Indigo: The Saving Bailey Trilogy #2

by Nikki Roman

  •••

  Yesterday, the men in black gave our bunks a shake down; because someone snitched that we had hooch stashed away. They found the hooch, leaving a path of destruction in their wake. Like two twisters funneling from the sky they touched down, destroying and displacing everything within their wind’s reach.

  In one final act of malice, the men in black snatched up Bailey’s baby picture.

  “I can’t believe they took it,” Angel says, tearing up.

  I want to comfort him like I do his daughter, because their eyes look identical when clouded over with tears. “You’ll see her soon,” I promise. “She looks much better than the picture. You’ll be blown away.”

  “Tell me,” he says folding his arms underneath his head, “what does my baby look like now?”

  “Her eyes are by far her best feature. They are replicas of yours… but you probably already knew that from the picture…”

  “What does her hair look like?”

  “Long and jet black. Straight as a pin. Shiny, like yours, but thicker.”

  “Is she tall? Is she thin?”

  “Oh, she’s got to be at least five seven…” I start to choke up, talking about her makes me miss her even more.

  “She sounds like a vision,” he says dreamily.

  His breath pauses as he thinks about her. Mine does the same.

  “Do you love her?”

  “That’s a dumb question, Angel.”

  “It must be the hooch talking.”

  “I love her… but you haven’t had hooch since the men in black confiscated it yesterday?”

  “No man, I got some from my brother, Marcus.” He laughs.

  “Holding out on me, are ya?”

  “Stuff’s like poison,” he says, his voice slurred with it. “Made from hand sanitizer.”

  “The shit you guys come up with never ceases to amaze me.”

  “Living—I mean rotting—in this place eleven years has given me a lot of time on my hands,” Angel says. “I hope she remembers who I am.”

  “She will,” I assure him.

  “I hope that killing Jack won’t overshadow the love I always had for her,” he says. “I did it for her, you know.”

  “You’re a good man, Angel. You didn’t mean to kill Jack, she’ll understand that when she sees you again.”

  I’m on the top bunk and Angel is on the bottom; it’s pitch black in the room of thirty or so bunks. Even so, I can see his eyes, like two blue flames in the darkness. When I stare at them long enough, I can concede that they belong to Bailey and that she is the one breathing and speaking right underneath my mattress. The fabrication makes me smile at first, but then, as it wears on, the eyes penetrating my soul and my smile falls apart. I feel like I might go with it.

  “I’m just some strange man she once knew, long ago,” Angel says, his words having that poetic cling that makes them stretch further than normal words, spanning the distance of the room and returning to us.

  But these are not Bailey’s words, so I change them around in my head. I’m just some strange girl he once knew, long ago.

  “Are you getting any of this?” Angel asks.

  A few more sentences into the conversation and I have no idea what he’s trying to say, even with a laudable effort on his part to annunciate.

  “You’re mumbling,” I say.

  “Am I?”

  “Yes, the hooch has taken over your mouth.”

  “I should go to sleep,” he says, wearily.

  “Goodnight, Angel.”

  I cross my arms over myself, lie completely still, and wait for sleep to take over my body…

  It doesn’t happen.

  My arms and legs rustle through the thin blanket like snakes; sleep having no hold on them. I toss and turn, forcing my heart to slow down.

  Empty, I tell my mind. Don’t think. Focus on breathing and not moving. I discard my thoughts, but they come back, reappearing and clamoring all at once. I go about this a few more times before the sandman comes and brings me the sleep I want so badly.

  •••

  Behind closed eyelids a nightmare unfolds itself like I’m watching a Steven Spielberg horror film. There’s a large number of people—children, women, and men—lined up with white flowers in their hands. Black dresses, veils, and suits. Grave faces and weepy eyes. I’m at a funeral.

  The line leads to a shiny black coffin and a girl, crouched over it with her back to me, sobs bitterly. I put my hand on her shoulder and comb my other through her silky hair. Everything is black here, except the flowers and faces. The girl raises her head and looks through me with glistening, blue eyes. It’s Bailey, but her skin is grey and rotted. She opens her mouth to say something and a black moth flutters out of it. She unravels like a spool of thread, a swarm of black moths taking her place.

  Next in line is Angel. He lifts open the coffin and suddenly the funeral is open casket. He drops his white flower in and wanders off. I move forward in two long strides, I feel the silk inside the coffin, the flower petals and hair. I lean in and am met with a corpse as pretty as if she were alive and dancing. Bailey, once more, this time in a long ivory gown that comes to her ankles and pearls tightly strung around her neck. Her hair in spirals, spewing out from beneath a crown of white lilies. The flowers from the mourners are arranged in a bouquet, her frail hands, as white as the pearls around her neck, holding tightly to it, resting on top her still, unbeating heart.

  Angel is pacing like a mad dog. My heart pounds in my chest; every centimeter of my skin is dotted with sweat. A strange sound bubbles up from my throat; strangled screams.

  “Oh, you’re awake,” Angel says, ceasing his nervous pace. “What? What is it?”

  “Nightmare,” I breathe.

  He tightens his lips in an attempt to hold back a laugh. “Nightmare?”

  “Yeah, like the kind your daughter has suffered from every night since Jack’s death,” I say, in an angry rush. “You better get used to it.”

  He stares at his black rubber sandals, then back up at me. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I say.

  “What was the dream?”

  I’m not about to tell him that I dreamt of his daughter’s funeral.

  “A dinosaur.” I shrug.

  He lets out a laugh and I share it with him, although mine comes out sounding hysterical.

  “You know what’s scarier than a dinosaur?” he asks.

  “Larson.”

  “Because he isn’t extinct.”

  “Not yet,” I say, holding up a plastic toothbrush that I have been storing under my pillow for safekeeping.

  “Save it, Gun Boy, some battles are better not fought.”

  “What are you, my dad? I thought you were my bro.”

  “I’m old enough to be your dad, and if you marry my daughter, wouldn’t that make you my son in-law?”

  “Marry Bailey?” I shake my head. “No, never. She has Spencer.”

  “I still think you have a shot.”

  “Do I have your approval then?” I grin.

  “Sure, I mean you already saved her life, right? I think you’ve earned her.”

  “Will you come to the wedding, jumpsuit and all?”

  “Of course…your folks ought to like that.”

  “Only you,” I say. “They wouldn’t be there.”

  “Why not? They upset you’re in the slammer?”

  “I can’t say what they think about it, because they’re gone,” I say. “But they probably wouldn’t be too happy.”

  Angel takes off his barber’s apron and sits down on the bed. “What got ‘em?”

  What got ‘em? Because the story of death is more hard-hitting than the story of a lifetime. Angel is fascinated with what takes people out of this world; a fascination he shares with his daughter.

  What got ‘em? Maybe it was a shark, or a home invader, maybe a bear they had been raising as a pet. No, my parents’ passing is far less interesting than that, yet i
t still needles away at me when I speak or think of it.

  “We were driving up to New Mexico on a road trip. We’d been driving for twelve hours straight, my sister Aleck and I were crammed in the back seat with all our luggage.”

  “How old were you?” Angel asks.

  “Fourteen… and Aleck was eighteen. We started bickering, I pulled her hair. You know, dumb kid stuff. My parents told us to cut it out or they’d make us walk back home.”

  “They weren’t serious, right?”

  “They were angry,” I say. “They made us get out of the car, had us both convinced we would be walking all the way back to Florida. They were just trying to scare us. Make us behave. They drove away and only got about fifty feet… when it happened.”

  “Car crash?” Angel says.

  “T- boned,” I say. “The car flipped three times and then burst into flames. My mom was pronounced dead at the scene and Dad slipped into a coma that lasted about a month before my grandma—his mom—let him go.”

  I smell the fire and gasoline now and it makes me dry heave.

  “You know what she said before we got out of the car? My mom said, ‘This is the last time you’re getting back in this car! You’d better take your stuff with you, because we’re going to New Mexico and we won’t be back for a long time! Have fun living with each other’…or something to that affect.”

  Angel doesn’t look at me sympathetically like other people do when I tell them how my parents died; instead, he looks intrigued, like this is the best story anyone has ever told him.

  “It wasn’t the last time we got in that car,” I say. “The last time was when Aleck and I were fighting the flames, struggling to pull my mom out of the crushed and twisted metal.”

  “So, what happened after the both of them died? Foster homes?”

  “Aleck got custody of me. We kept the house through help with the government and Social Security checks.”

  “Did you guys have fun living together?”

  “We learned to get along. And love each other. We were all we had. Now she’s all alone.”

  “That’s awful,” he says, in all sincerity. “I gotta go to work. Stay out of trouble, kid.”

  “I will,” I say, holding my chin in my hand, my fingers resting on my bottom lip. “I’m going to paint.”

  “Paint what?” he asks, feigning interest.

  “Not what, who,” I say. “Bailey. So you will have a current picture of her.”

  I pull out my paint and brushes; luckily, the men in black didn’t take them. I set up my drawing pad on the floor and lie down on my stomach.

  I start with her hair; cascading down the length of the page. I mix different shades of blues and violets for her eyes. Her face appears on paper like she’s in the flesh, staring back at me. I hold my brush above her face, stopping, because it doesn’t look right. It fails to capture how I am seeing her now, in this very moment. I tear the page out and start afresh.

  I think I am going to start on her hair again, but then a long rectangular shape forms beneath my brush. I dip my brush in ivory and paint a gown on the shape of a girl, following the curves of her body.

  Eyelashes and bright red lips appear. Flowers and satin, slim fingers, and pearls. I work at an unwavering, breakneck pace, right through chow time and into the evening. I don’t stop until the painting is finished and every single flower petal has been made to look as real as if you could pluck the flowers right out of the painting and put them in a vase of water.

  I lean my painting against the bunk bed. And I am looking at it enthralled, when Angel walks in. He stares at it quizzically not seeing my vision.

  “What’s that?” he asks, pointing to the painting, although we are both clearly eyeing it.

  “I think,” I say, “it’s Bailey.”

  “Why is she in a coffin?”

  “Maybe she’s a vampire.”

  “She’s dead,” he says acerbically. “You painted my daughter as a corpse.”

  “I guess that’s how I see her a lot of the time. But she’s beautiful, is she not?” I say, captivated with how I have managed to paint my nightmare to life.

  Angel crosses his arms and then uncrosses them. He seems to be fighting with himself over something. He walks up to a can of red paint and brings it to my painting. I leap into action as soon as I realize what he’s about to do, but I’m not quick enough. He splashes the paint across my painting, smearing it with his hand, a thick, red streak blotting out Bailey in her coffin.

  “Stop it!” I bellow, snatching the paint from him. But it’s too late; the damage has already been done.

  We both stare at each other, angrily.

  “Don’t ever paint my daughter again. Dead or alive!”

  Chapter 17

  Red into black, venom lack; red into yellow, kill a fellow. The Allies chant, clapping their hands in rhythm.

  A small fire, lit between the dumpster and alley walls, highlights their faces. Just normal kids having a good time, until I notice Cai with a cat in his hands, turning it over the fire like a roasting pig.

  “Hey, guys,” I say, timidly.

  “Indigo!” They greet me like we’re old pals.

  I dare to smile. “What are ya up to?”

  “The Apocy cat crossed territory,” Cairen says, lifting the cat over the fire again. It screeches horribly and claws at Cairen’s hands, to no avail.

  “Never cross territory,” Ashten and I say in unison.

  I look over the scant group of Allies and make out a few familiar faces, Holden, Cairen, Don, Ashten, Alana.

  Alana.

  Sitting right next to Holden with her eyes avoiding me. Alana, an Allie.

  “Are you serious?” I ask incredulously.

  “’Bout what, the cat?” Cairen says. He puts it down, releasing it.

  “Alana.” I acknowledge her with a nod.

  “Hi, Bailey,” she says, her eyes still refusing to meet mine.

  “Fuck this,” I grumble and start to turn away. But as I do so from the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of an empty shell of a car at the very end of the alley.

  “Stay,” Cairen says, “we want you here.”

  I resist for a moment longer and then give in. I figure I can hide out in the car at least. Then I won’t have to speak to Alana or participate in the sacrificial Apocy cat roasting.

  “I’m going in the car,” I say heading toward it.

  Cairen leaves his spot at the fire and trails behind me.

  The car’s paint has been sanded off in large patches and crudely sprayed over with red and yellow spray-paint; the windshield and tires are long gone.

  “We used a piece of one of the tires to start our fire,” Cairen says.

  I open the door and sit inside the driver’s seat. The seat cushions are slashed and flaking from the Florida sun. It smells like dirty underwear and weed.

  “We parted it out for cash,” Cai says, lying down on the front hood of the car, his hands tucked beneath his head.

  “Whose car was it?”

  “Guess,” he says, grinning mischievously.

  I take in my surroundings, searching for clues. I’m starting to think that the car is too empty when suddenly I notice a slip of paper underneath the glove compartment on the passenger side. It’s a drawing of a black eagle, identical to the one I have seen tattooed on Miemah’s wrist.

  “Miemah’s,” I say.

  “Yep.”

  “How did you get it?”

  “He didn’t. I did,” A boy says, walking up and slapping the car door, a crooked golden-toothed grin on his face. He has the darkest hair and skin I’ve seen in the Allie yet. He nods his head and his afro jiggles with it.

  “This is Shaq.”

  I pretend not to see him. “Why is it red and yellow?”

  Cairen lifts up his shirt, turns around, and points to a tattoo on his left shoulder. In the faint light from the moon and fire a curled up Coral Snake flicks his tongue at me with black, needlepoint eye
s. “It’s our symbol,” he says rolling his shirt back down.

  “You should get it, too,” Shaq says. “It’s pretty much a rite of passage. I can give it to you right now, I brought my stuff.”

  I shake my head tersely. “Mom would kill me if she found out I got a tattoo.”

  Shaq reaches through the car door and grabs my hand, attempting to pull me out. “Come on, it’ll be quick,” he says. His hands feel like snake skin, clammy and shedding.

  “No, not now,” I say.

  “You have to,” Cairen says. “You’re an Allie. You need your symbol, so the Apocys know not to fuck with ya’.”

  I’m lifted out of the car by Shaq and pulled to the fire, screaming and resisting him, to no avail, like the Apocy cat. The Allies all start to hoot.

  “A coral snake on her wrist… so she can hide it from her mommy,” Cairen says.

  Shaq pushes me down and my shoulder knocks into Alana’s back. He tugs on my wrist with his gritty hands, twisting it so my palm is facing up. I still fight him, even as he dips his needle into black ink.

  “Stay still or you’ll fuck it up!” Shaq screams in my face. He yanks my wrist so hard I feel like my arm might pop from it’s socket.

  Finally, I jerk my wrist free, right before the needle makes contact with my skin. I jump up and run for my car without uttering a single word.

  I fumble with my keys as someone advances on me. “Go away,” I say, panicking as I try to fit the key in the lock.

  “No, I’m not going anywhere until we talk,” Alana says.

  I get the door unlocked, crawl in, and then lock all the doors again to keep her out. I start to roll the window up too, but she sticks her head in; her vibrant red hair spilling into my car.

  “It’s been long time since we last saw each other,” she says, her voice lighter than I remember it, not as squeaky and nasal.

  “Why did you do it? You didn’t have to join,” I say. “I was forced to.”

  “I like feeling strong.” She shrugs.

  “There is nothing strong about a bunch of kids who kill people and torture animals for fun. They’re sick, sadistic people, and now you’re one of them!”