As I Wake Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1.

  Chapter 2.

  Chapter 3.

  Chapter 4.

  Chapter 5.

  Chapter 6.

  Chapter 7.

  Chapter 8.

  Chapter 9.

  Chapter 10.

  Chapter 11.

  Chapter 12.

  Chapter 13.

  Chapter 14.

  Chapter 15.

  Chapter 16.

  Chapter 17.

  Chapter 18.

  Chapter 19.

  Chapter 20.

  Chapter 21.

  Chapter 22.

  Chapter 23.

  Chapter 24.

  Chapter 25.

  Chapter 26.

  Chapter 27.

  Chapter 28.

  Chapter 29.

  Chapter 30.

  Chapter 31.

  Chapter 32.

  Chapter 33.

  Chapter 34.

  Chapter 35.

  Chapter 36.

  Chapter 37.

  Chapter 38.

  Chapter 39.

  Chapter 40.

  Chapter 41.

  Chapter 42.

  Chapter 43.

  Chapter 44.

  Chapter 45.

  Chapter 46.

  Chapter 47.

  Chapter 48.

  Chapter 49.

  Chapter 50.

  Acknowledgements

  DUTTON BOOKS

  A member of PenguinGroup (USA) Inc.

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. | Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.). | Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England | Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd). | Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd). | Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India. | Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.). | Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa. | Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 by Elizabeth Spencer

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Scott, Elizabeth, date.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Seventeen-year-old Ava awakens with amnesia and a feeling that something is wrong with her life, her mother, and her friends but when the mysterious Morgan appears, her flashbacks of life as a spy for a shady government agency begin to make sense.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-55115-8

  [1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Identity—Fiction. 3. Mothers and

  daughters—Fiction. 4. Love—Fiction. 5. Memory—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.S4195As 2011

  [Fic]—dc22 2011005198

  Published in the United States

  by Dutton Books,

  a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  www.penguin.com/teens

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Jess, because she always believed in this story, and helped me to keep believing too

  1.

  WAKE UP.

  I’m in bed. Sheets and blankets tucked around me, my legs sprawled out like I’ve fallen. No light in the room except faint yellow and a darker, colder gleam shining through the window, its curtains only partly closed.

  Where am I?

  I don’t know these sheets, this bed, this room.

  I look down at myself, see soft fabric wrapping me from neck to knees. My feet are bare.

  There are dark shapes all around.

  People?

  I slide up onto my elbows slowly, creeping back until my shoulders hit the wooden back of the bed. I sit quiet, watching. Waiting.

  No movement. No breathing other than my own.

  There are no people here, just things. Chair. Dresser. Desk. Lamp. I can see them as my eyes adjust to the dark. Familiar shapes, words easy on my tongue but still—

  I don’t recognize these dark shapes, these things.

  Where am I?

  I get up.

  The door to the room I’m in opens easily, unlocked, swinging free, and I step into a hall. It’s dark and there is carpet under my feet, thick and soft. It extends out past me, leads to two closed doors.

  What hides behind them?

  I don’t want to look.

  Stairs. I see them now, a little to my left, and move toward them, grateful. I do not know where they lead, but it has to be away and that—that is better than those closed doors.

  The stairs are carpeted too, soft under my feet, and down and down and down I walk into more darkness.

  I can walk. I can talk, whisper “carpet” into the dark. I know words: hands, door, nightgown, bed, dark, light.

  Where am I?

  Bottom of the stairs, wood under my feet now, I’m standing on a floor, darkness all around edged only by the deeper darkness of more rooms, waiting shadows.

  Door to my left, just a few steps away.

  I move toward it carefully, my feet silently crossing the floor. I see my toes, but they do not feel like mine. I am dreaming maybe, one where everything is familiar but not, understood but not known.

  I open the door.

  Night, it is night, and a streetlight glows strong enough that it bleeds across the faint light of stars that strain above it.

  Close my eyes.

  I think about stars. Their light comes from years beyond years away. Constellations: Big Dipper, Orion. Venus sometimes shines brightly, low in the night sky, and is mistaken for a star.

  I open my eyes.

  I still don’t know here. Don’t know this place. Where am I?

  There are more stairs, rugged for outside, for weather, and I walk down them. I walk away from the room, the hall, the stairs.

  I turn around, see a tall shape, boxy dark in the night.

  A house.

  I don’t know it.

  Where am I?

  I back away, step onto grass. It’s cold and wet against my feet, sends a chill crawling through my toes and up my spine.

  Walking, I am walking, almost running, off the grass and onto a road, the streetlight beaming at the end of it, glowing over a sign. Homeway Lane.

  Where am I?

  Street, alley, driveway, walk, road, I know.

  I don’t know Homeway Lane.

  Where am I?

  Close my eyes, this is just a dream, a weird, bad dream, like—

  I don’t know.

  I don’t know any of my bad dreams. I don’t know—
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  I open my eyes.

  It’s still dark, still night, my skin is cold and I have goose bumps, but this isn’t real, it’s just a dream, a bad dream, and I know that just like I know that I am—I am—I am—

  I don’t know.

  I don’t know.

  Close eyes, shaking now. End dream.

  2.

  WAKE UP.

  OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod someone says, arms around me, holding tight.

  I struggle, push.

  I get some space, and then flinch away from the woman looking at me. I don’t know the wide, scared eyes, the shiny nose, the shaking mouth.

  I don’t know her.

  OhGodOhGodOhGod she says. Her voice matches her eyes, high-pitched and terrified.

  “Ma’am, you need to let go of her. We have to look at her,” another voice says. Deeper voice, a guy whose face is broken up by the flashing lights of the ambulance behind him.

  The streetlight is still on. Still shining on the sign. Homeway Lane.

  “No,” I say, but nothing changes. I don’t wake up.

  I don’t know where I am.

  I don’t know who I am.

  A light shines in my eyes and behind it I see the shadow of a face, dark eyes staring sadly, wearily into mine. (How do I see all this and not know where I am? How do I not know who I am?)

  Close my eyes. Wake up, wake up, this is all a dream.

  “Looks like she’s high,” the man with the weary eyes says, and then leans into me, forcing my eyes up, shining bright light into me so I can’t sleep. Can’t get away.

  “What did you take?” he says into my ear, taking his time with each word, as if it has to fly to me from somewhere far away. “Your mother says you’ve been home all night but—”

  Mother? The word makes my heart pound faster, ticktock shattering in my chest. “Mother?”

  He blinks at the way I say the word, then gestures at the OhGod woman, who is huddled nearby, staring at me. Her eyes are full of want and pleading, and her hands are reaching for me.

  “I don’t know her,” I say, moving away even though her fingers can’t quite touch me, and the woman’s mouth falls open.

  “You have to take her to the hospital,” she says, and then does reach me, moves and grabs my arm, fingers sliding around my wrist, clinging tight. “Ava, honey, we have to go to the hospital now, okay? You’ll be fine, though. You’re going to be fine.”

  Ava?

  “Is that your name?” the man with the light says, arms folding me onto a stretcher, twirling this place around me, Homeway Lane turning out of sight, and the woman looks at me like she knows me. Looks so happy.

  This is a dream; this has to be a dream.

  “Ava, can you hear me?” the man says, and I don’t want to be pushed down onto a stretcher. I don’t want this, I want to go, I want to wake up but I’m not, I’m not, and I can’t breathe, there isn’t enough air in me, in this place and the OhGod woman is still here, still looking at me, and she looks so real, all this looks so real, and I just want to go to sleep, I just want to wake up and breathe, stop this heavy fuzzy darkness in my head.

  Shock, I hear someone say as the darkness starts to swallow me, creeping up all around. Oh shit, she’s going into shock.

  I close my eyes.

  3.

  I LOOK AROUND THE ATTIC. I don’t need to, of course. I know it, I’ve seen the plans for the whole building, memorized them. I learned how to do that early on when I was in school, hoping that I’d be here, that I’d be part of SAT, the State Antiterrorism Taskforce. It’s cold, but after I’ve been here for a while my body heat will warm the air, stop my breath from coming out in frosty puffs.

  I stroke the side of the chair I’m sitting on, my fingers skating over the cracked orange plastic, and turn on the headset.

  I am here, finally, and I must do a good job. I know what will happen if I am lazy or sloppy or stupid. The People’s Democratic Movement, the ones who make the rules that keep us safe, who run everything, who want to know everything—they will know if I fail. They know everything.

  And if I do, the crèche will swallow me again, that I will disappear inside its endless gray walls full of children who are unwanted, or, like I was, orphaned and watched, doomed to nothingness unless they can prove themselves. The PDM is letting me try, letting me be part of something that is as necessary as breathing, for if the SAT isn’t working, if people aren’t looking out for each other, listening or watching or doing whatever it takes to keep everyone safe, then we aren’t part of a strong government. We’d be at the mercy of anyone who wanted anything.

  If we have all the information, no one can ever hurt us.

  There are no instructions for me to read, but I don’t need them. I was trained for this. I’ve proved myself. I can do this in my sleep. Power on listening device, switch on right side; hit pause to show start of duty, and then begin recording. Extra batteries are stored inside the bottom of the unit, and all battery changes must be done after noting them in my report.

  I unfold the keyboard. It is sticky. The other person who listens here, the silent man who left when I came in, must have eaten. My stomach rumbles. He must be higher in the SAT than I am.

  Of course he is. He didn’t come from the crèche, isn’t a child of those who did things that SAT works to stop.

  I open the report. The date and time fill themselves in automatically, and the field for subject is labeled “56-412. MORGAN.” It doesn’t say why 56-412 is being watched.

  There is no need to. Everyone who might matter, who might possibly think things that could hurt the government, is watched at one time or another. That is what the SAT does, and this is just 56-412’s time. It might just be a few days. It might be a few months.

  Or 56-412 might say something that could harm the PDM, in which case he’ll disappear and I—

  I will have another job. I’ve proven myself. I have.

  I listen, hands hovering over the keys.

  After a moment, I type 56-412, Sleeping. It is the same as the last entry, and the one before it.

  56-412 rolls over. I hear the bed rustling, and curl my feet into my socks, wishing I had better shoes.

  56-412 breathes slowly, deeply. I try breathing like that too. The best way to understand those who might want to harm the state is to know them, to do what I am doing now, to listen and serve the greater good, but after a few minutes I feel myself sliding toward sleep. I stayed up too late last night waiting for now, waiting for my life to truly begin.

  I close my eyes.

  4.

  WAKE UP.

  I see white-green lights flickering overhead. I’m flat on my back, a bed under me and a television high up on the wall, its screen dark. White walls, and signs at eye level: NO PHONES, NO ELECTRONIC DEVICES, NO SMOKING, PLEASE STOP AT THE DESK BEFORE LEAVING THE HOSPITAL.

  Hospital. I’m in the hospital. I must have been in an accident. I try to remember it, but my head hurts, blinding hot pain, and I squeeze my eyes shut, see an attic, an orange chair, and the number 56-412.

  The pain gets worse, and I push the images away, see a house and a road and a streetlight shining down on me.

  Which one is real? I have to think.

  Go on, do it. I’ll tell myself to.

  ______, think.

  What? No. no no no no.

  _______, think.

  I feel myself start to shake.

  I don’t know who I am. My head aches and is empty, full of words but nothing more. I sit up, frantic, scrabbling at the bed, at my body (Is it real? Is any of this real?), and startle a slumped lump in a chair in the corner.

  One look shows me it’s the woman from before, from the street. The house.

  The one who says she’s my mother.

  “Ava, honey,” she says, and is there, right there, grabbing me again, covering one of my hands with her own. Her skin is warm, normal.

  Real.

  Skin renews itself daily, new cells born, old cells die. T
he human body is a complex machine, and there is one spot on the foot that, if pressed, will make your body cramp in pain. People will answer questions if you place your fingers there and push.

  I know that, but I do not know this woman.

  I do not know me.

  “Ava?” the woman says again, and I look at her for a moment. Her eyes are scared but happy too, and she keeps patting my hand. I crawl my fingers away.

  Her face falls, going sad.

  “Honey, it’s me, it’s okay,” she says, as if that means everything.

  It means nothing and I swing my legs away from her, my feet on the floor. I still don’t have shoes, and the floor is cold.

  The door opens and a man—a doctor, I know from the way he walks, the way he’s dressed—comes in and looks at me.

  “So you woke up,” he says, and I stare at him because this has to be a dream. Doctors never come to a hospital room unless something very bad has happened because there simply aren’t enough of them. The study required—and the screening for it—is intense, and few meet the qualifications of intellect and respect for all that’s done to keep us all safe.

  “I—I think I’m still asleep,” I say, and he frowns, looking at the not-mother.

  “No, you’re awake,” he says, moving toward me as a nurse comes in behind him, head bowed over a tray she’s holding. “You hyperventilated on the way here and passed out, and then you did seem to fall asleep for a while. How are you feeling now?”

  “You don’t—I know something’s wrong,” I say. “You wouldn’t—you wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t. And the attic and the orange chair and the number—” I break off, my head hurting again, sudden cramping pain, and know—yes, know—that I shouldn’t say any more. That I must be careful.

  The doctor frowns, and then looks at the chair the not-mother was sitting in.

  Orange plastic.

  Then he touches my wrist once, gently and impersonally as the nurse moves around behind me. I look down, see what he sees, thin strip of plastic around my wrist.