Last Chance--A Novel Read online

“You ran into a Rebel alien who told you that you and I are the key to the survival of the human race before he evaporated in a puff of smoke?”

  My mouth opened. I closed it.

  Patrick bulled forward through some dense shrubs. Alex followed him, smirking. She has this smirk that pulls her mouth a little bit to one side.

  In case you were wondering.

  “Wait,” I said. “How…? When…?”

  Patrick reached into his backpack, dug out my well-worn notebook, and slapped it against my chest. “We found your journal in the cabin,” he said.

  “But I hid it.”

  “I know,” Patrick said. “Under the pillow. Not exactly a mastermind hiding place.”

  “Well, I didn’t figure…” What were they doing on the bed?

  A memory hit me: My fingers brushing Alex’s neck as I fumble with the clasp of her necklace. Alex leaning into me. Her plush, plush lips.

  I shook off the thought. “So you know everything.”

  “Everything you wrote down,” Patrick said. “And you were pretty thorough.”

  I could’ve sworn that that was loaded, too.

  “They chased us half the night,” Alex said. “We had to hide in a gully. We must’ve gotten to the cabin right after they caught you. At first, when you weren’t there…” When she spoke again, she sounded as tough as ever. “But then, like Patrick said. We found it. We knew the early entries, obviously, but we read the end. How you killed the Queen and she was made of mist or whatever. What the Rebel said about you and Patrick needing to carry out some übermission. How the Drones were closing in on you at the cabin.”

  “I thought you were crazy with all that stuff,” Patrick said.

  “I, on the other hand, thought you were only half crazy,” Alex said.

  “So we decided to go in hard.”

  I thought of them blazing down the hillside in that semi. “That you did.”

  “Patrick followed their tracks,” Alex said. “After a bit it was pretty clear they were taking you to the Hatch site.”

  “I thought we might get there too late,” Patrick said. He hooked my neck and pulled me close so our foreheads bumped. Then he stared at me, emotion flickering beneath the surface of his dark eyes. I must’ve grown some, because I didn’t have to tilt my head all the way back to look at his face. I wondered when that had happened.

  “If you’d died before we got there,” Patrick said, “I would’ve killed you.”

  I smiled, but he didn’t. Patrick doesn’t smile much.

  He let go of my neck and started walking again. “Now let’s break into that house and get your arm cleaned up.”

  At the same time, Alex and I said, “What house?”

  Patrick pointed down below, but I saw nothing except branches and leaves. Alex looked at me with one eyebrow cocked. I gave a shrug. Was he hallucinating?

  We cut through a copse of pines, and finally I saw it.

  An A-frame built of dark wood nestled into the hillside. Giant windows reflected back the surrounding trees, blending it seamlessly into the forest.

  “That’s the problem with you two,” Patrick said. “Too busy yammering to pay attention.”

  ENTRY 10

  The house must’ve belonged to rich folks before it all went down. Polished floorboards, plush bearskin rugs thrown down before a massive hearth, sparkling granite countertops.

  I sat on one of those sparkling countertops in the kitchen, biting my lip and trying not to make a noise as Alex wiped my forearm with a baby wipe from the first-aid kit. A baby wipe—as if the pain weren’t bad enough.

  “Quit whining, Little Rain,” she said.

  “I’m not saying anything.”

  “Your posture is whining.”

  “My posture is stoic.”

  She feigned a poke at the hive, and I flinched. She smiled, pleased with herself, then tossed the baby wipe into the trash. “I’ll be right back.”

  She headed up the stairs to the second floor.

  In the china hutch, a softball glove had been shoved in among the nice dishes. I tried not to think about the owner of that glove. Who she used to play catch with. Where she was now. If she still was.

  That was part of it now. Stopping your brain before it ran off and led you where you didn’t want to go.

  To distract myself I dug around inside the first-aid kit. I came up with a few packets of Benadryl. I remembered Aunt Sue-Anne giving me Benadryl one time after Ben Braaten pushed me into a patch of stinging nettle by Hogan’s Creek. I tore a packet open with my teeth and dry-swallowed two pills. Then, figuring now was no time to be slowed down by hives, I took two more.

  Patrick came in through the back door. “I got the generator turned on,” he said. He stopped and looked at me. “Quit whining.”

  “I’m not whining. Why does everyone say I’m whining?”

  “Your face looks whiny.”

  “Your face looks stupid, but you don’t see me pointing it out.”

  That almost earned a smile.

  Patrick took off his hat, armed sweat from his forehead, and seated the Stetson back in place. His pendant had popped out from the collar of his shirt. The silver jigsaw-puzzle piece, strung on ball chain like a dog tag, fit the one around Alex’s neck. As you could probably guess, Patrick wasn’t really a jewelry guy, but he wore it for her. He shoved the pendant back inside the collar now. His eyes scanned the kitchen. He pulled a butcher knife from the block by the sink, appraised it approvingly, and slid it into his backpack.

  Alex’s feet tapped back down the stairs. She spun around the newel post, a box in hand.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Oatmeal bubble bath.”

  “Now’s not really the time.”

  “Ha-ha.” She busied herself at the sink, stirring a couple of teaspoons into a bowl of warm water. Then she tore a dish towel into strips and soaked them. Her forehead furrowed a bit when she worked, and her lips were pressed together.

  I noticed Patrick noticing me noticing her, and I cleared my throat and looked away. “When they got me at the Hatch site,” I said, “they put me in front of one of those meteor ship things, and it scanned me.”

  “Scanned you?” Patrick said.

  “Like my cells and DNA and stuff. It all showed up on the screens—a magnification of my chromosomes. One of my base pairs was … screwy.”

  Alex kept tapping the strips into the glop with a fork like she was following some kind of recipe. “Screwy? Is that the scientific term?”

  “It was all red and blinking. Definitely what they were looking for. And it had a missing part. Like it was … I don’t know, altered in some way. Whatever’s wrong with me, it got the second Queen there in a hurry.” I paused. “Or what’s right with me.”

  At that, Patrick’s head snapped up. “The immunity.” He was usually so inscrutable, but now he was practically beaming with hope. “Maybe that’s the same thing I have.”

  You see, when it turned out that Patrick was immune to the spores that made folks transform at the age of eighteen, we’d hoped that it was hereditary—and that maybe, as his brother, I had it, too. But then we’d found out that our mom had had fertility issues and that she’d used embryo transfers to get pregnant. No one knew whether my dad and she had chosen different egg donors. So maybe I’d inherited the same immunity Patrick had. Maybe I hadn’t.

  I have to admit that seeing my blinking base pair on that gooey meteor screen, along with all this talk of me and Patrick being the saviors of the human race, had already gotten me hoping that I had whatever weird genetic immunity Patrick had. Optimism seemed like a dangerous indulgence these days, but what else could be so important about my chromosomes?

  “The Harvesters are hunting us down for a reason,” I said.

  “Because their spores can’t mess with us.” Now Patrick was smiling. A real smile. “Man, that’s a relief. I’ve been counting the time, you know … you have left. Twenty-eight months, seventeen d—” Patr
ick caught himself.

  Alex had stopped stirring. She was over at the sink, her back turned.

  “Alexandra,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  She turned, wearing a smile. It was an honest smile, but there was something else in it, too, something less happy. “Oh, come on, Patrick. You think I’m not thrilled that Chance could have immunity like you? It’s the only bit of good news in this whole crappy situation. At least let’s enjoy it.” She cleared her throat. “Stop looking at me like that, you guys.”

  “Fifty-eight days,” I said.

  “I know when my birthday is,” Alex said.

  “Maybe there’s—”

  “Let’s not ‘maybe,’ okay? Let’s just not. We know what this is. We know the cards we’ve all been dealt. We’ll play them the best we can until we can’t anymore.”

  Patrick stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders, the brim of his hat shadowing his eyes. “No matter what, we’re gonna take down these bastards before your birthday. You’re gonna be safe. I don’t know how yet, but I’m gonna make sure of it.”

  “You can’t promise that, Big Rain,” she said.

  “I just did,” he said.

  She looked up at him. She didn’t move, but I sensed her muscles unclench. She softened. I’d known that feeling, the comfort of Patrick stepping in, saying he was gonna take care of something. He always had. He always did.

  I wondered what it would be like to have that power.

  Patrick cocked his hat back. “I’m gonna go look for clean clothes. We can each grab a shower, and then we’ll head back to town.”

  He walked down the rear hall. I heard a door swing open and creak closed behind him.

  Alex came over to where I sat on the counter, the bowl in her hand. She lifted one of the strips and let the extra muck drip into the bowl. Then she took my hand in hers, gently, and turned my arm over.

  She wrapped my forearm. She was standing close, her stomach brushing against my knees. I could feel her breath against the hollow of my neck.

  I told myself not to look at her lips.

  Or the edge of her eyebrow where it met her temple.

  Or the strokes of her collarbone, barely visible above the stretched-out hem of her dirty T-shirt.

  “Eve Jenkins’ll be happy to see you when we get back, that’s for sure,” Alex said.

  Eve. Dark hair, straight bangs, a round face with a dimple in one side when she smiled at me, which was often. She was sweet and she was cool.

  She wasn’t Alex.

  Alex’s head was still dipped, but she looked up at me through her eyelashes. It was unfair, that look.

  For some reason I couldn’t grasp, I felt a surge of anger. “What are you doing, Alex?”

  She looked at me directly now. I’d never talked to her that way. “What do you mean?”

  “Patrick’s my brother.”

  She took a step back. “I’ve known you pretty much since birth, Little Rain. I’m aware of the relation.”

  “When we were hiking on our way here. I know what you were saying. It’s not all in my head.”

  Her pissed-off expression stayed the same, an unreadable mask. For an awful moment, I thought that maybe I had it wrong. The heat in my chest and face started to mutate from anger into earth-shattering embarrassment.

  I was about to break the silence when she said, “You’re right.”

  I was glad I hadn’t blurted out anything else.

  “This is stupid. I’m being stupid. This isn’t right.” She set down the bowl next to me. “Look, Chance. I thought you were dead, okay? We both thought you were dead. And…”

  “And what?”

  “You know how I feel about your brother. I’ve felt that way about him for practically as long as I can remember.”

  I looked through the big picture windows at the dark landscape dissolving into dusk.

  “But the thought of you being gone made me feel so … I don’t know. Alone.” She started to chew her thumbnail. Thought better of it. “Does that make sense?”

  Yes.

  “No,” I said.

  I couldn’t look at her. Not right now.

  “There’s not a handbook for this, Chance. We’re teenagers. We’re not supposed to be trying to survive every minute. Counting days. Thinking about dying. Thinking about the people we … the people we’re closest to just being killed in some awful way. Everything feels raw. And jumbled up. How are we supposed to know what we need to get through it?”

  I don’t know. I’m not sure of anything. And the things I am sure of are fighting each other in my head.

  “You’re supposed to know. You’re supposed to be with Patrick.”

  “I do know.” She was playing with the side of her necklace, twirling the silver links. The jigsaw pendant surfed into view above her collar and then vanished. “But it’s more complicated than just that.” She shook off the thought, annoyed. “You don’t get it. Maybe you’re too young.”

  I’m not too young. It’s so damn complicated that I’m drowning in it.

  “Right,” I said, staying fixed on the windows. “I’m too young.”

  She took in a deep breath, held it, exhaled slowly. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean it like that.” She lifted her hand and rested it on the side of my face. Her palm was cool, soft. For the first time, I let myself look directly at her, into those green eyes.

  For a moment we just stared at each other.

  Then she leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek. Her mouth caught the edge of my lips.

  I might have turned my head a little.

  I’m not sure.

  She pulled back a few inches, and then we were close, breathing, just us in our grimy clothes with her hair swept forward like a curtain framing our faces.

  A noise from behind us.

  Patrick clearing his throat.

  Alex stiffened. I felt my shoulders knot. We turned.

  Patrick was staring at us, his eyes unreadable. He had a stack of folded clothes across his arms.

  Guilt hit me like a dropped anvil.

  My big brother. My protector. My best friend.

  All at once I felt tired. Bone-deep tired.

  Patrick said, “How’s the patient?”

  “Fine,” Alex said, scooping her hair behind her ear with her fingers. “We were just … I just finished wrapping his arm with oatmeal. That should help the swelling, and it won’t make him drowsy and useless like Benadryl would.”

  Given what had just happened, it took a moment for the words to register.

  “Um.” I swept the torn packet behind my back. Blinked heavily. “Benadryl makes you drowsy?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Alex said. “Everyone knows that.” Her eyes picked over me.

  I scooted aside a little, in front of the crumpled packets.

  “Oh, no, Chance.” She reached behind me, came up with the wrappers. “You didn’t.”

  I blinked again. My eyelids suddenly felt like they were made of concrete.

  “It’s no big deal,” Patrick said. “He can nap it off. It’s not like we have to go right this second.”

  A deep rumbling carried down the mountain, vibrating the bones of the house. Far away. But growing louder.

  Alex spun slowly to face the big glass windows and the gathering dusk beyond. “What the hell is that?”

  ENTRY 11

  Patrick shoved us up the stairs in front of him. In the top hall, an attic hatch marred the perfect ceiling. Patrick yanked on the dangling cord, the ladder unfolding with a thump. He lunged up, shouting at us to follow.

  The Benadryl had kicked in big time, leaving me groggy. I paused on the rungs halfway up and shook my head.

  The rumbling sound grew louder yet.

  I forced myself to climb.

  The attic wasn’t really an attic. It was a dormer room with thick, shaggy carpet. The walls were lined with file cabinets and storage boxes. Coming off the ladder, I kicked a box, and it spilled its contents—
yellowed photo albums and an old varsity-football jacket.

  Pieces of someone’s life.

  Alex and Patrick were crowded over by an oval window, one of those specialty ones with a starburst grid. It looked like the wheel of a big boat. Patrick’s whole body was tensed, his shoulders flexed up like the hackles of a dog.

  “Whaa?” I slurred.

  “Shh.” Alex waved me over.

  My first step was wobbly. I evened out my balance the best I could, stumbled to the window, and took a knee behind them, trying to peer over their shoulders. The window, three stories up, poked above the nearby treetops, giving a view of the northeast side of Ponderosa Pass. Stifling a yawn, I shifted to peer between Alex’s head and Patrick’s hat. Way across the flats, I could make out a collection of buildings in the distance. Stark Peak—the closest thing to a big city we’d had growing up, an hour and a half by car before the alien invasion. The giant spire atop City Hall lorded over the cityscape. I remembered going there for a field trip in third grade, our class tittering in the grand marble lobby lined with saltwater aquariums. Growing up here, we were about as far as you could get from an ocean, so you can imagine us kids gawking at the coral and the clown fish, moray eels and puffers. It was like encountering creatures from another planet, but—as I’ve learned since—a lot more pleasant.

  I’d always thought I’d get to see the ocean someday. Breathe in the salty breeze. Swim in the waves. Bury myself up to the neck in sand.

  So much stuff I wouldn’t get to do.

  I could hear the rush of the tide, a low rumble washing around me, and—

  Alex jabbed me with an elbow, and I fought my eyes open.

  She used to play ice hockey, so getting elbowed by her is a different kind of elbowed.

  Somehow I was sitting on the plush carpet. I rubbed my arm. “Ow.”

  “We can’t have you falling asleep right now, Chance,” she hissed.

  “I waasun susleep.”

  She snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Look at what we’re dealing with.”

  “I already looked.”

  “No. You didn’t. You gave a glance and then fell back on your—”

  “Chance,” Patrick said in his no-fooling-around voice. “Get up here.”