Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thriteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Xavi’s Epilogue
Sound Track
Acknowledgements
Of Science and Trains
About the Author
J.D. Brewer Books
www.jdbrewerbooks.com
Copyright © 2014, J.D. Brewer
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form by any means without written permission of the copyright owner.
The Dedication
We crossed paths so many times in our lives before we got tangled up in each other
like fishing wire in a river
like words that have become tongue-tied
like phone cords around the hips, before they went extinct
(I sure do hope the hipsters make corded-phones cool again)
I wasn’t expecting you.
I wasn’t looking for you.
I wasn’t even paying attention the first time you stood next to me,
but you’ve been standing by me ever since.
And you’re always in my thoughts
the way that Starship song (or any of those songs you torture me with)
glues itself to the brain
the way smiles glue themselves to my face when I realize I get to keep you
the way we’ve melded our futures together with something crazier than glue
My dreams (and this book) would not be possible without you, Taylor Heard.
There is also the matter
Of a luck-dragon
Named Jackie.
Who sneaks in face-licks early in the morning
Who snuggles between me and the chair when I’m stressed
Who writes her own edits despite her tiny paws getting in the way.
She’s a girl’s best friend,
And our forever puppy.
Vagabond
j.d. brewer
Chapter One
“We live between here and now,” Xavi’d said too many times to count, but now, even he was gone.
I settled my pack against my chest and nuzzled my nose into it. The loose strands had only gotten more unraveled since it came into my possession, and the frayed edges took on the wear and tear of travel under my chin. I hugged it to me tightly as the music of the train pulled on and over and up and down. I wondered if I’d ever see them again. I probably wouldn’t. At least I hoped I wouldn’t.
I tightened the drawstring to my hoodie, but the wind still tore at my hair. I’d layered on every piece of clothing I owned to combat the cold. It didn’t do much for the biting wind, and it made my pack feel small— small like me.
When we’d gotten close to the freight yard, I hopped on the first train that came. I ignored Xavi’s disapproving looks and obnoxious warnings, even though he was right. I wasn’t choosing wisely. I was choosing rashly, and he’d taught me better than that.
There wasn’t an open-top or boxcar on the transport to hitch onto, and my only option was on the side of the PR Car. They were thinner models to make room for narrow platforms with decorative, metal podiums on both sides. The design was meant to let Politicians, Scientists, and Celebrities make their pretty speeches and conduct speedy get-a-ways. Inside the car, I knew there were costumes, makeup vanities, and media tools to prep the speaker for an audience. I nestled between the podium and the fencing in an attempt to cut down the wind and buckled myself in by wrapping my belt around my arm and the platform’s railing.
I knew it’d be safer to hang out near the rear of the car, rather than in the middle. But warm was warm, and safety was all relative anyways. All I wanted to do was get away. Nothing else besides that mattered much.
I waited for sleep to come, but I wasn’t kidding myself by trying. Sleep was the last thing on my mind right then. The tha-thump, tha-thump was slow and steady. Metal rummaged over steel and pushed the train forward… pushed me forward out of my own past that was racing mere seconds behind me.
If only she’d never come into our lives, but her infestation was so quick I never saw it coming. Five of them came out of the woods that evening. They heard our voices and decided to check us out, and, that night, safely in numbers, we braved a fire. Four of the five talked about revolution, drinking from bottles brown as mud, getting drunk on dreams just as filthy.
When Xavi’d accepted the bottle, shock fluttered through me. “Never accept alcohol from strangers. They’ll get you drunk and rob you blind,” he’d said before. But he swayed while I watched. He let go of my hand and stared across the fire at her, and I could do nothing to stop it. The girl wore loneliness like a neon sign, inviting him over with suggestion. She crossed her long Legs and smiled that smile— the smile that wrapped boys around her slithering teeth. She knew all the subtle arts to it. He’d always seen past it before, and, the entire time I’d known him, he never left my side.
The next morning, four of them left while the girl stayed behind. She ditched them like haphazard particles colliding and disembarking at random. She didn’t even flinch because she’d never been stuck to the others in the first place. She was gypsy in spirit, with long lashes hanging over green eyes. She didn’t need him, and that only made him want her more.
And now, he was ditching me— for her. For a nice pair of Legs.
“You can come with us, but you have to accept that things have changed,” Xavi said with his fingers laced into hers. They had matching dirty fingernails— matching dirty lies. Their eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep while mine were red-rimmed from crying. “Please. Come with us,” he repeated, but her algae-hued glare told me I couldn’t. Theft is a blatant thing. She was so different from all the others we’d come across, and she won before she even tried. The only thing left for her to do was rub my nose in it, but I refused to let her win completely. Despite my puffy, tell-tale eyes, I wouldn’t cry in front of her.
“I’ll pass, but thanks for your concern,” I growled.
“Niko, come on. You don’t need to be alone. It’s dangerous out here for a girl alone.” He acted like he cared, but I could tell he didn’t really. Not anymore at least. “I can’t have your death on my conscience.”
“But you can take on so much else there. This should be nothing.” I was proud of myself for the retort. Normally, I would find a way to agree with him. He was usually right, after all, but not about this. Part of me knew I was probably shooting myself in my own foot— that Legs wouldn’t last if I waited it out. We’d seen it a million times before, since girls on the Tracks rarely knew of loyalty.
She’d be gone when the breeze got under her skin. “You can’t trust Vagabond hearts. They are already so broken that they think nothing of breaking yours,” he had explained once. I wondered who was the first to break his heart— where he’d gained that knowledge the first time around.
But as much as I knew these things, I knew I couldn’t watch. I knew I owed it to myself not to go through that.
Tears were treason. I told myself not to cry, and I didn’t in front of him— in front of her. But on
the train, I tortured myself.
I remembered ice as a kid before ice was synthesized. I remembered the way it made water condensate in the heat. Drinking was like racing time— like racing nature as the ice melted and the water equalized and lukewarm-ed. But these tears began hot then froze against the wind, crusting my cheeks in salt.
I tried to focus on anything but the tears: the numbness of my toes despite the wool of my socks, the way the trees blurred into nothing but darkness, and the way the train’s wheels rambled over metal. But all of these tangible things couldn’t make what was going on in my heart feel real.
Parting ways is sometimes a little too simple, but, even still, the simplest of things can be the most painful.
He knew so much more than I did about life out here, and he taught me the Ways of the Tracks until it became my own heartbeat. He showed me how to gage the speed, the lighting, the timing, until I knew I could do it alone but just didn’t want to.
As the train approached, he warned me. “Niko, it’s red!”
Red meant a Military Transport.
But red was all I could see anyways. Why did it matter?
I paced myself for the takeoff, and I made the jump as the moon rose over the trees.
“Niko! No!”
“Let her go,” Legs demanded.
I shut out his reply. I vowed not to pay attention to whatever guilt he was pretending to have, because done was done, and somethings you couldn’t take back. I chose my train, and he’d be on a different one soon enough.
South.
To the Rebels.
Hypocrite.
My first summer as a Vagabond, we stayed in mountains that only knew of green. The weather was warm, but he taught me how to build a fire and how to live on nothing but everything. I asked him then why he never joined before. He waved his hands over the cliff we stood on and said, “It’s not our fight. If you want to join the Rebels, you only give up one freedom for another. It’s not your responsibility to die for a freedom you already have. Republic? Revolution? Both causes have their chains.”
But despite the speech he gave every time, he was following Legs to join.
The past has a way of living within the present, and I was so lost in thoughts of Xavi that I almost didn’t register the door on the side of the car begin to open. It was the same metallic as the rest of the car, and, I knew in the sun it would bounce off silver and cleanliness and thoughts of sterilization. But at night, it only bounced off danger.
My fingers clutched at the belt and unlatched the hold it had on me. Xavi’d made me practice this over and over again, because speed prevented capture. I leaned against the platform’s railing before the door completely opened. The harsh metal of the chest-high fencing bit into my back as the figure emerged, and I trusted the flimsy metal with my weight as I quickly inched towards the back of the car.
I knew better than to post up at the podium. It was directly in front of the door and left me right in the open. I cursed my stupidity. I should have taken the colder but easier escape and stayed in the back. Better yet, I never should have gotten on the Military Transport in the first place.
I watched the ground beyond me, and it blurred at a speed of too fast. Small lights lit up the tracks under the cars. They were standard to make surprise inspections easy. The glow they emitted laughed at me as I contemplated jumping, and they played soft tricks on my eyes. They were small pieces of racing moonlight. They were small pieces of mocking death.
I couldn’t jump.
I took a deep breath. I had to choose between a broken arm (or worse) and getting caught.
As the figure stepped out, it slammed the door and rushed to the railing. Its chest rose and fell, rose and fell, too frantic for it to simply be a curious patrol. My eyes were more adjusted to the dark than its, but I knew it wouldn’t take long for me to be seen. The shape took on the light of the moon, and I registered that it was masculine. He soaked in the muted and dark colors around him, and I knew I was out of time. He saw me.
“What the— who—“ His questions mixed with the wind and only brought to my attention that the wind was changing velocity. The train was slowing.
Slowing? Something was wrong.
I reached out instinctively for Xavi, but he was not here. My fingers just gripped cold railings like they were his hand instead.
“We have to jump!” he yelled. “Any pointers on how?”
“See that? That’s rock.” I pointed to the train jetties leaning near the track. Over the past year, the Republic had begun to move boulders along the tracks in some of the more infamous Vagabond sites. They never seemed to know us well enough to figure out our infamous sites changed faster than spoken words. We were adaptable, and we played on their ignorance of this. However, at the moment the train jetties were racing along beside us, and jumping was a horrible idea. Of course they’d be there when something was going so desperately wrong. The reds and whites of each boulder were sharp and deadly. Even in the dark, I knew this.
I reached the end of the fencing and slid my arm around the back of the wall. The edges were mostly smooth, there wasn’t a ladder leading to the top, and there were no solid handholds to get me in between the PR Car and the next car. If only there were handholds.
Before I ever jumped my first freight, Xavi made me rock climb. Rather than up, he made me go side to side, over and over again, on a rock face. He showed me how to grip with my fingers and maneuver my body so that my weight balanced. Despite the fact that it wouldn’t account for the wind, Xavi said muscle memory would save my life. But even muscle memory would do me no good in this situation. I’d have to make the platform fencing work instead. I kicked my leg over the railing so that I was standing on the other side of it. I moved my feet over and under, side to side, alternating my arms so that the movement followed my feet. My heart fluttered. One slip and I’d fall between the wheels and the track.
If the boy was jumping, then he wasn’t out to get me. He had his own troubles. I gripped the railing with both hands, lowered my body backwards by putting my foot down on the railing and the ledge of the car, and leaned my body between the two cars. Anyone that’d follow him out would only see my fingers and the tips of my shoes if they weren’t looking for anything else but him. It wasn’t the best plan, but it was the only one that didn’t leave me completely exposed to whoever this boy was running from or completely broken from jumping into the train jetties at this speed. I just hoped my grip would hold and cursed myself for not removing my gloves first.
But the stupid boy was quick to hang over me. His face blocked out the moon, so he only looked like a shadow of fear. “Please! You don’t understand! We have to jump!”
“You’re right! I don’t understand!” I screamed back.
He swung his leg over the railing. My heart pulsed faster than the train, but he didn’t even care— not about the rocks, the speed, or the fact that I hadn’t offered any jumping pointers when he asked just a few seconds before. “We have to jump! Now. Or don’t. And die. This train is about to blow!”
And that was all he said. He was gone, rolling onto the jetty. I heard a buckled swear and remembered Xavi’s warning. “You have to commit. A broken bone is better than death.”
Chapter Two
I didn’t like the choices in front of me, and to commit to one was like kissing lightning. Electricity was everywhere, moving me past the choice— past the idea that either was right. The only thing left was to act.
The pack had to go first, because, if I kept it on, it’d cause me to land wrong. As it left my fingers, I hoped I’d see it again, and I followed it without any further hesitation so that it wasn’t lost to me forever. I kept my arms over my head, like a roly-poly, the way Xavi had taught me. I knew protecting it was the most important thing. After all, Mama always told me it’d be my head that’d save me when the world fell apart, despite the fact that it wasn’t doing me much good in that moment. All I could pay attention to was the screeching train
and the way my breath was coming in and out of me entirely too fast as I pushed off the railing and jumped.
“A broken arm is better than a broken skull.” Xavi was all about practicing for worst case scenarios, and he had me duck-and-roll and roll-and-duck over and over again. The boulder he had me jumping off of was hot under the summer sun, and every time I clambered back up it, it sent heat up my fingers. “If it’s fast, it’s better to tuck the legs too. You won’t be landing on your feet anyways, so it’s better to prepare for the roll. If it’s slow, then you can try to run it out if there are no train jetties.”
“What if there are train jetties?”
“You deal with it. You choose. You gamble. But it’s always a gamble. Death by rock or death by torture. If they catch you, they’ll think you’re a Rebel… that you can give intel,” he spat. His shivers were contagious, and I wondered what memory taught him of torture. I’d always been good at reading people, and I could tell when a person spoke from someone else’s stories or from their own.
Xavi always spoke in nuances of personal experience.
“Possible or sure— you make decisions about your death every moment of every day. Especially out here,” he said.
“But won’t I get hurt anyways, if it’s that fast, that is?”
“Hurt is better than dead. Anything is better than dead.”
The world orbited around me until a boulder came to an abrupt stop against my back. The rocks were sharper than I’d imagined, but small pieces of luck pulled together to help. Had it been warmer weather, my skin would have been more exposed. As it was, my overabundance of layers shielded me from some of the scrapes as my momentum was stopped by the first boulder. The train was still tha-thrumping along, but I recognized the screeching of breaks. The slowing of the train played into my timing. Within seconds, the dangerous became less so, and the momentum went from deadly to injurious. There was a burning on my cheek and a ringing in my ears. I pulled off my glove to reach up and check my face. Although I couldn’t see it, the blood was sticky and warm on my fingers. Other than that, nothing felt broken, and everything felt bruised.
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