by Nikki Roman
I dip my fingers in my cut, wincing, and sign my name in wide, crimson cursive. No emotions. No resistance. Just compliance.
“Will that work?”
“It’s not the conventional way, usually people just prick their finger, but it works,” Cairen says. “Welcome to the Allie.”
Chapter 15
This is not the same Holden from high school; that Holden was an indentured servant to Trenton. He was an inconsiderate slug, pulling his weight around the school, his mind always drifting to faraway places. The kind of guy who would hit a girl, not pet her hand as he readied a syringe of medicine to ease her pain.
I’m lying on a white cot in the second cube of the warehouse while Holden stiches my stomach closed. He flicks a syringe full of the clear liquid that will take away the pain in my stomach but not the pain in my heart as I think of the mess I’ve gotten myself into.
A quick jab, the pressure of the morphine as it travels through my vein- a warm, burning sensation, and then suddenly the fact that I’ve just signed my soul to the devil doesn’t seem so bad.
Holden pulls a white sheet up to my chin. I touch the scratchy fabric; see his hand and the empty syringe, and then pass out.
•••
The first thing I see when I wake is Cairen’s hideous, moss-colored eyes as they look me over tentatively. It gives me gooseflesh, his gaze heating me up as if I have a fever.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” he says.
I moan when I hear his voice. The wail of ten dying infants would have been a more welcome sound.
“I want to have a talk, do you mind? And then I’ll have Ashten take you home so you can rest some more.”
I do mind—greatly—but my mouth is locked to the words I want to say.
“Okay look, I’m sorry about trying to rape you and the whole shebang.” He claps his hands together. “It got out of hand,” he says. “This is kind of a big deal… me apologizing for drugging a girl. Imagine if I had to say sorry to every girl I ever drugged…I wouldn’t even be able to find half of them. Don’t take it personally. I don’t actually give a crap about you. But you’re a member of the Allie now, so I thought we should start anew.”
He sticks his hand in front of my face. Spear hands, jackhammer, stone, vice grip hands. “Hi, I’m Cobra Cai,” he says.
I find my hand in the sea of white cotton and place it in his. “Hi,” I say, faintly. “I’m Bailey Sykes.” He wraps his hand around mine and gives it a firm shake.
“We need to think of a better name for you,” he says. “I know, how about Indigo?”
“Indigo.” I let the name roll around my mouth. I like the way it feels on my tongue and sounds in my head. “I like it.”
So, my near rapist just gave me my street name. Something about that seems wrong, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let it get to me. After all, it’s kind of the least wrong thing about the situation I’ve been backed into—forced into a gang and cut open. Yep, what really counts as wrong, anymore?
“Your eyes are the color of Indigo,” Cai says.
“Your eyes are the color of puke.”
“Fair enough. I’d say you’ve earned a few stabs at me.” He chuckles.
“I don’t have to live here, do I?”
“No, you just have to be around. Stay where we can reach you. Come to hang out on your off days. We’re family, now.”
“So, who are you? The creepy uncle that molests everybody?”
“Second stab,” he says, “you only have one left.”
Ashten comes to the foot of the cot, her gaze settling on my sheets. “I can take you home now,” she says softly.
I sit up and am surprised by how little it hurts; maybe the morphine is still working. I don’t know how long I’ve been knocked out for. Cairen offers to carry me, which I reject without a second thought.
When I cross the warehouse floor this time, the Allies are awake and conversing in small groups. They part for me like the Red Sea as I head for the ladder. We’re family now.
I climb into the sunlight and Don waves as I return to the surface. It takes a while for my eyes to adjust, but when they do, I hyper focus on every little detail of the alley. I’m particularly intrigued by an old refrigerator, gutted out and lying on its side at the end of the alley. I motion to it, “What’s that for?”
“You don’t want to know,” Ashten says.
“If I didn’t want to know I wouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s for when an Allie gets boxed out.”
I nod for her to explain further.
“If an Allie brings dishonor to himself, or runs away from the gang like Trenton has, then the leader, or a worthy Allie takes him and puts him in the fridge.”
“And buries him?”
“Oh no, that’d be too hard,” she says. “One of us fires off three rounds from a shotgun. The bullets could miss you completely or hit you in every one of your most important organs.”
“Are you guys going to box Trenton out?”
“Not ’you,’ Bailey.” She pauses. “We.”
In silence, I follow her to the car, my stomach churning from the thought of being crammed into a refrigerator and blindly shot at.
“You won’t have to shoot him,” Ashten says.
“How about we not talk,” I say. “You aren’t exactly my favorite person right now.”
“You’re moody, you know that?”
“You cut me open. Sorry if I’m acting a little cold.”
“Not cold—lukewarm. But still, I had Holden take care of you.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” I mutter.
She takes a different route back to my apartment, one that passes through neighborhoods of foreclosed homes, with overgrown yards dominated by weeds. The windows busted out from kids throwing rocks or shooting at them with B.B.s; Graffiti marking the front doors and garages.
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” Ashten says.
“Not really,” I say.
“Bailey, look deeper. They’re works of art created by the hands of the underground children.” Her voice gets this wondrous tone to it, as if we’re in a museum examining one of her favorite exhibits.
“Underground children?” I snort.
“Kids that eventually end up in the Allie—underground.”
“Why is that?”
“Why do we hangout underground? Because it’s harder for the Apocys to attack us… and they do enjoy attacking us.”
“Why do they attack?”
“For all kinds of reasons, but mostly for crossing territory.” She waves her finger in my face and says, “Never cross onto the Apocalypse’s home turf, unless you want a bullet in your head.”
“Got it,” I say.
She parks in my driveway; I get out and slam her door hard.
“Watch it, Indigo!”
I flick her off from behind, not bothering to turn around. Mom, who is on the couch with her nose in the blinds, glares at me.
“What did that girl just call you?” she asks when I step inside.
“Nothin’,” I say, anticipating a lecture.
“I better never see you flick someone off again, or I’ll break your finger, young lady.”
“I think we’re past that.” I laugh inwardly.
“Past what?”
“You telling me how to behave myself. It’s a little late for that.”
“Apparently, by the way you’re talking back,” she says. “Go to your room, now. You’re grounded.”
“What!” I shout. “I’m not twelve, Mom. You can’t ground me.”
“I just did. And, I’ll slap your mouth the next time you talk back to me like that.”
“Oh, really? Will you, Mother? And then what? Slice my throat with a piece of broken glass? Oh, wait you already did that.”
Not giving her time to respond, I storm into my bedroom and kick down my prescription bottle pyramid. Angel growls at me for my Godzilla-like rampage. “Shut up, boy!”
&nb
sp; “Don’t take your anger out on the dog,” Mom huffs. She comes into my room, picks up Angel and takes him to the couch with her.
I grunt and throw my door shut.
Sent to my room like a little girl. I can be initiated into a gang, yet I am still sent to my room like a child. I kick the wall and wish I had more things to kick, but my room is as sparse as a grocery store after an epidemic.
Mom knuckles on my door and yells for me to stop, or she’ll beat me.
“You don’t understand!” I scream at her, sounding like the child I was trying so hard not to be treated like.
“Bailey, what’s going on? This isn’t like you to be acting out without reason,” she says, finally catching on to my air.
“I just want to sleep,” I say. “Leave me aloneee!”
She goes back to the couch to snuggle up with my dog, while I spread out on the floor like an eagle, the white gauze Holden taped over my cut showing as his jacket rises above my torso. Baggy sleeves hang from my stick arms like wings. Curled fingers, talons. I pull the hood over my head- completing my metamorphosis into the eagle I’ve seen on Miemah’s wrist.
I’m weak and weary from the day; my eyelids close, shutting out the room as I spin in its epicenter. I envision the floor as a piece of paper in a spinning paint machine. I’m the various bright colors of paint dripping onto the paper and swirling together.
•••
I wake frequently, for a number of reasons; sometimes the night terrors and dreams of Cairen stripping me naked, other times because the light has been turned off.
Jack still haunts me, but less than before. Actually, I’ve been so consumed with Clad, Spencer, and Cairen that Jack has been hitting the back burner lately. The darkness I felt that night still comes to steal my breath away, though; it’s as relentless as ever. But the thing that makes my heart feel like an apple with a worm crawling through it is the presence of someone watching me as I sleep.
My eyes snap open for the tenth time tonight.
The sensation of a person standing outside my window makes it impossible for me to fall back to sleep; usually I would calm my fretful mind by watching out my window until the dawn breaks, but tonight I’ve hit the end of my rope. I want my privacy back, my sleep, and the peace of mind that my window can be ajar without someone snooping outside of it.
I find a flashlight in the kitchen, and take Angel out of Mom’s sleeping arms. I unbolt the door and run outside, the small flashlight held in my teeth and Angel tucked under my arm like a football.
I run circles around the apartment and go into the street, not really expecting to see anyone, when suddenly a shadow forms beneath the glow of the street lights. A person steps out from behind a car; I shine my flashlight at the face that squints back at me in the darkness.
“Don’t move, stay right where you are!” I holler. “I’ll call the cops!”
I run up to the figure. “What the…” I trail off in shock. “You’re the one who’s been watching me sleep?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Thomas man says, clutching his baby tight to his chest, safeguarding her.
“I give you money and you follow me home like a stray cat?” I say. “I know it’s you who’s been stalking me every night.”
“What are you talking about? I was only resting against this car,” he says in earnest.
“And I’m supposed to believe it’s some coinkidink that you were right outside my apartment?” I say.
Angel growls at him.
“Well no, that wasn’t. I did follow you here, one day. But I never came near your apartment. I’ve always kept my distance.”
“I don’t believe that for a second!” Angel snarls and I pet his hair, which is standing on end.
“It’s true; I only followed you here because I felt safe. Thought maybe you would give me a few more bucks for the baby. She’s been sick and hungry.”
“Why don’t you take her to a shelter?”
“I have, but the men there don’t like me. They start trouble. ‘Sides, the baby and I fare better on our own. We’re a team.”
“You do realize your teammate is no bigger than your arm, right?”
“She’s all I have.”
“Stay away from my window,” I say.
I give the baby a quick once over before running back up the sidewalk and into the apartment. I plop Angel on top of Mom’s outstretched legs.
Sleeping on the floor hurts my stomach, so I give up my Egyptian sleeping ways for Mom’s queen sized bed. I curl into a ball and put the covers over my head, tucking into myself like an armadillo and falling back to sleep.
•••
Fog settles outside Mom’s bedroom window, covering the grass and sun in a grey, misty curtain. I think it’s late morning, but the fog is playing tricks on me.
“Good morning, sweetie,” Mom says, standing in her pink fluffy robe with a cup of coffee in her hand. She’s staring out the window at the gloomy sky like Sally from The Cat in the Hat. “You looked so cute curled up on my bed when I woke up this morning.”
Cute? I didn’t think I could still be cute.
“But I have to know—what are you wearing?”
Oh, this little number? It’s a hoodie from Holden’s summer collection: Hoodies are the new tank tops of summer.
“And why didn’t you put a nightgown on before you went to bed?”
“I was upset. I didn’t care what I was wearing. And this is Spencer’s jacket, remember you washed his shirt?”
“Oh, well, it makes you look so dark… and with your black hair. Why don’t you wear something more bright and fitted?” she says airily, waving her hand.
“No one sees me but you,” I say, raising my eyebrows at her.
“Why can’t I see my daughter shine like the jewel she is?” she says, taking a slow sip of coffee.
I toss underneath the covers, forgetting the cut on my stomach, but sharp pains remind me. On the opposite side of the bed, an envelope is propped up against one of the pillows. “The letter fairy must have come last night,” I say.
“It’s from the prison, again,” Mom says. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to read it or not. I know how upset you were after visiting Clad.”
I answer her by tearing it open.
I read the letter silently to myself. No, not in complete silence; tiny noises escape me as Clad’s words pull me in ten different directions. I’m as emotionally tugged, as if this were his very last letter to me.
Dear Tinker Toy,
They said I could call you, the screws did. But I think these letters are more intimate than anything and they will not fade like my words over the phone. This will give you something to hold on to if… I don’t know, Bailey… I opened fire in a building full of children and somehow that doesn’t sit well with criminals who have murdered, raped, and robbed.
Your dad has his eyes on my back twenty four seven, the only time he isn’t around me is when we’re showering or he’s at work. Did you know you can have a job in prison? Me neither.
Your dad’s a barber. I forgot to mention who shaved off all my hair.
If given the opportunity, most the inmates would gladly rip out my organs. You don’t mess with children. I wonder what they think I am. Perhaps I’m more of a man now than I thought. I have gained muscle mass… and facial hair. That makes me a man, right?
Anyway, Bailey. I like writing your name almost as much as I enjoy saying it. Bailey, your dad wants to see you; he says if you are up to it, then he doesn’t care what your mother thinks. You can see us both on the next visitors’ day. How awesome would that be? Now, don’t get yourself worked up about it as I know you will.
Spencer will be there to calm you. He does that, doesn’t he? Like drinking a hot cup of tea. There I go, becoming poetic again; the true Clad shining through like a polished piece of silver.
Love,
Gun Boy.
“What does it say?” Mom asks.
“Oh, he’s doin
g fine,” I say, folding the letter back up and shoving it into the envelope as quickly as possible.
My answer is not satisfying, I can tell by the way Mom raises her brows and settles them when that is all I say. “I should get ready for work.”
I sit on the bed a while longer, letting Clad’s letter sink in.
That makes me a man, right? No, saving countless lives makes you a man. Loving a girl so much that you would give up your entire future for her makes you a man. But what I really want you to be is a boy. The same boy who loved me unconditionally and won me over with cookies and sweet words. The same boy who kissed my lips with an energy I have never felt before and may never feel again. You electrocuted me.
Chapter 16
Clad
Angel showed me how to make hooch—prison beer— by combining slices of bread that he had saved from chow time, orange juice, stolen sugar and water. After about six days of fermenting, we had us an alcoholic concoction strong enough to make you forget that you’d watched a man’s organs be pulled out of him like a clown pulling scarfs out of his sleeve.
We have a snitch in the north end and I have a hunch who it is, but Angel doesn’t agree. I think it’s Larson, a squirrely looking Puerto Rican with a short mustache that barely grazes his upper lip.
“Larson doesn’t even know you exist,” Angel said.
“I bet you it’s Alegore. Yep, it’s Alegore. That guy has had it out for me since the day I got here… gave me a beating as soon as I left the fish tank. It’s him. I know it.”
Angel took a swig of the prison hooch that he refused to let me taste.
“Larson was talking smack with his crew about how I went and shot kids. They said they were going to turn me into ground sausage,” I said, wishing I could have some hooch to forget the venomous threat.
“You didn’t shoot no one,” Angel said, as if I was starting to question the validity of my own memory.
“I know that, but they don’t. No one ever thinks about the people I saved.”
“I do. All the time. You saved my little girl. That’s why I got you. Larson will have to tear me down first, if he wants to have at ya.”