by J. Kowallis
“What do we do now?” My throat feels dry and hot. “We have nothing. Everything is gone. Estevan, do you still have my winnings?”
Estevan reaches into his pocket and shows me the wad of cash. “We’ll be fine,” he grumbles. “Maybe for the next month. But we can’t come back here.”
My toe catches wrong on the ground and I trip, hammered with the realization that this entire venture could have killed us all.
“You can come with me.” Roydon’s voice breaks through my mind and I look up at him. “I’ve got my winnings too. Plus, I think I’m still on Caspar’s good side. If he has a good side. He may let me still fight.”
“What?”
He frowns. “You think I’d save you just to let you be killed by Caspar? Or let you disappear?” He shakes his head. “I think you have too many answers in that hard head of yours. I want them. Plus, I have a small group outside the city limits. It’s not paradise, but it’s better than rotting here.”
Estevan and I both freeze, our feet planted securely on the road.
“You’re a Nomad?” I ask. He doesn’t look like one at all. Every roaming group I’ve seen have been animal-like, vicious thieves who take and ravage whatever they please. It’s why most other people tend to group together in cities. It’s uncomfortable and unsanitary, but safer. The man in front of me . . . he can’t be one of them.
“What? No! I mean,” Roydon sighs and looks back the direction we came, “kind of.”
My eyes split wide open and the cold air of the night chills the burning behind them. “Kind of? What do you mean, ‘kind of’?”
Roydon growls and runs his hand down his face. “Look, we don’t have time for this. Either you want to live, or you don’t.” He doesn’t even look at Estevan. I feel his gaze burning through me like he’s trying to see into my core.
He’s like me, though. If I’m going to trust anyone, somehow, I might be able to trust the one person I could rat out . . . he’d do the same to me if given the chance.
“Fine.” I start to walk toward him.
“Just like that? We’re supposed to follow him?” Estevan snarls.
I turn, feeling a calm wash over me. “I want to trust him. So, for now that’ll have to do. Do you trust me, Papá?”
Estevan’s pockmarked face crinkles further, gazing back at me. He thinks I’m insane. I know that look. It was the same look I got when I first mentioned wanting to fight in Los Ángeles. His lips always curl beneath his nose, pretending to smell something that reeks, and the dark brown of his eyes always goes black.
He nods. He doesn’t trust Roydon, but he trusts me, and that seems to be good enough to keep us moving.
“How far are the rest of your Nomads?” Estevan gripes.
Roydon flashes a look of irritation. His nostrils flare when he talks, and his jaw moves in a circular pattern. “We don’t call ourselves Nomads. We’re a family.”
“Are you all related?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t have blood relatives.” He looks back at me, communicating something, and I think he may say more, but he changes his mind.
“You didn’t answer my question, boy.”
Roydon sighs. “About a mile.” His voice is hard.
“Have you always been a Nomad . . . I mean,” I rotate my hands like I’m trying to pull the right words out of me—like it would actually help, “a member of this family?”
For a moment he doesn’t speak, but when he does, I can tell the irritation is receding. “No.”
“Who taught you to fight?” I ask.
“I did.” I have to slow down my steps after catching up with him. He glances sideways at me and raises a single eyebrow.
I’m impressed. For years, Estevan, a professional fighter, taught me, practiced with me, and threw me to the ground. Roydon’s done it all on his own?
“No one else?” I check again.
“I got my,” he snickers at his attempt at vulgar Spanish, “. . . culo handed to me over and over. I learned. I watched, and was taught with every kick and blow to the head I took.”
“Why? Why do you do it?”
He frowns at me. “Probably the same reason you do. Money. A way to take care of my family.”
“You take care of them all?” I whisper.
“I get to keep the glory, earn the reward money, and give to those who need it. Seems like a pretty good trade.”
“Oh, so you’re like an egotistical Robin Hood?”
Roydon grins, a set of slightly yellowed but straight teeth beam at me. “I guess so.”
I nod and bite down on my lip, pinching at my shirt and waving it in and out, trying to cool off. “Roydon Hood.”
At that, Roydon burst into a laugh and immediately covers his mouth, turning to glare at me, a smile tucked behind his hand. He coughs and nods. “I guess so.”
We plunge into silence again, but his feet move fast. I look back at Estevan to see if he’s keeping up. A few paces behind us, he’s glaring at the back of Roydon’s head.
Knowing Estevan is a few extra paces behind and out of a clear hearing range, I finally bring myself to ask the questions I want answers to. “Roydon?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you know where you got your talents? Have you always been able to duplicate yourself like that?”
He shakes his head, his shoulder-length hair brushing his shoulders. I’m not sure at first what he’s saying ‘no’ to. Maybe he’s reluctant to let me in on his secrets. I don’t blame him. “You want to have a normal conversation now?”
“You said you wanted information from me. I want the same from you.”
“Well, I already told Estevan, I don’t have the answers you want.”
I nod. Of course. I’d never give up answers about myself that easy either. I don’t know why I expected more. Nor do I blame him.
“Dammit.” He moans. “Fine. Since the earliest I can remember, yes. I’ve been able to Astral Project,” he adds.
Well, if he’s going to offer that much, I may as well fish around a little more.
“Is that what you call it?”
“Well, what would you call it?”
The corner of my mouth jumps, and I blurt out, “Asexual reproduction?”
Roydon’s eyes go wide like discs and he chokes on his own breath before he smirks at me. “That’s a first.”
I stick my hands in my pockets and nervously smile. It feels strange talking about my hidden life with someone else who isn’t Estevan. Uncomfortable even. The discomfort is showing in Roydon too.
“What about you?” He clears his throat.
“Same. Since I was a kid.”
Roydon grunts and I feel him looking at me. Observing and studying me. I turn to return the stare and he narrows his eyes. “That’s all I get?”
“No offense, Roy. Can I call you Roy?”
He shrugs. “Go ahead.”
“Roy, I don’t know if I can trust you yet.”
“Why? ‘Cause I nearly killed you? You’re sure picky.”
“You don’t trust me either.”
“That wasn’t a question was it?” He lifts his eyebrow.
“Was it?”
He takes in a deep breath and thumbs his nose. “You’re not the only one who almost died back in that ring, you know.”
Pursing my lips, I nod. “So, we make a deal. We each get one question for every question the other asks. Answers have to be honest. No half-answers, no gray explanations.”
Roy eyes me. “I can go with that. You first.”
“So how does it work? I mean, do you . . .” I clasp my hands together and then burst them apart, “split?”
“It’s complicated. It’s an internally,” he rotates his hands around in the air, “visualized . . . thing. I have to imagine it in my mind first. Then it’s kind of like my brain goes cross-eyed. Same kind of sensation. After that, everything refocuses, but the difference is it refocuses in two. My body doesn’t actually split. Instead, I create a compl
etely separate and identical body. And I control both at the same time.”
“How?”
Roy shakes his head. “Nope. It’s my turn.” He straightens and clears his throat, leading us off the main road and onto a narrow dirt pathway through the trees outside of the city.
“What exactly is your power? I mean,” he lifts his hands up in front of his face, pushing a series of branches out of his way and I have to duck, “I could feel my veins boil. It felt like every artery, every vessel of blood would burst. Obviously, that’s not all you do. You stuck your hand right into that fire back there without burning.” He looks back at me and peers at my face. It’s unsettling. If it’s possible, my face warms more. “Not to mention your eyes are . . . like death. Do they always turn red when you use your powers?”
“You mean my eyes are all red?” Like a reflex, I clench my eyes closed and reopen them.
“All except the center.”
I shake my head. “Whatever happened tonight with my body . . . I don’t know anything about it. It sure as hell has never happened before. I’m scared to think that maybe what I can do is not all I can do. You know? All I’ve ever been able to do was . . . .”
A call from behind a large tree catches my attention. The trampled path squishes into softer mud beneath our feet. A figure about thirty yards away steps out from behind one of the larger in a cemetery of dead trees and waves a signal at us. It looks like his fingers were counting out numbers. Roydon returns the gesture and looks over at me.
“We’re here. That’s Petey up ahead. He usually keeps an eye out at night while I’m gone. Come on.” Roydon quickens his steps and I look back to make sure Estevan is still following. He’s been his usual quiet self, but his sense of distrust is obvious. I wait for him and then fall in step to follow Roydon.
“He literally could live a double life and you still trust him?” Estevan’s raspy voice wisps in the air.
“Right now, I’m trying to find a reason not to trust him. I don’t have much.”
Either my eyes have adjusted to the dark, or it’s lighter outside than I thought, because I can see Roydon’s top lip dip down to whistle to us. He begins talking with the man who he called Petey again, and I’m able to see both of them clearly in the dark. Petey’s wrapped in a thick coat—his short stature drowns in it. His left leg is harshly bowed and it causes him to pivot when he walks.
Although I can’t see his face, his body language clearly communicates he’s not the alpha in his relationship with Roydon. Petey’s head drops lower when Roy talks to him, even though he maintains eye contact. He also hunches his shoulders where Roy stands completely straight. For a few minutes Petey tenses and then looks over at me and Estevan. He argues with Roy, and Roy tenses up, stepping closer to Petey and turning his back to us.
Petey hunches even more.
Despite their leader-follower relationship, they trust each other. They’re best friends by the way talk. Petey leans in and says something to Roydon and I see Roydon shake his head and it noticeably drops—losing his superiority for a moment. In return, Roydon lightly slugs his shoulder. When he turns back to us, he’s grinning from ear to ear and motions for us to follow him.
We follow the two men to the crest of a small hill and look down. Patches of frozen snow still dot the ground around us. Wider areas cover the earth as the hillside slopes down to areas the sun rarely reaches.
Roydon and Petey skid down patches of the snow ahead of us. At the bottom, only fifty feet, a group of tents and lean-tos form a circle. A few people walk around. I guess “people” is too generous a term. They’re more like dirty skeletons.
“These people aren’t Nomads,” Estevan whispers. “At least not like Nomads we’ve seen before. Look at them. They’re starving. They have nothing.” He frowns with worry and glances at me.
Flames of small fires tug sideways in the evening wind chill, and glow against the brilliance of the snow surrounding the camp. A few dark figures move around, but I figure most are within the security of their “shelters.”
For a moment, I forget it’s cold outside. Estevan skids down the hill in front of me; I notice the raised hairs on his arms and neck. Here I am, still sweating profusely.
I fan my top in and out away from my chest again, filling it with the cold air of the night and make my way down the hill. The snow crunches beneath my feet, and the sharp rocks cause my ankles to work harder to stay straight. At the bottom, Estevan waits for me, but his eyes are looking at everything else.
There’s no snow down around the camp. Only frozen mud. I see shadows of people moving within their tents and a few heads even pop out to see us. Their faces are thin and worn, but despite the deep night, there’s bright life in their eyes. Every single one.
Roydon hops out of a tent across the way and brings over a few blankets; a dog with matted wiry brown hair trails behind him.
“So, it’s the ground for us tonight?” I hold out my arms for the blankets.
Roy pulls the blankets out of my reach. “You have a problem with that?”
I shake my head. “Nope. I’ve done it before. Hand them over.”
“What makes you think they’re for you?” He keeps his eyes on me while handing the blankets over to Petey.
“That’s right,” Petey pipes up, limping over to us from the side. His voice is lower in pitch than I’d imagined. Deep pores coat his nose and cheeks, and a thin mustache and soul patch decorate the lower half of his face. “When Roy here told me two fighters were joining us,” he looks at Estevan, “I thought we were in deep shit. Until, of course, he told me who you were.” Petey grins at the look on Papá’s face. “Estevan Benitez? Nearly crapped myself. You know, I saw you fight in December twenty twenty-four, right here in Los Ángeles. Best street fightin’ I ever seen. ‘Course, that was back when fighters had class.”
Both Roy and I noticeably react. His head jerks back and I step forward, my arms folding.
“The Murphy fight?” Estevan’s lips curls for the first time in months, waving us both off. “Ah yeah, I remember that one.”
“Aye, yai, yai. That gringo annoyed the crap outta me,” Petey’s eyes widen. “Walkin’ into the ring like some sparkly, prized, stud mule with those stupid sequins. Hey,” he limped closer to Estevan, “you wanna share my lean-to? We can keep talking if you’re up for it.”
Estevan hesitates.
“Go ahead, Papá. I’ll be fine.”
He nods and follows him over to the lean-to, still talking of the fight.
Great. So, Papá has a place to sleep and I get the ground. The dog licks at my fingers and paws the side of my pants. I look down and rub the mutt’s knotted muzzle.
“Down, Squints.”
The dog sits and looks at Roy with it’s ears pinned back.
“All right,” Roy places his hands on his waist. “Ransley, there’s, uh, blankets for you in the tent there. As long as you don’t mind me sleeping on the floor.”
“You planning on killing me in my sleep?”
“Are you planning on killing me?”
We both stare each other down.
“Let’s make a deal. Tonight we sleep. Maybe tomorrow I’ll kill you.”
Roy smiles. “Deal. You hungry?”
“No, I’m fine,” I scratch Squints’ head, lying through my teeth even though my stomach is screaming at me. “I’m fine. You’ve done enough tonight, really. I can’t take your food too.”
“Take? Hey, I’m giving it to you.” He starts toward the tent, beckoning me with a free hand. The dog bounds after him and runs head first into the tent. “Come on.”
I glance toward Petey’s lean-to and a deep guffaw bursts from Estevan’s silhouette. In front of me, Roydon’s shadow moves furiously through his tent, moving things around. I stand and watch him. There’s something different about him. Aside from his power, there’s something else. It’s unlike any feeling I’ve ever had. All I know is that everything from now on will be different. Whether for better
or worse, I’m not sure.
―CASPAR―
The steaming cloudy water surrounded him, warming his body and melting the day’s dirt away. He flicked the ash off the end of his cigar over the side of the chipped claw-footed tub and watched it fall to the ground. Puffs of smoke curled from his lips and he rested his head back on the edge of the tub in exhaustion.
How could he have let this happen? In his own ring. He was ripped off. Yes, he had made more money in one night than he’d made all week, but he’d been fooled. That cara mierda Roydon. Freak. He should have known a gringo couldn’t be trusted. He still couldn’t explain to himself what he saw, but he knew he’d seen it.
The cigar hung loosely between his fingers, on the verge of falling to the ground. He brought it back between his lips and took another long drag.
What pissed him off the most was it wasn’t just Roydon. Benitez and his rat of a daughter had made a fool of him too.
Caspar inhaled from the cigar like it was an oxygen tube, giving him a renewed sense of life. He clenched his jaw tighter, breathing in.
By now, they’d witnessed what his men had done to their precious home. It had probably taken Benitez years to gather everything they owned, and now it was gone. Setting the apartment to flames brought a smile to Caspar’s lips, but he was still furious. There was only one other way he’d feel satisfied in destroying them.
A knock on the door brought him out of his black cloud and he cursed. “Yeah, yeah. Give me a minute.”
Caspar climbed out of the murky water and let his naked body drip dry. He plodded across the floor toward his desk, dripping all over the dirty rug and took another drag of his cigar. Caspar held it between his teeth, the spicy leather smell of the smoke encircling his head. After finding the communicator he was looking for, he slipped on a pair of cotton pants and tied the drawstring below his hipbones. Water still dripped from his short hair to his bare chest. The hammering continued again on the door and he cussed as he swung it open.