Mortal Danger

It was all there, on shaky camera phone. Me, on all fours, me barking, me leashed, collared, and crying, begging for them to let me go. I heard the echoed laughter all over again through my laptop. A hard shudder rocked through me when Cam dropped the dish of dog food in front of me. The fat version of me was weeping, red-faced, snotty tears, as I lowered my chin to the brown goo and lapped it up. The laughter got louder and louder.

Vi stopped the video. “Edie?”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “That’s me.”

With some logical corner of my mind, I was calculating. It was more than six months from the time this video was posted until the time I met Vi. A hard-core diet could, theoretically, produce results similar to what Kian had with his future-tech shaping gloves. Given how upset I was, it seemed unlikely that Vi would question my makeover.

“Such ass**les. And what the hell, why would anyone send me this?”

I sucked in a breath, fighting for composure. Tears stood in my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall. Shame was a hot coal trying to burn its way out of my chest. Every day at school since the last before winter break, I went to class and people followed me, barking. They put dog biscuits on my desk. Someone tied a leash to my locker. Every. Single. Day.

I had told the school counselor how I felt … not that I was suicidal, but that things were just getting to be too much, and she said something like, “Some people just have trouble socially, Edith. Maybe if you…” Then she listed all the ways I could stop being the dog girl: if I worked out or bought makeup or went to a salon. I took her words to mean the problems were my fault, and that was what broke me.

As to why anyone would e-mail that to Vi, I had some ideas. “To remind me who I was. And to let you know, too. It’d be awful if you didn’t realize you were hanging around with the Beantown dog girl.” Somehow I didn’t burst into tears, though the humiliation hadn’t lessened; there was still a raw stripe inside me. From what Kian told me, this was in character for Dwyer & Fell, an underhanded tactic to destroy my current contentment and drive me away from my optimum timeline. I remembered him saying, The opposition interfered, drove her over the edge. Dwyer & Fell might think if they drove a wedge between me and Vi, it would weaken my support network. Kian had also said, If they shift the equilibrium enough, your fate changes and you cease to be a factor in play. So any way they could make my life worse, they were likely to give it a try.

Though I tried to fight the wave of memory, I remembered what Cameron had said, as he dumped me behind the school. I had fallen hard, scraping my palms and knees. He stood over me, looking like this was the most fun he ever had. More tears trickled down my cheeks.

“Come on, Eat-it. It’s just a joke. Not like we raped you.” He’d strolled away as I barfed up a can of dog food.

“Wow,” Vi breathed. “I’m glad I don’t go to private school.”

Surprised, I choked out a shaky laugh. “I’m sorry you—”

“Hey, no. They can eat shit and die.”

I almost agreed with her, but then I remembered Brittany’s face. No matter how I felt about her, I hadn’t wanted her dead. So I smiled at Vi when she changed the subject and told me about something she was working on, a robotics project. I had less interest in that, but she carried the conversation long enough for me to pull myself together.

“Thanks,” I said finally.

“That’s what friends are for. And if you want me to come kick some tail, I will totally put together a posse.”

“What’s your gang called, Vi-Z?”

She snorted. “I thought I’d offer. Anyway, I’m deleting this crap. Let us never speak of this again.” By her tone, I could tell she was quoting something, but I wasn’t sure what.

“Talk to you later, Vi.”

“Don’t let the Neanderthals get you down.”

“They don’t, anymore.” In fact, there was one less in the world.

I closed my laptop and took a shower, but I couldn’t lose the uneasy feeling that something could be lurking outside the curtain, staring at me from the other side of the mirror. So no more long, luxuriant scrubs—this time, it was fast and unsatisfying, much as my dad had described virginal sex during his super awkward talk the other night.

Afterward, I got ready for my date, which involved a clean pair of jeans and a shirt Kian had never seen. I didn’t have a ton of clothes, and shopping wasn’t high on my to-do list, considering the stuff going on. Not sure what it said about me that I wasn’t rocking and weeping. But before I left, my computer beeped again with another call from Vi.

That’s weird.

But I answered, figuring she forgot to tell me something important. “Long time, no talk.”

“I just want you to know, I’m not crazy. Whatever they say later.” That was such a weird greeting that I put down my hairbrush.

“What the hell. Vi?”

“I told you about those dreams, right? Well, it’s happening when I’m awake now, too. I see everything encased in ice. Just now, I went to ask my mom something and she was all blue, enveloped in ice, and I couldn’t wake her up. And then, like, she wasn’t, it was all in my head or something, but—”

Wedderburn. That word blazed in my brain, more dreadful than any curse.

“It’s fine, you’re just stressed. Calm down, okay?”

“I can’t! I’m losing my shit and I’m only seventeen. Instead of college, I have a bright future ahead of me coloring with crayons and writing things on the wall of my cell. The weird thing is, I never even liked snow that much, but now I see it everywhere I turn. The other night, my dad was sprinkling salt and I kind of fell into watching it, so it was like I was lost in a blizzard and I didn’t answer my brother for, like, five minutes. My parents blame Seth.”

I have to fix this.

Aloud, I said, “Drink less caffeine. Have an herbal tea at night before bed and meditate or something.”

“I don’t think waking dreams are normal.” She sounded so sad and scared, and considering how amazing she had been a few hours before about the damned dog video, I wanted so bad to help her.

This can’t turn out like Brittany. I felt like a plague carrier, spreading darkness and death in all directions. Whether that was true, I didn’t know, but a scream prickled in my throat. I swallowed it like a cactus and imagined I tasted blood.

“Psht. Who wants to be normal?”