He turned with his hands in his pockets and strolled out of the room, the door clicking shut behind him. Blake let out his breath. The ministers looked at each other in disbelief.
“He’s different,” Gerald Kepplinger said, no longer appearing sleepy.
Joe Bigg lightly prodded his gelled hair. “He’s a total drama queen.”
“He’s dangerous,” Hugo Seneca said.
Meacham gave Blake a guarded, distrustful look. “You and I go back a long way, Louis, and you know as well as the rest of the men in this room that I got no problem with your kind. But”—he stabbed a thick finger in the direction of the door—“I don’t trust that asshole, not one bit. He doesn’t feel an ounce of loyalty to anyone. Not even you, Blake. He’s got other reasons for being here. I know it.”
Blake got up and felt for his pack of cigarettes. “You let me deal with Michael and Dominic.”
He left the room, trying as hard as he could to hold back a tide of painful, hacking coughs until he was outside. The word “loyalty” reminded him of a promise he had made a long time ago.
If you can get him out, I’ll find him and protect him, Claudia. I swear it. Even if I have to turn my back on everyone I’ve ever known.
He swallowed a mouthful of cough syrup.
“I’m doing my best, sweetheart,” he said, looking up at the sky as he screwed the cap back on the bottle.
Chapter 4
“Lunch is at one o’clock at the Cold War Café on Landing Zone Street, right off Missile Avenue.” Dominic had told Michael after leaving him in the driveway. “Think you can find it on your own?”
Landing Zone Street was one of the places Michael remembered from the drive, if only because it had such a strange name. He’d be able to find it easily.
Lunch, though, wasn’t for another hour. Since Dominic abandoned him, Michael had spent the past twenty minutes sitting on the low stone wall surrounding the property, unsure whether to go back inside the house or start for the café. Then it occurred to him that it might be nice to explore the houses on Silo Street.
The walk was a pleasant one. The trees and the cliff sides drowned the area in cool shade. Birds chirped all around him, and the gentle wind slipped through the trees like gushing water. All of it seemed so organic compared to the inhumane, mechanical cruelty of the sector in which he’d grown up.
The other houses were just as impressive as the one he was staying in. At the end of the street, a pink two-story home with stucco walls and a brown-shingled rooftop drew his attention, though not because of its design or style. A girl emerged from the front door just as he was walking by. Michael stepped behind a tree and studied her. She was the first Eastlander girl he had ever seen.
She stopped on the front steps and looked out over the yard. Michael could only make out the most basic details from this distance. Her hair, deep brown and sensuously thick, was lifted up in a loose bun, and she wore jeans and a collared blouse that failed to hide the significant curves of her body. Michael had always pictured Eastlander women as being skinny and malnourished; this one was the opposite, with a fullness that captivated him.
He startled when he heard her voice.
“William,” she called out sharply. “Get over here now.”
The woman—not really a girl at all—had rested her hands on her hips and was scanning the yard with an intensity that reminded Michael of the gun turrets built along the Line back home.
A strange tingling sensation ignited inside his brain. Michael turned. A small boy stood in the street, watching him.
He was wiry with a fluffy mess of brown hair that matched the woman’s in color and thickness, and he was squinting so deeply at Michael that his eyes were little more than slits.
“Hey,” Michael said. “Are you William?”
The boy only looked at him.
“William!” the woman shouted, this time with both hands cupping her mouth. “I’m going to spank the wrath out of you if you don’t get over here right now!”
The boy, no older than six years, suddenly spun away and hobbled toward the house. He had a clubfoot and his orthopedic shoe was a leathery, clunky thing, obviously uncomfortable.
“Nice to meet you, too,” Michael said, not loud enough for the boy to hear him.
He watched William limp across the yard toward the front steps of the pink house, where the woman stood with her arms crossed. When the boy arrived, he pointed back at Michael. The woman squinted to see him in the distance.
Michael tensed. He was about to leave when the woman waved to him. He waved back, awkwardly. He shouldn’t have stopped here at all.
She said something to William and pointed into the house. William looked back at Michael once more before clomping through the door. Looking relieved now that the boy was safely inside, the woman let her arms drop to her sides and took hurried, confident strides across the yard.
As she came closer, Michael saw just how attractive and young she was—not a woman like he’d thought before, but a girl on the cusp of womanhood. Her full-lipped mouth had gathered into an indecisive pout, and her eyes—brown and darkly lashed—were narrowed in a haughty way. With each step, her hips swung.
“Hi,” she said, standing before Michael on the grass at the edge of the property. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, even lifting them a little as if they were too heavy to let hang on their own.
He remained motionless on the paved road. “Are you one of Blake’s new boys?”
“I’m just a new resident, that’s all.” He slipped his hands into his pockets and rocked back a little on his heels. “I just got here and—you know. From the People’s Republic?”
Her mouth opened in awe, like he was famous and she had finally recognized him.
“You’re a telepath,” she said.
“How do you know that?”
“Because Blake only brings people here from the west if they’re telepathic.”
Michael nodded and relaxed a little. The girl was awestruck. “I’m a Type I, or something like that. According to Dominic.” He shrugged like it was no big deal, just details.
“Well, you don’t have to brag about it.” She frowned at him. “Dominic’s back, huh? Swell.”
Fear flashed through the girl’s mind like silent thunder, and then it was gone. Michael wasn’t sure how he’d picked up on it, but it definitely hadn’t been his imagination.
“Anyway,” she said uncomfortably. “My name’s Charlotte.”
“Michael.”
Her posture shifted so that now she looked extremely bored. There was a faint blush in her cheeks. Michael tore his eyes away from her and muttered the first thing that came to mind.
“Almost lunch time.”
“Your shirt’s backwards,” was her response. She gave him an arrogant smirk.
“Huh?” He reached up to the collar and found the label in the front instead of the back. “I didn’t even notice.”
He pulled his arms in through the sleeves and rotated the shirt around his torso so he wouldn’t have to take it off in front of her. She seemed amused by his shyness.
“So,” Michael said to break the silence, “is William your brother?”
“He’s my son. I had him when I was—”
Her voice was cut off by the roar of motorcycle engines. Peter and the other boys had clustered at the end of their driveway down the street.
Michael tensed. They were watching him.
Ian sat on his bike, parked next to Peter. Together they watched Michael and Charlotte for a few seconds before saying something to each other and driving away, Eli trailing behind him.
“I can walk with you if you want,” Charlotte said, and quickly added: “I normally ride my bike, but it’s a nice day for walking.”
“What about William?”
“Oh, him.” She looked down at the pavement as if calculating something. When she looked back up at Michael, she was wincing slightly. “I usually bring him back food. He can’t walk or ri
de very well because of his condition. I’m sure you noticed—”
“He has a clubfoot.”
She shrugged. “So what do you say? Lunch?”
They spoke little during the half-hour walk, mostly about the weather here in the mountains and some of the local gossip. Michael spent most of the walk brooding over his place here in Gulch. He tried to ignore the way his blood seemed to warm whenever Charlotte strayed close to him on the sidewalk. It wasn’t like any attraction he’d ever felt toward the waitresses at his parents’ restaurant. She frightened him a little.
The Cold War Café—Atomic Coffee and Pastries, read the sign—was a non-descript building standing shoulder-to-shoulder with several other buildings of the same design. It would have blended in completely except that someone had painted the facade orange and brown. The colors, along with the stenciled orange-and-brown sign in front, gave it an air of prewar nostalgia.
“This place is unreal,” Michael said, gazing through the windows. “It’s like a dream from the past.”
Charlotte winced a little. “I wouldn’t say weird stuff like that around here.”
“Why is that weird?”
She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Come on.”
He followed her into the shady café. It was a single room, much longer than it was wide, and at the other end, beyond a series of booths and a few round tables in the center, was a bar with a half dozen empty stools lining it. A colorful but ancient-looking jukebox sat against the nearest booth.
Two of the booths near the back were filled with people. In one, Michael recognized Peter, Eli, and Ian. The other was full of men he’d not yet encountered. Otherwise, the place was empty.
The back door swept open into the room, and a blonde girl entered, carrying a plate in each hand. Michael caught the smell of roasted vegetables with herbs and a type of meat he couldn’t identify. His mouth filled with saliva. Meat. He hadn’t eaten real meat in years. He practically jumped into a booth, so eager was he to be served a plate of greasy steaming meat. He didn’t care if it came from rats.
He was sure the boys had seen him come in, especially Peter, who sat facing the front door. Charlotte met the blonde girl halfway across the room and took the plates away from her.
“Hey,” Peter said. “We’ve been waiting for those.”
“We have a guest,” Charlotte said.
The blonde girl, hearing the word “guest,” squinted in Michael’s direction. The light coming from the windows must have made him little more than a silhouette. As she studied him, he took the opportunity to study her as well. Pretty but skinny, the girl was dressed in sandals, denim shorts, and a yellow T-shirt on which a cartoon nuclear missile with arms, legs, and a smiling face was frozen in a wave. There was a yellow ribbon in her hair that matched the shirt. She looked to be about the same age as Michael, maybe a year younger.
Charlotte came over to Michael’s booth with the plates. The meat was in the form of thin grilled strips, and Michael had to swallow pooled saliva before he could stuff one of the strips into his mouth. The greasiness and the charcoal flavor and the soft, slippery texture of the fat caused tiny explosions of ecstasy all along his tongue. He let out a soft groan.
“Meat,” he said.
Charlotte frowned at him. Michael tried to explain.
“We don’t, um...” He chewed vigorously and swallowed. “We don’t get a whole lot of meat where I’m from.”
He forced himself to eat at a steady pace. Across from him in the booth, Charlotte picked at her food. She seemed uncomfortable around the blonde girl.
“Is that your sister?” Michael said to break the silence.
She nodded. “That’s Arielle. You’ll get to know her eventually. Everybody does.”
That last bit had come out with a roll of her eyes.
Arielle came to the table, frowning slightly as she studied Michael. Her eyes, like her sister’s, were large and attractive, but they were a bright color—blue or green, he couldn’t tell—instead of brown. Her pert and pretty face radiated an emotional openness missing from her sister’s. Even while frowning, Arielle seemed to be on the verge of smiling.
“Hi,” she said. “Are you new here?”
Charlotte let out a cynical chuckle. “It’s not like he’s been hiding in the Hollows this entire time, Arielle. Of course he’s new.”
Arielle’s face eased into a smile with a nose that wrinkled up like a rabbit’s. “I see you two have become fast friends.”
Charlotte glared at her sister. Michael swallowed what food was in his mouth and stuck his hand out.
“My name’s Michael,” he said.
Arielle took his hand and swung it up and down in an awkward shake.
“I’m Arielle. Pleased to meetcha.”
Charlotte cleared her throat. Arielle lost the smile, then glanced at Michael’s empty plate and said, “Seconds?”
Michael nodded vigorously. “Please.”
A second helping of food? These people were rich!
“Comin’ right up.” Arielle grabbed his plate and spun toward the back doors. Then she spun back around and gave him a serious look. “Let me know if there’s anything else, okay? I rely on peoples’ comments to improve this place. There’s a suggestion box by the front door if you don’t feel comfortable telling me face-to-face, so—anyway, be right back.”
“You own this place?” He asked before she could turn away again.
She smiled and nodded. “Uh huh. Do you like it?”
“Yeah, it’s great!”
She beamed that happy smile at him again. Michael’s face warmed. Arielle disappeared through the back doors, leaving only the sound of their flapping as they came to rest.
“Wow,” he said, looking at Charlotte. “She’s really nice.”
Charlotte was scowling. She had crossed her arms.
“What’s wrong?”
Another roll of her eyes. “Oh, come on. She’s dumb as a rock. Don’t tell me you go for girls like that.”
“Why would you say that? She’s your sister. Plus, she started her own business. Dumb people don’t do that.”
With a heavy sigh, Charlotte slid out of the booth, stormed across the café, and burst through the doors after her sister.
A moment later, the four men Michael hadn’t yet met slid out of their booth. Sporting ragged beards, dressed in jeans and faded T-shirts with sweat stains under the arms, they looked to be in their late-twenties and early-thirties, much older than Peter, Eli, and Ian. They gave Michael looks of distrust.
He cast his gaze downward until they passed his table.
Arielle appeared through the back doors carrying a smaller plate of bacon and potatoes and a wooden cup she was careful not to spill.
“Hey, blondie, here’s a song for ya,” one of the men called out.
Michael heard the clink of a coin entering the jukebox. A song began to play, one he recognized from his homemade radios back home.
It was “A Kiss to Build a Dream On” by Louis Armstrong. Michael knew the words by heart.
“Thanks,” Arielle said half-heartedly as the men left the café. She glanced at Michael and let out a scoff of disgust. “They’re such pigs. They don’t even tip.”
“Hey,” Peter called out from his booth. “We don’t tip either.”
“And you boys know what you are.”
Eli let out a guffaw of laughter. “We’ll see how much the westerner leaves you. Maybe you’ll get a ration card.”
The other boys roared with laughter. Michael didn’t find it funny. He made a mental note to give Arielle a tip as soon as he got some money of his own.
“I think it’s great that you own this place,” he told her.
Arielle tipped her head a little as she studied him, then set down the plate and the cup and slid into the seat across from him, where Charlotte had sat earlier.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” she said with a light shrug. “It’s not easy, though. The Overseer won’t let me se
t my own prices. He says it’s for the good of the community. There are a bunch of other rules I have to follow and taxes I have to pay, but I don’t mind so much.”
Michael nodded in understanding. Harris Kole’s speeches back in the People’s Republic had been full of the same reasons. Everything had to be done for the good of the masses so everyone could suffer while the Kole family prospered. It was a load of shit.
“What’s wrong?” Arielle said, catching him off guard.
“What do you mean?”
“Your mind”—she winced as if at a sudden ache—“it’s heavy.”
Michael frowned at her. Strange as it was, he understood what she meant.
“My brother and my parents died,” he said. “They were killed by men who worked for the FSD. That’s the Fatherland Security Department back in—in…”
He lost the ability to speak. He was thinking about the blood all over his brother’s face, and how the men, Welcher and Boyd, had looked after Michael had told them to…
(Open your throat with the bottle, he had told Boyd, and the man had spilled so much blood.)
“Oh God,” Arielle said, horrified. Her eyes were a pale shade of blue.
“Can you read my mind?” Michael said.
“Oh, no no no,” she said, shaking her head. A slender hand rose to cover her mouth. She seemed to drift off into thought for a moment before suddenly fixing her gaze on him. “I’m an empath,” she said. “I can help with that, you know.”
“Help with what?”
She tilted her head to the side a little and gave him a sympathetic look.
“Your sadness.”
Chapter 5
Michael walked back to the house by himself, feeling unusually light and carefree. He had seemingly the whole day ahead of him with no idea how to spend it. A wonderful feeling.
Having received no other instructions from Dominic or Louis Blake, he settled into his cot for an afternoon nap. He awoke twenty minutes later with a sick feeling in his stomach. The rest of the day was spent in the bathroom, voiding his bowels of that heavy, greasy bacon. He should have known better than to eat it so fast.
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