Replica (Replica #1)(65)

“So much for Zen,” she said. Obviously unimpressed, Rufus flopped back onto her pillow.

Almost instantly, the buzzer sounded downstairs. Someone was at the gate. Rufus sprang to his feet and dove off the bed, barking furiously, charging for the stairs. For a second, Gemma worried it might be Chloe again, maybe back to do a second round of damage.

But that was stupid. Chloe wouldn’t bother buzzing—besides, she was probably on spring break getting trashed on cheap tequila shots with the rest of her pack wolves. And though she’d been certain only a few days ago that Chloe had been the one to throw the Frankenstein mask, now she was having doubts. Maybe, if all the rumors about Haven and monsters were true, it really had been a message for her dad, even if she still couldn’t understand the connection.

She checked the security camera and was surprised to see Perv Rogers, leaning half out of the car, the shock of his white-blond hair visible despite the low resolution. But she buzzed him in without asking him what he wanted. Perv was harmless. Well, except for being a pervert and maybe keeping girls’ underwear strung around his basement for sniffing. Maybe keeping girls in his basement.

Rufus was still barking two minutes later, when Perv’s car—a purplish minivan that looked like a giant, mobile eggplant, obviously borrowed from one of his parents—came rolling up the drive. She had to hold Rufus by his collar so he didn’t bolt into the front yard.

“Sorry,” she said, over the sounds of his continued barking, even as Perv climbed out of the car and began edging cautiously toward the door. “He doesn’t bite, I promise. He just likes to make a lot of noise. Sit down, Rufus.” Rufus finally sat, and even licked Perv’s hand when Perv bent down and presented it for sniffing.

“How old is he?” Perv asked.

“An artifact,” Gemma said. “Thirteen. But still really healthy,” she added quickly, because she had a superstition about referring to Rufus’s age. He’d arrived as a puppy when she was three years old. She had no memories that didn’t include him.

“I probably smell like Quick-Mart hot dogs,” Perv said. He must have changed after work, because instead of his crappy collared shirt he was actually dressed nicely, in a white button-down that showed off skin that was half tan and half just freckly, plus a pair of faded chino shorts and old Chuck Taylors. She realized she was wearing an old Hannah Montana T-shirt—ironically, of course, but he wouldn’t know that—and crossed her arms over her chest.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“You forgot your change,” he said, digging into one pocket and producing a few crumpled bills and some loose change. “There you go. Three dollars and twenty-seven cents.”

She stared at him. “You drove to my house to give me three dollars?”

“And twenty-seven cents,” he repeated, smiling broadly. “Besides, I wanted to see where you live. I heard your house was kind of awesome.” He craned his neck, looking beyond her into the house. “Oh, man. Is that a chandelier? I thought chandeliers were for hotels and Las Vegas casinos. And maybe Mexican drug lords.”

“Are you serious?” Gemma had maybe spoken three words to Perv in her whole life before their exchange in the Quick-Mart—most recently no, when he’d turned around in bio and asked whether she knew that in sea horses, only the male carried the eggs.

“Sorry.” Perv rubbed a hand over his hair, making it stick up, flame-like. “Sometimes my mouth says things without checking in with my brain first.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Gemma said. “Mexican drug lords?” Perv shrugged. He seemed to be waiting for something, but she had no idea what. He was the first boy who’d ever come over to see her—not that he was there to see her, really—and she was suddenly mortified. She wanted Perv to leave, but didn’t know how to ask without seeming mean. After all, he’d just done her a favor. And he was nice, even if he did steal girls’ underwear. And possibly, you know, have a sex chamber in his basement, as April had once theorized when she caught Perv staring at Gemma in the cafeteria.

“So can I?” Perv asked, after looking at her patiently for a bit.

“Can you what?”

He blinked. “Come in and see where you live.”

She didn’t want to say yes but couldn’t think of a way to refuse. So she shuffled backward, taking Rufus by the collar. “Okay,” she said. “I mean, if you really want.”

Perv took a step forward and then hesitated. “You sure that thing doesn’t like the taste of human flesh?” He pointed at Rufus.

She rolled her eyes. “Please. He’s a grumpy old man. He likes to make a lot of noise, especially around people he doesn’t—” She broke off suddenly. She’d just remembered that Rufus, who still barked as if the world was ending whenever a stranger came to the door, hadn’t made a sound when the man had approached her in the parking lot, at least not until Gemma shouted. He’d even wagged his tail. Almost as if . . .

Almost as if he recognized the man, knew him from somewhere.

She was gripped, then, by a terrible feeling: that something was coming. Something she couldn’t understand. The man, Haven, her father—all of it was tangled up together, and she, Gemma, was at the center of the mess, the heart of the shitstorm.

Head shit.