by Drew Magary
“The guy from ethics class did?!” She skimmed the copy and found his quote:
Anna Huff is wild but the idea that she’s a Nazi is some supreme bullshit. Don’t tell Father McDuff I said “bullshit.”
“I guess that was nice of him,” Anna said, “but Christ, I’m screwed.”
“You would have been if that girl over there hadn’t passed out. Now, who stole half of that recipe from Emilia?”
Anna was so preoccupied with the news blast that she barely heard the question. She looked around and no one at the festival seemed to notice her or care who she was. But it was still clear that her life, as she knew it, was over. She had the cover of darkness on her side at the speedway, and she’d have to stay under it for a very long time, perhaps forever. Daylight would kill her, and it would kill her mom too. There would be no more Druskin. No college. No future. Just an endless slog through the free zones: a life in hiding from Jason Kirsch and all the other demons roaming the landscape.
“Anna,” Bamert said.
“What.”
“Who stole the other half?”
“Lara did.”
“Oh, really?” He pointed to the speedway. “Well, speak of the devil.”
“What?”
Bamert wrested his phone back from Anna and opened up the camera. He zoomed in on the festival’s VIP area, situated atop a cantilevered platform behind the soundboard in the center of the infield. Anna saw a sharp black bob of hair bouncing up and down to the beat. Neon bangle bracelets. Hoop earrings. Neon blue eyeshadow. Her heart blitzed ahead of her aching body.
“She’s here,” Anna said, dumbstruck.
“Just your luck.”
“I stink, though.” It was true. She smelled like a rancid oyster.
“Everyone stinks here,” Bamert told her. “That’s why it’s so wonderful. People scoff at body odor, then they go out dancing and suddenly they want that funk in the air. They need it. The funk is love, Anna Huff.”
“I look like shit. I’m bleeding.”
“Everyone’s bleeding here! You fit right in. Go to her.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“You shot a guy and stabbed another guy today, right?”
“I didn’t necessarily stab Vick. He kinda stabbed himself. But I did assault a skateboarder.”
“Did you ever consider then, Anna, that you might be the dangerous one?”
All her life—which admittedly, had been quite brief—Anna Huff had never thought of herself as dangerous. Didn’t want to be dangerous. Dangerous boys were cool and dangerous girls were psycho. Besides, it was always the shitty people who were dangerous: corporate tyrants, terrorists, armed PINE agents horny for gunfire, people porting into strange houses in the dead of night to indulge their sickest impulses, etc. Anna Huff’s life was built around either avoiding that danger or coping with it. But now that all felt like an enormous waste. Why did she have to be on the run? Why did she have to always live in fear? Fear was something the dangerous people counted on to keep everyone else in line. But they were all like Vick: sad, pathetic, and scared to death of having their illusions of power disappear. Those vacant illusions were everything to them.
“I guess I never thought of myself that way,” she said to Bamert.
“You’re a lion,” he told her.
“I thought you said I was an ox. And an elephant.”
“I’m upgrading you, darling. To lionhood.”
“Are you gonna be all right?” she asked Bamert. “You’re drinking water?”
“Do I look all right or do I look all right? Sobriety is a horrible thing, Anna Huff. But this is what I need to do to learn how to be a person again, isn’t it?”
“Oh, Bamert. Bamert, I’m so proud of you. And I’m glad you’re wearing a suit. You’re you again.”
“That I am.”
“But you’re in danger right now.”
“Am I? Whoever nuked our Virginia house seems content to leave it at that. I owe them a favor, frankly. Edgar is pissed at Emilia now. The only thing weird old rich people hate more than the poor are other weird old rich people. The old man gave me my credit card back outta this.”
“They might come for you.”
“I told you trouble is no trouble for a Bamert.” He gestured over to the VIP area. “Now go hunting, you deadly lioness you. Go on and feel the noize.”
Anna marked a pin right by the stage that quivered in place as human bodies pinballed around the infield. The VIP section itself was off limits, but the rest of the festival itself was free; organizers didn’t bother with the hassle of trying to charge admission. Instead, they took a cut of the merch and draped every square inch of the desert in ads for hard seltzer and shoddy WallTech hardware for personal residences. PINE agents were snaking their way through the mass, covering all possible ground. Maybe they didn’t know Anna’s port ID, but they knew her face. She grabbed a ponytail holder out of the hot dirt and tied her hair behind her head. It was the only disguise she could hope for at the moment. Then she hit PORT and felt the shiver.
Inside the speedway, the crowd noise coalesced into an ongoing, multi-octave WOOOOO that reminded Anna of the first time Sarah ever took her to a concert like this. It was at the Superdome in New Orleans, and the old school weed smoke was so heavy in the air that you could smell it in the plastic seats. The crowd that night also WOOOOed like a flock of a million joyful birds. Two burly dudes bought Sarah beers before that show and she wisely moved with Anna to another row of seats so that she wouldn’t be asked to repay the favor somehow.
Now Anna was in the middle of the same kind of hyped-up crowd, but as an only child. Lara Kirsch, in a bubble-gum pink dress with little satin roses adorning the shoulder, was leaning over the guard rail of the VIP section and screaming out for the band. The music was so cacophonous that Anna could only make out the bass distinctly. The ground under her quaked to the beat. Everyone else inside the speedway appeared to have someone else with them. But Anna was all alone, staring up at Lara and praying for her to stare back. There she went again: trying to feel important by looking around for someone important.
Lara caught a glance of Anna in her frumpy tie-dyed shirt, and her eyes went wide in happy surprise. She raced to the back of the platform, past the security guards and down to the barricade. The music—so brutal and relentless just a moment earlier—cut out as a new act got ready to take the stage.
“What are you doing here?” Lara asked Anna. “Oh my god, you’re bleeding!” She took out a small tissue and spat on it to moisten it. Then she gently wiped the dried blood from the side of Anna’s face.
“I can get you up with the VIPs,” Lara said, taking Anna’s hand. “The area has its own portwall. Come with me.”
Lara ushered Anna up the stairs, where there was actual room to move. Freedom. Waiters in branded apparel walked around handing out vials of kamikaze shots. Obnoxiously wealthy scions and heiresses strutted around the platform in dresses that looked like they came fresh off a Milan runway. One girl was bathed in sapphires that shone brighter than the stage show. Lara took Anna over to a promotional kiosk for a designer named Baptiste.
“What are we doing?” Anna asked.
“It’s prom,” Lara said. “You need a dress. And better shoes.”
“Your mom said I needed better shoes once.”
“Fuck her.”
Lara asked the woman behind the counter for a sample dress for her friend to wear. Asked it in perfect French. The woman ported out with a crisp snap and reappeared within seconds, her perfumed port breeze wafting past Lara and Anna. She was holding a sequined handbag, black flats, and a mini dress: black on the sides with a wide white panel running down the front and back. A racing stripe.
Holy shit, that looks like Mrs. Ludwig’s car.
“This work?” Lara asked her.
“Yeah.”
“Come on.”
She took Anna to a trailer bathroom behind the kiosk. It was basic, but it was still a huge leap up from a p
ort-a-potty.
“Let’s get this on you,” Lara said. “Take off your shirt.”
“Okay.” Anna pulled off the frumpy t-shirt.
Of all the times you gotta show off your beach body.
Lara put the new dress over Anna’s head and pulled it down to her hips. Anna, so flushed with love-spiked adrenaline that she could barely speak, put her passport lanyard back on, then bent down and peeled off her yoga pants. With her legs freed, she was beginning to feel more human and less like a fleshy, beached walrus.
“I stink,” she told Lara matter-of-factly. One day, by God, she would not have crippling body odor around this girl.
“Ha! I do too.” Lara held up her arm and playfully waved the odor toward Anna’s face. Anna didn’t tell Lara she thought it smelled good. The funk is love.
Before she got the dress all the way down, Lara saw the bruise on Anna’s hip and touched it. Each touch from Lara was like a kiss. Anna tightened her core muscles like she was about to leap off another cliff, then pulled the dress all the way down.
“You got into a fight,” Lara said.
“With Vick, yeah.”
“I heard about that. You’re a hero, Roomie.” She took out her PortPhone and brought up Anna’s dormant WorldGram profile. She had 200,000 new followers.
“They said I painted swastikas on the walls but it’s all a lie,” Anna said.
“I bet. I know Emilia’s playbook. It’s a literal playbook. I can get that for you, too. Now turn around.”
Anna turned and Lara zipped the dress up. The sound the zipper made was sweeter than any music coming from onstage. The fabric, so smooth and silken, caressed Anna like a lover. The rose pink bracelet made for a perfect accent to the ensemble. Anna stared at herself on the mirror. At long last, she looked exactly the way Lara Kirsch made her feel. She ran her fingers through her hair, feeling sleek and fast. Like she was heading out for a date. Was this a date? It took everything in Anna’s power not to barricade the door and keep them in that bathroom all night.
“That dress,” said Lara, “is flawless on you.”
“Yours looks good too.”
“I promise you that yours looks better. The concert bill said to wear a dress you don’t care about. This was a bridesmaid’s dress from Jason’s wedding. I hate it.” Anna believed her. Normally, Lara was impeccably dressed but simultaneously gave off the vibe that she didn’t need to put any thought into it. The dress she had on now killed that vibe. This was a needy dress. She still looked dazzling in it, but it wasn’t her.
“Why’d you wear that tonight if you hate it?” Anna asked her.
“So I could ruin it. But look at us now,” she exulted. “We’re not crying for once.”
“Night’s young.”
“Do you want makeup?”
“Do I need it?” Anna asked.
“Maybe a little.” Lara dug into her bag to grab an eyeliner pen and some lip gloss. “Hold still.”
Anna leaned in and Lara gently brushed her lips with the sweet peach gloss. Then she took an ice pick-sharp eyeliner pencil and traced, ever so carefully, along Anna’s eyelid. Anna drummed her fingers against her sides with near-concussive force. When Lara was finished, they turned toward the mirror and stared at one another.
“There,” Lara said. “Flawless. I mean, you were already flawless without makeup.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit.”
Lara laughed and handed Anna the pencil. “Keep it. You wear it better than I do.”
“I don’t wear anything better than you.”
“Your turn not to give me that bullshit.”
“Okay,” Anna admitted. “I’m hotter than you right now.”
“You really are. Roomie, do you remember what you asked my mother when you met her the first time?”
Oh, she remembered, all right. “‘How do you know I’m not a superstar?’”
“And look at you now,” Lara said, putting her hands on each side of Anna’s dress. “You ARE a superstar.”
“Hell yeah I am.”
Lara giggled before turning serious for a moment. “Did you get the screengrab?” Lara asked Anna.
“I did. You kept your promise to me.”
“I told you I would. Did you give the notes to Stokes?”
“I did,” Anna said. “But then I had to shoot him.”
“You are such a wiseass! Wait, you’re not joking.” Lara stepped back. “What did you do?”
“I kept the notes you gave me and stole all of his,” Anna said. “I’m in very big trouble, Lara.”
“Where is everything?”
“You said you trusted me, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Trust me again. Trust my soul, Lara Kirsch. You owe me that.”
“Okay.”
“Stokes was a bastard. He can’t have the notes.”
“Then who are you gonna give them too?”
Anna looked away from the mirror. She couldn’t take the sight of them together in the reflection, looking like a real couple, another second longer. If she kept staring, she would jump on Lara and feed her hot kisses. You know how to kiss now, girl. You’re not a rookie.
“I gave them to someone already,” she finally told Lara. “Someone on our side.”
“You don’t mean, like, the FBI. Do you?”
“Uh, no. Someone better.”
“Emilia and Jason aren’t gonna like it.”
“They aren’t gonna like anything I do to them,” Anna said. “I know that puts us in an awkward spot, like it always does. But I’m ready to be dangerous. I’m ready to hurt Jason and Emilia. But I don’t wanna do it without your permission.”
Lara gnawed on her fingers. Someone outside knocked on the bathroom door and Lara yelled at them to fuck off. She took out her PortPhone and showed Anna her photo archive. There was Lara at Shutters in Santa Monica. There was Lara on the roof deck of the MyClub in San Francisco. There was Lara at the upscale Acacia Mall in Kampala, Uganda.
“You see any photos of my family here?” she asked Anna.
“No.”
“All they care about is loyalty for loyalty’s sake. They don’t care about me. Plus Jason sold Lily Beach.”
“No.”
“He did. My beach. Our beach. I wouldn’t have given you those notes if I didn’t want Jason and Emilia to hurt.”
“What about you? Will you be all right?”
“Will anyone?”
Anna looked down at her new shoes and stammered, “Jason. He came to my room. Our room. He said he’d be back. He wants me to kill myself, and that he’ll slit my throat if I don’t. I don’t wanna drag down this night, but I had to tell you. He wants to do the same shit to me he did to Sarah.”
“I know,” said Lara. “He visits my room sometimes, too. No matter where I port, he can find me.”
“Oh my God.”
The visits began when Lara was nine years old. The first time Jason came into her bedroom, she thought he was looking for a phone charger. But that’s not what he wanted at all. He loomed over his half-sister’s bed, holding a knife and whispering horrible nothings to her. She was an untalented, revolting little shit. A responsible person should slit her throat, but why saddle them with that job when Lara could exercise a bit of wisdom and just do it herself?
There was no discernible pattern to Jason’s visits. Sometimes a week would go by without him coming. Sometimes a single night. But the visits grew so vast in number that the pattern was beside the point. Every night, whether or not Lara was left undisturbed, she felt him. After three years of this sickening dance, with Lara steadfastly refusing to break, he moved onto what he considered easier prey. But he didn’t stop visiting Lara entirely. She remained his most prized target. His big buck.
“Sometimes he spins his knife on the dresser,” Lara told Anna. “Looks at me with black eyes and I can feel his evil all over me. Only reason I haven’t hurt myself is because staying alive is the best way I can make him miserable. B
ut god, it’s hard to resist it. Sometimes I wanna use the gun just so that I never have to see him or hear him again, you know? And then I hate myself for the urge. Why do I end up with all of the shame and he ends up with none? That’s not how it should be.”
“Does he—”
“No, he never touches me. He doesn’t have to touch people to violate them. It’s why I stay out all night a lot. But eventually sleep catches up with me, and when it does, so does he.” Lara shuddered at her own words. Her green eyes dimmed. “One time I paid a guy on the street to watch over me but when Jason showed up that night, he smooth-talked the guy right out the door. Other times I’ve tried to engineer ways to port without him noticing, but he always knows. And I’ve never spent the night with another guy or girl. Because if they ever had to deal with Jason…” She couldn’t speak the consequences out loud.
“What if you just ditched your phone?”
“He can find me. I have to time it so that I sneak away when I know he’s busy somewhere else. Only reason I made it to Sutton Place and back that night was because he was eating dinner with fucking Robb Caraway.”
“Who else knows about this?” Anna asked.
“One person, and you probably guess who.”
Maybe I should have Jason pay you a visit. That’s what Emilia told Lara that first night at school.
“That piece of shit.”
“I’ve never told anyone else this,” Lara said. “Jason said no one would believe me, and I believed him. Sometimes you take the worst people at their word because you’ve already seen what they’re capable of. And Jason is capable of anything. He ruined your family and he doesn’t even care about his own. I hate him. You ever feel a hate that you know is so deep and so right?”
“I have.” Anna had a list of such hates: Vick, Jason, PINE, Emilia, and on and on they went. But those grudges felt petty by comparison at the moment. Lara Kirsch was possessed by a hate that had profound roots within her. Evil was her family’s blood heritage.
“No matter where I port to, he knows I’m there. And he can get past any portwall. There’s nowhere to hide. That’s why I wanted to go to Druskin, Anna. It’s why I asked them to give me a roommate even though Emilia wanted me to be in a single.” Lara confessed. We’ll bust out of here and then we’ll go everywhere the shitty people aren’t, and they won’t ever be able to find us. “It’s why I wanted the inner room. I thought that extra buffer might help keep Jason away, especially because you were my roommate. The second you talked shit to Emilia, I knew you were the right girl. You’re not someone to be fucked with, Anna Huff.”