"Excellent, see that you do," Dad said.

"He's a vaguely disturbing boy, Kyle," Mom said, watching his huge form stuff itself through the doorways that exited the hospital, a permanent furrow wrinkling her forehead.

Yeah.

I looked at Dad, seeing the ghost of a smile hovering around his lips. Mom's were in a grim line. There'd been so much transgression of political incorrectness in combination with grammar slurs and swear words it was doubtful she'd make a full recovery.

Gramps and Sophie came out of Jade's room. I walked away from the parents and as I passed through the door I saw the number hanging slightly crooked on the front.

Thirteen.

I swung the door open and walked inside with my heart in my throat. I needed to be with her, talk to her, lend whatever comfort I could.

Except for me, she was truly alone now. I couldn't even be happy that the complication of Andrea was gone. I wouldn't have wished that death on my biggest enemy.

Well... I wavered. Maybe a few.

A feeling of responsibility stole over me. My nerves were like a teabag left steeping too long in a cup, the events tied together too tightly for comfort.

The biggest one was why had Brett planned to murder LeClerc?

Somehow I didn't think I'd like the answer.

Just a gut feeling.

CHAPTER 22

We loaded up on the gutbombs, the parents watching in muted horror as the guys plowed through whatever the girls couldn't eat.

Not a crumb left.

The wrappers covered, I swear, the entire waiting area. I hadn't realized what kind of stupor I was in. Must've been running on pure adrenaline. The guys all gave each other the food coma stare. We knew what would happen now. The Hunger had been satiated and now the carb load had slid down the pipe and clogged the drains. We had our eyes at half mast with our legs splayed when the cops came back into the room.

I wanted to be alert, really I did. But I was part of the communal glob of teen sloth.

I sat there.

Gale took in the array of brightly colored gold wrappers, cardboard shake containers and the parents' total lack of fluster and grinned.

"Lunch break guys?" she asked.

"It's a trough thing, actually," Tiff said, wiping a napkin against her mouth daintily. Right before she jammed an unladylike wad of gum in her craw.

Nice.

"What?" Garcia asked her, brows to his hairline.

"Ya know, pigs use troughs to eat from, Garcia?" she asked him slowly so he'd like, get it.

He nodded slowly, knowing she would elaborate without prompting.

"Anyways, these guys just mowed through thirty cheeseburgers. So yeah. Swine." She popped a bubble, looking interested in their response.

"What did you have?" Gale asked her, looking like maybe she shouldn't have.

"Whatever they'd leave us, the hogs."

Tiff definitely had some kind of animal fetish. That made me think about all of Alex's messed up bestiality references. I laughed out loud.

Tiff looked at me. "Share your weirdness Hart."

I couldn't. But that didn't mean that once I got on the Inappropriate Thought Highway I was gonna stabilize anytime soon. I started to get the crooked mouth.

"Looks like Hart's gonna implode," Jonesy said with sure knowledge.

Mom sighed as I started to howl. The images were simply too much and John said, "Is this like that thing with Chen?"

King of Hysteria. Yup, that's me.

"I guess comic relief or something?" Garcia said, miffed and puzzled.

"Or something," Alex said, interested about what would make me laugh hysterically in the middle of a Hospital Nightmare under the full scrutiny of the cops.

Me too.

I didn't stop until Archer came over and said, (the joy-sucker), "Is this really helping, Caleb?"

Jonesy glared at him. "Can it, Archer, don't even try for sensitive. Better to just let him get it out of his system. He'll have a laughing fit, then some other crazy crap will happen and then this again... it's a ... " Jonesy paused, thinking about it.

"Coping mechanism," John finished.

"Don't psychoanalyze me ya putz'!" I said, wiping my eyes.

Gramps walked in. "What's your trouble, Caleb?"

"Tiff started talking about what pigs we are with our food and it put Caleb into a laughing fit," Alex said, clearly puzzled.

Gramps palmed his chin. "Seems to me the Weller family is awfully focused on animals." He looked at Tiff and Bry, continuing, "Aren't your parents always having a turnip or turtle or whatever?"

They gave him blank face and I erupted into another gale of laughter.

Gramps clapped me on my back. "Listen pal, man up. Jade wants to see you. She probably won't understand why you're in here putting on the Caleb Comedy Show." His eyebrows raised.

Right, that sobered me right up.

Mom said, "Thanks Pops. I didn't know if he was going to calm down in a timely fashion," she said.

Gramps looked at her, shaking his head. "I don't know where he gets that laughing problem from."

"Humph!" Mom grunted and he smiled, his lips barely turning up.

As I left I watched a bunch of the parents swarm in to flock around the kids.

The cops would have their hands full. Good, I'd get the full Brett report later. Right now, all that mattered was seeing Jade.

*

I was breaking about a million hospital rules as I lay beside Jade, spooning her body outside of the thin hospital sheet. I couldn't put my arms around her middle, because her ribs were busy mending. It'd still be about three days before she was good enough to be released.

I whispered in her ear. The force of my emotions easy to feel, to hear, "It is not your fault. Let it go, Jade."

She had been crying since I'd stepped in there. She blamed herself for her dad snapping. I disagreed. He'd been a walking gunpowder keg since the day he'd popped up like spoiled and drunken toast in the graveyard last year. Yeah. He'd been a bomb. He was just dying to get ignited. I'd tried to tell her.

He would've exploded sometime. It was inevitable.

She turned her body toward me and I was instantly aware of her closeness. I gulped.

"I forced her, Caleb. I forced Aunt Andrea to emancipate me so I could get a permanent restraining order." Her eyes searched mine and I tucked a stray hair behind her ear and she winced. My eyes shifted to the lump at her temple, a long gouge of flesh torn almost to where the hair I held was.

I let it slip from my fingers like silk on satin.

Could I kill LeClerc twice?

She gazed at me, knowing what I'd been thinking. I looked away for a moment so the hate that burned in my eyes wouldn't be so transparent. It was bad enough that she was touching me.

I got back on topic, she needed to see reason. "Listen, we're all emancipated automatically at sixteen, right?" She nodded and I continued, "Remember all the problems when it was eighteen? The underage narcotics, the fighting, gun control, all of it?" She nodded again. I waited until I was sure I had her full attention. "It's like this, she made it formal because she knew she couldn't stand up to him. She let you be the fall girl. If you were the one that asked for the formal emancipation document to implement the restraining order then he couldn't be mad at her."

She gave a gasping sob and I gently pulled her head in against my chest. "Shh," I crooned to her, "It'll be okay, Jade. He can't hurt you anymore. But he's not gonna hurt you now either. His past actions aren't going to keep on hurting you."

She pulled away and looked at me, her nose puffy and red from the tears, her eyes all the greener for the red that had burst like lightning in their depths. "She wouldn't have been dead if I hadn't... "

"No!" I wanted to shake her. "Don't ya see? He would have tried this some other time, for another reason. Any reason. Pick one. He didn't need a special reason to abuse you and your aunt. You know this." My eyes searched hers. Finally, caving to girl wisdom I asked, "What did Sophie say?"

Jade's eyes shifted away from mine. "She said what you did, kinda."

Kinda?

Her eyes rolled back to mine. "The Indians scare her." I could see by her eyes that she wasn't a fan either.

Huh. Well they get the job done, I thought. An image of the tomahawk impaling LeClerc's head made a fine memory.

Out loud I said, "Okay, I get it. Some of the gang's a little freaked by the Skopamish. But Jade," I took her head like a fragile egg in both my hands, feeling the smallness and delicacy within the cradle of them. I had to fight the urge to kick LeClerc's ass again. He was dead but I yearned for retribution.

I thought of the fun I could have with his zombie ass... my mind wandered. Then I remembered where I was and snapped back to attention.

I continued, "They took the fall for Brett... the chief saved Brett." I swallowed through my stab of loathing, going on, "If he hadn't been there, it would have been worse."

Translation: more victims on the LeClerc abuse/murder tally.

She nodded through more tears. I was frustrated, I didn't know how to comfort this. I got that she was upset about Andrea. Her shitheel dad had killed the only stable parent figure she had. But, my zombies were the bomb. They had saved the day. Saved that ass hat Brett. Who, I had to admit, had done okay by Jade.

I liked that he had the nut-sack to do LeClerc.

It'd be nice and clean if Brett went to prison. But I couldn't let that happen.

I kissed Jade, sliding off the bed, our hands slipping away like reluctant glue.

"I'll be back. I gotta see what's doin' with Mason."

Jade smiled. "That's why I love you Caleb." My agenda was an open book to her. She wasn't a Telepath. She didn't know my words, but the motives were pretty clear.

I grinned. "Nah," I waved her sentiment away, trying to lighten the moment, "It's my looks, Jade. And my cool zombies." I smiled.

But she didn't. "Definitely not the zombies, babe."

I bent forward, pressing a feather's weight kiss to lips that had a cut framing the side of her mouth. A dark mar on her almost colorless skin.

"I love you too," I said with more seriousness than I'd wanted.

I turned away and headed for the door, to answers about Brett. Maybe he'd need saving from his actions.

Even if he didn't want any.

*

The J's, Gramps and the parents were the only ones left by the time I got out there, the other kids having gone home to their families. I had to admit, I was grateful to not have the whole pack here.

Garcia nodded at me. "Okay, so we have a little more info."

I tried to act casual. Gramps saw right through it but didn't out me.

I loved that old guy.

"It seems that Mr. Mason had been keeping an eye on Jade's place for months," his eyes flicked to mine. I tried to remain neutral but he saw what there was to see.

Anger.

He held up a hand. "Listen, son, these are the facts. I can't change them, I can only relay them." His eyes locked with mine and I unclenched my hands, trying for composure and missing it by a mile.

"Anyway, he had seen LeClerc show up on a bender... "

My eyebrows shot up.

"Drunker than a skunk," Gramps elaborated.

Right.

Garcia nodded, pausing to recover. He nodded at Gramps. "Brett knew the signs and gathered his group together to back him."

"Back him for what?" I asked.

Garcia shrugged. "Don't think there was a grand plan there, Caleb. I think he knew Jade was going to be in trouble, he took his friends to try to make sure it didn't happen. And your group collided with his." He made a smacking sound as his palms slapped together.

So coincidence? He saw my look.

"In a way. But I think he was carrying that knife for awhile. It'd worn a mark in his jeans." He gave me a significant look.

Holy hell, he'd been packing metal and I'd been none the wiser.

Gramps and I exchanged a full glance.

"It would have been a different outcome if Brett Mason had that weapon last year," my dad said ominously.

Yeah, like they would have carved me up like Swiss cheese. Jezebel couldn't have saved me. Even Clyde wouldn't have been able to.

Garcia gave me a look. "There is no historical precedence for using zombies as weapons for assault... or murder."

He hadn't spent enough time with Parker's.

"But, if that tomahawk," he paused, "it was a tomahawk, wasn't it?"

"Skopamish again, Caleb?" Gramps interrupted.

I nodded.

"Huh, they're Johnnies-on-the-spot," he said as he palmed his chin.