“Everything that reflects on this team and the integrity of its members is my business!” He shouted this so vehemently that spittle peppered my face. I wiped it off with the back of a dusty sleeve. “Now we’ve got Custodians breathing down our necks ‘cause they think you were stupid enough to smuggle drugs into town!”
“I didn’t–”
“That’s not the point!”
“Okay, I’m sorry! I should have told you,” I said, trying to placate him.
“I’ve a good mind to kick you off the team right now. All I need to do is tell the boss what the Custodians suspect you of you’ll be out on your ear.”
“Go easy on the kid, Con. He said he didn’t give the drugs to his father,” Jack said.
“I know that, and I believe him,” Con snapped. “But do you think the Custodians did? People like Brandon’s father give us foragers a bad name!”
I saw Con’s eyes flicker ever so quickly in Ryan’s direction, and in a flash of revelation, I realised this little speech was at least partially for his benefit. A performance to convince him we weren’t smugglers, when the opposite was true.
Con took a step back. “All right you lot, go unload the truck. I need to have a little one-on-one with knuckle brains here.”
The others grunted and got to work. Jack, however, couldn’t resist a jibe as he walked past me. “A menstrual pad?”
“I’m gonna kill Chelsea when I get home,” I growled.
He laughed and joined the others.
When they were out of earshot, Con gave me the death stare. “To reinforce what I’ve just told you, I’m keeping your blasted DVDs.”
“But I was gonna sell ‘em!” I said. To whom, I had no idea. But I was sure Jack would help me if I asked. The plan was to keep half the money for food and give the rest to Deacon.
“You lost your claim to them when you lied about your father.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“Don’t split hairs with me, you little varmint. Not telling me something is just as bad as lying. Now go help unload the truck,” he said.
“No.” I stuck my chin in the air and tried to glare at him, but I was so scared of what he’d do to me for disobeying him that I probably looked more like a frightened rabbit.
He raised his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”
“I need the money.”
“Learn your lesson, Brandon.”
I put on a more conciliatory mask. “Con, please, my father left us penniless when they locked him up. We need money for food. Honest.”
His face softened unexpectedly and he reached for his wallet. “I’ll lend you some money.”
I shook my head. “No! We’re already up to our eyeballs in debt, don’t need another one.”
Con sighed. “You know Brandon, up till now you've been a reliable team player. But this last week it's like you've had a personality change or something.” He suddenly leaned back, one eyebrow raised. “This got something to do with Dan?”
Considering Brandon ran away the day Dan Smith died, I considered that was the best card to play. “That and all the dramas at home. Been skipping food so my mother and sisters can eat.”
He nodded sympathetically. Not a side of him I ever thought I’d see. “Look, here’s two-hundred for the DVDs. I know they’re worth double that, but as I said, I want you to learn from this. Don’t keep stuff from me I should know. Got me?”
I accepted the money graciously, my heart leaping for joy. “Thanks mate, and you’ve got it. I’ll let you know if anything else like that happens.” Except, you know, for my brother going missing, and me impersonating him right under your nose.
“One more thing,” he said ominously.
“Yes?”
“Our attempts to get rid of Ryan by freezing him out ain’t working. I want to know if he told you where he worked before coming here. You know, since you’ve become all chummy with him and all, even after I expressly told you not to.”
“He doesn’t talk about his past,” I said.
“How convenient. In that case, use your friendship to find out. Maybe some of his ex-workmates can confirm he’s an informer. Maybe even give us some dirt we can use to blackmail him into leaving.”
“Sure,” I replied, feigning compliance. There was no way in the world I was gonna treat Ryan like that. Con could take his paranoia and stick it in his eye.
“Good. Now go help unload the truck.”
I nodded and rushed off to the help the others.
Chapter Twenty
The truck unloaded, I grabbed my backpack and high tailed it out of there. I hadn’t gotten far, though, when I heard Ryan run up behind me.
“Wait up!” he called.
I reduced my pace but kept walking.
“Sorry about your father,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“And this happened last Thursday?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“What, I'm gonna run around telling everyone about the most humiliating and infuriating event of my life?” What was with everyone thinking I should have told them about this? Didn’t they get it? Why couldn’t they put themselves in my shoes?
“Infuriating?”
“Because he was the family’s major bread winner and went and squandered all his money on filthy habits like drugs! And then paid the price for his indiscretions by getting thrown in prison, leaving us in the lurch. Why didn’t he think what his actions would cost the family before he went careening down that path? I could just strangle him!”
“Do you know where he got the drugs from?”
“Can we just drop this?” I kicked a stone, sending it careening off the wooden fence of the Recycling Works.
“Well, do you?” He asked more forcibly this time.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Ryan! I wouldn’t have a clue. Didn’t even know he was taking them. None of us did. Now take a guess how that makes us feel?”
“You can’t blame yourself for his choices, Brandon.”
“He...” I didn’t want share what happened to my father again. Telling Sofia had been painful enough.
“Yes?”
The compassion in Ryan’s voice almost broke through my defences. I had to hold my breath to fight back tears that threatened to spill out. “He’s been having a hard time lately. We knew that but couldn’t really do anything.”
“Oh come on, I’m sure you tried. You don’t strike as the kind of guy who sits back and does nothing when someone’s suffering,” he said.
“Okay, maybe I did. Though not hard enough, obviously.”
“Have you visited him?”
“In prison?”
“Yes. It’s not too late to let him know you still care, that you understand what he was going through.”
“As much as I’d like to do that, I’m afraid that if I go to see him, my anger will get the better of me and I’ll end up tearing his head off. And that’s not gonna help, is it?”
“Probably not. Look, I’m here for you, you know, if you want to talk about it.”
“Thanks.”
We walked in silence for a bit, and I took comfort in his presence. There was something about him, his confident, calm demeanour, that made me want to know him more. I wished our friendship could last, that we could keep seeing each other as a couple of mates. Sadly, that was nothing but an empty pipe dream.
* * *
I got to the homeless shelter after a quick detour to the market. Sofia was slouching on a frayed single-seat sofa in the foyer, watching TV, and I almost went and put my foot in it by calling out to her. Luckily, I caught myself just in time and turned the wave to a scratch on the ear. I forgot I was impersonating Brandon, that he hadn’t met her yet.
Sofia noticed me standing there just inside the door. She stood tentatively and approached me. I kept my cap down and averted my eyes.
“Hello. Are looking for someone?” she asked.
Remembering how bashful my brother was around gir
ls, I did my best to emulate him. “Oh, ah, yes. You, um, wouldn’t happen to know where the Thomas family is staying would you, Miss? A mother and two teenage girls. One’s my height.”
“You wouldn’t happen to be Chelsea’s brother, would you?” Her voice was tinged with hope. I so wished I could let her in on my secret. I felt like such a heel to be this close to her and yet deceive her.
“Ah, yes, that’s me, Miss. Do you know where they’re staying?” I glanced around, as though taking in the place for the first time.
“On the fifth floor, room 505. The elevator’s the best way to get there.” She pointed out the way.
“Um, great, thanks, Miss.” I bowed my head in appreciation and hurried for the elevator.
“Oh, Brandon? If Chelsea’s feeling better, can you tell her I’m down here?”
“What? Oh, of course.” Sofia must have gone up to see me today, and was told I was sick. In a town where a girl wasn’t allowed to go anywhere by herself, that was the only excuse available to my mother to explain my absence.
I took the elevator upstairs and hurried to our room. Mother was sitting on the chair I liberated from the passageway outside. The armrests were broken off and the foam inner perishing, but it beat sitting on the floor. I couldn’t see Karen, but I could hear her breathing coming from the ‘bedroom.’
“Any sign of your brother?” Mother asked when I put down my backpack and took out the food I bought at the market.
“No.”
“What is that boy doing!” she exclaimed with heartfelt frustration. She stood and came over to me. “What’s all this? Where did you get it from?”
“I got a bit of a bonus today, so I ducked by the market. Here, eat up. Karen, I’ve brought food from the market.”
The bed sheet suspended from the ceiling was swept aside and a very disgruntled Karen, her strawberry-blonde hair dishevelled and dress badly creased, came over to join us. When she came out, I noticed one of her worn but favourite dresses on her bed, as well as her sewing kit. She had been mending it. I handed them both chicken kebabs and had one myself. Then we tucked into a container of take-away roast vegies, and finished off with some dried fruits and nuts.
“Good?” I asked.
“Beats that slop they serve downstairs. Tell you what, if that’s all we get to eat day in, day out, I’m going to waste away to nothing,” Karen said. I noticed her eyes were red and puffy. She was still crying, poor thing. What fifteen-year-old girl wanted to go through a trial like this?
“Humph,” Mother added.
I put one kebab and a bit of everything else in a spare container. “For Sofia,” I said.
Mother frowned, but the expression left her face when I gave her seventy dollars. I kept the other hundred in my pocket to give Deacon the next time he showed his ugly face.
“Now quickly, get out of those clothes and wash your face before that pesky busybody comes back. She’s been up here twice today, wanting to see you,” Mother said.
“She’s not a busybody. She’s the kindest person I’ve met, and we owe her. If she hadn’t shown us this room and helped us move in, where would we be today?”
“She doesn’t have to keep knocking on our door, it’s annoying!” Karen said. “Hasn’t she got any other friends here? Someone’s she met during her three years?”
“You could have gone downstairs and watched TV with her or something.”
“Hello, newsflash. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to talk to Sofia, and I most definitely don’t want to sit in the foyer with a bunch of has-beens watching reruns on TV!”
“That’s not fair, Younger Sister!” I snapped. “Everyone here has fallen on hard times, just like we have.”
“Eldest Daughter – get changed!” Mother said.
I hurried to my ‘bedroom’ to change.
* * *
Dressed in a long, plain brown dress, with my face washed and my hair put up, I was about to pop out to find Sofia, when the door was violently kicked in.
Alarmed, I fell back to stand beside my mother as Wells came barging into the room with Deacon at his heals.
“Like what you’ve done with the place,” Deacon said. A broad smile adorned his spiteful features. He was enjoying our misfortune. Specifically that he caused it.
Mother rose unsteadily to her feet. “This them?” she asked.
Eyes wide with fright, I nodded.
“Mrs. Thomas, I presume? Honoured to make your acquaintance” Deacon reached out to shake her hand.
My mother kept her arms stiffly by her side. “You have no business here. Kindly leave or I will ask the supervisor to have you thrown out.”
Deacon let his arm fall to his side. “Who do you think told us which room you were in? As to business, that’s why we’re here. Where’s Brandon?”
“He’s not here,” I said.
Deacon sighed and looked to his brutish companion. “Wells?”
The larger man nodded and ripped down the sheets I’d so laboriously erected, leaving the entire room exposed. Karen, who’d been sitting on her bed repairing her dress, cried out and scooted back. She hugged her knees to her chest. I couldn’t miss the shameless expressions the thugs wore as their eyes ran over every inch of her. Disgusting pigs, she was only fifteen!
“Check the bathroom,” Deacon said.
Wells strode across the room, kicking our bags out of the way as he went. We heard him search the bathroom, opening the cupboards and throwing everything about. He returned a moment later, shaking his head.
“Where’s your brother, Chelsea?” Deacon took a step closer, scowling menacingly.
“We don’t know where he is.” Mother eyed the two men fearfully.
“Of course you do.” He took another step closer.
“We really don’t,” I said, backing away. I was afraid they might hit me again and the memory of being unable to breathe while doubled over in agony was still fresh in my mind.
Anger flashed across Deacon’s lined face. “Wells, turn the room inside out, they’ve got to have money stashed here somewhere.”
Karen scampered over to us as Wells grabbed each of our bags, turned out their contents, and rifled through them with his meaty hands. He also went through Brandon’s clothes, including the ones I wore today and dumped on his mattress.
He found the hundred dollars I left in the jeans’ pocket and brought it over to Deacon. The older man snatched the money, stomped over to us, and held it in our faces. “Where’s the rest of it?”
Hands shaking, Mother offered him the seventy dollars I gave her earlier.
“That’s all?” Deacon looked at us with a condescending sneer.
“Please don’t take it all,” I pleaded. “We need to eat.”
“You need to pay back your father’s loan!” he shrieked, face reddening with rage.
We reeled backwards from his naked display of fury, only coming to a stop when our backs collided with the wall, Karen clinging to Mother.
“You said we could keep some the other day,” I said.
“That was the other day!”
The hoodlum ran his hand through his thinning gray hair and stared at each one of us in turn. Finally, he pointed to my sister. “Come here, Karen. I want you to give a message to Brandon for me.”
Glancing uncertainly at Mother, Karen took a hesitant step forward, thinking Deacon was going to ask her to memorise a message for our brother.
But when I saw the lustful, predatory smile on Deacon’s face and the nod he gave to Wells, I leaped in front of her. “Don’t you touch her!” I hissed, looking up into his smug face.
“Okay, you give it to him then,” Deacon replied.
I barely had time to register his words when Wells drove his meaty fist into the side of my ribs. Agony lanced through my torso as the air was expelled from my lungs in a rush.
Karen threw her hands to her face and screamed.
“Stop it!” Mother shouted.
I tried to remain standing as
I fought to regain my breath and ride out the pain, but Wells kicked my feet out from beneath me. I landed painfully on the scuffed linoleum floor, still desperately trying to draw a breath, when he stomped on my thigh with a massive boot. A shrill scream escaped unbidden from my lips and I rolled to one side to nurse the injured leg. Before I could do so, he brought his foot down on the other one.
I screamed again and curled into a ball, trying to shield myself with my arms. My legs hurt so bad I was sure they were both broken. My will to resist collapsed and I sobbed uncontrollably.
Suddenly my mother was there, kneeling over me. “Leave her alone!”
I felt rather than heard Deacon squat beside me. “Tell your brother to come see me in the staffroom at the back of the Derby Snooker Hall, after eight tonight.”
With that, they were gone, striding out the door as though on a stroll through the park on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
I don’t know how long I lay on the floor, crying as I rocked side to side and hugged my legs. The pain was like a living thing that pulsed with each heartbeat and spread towards my feet and up into my torso.
“We have to tell the Custodians!” Karen said. She hadn’t moved from where she stood against the wall.
“We can’t!” Mother said. She slapped a hand on the floor in exasperation. “If we do, they’ll do a lot worse things to us than this! I could just kill your stupid father. If only he could see us now. Maybe then he’d realise the folly of his depravity and vices!”
“We have to get her to hospital – should we call an ambulance?” Karen asked.
“No – they’ll just ask questions we can’t answer,” I said, managing to find my voice again.
“But if your legs are broken–”
I stretched them out tentatively. They hurt like blazes, but weren’t broken. “Just bruised, I think.”
“Cold water, then. Come on, Daughter, to your feet.” Mother reached around my shoulders and helped me up. Karen stayed at the wall and watched, still shaking. I wondered if she realised just how close she came to receiving this beating instead of me.
Forager - the Complete Six Book Series (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Series) Page 85