by Jackson Ford
“Hey.” Nic’s voice is slurred, mushy.
“Annie!” I shout.
Annie doesn’t hear us, or doesn’t care. She drops to her knees, straddling Minnie’s body, and starts punching.
You never want to take a punch from Annie Cruz. Minnie’s face just… disintegrates. He tries to push Annie off, but he may as well be trying to lift a car. Each hit sounds like a watermelon being dropped onto concrete.
And throughout the assault, Annie doesn’t say a thing. Not a word.
Nic gets there before I do, but it’s only when I jump in to help that we pull Annie off – and even then, it takes every ounce of strength we have. Minnie has passed out, which is good, because his face looks like it’s been forced through a meat grinder.
Annie is crazy strong, twisting in our arms. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t even look at us. It’s only after I get in front of her and make her eyes meet mine that she starts slowing down, like a wind-up toy running out of juice.
“It’s OK,” I say. “You’re OK.”
Her shoulders rise and fall, rise and fall. She blinks… and then wraps me in a huge hug. The kind of hug that crushes the air from your lungs.
“I thought you were…” She trails off, buries her face in the top of my head, taking a shaky, trembling breath.
Then, abruptly, she lets go, leaving me gasping for air and wondering what the hell just happened. I was expecting her to say, Hi, thank you, good to see you. I wasn’t expecting… whatever that was. She hugged me as if I would vanish if she didn’t.
When I look up, she’s staring daggers at the unconscious Minnie.
A hand on my shoulder. Nic, pulling me into a hug of his own. It feels really freaking good. Like we never argued. Like this was how it was meant to be.
After a long moment, he squeezes, and releases. I have to fight the urge to keep holding on.
I keep an ear open for any running footsteps, any other bikers coming to check what all the fuss is about. There’s nothing. Just the steady patter of the rain outside the depot, the occasional rumble of thunder.
Guess I was right. This group, plus Pop’s goons, equals most of the bikers.
“Leo?” I ask.
“They took him that way.” Nic points over my shoulder, towards the north-west corner of the depot.
“They say what they want with him?”
He shakes his head. I can’t help but glance down at Minnie – or what’s left of him. He might have been able to lead us to Leo. Christ, if only Annie hadn’t…
I bite down on the thought. That’s not going to help anybody right now.
Together, we make our way over to the far wall. I take the lead, using the little PK I have left to scan for any enemies. None appear. Even when we get to a door leading to the main corridor that joins all the offices, there’s no one around. This section of the building is identical to the one I escaped from: same grimy corridor, same flickering fluorescents.
The little spurt of adrenaline I felt is fading fast, another microsleep dancing at the edges of my mind. I bite my lip, using the jolt of pain to focus. It works for about half a second, and then my thoughts run away from me. I can’t do a thing to stop them.
It’s only when Nic grabs me that I realise I’m about to walk right into a wall. “Easy,” he says, pulling me upright. “You OK?”
“Nothing a few thousand hours of sleep won’t… Hold up, what is that?”
“What?” Annie says.
I close my eyes, listening hard. Yeah, there it is again. It’s laughter.
A child’s laughter
Nic and Annie have picked up on it. They push past me, a new urgency to their movements. I hustle to keep up.
I’m still alert for the appearance of any more bikers. I am very much running on empty, and I’m not sure I have what it takes to deal with another group of them – even with Nic and Annie backing me up. But as we make our way through the office area, following the sporadic laughter, none appear. This place is deserted.
It doesn’t take us long to find the source of the laughter. It’s coming from behind a closed door on the second floor of the office area. There are grandiose gold letters on the door, now faded and chipped: ACCOUNTING AND RECEIVING. There’s a small window set above them, but it’s got a blind pulled down behind it on the other side.
I find Nic’s eyes. He flicks them at the door, and the meaning is clear. Anybody we have to worry about?
I concentrate, scanning the room with my PK. There are no guns in the room, nothing like that. There’s plenty of stuff in there… but it’s not what I expected. The shapes are unfamiliar. I run my mind over them, trying to understand what I’m feeling. Metal rods, bending in strange ways. What feels like a blackboard, or an easel. And is that a… plastic toy plane?
At that moment, there’s a delighted, childish shriek from behind the door. A little girl’s shriek.
Whoever was speaking in the low voice raises it. “Anastasia! Silencio, por favor, ya te dije. OK?”
In response, there’s more laughter. From other children.
What the hell?
Slowly, very slowly, I open the door.
THIRTY-THREE
Teagan
There are children there. Obviously.
And not just one or two. A good twenty of them. The youngest looks about three, and I’d put the oldest at maybe six.
The room itself used to be an office, a place where accounts would be accounted. It’s been transformed into a classroom by someone on a real budget. There’s a pile of hand-me-down children’s toys in one corner; the metal frame I felt was one of those gizmos where you move beads along a curved, looping track. A stack of puzzle boxes and books sits next to the toys, along with a couple of thick foam mats. There’s no blackboard – just an easel with a thick pad of plus-sized paper hanging from it.
The kids are sitting on the floor, cross-legged, giggling at something. In front of them is a middle-aged woman with a messy ponytail, dressed in jeans and a green zip-up hoodie. She’s holding a book – one of the Captain Underpants stories.
And in the middle of the group of kids: Leo.
His black hair is messy, sticking up in all directions. There’s a giant grin on his face, a grin which turns to laughter as one of the other kids pokes him in the ribs. His arms are still twitching – something which doesn’t seem to bother the other children – but he’s awake. Alive.
The woman in front turns to look at us, her eyes going wide. One by one, the kids follow her gaze, all of them going silent as they spot us framed in the doorway.
Leo is one of the last to notice. When he does, his whole face lights up. “Nic!” He tries to get to his feet, but his legs aren’t working right. His left eye has started to twitch, too, jumping and spasming.
Annie strides into the room. She grabs the woman by the hoodie, and slams her against the wall, ignoring the children’s screams.
The woman shakes her head frantically, trying to twist away. Annie won’t let her, jamming a forearm against her throat. She cocks back an arm, fist clenched. Her knuckles are already caked in blood. Apparently, beating Minnie to a pulp didn’t do enough to drain off her anger.
Nic and I sprint after Annie, yelling at her to stop. I don’t know what’s going on here either – I’m just as confused as everyone else. But it isn’t some kind of kiddie torture chamber. I have no idea why there’s a school or a daycare or whatever the fuck this is inside a biker hideout, but these kids clearly aren’t in immediate danger.
This has been the roughest of rough days, but somehow, Nic and I have mostly managed to keep it together. Annie… it’s like she’s wandered off the edge of the map. Like her pain has taken her somewhere the rest of us can’t go. She’s reacting to everything like it’s a threat, meeting every situation with raw emotion.
“No.” Leo is still trying to get to his feet, helped by one of the other kids, a little girl with cornrows. “She’s nice! Don’t hurt her!”
Nic gets to
Annie first, jamming his hands in between her and the woman. I have to stop two of the kids in the front row, stepping into their path. “Chill,” Nic is saying to Annie. “Just chill, all right?”
Annie grunts, like she’s been punched. Then abruptly, she lets go of the terrified woman, stepping back. She turns away, hands laced against the back of her head, shoulders heaving.
By now, at least half the kids are pushing past me – there’s no way I can stop them all. They get between Nic and the woman, shoving him away, yelling at him to stop even though he hasn’t touched her. Some of the other children are sobbing, the rest staring open-mouthed at us. The noise builds and builds, filling the room.
“Hey!” Nic yells, making me jump.
It’s loud and sharp enough to stop the kids shouting. As they simmer down, he levels a finger at the terrified woman. “Start talking. What is this?”
“We’re just reading,” one of the bigger kids says.
“Yeah,” says another. “Go away.”
“Why are there children here?” I say to the woman. “Who are you?”
She swallows, starts speaking very fast. “Lo siento, soy Gabriela Garcia, solo estoy aquí para enseñar a los niños—”
Annie snaps her head around, still looking venomous. The teacher – if that’s what she is – actually flinches.
“¿De dónde vienen?” Annie says. “¿Qué hacen éstos aquí?”
They go back and forth in rapid Spanish for a few moments, then Annie turns to us. “These kids lost their parents in the quake. Or they’re Dreamers.”
“What?” I ask.
“Children of immigrants. Mexican, Salvadoran, Haitian. She says Pop came to her, asked her to help out, teach the kids.”
“She was reading to us,” Leo says.
The woman’s fear gets the better of her. She dissolves into hacking sobs, burying her face in her hands.
It starts the kids off again. Several of the bolder ones get right in Annie’s face, even try and push her. The room fills with angry little voices.
Somehow, Leo – with the help of the little girl holding him up – manages to squirm his way to the front, between Annie and the others. He turns to face them, a determined look on his face. “No, guys! They’re my friends!”
Annie looks down at him, blinking in astonishment.
Leo’s bravery doesn’t seem to help matters. The bigger kids step around him, continuing to yell at Annie. Shit, if we don’t calm them down soon, the noise might bring some more goons…
“Tranquilo,” Annie says. “¡No vamos a lastimar a tu maestro!”
We’re not going to hurt your teacher. I think. Annie keeps talking, patting the air, raising her voice over Leo, who is still trying to get a word in edgeways. And slowly, the mob of kids quietens down, although they still look restless.
Pop’s words, coming back to me. After the Big One, here in LA – you think the US government treats people fairly? They don’t give a shit. They never have… Me and my brothers – we do way more than the government ever will.
It doesn’t make sense. Pop and her brothers sell drugs. Weapons. They’re a fucking cancer, a tumour worming its way through my city. They came in here to take advantage after the quake, to make money, not to help kids.
The woman is lying, she has to be. Whatever Pop has planned for these kids, it’s not good. Human trafficking is definitely a thing – maybe she’s planning to sell them to factories, or…
Except: what possible reason could Pop have to set up a classroom like this? To bring in – let’s not sugar-coat this – a school teacher? If she wanted to put these kids to work as some kind of fucked-up slave labour, she wouldn’t be spending time getting someone to read to them.
“Solo intentábamos ayudar,” the sobbing woman says. Then: “We were just trying to help. Please.”
“Annie,” I say. “Watch the door.”
No response. Annie is taking deep, steady breaths.
“Annie. Watch the damn door. Now.”
She glances at me, her expression unreadable. She takes a quick look at Leo, then does as I ask, heading over and poking her head out into the corridor. I cross over to Nic, threading my way through the kids, most of whom are giving me confused, wounded looks.
“What did we just walk into?” I mutter to Nic when I reach him.
“I mean…” He bites his lip. “It’s possible. Nobody says these biker dudes can’t help a bunch of kids if they want.”
“But they… they sell guns, Nic. Like, actual assault rifles. Why would they…?”
But I’m starting to understand.
You’re probably shocked to hear this, but I listen to a lot of hip-hop. Rappers idolise drug dealers – hell, some of them even steal their names. Rick Ross, Noreaga, Freeway. Rae from Wu-Tang. You can’t listen to rap without getting to know a little bit about the people these artists took their names from. The dealers. The hustlers. The real-life bad guys.
Those same bad guys gave out free turkeys on Thanksgiving, used their profits to build community centres, paid rent for struggling friends and relatives, coached youth basketball teams. They’d spend the day flooding the streets with dope, and then head on over to the local church to help out at the homeless soup kitchen. Part of it was about image, sure… but not all of it.
Who’s to say Pop isn’t the same? Who’s to say she doesn’t see herself as the hero here? The woman getting these kids off the streets, helping them out when the government won’t. Can she really justify doing that, while turning around and selling guns and drugs to everybody else?
It doesn’t matter whether she can justify it or not. In her mind, it’s totally fine.
“Nic,” I say quietly. “Go get Leo.”
He gives me a worried look, then makes his way over. Leo holds out his arms eagerly, and he doesn’t catch Nic’s slight hesitation, the same look on his face that he had when we were coming down from the stadium – like he’s being asked to carry a bomb. But all the same, he scoops the kid up.
“What do we do with the rest?” I say.
Nic looks over Leo’s shoulder at me. “What do you mean, what do we do?”
“About the kids. About… whatever this is.”
“Teags – we don’t have to do anything. We just take Leo and go.”
“We can’t just leave them!”
“Why not?” He nods to the woman. “They’re supervised. Annie did a number on her, but she’s OK.”
There must still be some worry in my expression, because his own softens. “Look, I know we don’t always agree on this stuff, but there’s nothing we can do for these kids. We can’t take them with us.”
He’s right. Of course he is. He might not have handled the situation with Africa at Dodger Stadium well, but he’s still one of the sharpest people I know.
He hefts Leo, adjusting the boy’s position in his arms. “We can find Leo’s dad. We can do that much. Right, buddy?”
“I don’t wanna go,” Leo says.
“I know, my man. But we can’t stick around for ever.”
“I wanna hear the rest of the story!”
I bite my lip. We don’t have time for this. Any second now, Pop’s goons are going to burst through the door.
I’m expecting the kids to protest as we take Leo away, maybe to demand the return of their friend. They just watch us, clustered around the still-sobbing Gabriela Garcia.
I didn’t really look at them before, but I’m doing it now. And what I see is trauma.
I’ve been around it enough to know the look, even in little kids. There’s a coldness in the eyes, a mistrust. A way of standing, with slightly hunched shoulders, as if bracing for a hit. These kids… they’ve all been through something. And here we come, busting into their one safe space, taking their friend away.
It’s not like that. Stop it.
All the same, I can’t help turning to the teacher and saying, “I’m… we’re real sorry.”
“Just go. Please.”
&nbs
p; I put an arm around Annie’s waist. She resists me for a second, then follows.
I’ll come back for these kids, when this is all over. Make sure they don’t have to live in abandoned train depot/drug den. I’ll get the authorities involved – somehow – make sure the kids can… can…
Can what? Go into foster care? Be placed with new parents? Do I even have the right to make that decision? And if I do, do I actually trust the US government to do it properly?
I have no idea.
We head back into the main part of the depot in silence. I scan for anybody approaching, but there’s nobody. We pick our way between the trains, hopping over the disused railway sleepers. A sudden surge of guilt – should we call an ambulance or something for the bikers I beat to shit? I could use Minnie’s phone. But what if Reggie… what if she’s monitoring 911 calls?
Fuck me, what a day.
Amazingly, this place has exit signs. We end up slipping out on the west side of the building, into what used to be an employee parking lot. It’s raining more heavily now, dots of chilly rain spattering my skin.
There are no cars there. Instead, there’s a messy line of Harleys – or whatever type of bikes theses jackasses ride – lined up against the fence. This time, there is a biker standing guard, a youngish dude sitting on one of the bike seats. How did he not hear all the shit that went down in the depot? But he’s nodding to himself, and there are white dots in his ears. AirPods. This idiot is listening to music. He hasn’t even heard us approach.
I don’t give him a chance to cause us trouble. I grab his pistol out of his waistband, wave it in front of his face. He’s so startled he actually falls off the bike, landing ass-first on the concrete. I root around in his pockets with my PK, which makes him squirm even more – trust me, having someone use their mind to investigate the area close to your genitals can be quite startling. His cellphone pops out, along with a metal money clip, and a set of bike keys. Those could be handy. Seeing the cellphone makes me realise that I still have Minnie’s, jammed into my pocket. I debate throwing it out, but fuck it: it could be useful.