by Rob Thurman
“There are no words,” I said honestly.
“I have one with Sigmund Freud too.” He folded Albert carefully and put him back into a bag before rummaging again. “Where? Oh, here. See?”
Unless the eminent and penis-obsessed psychiatrist had had a sex change operation not recorded by history, Michael had grabbed the wrong shirt. There were blond hair, cleavage, and a wide ruby red mouth. Marilyn Monroe. At least he had an appreciation for the classics.
“Well,” I said in contemplation as I sucked the last of my Coke through the straw, “that’ll let the girls know you’re open for business.”
Michael looked down and flushed before hurriedly shoving the famous blond bombshell back out of sight. “Er . . . it was on sale.” It was his first solo shopping trip and he’d already nailed the ultimate excuse.
“Damn, kiddo.” I couldn’t help myself. I had to laugh. It came out a bit strangled through my aching throat, but it was genuine. “You’ve got the worse taste.”
He stiffened, not seeing the humor in the situation. “You told me to buy whatever I wanted.”
“Hey, come on.” Pushing the bags aside, I took a handful of his jacket and pulled him down to sit on the bench. “I think it’s perfect. You landed on your feet and hit the ground running. You’re you, Misha. No matter what those bastards tried to do to you, you’re still your own person.” I tossed the cup into the garbage can a few feet away and gave him a wicked smile. “And that person just happens to have crappy taste.”
Michael relaxed with my words, hopefully recognizing the good intentions behind them. It didn’t stop him from peppering me with vengeful comments about my wardrobe as we walked back to the food court. Monochromatic man was the kindest thing he had to say. I liked black. So sue me.
We were halfway to the food court before Michael finally laid off my clothes. I seized the opportunity to ask, “You did get me a coat, didn’t you? And sweaters?”
The smirk on his face was pure, unadulterated evil. “Trust me. I wouldn’t forget you, Stefan.”
He refused to show me the remaining contents of the bags as we sat down to eat our mediocre Chinese food. Instead, he tortured me with vague hints and sly remarks until finally he went quiet and concentrated on twirling noodles around his fork. It was a strange silence, almost wistful.
“Are you wishing you’d bought more sweaters for yourself now?” I toed the bags at his feet. “Nice, sensible, boring sweaters?”
“No.” He rolled his eyes. The glasses had been discarded in his pocket for the moment, but I had thoughts of contacts for him in the future. His bicolored eyes were simply too distinctive. They would be remembered by anyone who saw him up close.
“Don’t come crying to me when Albert doesn’t keep you warm in the snow.” I speared a mushroom off his plate, popped it in my mouth, and chewed. It hurt to swallow, but not too badly. Sevastian would be hurting far more—if he ever woke up. Appetite waning, I dropped my fork and pushed the plate away. “Brings back memories, doesn’t it? This place?”
Michael took a long look around. The crowd was sparse. The snow had kept most people home and it was a weekday, but it was still a mall. “It does,” he admitted reluctantly. He toyed with his food, knotting the noodles into neat little piles. “They drugged us, you know. On the trips.”
“Drugged you?”
“Not so much we couldn’t function.” The fork kept moving. “They wanted us to interact, wanted to see if we could pass for normal. They gave us just enough to slow us down in case we tried to escape.” The tines of the plastic fork bent under the pressure and broke against the plate. “Not that any of us ever tried. What a waste.”
I knew what he was thinking, that his fearless friend John would have made the attempt . . . that he wouldn’t have let the chance go by. But John hadn’t lived that long. “Actually it wasn’t.” I piled our plates on the tray for disposal. “That last field trip is how I found you. One of the girls who worked there spotted you. She’s one of Saul’s. He’s had your description out to his network for years now.”
“She recognized me?” he asked doubtfully. “How?”
“Your eyes. Your age. Faces change in ten years, but there aren’t many kids out there who fit both of those.” I stood and dumped the contents of the tray into the garbage can beside our table. “Face it, kid, you’re unique.”
The expression that shimmered across his face was partly wary and partly something I couldn’t identify. “Stefan—”
“I know,” I interrupted with a tug of the hair at the nape of his neck. “You’re not my brother. You can keep telling yourself that, Misha, but it’s not going to make any difference to me. Now, you want to hit the pet store for ferret food before we go or just toss the rat out the window?”
He sighed but went with the change of subject. “The pet store. I like Zilla. It’s nice having someone around I can have an intelligent conversation with.”
“You certainly bitch like a brother,” I grumbled affectionately under my breath. I might have lost my uncle, but I still had family and it was right here with me, bad taste and stubborn nature included.
“I remember that girl. The one who saw me.” Michael hoisted his bags and followed me. “I was off from the group a little. She tried to sell me a hat.” His voice took on a longing note. “She said I was . . . um . . . hot.”
I slung an arm around his shoulder as we approached the doors. “We have to get you a girlfriend, kiddo. We really do.”
Chapter 26
The trip to St. Louis was uneventful. I could see myself saying it. I could hear the words as if I had. The trip was uneventful. Uneventful.
Yeah, it would’ve been nice.
The bastard hit us from behind. It wasn’t Sevastian, soaked in blood, or Jericho looming dark and menacing against the white background of the blizzard. It was just some random son of a bitch who couldn’t drive. Maybe he’d forgotten to put on his snow tires or maybe he wasn’t paying attention. Six of one, a half dozen of the other—it all equaled a world of hurt for Michael and me.
The roads were covered in a thick slush growing more treacherous by the moment, but they were still passable. The streetlights had flickered on early as a combination of the storm and approaching dusk conspired to make the gloom midnight thick. It was one of those helpful streetlights that we hit head-on. The blow from behind was massive and the SUV leaped forward as if swatted by a huge paw. We slid into what felt like a never-ending spin, swapping the front of the car for the tail God knew how many times. There are things to do in that situation, I know, but given that I was from Florida, they weren’t exactly second nature to me. Tapping the brakes, turning into the curve, it all sounds good. But when you’re caught in a whirlwind of metal and glass, it’s not that easy. To give credit where credit is due, they might not have been meant for collision conditions.
Hitting the pole was almost a relief to the sickening motion. The airbag against my face muffled the crunch of metal and the wind-chime splintering of glass. There was the taste of chalky powder in my mouth and a faint burning of my skin, but that was overshadowed by the searing band—the seat belt—slanting diagonally across my chest. “Michael?”
Coughing at the talc, I shoved at the white material as it deflated. “Michael, you okay?”
He was fighting with his own airbag with panicky uncoordinated movements. “He’s here,” he choked. “He’s here.” Lunging at the door, he struggled with the handle. I stopped him with a hand on his arm, not that he would’ve gotten far with his seat belt fastened.
I’d already checked the rearview mirror to see the man who had hit us. He was a big, bearded lumberjack in a delivery truck. “No, Misha. No. It’s not Jericho. It was just an accident.”
He was still pushing at the door, and I moved my hand from his arm to his shoulder to give him a gentle shake. “Listen to me, kid,” I said firmly. “We were in a wreck. Somebody slid on the ice and hit us.”
It finally seemed to penetrate and he sagged under my
hand. “An accident?”
I nodded. “Just a dumbass who rear-ended us. That’s all.”
Michael had been so calm and composed since his rescue, even when facing down Jericho in the parking lot where I’d been shot, that I was momentarily surprised by his distress now. But the sudden shock of the collision had shaken me, and it was bound to have disoriented him. Then I saw the trickle of crimson winding its way down his face and it was all the more clear. Swiping my thumb across the welling of blood in his right temple, I revealed an inch and a half laceration. He must have struck his head on the side window when we hit. The new tightening in my chest had nothing to do with the pressure from my seat belt.
Michael blinked at his blood on my hand and exhaled a steadying breath. “Oh.” He rubbed at his forehead with the back of his hand, wiping blood away. “It’s okay. I’m a fast healer, remember?”
Who was reassuring whom here?
“You guys okay?” A cold reddened face appeared at our demolished windshield. A thick brown beard bristled around a mouth chapped by the elements and large gloved hands were clapped for warmth. “Goddamn, I’m sorry. The truck got away from me. Frickin’ weather.”
Pulling the sleeve of my shirt over the heel of my hand, I carefully mopped at Michael’s still sluggishly bleeding cut. His pupils were equal. There was no bloody discharge from his nose or ears. Those were all good signs. All those overwrought medical shows on TV said so. “We’re fine,” I said brusquely. “Now go away.”
Suffering patiently under my makeshift first aid efforts, Michael allowed his eyes to meet mine. He knew as well as I that we were in trouble—big trouble.
“Fine? The boy’s bleeding.” The man pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and started punching buttons. “I’m calling 911.”
An ambulance and police—that was everything we didn’t need. I was in a stolen rental car with a kid I couldn’t prove was related to me, and I still had no idea of the extent of Jericho’s connections with the government. The scrutiny of the authorities, no matter how casual, was something we couldn’t afford. Grabbing a rumpled and worn shirt from the backseat, I folded it, put it in Michael’s grip, and manipulated his hand to the cut. “Hold pressure there, okay? I’ll be right back.”
I undid my seat belt and opened the door to climb out. My legs felt oddly anesthetized, as if I were walking on unbending lengths of wood. My dismal expectations were fulfilled. The SUV was totaled. It wasn’t moving another inch, much less carrying us away before the police arrived. Big trouble had transmuted into catastrophe.
While I was taking stock, Paul Bunyan had just gotten through to the operator to report the wreck. Instantly I swatted the phone out of his hand and wasted no time in kicking it out of sight into a distant pile of snow. He gaped at me, his breath puffing white clouds in the air between us. “What the hell did you do that for?”
I ignored him and turned to examine his truck. It seemed fine except for a bent grille and a few dents, but then I saw the right tire was deflated. The crumpled fender had punctured it. Things just kept getting better and better. Around us the street was empty. Since we’d left the mall the storm had only gotten worse. Not many people were risking the roads. Swearing, I moved back to the car. I leaned in and said regretfully, “Misha, I’m sorry, but we have to go.” Our transportation was trashed and Bunyan’s truck wasn’t any more mobile.
With the wad of cloth still pressed to his head, he gazed past me out into the curtain of snow and sighed. “Seems about right.” He was pale but had returned to his familiar collected self, the confusion having cleared. Whether it was his accelerated healing or pure force of will, I didn’t know. Knowing Michael, it was a combination of the two, with a heavy emphasis on will.
“Put on your new coat. I’ll get all our bags.” All that I could carry.
“I said, what the hell are you doing?” A meaty hand fastened on my shoulder and spun me around. “That kid is hurt. You’re not taking him anywhere.”
When you needed one, Good Samaritans were nonexistent, a myth. But try to flee a hit-and-run from the victim end and you were tripping all over them. “Look, pal.” I peeled his hand from my shoulder. “I know you’re trying to do the right thing, and that’s great. But this isn’t your business.”
“When you drag a hurt kid off into a blizzard, I make it my business.” The scowl was full of righteous anger and his fists were clenched at his sides. He was a good man trying to do the right thing; it wasn’t his fault it happened to be at the worst possible time.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I offered sincerely. I expected the comment to be in vain, and it was. The guy was nearly four inches taller than I was and had at least sixty pounds on me. He wasn’t threatened by me in the slightest, and it showed.
“Buddy, the hurt that’s going down is going to be all over you. Now get away from the car and the kid, you hear me?” The fists were coming up now, and I didn’t wait to see if he would have second thoughts. A true Good Samaritan rarely did. Truth, justice, and the American way—for them it wasn’t only a comic book code; it was a way of life. It was admirable, courageous, and inconvenient as shit.
I laid out Mr. Admirable with a quick blow to his spreading gut and a hard clip behind his ear. It was easy. A Good Samaritan didn’t stand a chance with a professional bad guy. He went down instantly, an over-the-hill Goliath toppled by a highly disreputable David. The snow and slush cushioned his fall and I quickly turned him over to keep his airway unblocked. He wasn’t unconscious, only profoundly dazed. He’d come to in a few minutes, long before he became hypothermic. By then we’d be on our way; desperate and directionless but on our way. “Sorry,” I murmured, stripping off his thick wool scarf and shoving it under his head. “The boy will be all right. I promise.” I doubted he heard me, but then again, wasn’t I really saying it more for my sake than his?
“Stefan?”
Michael’s voice drifted to me through the hush. “Coming.”
He was wrapped in his new coat, the price tag still attached to the sleeve. It was a dark blue ski jacket with a hood that framed his face. The cut on his head, although angry and red, had stopped bleeding and once again I was grateful for the unusual healing speed of the chimera. “Here.”
He was holding out another coat in my direction as well as a ski jacket—the one he’d been teasing me about over Chinese food. His threats weren’t idle. It was purple, the same purple, in fact, of his hideous shirt. The precise color I’d hoped not to see again and I was going to be wearing it for a while. “What a pal,” I snorted as I slipped it on and zipped it up. “Did you happen to get me matching gloves?”
“They’re in the pockets.” His eyes brightened despite the line of pain creasing his forehead.
A wonderful thing, revenge . . . when you’re not on the receiving end of it. Tossing pride and masculinity to the winds, I put them on and gathered everything I could carry from the backseat of the SUV. I had to leave the books, food, and most of the clothes, but everything else fit in my duffel bag. “You have the rat?”
He patted the front of his coat. “I have him, but he’s not happy.”
The weasel could join the crowd. Our circumstances didn’t have me jumping for joy either. I slung the strap of the bag over my shoulder, moved up the street away from the cars, and scanned the area around us. We were in an industrial area with warehouses, chain-link fences, and empty lots. Everyone had left early trying to beat the weather; the parking lots were deserted. It’s an often-overlooked yet basic fact of the car theft business: It’s hard to steal what isn’t there. I didn’t see any alternative; we were in for a walk.
“We have to get moving, kid. You up for it?”
Barely ten feet away from me, he was nearly lost to sight behind a veil of white, but I saw his nod. He joined me with head down against the gusting wind. As he reached my side, I saw he had a bag from the mall in his hand. “Misha.” I shook my head, hating to deliver more bad news. “You’ll have to leave it. We have
to move fast and you’re already hurt.”
He gave an obstinate thrust of his jaw. “No. I can handle it. It doesn’t weigh much.”
True, it was only clothes. It couldn’t weigh more than five pounds. But trek a mile or so through knee-deep snow in whiteout conditions and those five pounds would soon feel like fifty. On the other hand, I all too easily saw that pile of mall trash through his eyes. Aside from the ferret, it was the first thing he’d bought just for himself. It was the first step on a road that led to independence, something he hadn’t dared imagine for himself back in the Institute. And now I wanted him to throw proof of that treasured step aside. Michael had lost so much in his life. Damned if I wanted to add one more thing to that list, no matter how much of a burden it was at the moment.
“Goddamn, you’re stubborn.” I snatched the bag from his hand and scowled at his knowing expression, wise beyond his years. When it came to Michael, I had sucker written all over me. In a few years, if we survived, I’d undoubtedly be signing over everything I owned to the kid with a glazed and sappy look in my eye. “I’ll take Einstein and Freud. You just concentrate on staying upright. Now come on.” I took a step, then looked over my shoulder and ordered seriously, “Hang on to me. I don’t want to lose you in this. Popsicles don’t make good brothers.”
His hand fastened on to the back of my coat. “You won’t lose me.”
There was a promise I intended to hold him to.
We’d taken only a few steps when I heard the faint groan and bellow of our Good Samaritan coming around. I increased my speed while monitoring the tension of Michael’s hold on me. Within seconds we were out of sight in the whiteout conditions. Safe from discovery from Bunyan or any cops that would soon arrive, I concentrated on slogging through the snow. Murderous colleagues aside, I missed Miami. I missed the sun. I missed the warm air. Here there was only what felt like the next ice age. It abraded skin and numbed face and limbs.
I followed the walls of the looming buildings when I could. They shielded us to a certain extent, but not enough. We had coats and gloves, but we were still in jeans. The snow pushed its way up my pant legs to pack tightly against my skin, and sneakers did nothing to keep my feet from aching fiercely before losing feeling altogether. We kept moving for nearly thirty minutes before the district began to change from industrial to residential.