Unremarkable (Anything But) by Lindy Zart Read Free Book Online Page B

That’s why I want James to look at it. I’m assuming it still works, so why haven’t they shown up here with their guns cocked?”
    “ Maybe it only activates when it has a host.”
    “ Maybe.” Isaac rubbed his eyes, wanting to slip into a coma for a couple days, or maybe years. “You’re good to wait here until I get back?”
    “ Yeah, my shift isn’t for another three hours.” Talley raised his wrist to his face, a gleam of metal catching the light. “If I don’t get a text from you in an hour, we’ll move on.”
    Isaac nodded. “One hour.”
    He grabbed his pistol from the top of a shelf and the baggie, camouflaging each within his clothes. Pausing at the door, he looked over his shoulder at the one man he trusted in the mess that was their reality. Talley stared back, his face impassive. He’d learned that expression from Isaac.
    “ Only one hour, Talley, I mean it. After that, you go.” 
    “ We’ll go,” he promised.
    Hesitating, Isaac finally left the apartment, disquiet trailing behind him.

 
     
     
    No one ever woke up and thought: Today is the day I’m going to die . Honor was thinking maybe they should, maybe she should have—because she was some kind of dead. Or at least, whatever she was, she wasn’t completely alive. Maybe that gunshot had killed her and she was dead and no one knew it; except for her—she knew it. Her skin was cold, not ice cold, but it certainly wasn’t warm. Her heartbeats were slow, like her heart wasn’t, or didn’t need to be, working as hard as it used to.
    An urge to laugh hysterically or go on a screaming rampage was bubbling up inside her. What was wrong with her? She sat on the toilet seat in the pink and cream bathroom and stared unseeingly at a framed photograph of a white rose. Hunger and thirst had abandoned her, along with the part of herself she knew. The new Honor was a mystery, like August had said, and also like him, she wasn’t crazy about puzzles, especially ones involving her.
    If she’d known her life was going to be so drastically altered that last day she went to school, she wouldn’t have gone. Honor would have cuddled at home with Scarlet and watched her draw her animal pictures. She would have told her mother she loved her, that no matter what, she would always love her. Spending the day with her mother and sister, simply existing—that’s what Honor would have done. All the things she’d previously thought trivial and had taken for granted, she would have welcomingly embraced and kept close to her heart, for as long as she was allowed.

     
    “ Honor?” She jumped at the voice and knock on the door, a moment spent searching for recognition raising alarm within her. “You okay in there?”
    “ Yeah,” she lied, moving to stand.
    The clothes were loose and long on her, but she wasn’t going to be picky. Clothes were clothes, and anything was better than white shirts and pants. She’d worn enough of those in recent months. Honor wondered at the person the clothes belonged to. Who was she? Where was she? What was she to Nealon? That thought and why she was thinking it didn’t give her a good feeling, so she quickly shoved it away as she went to the mirror.
    Talley’s voice caused her to jump again when he asked, “Need anything?”
    “ No.” She swiped a hand across the fogged up mirror and stared at her reflection. She’d aged six months while she’d slept. How was that even possible ? Honor’s body should have atrophied. She should be weak, skeletal.
    When she felt Talley hovering beyond the barrier of the door, she said, “I’ll be right out.” It was a long moment before he finally walked away, his tread methodic and precise.
    Honor leaned in close to her image, searching for the inward changes to somehow show through into her exterior features. The face looking back at her was the same; the only change she could see was more definition to her features, as though her face had somehow slimmed down. She leaned