to let them go.

Don’t. The humans won’t understand. They never do.

Somehow, I wasn’t surprised that Zev was weighing in, telling me that every instinct I’d ever had to keep other people at bay was right on the mark. Then again, he’d also told me to leave Chimera Biomedical Corp. alone.

That wasn’t going to happen.

The past twenty-four hours had whetted my appetite for answers, and I needed to know—what I was, what Zev was, what the men in suits and the Paul Davises of the world knew that I didn’t.

Leave it, Kali. You’re better off if they think you’re dead.

I wondered briefly how old Zev was—because he was talking to me like I was a child.

That, as much as Skylar’s vehement claim that I didn’t have to do this alone, prodded me into taking a small, terrifying step toward telling the others the truth. “I think I know what Chimera is trying to do.” Admitting that out loud sounded funny, even to my own ears. Deep inside me, Zev cursed in a language that I neither recognized nor understood. I ignored it—and him.

“I think I know why the Chimera scientists are playing around with chupacabras—why they’d kill to keep that kind of experiment to themselves.”

Interest flickered across Bethany’s face, but in the bat of an eyelash, she’d wiped her face completely clean, and it was gone. “And we’re just supposed to take your word on this because the almighty Kali D’Angelo can’t be bothered to deal us in?”

“I’ll tell you,” I said, pushing back against Zev’s objections. “Once I’m sure.”

Making that promise—meaning it—hurt, like I’d been keeping secrets for so long that prying them loose would require the shredding of flesh—most likely mine.

“What do you need to be sure about?” Skylar asked. The question set me up to ask Bethany for something that I was 90 percent certain she wouldn’t want to give, so I crossed my fingers and took the plunge.

“I need access to your dad’s files.”

For a moment, Beth stood very still, like there was a snake on the floor in front of her and any movement might tempt it to strike.

“Kali, they already tried to kill you once,” she said finally. “The people my dad’s working for don’t kid around, and I’m already on their watch list. They probably know you’re here, talking to me. If I let you into the lab, they’ll know that, too.”

“Is that a no?” Skylar asked, wide-eyed and far too innocent.

Bethany didn’t dignify that question with a response.

After a few seconds of silence, I decided I’d have to give Bethany something—a tiny piece of myself, tit for tat for the secrets she’d already given me. Slowly, painfully, I brought my hands to the bottom of my stolen tank top. I pulled the fabric up, inch by inch and bit by bit, until I was standing in Bethany’s foyer uncovered from the waist up, save for my chest.

I heard Skylar’s sharp intake of breath, saw Bethany blink one, two, three times as she took in the sight of my stomach, my rib cage, my waist. I didn’t look down, but dragged my fingertips across my flesh.

Across the ouroboros and the pattern—golden, intricate, overwhelming—inked into the surface of my skin.

“What is that?” Bethany asked. Somehow, she pulled off sounding unimpressed, even though her face betrayed her horror, her fascination, her awe.

“That,” I said, “is why I think I know what your father’s endgame is. It’s why I need you to let me into his lab.”

That wasn’t exactly the truth, and it wasn’t full disclosure, but it was something.

Skylar reached forward and ran her index finger lightly over the surface of my skin. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, offering her face up to the ceiling. When she opened her eyes again, she seemed lighter, more sure of herself—like whatever burden she’d been carrying since she’d met me on the Davises’ front lawn had been somehow lifted from her shoulders.

“I knew it,” she said simply. “This is it.” In typical Skylar fashion, she didn’t wait for either of us to process that statement; she just plowed right on, talking and switching subjects with no warning whatsoever. “Is the lab in the basement?” she asked Bethany, who still hadn’t managed to tear her eyes away from the markings on my skin. “Because I kind of feel like the lab might be in the basement.”

“Would you just stop it with the feelings?” Bethany snapped. Skylar recoiled, but recovered quickly, and I wondered how many times her peppy you-can’t-hurt-me facade had rebounded too quickly for the outside world to notice that she wasn’t quite as bulletproof as she seemed.

“I don’t care about your feelings, Skylar, and I don’t care about Kali’s questionable taste in body art.” Bethany was a good liar—but not good enough. Sensing that I wasn’t buying her outright dismissal of the situation, she continued, her voice softer, her face every bit as guarded as it had been a moment before. “I can’t do this anymore. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.”

Bethany’s eyes flickered toward the kitchen, and I thought about her mother, dressed in a twin set and talking to the air.

“What exactly did your father say to keep you from calling the police?” I asked, gauging her reaction to my question and seeing the moment it hit its mark.

“Does it matter?” Bethany asked bitterly. “Either way, I can’t help you. You should get out of here before he gets home.”

I thought about my dad—about the painful silences and well-rehearsed lies, the fact that he knew less about me than the people in this room, neither of whom I’d known for longer than a day.

“Your dad wouldn’t hurt your mom … would he?” Skylar sounded painfully young, and I wondered how someone with any psychic ability at all could still believe the best about the world.

In response to Skylar’s question, Bethany straightened her shoulders and stared at the wall behind the younger girl’s head as she answered. “My father wouldn’t hit my mom. He wouldn’t put a gun to her head. But would he take her to see Tyler, force her to look at him until she had a very public breakdown in close proximity to the hospital’s psych ward?” Bethany shrugged. “It’s hard to say, really.”