The Immortals by Mary Hallberg (chrysanthemum read aloud txt) 📗

where to begin expressing the thoughts running through my head and was sure nobody wanted to hear them, so I kept quiet. If Elizabeth had driven drunk without TNV, she probably wouldn’t even have a car to worry about anymore. I pumped a dose and a half into my arm and passed the needle back to Jacey, who said, “You might want to leave your jacket in the car. It’s going to get hot.”

I was in a red three quarter length dress that came to my knees and black high heels. I'd done my best with Luke’s club attire advice, but still wasn’t sure if I was dressed appropriately for a night on the town. A church service, maybe. Jacey, Elizabeth, Paige and most of the other girls we passed were all in low cut dressed with their hair delicately pinned and curled. Some of them had draped themselves over guys in collared shirts and half a tube of gel in their hair.

Even across the parking lot, I could hear music the whole way over. Once we got inside, I could barely hear myself think. A few minutes after we started to dance, Jacey screamed something in my ear that vaguely sounded like, “Want a drink? I’m buying.” It took me a minute to remember the legal drinking age in The Necropolis had been lowered to 18, and even that wasn’t really enforced. I nodded and she came back a minute later with something that looked like soda but tasted like soda mixed with shoe polish. I took a few more sips, mostly to be polite, and managed to ignore the shoe polish taste.

I'd managed to get rid of almost the entire drink when Paige left and came back with a second round. This one was pink and a lot stronger, but I was starting to like the buzz I was getting and the shoe polish taste was easier to ignore. I had to pee like crazy and didn’t care to stumble over dozens of sweaty bodies to get to the bathroom. But the alcohol did make it a bit easier to be complacent when two equally tipsy guys started grinding on Jacey and me.

A couple of hours after we arrived, I finally made it to the bathroom, but couldn’t find Jacey or anyone else when I got back out. I knew I should have asked her to come with me, but the buzz was intense now, and I could barely walk upright, let alone think straight. So I did another stupid thing. I walked back to the car by myself. Fortunately it had been left unlocked, and I fell on the backseat and promptly passed out.

I woke up when I heard the passenger door opening. I felt my feet being pushed to the floor and groaned. “Oh, is that you McKenzie? Sorry.” Elizabeth giggled and slid into the seat where my feet had previously been. She hiccuped and banged her head on the roof.     “Couldn’t take it anymore either? Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. I couldn’t hold my liquor at first either.” She giggled again and fell onto the seat.

She didn’t say anything else, and I wasn’t really in the mood to talk. “I’m going to sleep now,” I grunted, closing my eyes.

She didn’t protest. “Good night, Kenzie. If I throw up on you, just kick me or something.

Gladly, I thought, but didn’t respond. She didn’t say anything else, and I lay there for awhile, wondering if I would be able to fall asleep again before Jacey and Paige decided they’d had enough.

I did manage to fall asleep after awhile, despite the urge to pee coming again. When I woke up, I was lying on my living room couch and Luke was brewing coffee.

Even though an extra dose of TNV cured my pounding headache and nausea pretty quickly, I spent Saturday morning on the couch. But I felt fine later that afternoon and tagged along with Luke on a rare trip home. It was only my third time coming back since moving in with him. I suspected Luke living in The Necropolis was the only reason mom had even let me go. After dad died and grandpa left the Immortals, she had had somewhat of a bias against them. I knew the life hadn’t been right for grandpa, but why did that mean it wasn’t a good fit for me?

But subconsciously, I knew why neither mom or grandpa wanted me to become Immortal. The system was corrupt, and everyone knew it. When a person was accepted into the Immortals, we were given monthly, lifelong grants that would allow us to live in luxury.     And for us, lifelong meant…well, forever. We were sucking up the country’s money, taking it away from people who worked hard every day to simply earn a living. And all because we supposedly deserved it…but did we? Still, neither of them gave me grief about it, at least not in front of me. Grandpa was actually surprisingly supportive.

I found him in an easy chair. He lived up the street but spent a lot of time at our house. He was in front of some news program, already dozing off. Luke said a quick hello to him, then went to his room, probably to fire up his video games.

I didn’t have any homework left to do, and didn’t really care to watch TV in my own room, so I joined mom on the couch and watched some boring news program. Most of the news today followed the more notorious Immortals who were forever partying or cheating on their significant others, usually with other Immortals, but sometimes with Underground people. I had seen Jacey, Elizabeth and even Matt on there a handful of times — though it was usually for silly things like appearances at a new night club — but apparently none of my antics so far had been deemed newsworthy. Granted, the most newsworthy thing I had engaged in so far was a passing out