Mortal - Chapter 26

Premise: In this young-adult dystopian novel, people can no longer die. But they still feel pain, and suffer--and it's maddening. Because of the chaos that ensued, the US Government created a program to figure out how to kill people. When Garrett, a teenager, falls into a coma for weeks as a result of an experiment, the Program sets its malicious sights on him.

This is the twenty-sixth chapter of the novel, Mortal. Click here for the beginning of the story. Or, click here to view all chapters.

Edward’s cell phone buzzes for the third time before he officially silences it, swearing under his breath as he returns his steely gaze to the windshield.

I stare at the phone from the back seat, eyelids flittering, wondering who was calling and why he’s ignoring them. Restlessly, I shift in my seat, forcing myself to bear the throbbing pain in my head.

“Hey,” Lucy touches my knee, “How are you feeling?”

I pull the rough blanket tighter around me, shaking my head drowsily.

“Garrett?” Edward calls, “You conscious again?”

My eyes narrow at the patronizing tone before hoarsely responding, “Yeah.”

“Awesome,” he pauses, “I was beginning to worry you’d drool all over my upholstery.”

I feel heat in my cheeks as I wipe the side of my hand over my mouth, rubbing away dried saliva. I sigh shakily as scattered images remind me of how out of it I was, only two hours ago, and dreading the moment when Edward starts flinging it back at me.

I look out the window, pressing my forehead into the cold glass when a sudden thought constricts my throat, “Where’s Bern?” I gasp out. I tug weakly against the seatbelt digging into my throat.

“Not quite sober yet, huh?”

I meet Edward’s bemused eyes in the rearview mirror and quickly drop my hands to my lap, shivering from the relapse of lacking thought.

“We don’t know.”

I jerk my head to see Lucy’s grim smile.

My mouth opens to speak—

“And we don’t care either. Pain. In. My. Ass.,” Edward responds bristly.

“What...” I swallow thickly, closing my eyes against the fresh wave of vertigo, kneading my head back into the window. “What did he do to me?”

“My best guess is that he gave you some sort of hallucinogen. Freaking coward got away before I could, one, interview him, and two, murder the son of a bitch.”

“You can’t kill people, Edward,” Lucy points out with a wide smile, her eyes glinting, and only when I see her glance at me do I realize she’s annoying him for my benefit.

“God dammit, Lucy, it’s a figure of speech,” he shakes his head before failing to hide his smile from his voice, “Jesus.”

“You’re always so angry,” Lucy states quietly, feigning sensitivity.

“Yeah, and you’re always a whiney, little baby,…bitch,” he counters before switching into a different lane on the highway.

“Um...what,” Lucy disapproves.

I don’t know whether it’s the drug still coursing through my veins or the exhaustion, but a smile cracks through my lips, and Lucy lifts her eyebrows at me, clearly pleased with herself.

I blink and turn away, feeling the haze of delusion invade my vision yet again, and a curdling tremble runs through me. My fingers dig into the fabric of the blanket as I knot it around my wrists. “Why?” My voice is barely audible.

“From what you’ve told us,” Edward begins, releasing a quiet sigh, “Project Eden is hoping to break you.”

I’m instantly angry, feeling fire warming my face. I’m not sure whether my emotions are more unpredictable because of the drug or not, but at the moment, I could care less of how I am perceived. “Why? Do they think that I’ll come crawling back to them? Do they think I’ll need them?”

“Garrett, I have no idea,” Edward replies exasperatedly, shaking his head slowly.

That’s when I fully realize how hopeless it is. My line of vision falls to my feet stuffed under the driver’s seat, but I am able to manage, with a small, bleak voice, “What are we going to do?”

“Well, in situations like this, I tend to want to go to Disneyland.”

“Edward,” I mumble monotonously, the weight of captivity and the aftermath of the drug slicing away all I have left.

For nearly a minute, all I can hear is the friction between the thick wind and our car. Edward finally sighs.

“We lay low. It’ll give us time to figure things out.”

“And your article,” Lucy adds, a frown twitching at the pull of her lips.

“Yes,” Edward agrees stiffly.

I curl my arms tightly under the blanket, pulling up my knees to my chest. Swallowing thickly against the aftertaste of bile, I croak out, “My parents…they’re—”

“Garrett,” Lucy interrupts sternly, reaching for my covered wrist with an outstretched arm, “It wasn’t intentional. They couldn’t have known that—”

Eyes crinkling with pained resignation and shaking my head, “Does it even matter?” Because whether they knew they were helping Project Eden or not, they still wanted me dead.

“Garrett,” she squeezes my hand, hard, “They’re sick. It’s not their fault.” And it’s not yours either, an unvoiced hope for understanding.

I sigh in response, blinking blearily as another interval of tilted vision commences. “But—how would they even know—how would they know that by shooting me...” I can’t bring myself to say anymore.

And when all I hear is silence, and all I see is the uncomfortable shifting of glances, I know that we might never know, when not even the most outgoing of us cares to voice a thought.

My stomach knots, unsettled.

It is Edward who ripples the silence with a husky sigh of futility. “I’d hate to try and raise our spirits, but think about it. We now know the connection between your parents and Project Eden. And we know that Bern is a sick bastard. At least we have something.”

“Something that only gives us more loose ends,” I respond bitterly.

Edward shrugs in annoyed surrender, “Okay, Broody. We get it. But until one of us comes up with our next plan...well the only thing we will be doing is alternating between sitting on our asses and twiddling our thumbs.”

My eyes droop, too tired and sick to even argue with this man. I half-heartedly tug the rough blanket up to my shoulders, curling towards the side-door.

Sleep takes me without warning.

We check into a motel as the pallet of the setting sun blanches white. The accommodations hardly rise to the occasion of Edward’s standards, but Lucy adamantly argues we’re safer here.

With the lack of an elevator, we climb the carpeted staircase stained with spilled coffee and black gum. I grip onto the sticky railing unsteadily as the other two trudge ahead. Lucy looks over her shoulder, green eyes wavering on me for barely a second before a sudden boost of energy pushes her up into the hall and to the room at the very end of the left wing.

Edward unlocks the door with a hard jerk of the knob and walks in, pulling off his blazer while examining the interior. I collapse on the edge of the nearest bed.

There’s two double beds clothed with a ghastly-looking comforter based off the way Edward curls his lip in disgust. A bedside table holding a brass lamp sits in between them. A table is squished into the corner with a single chair, and an old television rests on a long dresser at the front of the room.

“Comfy,” Edward scoffs, folding his jacket neatly over the chair, before running fingers through his reddish-brown hair.

“It’s not that bad,” Lucy reassures, dropping her bag by the bathroom door. “You’re too spoiled.”

“Deservedly,” he shoots back under his breath before he leans up against the dresser and kicks off his loafers.

“You’re not much of a method journalist, are you?” Lucy quirks an eyebrow with a flash of a smile.

“What’s the point of becoming what I research,” Edward huffs out lazily, “If that was the case, I’d just write about myself, now wouldn’t I? Much more interesting.”

Lucy kneels beside her bag and pulls out a brush. She rolls her eyes, “Well, I can’t wait to read that edition: Alcohol and Concubines.”

He clears his throat, staring blankly at the mass-produced painting of a potted flower.

My head falls into my hands, my thoughts wandering involuntarily, ages back. My throat constricts against the confusion, the blatant ignorance, the norm...

“Why do you think it happened?”

“Think what happened?” Edward questions, staring back at me when I finally look up.

I try to swallow, but my mouth is dry. “Why can’t we die?”

There’s a beat of silence before Edward cackles, head turning up to the ceiling with a crooked grin. “Just because we’re running for our lives doesn’t give you a reason to go all Socrates on us, Gare-Bear.”

“I think it does,” I respond firmly, my back defensively straightening. “If it’s the reason we’re running in the first place.”

“No one knows,” he drags out half-mockingly. He crouches in front of the dresser and starts to search through cabinets until he finds something and tosses it in my direction.

I have to act before I can even blink, catching the leather bound book with a curled wrist: The Bible.

“I was looking for the mini-bar but this will have to do,” Edward says, pulling away tiredly to sit on the opposite bed.

I stare at him, a little doubtful. “You don’t actually—”

“It was one of the first speculations,” Lucy speaks up, her hair brush absently tugging through golden knots. “No one could have imagined it ever being possible. And when things happen that don’t seem possible...”

I frown, not fully understanding because how could someone believe... “Why would He do this?”

“Because God is one sick bastard,” Edward chuckles, falling back-first on top of the opposite bed.

“Edward,” Lucy chides, eyes narrowing in his direction.

“Oh. Right, right. Jesus is the bastard,” Edward mends wryly.

Rolling her eyes, Lucy turns to me, “Asshole,” she says under her breath.

I force a tight smile. Edward’s phone rings once before he quickly silences it, not once glancing at the caller-ID.

“Anyway,” Lucy continues, the side of her lip curling, “The Church predicted that humanity condemned itself to this...eternal life. And so, here we are.”

I look at her for a long time, waiting to see that familiar flicker of mischief find its way into her big eyes. It doesn’t. “You can’t be serious.”

Edward starts laughing again. Lucy quirks her eyebrow up at me, challenging, “You got any bright ideas?”

Rubbing a hand at the nape of my neck, I flush, “It has to be something scientific...like some sort of mutation.”

“And the entire world getting it at the same time?”

“Well...I mean—”

“Yeah, no. That doesn’t make any sense either,” Lucy interrupts smugly. She drops her comb onto the floor before slowly rising to her feet to sit next to me on the bed. “What’s that phrase, again?” Lucy asks absently, looking straight ahead, “‘When you can eliminate all the possible, then assume the impossible?’”

I look down at my hands resting uncomfortably in my lap. I bite my lip. “But if that’s true,” I begin slowly, “What Project Eden is doing will never work.”

“Yeah,” Lucy nods encouragingly, “That’s the problem. We have to stop Eden before they only make things worse.”

Craning my neck to face her, my eyes strain in hopelessness, “How can things possibly get worse?”

Lucy lips fold into a firm line, “When God can’t forgive us for what we’ve done.”