Undone: An Unraveling Novella Part 11

But I looked at Janelle, bruised and broken, and I couldn't bear to let anything else happen to her.

I couldn't let him kill her.

"I'll work for you," I added. "Just let her go."

Read on for a sneak peek at the sequel to Unraveling,

Some days are so perfect, they just don't seem real.

They're the days when you wake up and aren't tired, when the sun is s.h.i.+ning and the breeze kicks up from the ocean, keeping you from getting too hot or too cold, and everything you do goes right. Like you're inside of a movie with your own soundtrack, where you're so happy that you can't help just spontaneously breaking into a smile. Some days are like magic.

But I haven't had one of those days in a long time.

So long, it feels like maybe I never did. In fact, when I've been up for eighteen hours, letting Cecily boss me around in an old snack bar that she converted into a kitchena"one that might be a hundred degreesa"it feels like maybe perfect days are a lie.

"What are you doing?" Cecily says, scolding me. "That's never going to work."

"My idea, not work? That's shocking." I make a big show of rolling my eyes. "Come up with a better idea and we'll try it." I almost add that we don't need popcorn, but I keep my mouth shut. I can only push her so far. The wrath of Cecily when plans go awry is something I'm trying to avoid.

It's movie night at Qualcomm.

About a month ago, Cecily decided that a movie night was just the thing Qualcomm needed. It would give people something to look forward to, and with the right equipment it was something we could actually get done. She made Kevin and me spend a weekend going through the wreckage of every movie theater in San Diego, looking for the right projection equipment and an a.s.sortment of movies we could show.

So now we have a little more than thirteen hundred people seated on what used to be the Chargers football fielda"with more watching from the seats. Blankets are laid out, people are huddled together, and Cecily has It's a Wonderful Life cued up on the projector. I had argued with her choice of that onea"it's not like much going on around here could be called wonderfula"but my arguments had gone down in flames, and Kevin didn't help matters since he had backed her up, hoping to win her over.

The only snag in her plan right now is the popcorn.

The generator let us use the microwave to pop over half of the bags we found scrounging around the city, but it started taking its toll on our power. Even Cee wasn't going to argue that popcorn was more important than lights. So now I'm using a couple of old pans and a wood-burning stove.

Because I'm thinking of him, Kevin Collins pushes through the door with a wide smile for Cecily. In a surprising and I'll admit impressive move on his part, he got his GED and enlisted in the Marines a couple of months ago. "Lady J!" he shouts as a few of the guys in his unit come in behind him. "We've come for you to feed us."

I'd like to say the whole enlisting thing made him grow up, but he's the same as ever.

I ignore Kevin. I'm good at it.

Cecily, who has only her own agenda on her mind, beams at him. "Oh, you're here, perfect," she says, piling bags of popcorn into the guys' arms before they have a chance to speak. "Start with the people in the back since they're farthest from the screen. And make sure everyone takes a small handful and pa.s.ses it down. We have about one bag for every fifteen or so people; no one gets their own."

One of the guys rolls his eyesa"he's obviously here as a favor because poor Kevin has it bad for Cecily.

Kevin bows with a flourish. "Your wish shall be done."

I have to force myself to keep from snorting at the ridiculousness that is happening right in front of me.

Before he leaves, Kevin looks at me. "Hurry up, woman. If we have to wait for you we'll never get to see the movie."

Unable to control her laughter, Cecily pushes Kevin out the door, and the universe finally rewards me, because the popcorn finally starts to pop.

"So this thing with Kevin . . ." I say once he's gone. Every guy has a thing for Ceea"even Alex had a huge crush on her. Alex, my best friend, the one who told me he wasn't going to date anyone until college because he didn't want to have to introduce a girl that he liked to his mother unless he knew she could handle it. Alex, who will never date anyone. Alex, who's gone because of me.

I swallow those thoughts down, despite the tightness in my throat, and focus on Cecily. I want her to be happy.

She blushes but doesn't say anything.

"He is pretty cute," I add. He's also immature and drives me a little out of my mind, but I can't deny that he's nice to look at.

Cecily laughs and shakes her head. "He is." Then she pauses and adds, "And he's funny, too, you know? Like super funny. Every time I see him, he makes me crack up about something. Plus, I can't help being surprised at how thoughtful he is. He always does really nice little things for me."

She says it like there's a "but" coming.

"So, what's the problem?" I laugh a little, but Cecily doesn't join in.

"This is terrible. I mean, I kind of want to like him." She sighs. "I just can't. I mean, I don't know. I guess he's just not really my type."

I know what she means. About wanting to like someone and just not being able to. Kevin's tried to hook me up with half the guys in his unit, and then of course, there's Nick. A date or even a little romance would be such a welcome distraction from everything going on, but all I see when I look at another guy is someone who's not Ben Michaels.

Since the day he left, I've been looking everywhere for Ben. Remembering his dark brown eyes; the way his hair falls in his face; the way he reached out, touched my cheek, and pulled me into one last kiss; the way he took slow steps backward toward the portal, as if he didn't really want to leave; the way he said my name and told me he loved me; and the way the portal swallowed him up and he disappeared.

But mostly I think about how he said, I'll come back for you.

"Okay, don't laugh," Cecily says suddenly, doing me a favor and pulling me from thoughts I should be able to let go. "But I kind of have a thing for the bad boys, like from afar, but still. Give me a leather jacket, a devilish smile, a guy my parents wouldn't approve of, and you know, someone who needs to be saved."

Ben didn't have the leather jacket or a devilish smile. But he was definitely the kind of guy my dad would've been wary of. And he did need to be saved.

Only I'd saved him, and now he was gone.

"It wouldn't hurt either if he had nice eyes," Cecily adds.

I smile, thinking of Ben's dark, deep-set eyes and the intensity in them when he looked at me.

Every five or ten minutes, Cecily carts an armload of popcorn bags out to the field. When we finally have them all pa.s.sed out, we pick through the crowd to find my brother, Jared, and Kevin and his friends. There's one extra bag of popcorn, and because we're feeling gluttonous, we keep it.

I barely watch the movie because I'm more interested in watching Jared, who can't take his eyes off the screen.

It doesn't matter that I've missed more than half of the movie. Or that it's black-and-white and from 1946. It doesn't matter that the popcorn is too b.u.t.tery, that the wool blanket itches my skin every chance it gets, or even that I'm tired and sweaty from the stove.

With about fifteen minutes of the movie left, Struz finds us and sits next to Jared, whose eyes are a little watery.

And then Struz winks at me.

I glance at Cecily, who just smiles. It's a smile I know well. The one that says, So there, or I was right, or any other I told you so type of phrase. I give her the finger, because there's not much else to do.

She was right.

Popcorn and movie night were exactly what we needed.

Maybe this day was a little magical after all.

The next morning, the magic has worn off. That tends to happen to me when I have to get out of bed before the sun is up, especially on my day off. The reason I'm up is that Struz is sending Cee and me on a supply run up to Camp Pendleton. He chose us because we're charminga"or, more accurately, Cecily is charming.

And it works. She manages to sweet-talk everyone we run into. I'm just there to help with the heavy lifting.

We spend the drive home, with Cecily at the wheel, in silence. It's not because we're sad or even tireda"despite the fact that this day has already been exhausting and it's not quite noon. This silence weighs down on us because when you do this drive, you can't deny that the world has changed.

The coast is the worst. Buildings are collapsed, homes demolished or just gone. The roof on my favorite restaurant, Roberto's, caved in, and the patio cracked and split open, putting an end to my burritos-after-the-beach tradition. Trees have been uprooted, and they lie on their sides as if they've been discarded like weeds. In my old neighborhood, the trees took out the houses that hadn't already collapsed from the quake itself. Debris is everywhere, littered across the gra.s.s and piled up on the side of the road.

But what's worst is how it feels. Before the quakes, San Diego was the kind of place that felt alive. The sun, the ocean waves, the crowds of touristsa"it had personality. Now it feels empty, destroyed. Dead.

This silence is one of respect, the kind that you observe.

Because it's been a hundred and forty days since an old pickup truck hit me, and the warmth of the engine, the smell of locking brakes, and someone shouting my name were the last things I remembered. A hundred and forty days since I died.

Since my whole world changed.

Because I didn't stay dead. Ben Michaels healed me and brought me back. Because of him, I had a second chance. I don't know how it happened, but Ben Michaels changed my cla.s.s schedule, argued with me in English, took me to Sunset Cliffs, and made me love him.

And then he left.

Now the whole world has changeda"for everyone.

My dad died because he didn't know what kind of case he stumbled on. I solved his murder, saved the world, lost my best friend, and watched Ben walk through a portal and leave this universe.

I stopped Wave Function Collapse, but the damage was already done.

All the natural disasters. .h.i.t at the same timea"and no corner of the globe was spared. Tornadoes took out the Midwest. Earthquakes leveled cities close to fault lines and also ones that weren't, like Dallas and Vegas. Tsunamis blanketed and sank low-level areas like Coronado Island, New Orleans, Manhattan, and parts of the California coast. Wildfires swept the nation in all different directions, reducing land, trees, housesa"even peoplea"to ashes.

And we weren't alone. Other countries had been hit just as hard. Some of them were just gone.

Millions of people died.

Millions more went missing.

Modern life took the biggest hit. Satellites were knocked out of position, telephone lines went dead, electricity flickered out, and running water went dry. Aftershocks took out most of the buildings that were still standing. Hospitals overflowed with people injured and dying. Medicine and medical supplies were used up. We started running out of food and water. Almost nothing survived the looting.

As Cecily drives, I lean my forehead against the window and feel the warmth of the sun against the gla.s.s. I almost close my eyes to block out the reminders, but it's pointless. I can't forget what's happened here.

"Don't do that!" Cecily says, snapping her fingers at me as we go over a b.u.mp on the uneven road. "And by that, I mean that weird sad thing where you go all quiet and depressed."

"I thought you knew I was lame like that," I say, but I pull my head back and sit up straight. She's bossy, but right.

Cecily smiles. "I know you better than you think, J."

"Didn't you know cheerleading is sort of a dead sport?" I ask. "I'm not sure you need to stay so peppy."

She gasps and pretends to be offended, but I know she's not. We both had a first-cla.s.s ticket to seeing the world change. Well, maybe that was just me, but Cecily has seen the aftereffects up close and personal even if she doesn't know the actual cause.

I'm about to say something else when I see it.

Ahead there's a house, half standing with a sunken roof, and in front of it a few people are milling around, looking at an a.s.sortment of stuff laid out on the dead gra.s.s.

Cecily sees it too. "Oh, a yard sale! We have to check it out."

It's not that they're likely to have anything we want. These yard sales are for trades. People need suppliesa"usually medicine or fooda"and they're willing to give up other material possessions in order to get it.

Of course, not many people have medicine or food to spare. But we do. Between my connection to the FBI and Cecily's family running one of the largest evacuation shelters in the area, we have access that normal people don't. There's a case of water and an economy-size bottle of aspirin in the back of the truck. I can't give it all away, but I can give these people something.

"It looks like they have books," Cecily adds as we crawl to a stop. "Maybe they'll have something for Jared."

He needs a new book. We can only reread Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix so many times. As he's pointed out, it's the middle of the story.

I get out of the truck. A man wearing broken gla.s.ses approaches us, but I let Cecily talk to him. She's the friendly one, after all.

There are some old clothes and blankets off to the side, and then a row of DVDs. I look at them just in case there's something X-Files. We lost our collector's edition box set when our house collapsed. Electricity is too spotty still to play DVDs, but once it comes back, my brother will miss them.

The collection is mostly indie movies, so I head for the books. It's a lot of literary stuff, a lot of cla.s.sics, and not necessarily the good stuff, in my opinion. I know I should want to preserve Moby d.i.c.k or Great Expectations, but I just can't make myself do it. Then I see a flash of a red-and-black book cover.

I reach for it, excitement making me feel giddy and lightheaded. I turn, ready to call out to Cee to tell her what I've found, but I'm not looking, so I walk straight into some random guy.

He's taller than me, and my face plows into his shoulder. The soft cotton of his s.h.i.+rt rubs against my cheek as I stumble against him. He grunts and drops all of the books in his hands. I pause, taking a minute to make sure I have my balance before I look up. Even though it wasn't really my fault, I'm about to apologize.

Only the words get stuck in my throat.

"Sorry about that. The danger of picking up too many ma.s.s-markets," he says with a tentative smile, a smile that says he's a little embarra.s.sed.

And suddenly everything around me stops. The sounds of the other people, the wind in the treesa"it fades away, and all I see is the guy in front of me. Everything about him is the same. The wavy hair, the dark eyes, the self-conscious half smile.

I close my eyes, sure that I'm imagining this, that too much sun and not enough sleep have finally gotten to me, but when I open them again, he's still there.

It's like I've conjured him out of thin air.

"Ben?" I whisper, because my whole body feels like it's frozen, like I'm worried he'll disappear.

About the Author.