by Jacob Gowans
“I try not to . . .” Strawberry answered distantly.
For a long moment, the two roommates sat in silence. That was another thing Jeffie enjoyed about rooming with Brickert’s sister: she was fun, but she did not always have to be talking. On the other hand, Brillianté, Jeffie’s last roommate, always had something to say—be it gossip, overly personal information, or opinions. Brillianté fit more into the Natalia and Asaki mold than Jeffie did.
Strawberry broke the silence by clearing her throat.
“Yes?” Jeffie asked, reading her friend’s noise.
Strawberry hung her head down over the bunk’s edge so she could look at Jeffie, and asked, “Will you be upset if I ask you about Sammy?”
“No . . .” Her answer came before she’d even thought about it. But she found that she really did not mind. “Besides, I know you’ve wanted to for ages.”
“It’s just that everyone talks about it—about you two—like you were Romeo and Juliet or something. Was it really like that?”
Jeffie lay back on her bed and stared up at Strawberry’s bunk, pressing her feet up on the supports of Strawberry’s mattress. “We never even kissed, Berry! Romeo and Juliet made it to first base, didn’t they? I read it for school, but Tvedts aren’t known for being readers.” She pushed hard against the wood, feeling it flex slightly under the strain. Every time she did so she wanted to push until it broke. “But sometimes I thought about being with him forever.”
“What was it about him? Why was he so different?”
“Has anyone ever told you about what we were like when we first met?”
Strawberry, still hanging over the side of the bed to look at Jeffie, shook her head, a curious expression on her face.
“We didn’t get along at all. I mean, I couldn’t stand him!”
“Really? Why?”
“Because I was such a brat.”
From the look on her face, Strawberry was not buying it.
“No, I mean it,” Jeffie said, laughing again despite herself. “I’d come from this family where winning was everything, but Sammy was the golden boy. He won everything he did—every Star Racer match, every Arena Game, anything he tried. It drove me nuts!” Her temperature rose, even now, at the memories of losing to Sammy.
“Sammy the Great. That’s what Kaden called him the other day.”
“Pretty much . . .”
“So? What happened next?”
“He did something crazy, Berry,” Jeffie said, now getting into her story. The memories brought a smile to her face. “Absolutely crazy!”
“What? Tell me!”
“He let me win. He gave me something no one else had. I mean, obviously he knew how competitive I am—was—”
“Am,” Strawberry decided for her.
Jeffie rolled her eyes. “Well, believe me, this kid liked—likes—to win, too. But he knew it was more important to me.” She frowned at herself for the faux-pas she had made.
Strawberry looked at her with a clueless expression. “He let you win?”
“Yeah. Get it?” she said, laughing again. “Since the day I met him, I resented him for being so good at everything. But to him, my friendship was more important than winning.”
“Huh . . . And he never kissed you?”
“I’m sure it wasn’t that way in his head. He was just trying to make me happy so I’d stop being such a—well, a nasty person to him.”
“And then?”
“I fell . . . hard!” she said.
Strawberry burst out in laughter. Her laugh sounded almost exactly like Brickert’s, not that Jeffie would ever tell her.
“Yeah . . . it was pretty bad.”
“And? What happened? What did he do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? I don’t get it.”
“Neither did he!” Jeffie exclaimed. Both girls giggled in fits. “He’s so clueless. It’s really, really sad. But, honestly, that was another thing that ended up making it even worse for me. He wasn’t ever obsessed with kissing or whatever. He was my best friend. We talked and laughed, and he liked me. I knew it, but I waited one day too long to take the first step.”
Suddenly her ache was back and worse than ever. All the reminiscing had done was make the hole inside her bigger and fresher and harder to fill.
Strawberry noticed the change in the atmosphere and asked, “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know. I just wish—not that I’d gotten to kiss him, per se. I mean, I wanted to kiss him so bad, but it’s not that.”
Unable to hold it in any longer, Jeffie covered her face with her pillow and muffled a scream. She kicked the wooden paneling, wishing she could just snap it in two. Somehow it would make her feel better. Instead, she pounded the bed with her fists.
“I’m sorry for bringing it up,” Strawberry said. “But I’m really glad you talked to me about it.”
“It’s not that, Berry. It’s just . . . I feel like there’s this huge gap inside that needs to be filled.” She lowered her voice as she continued. “And what if he really is gone—gone for good?” Saying those words hurt like an elbow to the stomach. Though, strangely, she was glad she said them. “And what if no one will ever be able to fill it up again? I mean, what if no one can ever take his place?”
Strawberry was quiet for a moment, then spoke. “I don’t know. Sorry. I wish I’d known him, though. Did Juliet ever find someone else after Romeo died?”
Jeffie rolled her eyes. “Sometimes it’s easy to remember you’re barely thirteen.”
12. Ride
March 3, 2086
WITH ALL THE RECKLESSNESS of a runaway train, Sammy and Toad sprinted out of the parking garage, up a cement slope, and out onto the sidewalk. This escape felt different than the Grinder. It was experiencing real freedom for the first time. The afternoon sun shined too bright, the smoggy city air smelled sweet, and no downtown, inner city block ever looked so beautiful as the one he looked down now.
It was like waking from a horrible dream that had lasted days and days and days.
He didn’t have a clue where they were. And for a little while, he didn’t care. His head was pounding in the center of his forehead, and he wanted to put as much distance between the building and himself as possible.
Side by side, they sprinted down the street for several blocks. There were no sirens, no shouts, no sounds of anyone following them. He spotted a cramped alleyway splitting two tall buildings. A large dumpster blocked off most of the entrance. Without a word to Toad, Sammy turned into the alley and leaned on the wall to catch his breath. Toad’s steps continued to patter down the sidewalk, then stopped and came back.
He leaned next to Sammy, and for a couple minutes, they did nothing but breathe the air of freedom. Still panting, Sammy talked out loud to himself.
“So that’s it? We just walk away? What happened to the part where they chase us?”
Toad’s eyes roamed from Sammy’s hands to his neck to his face. “You killed everyone who’s supposed to chase us.”
Sammy stared back at Toad, who backed away as if Sammy might be combustible.
“You did. You killed like six or seven people.”
“Eight. They were going to kill us.”
“Okay, now what are you going to do?”
Sammy put his hands to his throbbing forehead and slid down the wall until he was crouching. He hadn’t thought past getting out of the building. That seemed to be a gigantic feat in and of itself. What am I going to do now? How do I get rid of this kid? Part of him wanted to just sit down and have a good long cry. Part of him wanted to keep killing, maybe even Toad. Part of him wanted to go back and put a knife to his own throat, but he shook all this away. He was on an adrenaline high, and he had to ride it out before exhaustion set in.
The word ride stayed in his brain and reminded him of his air rail ticket. He looked out into the city skyline, saw Maracanã in the distance, and ran in that direction.
“Wait for me!” Toad called af
ter him.
It was about thirty minutes of jogging before they reached the stadium. From there, Sammy knew where to find Floyd’s butcher shop.
When they came to the street, he hung back to check for signs of anything suspicious. After watching for several minutes, he went to the spot where Floyd hid a spare key and unlocked the back door. Not daring to turn on any lights, he crept into the front section of the store and opened the cabinet where he’d hidden his ticket.
It was still there.
Toad pulled a face of disgust. “You smell really bad. And you have blood all over you. Are you hurt?”
Fumbling it in his excitement, Sammy opened the bag and removed the ticket. It looked as good as new, perhaps just a tad frayed at the edges.
No reason it shouldn’t work.
“What’s that?” Toad asked, plugging his nose and leaning over on his tiptoes, probably to see what piece of paper would be so important to come all this way for.
“It’s my ticket out of here,” Sammy told him.
“Where are you going?” Anxiety laced the younger boy’s voice and he sniffed several times in a row.
“North,” Sammy said and held the ticket possessively. “So, you’re welcome for saving your life. Make it a good one.” He looked through the windows to double check that they hadn’t been followed. It looked safe, but could he really be sure?
“You’re not just leaving, right?” Toad asked. “I need your help.”
“No you don’t. You know your way around here better than I do. Go back to your family and tell them to move away.”
“Please come with me. You—you know how to fight. You killed all those people in the building.” Toad’s face paled as he said this.
“No, you’ll be fine. Just go.” He waved the boy away and spat a piece of dirt or grime out of his mouth. Toad backed up hesitantly. Sammy glanced at him, then looked away. Did he really believe Toad was going to be fine?
I don’t want to take care of him. I don’t need that right now.
But he knew he was wrong. Sending Toad back to his parents was ushering him to a violent death. Sammy knew he had done terrible things in the last hour, but those men were his enemies. Toad was not.
“Actually—wait. You can’t go back to your parents.”
“Why not?”
He didn’t have time for Toad’s ignorance, nor did he want to explain how he knew things. “I—I don’t know! I have a bad feeling about it. The people who took you may have already gotten to them.”
Toad rounded his small frame onto Sammy, as menacing as a small figure could be. He was probably a year older than Brickert and maybe, maybe, a centimeter or two taller. “What do you mean?” he asked with a whirlpool of emotion in his voice.
Sammy closed his eyes and said it. “I’m saying they’re dead.”
Wham!
Toad’s small fist slammed straight into Sammy’s jaw.
Sammy swore loudly, grabbing Toad by the neck and throwing him bodily into the closest wall. “What was that for, you little—?”
“Take it back!” Toad screamed in his face, but tears pooled in his eyes.
Sammy glanced out the windows again to make sure no one had heard Toad’s yell.
Wham!
Toad’s next punch caught Sammy in the back of the head. Sammy’s foot shot out and swept into the boy’s ankles, catching him off balance and sending him to the ground. Toad landed flat on his butt.
Sammy lowered his face down to Toad’s as he grimaced up from the dirt. Sammy’s eyes narrowed, his lip curled up, and he felt positively murderous. “Don’t punch me again,” he hissed. “And shut up!”
From the look on Toad’s face, he wouldn’t need to be told twice. But instead of retaliating as Sammy expected, he began to cry. Large tears spilled over his big hazel eyes as he quaked violently.
“Please . . . say they’re not dead . . .” he moaned. “Please . . .”
Sammy watched him. His first instinct was to distance himself from the scene. His mind was still waking up from the fog of being in that building, and that spot in his forehead was knocking a little harder. He had important things to do. He needed to get out of this shop. He needed to get up to Wichita.
WICHITA! Sedgwick C. Plainpal.
This kid was slowing him down. But something in those tears touched the scraps of humanity inside Sammy that Stripe hadn’t managed to snuff out. He couldn’t leave Toad to fend for himself. Especially if his parents are dead—murdered by some freak in their own home. Toad will walk home and find the door open. Then he’ll follow the trail of blood and find their bodies.
The hypocrisy was too great.
Resigned to his fate, he sat down on the floor next to Toad and awkwardly put his arm around Toad’s shoulder. For the first time, he noticed how dirty the floor was. It wasn’t like Floyd to leave the floor un-mopped at the end of a work day. They sat there for a while, Sammy letting him empty out his tears. He felt no emotion for the kid, more like a mental connection. In his own emotions, a small dam had been placed inside of him, and as long as that was in place, Sammy wouldn’t need to cry for himself, Toad, or anyone else.
“Can we go back and check?” Toad asked when he finally stopped crying. “Just to be sure? I have to know.”
“No. We can’t. It’s probably best to never know.”
“That’s stupid!” Toad said through a husky voice and a big sniff. “Like you would know anything about it!”
“I do.”
“Oh yeah? How?” Toad replied quietly and folded his arms across his knees.
“Both my parents died.”
Toad looked at him for a long time but did not say anything. He just sat there, centimeters away from Sammy, occasionally sniffing.
“Ready to go?” Sammy asked him.
“No.”
“Well, I’m going now. You can either come with me or go to your house and wait for them to find you.”
“Can’t I go live with my grandparents?”
“No.” Sammy rubbed the pulsing point on his head to try and stay calm. “If you go any place where someone knows you, you’ll die. You’re coming with me.”
Toad sniffed once more, and Sammy thought he was going to start crying all over again. Instead, Toad seemed to pull it together. He might be done crying for now, but the tears would come again later.
Sammy got up and brushed the dirt off his pants. As he stood, the ache in his head made white lights burst in his vision. He steadied himself against the wall and grabbed his head. Toad watched him with wonder and a little bit of worry. We are a pathetic sight, Sammy realized. He hadn’t changed clothes in days . . . maybe even weeks. Nor had he eaten a proper meal in the same amount of time.
He smelled himself and instantly pulled away from his armpit. “I really do stink, don’t I?” Sammy said.
Toad nodded, almost smiling, but not quite getting there.
They took five minutes to clean themselves up at the sinks in the back of the store. Sammy was still pretty wet when he put his clothes back on, but he smelled a lot better. A long drink of water helped take the edge off his headache.
“All right,” he said to Toad. “Let’s go to Maracanã.”
They had no need to speak during the walk, which turned out to be much quicker than Sammy expected. Between his growing exhaustion and murmuring stomach, it was a miserable hour and a half. Despite his own discomfort, his mind kept going back to Toad, wondering what the kid was going through.
He could almost sense the thoughts trickling slowly through Toad’s mind: trying to imagine what his parents might be doing. Or, if they were dead, what they looked like, and how it happened. Were they riddled with bullet holes and covered in blood? Perhaps poison gas had been pumped quietly into the home, and the entire family had just never woken up. If Sammy had to guess, he would have picked the former. At least, that had been his experience with the enemy thus far.
Thirteens picked the most violent, hands-on ways to kill. And Sammy
had no doubt Toad’s family was dead, be it now or in the near future. It made him hate the Thirteens even more. Hate like a blackness filled him, leaked out of him. He wanted to kill someone. He wanted to watch the lights go out in their eyes.
It made him feel good for a moment. And when the moment passed, he felt completely sapped again.
Something unnatural dwelt inside him. Something powerful. That thought of violence and death had given him a fleeting moment of pleasure, but when it passed, it left him feeling ashamed, tainted.
No noise came from Maracanã that evening, but the hub was plenty busy. No one in the crowd seemed to care that Sammy was messy, damp, and still somewhat smelly.
They passed several of the KEEP THE PEACE! CALL IT IN! signs as they walked through the main concourse. Sammy clutched his ticket and tried to calm himself.
His lip and hands trembled. He had to get out of the crowd right now. Seeing his chance, he grabbed Toad by the sleeve and pulled him into the nearest men’s room.
“What’s the matter?” Toad asked.
“We need a plan,” Sammy explained, trying to hide the panic growing inside him.
He sat on a sink as he thought. Time passed in relative quiet. A few men and boys wandered through to do their business. Some spared a glance at Sammy and Toad, others didn’t care why two boys were hanging out in a bathroom. Toad said nothing, but sniffed every so often.
Yet nothing came to mind for Sammy.
Finally, Toad looked at him expectantly. “So?”
“Do you have money to buy a ticket? Like a link to your parents’ account or something?”
Toad shook his head.
What is the plan? Sammy wondered. He slammed his fist against his forehead, trying to force something to come loose in his brain. The jarring did nothing but make his headache pulse more angrily at him. He shifted in the sink as his butt started to go numb.
Toad sighed deeply.
Sammy scowled at the kid. “I have a thing for coming up with plans. Just give it a second. Okay?”