Tracers

by J. J. Howard

  But in the vision he wasn’t alone. She was there with him—her long, thick brown hair flying in the wind, because the windows were down, and the music was blaring—the playlist he’d made tonight—her playlist. Now it wasn’t noise; it was more like the soundtrack to a life he didn’t have. A life spent with someone—not always alone.

  He wanted all of those things. It was too late and he was too tired to lie to himself.

  Cam kept working through the night and into the early hours of the morning. He didn’t even stop to eat—just grabbed some Cheetos from his workbench. A little motor grease mixed with fake cheese dust never hurt anyone.

  It was past three when he finally got the car back together again. Then he closed his eyes and did something he never, ever allowed himself to do. He made a wish. He wished that the car would start. Cam didn’t let himself wish for more than that. Not yet.

  He turned the key.

  And the GTO actually started. Cam let out a whoop, then jumped out and dropped the hood. He opened the garage door. Got back in the car, ready to go.

  Cam slid the car into gear. And felt the engine stall. He tried again, felt it catch for a moment.

  Then: nothing.

  For a second there, it had almost been alive. Something had almost worked. Cam closed his eyes and rested his head against the steering wheel.

  Hadn’t he learned there was no point in making wishes? They never came true.

  • • •

  Cam was pedaling as fast as he could, breathing fast, legs pumping, but no matter how much he pushed, it was like his bike was standing still. It was a busy intersection, somewhere south of Houston Street, close to rush hour. The light was green, and he pedaled and pushed as hard as he could, but still the cars streamed past him, their honking horns echoing in his ears. His chest tight, he tried to take in great gulpfuls of air, but it was like the air just wouldn’t reach his lungs. Night fell, and he kept pedaling, still stuck in the same spot . . . until the bike’s front wheel fell off, and Cam lurched forward. He felt the back wheel fall away, and then the rest of the bike crumbled like it was made of sand. Then he started running, but soon his right foot dissolved beneath him, and he stumbled. He tried to catch himself, but his left foot was gone too, turned to dust beneath him as the rest of his body crumbled into the pavement.

  He awoke, sweating, to the sound of his phone ringing. He fumbled around for it, finding it in the passenger seat beside him. Daylight streamed in from the open garage door. He looked down at his still-ringing phone: LONNIE.

  “Yeah?” he answered, still confused and groggy. After that dream, his chest felt tight and his stomach felt sick.

  “You coming in today or not?” Lonnie demanded.

  Cam opened his mouth to make an excuse, then remembered the death of the Fantom. “No, Lonnie. Remember . . . ?”

  “Well, what do you want me to do with your new bike, then?”

  Cam took a deep breath of cold morning air, and stared out the windshield at the quiet street. “What new bike . . . ?” he asked slowly.

  Lonnie’s voice sounded irritated and harried—like always. “The one your girlfriend dropped off for you this morning.”

  Click. The line went dead. Cam stared at his phone.

  It couldn’t be her. But it had to be.

  It seemed impossible: while he had been thinking about her, she had been thinking about him. And buying him a new bike.

  Cam shook himself out of the remnants of the dream, vaulted out of the GTO, and sprinted for the train.

  When he got off the train at the other end, he kept on running.

  He was excited to see his new bike. Yeah, that was definitely it.

  It wasn’t like he was all that curious about his “girlfriend,” the one who had apparently left it for him.

  Nope, he told himself. That wasn’t it at all.

  THREE

  Ride safe.

  That’s all the note said.

  No digits.

  But he did, in fact, have a brand-new bike—so there was that.

  In a weird way, her giving him the bike was sort of a relief. It made him feel about 30 percent less stupid for casting her in the starring role of his ridiculous daydreams (complete with playlist). Because he had clearly more than crossed her mind as well.

  Cam ran his hands over the glossy new paint, smiling at the fact that the bike was his.

  He took off like a shot out of the front entrance of Lafayette Messenger. He flew into the stream of traffic heading across Canal—all the faces he passed were a blur again. Just the way it should be. The sun was warm on his skin and the city looked a lot less dingy and gray now that he was back up to speed.

  He made his first run, but didn’t hurry back to Lonnie and captivity. He rode toward the park to try out his new Sugino. It was a top-of-the line bike—a fixed gear.

  Someone had done her homework. He tried to make himself stop grinning. His mom always used to say, “All things are relative.” Compared to the day he’d had yesterday, today was a freaking dream come true.

  Cam rode up the handrails on the steps in the park, scared some tourists, then left the park and rode as fast as he could down Broadway, weaving in and out of the sea of cars, cabs, and buses.

  The day was growing hot, but he didn’t feel it when he was going full speed. Cam raced back up one of the paths, into the park, where a bunch of kids practicing their moves caught his attention. All of a sudden it seemed like he was surrounded by something he’d never even noticed before—parkour. He stopped to watch. Cam knew from his web surfing that they were kong-vaulting off the big rocks at the edge of the park.

  He remembered the steps he’d read about: you run toward whatever the obstacle is, dive over it with your palms flat on the surface, push off, legs up, land, then keep running and repeat with the next object in your way.

  He sat transfixed, watching them practice. The city was doing some kind of construction on the old park amphitheater. The parkour kids were making use of the big piles of concrete blocks. This was as good a spot as any for lunch. He pulled out the sandwich he’d picked up on his way out of work and ate slowly, watching the kids try out some more moves. By the time he balled up his wrapper and tossed it into the trash, they’d packed it in for the day. He stood, ready to head back, but then a new kid caught his attention, jumping over a huge stack of lumber and taking off at a run, up onto the stage.

  “Hey!” he called, without thinking.

  It was her. Same hoodie. Same brown hair flying. It was definitely his mystery girl.

  She turned, losing her balance in the process, teetering for a few seconds before recovering and rolling backward to land on her feet.

  She met his eyes and they stared at each other for a few seconds.

  And then she took off at a run, up the stairs and out of sight.

  For the second time in two days, the girl had up and run off without a word. It was a pretty annoying habit, actually.

  He didn’t think, just got back on his bike and started pedaling in the direction she’d disappeared.

  He’d thought he’d never see her again, but now that she’d bought him the bike—and he’d run into her accidentally in a city of eight million people—there was no way he was letting her go without a chase. He slid down the stone steps at the side of the park, then caught sight of her crossing the street. Cam followed. At least two cars honked at him as he wove quickly through traffic.

  A long, flat truck with a mechanical arm was parked on the street. The arm was partially extended. He kept watching the girl as she jumped on some poor person’s car, leapt onto the flat part of the truck, did that run-up-the-side trick (tic-tac, his brain reminded him) along the metal arm, and then vaulted into the bucket.

  He slid to a stop at the base of the truck.

  She’d cornered herself, for some reason.<
br />
  She pulled her headphones out, carefully. He watched her wrap them in a loop and stash them in a zippered pocket on the side of her sweatshirt. Cam had noticed they were Beats—nice ones. Between the quality earbuds and the brand-new Sugino she’d bought for a stranger, she definitely had access to money.

  “What do you want?” she demanded, leaning over the side to peer down at him.

  Standing there, looking up at her, Cam was struck by the sudden, absurd thought that she was like Juliet standing on her balcony, as pretty as the sun, or whatever poetic business his ninth-grade English teacher had tried to drill into him.

  Cam forced his brain to focus. He didn’t know exactly what to say to the girl in the bucket, so he went with a version of the truth. “Thanks. For the bike.”

  She looked down at him, warily—like he’d been the one to chase her up there or something. “You’re welcome.” Her voice was clipped, as though the words were hard to say.

  She seemed very wary of him. On second thought, definitely not very Juliet-like.

  “Where’d you learn to do parkour?” he asked her.

  Hoodie girl rolled her eyes.

  “What, didn’t I say it right?”

  “I gotta go.”

  Cam raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, clearly you’re in a gigantic hurry. That’s a real fast lane you’ve chosen up there.” When she didn’t answer, he pressed on. “What’s your name?”

  She looked away, biting her lip. It seemed like there were a lot of things she didn’t want to say. Apparently even her name fell into that category.

  “You ride?” Cam asked her, figuring he’d distract her with some misdirection.

  She sniffed like he’d offended her. “That bike’s a ball and chain.”

  “Yeah, well . . . anybody can climb a tree,” Cam shot back.

  She smiled, though for some reason it seemed involuntary. “I’d like to see that.”

  It wasn’t much of an opening. But he figured, what the hell?

  It was easy enough to climb up onto the truck. Then he started to scale the metal arm. She’d scrambled up in a matter of seconds, but Cam was treating it more like a balance beam—moving slowly, trying not to lose his footing. The angle of the metal arm was a lot steeper than it had looked from the ground. Or maybe she’d just made it look much too easy.

  He was maybe six feet away from the bucket, but he was starting to lose his footing. Moving slow wasn’t going to get him up into the bucket where she stood.

  “Maybe you should stick to the bike,” she told him. But her voice had lost that clipped tone. She was almost smiling.

  Cam shot her another look. Okay, that cinched it.

  “Screw it.” He took the last few steps at a run and jumped into the bucket, landing beside her.

  They stood face-to-face.

  “I’m Cam,” he said, with the little bit of breath he had left. They were so close, their bodies were almost touching.

  “Nikki . . .”

  Nikki. This close, she was even more . . . more than he’d realized the day before. Her skin was pale, but she had a light smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. You’d have to be close up to even see them. Her lips were full . . . Cam had to force himself to stop staring at them. He could hear her breathing. The strange hold she’d had over his thoughts the last twenty-four hours was nothing compared to the effect of standing so close to her. He heard her breath catch.

  “Show me something else,” he said, his voice low.

  Nikki was staring at him. Maybe considering.

  And then, without a word, she hopped up onto the edge of the bucket and jumped.

  Cam forgot to breathe for a few seconds, stepping to the edge and looking down to see her land on the stairs of a nearby parking garage. She took off at a run—up the stairs.

  The roof was her destination. Cam looked down. It hadn’t been easy getting up here. Getting down would be worse, but it’d be over much faster. He held his breath and jumped.

  He was already pretty sure he’d follow her anywhere.

  • • •

  And . . . wipeout.

  It wasn’t the first time chasing a girl had landed him flat on his back with the wind knocked out of him. Hell, it wasn’t the first time this girl had landed him flat on his back. He had the sneaking suspicion (hope? fear?) that it wouldn’t be the last.

  Cam had survived the jump over to the street just fine, and he’d even managed to make it up the stairs. But once they were on the roof of the parking garage, Nikki had vaulted over a car and glanced back at him with a look that clearly dared him to follow.

  So he’d taken a deep breath, run as fast as he could, launched himself over the first car, and . . . wipeout.

  He’d also managed to set off the car’s alarm.

  A feeling of shame washed over him. Cam was used to being the best. At work, he was the fastest rider, without question. When he was learning martial arts as a kid, he’d been the quickest to pick up every move in class; it didn’t matter if it was karate or Muay Thai.

  But he’d just gotten schooled in parkour. By a girl.

  Nikki stood over him. Way over him—she was peering down from the roof of an SUV.

  She frowned, but there didn’t seem to be much sympathy in her look. It was the same frown his eighth-grade teacher used to shoot his way—disappointment with just a hint of you-are-an-idiot mixed in.

  “If you want to do parkour, you have to learn how to see,” she told him, vaulting down like she had cat DNA. She pulled something small and black out of her pocket and held it up; the alarm beeped twice and then was silent.

  “I can see fine,” Cam ground out, as he heaved himself to his feet and started picking the gravel bits out of his palms. “How’d you shut off that alarm?”

  Nikki shrugged. “Little gift from a friend. Comes in handy sometimes.” She went on in a serious tone: “Look, I know these moves look easy, and it does take guts, but it’s more important to slow down and think about what you’re doing. Otherwise, you’re gonna get hurt. So, first tip: if you want to vault the car, don’t look at the car. Look at where the car isn’t.”

  Cam fought the urge to call her Yoda—because Yoda was not sexy. He nodded and watched her clear a big black Mercedes SL like she was stepping over a puddle.

  Cam tried the same car, concentrating on where the car wasn’t.

  He cleared it. She met his grin with one of her own, then ran and jumped.

  And disappeared.

  She vanished right through a gap in the floor.

  Cam rushed forward, peering over the edge.

  It was a straight drop down to the next level. That took guts all right. Or maybe Nikki wasn’t as good at this as she’d seemed. He couldn’t see her anywhere. He raced frantically to the stairs, taking them five, six at a time, sliding down, assuming the worst.

  But halfway down, he spotted her standing there, totally fine—she wasn’t even out of breath.

  “How’d you . . . ?” He gaped.

  She smiled at him. “It was nice to meet you, Cam. Take care.”

  What? She was leaving? What the hell was wrong with this girl?

  Also, what the hell was wrong with him that he seemed to care so freaking much?

  Stunned, Cam stared at her retreating figure, then whirled around as he heard someone speak.

  “Who are you?”

  Cam whipped his head around, trying to find the owner of the voice—a male voice. He caught sight of three guys across the gap from Nikki.

  “What are you doing here, Dylan?” she called across to them.

  “Just keeping an eye on you, Niks,” one of them answered.

  “You been spying on me the whole time?” Nikki sounded annoyed.

  “You working out alone?” the guy countered.

  “So wh
at?” Cam saw Nikki’s chin lift. But her eyes didn’t match her defiant stance.

  “Gotta be careful,” the guy told her. His tone sounded sort of paternal, which seemed weird to Cam.

  One of the other guys—the tallest one—took a step forward. “Who is this guy?”

  “He’s nobody,” Nikki said quickly.

  Thanks a lot. Cam glared at her, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  The third guy spoke up. “Haven’t seen you around before.” His chest was all puffed out like he was going to challenge Cam to a duel or something. Reminded him of Hu, only smaller, and also less Chinese.

  “Haven’t been around,” Cam said lightly, not rising to the bait.

  “Where’d you find him?” the guy she’d called Dylan asked, turning to Nikki.

  Him. The guy managed to inject that one syllable with a boatload of condescension.

  “He found me.”

  Well, that’s not exactly true, Cam thought.

  “You following her?” Now this Dylan guy was getting all puffed up.

  Cam kept his voice level. “I saw her in the park.”

  Dylan stared Cam down. “Yeah, well, lesson’s over. This is dangerous stuff. You can get hurt real bad if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  It was really nice how concerned all these strangers seemed to be about his physical safety. Cam resisted the urge to tell him that, based on his extensive web research, he already knew all about the danger to his Achilles tendon.

  “Let’s bounce,” Dylan said.

  Cam took a step forward, maybe to follow, maybe to protest—but he never got to figure out which one.

  The parking structure’s elevator was moving up from below. But these guys didn’t wait for it to get there.

  They all followed Dylan through a gap in the floor, landing right on top of the elevator. Cam watched them disappear, heading up.

  Nikki was the last to step off when the main compartment reached the next floor. Cam stared in disbelief as his mystery girl disappeared through the ceiling.

  She was gone. Again.

  When he got back to the cherry picker, Cam realized what he’d forgotten to do in his rush to chase after her.