by David Estes
Not good.
Eventually someone will act on what they see and chase after him, trying to get an autograph, a touch, a kiss, or maybe all three. I decide to take a chance. The only good thing is that they’re less likely to recognize me with him marching along in front.
Just as we push past a row of dancing bodies with their backs to us, I grab one of their hats right off their head. The reveler, too busy grinding up against other nearby bodies, doesn’t even notice. The hat’s got a huge brim that can cover a whole face, is littered with metallic stars and hearts and other bobbles, and has a bright blue bow around the dome top. Other than clearly being made for a woman, it’s perfect. Tristan will just have to deal with it.
I pass it forward to Tawni. “Pass this up to Tristan,” I say.
She gives me a look that says, “You’re crazy,” far better than any words could, but sends it forward to Roc anyway, relaying the message. Roc hands it to Trevor, who hands it to Tristan. He looks at it like it’s a rare disease, holding it away from him, and for a minute I’m scared he’ll just toss it away, but then he sort of shrugs and plops it on his head, using a hand to pull the wide brim over his face. Yes! I think.
Our progress, which has been like walking through mud, abruptly grinds to a halt. We’re about twenty feet from the stage, and I can clearly see the band now. The lead singer is running around now, not even bothering to sing, like he’s on drugs. “I can’t go any further!” Tristan yells back. “We’ll have to go another way.”
I cringe. The thought of going around or back or any way that keeps us in the press of the crowd any longer is too unbearable. I look past Tristan, my eyes naturally zeroing in on the maniac singer, who suddenly throws his microphone to the stage and leaps off, landing on a bed of hands, which draws even more screams from the audience. That’s when it hits me.
Why go through when we can go over?
Little did I know at the time, but the drunk guy had given us the best suggestion of all. The singer is passed around, moving rapidly across the sea of helpers. It’s certainly a far faster way to travel than our current method.
“Tristan, up!” I yell above the noise, letting go of Tawni’s shoulders with both hands for the first time, so I can motion up.
“Too risky,” he yells, which draws a few strange stares from nearby frolickers.
“Not more than it already is,” I say. “Quick and fast. We can run at the end if we have to.”
We’re getting more and more looks, but it’s not because of our exchange. It’s because my hands are still in the air, raised to the roof. Apparently it’s the universal sign for crowd-surfing.
“Need help up?” a big guy says, lowering his hands to the ground, like a step.
“Thanks,” I say, not waiting for approval from Tristan. They’re just going to have to follow my lead this time. I step into the guy’s cupped hands, and then the world spins as I’m thrown into the air.
I’m off balance and out of control, but when I come back down, I land much more softly than I expected. The feeling is new and weird and kind of cool at the same time, as hundreds of tiny little fingers and palms touch me all along my legs, arms and back. It’s almost like floating while getting a newfangled type of massage at the same time. I check that my assortment of weapons is still tucked safely beneath my clothes and in their sheaths. They are, although even if they weren’t, the intoxicated partiers would probably just think they were fakes and part of our costumes—just another sun dweller fashion statement. The only thing I didn’t think about:
How to steer.
I’m already heading in the wrong direction, away from the stage, back toward the entrance to the shipping tunnel. Where are the brakes on this thing?
Not sure what to do, I yell as loud as I can, “To the stage!”
To my complete and utter shock, the people beneath me shriek with delight, instantly changing my direction. Although I’m heading right for the band now, which is where Tristan wanted to go for some reason—I have no idea why.
I look around me, trying to find one of my friends’ faces, but there are only strangers with funny hats, strange piercings, and dyed hair. Then I spy it: the hat I stole for Tristan, its blue-bowed dome top rising above the crowd. I’m going to drift right past it.
At that moment, Tawni is flung up and above the crowd, her white hair magnificent under the artificial sun, the blue streak down one side almost making her fit in with the rest of the sun dwellers. The look on her face is somewhere between giddy and frightened, a half-smile that never quite makes it to her eyes.
As I coast up next to her, I say, “Headed my way?”
Her head jerks in my direction and a full smile finally crosses her face. “How do you control this thing?”
“To the stage!” I yell again, and like before, the crowd cheers, pushing us both toward the front, just a couple of seasoned crowd-surfers.
Tawni’s high, melodic laugh rings out as we skim along unknown hands. “Fun, eh?” I say.
“Yes! Why haven’t we ever done this before?”
“Have you ever seen a crowd like this?” I counter.
“Good point. What are we going to do about the others?”
“They’ll catch up,” I say, craning back to find Roc, Trevor, and Tristan lying flat above the masses, moving in all different directions. Trevor’s just going in circles—clearly he hasn’t worked things out quite yet.
We zero in on the stage, which is now occupied by just the band members minus their lead singer, who’s been carried off elsewhere. A jolt runs up my legs as my foot bangs off the foot of the platform. “What now?” I shout above a hammering drum solo.
“Maybe he wanted to get behind it!” Tawni cries.
“Okay! Left! Left!” I yell, hoping the drunken, crazed fans below me can remember their right from left.
At least one person does, as we’re pushed hard across the width of the stage. I’m so close to the rockers that the sweat glistens on their skin as they strum, drum, and scream out the loudest music I’ve ever heard.
Then an amazing thing happens.
We round the edge of the stage and the hands disappear.
Chapter TwelveTristan
Just when Trevor, Roc, and I get the hang of crowd-surfing and are headed in the direction of Adele and Tawni, they drop out of sight. “What happened?” I say toward Trevor, who’s between Roc and me.
The question’s intended for Roc, but Trevor answers instead. “I think they got dropped.”
My heart skips a beat. Getting dropped in the middle of the mosh pit we’re riding on is a dangerous thing. Not only could you break a bone from the fall, but you might get trampled by the hundreds of sightless, stamping feet that can’t tell the difference between a human body and an inanimate object that’s in their way.
“Or they just reached the edge of the crowd!” Roc yells over Trevor.
“That still means they got dropped,” I return.
“But they’ll be safe,” Roc says. I know he’s just guessing, but it still manages to give me hope that they’re okay.
I will the hands below us to push us forwards faster, to get me to Adele, but our pace, albeit reasonably fast, remains consistent. A minute or two later we reach the left edge of the stage and by straining my neck and lifting my head, I realize Roc was right. The press of sun dwellers is thinning, the hands are disappearing, and I get the strange sensation that we’re about to go over a waterfall.
Adele and Tawni are nowhere to be seen.
I squeeze my muscles tight, preparing for the drop. With a final firm push by some wandering hand directly on my butt, I’m thrown forward, out of the reach of the sea of partiers. There’s a quick pull of air in my gut, my stomach dropping as I fall. Curling my legs beneath me, I manage to land on my feet, but in an awkward, crouched position, my ankle turning and crumbling beneath my weight and the hidden weight of my steel weapons. The ground is hard and unforgiving, hammering my knees and scraping my shoulder as I’
m pitched forward.
I come to a stop just outside of a broad shadow cast by a gigantic speaker set next to the stage. Being this close to the speaker makes it feel like the pump, pump, pump of the music is actually inside my head, making it hard to think.
There’s a voice that sounds like it’s miles away, a mere whisper by the time it reaches my ears. “Nice landing, ace,” Adele says.
I glance around, seeking her, but all I see are Trevor and Roc careening off the edge of the crowd simultaneously, Roc bouncing off the rock on his butt, and Trevor hitting flush on his side, his head jerking in a cringe-worthy manner. “Dude, you okay?” I say to Trevor, who seemed to get the worst of the fall.
“I’m good,” Roc answers. “I’ve got lots of padding down here,” he adds, rubbing his butt.
“I meant Trevor, butt wad,” I say, motioning to the last member of our group, who’s still lying face first motionless on the ground.
“Oh,” Roc says. “Trevor, you good?”
“Uhhhh,” Trevor says, flopping over onto his back. He takes a deep breath, raises a hand to his head, holding it gingerly. A trickle of blood squeezes through his fingertips.
“You’re bleeding, man,” I say.
“You think?” Trevor retorts. “I know I’ve got a hard head, but that was a nasty blow.”
“Can you walk?” I ask, knowing we need to get away from the edge of the crowd, which is ebbing and flowing like a living organism. Any second it might move in our direction, trampling us into the dust.
“I’ll do my best,” he says.
Roc pushes to his feet, still massaging his well-endowed behind, while I stand up and limp over to our fallen comrade. My ankle and knees are throbbing and there’s a burning sensation in my shoulder, but it’s nothing I can’t handle right now, while the adrenaline is still flowing. Later—I don’t know. Bones and muscles and tendons might tighten up, walking might be difficult. But I’ll cross that inter-Realm bridge when I get to it.
Together, Roc and I haul Trevor to his feet, his head bobbing around like last year’s heavyweight champ’s skull after taking an unprotected uppercut by the contender, a gargantuan by the name of Moe Bradley. (Yes, Moe is now the new heavyweight champ.)
We manage to hold him up, however, one arm draped over each of our shoulders. His feet are like rubber, stumbling and flopping like a baby’s legs during their first attempt at walking. We’ve got him up, so the next concern is finding Adele and Tawni. Did I imagine her voice mocking me when I fell? Perhaps I hit my head too.
“Over here,” Adele hisses, an invisible voice from the shadows behind the speaker.
Roc and I glance at each other, shrug, and then assist Trevor to the side of the stage. With each step, his legs seem to recover, requiring less and less of our help to walk. By the time we reach the shadows, he’s practically walking on his own, a good sign.
We step into the dark, blinking away the drastic change in lighting. It’s incredible how dark it is once you’re out of the watchful gaze of the artificial sun. After spending so much time in the gloomy Lower Realms, I’ve almost forgotten how different the world I grew up in is. We expect things to be bright because that’s the way it is.
“Is he okay?” Adele’s voice says right next to my ear. I half-jump out of my skin, cursing under my breath.
“Holy—” I spout. “You scared the stuffing out of me.”
“You’ve got stuffing?” Roc asks smartly.
“Sorry,” Adele says. “Can’t you see us?”
“Not yet. We’re flying blind at the moment.”
“I can see them,” Trevor mumbles.
“Yeah, well my night vision isn’t as fine-tuned as yours,” I retort, sounding unnecessarily harsh, even to my own ears.
“That sucks,” Trevor says, laughing.
A hand touches my shoulder. “I’m right here,” Adele says. “Tawni’s here, too. Is he okay?” she asks again.
“I think he might have a concussion,” I explain, as Trevor continues to giggle beside me. “He took a pretty hard knock to the head. We need to find a place to rest and get fixed up. We also need to find a place to switch clothes.”
“What?” Trevor screeches beside me. “I’m wearing the hottest new trend to come out of subchapter one in fifty years! I’m not switching clothes!”
Ugh. He’s getting worse. “Why do we need different clothes?” Tawni asks.
“Although we’re able to blend in here, in a less crowded place we will stick out,” I explain. “That line about our clothes being trendy in another subchapter will only work on drunkards and morons.”
“So most of the sun dweller population,” Roc chimes in.
“You lied to me!” Trevor wails. “I thought this outfit was in.”
Ignoring both stupid comments, I say, “The sooner we look like everyone else, the better.”
“You’re halfway there with that lovely hat already,” Adele says.
“Yeah, thanks for that,” I say, finally seeing Adele’s outline in the dark. “Roc, any thoughts on where we can hide out for a while?”
“Everything will be closed today, so if we’re willing to smash a window or pick a lock…”
“We’re willing,” I say.
“I’m good at smashing stuff,” Trevor says.
“Okay, then we should hit the first clothing store we come to. I think there’s a Paradise Sun around here somewhere. Or maybe we can find an In Crowd. Both of those stores will have everything we need to disguise ourselves appropriately.”
* * *
We end up at In Crowd, which is only two blocks down and one across. Although we pass several late festival attendees, they’re so focused on getting to the concert that they barely even notice us.
As Roc predicted, a red “Closed” sign hangs on the door of the multi-level store. After a quick glance down either end of the deserted street, we lean Trevor up against the wall. He hasn’t spoken in a while, for which I’m grateful, but he is humming to himself, his eyes closing for periods ranging between five and ten seconds, much longer than a normal blink, even a particularly slow one. So much for him being the one to break the glass.
“There’s no alarm system,” Roc notes. “We don’t have much crime up here. Other than the occasional drunken brawl, that is.”
“But breaking the glass might draw attention,” I point out. “Plus anyone passing by will definitely notice a shattered window.”
“I can pick the lock,” Tawni says.
“What? Really? That’s awesome,” Roc says, gazing admiringly at her.
“How’d you learn that?” Adele asks.
“When I ran away, before I was caught, I learned all kinds of interesting things, not all of them legal,” she says.
“Go for it,” I say, stepping aside.
“Anyone got a thin knife?” she says.
“I think I’ve got something that might work,” Roc mumbles, rummaging through his pack. “Here!” he exclaims, handing Tawni a tiny paring knife.
“What do you use that for?” I ask.
“If you have to know, cutting my toenails,” he says.
“Gross.”
Tawni’s already got the knife jammed in the lock, twisting and turning it at various angles, trying to get the mechanism to line up in the right way. A minute passes with us just watching her and Trevor mumbling something that sounds like a poem under his breath.
Another minute passes and then, “Got it!” she cries, as the lock clicks and the door pushes open. We’re in.
Tawni and Adele go in first, while Roc and I help Trevor. “I don’t want to go to school today, Mommy,” he murmurs, his head lolling lazily to the side.
“Don’t worry, little Trev-Trev, we’re going to put you right to sleep,” Roc coos, making me crack up.
When we get inside, the girls are already roaming the aisles, relying on the dimmer security lights to check out the merchandise. Their eyes are wide and their mouths slightly open. “What do you do in here?”
Adele asks when we approach.
“Uh, shop,” Roc says.
“Shop?” Tawni says.
“Yeah, you know, like pick out clothes and try them on. If they fit well, you buy them at the register.”
“Register?” Adele says.
“Um, don’t worry about it,” Roc says. “We won’t be doing it that way anyway.”
“We should move upstairs,” I say. “Anyone passing by the front window will be able to see us.”
The escalator is turned off, so Adele and Tawni run up the steps, while Roc and I haul Trevor, who now appears to be sleeping, his breaths slow and deep, after them, one step at a time. When we get to the top, I say, “Let’s dump him somewhere to sleep it off.”
“Good plan,” Roc agrees, smirking.
We find a cozy corner, and while I hold Trevor up, Roc piles up long, brightly colored dresses to use as a bed. We lie him down, rolling up one of the coats—a turquoise one—for a pillow.
“Now what?” Roc says.
“Now we shop.”
We find the girls standing in front of a rack of shoes, just staring. “What are these?” Adele says, picking up a pair of red, ultra-high heels.
“Shoes,” I say.
“No way!” Adele says. “How could anyone walk in these?” She sits down on a nearby bench and starts taking off her boots.
“They can and they do,” Roc says. “Most of the girls here wear them. It seems the heels get higher every year. Being tall is in.”
“But they’re not really tall,” Tawni says.
I chuckle. “True, but that’s not what matters. It’s all about image. Most of what you’ll find in the Sun Realm is artificial—just like the sun.”
“But why do people care?” Adele says, standing up unsteadily, now wearing the red heels. “A shoe’s a shoe,” she adds, trying a cautious step forward.