Bad Parts Page 14

  “Hold off. Candace was watching the video feeds when I was over there.”

  “So? That was hours ago. It’s gotta be past her bedtime.”

  “She don’t sleep well. This situation could keep her up all night.”

  “We can’t just do nothing.”

  “Ashlee, wait till tomorrow. She’s hosting two meals at the banquet hall. She’ll have her hands full.”

  Ash considered, but if Dad was wrong, they’d be squeezed for time. “What if she lets Mick run the banquet hall while she babysits the creek? Then how we gonna kill the cameras?”

  He blinked.

  “Face it, Dad. It’s now or never.”

  “Fine.” He slid his chair back. “I’m going with you.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because.” She rose from her chair. “While I’m wrecking cameras, you gotta round up our would-be Traders and send them to the creek. Soon as the cameras are gone, we make our move. We get our lives back.”

  37

  Before leaving the townhouse lot, Ash noticed a crumpled tarp in the back of her father’s truck. She wondered if it could serve as a sort of privacy curtain up at the creek. Worth a shot, she figured. If she and Berke draped it along the bend, they might not need to destroy all nine cameras.

  Ash tucked the tarp under her arm and jogged north toward Berke’s house. She cut between neighbors’ lawns, flinching at the achingly cold bursts of late-night wind. Even with a hoodie beneath her jacket, the sub-freezing temps chewed through her. She quickened her pace in hopes of warming up, but she was all shivers by the time she reached Slope Ave.

  Someone honked behind her. She veered from the sidewalk onto a snow-dusted yard. The honk sounded again. She pretended not to hear and kept trudging uphill. After a third honk, she checked over her shoulder and caught glaring headlights.

  Her van’s headlights.

  Shit.

  She buried her cast in her jacket pocket.

  And not a moment too soon.

  Cheeto pulled up alongside her. He rolled down the passenger window, revealing his stupidly charming grin.

  “Hey, street walker, how much to hire you?”

  “Thirty mill.”

  “What a steal.”

  She snorted. “Shame you can’t afford it.”

  “You’d be surprised.” Cheeto leaned over to shove open the passenger door. “Want a ride?”

  “Nope. Need the exercise.”

  His grin faded. “What’s with the tarp? And why you marching around town after 2 am?”

  “Better question: Why are you following me after 2 am?”

  “I wasn’t. I decided to drive around and clear my head after the bars closed. Had a rough day, y’know? This chick promised she’d eat lunch with me but never texted back.”

  “Yeah, well, that chick had a rough day herself.” She kept walking as he drove alongside her, the van door still open. The idiot couldn’t take a hint. “Bet if you left her alone, she’d write you a rain check.”

  “Well, it’s gonna be a snow check at this rate. You hear about the blizzard? Like five hundred feet of snow tomorrow. Our van can barely handle dry roads, let alone slushy ones. We gotta head out ASAP.” He patted the passenger seat. “Come on, Ashes. Fort Lauderdale beckons.”

  “We’ll be fine. The weather stations overhype shit to scare people.”

  “Even if they’re half-right, we’ll be stranded.”

  “Then drive south tonight. I’ll catch a flight tomorrow.”

  “A flight? In a blizzard?”

  “I’ll rent a fucking snowmobile if I have to.” She slammed the van door shut and marched up the sidewalk. When she glanced back, she saw Cheeto smack his forehead against the steering wheel in frustration.

  Then the driver’s door clicked open and out he came. He raced over to her, hair tumbling over his face. He brushed it away, and his eyes met hers with concern. “Everything okay, Ash?”

  He never called her Ash. Not unless things were serious.

  “Yeah.” She buried her cast deeper into her pocket. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re being weird though.”

  “Weird?” She twisted uncomfortably at the waist. “How so?”

  “The way you have your hand buried in your pocket.”

  “It’s cold out, dumbass.”

  He shrugged. “If something’s wrong, you can tell me.”

  “Have you been snorting again? You sound paranoid.” She resumed walking and quickened her pace, but he grabbed her arm. Her left arm. She tried prying herself free but couldn’t. “Let go!”

  “I know about your hand.”

  Her stomach turned to stone. He knows. Somehow he’d figured it out. Or found out. But that didn’t mean she’d let him see it.

  “It’s in a cast, right?” he asked.

  “Right. A cast.” So he didn’t know the full truth. Good. “It’s only a precaution. I’ll be ready for Friday.”

  “Can I see?” He tilted his head. “Trent said—”

  “Trent? He told you?” She gritted her teeth. When she got back to the house, she was gonna grab her brother’s cane and feed it to him. “What’d he say?”

  “He asked if I’d seen your hand lately.”

  She blew out a sigh. “I’ll be fine, okay? I’m gonna see a specialist tomorrow, then I’ll head south and meet up with you guys.”

  His grip on her elbow loosened. He started rubbing his thumb along her forearm. It almost soothed her. “If it’s bad, we could talk to the promoters. See if they can reschedule us.”

  “You know they can’t. It’s a farewell tour. Friday’s the final show. We miss this chance, we’re not getting another.”

  “But if you can’t play—”

  “I will play. Now fuck off.”

  Ash pulled free and rushed uphill, practically running. Once she put enough distance between them, she turned around. There he stood in the middle of the sidewalk, the van parked several car-lengths behind him. His hair flapped against his face like fire in the wind. She wanted to apologize. Wanted to confess everything.

  When she opened her mouth, she remembered she couldn’t.

  38

  Thirty minutes, three steep hills, and two burning thighs later, Ash reached the highest level of the woods. She hunched over and panted beside Berke, who refused to stop for breathers. They picked their way through the darkness, sidestepping pines and leaping deadfalls until Ash thought she heard uninvited noise.

  “Wait,” she said, grabbing Berke’s sweatshirt. “Hear that?”

  “Oh, come on,” Berke said. “You’re just stalling.”

  “I’m not.” Ash hugged the tarp against her chest to quiet it. “I heard a crunch, like someone stepping on a twig.”

  “We both keep stepping on twigs.”

  “It was behind me. I know what I heard.”

  “Know what I’m hearing? Excuses.”

  Berke zipped ahead, nimble as a rabbit. She took shortcuts. Ducked under fallen trees. Hurdled rotten logs. Ash kept pace until her dreads got snagged on a branch. The sharp, sudden twist made her holler in pain. After untangling herself, she trudged on as if moving through waist-high mud.

  “Hurry up!” Berke clapped like a coach on the sidelines. “Fight through it. C’mon. Don’t you want your hand back?”

  “You have no idea. Guitar is my everything.”

  “What kind of music you play?”

  “Gritty, angry metal. It’ll knock your tits off the moment you push Play.”

  “Oh, wow. Alex loves that kind of stuff.”

  “Your boyfriend?”

  “Girlfriend.” Berke picked at her chin-length hair. “I look straight to you?”

  “Honestly, I had you pegged as a tomboy like me.”

  “Huh.” Berke shrugged. “I’ve been with Alex almost a year. She’s at PSU now. I wanted to go with her, but if I went…”

  “Bye-bye, spine.”

  “Yep.” Berke si
ghed. Started walking again. “I really gotta see her. She’s been acting weird lately. Like when I text her, she doesn’t respond for hours. Even on weekends. Especially on weekends, actually. She says she has tons of homework.”

  “What’s her major?”

  “Psych.”

  Ash couldn’t picture a college freshman studying that long and often. Not at a party school like PSU. “Does Alex know about Snare?”

  “Nope. Never told her about my trade. I was scared.”

  “Of Candace?”

  “No, of what Alex would think.”

  “Why, she uptight?”

  “Kinda. She’s a hardass, y’know? Compared to her, I’ll always be spineless. Just now, hiking these woods, I pretended I was her. Fearless bitch.” Berke bent her fingers like claws, made a scratching motion, then laughed. “Geez, I’m such a dork.”

  “Sounds like you two balance each other out.”

  “Kinda.” Berke ducked an eye-level branch. “What about you? Got a special guy?”

  “Married to music, actually.”

  “What about your bandmates? Any eligible bachelors?”

  “Nope.” As she said it, Cheeto danced through her mind. “It’s bad luck to fuck a bandmate. Creates all sorts of problems. Look at Fleetwood Mac.”

  “Who’s he?”

  Ash snorted. “Fleetwood Mac is a classic rock group. They went through lineup changes because their singer—”

  “Shh!” Berke turned her light off and drowned them in darkness. “You hear that?”

  “I fucking told you,” Ash whispered. She checked behind her. Listened closely. Heard the flushing creek. The scratching forest. The wave-like brush of wind through the pines.

  No crunching twigs though.

  “Hmm. Now I’m the one hearing things.” Berke flicked her light on again. “Anyway, we’re almost there! Watch your step.”

  They soon found the ledge. It ran straight for ten feet before jutting outward like a short, rounded diving board. At first Ash didn’t recognize the area. Then her ears caught a watery clicking. Now it made sense—the jutting cliff marked the creek bend. Pines fenced off the clearing below, and in the faint moonlight, they held a surreal quality, like a halo of shadow—something that would look sick on her next album cover.

  “Over here.” Berke approached a pine near the ledge. She grabbed at branches, counting them off before pulling one down with a grunt. “Check the end of this branch.”

  “For what?” Ash asked. But then she saw it, a hanging cylindrical black box. One of Candace’s wireless cameras. She grabbed it—barely thicker than a juice glass—and tried ripping it loose. It wouldn’t budge. Steel clips fastened it to the branch. “Damn. We’ll need to cut through somehow.”

  “Good thing I thought ahead.” Berke poked her flashlight between her teeth and reached into her pocket. She pulled out a hunting knife.

  Ash accepted it by its rubber handle. The custom grip made her feel like a born assassin. She removed the leather sheath with her teeth and touched the blade to the branch. It started bouncing as she applied pressure.

  “Hold the branch steady.”

  “Already am,” Berke said.

  Ash stood on tiptoes and curled her left elbow around the camera to stabilize her end. She dragged the blade back and forth, building momentum. Her shoulder grew hot and tight. Warm blisters formed along her palm as the blade powered through. It sank deeper until the branch cracked and bent loose, hanging by a thread of outer bark.

  Ash pocketed the knife and tore the branch free, camera included.

  “Got it!” She flung the device into the woods. It bounced twice before landing with a final satisfying thud. “Now how do we get down from here?”

  “Back where we just came from.” Berke pointed into the trees. “There’s a hill we can slide down.”

  “Lead the way.”

  39

  Ash knelt over the bend and saw her. Ideal-Ash. Under the flashlight there was no mistaking the gorgeous coffee-dark hair, the perfectly symmetrical face, the rockin’ frame. Her reflection intimidated her. She couldn’t help but feel unworthy, like a dorky girl asking the hottest chick in school for makeup tips.

  Wind thrust through the clearing. The tarp flapped and crackled behind her. Berke had set it up like a privacy curtain using tree branches as support beams. It worked well, but Ash couldn’t count on it staying upright forever.

  She looked at her reflection.

  At Snare.

  “I have five people ready,” she said. “Can you talk?”

  No mist rose to her lips. The creek flowed on. If Snare heard her, there was no indication.

  “I’ll bring them here, but first I want my hand back.”

  The creek clicked faster. A hole formed along the water’s surface. Same size as the one that swallowed her hand. It whirled in front of her, picking up speed. Water spritzed her jacket and soaked her jeans, chilling her thigh.

  Ash hesitated, but unlike last time she had nothing to lose.

  She slid her empty wrist through the opening.

  The surface closed around her forearm. Icy water stung her bare flesh, burrowing through to the bone. As she adjusted to the discomfort, a wildly different flavor of pain exploded through her, like knives punching through her flesh. It reminded her of her phantom hand in the shower, yet different. It felt sturdier. Felt real.

  “Finally,” she said, watching bones stretch from her wrist. “This time I better get to keep it.”

  Mist floated to her lips.

  “Not yet.”

  “Not yet? Then give me a reason to trust you. People in town are freaked out, and I don’t blame them. I mean, why’d you wait till this week to talk? And to me of all people?”

  “We’re the same, you and I.”

  “Not even close. Do I look like a goddamned puddle to you?”

  “No, but you were born from me.”

  Ash raised an eyebrow. “Born?”

  “Your mother traded with me. She couldn’t reproduce, so she sought my waters. Then your father—”

  “Fuck them.” Ash spat the mist from her mouth. “I don’t care what they traded. I want my hand. Return what you stole.”

  “I stole nothing. I needed your hand as a template.”

  “A template? Like for making a new one?”

  “Yes. Your request is special. Normally I only trade parts. Rarely do I create them.”

  “What’s the difference?” Ash met her reflection’s eyes. “Either way I’m getting a healthy hand, right?”

  “Trading is easier for me. People offer parts of themselves and I send part of myself in return. A bond forms. I sustain the Trader while holding onto their bad parts.”

  “Why do you keep all those bad parts?”

  Snare ignored the question. “Creating an extra hand, however, requires a different method. I have to split and reshape myself in order to bring another hand into existence. Imagine cutting your hair and donating it to a chemo patient. You’ll regrow the hair, but it’ll take time.”

  “Fine, but what about the steady flow of creek water?” Ash gestured upstream. “Shouldn’t that replenish you?”

  “The hand I’m creating isn’t made from water alone. It’s made from my being. From the mind of the woman I was.”

  “The mind… How’d you end up like this?”

  “Many years ago in this clearing there grew plants that could split the mind and body.”

  “Hallucinogens?”

  “Not quite. These plants, when eaten, allowed me to exit my body and search the bodies of the sick. I could slip between cells, tunnel through arteries, bump against bacteria. I learned how diseases worked, how to cure them. I could seal wounds and oust infections. But not without cost. Every time I ate the plant, it became harder to return to my own body.”

  “Why?”

  “My body stopped trusting my mind,” Snare said. “Return trips proved exhausting. Destructive, even. Still, I wanted to continue healing thos
e I cared about. Not just for their sake, but because they adored me for it. I loved to be adored.”

  Ash knew the feeling. It was why she climbed stages so often. Her fans made her feel like a goddess, and being worshipped by strangers could erase years of self-loathing, if only for the duration of the show.

  “So you kept eating the plant?”

  “Yes, until my death. But the plant wasn’t what killed me.”

  “What did?”

  “All you need to know is that I died in this creek. Or rather, my body died. My mind, however, has remained tethered to this spot ever since.”

  Ash stared ahead at the rock cliff. It was a lot to take in, and she had a thousand questions. Who was Snare? When had she lived? Had she been murdered? Did that plant still exist? The list went on. But one question above all needed asking.

  “My brother’s kid is blind,” she said, eyeing her submerged wrist. “I know it’s a burden, but can you make extra eyes?”

  “You’re getting a hand.”

  “I know. But the kid’s eight. He’s got his whole life ahead of him. Hopes, dreams, all that shit.”

  “You requested a hand and a reason to trust me. I can only give so much.”

  “Please, just one eye. Can’t you make—”

  Before Ash could finish, her face smashed the surface. Cold, grimy water flooded her mouth, triggering her gag reflex. She forced her lips shut as Snare dragged her under. Her chin struck the creek bed, followed by the rest of her upper body.

  She wanted to scream.

  Then a surreal warmth swallowed her left arm.

  It soothed her. Reassured her. Thrilled her.

  She watched bones sprout at the edge of her wrist. Actual white, rigid bones. Not a watery stand-in but the concrete beginnings of her new hand. She couldn’t be sure if this was another preview or the real thing, but she hoped for the latter.

  Under filtered moonlight her palm took shape. Tendons launched across bone. Blood vessels wormed around muscle. Skin spread upward from the wrist like a fleshy blanket. It covered the palm, the thumb, the knuck—

  Someone grabbed her jacket. Pulled her backward. Toward the surface.

  No, not now!