Vanishing Rain (Blue Spectrum Chronicles Book 2)

by L. L. Crane

  I said good-bye to them all. To Dove. My Dad. Snow and the toddlers. With a lump in my throat, I pretended that it was any other day.

  And I said good-bye.

  It was more than I had gotten from Orion.

  Chapter 6

  Caught

  I gagged, forcing myself up from the seat of the glider with my hands. I didn’t have time for such reminiscing. Gods, what was I thinking? My head was spinning like a carnival ride, and my arm felt like someone had sawed it off. Not to mention the bloody gauze that needed changing. I dug around in the first aid kit for fresh gauze, hesitant to take the old gauze off. But I knew that I had to.

  I unwrapped the old gauze with trepidation. I really didn’t want to see the wound but I knew that I had to put the clean dressing on. Thankfully, the bleeding had slowed, but there was a gaping wound in my arm and it already looked angry. With shaking hands, I rewrapped my arm, gritting my teeth with pain at every movement I made, every touch. I sealed the bandage with tape and tossed the first aid kit to the glider floor, watching with amusement as it swam in the spoils of my stomach.

  Tugging my bloody shirt off, I dug around in my satchel for a clean one and slipped it over my head. Then I did the same with my pants, since the ones I had been wearing were a bloody mess as well. Damn, I thought. I should have brought some regular clothes. I would be a shining target for sure with only my school uniform to wear.

  Too late by that point. I reached my hand up to my ear and dislocated my ear communicator, yanked it off, and threw it on the floor of my glider, right beside the first aid kit. Then I grabbed my satchel, taking one last glance at the broken pieces of the bloody tracker-timer.

  It would no longer dictate my life. That had to be worth something.

  I took in a deep breath, pulling my legs awkwardly out of the glider, first one and then the other. I struggled to stand erect, having to lean my hand on the side of the glider. My eyes darted around the garage, searching for a camera. There wasn’t one in sight, but that didn’t mean one wasn’t planted somewhere. Stay calm. Stay calm. I said it over and over in my mind as sweat pooled down my forehead, dampening my hair, and nausea gripped me again as the swirling parking garage slapped me in the face with the putrid smell of smog. It might have been a beautiful day outside, but the garage was a cesspool of exhaust and smoke and unearthly scents.

  Gripping my satchel, I walked slowly, trying not to stagger. It was difficult, and my arm was screaming at me, a burning fire raging out of control where I had performed my amateur surgery. I swallowed, desperately wanting some nutrient water to cool my parched throat, as I wobbled out of the parking garage, entered a chute, and landed right on a city street. Fortunately, everyone was so preoccupied and distracted that they didn’t seem to notice an eighteen year old in a school regulation uniform with a satchel in her hand.

  The streets weren’t that busy, but occasionally someone jostled me, a shoulder, arm, or lapcase pushing against my stinging, aching, hung-over body. At one point, something hit my left arm, and I stifled a scream as pain engulfed my wound, caterpillars dancing on burning coals. Tears welled in my eyes and I squinted my eyes against the harsh daylight. Tamping down more tears, I glanced up, staring at the tall, mirrored building ahead of me, striding purposely toward it.

  Just then, out of the corner of my eyes, I spotted a military guard. I glanced at him, my heart thudding like a jackhammer was inside my chest. I darted another peek at him, hoping it was my imagination. But it wasn’t. To make matters worse, he was definitely following me.

  I stepped up my pace, jostling my sore body and woozy mind through the crowds of people. Sensing he was bearing down on me, I acted quickly, just stopping before a large plate glass window and pretending that I was browsing for something. It was really stupid, because it was a real-estate office, and all they had were a bunch of expensive apartments listed for sale. I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood. I knew that I was caught, and my mind whirred like the doors that opened and closed in quick succession in the pictures of elaborate apartments before me.

  My heart thundered in my chest, memories of being hauled in for Arbitration taking over. There would be no way to hide the truth from the Arbitration Committee, especially my mother, once they injected me with truth serum and started asking me questions. I had played that scene out one time too many.

  I swallowed, my throat sore and burning, each breath ragged and bitter. Even Dove probably couldn’t get me out of this scrape. My heart beat harder against my ribs, blasting against the embryo I knew was inside of me. I placed my free hand on my stomach, the pain from removing the tracker-timer throbbing and pulsing against the unborn child.

  An arm grabbed me roughly by the shoulder, a voice swimming into my ears in waves of nausea. “What are you doing out of school?” I turned slowly, and in Orion perfection cast my eyes in the guard’s direction.

  He was tall with an ugly, shriveled up face. With dull brown hair and a moustache that seemed out of place on his thin lips, I faced him head on, as if he was the intruder on my scheduled day. My eyes landed on his chest, which didn’t seem to fit with the rest of his body, broad and so much like Orion’s that my heart leaped for a second. Like an accordion, it moved in and out with each breath he took. I moved my eyes up slowly as I fidgeted my fingers around the satchel case, and for a moment we stared at each other, his black eyes boring through me like a sharp, never ending drill. I shoved the thoughts of Orion out of my head, knowing that I had to think straight.

  My voice imitated Orion’s, though. “I’m on a field trip for Fast Track. Researching the businesses of Province A for my Government class.”

  The guard’s black eyes scrutinized me again and I continued to meet his stare head on. If my heart was thundering before, it was an all-out earthquake now. I smiled sweetly at him, though, hoping that he wouldn’t notice my hands shaking as they held the satchel or the blood that was leaking through my bandaged arm onto the sleeve of my uniform.

  “I’ll have to check with your Instructor. Which one is it?”

  My mind spun quickly in drunken circles, Instructors from Citizen School tumbling around it like crazed acrobats. Then I fixed on a face, one I wouldn’t mind involving in this twisting and turning saga that had become my life. I regained control in a split second. I had been lying so much in the past twenty-four hours, it became easy. “Number 17,” I innocently told him, knowing that Number 17 was so old that she might just think she taught Government instead of Trigonometry. Who knew, maybe she would even vouch for me.

  Just then someone blazed past the guard. “My bag!” a lady called out. “Someone stole my bag!”

  The guard glanced at me quickly. “Stay put. I’ll be right back.”

  “Okay, sure,” I innocently remarked as he took off running, his military blues getting smaller and smaller as he weaved his way through the people on the street, chasing after the thief. I glanced at the woman whose bag was stolen, and she winked at me.

  I stepped back, wondering if I had ever seen her before, but I didn’t recognize her.

  “Go,” she whistled out of the side of her mouth. “Hurry, before he returns.”

  I didn’t know if I should stay and thank her as I let out a slow breath of air and turned around, pushing my shoulders back. Our eyes connected for a split second and I nodded to her, hoping it was enough. Then I high tailed it toward the mirrored building, walking as fast as I could.

  Suddenly my head was clearer than it had ever been.

  Chapter 7

  Garment

  My emotions were tackling me, though, squashing me to the ground. I couldn’t believe what I was doing. Gasping for a last breath of the only life I had known, breathing in perhaps some of my last Province A air, I put my head down and solidly trekked to the tall mirrored skyscraper and blasted through its shiny front doors. The lobby was empty, and as I searched around, I remembered the chute that Dove and I had taken up to the top story. I punched in the number and waite
d as my stomach leaped into my throat. The great plan I had formed squirreled incoherently in my mind, and suddenly I wasn’t so confident.

  What if he turned me away? I shook it off, remembering the same feeling the night I had shown up at my dad’s apartment. I was taken in with open arms then. But could it happen twice?

  I reached the twenty-seventh floor and walked out of the chute, satchel in hand. Hoping I wouldn’t be noticed, I found Garment’s door and tried to open it, but it refused to budge when I pressed the button next to it. I looked around for something. Anything.

  There was another button by the door, this one green. Probably a buzzer. I pushed it as hard as I dared, glancing over my shoulder for the guard, hoping he hadn’t followed me. Or a different guard or hall monitor who might want to start asking me questions, like why I wasn’t in school and why I was bleeding and why I probably reeked of alcohol. I glanced around the lavish corridor, tapping my foot impatiently. I waited. Nothing happened.

  I pushed the buzzer again, moving my eyes around the poorly lit hall.

  “Who is it?” a female voice finally asked. I recognized the voice, but she was the last person I wanted to talk to.

  Letting out a sharp breath, I answered. “It’s Rain. Rain 24-A. You know, Dove’s step-daughter.” Even though Dove called me her daughter and I was more than happy to let her be my mother, I wasn’t sure if Blush would recognize me as Dove’s real daughter.

  “Go away.” It was a simple directive, to the point. A typical Blush answer.

  “I can’t,” I breathed, biting my lower lip again. If I kept this up, I wouldn’t have a lip left. I heard a scuffling and then the door swished open.

  I let out a breath I wasn’t even sure I had been holding. Standing before me was just the man I wanted to see, and he was holding his long arms wide open for me.

  “Rain, daaarlinnnng,” he drawled. I raced into his arms and he enfolded them around me, an octopus of love. For the first time since I left home I felt safe, even if I knew it was only for a fleeting moment.

  Garment’s voice warbled in my ears as he held me away from him, examining me. He fluttered his heavily ringed hands. “Dove buzzed me and said you were here on a school trip. Magnificent!”

  He gently turned me around and led me to the back of the room, and we entered a door. The same door that Sergio had entered when Dove and I had been there before.

  The door whirred shut behind us and I found myself in a drab, dark room. It was such a contrast to the heavily decorated fashion designer’s front office that I was taken aback. The paint on the walls was a deep black and the room was bare except for two ugly beige couches on either side of the walls.

  Garment clapped his hands, and some lights came on, but they were dim. I looked up, and just then I saw the Administration cameras fold back into the wall, so much like how the Clinic tucked S.L.A.G.s into tubes in the wall that I dropped my jaw in surprise.

  Garment’s voice changed immediately and he narrowed his eyes while crossing his arms over his thin chest. “Okay, little butterfly,” he began in his sing song, drawled out voice. “I covered for you out there. I’m pretty sure that Dove thinks you’re at school.” He lifted his perfectly sculpted eyebrows. “Now, spill the beans.” My eyes moved up to the cameras that had magically disappeared, and he seemed to read my mind. “No worries, daaarling. There are no cameras here. I have them overridden to display the front office. How else do you think we can keep Sergio here?” With that, he laughed, his high-pitched voice resounding throughout the dark room. “Gods, I don’t know why more people don’t do it. Silly sheep.” He giggled at his words then abruptly stopped, crossing his long arms over his chest. He was wearing thin, red velvet slacks and a long, knee length shirt that was ivory colored with no embellishments. He wore no make-up, which disarmed me for a moment.

  I stared into his blue eyes, the ones that had once reminded me so much of Orion’s. Garment’s eyes in return were gentle, searching. His lips curved up slightly, and I knew I had to tell him why I was there.

  “I…I need help.” I swallowed hard and the words left my mouth, flying off of my tongue and landing in his lap.

  “I’m…I’m pregnant.”

  Chapter 8

  Haven

  “Oh, little one…” Garment reached out and pulled me toward him, his stiff gauzy shirt brushing crisply against my cheek. In his arms, I fell apart, unraveled piece by horrid piece. The hidden box that had been locked up so tightly inside of me opened up like a secret making the rounds at Citizen School. Once the tears came, I couldn’t stop them, wetting Garment’s shirt with huge, wet puddles…pregnant, abandoned, pathetic tears.

  Garment brushed his hands over my hair. “Shhhhh. Shhhhh,” he cooed, so much like Dove that a lump formed in my throat. Maybe about the fifth one that day. Shit, I was tired of falling apart.

  Finally, he pulled away from me and gazed at me tenderly, a hint of sternness lurking behind the cobalt rims of his eyes. When he spoke, his words were both calming and stiff, a dichotomy I struggled to separate. “Butterfly, they will track you here. You know that?” He stroked my cheek gently with his long, ringed fingers. If it had been any other man I would have been angry, insulted. But not with Garment. Definitely not him.

  I nodded, then painfully pulled up the sleeve of my shirt, revealing my bandaged forearm. “I cut it out,” I simply told him like I might have trimmed my hair or sliced my finger on something sharp.

  “Holy mother of God!” Garment exclaimed, a wisp of his breath cooling my hot forehead. But my lips curved up into a half-smile when I saw the distasteful expression on his face. It was as if I had murdered Ruler 9 himself. He cast his eyes down on me, waiting to speak for a moment. When he did, I was proud for some arcane reason, as if I had actually found a cure for S.L.A.G. or something more important than just cutting out my tracker-timer.

  “You tough little butterfly,” Garment gushed. He inhaled deeply before speaking again, his piercing blue eyes sparkling proudly at me. Waving his arm in the air, he asked, “Where is that nasty little thing now?”

  My answer was quick, to the point. “In my glider. It’s parked in the garage downtown.”

  Garment scrunched up his face, and his eyes seemed to disappear into the folds of his skin. “Well, that was smart of you.” Then he waved his hand in the air dramatically as he leaned in closer to me, a true conspirator. “Did anyone see you?” His breath was sweet and minty and cool. I pressed into it, a safe wall that blew itself around me. But my body ached, as though someone was squeezing me from every angle and the small room was becoming unbearably hot. To top it off, my arm was pulsing in pain, an invisible hammer smacking it in a rhythm that was worse than Ivy’s heavy death music.

  As the room seemed to swim in waves, I told Garment about the guard and the lie I told him about being on a school field trip. I also informed him about the woman who faked getting her bag stolen so the guard would be distracted. In my murky mind, I still couldn’t understand why she did that.

  “Oh, dear,” he sighed. “The slimy bastards will be searching for you. Soon.” He held his hand up to his mouth, again, deep in thought.

  My arm was fiercely burning by now, and I just wanted to lie down and fall asleep, have somebody else take over. It seemed like I had made a thousand hard decisions in the past twenty-four hours, and I was drowning in the fluids of my own brain. Still, I had to make one thing clear.

  I found Garment’s eyes in the dimness, pausing for a moment. When I spoke, I left no room for argument. “They aren’t killing this baby. I don’t care if it’s S.L.A.G. or not.” I crossed my arms over my chest, prepared for a fight, ignoring the poisonous pain that spit into my wound.

  “Oh, butterfly, I completely agree with you.” He smiled sweetly down at me. “We’re just going to have to hide you out for a while, that’s all.”

  Garment’s words were all I needed to hear. I choked, almost falling to the ground with relief.

  I had a place to st
ay.

  I had a place to stay.

  I said the words over and over in my mind as Garment wrapped his arms around me again and patted my back. “Poor little butterfly,” he soothed.

  I started to cry all over again, feeling like a stupid girl. I sniffed back the tears and Garment set me gently on one of the couches just as Sergio entered with a tray of food, a plate full of meats and cheeses, and all sorts of fattening foods we weren’t allowed to have in Province A. As usual, Sergio said nothing, but he did stare at me as if he knew more than someone who was S.L.A.G. Maybe he remembered me from that day not too long ago when he cut my hair.

  Garment sat solidly next to me, waving his hands over the platter of food. “You look like hell, butterfly.” He squished up his face. “My mother always said there isn’t a problem that a good meal and a night’s sleep can’t cure.”

  “I do feel shitty,” I confessed. “I’m tired. But I’m not really hungry.” My stomach performed a perfect flip flop at the mention of food, a see saw of nausea that felt like crashing ocean waves.

  “Daarling, you reek of alcohol, your arm is spurting blood, and you have another life to think about now.” Garment raised his eyebrows at me, a surrogate parent I chose on my own accord, the second one in a matter of months. His voice was as stern as I had ever heard it. The lyrical tone that always made him unique, more special than just a fashion designer, was now gone. “Butterfly, if you’re going through with this you muuusssst eat. That little baby needs nutrients.” It was a direct order, and I dared not argue with him. I nodded in agreement. “Then we’ll get you cleaned up and form a plan.” Garment reached over and daintily grabbed a cracker, nibbling on it like a squirrel in one of the few parks we had left in Province A.

  “Okay,” I hesitantly agreed. I reached for some cheese and salami, folded them into my mouth and actually savored the rare, exotic flavors. The food went down easier than I thought.

  A bell rang from far away, and Garment stood up as if a puppet had pulled strings on his long arms and legs. “A customer,” he whispered confidentially to me through the side of his mouth while raising his eyebrows. “I’ll be back in a flash, sweeeetie.” He reached down and kissed the top of my head and rushed off in typical Garment fervor, leaving me all alone in the dark room with Sergio, who sat placidly on the other couch.