Feuds

by Avery Hastings

  Davis couldn’t answer. Without responding, she fled to her bedroom and slammed the door, flopping onto her bed. Her sunshade was settling into a deep green. It was meant to soothe her, but she couldn’t get the news broadcast out of her mind. Terri’s words had soothed her more than she could have known. Davis had nearly cried in front of her; the emotion she felt—gratitude and fear and relief combined—was overwhelming. She wanted to ask her dad what was happening, but she didn’t want to bother him. As the election loomed, he was becoming increasingly stressed out. It was like his whole identity was consumed by what used to be just a job. Her questions would probably just weigh on him further. She didn’t want to distract him when he was so close to achieving his dream; and besides, his dream was all for her and Fia. After he was elected, she hoped, there’d be more time for questions … for the kind of conversations they used to have.

  But for now, if Davis was going to get any answers, she’d have to find them herself. She sat up and grabbed her tablet from her schoolbag. She powered it on and typed in the code that allowed it to connect to her flatscreen. Then she logged into her e-mail and settled back against the mountain of purple and green throw pillows that decorated her bed while a list of messages loaded up on the wall facing her. A couple of fashion adverts, nothing of interest. No personal e-mails, which was unusual, aside from an announcement from the studio regarding reduced Saturday hours. Next she switched to Community, the social site everyone posted on. Maybe Emilie would be online.

  A newsfeed of her friends’ video-streams greeted her, but she skipped the updates and went straight to Emilie’s page. Emilie’s smiling face shone out from her profile, but she hadn’t posted a vid in days. Davis scrolled down, checking for information.

  UserHunnyBea16 posted a message @ 2:15 p.m. yesterday.

  Davis clicked the link, and Beatrice Castellin’s face popped up, framed by curly auburn hair. “Feel better, lady!” she chirped from the screen, chewing a wad of gum as she spoke. Davis shuddered. She was making little chomping sounds as she spoke. “I’ll come sneak you chocolate so you don’t have to deal with that gross hospital food.” She made a gagging face before concluding her message with “Love you lots, Em! Muah!”

  So Emilie was at the hospital. A surge of panic overwhelmed Davis. Caitlyn was dead, and Emilie was in the hospital, but no one was talking about the seriousness of it. She felt her fingers shaking as she typed the exit command and returned to her home screen, a picture of her and Fia on her sister’s last birthday. In it, Fia’s dark curls and skin pressed up against Davis’s lighter, looser hair and creamy complexion. The two didn’t even look like sisters in the picture, except for their shared noses: slim and straight and little. Button noses, their dad had always said. Davis made a sudden decision.

  She’d go. She’d go see Emilie, and she’d get some answers. Davis threw on her jacket and shoes and was out the door before Fia or Terri could ask her any questions.

  * * *

  She could hear the chanting and shouting as she rounded the corner toward the hospital, only to find a hundred or so protestors holding signs and banners. She walked closer, morbidly curious to hear what it was they were saying. Her heart raced out of control as she thought about how angry her dad would be if he knew she was willingly approaching Imp rioters.

  She walked up the sidewalk in the midst of the crowd, which was pushing and moving in a unified mass. “Higher wages, give us rights,” seemed to be the current chant.

  She turned, trying to make her way toward the side entrance, but the crowd had grown and now there were protestors on every side. She felt her body being pushed in the mass, bumped back and forth until her feet were lifted from the ground and she couldn’t see beyond the moving bodies around her. Then the shoving became more violent, and all the chanting whirred around her like dark music, and someone screamed. Davis became panicked; she needed to get to Emilie, but there was no way she could fight through this crowd.

  She craned her neck and saw two men, one dressed in an expensive-looking tailored suit and the other in rumpled jeans and a T-shirt, shoving each other. Others in the crowd around her got involved until the person next to her punched the person next to him. Davis looked down and saw that her shirt was spattered with blood, and yet the two guys kept at it.

  It all happened so fast, then. The blond one hit the dark-haired one and he stumbled back into Davis, knocking her down.

  She hit the ground sideways, landing on her hip and her right arm. She tried to stand up, but there were bodies all around her, knocking into her. She yelped as someone stepped on her hair. She had the sudden, terrifying thought that she’d be trampled to death. Panic took over and she wrapped her arms over her head, unable to struggle against the crowd or get up.

  Then she felt hands under her shoulders lifting her up and forcing her forward through the crowd. She was shaking and tears blurred her eyes and she could barely tell where she was going or how she was moving at all. Someone was guiding her.

  When they broke through she was exhausted, sweating, and crying and not sure where her tears stopped and the dirt-streaked sweat began. She turned to see who had helped her, and gasped.

  It was Cole. Cole, who had been nowhere all her life and was suddenly everywhere all at once.

  “What are you doing here?” she blurted out. It was the wrong thing to say. She should’ve said Thanks for saving me. But she was still completely shaken from being practically stampeded.

  He didn’t answer, just scanned her body as if checking for wounds. “Shit. You’ve got blood all over you.” He reached out as if to touch her and she took a slight step back from him. “Are you okay?”

  “I think so,” she said, measuring her words. “It’s not mine. It was just…”

  “Out of control,” Cole finished, moving toward her again.

  “Yeah,” she said. “It was.” She wiped her eyes quickly, hoping he hadn’t noticed she’d been crying.

  “Where are you headed? Can I walk you?”

  Davis hesitated, struggling to gain control of herself. “I was going to find my friend Emilie. She’s in there, but…” She trailed off, breathing deeply. She realized her hands were trembling, that she was feeling a little light-headed. There was a shooting pain in her right shoulder, and she was having trouble articulating her thoughts.

  “You have a friend in the hospital?” Cole sounded surprised, and his eyebrows knitted in concern. “What happened?”

  “I’m not really sure,” Davis started. “She collapsed at the PAs. I haven’t heard anything about her since.” A look of worry flickered over Cole’s face; his eyebrows knitted together and his already dark eyes deepened to black. He laid a protective hand on Davis’s arm. “You can’t go in there now. And not like that,” Cole told her in a soft voice, gesturing to the streaks of blood and dirt on her shirt. “Do you want to sit down somewhere for a second? Get some water, maybe? You can see her once this has all calmed down. I can walk you there, if you want—help you make sure she’s all right.” His words struck her as concerned, almost tender, and when her eyes darted to his, his face mirrored his tone. Davis felt her heart twinge, a different feeling from the one she’d gotten when she’d kissed him.

  She thought maybe it was okay to hang out with Cole. She wanted it to be okay. But after seeing the news about Caitlyn, she wasn’t sure if she could trust him. What had he been doing there at the hospital? The familiar anxiety moved through her, drawing her to him at the same time it propelled her in the opposite direction. If only she could trust him; she wanted to trust him. Every part of her reached out to him naturally, wanting him to open up to her, to give her something firm about himself that she could cling to. But he was still elusive, and every time he held back, it felt like a tiny needle prodding her heart. She wanted him too much. Sometimes she felt like she was standing on the edge of a chasm, a hairbreadth from hurtling over its edge. Her shoulder tensed again, sending a shooting pain down the back of her left arm, and she wince
d.

  “Are you okay?” Cole asked, his forehead creased with worry.

  “Fine,” Davis told him, but when she rolled her shoulder back, the pain recurred, and she winced again.

  “Davis. If you’re hurt, we should see someone.” His voice was urgent. “We should go to the hospital.”

  “No!” Her voice was sharp. “No,” she said again more quietly. “Please. I don’t want any attention. I’ll be okay.”

  “Let’s go somewhere to sit at least,” he pressed.

  “Okay,” she said, relenting. She didn’t want to be alone right now. And if she called her dad to get her, it would take at least half an hour before he arrived, and then another half an hour of lectures once he got there.

  Cole put one hand against her back as though he thought it could shield her from the horde. She scooted ahead to avoid his touch. The electricity between them was distracting—it messed with her head. She had questions she needed to ask him, like why he was always around all of a sudden. And why he’d lied—if he’d lied—about Caitlyn being okay.

  They turned a corner away from the commercial center of town and headed toward the restaurant district. Davis leaned against the cool brick of the alleyway, grateful for a chance to catch her breath.

  “Cole,” she said. “What really happened to Caitlyn?” She forced herself to look at him.

  His face flushed. “What—what do you mean?” he asked.

  “I saw it on the news. They’re saying Imps did it. You told me you got her home safe, that she was fine. I don’t know what to believe.” Her voice had risen several octaves, and the look on his face did nothing to calm her.

  “I did get her home,” he said. “She was fine. At least, I thought she would be. Believe me, Davis, I had no idea what would happen. If I’d known…” He trailed off, and she noticed he had unconsciously squeezed his hands into fists.

  His words reassured her a little—what had she been thinking? That he’d somehow known Caitlyn would die? He probably felt just as horrible as she did to have been one of the last to see Caitlyn.

  He moved forward, taking her hands in his. There was a strange quality to them—a roughness that was unfamiliar and yet weirdly comforting.

  “Look at me,” he told her. She lifted her eyes to his. “I promise you, if I could have done anything to save her life, I would have.” The way he said it was firm, heated. He held her gaze for a long time without looking away. He wanted her to trust him, she realized. He cared what she thought.

  “Okay,” she said, wanting to believe him. Trying hard to feel as certain as she sounded. “Okay. I’m sorry. I guess I was scared. I mean, it’s crazy. I’m having trouble believing she’s really dead.”

  “Me, too,” he said quietly. Then: “I don’t know why she died. But things are bad out there. Dangerous.”

  He must have been talking about how dangerous the Imps were, and trying to warn her. Obviously he hadn’t hurt Caitlyn; she was sure of it now. He was just as concerned as Davis was. “Yeah, I know. I hear about it all the time from my dad,” she replied. “He’s super protective of me.”

  “I like the sound of this guy,” Cole said, cracking a smile.

  Davis smiled, kind of loving the fact that Cole clearly didn’t know who her dad was. He had to be totally out of it. But it was so refreshing not to just be seen as Robert Morrow’s perfect little daughter.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, remembering herself. Her arm was really aching now—it felt like maybe a pulled muscle; she hoped nothing worse.

  Cole scanned their surroundings, his eyes resting on an ambulance parked nearby, half on the side of the road and half on the curb, its doors left wide open and its lights off. There was no one inside. “There’s our hospital,” Cole said, taking her hand. She flushed at his touch but allowed him to guide her to the abandoned vehicle. He hoisted her into the backseat and followed her, pulling himself in afterward and sitting opposite her.

  “What if someone comes back for it?” she asked, feeling nervous. She didn’t like breaking into someone’s car. It felt illicit. She was suddenly aware of how small the space felt, how close Cole was, how her body was reacting against her will. She felt warmer, and the space closed in on her, making her feel like the outside world had ceased to exist.

  “If someone comes,” Cole told her, his voice somehow soft and strong, “I’ll tell them you’re a girl who needs medical attention. And that’s what I’m giving you. This is, after all, the best place for supplies. It couldn’t be more perfect, wouldn’t you say?”

  She smiled. “I would,” she agreed. He motioned for her to turn, and he placed his hands on her shoulder, prodding gently. She shivered involuntarily under his touch.

  “Did that hurt?” Cole asked. Davis bit her lip, shaking her head. She leaned into his hands. It did hurt, a little … but it also sent shivers down her spine in a good way. He seemed so strong, so self-assured; she wondered why and how he knew what he was doing.

  “Years of fighting,” he answered her, without her having to ask. “Lots of dislocated shoulders. Fighting with my brother,” he amended, averting his eyes. “Just normal kid stuff.” He looked off into space, feeling the area around her left shoulder blade. “Yours is in place,” he told her, “but there’s some swelling. You’ll need some anti-inflammatories.”

  “You have a brother,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t clam up as he had in the past. “What’s he like?”

  “Hamilton?” Cole laughed, his expression wry. “He’s … well, he’s his own breed. I guess we’re a little alike.” He reached for a first-aid kit that lay open on the front seat, rummaged through it, held up a packet of pills and examined them, then discarded them in favor of another. He tore the packet open with his teeth, and she shivered. He was incredibly sexy, but it was almost accidental. It wasn’t like how Oscar was, always so sure of himself, aware of every action, every word he ever uttered, most of which were predictable. Nothing about Cole was predictable.

  “How are you alike?” she pressed. She held her breath, afraid he wouldn’t continue. But he smiled up at her, offering a tablet and a bottle of water. “Take this,” he said. “I’m going to look for some sort of topical ointment, too. You’ve got a huge scratch there.” She felt for her sweater and realized it had torn, slipping down her shoulder and exposing a bloody scrape. He rummaged again in the box, producing a disinfectant. “I guess we’re alike because we’re both really strong-willed,” he said. “Just about different things. Growing up, Hamilton always had to win. He was super competitive. I was all about challenging myself, beating me. I liked to set records—how far I could run, how long I could hold my breath, that kind of thing—and beat that. Unfortunately he liked to beat me, too. He loved proving me wrong.” Cole paused, obviously thinking back. He laughed at the memory, and Davis’s heart swelled. She wanted him to keep talking forever. It was the first time he’d opened up. “Like I said, we fought a lot. It’s how I learned to be strong. But if anyone else messed with me, watch out.”

  “What would he do?” Her question was tentative, searching. He seemed not to notice, lost in his memories. He rubbed ointment on his hands and placed his fingers on her shoulder, massaging a little to rub in the antiseptic. Davis’s breath caught. Audibly, she thought. Her eyes darted to his, but he didn’t look up. He was staring at her shoulder, concentrating. He bit his lip. Breathed. They both breathed. His eyes met hers. He seemed to wrestle with something inwardly, his mouth opening like he was about to talk, only to clamp shut again. He moved away, lifting his fingers from her back. She felt the loss, her body cold where just a second ago it had burned at his touch.

  “You?” he said, the word forced. “Do you have brothers?”

  “A sister,” she said quietly. “Fia. Sofia. She’s…” She trailed off, smiling. Unsure how exactly to describe Sofia. “She’s dynamic,” she continued. “Talented. Brilliant. A reader, an artist, everything.” She laughed. “I feel pretty inadequate in comparison. I wasn’t li
ke her at that age. I just danced all the time. I wasn’t curious like she is.”

  “You say ‘just,’” he said, looking at her intently. “But there’s no ‘just’ about what you do. I can just tell you’re passionate. You devote your life to something. You … God,” he said. He shook his head.

  “What?” Her skin felt electric. He was so close, leaning toward her. So close. Just a little bit more, and they’d be close enough to kiss. “What?” she said again, whispering. He leaned toward her, so near that she felt his breath heat her cheek.

  But then he stopped. She saw him close off as quickly as she might turn off her sunshade. He almost seemed to dim, a wall dropping between them. His posture became stiffer. He leaned away, like she’d done something wrong. She fought a swell of frustration, but it threatened to overcome her. He was so hot and cold. So mixed. So confusing.

  “You’re all set,” he said, reaching for the handle of the door. “I’ll help you get home.”

  “It’s not far,” she told him. “You’ve done so much.” She expected him to protest, to offer to walk her home, but he just nodded.

  “Okay.” He helped her out of the vehicle, and they stood there, not quite meeting eyes. The moment was awkward—thick and clunky. Davis’s whole body ached from the loss of him, the disappointment of a second kiss not realized.

  “Well,” he said.

  “Why don’t we hang out sometime?” she said, unsure where the courage was coming from. Maybe the painkillers were having some side effects, because she was never so bold. “I mean,” she amended. “I don’t know.” She racked her brain for some way to make the moment less awkward. “There’s a roofing party on Friday,” she replied, hoping it was the right thing to say. Relieved she remembered. “Why don’t you meet me there? It’ll be some of the same people from the last party.”