by Rowan Massey
I ran to him, and the closer I got, the more he looked like he might shoot me for it. He came towards me in wide strides that seemed to cross twice the distance he should be capable of. He grabbed onto my arm so hard it hurt, and I couldn’t help trying to pull away from the pain. We were heading back to the back door, so I ran like he wanted, towards the exit. He kept his grip on my arm until we were outside and he pushed me towards the fence.
“Go home,” he barked.
“There’s a bomb,” I said, and just then, I saw the Ten Block men coming around the corner opposite from the one I’d come from. They ignored us, sticking their bombs to the walls.
Nando’s eyes widened when I didn’t think they could get any wider, and he grabbed me again. We ran to the fence. There was an opening, and we scrambled through easily, running like bats out of hell. We made it past the building that was behind Red House, but Nando stopped, looking back at the club.
“Nando! Let’s go!” I screamed.
He turned to me with the determined look of a man, not a boy; not the boy who had been the first to want me, who had cuddled me every night, given me my first home, and who had given me something like love.
Before he could answer, Red House blew. The noise and heat was incredible, like nothing I could have imagined. Chunks of the building flew into the sky and over the building in front of us. I hit the ground, but it was from shock, from trying to get away and being too clumsy and blinded. Nando was still standing, his arms up to protect his head. I turned my back to the explosion and covered my own head. There were only little bits of stuff falling on my back. When it was over, I got on my knees and stared at the high flames. From what I could see of Red House’s roof, half the place had collapsed, but some walls were still up.
My arm reached out for Nando, and he took my hand, squeezing it. He looked more like himself for a moment, showing the shock I felt. His gun was on the ground. He stood staring down at me. His eyes blinked, and for just one second, I saw his worry. Worry for me, but worry for himself too.
But the manly warrior came back fast. Nando was fierce again, just like that.
“I have to see if anyone survived,” he told me. “I know where to get a bigger gun. We have to kill those Ten Block assholes.”
“Just come home with me,” I said. “We’ll tell them you were too hurt.”
He gave me a look of surprise and disgust.
“Don’t be fucking stupid. Go find Spitz and go home together,” he said. It was an order.
He picked up his gun and pulled me to my feet. With the smoke of the fire washing over us, he gave me a quick, but hard kiss, and turned to march down the street.
Thank god I’d had my phone in my pocket and not my pack, but as I made my way home next to other survivors, some of them bleeding, others collapsed on the street, I couldn’t get ahold of Spitz. He wasn’t answering my texts and calls. What did that mean?
I knew he would head straight for Fiona, so I went down the street I knew their rented room was on. Since I didn’t know which exact building, but that it was close by, I went door to door, knowing I looked like hell, asking people if my friends were there. After being told no at eight doors, I got the right one.
“Yeah,” a pale, pudgy man told me, “follow me.”
He led me down the narrow hall of a townhouse. It was nothing like Doc’s townhouse. There were people staying in every room, even rooms meant to be living rooms or the kitchen. They had cage apartments; basically cages built out of any old thing for them to sleep in safely and keep their stuff in. I’d thought that Spitz and Fiona were sharing a room in a normal house, not a place like this.
The stairs were creaky, patched up in two places, and steep. He knocked on a white door and shouted Fiona’s name, then walked away. She opened the door just a crack and spotted me.
“Hey!” she whispered, and tiptoed out of the room into the hall. “That asshole woke them up. I wasn’t asleep though. It’s hard to sleep without…Spitz.”
She was looking me up and down, noticing that I was covered in dirt and ash, smelling like smoke. She looked me in the eyes and we stared at each other, me feeling like I couldn’t blink, her probably scared shitless to ask.
“There was a…” I started, but my throat was dry, lungs still feeling smoky. “An explosion. At Red House. I went to find Nando, and…and I…”
I held the phone out to her, and she grabbed it and turned it on, poking at the screen to see the messages I’d sent and phone calls I’d made. She called Spitz again anyway. There was no answer for her either. We both stood there frozen, saying nothing.
“Let’s go find him,” she said. “I know the corners he goes to. Let’s go. I’ll get my shoes and jacket.”
I nodded, took my phone back from her, and stood in the hall, swaying and dazed. Nando was at a battle again, and who knew what he’d be like when he came back. Spitz was missing, and he’d just joined up with Dread Red. What if…
Fiona came back out with her pack on. I’d never seen her so worried and serious, not even after her miscarriage. She wasn’t crying, but I knew she wanted to freak out. We were both staying calm instead.
Back down through the house and into the streets, we hurried through town, corner to corner, finding no hookers, no bangers, and no Spitz. After searching for an hour or so, we sat on a stoop for a rest.
“We should go back to our place,” she said. “We probably just missed him.”
“He must have lost his phone or run down the battery,” I said, trying to sound optimistic too. We’d been messaging him when we reached each corner and had gotten nothing.
“I wish we could watch a TV,” she said, looking around as if we could find one laying on the street. “This has to be on the news.”
“I can smell the smoke still. It blew all over town,” I said.
“No, it’s just on your clothes,” she said.
Feeling dumb, I sniffed my sleeves. She was right.
“Nando almost blew up in there,” I told her, covering my face and rubbing my burning eyes. “The only reason he came out was because I went in to get him. As soon as we got to the street, it blew up right behind us.”
“Oh my god, Wally.” Fiona put her arm around me and kissed my cheek. “Where is he now?”
“Fighting. Killing.”
She rubbed my back and didn’t answer for a while. We were both thinking the same thing: what if they’d made Spitz fight too?
“Back to your place,” I said, standing up and shaking it off so that I wouldn’t stop hoping. “We’ll find a TV too.”
So we kept walking, texting, calling. There was almost nobody on the streets. All the shops had closed down, even though things usually stayed open all night for Red House partiers.
Inside the townhouse, everyone was awake and watching TV on their tablets or talking on their phones. When we got to Spitz and Fiona’s room, their roommates were awake and said hello to us, but they were focused on the small TV they had on a table. They were a middle aged couple sitting in their pajamas on a double bed against one wall. Another bed was against the opposite wall, and Fiona went and sat on it. I joined her, and we all four watched the news in silence. The newswoman was just stating the obvious. Ten Block had broken through the border and blown up Red House. Now they were shooting and bombing their way back out of the city, or trying to. There were a lot of fires and people missing or dead.
Fiona was focused on the screen, but I couldn’t stop looking over at her. Spitz wasn’t home. He wasn’t on the job. We weren’t talking about it. But I figured she couldn’t let herself think about it. I let her watch the news without trying to talk to her, but the newswoman was just repeating herself after a while, and saying that our mayor had things under control.
I took Fiona’s hand from her lap, and it triggered something in her. Her face crumpled, but she was still staring at the screen.
“Fiona,” I said softly. “We have to do something.”
The couple across the
room looked at us, but didn’t butt in with questions.
“What can we do?” she whimpered.
I took my phone out, but I wasn’t going to try to call Spitz again. There was only one person to call, even though it was past three in the morning.
After giving Fiona a tight squeeze and patting her tangled hair, I told her I’d be right back and went out into the hallway. Other people were hanging out in their doorways to talk about everything. I ignored them and dialed the doc.
“Wally,” he said when he answered. “What time is it? Never mind. I just arrived in New York. I have an urgent medical case I have to take on, so you’ll need to take care of the lab and the mice while I’m gone. Can you do that?”
Thrown off, I opened my mouth but didn’t find the words.
“Wally?”
“Y-yes. I—”
“Great. Just go to my house and one of my security guys will give you the keys to the place. I already arranged it with them. Get some sleep. I laid out some instructions for things we need to order and send out over the next few days. I won’t be able to put any time into the usual things, so I’m depending on you.”
My chest felt hollow. What was he talking about? Medical case? I needed help. But I choked up and said what he wanted to hear.
“Yes. I’ll do it,” I said, my head feeling fuzzy. “You should watch the news. There was a bombing…”
“A bombing? Where?” He sounded distracted. I could hear him typing on a keyboard.
“Red House.”
The typing stopped. “I’ll take a look at it. You’ll be alright where Nando lives. And I assume he’s out there, but he’ll be fine. I’m sorry I’m not there, but I have to be here right now. I’m trying to save someone’s life. A friend.”
“Oh, okay.” Alright, so he had a real emergency in Manhattan. He couldn’t help me anyway.
“I have to go Wally,” he said, typing again. “Call me if you need anything, but I’m sure it will be alright in a few days.”
“Yeah. Good luck with the friend.”
“Thank you,” he sighed. “You’re a good kid, you know that? Go get some sleep.”
I said I would, and we hung up. For a minute, I stood leaning against the wall, half listening to the worries of Fiona’s neighbors in the hallway while I thought hard about our next move. But there was no move to make. Short of finding a big gun for myself and going to battle like everyone else, I was useless.
Fiona needed me. That was the only way I’d be useful. Spitz would want me to stay with her. I quietly let myself back into the room and went and sat next to her on the bed. She had laid down and was hugging a pillow. I took my boots and jacket off and crawled around her and sat against the wall. The woman was giving me looks out of the corner of her eye, but neither of them said anything. I rubbed Fiona’s arm. She held her hand out to me, and I knew she wanted the phone. I gave it to her and let her hold onto it and check it every few minutes even though it hadn’t chimed or rung. The newscast was still repeating itself, so I laid down with my back pressed to the wall and closed my eyes.
My body still felt like it was buzzing from everything that was happening, especially from seeing that explosion. My ears were still slightly ringing from the blast. I wanted my mind to rest because I knew there was nothing I could do, only wait, but my mind was echoing two names at me.
Spitz. Nando. Spitz. Nando.
The TV got turned off, and I dozed, but kept jerking awake, fire raging behind my eyelids. Fiona tugged on the blanket underneath us. I shifted around so she could get wrapped up in it, leaving a corner of it for me. Having her there wasn’t anything like having Spitz or Nando, and guiltily, I would have preferred to be next to Spitz if I had a choice between the two, but it was still comforting. I slept after that, my dreams wild and desperate.
I woke up because I thought I heard the phone chime. A text. But I wasn’t sure. I might have dreamed it. Fiona didn’t have the phone in her hand when I pulled back the blanket to find it. She was fast asleep. I felt around under the blankets, and then spotted it on the floor.
Scrambling to pick it up and see, I fell out of the bed, making a thump that woke Fiona and the other two. I didn’t care. I sat on the floor and checked the phone, hands almost shaking.
Doc: Go to my house and get the keys early. You’ll get an address to my safe house. Go there quickly. Let yourself in and go down to the basement where you’ll find a security door. The key will let you into a tunnel that leads to a bunker. Please take a look at the supplies and make sure the electricity and water is functioning.
Doc: Wait in the house above the bunker until a boy named Jace and his friend arrive. He’s sick and this is an emergency. Please go right now.
Fiona was next to me, looking over my shoulder, reading with a confused look on her face. I felt like screaming into the screen.
My boyfriend and best friend are out there fighting a battle, and you want me to keep working like nothing’s going on! Fuck you!
I was squeezing the phone in my hand, so frustrated I wanted to break it.
“Don’t take the phone with you,” Fiona said. “Please. I need it.”
“I need it too!” I snapped. “He’s my best friend!”
The look on her face made me go limp, hating myself.
“I didn’t mean…” I muttered, and rubbed my eyes.
The man sat up in bed to glare at us.
“Sorry,” Fiona said to him, and took my hand, pulling me up off the floor to leave the room and talk.
In the hall, I stared at the text, Fiona standing in front of me with her arms crossed and her head down.
“If you don’t leave it with me, I’m going with you,” she said. She was telling, not asking. In a way, I was glad she still had her usual strong attitude.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “Keep it. I’ll be right back anyway, then maybe we can ask around about Spitz…or something.” We had to keep looking. I didn’t care where.
“Ask who? There’s nobody that…” her eyes looked off into space. She had an idea. “The hookers. Maybe they would know. He would have been with some of them when it happened.”
“We wouldn’t know where to find them,” I said, shaking my head.
“No, he told me they all live in the same place. I know where it is.” Her eyes brightened, and she actually smiled at me.
I blinked at her. “Why the fuck didn’t you think of that last night?” I asked. God, I was being a dick.
She looked hurt, angry, and pushed me out of the way to go back into the bedroom.
“I’m going right now,” she said. “With or without the phone.”
“Just let me text him back first,” I said, just before she closed the door in my face.
Wally: Ok Im going
Doc: Thanks. You’re doing a great job. Show them around the place and make sure they have everything they need.
Wally: Ok
He hadn’t mentioned how he was going to pay me while he was away. He knew my boyfriend—whether Doc liked him or not—was in danger, but he wasn’t even asking how I was doing or if Nando was back. He was obsessed with his work, as usual. I couldn’t lie to myself. It was hurtful.
Fiona came back wearing her pack and holding out my boots and jacket. I put them on while she waited, running my hand over the big safety pin still stuck to my hoodie, and then handed her the phone.
She took it and didn’t say anything, but her expression said a lot.
“Can you ask the doc for another phone?” she asked.
“No…but I could steal one,” I said carefully. I didn’t want to steal from Doc, but he was being a dick. I would look around the place for one.
Fiona jumped on the idea and got out some paper and a pencil to write down the two phone numbers for me.
“Call me as soon as you get a phone,” she said. “And we have to meet up right away as soon as you’re done with this stuff with Doc.”
“Definitely. I’m not going to do any work besid
es feed the mice and show these people whatever this bunker place is. Let’s meet back here.”
She agreed, and we left the building side by side. The cart was in a nearby alley, locked up with two big chains. Neither of us had thought of it on our search for Spitz. We’d been too worried to think straight.
I did the pedaling, and we went in the same direction for a while. She sat in the cart facing me, sitting as close to me as possible, as if afraid we’d lose each other too.
When we needed to separate, we hugged and kissed cheeks first, and I said I was sorry for being mean earlier. She forgave me, so I felt better while I watched her pedaling the cart down the street alone.
Doc’s house wasn’t far. I spent my time walking worrying and picturing fucked up, gory scenes. Feeling shaken up by my imagination by the time I got there, I jumped and almost yelled when one of Doc’s guards stepped out in front of me before I got to the townhouse.
“You alright?” he asked, looking me up and down.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Do you have the keys or whatever?”
He took a big set of keys from his pocket.
“I’ll tell you the address. Memorize it. It’s highly sensitive information that you have to keep to yourself at all costs,” he said very seriously, looking down at me like I was a child who didn’t deserve to know the address.
Sure. Of course it was something intense. Everything with Doc was super important.
He told me the address, and I quickly memorized it. Before he turned to go, I stopped him.
“Do you know how Doc is planning to pay me while he’s away, since he wants me to keep working?” I asked.
“I’ll handle it later,” he said casually, and walked away.
His treating me like I didn’t matter made me even more angry and tense. I found the house in twenty minutes with no problem. I’d walked past the street before. It was in the same fancy neighborhood as Doc’s other house. It was another perfect, big townhouse. The guy hadn’t told me what keys were which, so I had to stand there forever, trying every key that looked like it might fit. If anyone was paying attention, I probably looked suspicious, but I got in eventually.