seventeen. How am I different? And what did he mean by made?
The doctors think the sequence is a mutation—an accident.
But Scott Stiles said I was made differently. Did Mueller intend for us to die? He couldn’t. Maybe he needs the autopsy reports to help him figure out why we’re dying. But Stiles said “made.”
Maybe Mueller knows exactly why we’re dying. Maybe he just wants the autopsy reports to verify it.
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Copyright © 2015 by Debra Dockter.
FOR REVIEWING PURPOSES ONLY--NOT FOR SALE
Dr. Lee said that if they had Dr. Mueller’s records, there might be a way to save us. I have the phone. Maybe it can help me find Dr. Mueller and his records. It has to, because I don’t want to die, and because I have to know what he did to us.
Before I go to bed, I search through my high school yearbook, looking for anyone voted most likely to hack into a government agency’s database or maybe a huge bank’s vault.
We have a few geeks at our school, but being in rural Kansas, I’d have a lot more luck finding someone with an expertise in barrel racing or bull riding.
There has to be someone who can hack into a phone, and I need to find whoever it is fast. My seventeenth birthday is in less than six months . . . You won’t make it to seventeen.
I close my eyes and try to replace the bloodied face of Scott Stiles with thoughts of James. Tomorrow he’ll get his pacemaker. It’ll work. James will make it past eighteen, and I’ll make it past seventeen.
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Copyright © 2015 by Debra Dockter.
FOR REVIEWING PURPOSES ONLY--NOT FOR SALE
Cami’s truck is parked in the driveway. Her house is a nice, standard ranch, like almost every other house in town. There’s a flower bed trimmed in brick out front, but from the way the weeds look right at home, I don’t think flowers have been planted in front of the yellow house for a long time.
As I walk up the drive, I notice feet sticking out from under the truck. Her dad must be changing the oil. I’ve never met him. I’ve seen him mowing the lawn a few times over the years when Connor and Emma would drag me and Cami along to a movie and we’d swing by to pick her up. But he and I have never been introduced.
The feet are wearing worn-out tennis shoes. The cuffs of his jeans are frayed and dirty. I clear my throat to get his attention and hear a thud followed by a “shit.”
He slides, or rather scoots, out from beneath the truck, and I realize right away that this man is not Cami’s father.
“Hey.” He nods and then wipes his grease-covered hands on his grease-covered jeans. “I’ve never met you before. Name’s Jimmy.” He offers his hand.
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Copyright © 2015 by Debra Dockter.
FOR REVIEWING PURPOSES ONLY--NOT FOR SALE
I want to shake it lightly. Actually, I don’t want to shake it at all, but he latches on to my hand with a killer grip.
“I’m Kyle,” I say.
“You a friend of Cami’s?” he asks, still clenching my hand.
His dark brown eyes burn into mine. “You’re not selling something, are you? Not one of those Jehovah’s people?” His eyes scan across my clothes. “No, you’re not dressed nice enough to be one of them.”
He lets go of my hand, and blood pulses back into my fingers.
Despite the days of stubble on his face and the way his hair does a really good Medusa impression, there’s something . . .
nonthreatening about him. I glance at his bare arms, at the tattoos rising and falling along the contours of his biceps.
“That’s not a marijuana plant,” he says, pointing to the tattoo of a jagged leaf. “It’s a Japanese maple leaf. You know, peace and tranquility. That’s what I’m all about now, man. I’m done with that war shit. And Uncle Sam is done with me, so it’s mutual. All good.”
The front door opens. Cami steps out onto the porch. She’s wearing her Sak & Save shirt and holding a large bag of garbage. Uncle Jimmy rushes toward her and takes it.
“I got it,” he says. “Need to earn my keep somehow.”
I look at Cami, and she shrugs. “I guess you two met.”
“I live here,” he says, launching the garbage into the trash can. “Uncle Sam put me on disability. But I can do things. I can work. See that bike?” He motions toward an old black-and-white