by Katie French
Some men look at their fingers and smile. Safe for another day.
The men shuffle out. The rich man nods at me and then strides past, his men in tow.
Prentice stays, smiling, nodding at customers until everyone has exited. Tommy, Gabe, and I start to leave, too, but Prentice grabs Gabe’s arm. “Do you have any idea how much money you’ve just cost me?”
I shake my head. “I don’t care.”
Prentice raises his fist. “You will.”
Gabe steps in front of me. “After all we’ve been through, and you were willing to let my brother die?”
Prentice silences Gabe with a sharp look. “You three owe me money. You better start thinking about how you’re going to repay me. I’m sending a guard so you don’t get the bright idea to skip town. I will see you in the morning with your plan to repay your debt.”
With that, he turns on his heel and stomps back to the warehouse.
Gabe, Tommy, and I stare at each other, panting and blinking. It’s over. We’re alive.
But tomorrow, a whole new set of problems will arrive.
“Let’s get the hell out of here before Prentice changes his mind,” Gabe says, striding toward the door.
Tommy looks at me through his non-swollen eye. “You okay?” he mumbles.
I snort, touching the spot on my jaw where I was hit. It throbs, but there doesn’t seem to be any damage done. Then I look at his face, his body, broken and bruised in so many places I can’t even imagine.
“You’re something else,” I say, fitting myself under his arm. He leans into me, limping slowly toward the door. I find Tommy’s cap, trampled and bloodstained, and pick it up. Gabe holds the door open for us. The night air pours in, washing away the human stink. Never have I been so happy to see the outside.
Tommy can’t ride his bike. He mounts it and tries, but I can tell he’s in too much pain to pedal up the hill. So we walk. It’s a slow plod out of town, and I’m already worried about the men from the warehouse finding us, but two of Prentice’s guards with guns follow about twenty feet behind. I don’t know whether to be thankful or nervous. What will happen when we don’t have Prentice’s money tomorrow?
On the moon-streaked road, Gabe strides in front, but circles back when he gets too far, taking the time to peer into Tommy’s face until Tommy shoos him away.
“I still can’t believe it,” Gabe says, kicking a hunk of concrete into the weeds on the side of the road. “Prentice betrayed us. He didn’t even care.”
Tommy spits a glob of red onto the road and shrugs.
“What is it between you and Prentice?” I ask Gabe.
“Prentice and I are…were friends. He saved our lives. Tommy, Prentice, and me were kids together. You know, we grew up in Albuquerque, in the shadow of your beloved hospital.”
“Yeah, right. My beloved,” I say.
“Our dah kicked Tommy and me out when we were twelve. I’d had a few seizures, and it was too much for dear old dah.” Gabe smiles joylessly.
“That’s awful,” I say.
“Dah was awful,” Tommy mumbles. “We’d have run away before if we had anywhere to go.”
Gabe nods. “Remember he used to say, ‘Are you hurtin’? No?’”
“‘Then you ain’t workin’,” Tommy finishes. “Bastard.”
“Are all the men who take in boys like your dah?” I think of the Breeder girls I knew who gave up baby boys to the outside. We were always told the men were selected from the most caring applicants. I guess the monthly stipend probably had more to do with why they applied than anything.
Gabe walks like a tightrope walker on the dotted, yellow line, arms outstretched. “Knew a few boys who didn’t get beaten or starved. We were always jealous.”
Tommy peers at Gabe with his good eye. “Least we had each other.”
Gabe’s arms drop and glances back at the guards, who now walk lazily thirty feet behind us on the road. Then he turns to his brother. “I should’ve done more to stop Prentice. I should’ve got up and punched him in his smug face. I should’ve—” His next words are drowned out as he throws his arms around Tommy.
Tommy winces and pats Gabe lightly on the back. “‘S okay,” he says, over and over.
Gabe lets him go. “What’re we gonna do?”
“Let’s get him home first,” I say.
When we reach the apartment, candlelight flickers from the upstairs window. I shoot a worried glance at Tommy. “It’s probably Harpy,” he says. “He was supposed to check on your aunt.”
In all the chaos, I’ve been too panicked to worry about Bell. Gabe helps Tommy up the stairs and I bound after them, my heart galloping.
We spill into the apartment at the same time. Harpy looks up. So does Bell. She’s lying on the floor, propped up on cushions. I fly to her side.
“You’re awake!” I grab her hand and kiss it. “Oh God, I thought you were going to die.”
“Hush,” she says, patting my head. “Calm down, puddin’. Ol’ Belly can’t be taken out by a lad and his toy knife.” She flicks an angry glance at Tommy, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s too busy trying to ease into a chair without crying out in agony.
Bell’s voice sounds weak and her face is still pale and sunken, but she’s awake. She squeezes me and kisses my cheek. My chest feels like it might burst.
“Take it easy there,” Harpy says, coming to squat beside us. “She just came around ‘bout an hour ago. She’s got a good bit of healin’ to do.”
Bell ignores him and grips my hand with cold fingers. “What happened while I was out?”
Gabe answers from where he stands, sponging Tommy’s cuts with a damp cloth. “Your niece was a lioness. She fought off men three times her size with her bare hands. She puzzled like a genius. She—”
“That’s enough,” I say. “We don’t want to oversell it.”
Gabe’s eyes shine. “You were amazing.”
I smile. The things he can do to me with just one gaze.
Bell leans forward, wincing a little. “What’s all this? You fought off men?”
Slowly, carefully, I tell her the events of the last twenty-four hours. Her eyes grow wider and her frown deeper the longer I talk. When I finish, she leans back on her pillows. “So, how are you boys planning on paying back Prentice?”
Gabe flicks a look at Tommy, who’s holding a cool cloth on a cut on his chest. Tommy shrugs. “We got nothing to sell ‘cept…” He trails off.
“Except us,” I say.
“That’s not happening,” he says, taking the cloth down. “Not anymore.”
“That’s comforting,” Bell says dryly.
Harpy gets up and strides into the hallway, Tommy watches him go, frowning.
“What about all the art and costumes?” I say, thinking of Gabe’s rooms stuffed to the gills. “Aren’t those worth something?”
Gabe puts a hand on his chest. “They’re worth something to me.”
Tommy shakes his head. “There are only a few things that are valuable in this market.” He ticks them off on his fingers. “Weapons, medicine, and women. And we ain’t got any of those things. Well, not anything we want to sell.”
I think this over. “Where does Prentice get his medicine?”
Gabe shrugs. “No way he’d tell us.”
“Is there anywhere else to get meds?” I ask.
Gabe is thoughtful for a moment. “I heard there was a hospital up in Española that used to hold a huge stock of meds, but the road gang that used to own it set up traps. It’s supposed to be too dangerous.”
“More dangerous than facing Prentice empty-handed?” I ask.
Gabe and Tommy swap looks.
I push a hand through my hair. “Look, I have a feeling Prentice is planning to sell Bell and me to the highest bidder tomorrow, no matter what we do. Let’s hit Española. Can it be more dangerous than Prentice?”
Bell looks at me, surprised. Tommy pulls the cloth from his face. “We got your van. I can get fuel. It isn
’t far.”
Gabe looks at him. “You just got your ass handed to you by about fifty men. You need rest.”
Tommy stands up and hobbles to the coffee. “Not more than she needs her freedom. ‘Sides, if we can find more seizure meds, we can be free of Prentice forever.”
“I keep trying to tell you,” Gabe says. “I don’t need them anymore.”
Tommy waves a dismissive hand.
The boys set about arguing while digging out a meal and making coffee. I get up to help, but Bell holds me back. She presses her lips to my ear. “We could make a run for it while they’re sleeping.”
I shake my head and whisper back. “You’re gonna need at least a few days before we can survive on the road. Besides, I want to help them.” I gaze at the brothers, leaning toward each other as they put the coffee on and set out beef jerky. From the back, you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart besides their clothes. Gabe sets out plates while Tommy fills the mugs with steaming coffee. If I can help them get away from Prentice, it’ll repay some of the debt I owe for saving my life. When I look back at Bell, she’s watching me with wary eyes.
“Just don’t think you can keep whichever one it is you’re pining for.” She watches the brothers carefully. “It’s the moody one, eh?”
I look between Gabe and Tommy. “I’m not pining.”
Am I pining? And if so, for whom? For both of them? They’re so different. Gabe’s carefree spirit is infectious, but Tommy’s deliberate carefulness and attention is endearing. When Gabe looks up and catches me staring, I drop my eyes.
“I’m not pining,” I repeat.
Bell shakes her head. “Mm-hmm. And my ass isn’t wrinkled as a prune.”
Chapter 17
Janine
After we eat and caffeine up, Tommy and Gabe pack our gear. Harpy comes back in, though some of his humor has drained. I wonder what’s wrong with him. Maybe he’s uneasy about that we’re leaving. I wonder if he’ll run and tell Prentice, but Gabe swears we can trust him. The guards out front are another story. We peer down at the two men standing outside our apartment, their handguns stuffed in their pants.
Gabe—who’s managed to find a whole camouflage outfit complete with a hat covered in fake leaves—points to one of the men. The grip of a pistol is sticking out of his waistband. “One false move and Junior over there blasts his balls to Tucson.”
Tommy snorts. “Junior doesn’t have balls. Prentice keeps ‘em in a jar next to his Rubik’s Cubes.”
I smile, but my nerves are snapping. We somehow have to sneak out without alerting the guards, roll the van a safe distance away, and get to Española without finding trouble on the way. Once we get there, all we have to do is navigate a booby-trapped hospital to find drugs.
Swell.
But our quiet sneak through the dark campus to the van is uneventful. Prentice’s guards stand outside smoking and paying us little attention. Apparently, Prentice doesn’t pay them well. No one ambushes us when we push the van a quarter-mile away and start the engine once we’re out of earshot. The drive down the dark, quiet highway is uneventful. It’s too easy. It doesn’t feel right.
I sit tensely in the passenger seat just like I did a few days ago with Bell. Has it only been a few days? It feels like a lifetime. I’ll be seventy years old by the time we get back in the morning. If we get back in the morning.
A big, round moon lights up the landscape, exposing the pits in the road, but us, too. Tommy drives carefully. He sits upright, his cap pushed back, his eyes zeroed in on the route. He has to be in a lot of pain from the beating he took earlier, but, other than the occasional grimace, he doesn’t mention it.
Gabe grips Tommy’s headrest and leans forward. “You drive like a grandpa. No, you drive like a turtle. A grandpa turtle. A grandpa turtle with a bum hip.”
“Shut up,” Tommy grumbles. “Let me concentrate.”
“You can concentrate without driving two miles an hour.” Gabe jiggles the headrest.
Without taking his gaze off the road, Tommy swats at Gabe. “Leave me alone or you drive.”
“Gladly,” Gabe says. He blows a frustrated breath out. “I’m going to sleep. Wake me when we’re ambushed.”
Gabe disappears into the dark back of the van. I look at Tommy.
“You know, you probably could let him drive. He’s not a baby.”
Tommy flicks a look my way. “You know that truck I own?”
“No,” I say.
“You wouldn’t. The last time Gabe drove, he fell asleep and ran it into an embankment. Flipped the bastard over.”
“Oh,” I say, gripping my knees.
“You think I baby him, but that’s because he’s a baby.” Tommy’s voice is low. He glances up into the rearview mirror.
“He’ll hear you,” I say.
Tommy shakes his head. “I can already hear him snoring.” He drives down the center lane, avoiding a giant pothole in the right side of the road. Electrical poles lean out like tall trees. A shopping cart lies on its side, one wheel spinning in the breeze.
Tommy turns to me. “When we get to the hospital, you should stay in the truck.”
I frown. “Have you ever been in a hospital before?”
He shakes his head.
“Then how will you find where the meds are stored?”
Tommy shrugs. “Shouldn’t be that hard.”
“Do you know what pills you’re looking for?” I ask. “I mean, do you know which medicines are worth something and which are basically useless?”
Tommy chews his lip. “Gabe’s pills are white.”
“Most pills are white,” I say.
“Look, we’ll be lucky enough to get in and out with all our working parts,” Tommy says, flexing his arms. “The road gang that controlled the building was brutal. Some of their booby traps are probably still armed.”
“So, we’ll be smart and careful.”
Tommy grinds his teeth. “I don’t need to watch two people in there. Keeping Gabe alive is hard enough. I don’t need to worry about you, too.”
I snap my head toward him. “I’ve kept myself alive this long just fine, but thanks for patronizing me.”
Tommy grips the steering wheel with white knuckles. When he doesn’t apologize, I crawl out of my seat. “I’m going in the back. Wake me when you want to be civilized.”
I climb over the center armrest and into the empty back. It gets very dark back here without the moonlight from the windshield. As the van rocks, I crawl forward, feeling with my hands until I land on something soft.
“Couldn’t take his self-righteousness anymore?” a voice in the dark whispers.
“Gabe.” I lean into the side of the van, afraid to go any further for fear of touching him somewhere that’ll make us both very embarrassed.
“Tommy means well.” Gabe shifts in the dark. His warmth moves closer.
“I know he feels like he has to protect everyone, but he doesn’t have to be such a jerk while doing it.”
Gabe chuckles. “I think that’s the part he enjoys.”
His shoulder brushes mine as he sits beside me. We rock with the movement of the road, swaying in time with the gentle rumble of the pavement.
Fingers brush my cheek, and I freeze. Gabe’s voice sounds much closer when he speaks. “Thank you for saving him today,” he whispers. “I know you did it for me, and I’m eternally grateful.”
His voice purrs quietly. Gentle puffs of his breath trace down my bare cheek. My heart is a hummingbird trapped in my chest. The heat of his body and his fingertips on my cheek make it impossible to say much of anything.
Gentle fingertips trace a circle on my cheek. “You have such a big heart, Janine. ‘A mind at peace with all below, a heart whose love is innocent.’”
“That’s beautiful,” I say. “Shakespeare?”
“Lord Byron,” he responds. “It suits you.” His hand cups my chin.
When his lips find mine in the darkness, I can’t believe it. I can’t believ
e the soft, subtle brush of his mouth skimming mine. His breath tickles my mouth. The hand that was on my cheek runs through my hair. His lips press in, flesh on flesh. He smells like peppermint. Kissing him feels like flying, like a live wire is pressing itself to my skin and electrifying my bones, my hair, my heart with pulses of heat and yearning.
I lean forward, but his lips slip away. The hand that was in my hair drops off, too. It wasn’t enough, just a whisper of a kiss. I want more, but the more I lean, the farther I feel him slipping.
“That was nice,” he says quietly. “I’m going to get some rest now.”
I sit completely still and listen as he stretches out on the van floor.
What just happened? Did I kiss him wrong? Did my breath smell? I pull my knees to my chest and hug them. If Gabe liked the kiss, he wouldn’t have stopped there, right? Is he respecting my space? I don’t want space. At least, not this much space.
After sitting awkwardly in the dark for a while, I crawl back over the armrest and into the passenger seat.
Tommy gives me a quiet nod. If he heard anything that we said or did, he doesn’t mention it. He points to the ominous buildings growing in the distance.
“Get ready,” he says. “We’re here.”
The hospital rises off the road like the beacon it was meant to be. The two-story structure with large glass windows looks like a boxer who’s gone too many rounds. Jagged glass teeth hang from window casings. Shredded white curtains lilt in the breeze. An ambulance on its back like an overturned turtle blocks one of the main entrances. As we cruise by, a feeling of unease settles over me. Most of the first-floor doors and windows are boarded up or barricaded with metal sheeting. Bullet holes pock the brick next to the “Presbyterian Española Hospital” sign. A mound of trash near the entrance looks like a body.
I shift nervously in my seat. “We should’ve come in the daylight.”
A pressure on my headrest makes me turn. Gabe is leaning forward for the view. “At least it looks like nobody’s home.”
Tommy sniffs. “Just their explosives are.”
Gabe’s gaze follows an abandoned car husk as we drive past. “The traps might just be rumors.”