Sketches

by Teyla Branton

  As a child, Reese had seen it as a magical place filled with light and food. Tonight it had almost the same effect on her. The aroma of fresh rolls and roasted turkey curled around her, embracing and enticing, pulling her onward with increasing speed. Miniature rose bushes lined the walkway, and the sweet scent of the flowers filled her with more memories.

  She felt mostly recovered after the short nap in the car, and her stomach was screaming for attention. She straightened fully as she walked to the door, trying to ignore the pain reverberating through her side every time her right foot hit the ground.

  Theena opened the door before they knocked, looking as elegant as ever in an off-white pantsuit topped by a nearly transparent duster in a similar tone. Her ebony hair swept up in a twist at the back of her head, and her pale cheeks were tight with Nuface therapy. “Reese, darling!” Theena kissed her on both cheeks and then squeezed her in a hug.

  Reese gritted her teeth at the touch, but kept her face impassive. Theena had been fifty-five and had looked like a fairy princess from the Teev when Reese had come to live with her. Now, twenty years later, not much had changed except the gathering of fine lines around her dark eyes. Only in those eyes did Theena somewhat resemble Reese’s father, and Reese had long ago stopped seeing him when she looked at her aunt.

  “I hope I didn’t worry you,” Reese said when she caught her breath again.

  “Not at all.” Theena’s gaze went to Jaxon, and her smile widened. “Your friend was kind enough to tell me you were working late.” Her attention returned to Reese. “But what’s that you’re wearing? They look like pajamas.”

  Theena wasn’t a CORE Elite, but her grandfather, on the side she hadn’t shared with Reese’s father, had been the city manager over Big Horn, a position that was lower level CORE Elite, and Theena was still a respected member of the upper middle class. She was on every important local invitation list and charity donor database and had won many awards as an art teacher. She was skilled at landscapes in a way Reese could never be. And even at seventy-five—or maybe because she had reached that age—Theena knew her way around fashion. Reese would have made it past her better if she’d put on her extra uniform.

  “It’s just something I dredged up.” Reese said. “My things didn’t make it to my new apartment yet. In fact, I was hoping to crash here for a day or two until all my boxes are moved in.”

  “Of course. I would love that. But I told you that place wasn’t up to standard.” Theena moved back and let them inside.

  “I know. But I love the view, and it’s close to work, so it’ll be worth it.” Though they hadn’t seen each other in years, they talked at least twice weekly on their iTeevs, and it was effortless stepping back into their old roles. For a moment, she almost forgot that years had passed, but those years were clearly showing in the slow way Theena was moving.

  Theena noticed her stare. “Don’t worry about it, dear. Just a little stiffness in the joints. I’m actually quite healthy. I walk seven kilometers a day.”

  Still, Reese was concerned. Nuface therapy had been all the rage before Breakdown, and CORE had recovered many of the processes, but those didn’t affect internal organs. With reorganizing, feeding survivors, and defending against fringers, the progress of battling internal aging moved slowly.

  As they walked from the spacious entryway through a sitting room and into a large dining room, Theena added, “I hope you’re both hungry. I made a few extra dishes tonight.”

  Probably after she’d invited Jaxon. “I think we’ll do it justice.”

  “Can I take your bag?” Theena asked Jaxon.

  “Oh, that’s mine. I’d better keep it with me for now.” Reese took the bag and shouldered it, grateful she seemed able to support the weight easily enough. “It’s got my firearms.” That meant the bag was either locked up or close to her, and after tonight’s attack, she wanted them close. They’d been careful to make sure they hadn’t been followed here, even stopping on the way to scan the shuttle for a tracking device. Of course, it was an enforcer shuttle, and when it came right down to it, anyone with clearance could track it.

  Theena’s brow rose almost undetectably, and Reese knew her aunt wondered why Jaxon was carrying her bag.

  But all Theena said was, “Why don’t you show your partner where to wash up while I get the food from the warmer?”

  While Theena disappeared into the connecting kitchen in a soft flutter of her filmy duster, Reese led Jaxon down the hallway to the bathroom where they took turns washing up. “She’s big on washing hands,” she said. “She never bought into the ultrasonic rage.”

  He laughed. “Remember at school the year they installed those devices and said they’d make us not get sick so often.”

  “Right,” she said with a snort. “Like we were ever sick. We’d built up immunity to everything.”

  “I got sick only one time that I can remember—and that was after they installed the sonic cleanser.” His face sobered. “I noticed the paintings in the dining room and hallway. You do any of those?”

  “A few. Most are my aunt’s. She has an amazing talent. But she kept everything I drew, even the stuff I wanted to throw away.”

  “Everything?” He finished washing and stuck his hands inside the opening of the dryer embedded in the wall. A gentle hum rose from the unit. “Even your sketchbooks back from our time at the Coop?”

  “Yeah, they’re up in my room. Or were the last time I was here. You want to know if I drew any of you? I did plenty.” She remembered even a few embarrassing ones.

  “Not me. The others we knew. I was hoping it would help me remember names.”

  “Why?”

  He looked around, as if checking for ears, though they were obviously alone in the small space. “A hunch, is all. I checked a few of the people I knew. Of the ten names I remember, all five of those who left the Coop are dead.”

  Bile rose in Reese’s throat. “What are you saying?”

  “Just that. But then there’s you, Lyssa and Lyra, and Eagle—all showing up here. I want to research more of the kids. See what happened to them.”

  “I’ll get you the notebooks after dinner. I drew a lot of people. And I usually wrote their names. Or whatever name I knew them by.”

  “Great.”

  They traded places and she began washing her hands. “If Eagle really does come, we’ll only be missing Dani.” Her hands stilled. “Wait, she wasn’t one of the . . .”

  “No. And I have no idea what her last name is, so I can’t search for her. Black seems to stick out in my mind, but I don’t even know if Dani was her actual first name or only what we called her.”

  Reese wanted to remind him that he’d promised to tell her how he found out about Eagle coming to Amarillo City, but she could hear Theena in the dining room, and the aroma of food was more than she could take. The turkey would be fresh from one of Theena’s neighbors, and not at all like the processed readymeals Reese normally ate from the microwave.

  They sat at the huge oak table and filled their plates with murmurs of appreciation. Reese wolfed down half of her first large helping before she could make herself slow to a normal pace. She was feeling stronger with every bite. See? I don’t need a hospital, she thought.

  “This is very good, ma’am,” Jaxon said, shoveling it in just as fast.

  “Have more, please.” Theena passed him a plate of mashed potatoes. “But please call me Theena. Ma’am makes me feel old. I mean, older than I am.”

  “Okay, ma—” Jaxon grinned. “I mean, sure. And thanks for the potatoes.” He heaped another large spoonful on his plate and reached for the gravy boat.

  Theena smiled. “The turkey gravy is my grandmother’s recipe. My mother told me she always made it once a year for a holiday they used to celebrate before Breakdown. My grandmother died before I was born, so I never met her myself, but I like to make her recipe.”

  “I wonder what the holiday was,” Jaxon said.

  Theena shook her hea
d. “I don’t know. My mother didn’t even teach me to make this until I was fifteen, once the CORE took control and stopped the fighting. Before that, it was just survival.”

  Theena had been born five years after Breakdown, and some of the stories she had about that time made Reese grateful she’d been born in the Coop.

  “Well, the food is great,” Jaxon said.

  “Wait until you taste my dessert.”

  Apple pie, Reese guessed. It was what Theena always served with her turkey and gravy. “Do you still have my old sketchbooks, the ones I brought with me when I came from the Coop?”

  Theena set down her fork. “Of course. I have all your belongings from then.” An indulgent smile played on her lips. “You brought a strange variety of clothes and water skins, and I didn’t know if maybe they had special meaning. I thought maybe you’d want them someday. I put most of it in the attic, but the sketchbooks should be up in your room with the others you’ve filled over the years. Why do you ask?”

  “Jaxon and I thought we’d go through them. Reminisce about the old days.”

  Theena smiled. “A wonderful idea.”

  Reese nodded, remembering how Theena had tried to get her to talk about the Coop and her life there. But Reese hadn’t told anyone about her father’s weird actions that last day, or Jaxon’s mother’s death. Or about the man she’d drawn.

  Oh, saca! The picture of the man would be in one of the sketchbooks. Would Jaxon remember him?

  Suddenly the turkey tasted like a spoiled readymeal, and the idea of dessert made her ill. She just wanted to lie down and sleep for a week. Was that too much to ask? She’d been stabbed after all.

  But they had to figure out if there was any merit to Jaxon’s suspicions about the deaths of their old acquaintances, and if there was a relationship between the attack tonight and whoever was bringing their old crew together. If someone from Amarillo Division was behind the assault, none of them were safe.

  Chapter 7

  WHILE REESE WAS upstairs retrieving her sketchbooks, Theena brought out a huge pie and vanilla ice cream. Jaxon had never seen the two sweets eaten together before and it puzzled him.

  “I’m not sure where the idea came from,” Theena said when he asked. “We’ve just always done it this way. Probably because of my grandmother.” She sipped a bit of coffee before adding, “So how well did you know Reese back at the colony?”

  “She didn’t tell you? We were best friends. I’m sure she told you something about us.” He’d told Bobby so much about Reese that the old man would probably hug her like a long-lost friend when they finally met.

  Theena looked down at the piece of pie she was cutting for Reese and didn’t speak as she set it carefully on a plate. “No, she didn’t. I did see your name in her sketchbooks, but she didn’t talk at all about anything that happened there. Not even about her father. When I told her he’d been killed, she just nodded as if she’d expected it to happen.”

  “You mean she came here to live with you before he died?”

  “No.” Theena sighed. “At least I don’t think so. All I could get from her was that she’d left the colony the first of September, and that turned out to be the same day her father was killed. At first I thought that was why she’d come, but she didn’t know he was dead. His girlfriend was killed too. Sky train accident.” She sighed again.

  That was weird. He hadn’t seen a cause of death listed on the records he’d looked up at the hospital, but with the sky trains running overhead, there were never any accidents that weren’t suicides off the platforms. Or murders.

  “Poor thing,” Theena continued. “She was pretty beat by the time she got here. It took her a week to find me. I thought she’d talk about what happened in time, but she never did. That’s why I thought . . . well, that maybe you knew what happened to make her leave. As far as I understand, it’s not even possible to leave a colony without a permit, and she didn’t have one.”

  He shrugged. “There are ways, as long as you aren’t caught.” Once he and Eagle had gone through a break in the wall, and they’d lasted only a day in the barren countryside before scuttling back into the Coop. Reese and the other kids had been furious at not being included in their adventure.

  But if Reese hadn’t run away because her father had died, was it because of him? Or was there another reason? Because now that he’d had time to think more about it, the likelihood that both their parents would die on the same day seemed more coincidental than Reese and the twins showing up here in Amarillo City.

  Maybe he’d discovered what Reese was hiding.

  Theena dropped a large spoonful of ice cream on his plate next to his piece of pie. “Anyway, when her father was alive, I asked him several times if she could live here with me. I never married or had children, so I had the time and the room, and I knew I could do better for her than he was doing. But he wanted the money he received for her each month from the CORE. He offered to let her come if—” She broke off. “No matter. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead.”

  “He wanted you to pay him off, didn’t he?” Jaxon guessed. “Don’t forget that I knew him too.”

  Theena’s lips tightened in a straight line. “I knew he’d blow through it and be back to take her unless I paid more. Gerry was never one to plan ahead, and like it or not, the official request I made to the CORE for custody at the time was denied. They claimed he was taking care of her. Plus, they wanted to make sure she’d finish school.” Her voice became deceptively light. “Can’t have the riffraff out here.”

  Jaxon hadn’t heard that word before, but he could understand the connotation. “Well, Reese and I hung out together every day,” he said. “There were six in our crew. We kept each other safe.” Or Dani had kept them safe.

  “I’m glad to hear it. So when did you leave the colony?”

  “Around the same time Reese did. My mother was murdered, so I was sent to a foster home.”

  “I’m sorry. That must have been hard.”

  Hard didn’t even begin to describe it. Old pains clamored to be heard in Jaxon’s mind, and he fought to ignore them. “It was hard,” he admitted to Theena, “but it worked out in the end.”

  Worked out only because of Bobby, that is. Jaxon remembered vividly the day Bobby had appeared in the Sty after his foster father’s death. Bobby had come for other visits and sometimes contacted him over the Teev, and Jaxon was always eager to see him. But that day he’d taken one look at Jaxon’s fresh black eye and the older bruises running down his arms and told him to wait outside while he talked to Gail, his foster mother. Jaxon had sat on the square of grass in the front yard, hearing the rise and fall of their voices, understanding nothing except Bobby’s anger that she hadn’t reported what Jaxon had endured at the hands of her husband.

  Jaxon knew why she hadn’t: because his foster father would have killed both of them.

  Jaxon was beginning to wonder if he needed to protect Gail from Bobby, but by the time he’d found the courage to push open the door, Bobby was holding Gail in his big arms, comforting her as she wept. Jaxon’s shoulders slumped in relief and the fear knotting his stomach eased.

  When Gail saw Jaxon, she pulled away and went to hug him. Though always kind, she had never been loving, never touched him in the way that a mother should. For a moment he closed his eyes, pretending she was his real mother.

  “This enforcer wants to take you away from here,” she said. “Out of the colony. He’ll look after you.”

  Her voice was sad and lost, and Jaxon stared up into her worn, tear-stained face and shook his head. “No. You’d be alone.”

  “I’ll be fine.” She smoothed his hair, and the touch felt almost as good as when his own mother had done the same thing. “You protected me from him, but you don’t need to protect me anymore. He’s gone. You deserve this opportunity. Please take it. I want you to take it.” She firmed her jaw and added, “In fact, I’m withdrawing my foster application. You will go with him.”

  Th
at felt like a betrayal after what he’d endured, but he did want desperately to leave the Sty and what had been the worst seven months of his life, including his mother’s murder. And Bobby had been the one adult who had never let him down, so what did he have to lose?

  Two weeks later when Bobby received permission to move him, he’d hugged Jaxon instead of giving him their customary handshake. “Call me Bobby now,” he said. “From here on out, you and I are family.”

  He’d left with Bobby, looking back at Gail standing in front of her house, waving. She’d died before he’d leveled out of school and entered the academy, so he’d never seen her again. Now he understood her sacrifice for him as he hadn’t then.

  “You remind me of Reese,” Theena said, bringing Jaxon back to the present. “Always focusing on the positive.”

  What else could they do? Besides Bobby, no one he’d met outside the colonies ever believed what he’d been through, so there was no point of rehashing it. Jaxon chuckled politely and dug into his pie, the taste exploding in his mouth. “Wow, this is amazing.” He’d become accustomed to the CORE standard readymeals, and he thought they tasted great, but the pie changed his mind. Not even the restaurants he frequented offered food with this much taste.

  “I’m glad you like it,” Theena said.

  “It’s the best I’ve ever tasted. You aren’t having any?”

  She laughed. “Oh, I’m still too full from dinner. Besides I had some of the leftover pie filling earlier. “So what do you know about Reese’s drawings?”