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45
Angel stared and stared and stared at Jeb Batchelder.
She knew who he was. She had been only four years old the last time she’d seen him, but still, she knew his face, his smile. She remembered Jeb tying her shoes, playing Old Maid with her, making popcorn. She remembered hurting herself and Jeb picking her up to hold her tight. Max had filled in for her how good Jeb had been, how he’d saved them from the bad people at the School. How he’d disappeared and they thought he was dead.
But he was alive! And he was here! He had come back to save her again! Hope filled her like warm light. Angel almost jumped up to ran to his arms.
Wait. Think. There was something wrong with this picture.
She couldn’t get a single thought from his head-it was a gray blank. That had never happened before. Also, he was wearing a white coat. He smelled all antisepticky.
The fact that he was here at all. Her brain felt simultaneously hyper and sluggish, and she blinked several times, trying to figure this out, as if it were a two-minute mystery.
Jeb knelt on the wooden floor in front of her. The whitecoats who’d been ru
Angel looked at it blankly.
It was a tray of food, lots of delish-looking food, hot and steaming. It smelled so good Angel felt a whimper of longing rise in her throat.
She stared at the tray, her brain crackling with input, and she had a bunch of thoughts all at once.
One, Jeb looked like he was on their side now. An enemy of the flock, like all the other whitecoats at the School.
Two, wait till Max found out about this. Max would be, well, she’d be so mad and so hurt and so upset that Angel couldn’t even imagine it. She didn’t want to imagine it. She didn’t want Max to ever feel that way.
“Angel, aren’t you hungry? You haven’t been getting very much to eat, have you?” Jeb looked concerned. “When they told me what they’d been feeding you- well, they misunderstood, sweetheart. They didn’t know about your appetite.”
He laughed a little, shaking his head. “I remember once we were having hot dogs for lunch. Everyone else had two hot dogs each. But you-you ate four hot dogs by yourself.” He laughed again, looking at her as if he thought she was amazing. “You were three years old. Four hot dogs!”
He leaned forward, gently pushing the food tray nearer so it was right beneath Angel’s nose.
“The thing is, Angel, with your metabolism, and how old you are now, you should be getting about three thousand calories a day. I bet you haven’t been hitting a thousand.” He shook his head again. “That’s going to change now that I’m here. I’ll make sure they treat you right, okay?”
Angel narrowed her eyes. This was a trap. This was exactly the kind of thing Max had warned them all about. Only Max had never guessed it would come from Jeb.
Without saying a word, Angel sat up, crossing her arms over her chest and staring at him the way Max stared at Fang when they were having an argument and she was going to win. Angel made herself not look at the food, not even smell the food. She was so freaked at seeing Jeb here that her stomach was all in knots anyway. The fact that she couldn’t pick up any of his thoughts made him seem weird and dead to her.
Jeb smiled ruefully and patted Angel’s knee. “It’s okay, Angel. Go ahead and eat. You need to. I want you to feel better.”
She tried not to even blink, not to show how upset she was.
Sighing, Jeb unrolled the white paper napkin, took out a fork, and placed the fork right into the food on the plate. All she would have to do is reach down… and she was doomed?
“I know this is all confusing, Angel,” Jeb said gently.
“I can’t explain everything now. It will all become clear soon, though, and then you’ll understand.”
“Suurrre.” Angel put every bit of pain at her betrayal into that one word.
“The thing is, Angel,” Jeb went on earnestly, “life itself is a test. It’s all a test. Sometimes you just have to get through it, and then later on everything makes more sense. You’ll see. Now, go ahead and eat. I promise it’s okay. I promise.”
Like she would believe any of his promises.
“I hate you,” she said.
Jeb didn’t look surprised. Maybe a bit sad. “That’s okay too, sweetheart. That’s perfectly okay.”
46
“I. Am. In. Heaven,” I said, inhaling deeply.
Dr. Martinez laughed. “Watched cookies never brown,” she teased me.
To make my Mayberry holiday complete, the three of us had actually made chocolate chip cookies-from scratch-after di
I ate enough raw cookie dough to make myself sick, and then I got high off the fumes of gently baking cookies. I could see the chocolate chips melting through the oven window.
Note to self: Show Nudge and Angel how to make choc-chip cookies.
If I ever saw Angel again.
Ella’s mom took the first cookie sheet out of the oven and slid in the second. I could hardly wait for the cookies to cool and, seizing one, took a bite, almost burning my tongue.
Incoherent murmurings of pleasure escaped my lips as I chewed slowly, savoring every bite. Ella and her mom watched me, identical smiles lighting their faces.
“You’d think you’d never tasted homemade cookies before,” Ella said.
“Haven’t,” I mumbled, swallowing. It was the best thing I had ever tasted in my entire life. It tasted like home.
“Well, have another,” said Dr. Martinez.
“I have to take off tomorrow,” I told Ella that night when we were getting ready for bed.
“No!” she said, distressed. “I love having you here. You’re like a cousin. Or my sister.”
Fu
“Will you come back to visit?” she asked. “Ever? ”
I looked at her helplessly. It was the first time I had ever co
It had been really cool. The best.
Plus her mom was so awesome. She was strict about some things-don’t leave your socks lying around-but so not strict about other things, like calling the cops about my bullet wound. Unlike any other parent I’d ever heard of, she didn’t press for details, didn’t lecture, and believed what I said. She actually accepted me. Like she accepted Ella, for who she was.
It was enough to give me a psychotic break-if I let myself dwell on it.
“Probably not,” I said, hating the hurt look on Ella’s face. “I just-don’t think I’ll be able to. If I ever could, I would, but-”
I turned away and started brushing my teeth. Jeb had always said to think with your brain, not your emotions. He’d been right, as usual. So I put all my feelings in a box and locked it.