Bloodshot

by Cherie Priest

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” he asserted, but I thought he was only assuming the worst. Like I’d blame him for it. Like I wouldn’t do exactly the same thing. “They found a dead guy in the basement.”

  “Bullshit,” I said, too loud.

  He replied, “No bullshit,” and if there’d been any less peril to go around, I fully expect that he would’ve sounded smug about it. Awesome. So he knew, or he suspected. But what did that mean, anyway? He’d always known, and always suspected.

  When in doubt, change the subject. “Domino, tell me. Who are they?” The answer was more pressing than what they were going to do with Trevor, anyway.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do they look like?”

  His hair or his neck, or maybe a scarf went dragging across the microphone. He was looking out, checking to see again if they were close, or if he could see anybody. He said, “They’re all wearing black. They look like army guys. But some of them are in suits.”

  “Great.”

  “I don’t think it’s great. I think it fucking sucks!” His voice got a little too loud, just a squeak.

  “I was being sarcastic. Stay cool, kid. Don’t get loud or get mad. That’s the most important thing, right now.”

  “No. Finding Pepper is.”

  Devoted little bastard. You had to give him that. “The two goals are one and the same. You can’t find her if you get yourself caught.”

  “Maybe I can. At least if they catch me, they’ve caught us both and I’ll know where she is. I’ll know she’s okay.”

  He was right. He’d also just revealed that he wasn’t positive they had her; otherwise, he’d have already joined the fray. I was pretty secure on this point, so I ran with it. “Forget it. Keep your head low and keep watching. Your little sister, she’s a damn good hider.”

  “But they were talking about her.”

  “What were they saying?” I asked.

  “They said they thought she might still be here. They said they know someone’s inside. They’ve been watching.”

  “They could’ve meant anybody.” I pointed out, “They could’ve meant me. I bet you a dollar she’s stashed someplace where they haven’t looked yet.”

  “Make it fifty,” he said. Ah, greed and a sense of humor. Or grasping at straws.

  “Very funny.”

  “Raylene?”

  “Yeah?”

  He said, “They’re going to find us.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “They’re looking everywhere. Floor by floor, moving things around. Taking pictures.”

  If I could’ve cringed myself into a tighter ball and still remained upright, I would’ve done so. Pictures. Perfect. It was all crashing down, wasn’t it? All of it. Fifty years of accumulated wealth and work, right out the window. Was it my life savings? No, not by a long shot. But it was still an awful lot to lose. And Pepper was there, someplace. I knew better than anyone how well that kid could hide. I had to trust her now; I had no choice. It was either assume the best or have a nervous breakdown right there on the phone … which would only send Domino into a downward spiral.

  I could sense it. The kid hated me, but he was clinging to me—or just the sound of me, someplace far away.

  As if he’d heard my thoughts he asked, “Raylene, where are you? Can’t you come help?”

  “I’m a long way away,” I told him. Old habit wouldn’t let me say more, and it wouldn’t help him anyway.

  “How far?”

  “Thousands of miles. I wish I were joking.”

  “Can you send anybody?” Ooh, I knew that pitch—that tone that lifts up the words at the corners and makes them into a nightmare scream in a bottle. He was frantic, and balancing on the edge of doing something very stupid.

  And I had no idea what to do. “No,” I gulped. “There’s nobody.”

  This wasn’t strictly true. There was Ian, and there was Cal—somewhere within ten miles or so. But a blind vampire and a hipster ghoul would be no good at all; truth be told, they’d only make the situation worse. Also, they’d get themselves caught, or so I was willing to bet.

  So it might not’ve been strictly true, but it was functionally true.

  There was no cavalry coming.

  “Listen to me,” I said, keeping my voice down but trying to keep it firm. I opened one eye and saw Adrian, silent in the doorway and not moving, but watching me. I didn’t care. I couldn’t care, there wasn’t time. I just thanked God he knew when to stay silent. “Listen to me, and I’ll tell you what to do.”

  “Okay.” I hated the relief I heard in that word. The relief wasn’t warranted. I didn’t even know what I was going to say next; I only knew that he needed to believe I had something to say next.

  “First, tell me where you are.”

  “I’m on …” More swishings of cheek and fabric into the phone. “I’m on the third floor, up in the ceiling. They’re not up here now, but they were a few minutes ago, and I think they’ll be back. They’ve been sweeping the place over and over again. Like they’re looking for something.”

  They could’ve been looking for anything, but much like Domino assumed they’d already taken his sister, I assumed they were there hunting for me. It was small comfort, knowing they wouldn’t find me. No matter what else they found, or who else they found, or what crates they opened, or what locked doors they kicked down … they wouldn’t find me.

  Small comfort indeed. And as sharp and cold as an icicle. Never mind meaningless to the boy on the phone.

  “They’re coming back!” he wheezed. He fumbled with the phone again.

  “Domino!” I said, almost speaking loud enough to bring my voice out of the whisper that neither of us had yet dropped.

  “What?” The word was thin, compressed, and shoved out from between his teeth.

  “Stay with me. Which end of the third floor are you at?”

  “They’re popping open the vents! They’re going to find me in here!” Not quite shrill, but you could see it from there.

  “Your vent?”

  “Not yet!”

  “Okay. Okay. Which part of the ceiling are you in?”

  He panted for a moment, then said, “I’m near the main staircase.”

  “And they didn’t start there?”

  “No. They came up the back way. I don’t know why. Raylene, they’re moving stuff around. They’ve got crowbars. They’re taking this place apart. They’re going to find me!”

  “They’re not going to find you. You’re going to nut up and wiggle out of this, you hear me?”

  “Where would I go?” he asked, and it almost hurt me, even though I didn’t like him. The pain and the terror were almost too much to hear. “I can’t leave Pepper!”

  “These guys who came in, they must have cars, vans, something like that?”

  “I … I don’t know.”

  “You need to look. You need to get outside and make sure they don’t have your sister stashed inside one of those cars yet, or one of those vans. If she’s there, then we can talk about rescuing her.”

  “What if she’s not?”

  “If she’s not,” I relied upon past experience when I said, “I say let her stay wherever she’s at. I heard you say they’re taking the place apart, but even if they go brick by brick, they’re never going to find your sister. She’s tough and smart, and she’s an Olympic-caliber hider—as she’s proven to us both, on more than one occasion. So if she’s not outside, and if they haven’t caught her, then you and me, we’re going to trust her. We’re going to assume that she’s holed up deep and she ain’t coming out, and they aren’t going to find her. Can you do that?”

  “I don’t know,” he said for what must’ve been the thousandth time.

  “Yes you do. Yes you can. But first, you have to get out of there and check. Come on, Domino. You’re a sneaky motherfucker, I know it for a fact.” And I did. He wasn’t quite as good at sneaking as Pepper was at hiding, but I’
d definitely give him a bronze in the sport.

  “I’m a sneaky motherfucker,” he repeated.

  “That’s right, and you keep saying it.”

  “I’m a sneaky motherfucker.”

  “There you go. Now—” And I did my damndest to recall and imagine the major airway workings of the factory. And yes, of course I was familiar with them. You do remember what I do for a living, right? It’s basically my job to know all the ways in and out of a place, and this extends to my own places, too. “—now are you facing out, over the main shop floor?”

  “Shop?”

  “It used to be a shop. They made rubber boot soles or something. You’re facing out over the floor, right?”

  “Right. I can see these guys, Raylene—”

  “Ignore them. Turn around and, quiet as you can, head back inside.”

  “Inside the vent?” More squeaking.

  “Did I mumble? Yes, get back inside the vent. It ought to be big enough for you to turn around, but do it quietly.”

  “But it’s dark back there!” he complained. “I can’t see anything.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I know which way the thing goes. I’ll talk you through it, come on. Turn around and start crawling.”

  “I’m putting the phone in my shirt pocket,” he told me. “Hang on.”

  So I hung on while he scraped, scooted, and dragged himself down the square metal track that wormed back deeper into the building. During this lull in the conversation, Adrian came to crouch beside me—moving without making even the slightest sound.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  I put my hand over the phone’s “receiver” end. “Not so much. And thanks for being quiet. Do me a favor, please? Stay that way. Nothing personal, but this is bad.”

  “Are you talking to a kid?”

  “Yes. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you soon. Please, please, please do me a favor and leave me alone for a few minutes. Just let me talk him through this, and I promise I’ll tell you anything you want when this is sorted out.”

  “Raylene?” Domino called softly.

  I waved Adrian away again. He nodded grimly and walked away, going back to my bedroom and closing himself in there. I couldn’t complain. He’d slept on the couch after all, and my bedroom was definitely the most isolated part of the unit.

  I returned my attention to Domino. “What?”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “A … a friend. Don’t worry about it. How’s your progress?”

  “I can’t see anything!”

  I said, “I know. And I’m sorry. But there’s a fork up ahead.”

  “I already found it.”

  “You found it?” I pinched at the spot between my eyebrows and fought to remember the layout. “Then you’ll need to take the right tunnel. And I’m sorry, but it’s going to be blind. You just have to trust me that it’s going to play out all right.”

  He said, “I trust you.”

  I didn’t believe him. I didn’t even think he believed him. But he didn’t have a choice and I appreciated the vote of confidence, so I said, “Good. All you have to do is listen to me, and I’ll have you out on the roof in a jiffy.”

  “The roof?”

  “Yes, the roof. There are two old fire escapes up there, either one of which you can use to let yourself down. They aren’t super-sturdy, but you don’t weigh a hundred pounds and I’ve seen you scramble like a monkey. You’ll be fine.”

  “It’s raining. They’ll be wet.”

  “It’s always raining. It’s always wet.” In Seattle, if you let the weather keep you from going about your business, you’ll never leave the house. He knew it as well as I did, though. I understood that he was only talking to hear his own voice, however quietly.

  Domino was alone in the dark, in a space so narrow I would’ve thought twice about using it myself. He couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, and I shuddered to consider the rats, roaches, and other assorted nasties he was pushing aside in order to follow my directions. All things being equal, he was probably better off without a light. Without a light, he couldn’t see the spiderwebs he was breaching with his hands and his head; he couldn’t see the riveted seams that were rusty around the rims, and always looked ready to split and break.

  “How you doing in there?” I asked.

  “Okay,” he grunted. “Wait. I think I’ve hit the end.”

  “You have. Sort of. It’s going to go up now. You’re going to have to climb.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me, monkey-boy. There are seams in those joints about a foot and a half apart. It’ll take some learning and you’re going to have to play it very, very cool—but there’s no way around it. You’re going to have to climb.”

  “I … I don’t know.”

  “You can do it,” I vowed. “You’re lanky enough and strong enough, and you’ll be fine.”

  “What’s lanky got to do with it?” he asked.

  I could hear him adjusting himself, sitting upright in the place where the vent took a sudden upward turn at a sharp, narrow joint. I said, “Keep your voice down. You’re between the floors, but you’re not in another dimension. Be careful or they’ll hear you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good boy. Now work your way into that shaft and brace your back up against one of the sides. Then stick your feet out and brace your knees and toes against the opposite side. You understand what I’m saying?”

  “I think so.”

  I hoped I wasn’t about to let him down, because in truth, I had no idea if he was capable of climbing this way. “This next part’s going to get a little noisy, but you’re going to be going up inside one of the walls and if anybody hears you, they might assume rats.” And for very good reason, I thought, but I didn’t say that part out loud. “As long as no one hears you talking.”

  “Got it.”

  “You said you’d stuck the phone in your shirt pocket before—can you do that again and still hear me?”

  “Yeah.”

  The phone went through yet another shift, brushing up against his shirt and his hands and casting back that metallic echo from within the squared-off tube.

  In a fairly soft whisper he asked, “Can you still hear me?”

  “I can still hear you,” I said back, in something closer to a normal tone of voice. It had to carry from his pocket to his ear after all. “Now this is what you do—”

  “I think I got it,” he cut in. “Use my butt and my feet to hold myself, and my arms to pull and push myself up.”

  I was silent, then I said, “That’s pretty much it. You catch on quick.”

  “I’m not stupid,” he assured me.

  My instinct was to retort, “I never said you were.” But I was pretty sure that somewhere, at some distant point in the past, I had almost certainly said precisely that. So I let him have his little victory, proving me wrong. “Let me know when you get to the top.”

  “Will … there … be … another split?” he asked, muffled groans and slipping mumbles interrupting his words.

  “No. It’ll veer off to the left, and then it’s a straight shot to the ventilation hut on the roof. You’ll have to kick your way out, but that thing is sixty years old if it’s a day and I’m pretty sure you can handle it.” I said all this glibly, as if I’d remembered all along that the ventilation system was capped outside. In fact, I’d completely forgotten—and I’d also forgotten that this was a fourteen-year-old boy, and not a vampire who could pop the thing off with a twist of his wrist.

  “All right,” he said. He sounded about as sure as I felt, but I went on faking it, because what else could I do?

  “Seriously, don’t worry about it. It’s rusted all to hell, if it’s even still in place. It’s just one of those old spinny things that lets the air out and keeps the rain from getting in.”

  “Like a fan?” he asked, and the squeal of his shoe on the metal made my teeth hurt.

  “No, not like a fan. It’
s not going to eat you alive or anything. It’s just a little metal piece … more like a pinwheel, really.”

  “What’s a pinwheel?”

  “What’s a …? Jesus Christ, I’m not that old. A pinwheel—you know. You blow on it, and it spins around. Usually made of pretty colored paper or foil or something. Work with me, kid.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  I got the distinct impression he thought I was yanking his chain, but that was fine. Anything to keep him occupied while he scaled the entirety of a sixteen-foot story vertically, in a metal tube with not a shred of light.

  “It’s an old-fashioned toy.”

  “Never seen one.” Another three-word response. It was probably all he could get in between heaves and hos.

  After what felt like an interminable amount of time just waiting for him to reach the top, he did in fact reach it. He reached it with a fumble and a slip that came perilously close to dumping him straight back down the chute. He didn’t tell me this, but I could hear it in the havoc of the phone turning and flipping in that pocket, and in the desperate scrabble of his feet on the metal, hunting for some purchase that wasn’t compromised by dust and the decay of decades.

  “You make it?” I asked, once I was pretty sure that he had, in fact, made it.

  “Yeah,” he said with a gasp.

  “Good job. Now like I said, just go left.”

  He did, and before long he’d worked his way up to the vent with the spinner, and thank God I was right—he dislodged it with just a couple of shoves. I could hear rusty metal giving way and a clatter as the rooftop wonder burst up into the open sky and into a faceful of rain.

  I had no way of knowing if he’d made enough noise to summon anybody, so I said to him, “No time to dawdle. Run around the rooftop edge and see where they’re parked; then pick the farthest fire escape and let yourself down onto the ground.”

  “What?”

  The phone had still been in his shirt. Out in the open, he couldn’t hear me that way. I repeated myself, and he said, “Yeah, I’m way ahead of you. Hang on.”

  The whistling of wind and the occasional patter of rain on the microphone made a strange symphony while he darted from corner to corner, keeping low and staying light-footed if he knew what was good for him.