2 Degrees

by Bev Prescott

  Eve put a hand to Sharon’s shoulder. “Dr. Ryan won’t mind one less apple. Let’s give the boy one.”

  “We can’t risk it.” Sharon faced Eve, hoping to connect them to the same purpose of moving on without looking back. “The deal with Dr. Ryan is our apples for your cancer treatments. Plus, one boy isn’t worth losing our apple tree over.”

  “He can’t be more than ten,” Eve repeated. She put a finger beneath Sharon’s chin and lifted her head. “There’s no way he’s ever seen an apple. He won’t know what it is. Just one.”

  “Silahkan.” The boy put his hands together as if to pray. “Please.”

  Eve tilted her head. “What are we if we don’t?”

  “Alive,” Sharon sighed.

  Eve caressed the boy’s head like a protective mother. “There has to be more to us than alive.”

  Sharon searched Eve’s expression for a way to deny her the act of kindness. But kindness was Eve. The line between protecting her and not becoming the weed that choked the compassion from Eve was one Sharon stumbled around, trying not to cross. “I hope we don’t end up regretting this.” She reached for her bag’s clasp. “Just one apple.”

  Angry voices echoed through the dimly lit street. Sharon wheeled around.

  Two men stormed toward them. The taller of the two pulled a long knife from a sheath on his hip. “There’s the little fuck that stole my jacket.”

  Sharon slid in front of Eve.

  The one carrying the knife grabbed the boy and shook him. “I’m going to cut your fingers off.” The man jostled the boy hard. “You won’t ever steal a goddamned thing from me again.”

  “Please.” The boy tried to wriggle from his grasp. “Please.” He started to cry.

  The man put the knife to the boy’s neck. “You’re dead, little mutant.”

  “Leave him alone,” Eve ordered.

  The two men turned their attention to Sharon, Eve behind her.

  Sharon stood straight. Making herself taller, she warned, “Touch him, and I’ll take your head off.”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?” The shorter of the two men took a step toward Sharon. A crocodile with a gaping saw-toothed mouth was tattooed in the center of his forehead.

  To Eve Sharon said, “Go to Dr. Ryan’s for help.”

  The tall man with the knife shoved the boy to the ground and faced Eve. “You just fucked up. You bitch.” He pointed the knife at her. “Get that Chinese dumpling before she runs away.”

  Crocodile-man laughed and went after Eve, who had already stumbled.

  “No.” Sharon lunged at him. Her claw hammer was concealed in its baldric beneath her jacket.

  The tall man sheathed his knife, gripped Sharon by the shoulders with his thick arms and slammed her into the dumpster. The blow stole her breath. She shook her head and got to her feet.

  Eve’s screams echoed in the enclosed space as Crocodile-man grasped the scarf at her neck. He yanked her to him, and laughed as she kicked and flailed.

  “A feisty Chinese dumpling.” The tall man with the knife grinned. “Let’s have us some fun.” He nodded at the man who held Eve against her will. “What do you think?”

  “I’m always hungry for a good time.” Crocodile-man chomped his teeth at Eve.

  The voices and screams around Sharon receded as her anger bloomed. She welcomed the way rage focused her while it bubbled like lava in her belly before exploding without warning. It helped quell the fear that threatened to suck the air from her lungs. She felt its heat snake in through the soles of her feet, up her legs, and down her arm into her hammer at her side.

  Her eyes locked on the eyes of the man with the knife.

  “Get on your knees,” he ordered.

  She winced at Eve’s cries and complied. The cold, crumbling concrete cut into the thin cloth of her threadbare dungarees. Submission gave her the edge. The icy steel of her hammer against her gave her confidence.

  The man with the knife grabbed a handful of her hair and tilted her head up. “What are you?” He ran the dull side of the knife blade from her chin down to her neck. “You’re not quite white, brown, or yellow. I like to know who I’m fucking before I fuck her.”

  “Do what you want to me, but let her go.” Sharon kept her voice steady.

  The man slapped her hard in the face. “You answer me.”

  The sting made her eyes water. “I’m no one.” Through the blurriness she noticed the boy curled in a little ball behind the man. The expression on his face matched the familiar one that Eve was wearing. Empathy.

  The boy mouthed the word, please. Then he dove into the back of the man’s legs, cutting his knees out from under him.

  “Fuck!” The man landed on all fours as the knife bounced from his hand.

  In that split-second, Sharon pulled her hammer from its baldric and said, “Hey, asshole.”

  As the man raised his head, she swung her hammer into his jaw. Bone crackled and blood exploded from the jagged cuts in his flesh. She yanked the tool from his face as he grunted and stumbled back.

  She turned to the man holding Eve. “I fucking said let her go.”

  “I don’t think so.” Crocodile-man squeezed Eve’s neck in the crook of his elbow. Eve gasped and struggled against him, but he was cutting off her oxygen.

  “Then I’ll kill you.” Sharon bumped the clawed end of her hammer against her thigh.

  Crocodile-man shoved Eve to the ground. “Come get me, rodent.”

  The zap of a spectraletto sliced through the commotion just as Crocodile-man lunged at Sharon. She sidestepped fast, and his body collapsed at her feet. A dark red stain spread over the back of his shredded shirt. The shirt itself was blackened and still smoking from the white-hot heat of a laser strike.

  Eve caught her breath, then screamed. Sharon’s eyes followed her. Three heavily armed soldiers advanced on them, blocking their escape. One of them kicked the body of Crocodile-man as he holstered his handheld spectraletto. A second soldier hoisted Eve to her feet.

  “No.” Sharon charged the soldier holding Eve. The soldier who’d holstered his weapon slipped a black bag over Eve’s head.

  “Stop!” A third soldier with a sergeant’s insignia on his helmet pointed his weapon at Sharon’s chest. His stark white skin contrasted with black hair and a large birthmark on his left cheek. “Drop that hammer and don’t move.”

  The hammer fell from Sharon’s hand. The sharp ping of it hitting concrete reverberated around the stone walls. “She’s done nothing wrong,” she protested, and put her hands up in surrender. “Please, she’s done nothing wrong.”

  Eve slumped against the soldier gripping her.

  “I’m begging you, let her go.” Sharon eased closer to the sergeant, who kept the barrel of his weapon pointed at her chest. “What could you possibly want with an innocent person?” Words tumbled out of her without any strategy, all in the vague hope that something would resonate with him. “She’s very sick. Please, take me instead of her.”

  A flash of remorse or something like it flickered in the ser-geant’s eyes before he narrowed them. He squared his shoulders and raised the barrel toward Sharon’s head. “We’re under orders to take all Chinese enemies off the streets of NONA.” He seemed to look through Sharon rather than at her. “By order of the president.”

  “But she’s not Chinese.” Sharon held up her wrist making sure that he could see the scar that marked where the government had embedded her identity chip. “Check her status. Check mine. We’re both citizens of NONA.”

  The soldier, now standing next to the sergeant, flipped the safety off of his weapon. “We don’t give a shit what the stupid chip in her wrist says. She looks like a goddamned Asian. That’s all I need.” He put his face close to Sharon’s. “So by god, we’re taking her. Someone above our pay grade can sort her citizenship out later.”

  “Sharon,” Eve cried, her voice muffled by the bag over her head. “I love you.”

  “Quiet,” the soldier holdi
ng Eve said as he squatted and hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack.

  Sharon dropped to her knees. Tears rushed past her defenses. “Please.” She clasped her hands. “Don’t take her. She’s my wife. She’s sick. She’s done nothing wrong.”

  The soldier next to the sergeant raised the butt of his weapon.

  “Don’t!” the sergeant yelled too late as hard metal slammed into Sharon’s temple. The blunt sting caused her eyes to roll back. Nausea swam in her stomach as her legs went limp. She fell to her side and fought to remain conscious. She tried to make sense of Eve’s words as the soldiers stole her away. A hot wave rushed up her neck. Her eyes closed. Eve. Blackness.

  Chapter 2

  Sharon reached through the dank darkness for the woman who tethered her to the living. Her fingers curled around soft fabric. She put it to her face and breathed in. One by one, the scent of Eve flipped her senses to on. Recollection crept into the delusion of her subconscious. Her heart raced. Eve.

  Instead of lying together in their warm bed, Sharon was alone. Half of her face was pressed against musty concrete, the other half into the scarf. She shivered and curled into a fetal position, hugging the silk. It must’ve been torn from Eve’s neck in the chaos. The memory of her being dragged away by the soldiers sucked the air from Sharon’s lungs. I’ll find you, my love.

  She lay still, taking stock of her physical condition. Sharp pain throbbed in her head and upper back. She touched the place where her hair clung sticky and wet to her head. A searing ache repulsed her hand. She struggled to sit but something impeded her. Lying motionless, she let her vision recover. The Inuit boy’s blanket wrapped around the lower half of her body came into focus. She kicked it away to avoid becoming host to whatever might be living in the pathetic scrap of wool.

  Nausea bubbled in her belly until it boiled over into a gag. Sharon slid her satchel out of the way and lifted herself into a sitting position. With her back against a wall, she leaned to her right side and retched out the meager contents of her stomach. A rustling snapped her into awareness that she wasn’t alone. “Who’s there?” She wiped her mouth with her sleeve and panted.

  “Please.” The boy slunk from behind the dumpster. Her hammer lay across his outstretched hands in an offering gesture. “Bitte.” Not taking his eyes off the human body heaped near Sharon, he took halting steps toward her.

  The body of Crocodile-man lay face down. The fist-sized hole burned into his back by the spectraletto exposed blackened bone and muscle. To make sure he wasn’t still a threat, Sharon kicked at him. The corpse rocked slightly and went still. Frothy pink drool hung at the corners of its mouth. Death owned Crocodile-man.

  Sharon brushed Eve’s scarf against her cheek before tucking it into the pocket of her jacket. “Thank you, boy.” She lifted her hammer from his hands and surveyed the alleyway in both directions. A trail of blood meandered in the opposite direction from where the soldiers had stolen Eve. She assumed it belonged to the man whose face she had smashed with her hammer. The thought that he might be nearby, shoring up more Banditti members to seek revenge on the boy, and now her, ratcheted up an anxiety she couldn’t afford.

  The boy pointed at the crumpled blanket.

  “Did you cover me with that?” she asked, trying to direct her mind from another swell of nausea.

  He nodded.

  “So you do understand.” Sharon shakily got to her feet. “Can you say something other than please?” Pain and dizziness menaced her system.

  His head moved from side to side in a resounding wordless no. He pointed again at the blanket. “Por favor.”

  “Of course.” She picked it up and handed it to him. “We all have that something, or someone, we need to hold onto. And I want my someone back.” She leaned against the wall to keep upright.

  He clutched the blanket and watched her.

  An image of the brightly colored coverlet that lay over the bed she shared with Eve crept into her mind. Her mother, an Abenaki Indian, had woven it for Sharon when she wasn’t much older than the boy. The recollection hurt more than the pain in her head and threatened to obstruct her voice. A hot wave raced up the back of her neck, threatening to stifle her gathering consciousness. She cleared her throat and said, “Thank you for keeping me warm with your blanket. I’m Sharon. What’s your name?” She focused on the boy to give her body time to recover.

  He shook his head, eyes down.

  “Eve said you might be Inuit. If you won’t tell me your name, I’ll call you Inu for short.” One careful move at a time, she wiped blood from the claw of the hammer against her pant leg. “I have to find Eve. Did you see which way the soldiers went?” She secured her hammer in its baldric.

  The boy put his fingers to his mouth then pointed at her midsection. “Please.”

  Sharon’s satchel hung heavy at her side. “You could’ve taken my bag and left me. Why didn’t you?” And why didn’t the soldiers who took my Eve? Pain shot through her shoulder blade as she shifted the satchel. Wary of the throbbing, she slowed her arm and lifted the flap. She put her hand inside and counted. She’d started the day with ten. Ten remained. “My Eve, she’s always right. You’re just a boy. I thought you were a thief. Maybe you are. But you didn’t steal from me when you could’ve. That means something.”

  “Por favor?” Inu tapped his fingers to his lips. “Sila.”

  Instinct and better judgment aligned against her new desire to give him something, but gratitude prevailed. “It’s what Eve would do,” she said as she plucked a small, round apple from the bag. “Thank you for helping me.” Her mouth was dry, and moisture might beat back the nausea. “It’s not poison like the others.” To prove it, she took a bite and handed him the fruit. “Don’t tell. Okay?”

  Inu took the offered apple and turned it over in his tiny hands. A bruise in the skin caught his attention. He picked at it with the tip of a dirty fingernail. No doubt he would’ve preferred a gold dimelet, the only tradable NONA currency.

  “I promise, you’ll be fine.” Sharon grabbed the apple from him and took another bite. “If you don’t eat it, I will. Because it’s better than money.” She held it out for him to take. “Be quick, boy, before I change my mind.”

  One thing Eve had been wrong about was that somewhere along the line the boy must’ve seen what an apple could do to a human being. Not so much the apple, but the parasite that left behind a lethal toxin similar to cyanide. The common knowledge that one bite came with a death sentence played across his gaunt face. He pursed his lips together as if waiting for the outcome of a battle raging in his head.

  “Look, kid. I just swallowed a bite.” Sharon put a hand to her hip. “I’m still standing. Either eat it, or give it back. I can’t risk leaving you with it if you’re not going to finish it. Besides, I don’t have time for this. I need to find Eve.”

  Cupping the fruit in both hands, he put it to his mouth. He opened wide, pierced the apple with his teeth and stood stone still. An enormous grin spread across his face as juice dribbled down his chin. Grunting between swallows, he took ravenous bites until even the core was gone. Only the stem remained between his forefinger and thumb. He flicked it away.

  “See? I told you.” Sharon let herself relax into the boy’s contentment. “My apples are special.”

  He nodded and pointed at her bag. “Please.”

  Sharon ran a hand through her unruly mop of hair, tugging it at the end. The prick of pain blunted her sudden impulse to give him all of the apples. The boy’s vulnerability heaped a weight onto her too heavy to carry. He should be someone’s responsibility. Just not hers. “No more. I’m sorry.” She held his expression for as long as she dared. “I have to go. Take care of yourself, and stay away from bad guys.”

  The smile washed out of his face. “Please.” He held out a hand sticky with apple juice.

  “No more.” Looking at the boy reminded her of a story from the Bible that her grandfather used to read every night. He had always kept the tattered lea
ther-bound volume on his nightstand. The tale was about a man named Lot whose wife turned into a pillar of salt because she ignored the warning not to look back at the destruction of Sodom.

  Sharon felt her body hardening from the inside out. Not because she tarried in the alleyway with the boy, but because she intended to leave him. “I don’t have anything else to give you.” She looked away and hurried into the gray light of Beacon Street.

  The eternally cloudy skies washed the days in melancholy. Eve’s absence and the boy’s desperation amplified the gloom. Remembering the scarf in her jacket, she retrieved and wrapped it around her neck. Sharon shut out her desire to crumble into a million pieces. Instead, she walked as fast as her battered body would allow toward the tall iron fencing that surrounded Dr. and Mrs. Ryan’s home.

  With the majority of Boston’s inhabitants still occupied at the food distribution center, she moved easily along Beacon Street. When she reached the gated entrance to her destination, she curled the fingers of one hand around an iron post and jammed the forefinger of her other at the intercom button. “Dr. Ryan. It’s me, Sharon. I need your help, please.” She rested the palm of her hand over a flower design carved into the cool copper plate that decorated the intercom call box.

  Eve had identified it as a bird-of-paradise the first time they visited the Ryan home. Sharon, longing to hear Eve’s voice, ran a fingertip over its edges. Again she pressed the button. “Dr. Ryan, hurry. Eve’s been taken.”

  Behind the wall of iron bars, the front door to the historic, tidy brownstone flew open. Dr. Ryan, a fair-skinned man, rushed from the house that had miraculously survived decades of storms and war. “Oh, dear,” he exclaimed as his long-limbed frame scrambled toward the gate. “I’m coming.” He pawed at the keypad. “Damn NONA for confiscating all of our computers. I should be able to open this thing from inside. We’re living in the dark ages while NONA basks in the hallucination that it’s saving us from ourselves and terrorists.”

  On his third attempt, the lock popped open. “Good thing they’re too inept to find all of my hidden gadgets. Come in, quickly,” he said as he scanned the desolate street.