Death Screams (20 page)

Listen...
embarrassed
since I missed Judo today I'm gonna have to be sharp on the time tomorrow...

I'll get ya there, baby.-
JLeC

Baby? I like that. I could get used to that.-
CH

The word?
JLeC

No, the way you say it.-
CH

It's a pulse.-
JLeC

Doesn't matter. I hear your voice in my head, see you in my mind as you've said it...

OMG! That's so romantic
emotive response high
-
JLeC

I get it right once in awhile.-
CH

More than that, Caleb
smiles
.-
JLeC

What about Andrea?
CH

Let's just work around her.-
JLeC

You mean con her.-
CH

sighs
yeah, for now.-
JLeC

I don't like the sneaking around
profanity-block!
, Jade.-
CH

I know, but maybe we can just inch along until it all blows over. Maybe she'll forget about it-
JLeC

Doubt it.

K, we can try it. I'll see ya tomorrow after school.-
CH

How many days?
JLeC

Three vacation days.-
CH

Wow. I guess it could've been worse.-
JLeC

I thought of how Jade would be in school, unprotected. Felt pretty long to me.

I guess so
doubtful
-
CH

Love you.-
JLeC

I love you.-
CH

****

I spent the day with Gramps, both of us freezing our butts off in the garage, going over the Camaro in detail.

"
I don't want you to drive this without an idea of everything in it and how it all works. If we go over it with a fine tooth comb, you'll feel more confident."

I didn't tell Gramps I was already feeling okay about it. It was a car. It had been retrofitted with a pulse lock, that looked really weird on an old car, the black square of the pulse pad standing starkly against the white body paint. "It's okay, Gramps. I think I got this."

He smiled and Onyx ran over to stuff his nose in Gramps' hand until he pet him.

He petted him and Onyx thumped his leg on the concrete floor. Gramps gettin' the sweet spot pretty good.

We stood there quietly for a time and then Gramps asked, "Where's Clyde?"

That was the thing that the Parents were also having a cow about.

"
I put him back to rest."

"
Didn't you tell me that Parker said he wouldn't be able to go back anymore?"

I nodded. "It was kinda like that. But, I don't know the details. It's not like there's any history here." I lifted my shoulders in an exaggerated shrug.

"
Precedence?" Gramps asked.

"
Yeah. Parker's it. Everything I know about corpse lore I get from him when he comes to do weird shit all over the top of me."

Gramps didn't correct my language, lighting a cigarette instead. I raised an eyebrow. Mom was gonna crap a brick if she caught him smoking within a Mile of the Homestead.

"
Gramps... Mom's gonna rant if she sees you... "

"
Grocery store," he said in a flat voice.

I laughed. "What? You got Mom-radar?"

"
Yup."

He inhaled deeply and stabbed the last of the cigarette out in a old coffee can full of sand. He put the lid back on it and stuck it behind a bunch of car crap. It blended in perfectly.

Sneaky for an old guy.

Or just sneaky.

Gramps looked at me through the filtered smoke of a new cig. Wiping his hands carefully on one of his car cloths from the endless supply in his back pocket, he said, "the way I see it, you have a few problems."

I nodded. I was pretty consistent in the predicament department.

He held up a finger. "First, this Buddy character. He makes me nervous."

I felt my eyebrows jerk to my hairline. "Why?"

He took a big drag on the smoke, the ash dangling at about an inch. He flicked it into the can again. It was a hugeass ashtray.

He scrubbed his face with his free hand. After a hesitation he said, "I don't know."

Then he waved that away for the moment. "Then there's the hoodlums. They're never gonna quit."

Yeah, I got that. Totally.

He paused. Then, "there's Clyde."

We looked at each other for a pregnant moment. "You have to figure out what to do with him. He's more than he was. He's not alive exactly but there's gonna come a time that he will evolve into something. Something that's dead but deserves to live. You got me?"

I did. I nodded. But I was sixteen years old. What was my responsibility here? I didn't even know where to begin with it all.

Gramps saw my ambivalence. "Chew on it, Caleb. You don't have to make some clear cut solution at this moment. But chaos will strike again and when it does, he'll come. Hell! He came to your defense when you were on the way back from my place," his gaze continued boring into me. "Then, there's your girl."

I spoke for the first time, "What? What about Jade?"

"
She seems to get trouble attached to her like Velcro."

"
What's Velcro?"

He waved his hand, flicking ashes into the can. "Never you mind. Sticky crap. Anyway, between that idiot Brett, her dad and," he paused, stabbing the blunt end of his smoke in my direction, "her aunt... it's a challenge. A challenge to finesse around that aunt of hers, a challenge to protect her from her dad. And, to keep that brutal guy away from her."

"
Yeah, it's all that, Gramps."

He studied me. Finally, he said, "You got a plan?"

I shook my head. "Mainly, I just react."

He nodded, barking out a laugh. "Yeah, that makes sense, considering your age and the cloth you're cut from." He smiled, amused.

I wasn't really thinking it was so great.

We looked at each other through the veil of his smoke. No plan, both reactors.

Naturally.

****

Normally judo was a chore I worked through. A skill to have because... well I needed it. Look at the last almost two years. But today, when Jade pulled up, the windshield winking at me in the sunlight, I jogged to the truck.

I was really needing a testosterone purge. I'd been cooped up in the house, with my girlfriend in school with Mr. Sympathetic.

That'd be Brett.

Jonesy had pulsed and said Brett was licking his wounds all day, making eyes at whatever girl would give him sympathy. It made me want to do a repeat performance.

Jade left the car running and I hopped in, throwing my gear bag in the back, my hand glancing the crystal that hung from the mirror as I moved in for a kiss. I didn't do one of the soft ones either that I could get away with when we were together all the time. I was feeling on edge. Hadn't seen her since the fight. Even though it had only been yesterday, it felt like weeks to me. I grabbed her behind her neck and with my other hand I wound that against the back of her and dragged her into my body, pressing my mouth over hers, digging my fingers into her hair. She molded her body to mine, moving against me and I gave a little groan.

I guess there was a couple ways to take care of the testosterone purge.

She pulled back, breathless, her face a soft pink. She giggled. "Wow, where'd that come from? Not that I'm complaining," she said with a whisper and a grin.

I shrugged. "Feeling cranked. Need to get to judo and work some of the stress out."

She turned in her seat and pulsed the truck into reverse. "I don't think you were too concerned over being punctual, Caleb," she smiled.

I let my restraint go and semi-tackled her unsafely while she drove, landing a bunch of pecks along her collarbone where the necklace I got her lay. "Stop! Caleb... I'm driving," she laughed, shivering a little.

"
Ah-huh. Whatever, practice multitasking, Jade," I said, my words muffled against her flesh.

She must've pulled up to the dojo but I was still... busy. Doin' the Jade worship.

I stopped my nuzzle of her when there was a sharp rap on the glass of the truck. I whipped around, my lips hot from the assault of her skin and looked into my sensei's eyes.

Busted.

So busted.

"
K, so this is so beyond embarrassing. I'm just saying... " Jade whispered.

I kept my eyes forward, on my sensei. Like I'd been taught. You never lost eye contact on the mat. Against an opponent. I'd have drills.

But I'd have more if I broke the gaze.

That I knew.

I carefully opened the door and he did an offensive jab before I could escape the confines of the cab. I was awkwardly hoisted, half-in, half-out of the car. No room to maneuver.

But of course, that was the beauty of it.

My head moved evasively, the air from his strike pushing against my chin.

Close.

I crouched and drove a foot sweep into his tender knee, exposed as it was, and he nailed me in the bread basket. My air squeezed out. If I'd been sloppy he'd have had me, but I'd kept my core tight like he'd taught me.

"
I'm getting Jade!" Sensei screamed at me and my adrenaline surged in a sickening jar, ripping my guts up in a warm slide that felt like vomit in reverse.

I lunged at him, using my momentum without any of the finesse he taught me and Jade let out a scream.

"
Roll!" he screamed.

I did, my shoulder landing with a bruising impact that made my teeth rattle, my legs following in a compact somersault that had me springing to my feet in a crouch, my hands one after another in defense formation.

He planted his hands on his hips and smiled. I straightened.

"
Not bad Hart. Hated that lazy superman you just did though. I mention the girlfriend and you go sideways on your training."

It was standard lecture mode now.

"
Don't abandon training that should be automatic because you want to get all emotional," he said.

My eyes flicked behind him and Jade was on her knees, hands gripping the car door that I'd left open before I flew out of there. "Is this... part of your training?" she asked, confused.

I laughed and shrugged. "He keeps me on it. You just never know with Sensei."

Jade looked over at him doubtfully. Taking in his contained strength, his muscular, compact body.

Poised for violence.

I wasn't real intimidated, but we were close in size. I looked at it from her perspective, he'd be scary for Jade.

Sensei Anderson must've thought so too. He moved forward in a non-threatening way. "I'm Caleb's judo instructor. Hunter Anderson."

Jade popped out of the truck and looked like she would shake his hand but he gave a little bow instead. She smiled and bowed back.

She loved getting out of touching if she could help it.

"
Do you want to check out a practice?" he asked her.

She shrugged. "Sure. I can do the homework later, I guess." She looked at me a little uncertainly,
did I want her to stay?

I smiled. Dumb unspoken question, I always wanted her around. I held out my hand and she walked toward me, our hands entangled for the two minutes it took to walk into the dojo.

Anderson followed behind us.

Jade

Jade sighed. If she had to go through one more clairvoyance sample she'd scream.

But looking at Gale and Garcia's faces, she just couldn't be selfish. She needed to try and find the DI. Match the sample to the perpetrator. Of course, Jade thought that there was a lot of people she wanted to kill from time to time. It'd been explained to her though. It wasn't a pissed off, spur-of-the-moment internal monologue of "I wish I could slay them."