by Chloe Garner
Lizzie didn’t think anyone spoke, but she wasn’t certain her hearing was entirely back yet. She still smelled vaguely of burnt hair, and she didn’t know what she looked like, just then, but she’d worry about that in the morning.
Just right then, she was depressed and hopeless, and the idea of what her hair was doing was a distant last on the things she cared about.
Rat was gone. Probably dead.
The hooligans didn’t even try to fight Zee.
She had no power. Nothing to offer them. No way out.
She sat with her forehead on her sopping wet knees and she closed her eyes and she waited for morning without any hope that it would be better.
Because why would it?
***
Someone kicked her in the side, and she lifted her head, bleary eyes finding that the sun was coming up. The building was dreary all day long, but there was a small window of time in the morning when direct light could get in, and that window was getting close.
“I’m sorry, Mercy, I didn’t see you there,” Zee said. “I thought you were a bag of trash.”
“You’re the first man I’ve ever met who has to pull out his own dick and measure it, even when there’s no one to compare it to,” she said. She had no idea where that had come from. It wasn’t like her to be that crude, but she was tired and angry and she wanted to hurt him.
He wound up to kick her again and she looked up at him, defiant, and he quit.
It wasn’t pity.
It wasn’t fear.
It was something else. Something about the fundamental nature of their relationship as angel and demon. He couldn’t do it to her.
He could toss a hooligan off the roof, but he couldn’t kick her, when she was really in her role.
It was a moment of learning and it would have delighted her, any other day.
“Everyone made it home alive last night,” he said. “That should make you happy.”
“You ever wonder what it makes you, that you don’t care?” Lizzie asked.
“The demon,” he said. “And the best one you’re ever going to meet.”
“I’ve met better,” she said. He would have hit her, if he could have, but she saw it now that he couldn’t, and she could tell that he knew she saw it. So he kicked someone else and left. She wondered where he went, when he wasn’t here. Thought, for a moment, about how little she’d respected Trevor for staying in a building almost identical to this one, and how much she respected it now - that he stayed with his pack. Lara hadn’t abandoned them - she’d opened her home to them without reservation, from every indication - but Trevor stayed with them, and that was the sign of a good leader.
Lizzie didn’t claim that, because she had no option. She wasn’t leading anyone, and she was only here because she didn’t have anyplace else to go. She was losing weight because she was trying to save money rather than spend it on food, and her skin and hair were losing health rapidly. She was still using public restrooms to try to keep herself as presentable as she could, but with just one set of clothes and no access to real cleaning facilities, that top end was dropping down hard and fast.
Trevor had made this look easy.
She got up and pulled her fingers through her hair, looking around at the hooligans where they lay or leaned, and then she started for the door.
She had a day’s foraging to do, if she was going to make it to renting by the end of the week, and she wasn’t going to be able to afford food for the first week, as she made sure she had the money for heat and water. And maybe a new set of clothes, if she could find a consignment store in walking range.
She missed hangers.
A place to let her clothes dry where they weren’t pressed against her.
Taking her shoes off.
She missed normal.
She shook herself out of her reminisce, starting for the bakery as fast as she could walk in order to keep warm. The coat was still wet from last night’s soaking, so she was on her own for heat until she got it thoroughly dried. The wind was still up, and as she looked into the distance, she saw flurries of snow.
At another point in her life, she would have been delighted to see snow. It was rare enough, back home, and it was always special, back then. Now, it just made her feel sick.
Just a few more days.
She could make it a few more days.
***
The next battle wasn’t quite as lopsided as the previous had been, but only because it was impossible to beat the previous one. Zee went out to another area of town where the ambient level of order was high enough to notice, and he brought in a wave of furlings who sucked it out and left it dim and dark. Lizzie felt like she might get to the point that she could follow furling by the dim line he left in the light, but that was probably over-selling how good she would ever get.
She was tired and sore from absorbing too many furlings and not sleeping in the cold, and Han had had to cancel his appointment this week because he had a last minute switch with his orthodontist.
Paul was as eager as ever to meet the hooligans, and Lizzie as pragmatic as ever that he probably never would. They were falling apart around her, and the only upside was that she would probably be dead before they really did fall to pieces.
Paul was upbeat this week, talking about the dance over the weekend and the girl he’d gone with.
“There were furlings there,” he said. “One of them pushed a guy into another guy and started a fight.”
Lizzie nodded.
“They’re good at that kind of thing.”
Paul nodded.
“It’s funny, being able to see what causes stuff like that, when no one else can.”
Lizzie smiled.
“You’re doing really well. You still flipping pretty often?”
“Less,” he said. “If you can see where they are and avoid them, I think they leave me alone more. I mean, I was avoiding them before, but I think they noticed more because I was so afraid of them.”
“Interesting,” Lizzie said. “You should tell Han and Giselle that.”
He nodded.
“Yeah.” He paused. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“You usually talk more,” he said, and she smiled.
“You’re doing really well,” she said. “I don’t think you need me to talk a lot, do you?”
He shook his head. She had a sudden, cold realization that it was entirely possible that he wouldn’t need her, a month from now, or two months from now. What would she do for money, then?
She tried to brush the thought away, something she’d worry about when she got there, if she got there, but the emotional drain of everything was making it harder and harder to just ignore problems that she didn’t have solutions for.
“You’re okay, though?” he said. “I don’t think I could do this without someone who got it. You know?”
“You could,” Lizzie said. “And you will. You aren’t going to keep meeting with me for the rest of your life. You’ll get a handle on this and you’ll go have a life. It won’t be normal the way everyone else’s is, and you’ll still flip sometimes, but you’ll have a life.”
“What’s going to happen to you?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You aren’t going to have a life, are you? Not like you mean.”
She gave him half a smile.
“Don’t worry about me. You’ve got a long road left. You make sure you’re okay.”
“That’s not what you’d do,” he said.
He was right, but the issues with the hooligans were too close to Zee for her to talk about them at all.
“Let me help,” he said. “Please. Giselle said she gave you a coat and that you can’t get your car back.”
Lizzie bit her lip. The coat some mornings felt like the difference between life and death.
“I’m going to make it,” she said. “It’s rough, but that’s what we do. We accept what’s going on and we make it.”
“But you’re helping me,” he said. “And Giselle. And Han. And mom has three more people she wants you to meet, in case any of them…”
They hadn’t yet developed words to describe what was going on with him. She nodded.
“Okay. And I want to help. But I can’t take help from you. Your mom is paying me. That’s plenty.”
“I’m going to tell her,” he said.
“Tell her what?” Lizzie asked. “That the woman that you’ve been meeting with for unlicensed therapy every week for the last month is homeless and lost her car? If she’s a good parent at all, she’ll make sure you never see me again.”
“Or she’ll ask me why I didn’t tell her sooner,” Paul said. Lizzie frowned.
“It’s not a good idea, Paul.”
He sighed, but he didn’t argue with her any more. When their time was up, he waved at his mom as she appeared, and he left with her after Magda gave Lizzie a check. Lizzie started downtown toward the check-cashing place, looking forward to the day that she would have a piece of mail with her very own name and address on it so that she could open an account and stop paying to cash checks.
Oh, happy day.
Her phone rang, and she frowned to see Magda’s name on it.
“Hey, Magda,” she said.
“I want to meet the rest of them,” Magda said. Lizzie closed her eyes.
Stubborn boy.
“That’s not a good idea,” Lizzie said.
“Paul says you’re homeless, because you’re staying with them. Is that true?”
“Yes,” Lizzie said. “I can’t keep a regular job, doing what I’m doing, so… Yes.”
“He said you didn’t want him to tell me, because you don’t think I would trust you anymore.”
“Yeah,” Lizzie said.
“You’re right,” Magda said. “I want to see these people that you’re helping, or I don’t want you to continue to meet with Paul.”
Lizzie heard Paul complain in the background, but Magda appeared to be ignoring him.
“That’s entirely reasonable,” Lizzie said. “But it’s also a really bad idea.”
“Those are my terms,” Magda said. “Where can I meet you?”
Lizzie looked at the check in her hand and shrugged into her jacket, then shook her head. She needed the money. Needed it that bad. She could keep Paul away from Zee; Magda wasn’t a hooligan. She would be suspicious, but Zee couldn’t make Lizzie tell him why Magda was there, and Magda… well, she hoped Magda wouldn’t accidentally let anyone know.
She gave Magda a street intersection a block away from the building and she turned around. Magda repeated the intersection back to her, and they hung up. Lizzie was nervous, an immediate visceral reaction to the idea of drawing anything about Paul or the other teens into the hooligans’ lives, but this was what she had to do to earn trust. Magda was within her rights.
She would have to walk fast if she wanted to be on time.
***
Magda was sitting in her car when Lizzie got there.
“I normally keep my doors locked in this neighborhood when I have to drive through it,” Magda said. “There are a lot of…” She thought better of that and Lizzie shrugged.
“You aren’t wrong.”
“Are we safe, just walking around?”
“I’ve never had anything bad happen,” Lizzie said. “Just keep moving.”
The furlings found the two of them interesting, but Lizzie kept them at a distance as they walked.
“There’s…” she started, trying to find the right words to prepare Magda and warn her. “This is going to be bad, Magda,” she said. “This is the life that my brother lived, when he ran away. No money, no home, no resources at all. Most of them are going to be terrified of you. Some of them might run away. There’s one though… he’s abusive. You’ll know him if you see him. Hopefully he isn’t here right now. If he is, I need you to just leave. As fast as you can. Go get in your car and drive away.”
“What about you?” Magda said.
“I can handle him,” Lizzie lied. “I deal with him every day. But I don’t want you tangling up with him, no matter what he says or does, okay?”
“I won’t…” Magda started to protest, but Lizzie held up a hand.
“Those are my terms,” Lizzie said. “I mean it. I need you to promise.”
“Okay,” Magda said. “All right. If that’s what it takes for you to let me see what it is you’re keeping Paul out of.”
Lizzie nodded and they rounded the last corner and went to the rotting particle board door. The smell was vague for Lizzie now, but she remembered what Magda would be experiencing.
“Deep breath,” she said. “If you can make it to the stairs without breathing, it gets easier.”
The woman nodded stoically, and Lizzie led on. They walked quickly past waste and debris and live bodies, going up the stairs past the second level and onto the roof. There weren’t many hooligans up there, for the cold, but it was enough to make an example of them. Slug looked at her woefully from the corner as Magda came into the light behind her, and he shook his head, turning away. With fresh eyes, it was desperately pitiful.
“This is where you live?” Magda asked Lizzie quietly.
“It is,” Lizzie confirmed. “I’m working on getting an apartment near here so that some of them can have a warm place to stay when it gets really bad out, but…”
“Paul told me you’re broke and your car got towed by a predatory service. I’m going to call and demand that they release it at its initial cost, because there was no way someone from out of town was going to be able to find it.”
“Magda…” Lizzie said.
“And then I’m going to pay to get it out,” Magda said, looking around the roof. She put her hand under her nose. “Oh. Can we go?”
Lizzie nodded, grateful that the woman wasn’t going to try to talk to anyone. They left the building as quickly as Lizzie could get Magda out and they started walking back toward her car, using the route Lizzie thought was least likely to run them into Zee, though it was a pretty weak guess at what direction he might have been coming from.
“After that,” Magda said once they were in the fresh air again, “I’m going to pay the down payment on whatever apartment you want.”
“Magda, I can’t,” Lizzie said. Magda turned to face her sharply.
“That’s the life you saved my son from?” she asked. Lizzie hesitated, then nodded.
“I think so.”
Magda shook her head.
“Then don’t you dare tell me I can’t give you the money for shelter the very day we get our first snow storm of the winter. You get those poor children out of the cold, you feed them, and you make them call their mothers.”
Lizzie smothered a smile and nodded.
“I’m trying,” she said. “They don’t trust me yet.”
Magda nodded, putting her hands into her pockets and walking fast again.
“One more thing,” the woman said.
“What’s that?” Lizzie asked. Magda looked at her.
“Don’t you ever let my son near them,” she said. Lizzie nodded.
“I understand. And I think you’re right. I think that the other kids from his group session are a good peer group for him, and them…” She looked over her shoulder. “It could be dangerous.”
Magda shrugged against a strong breeze that whipped between two buildings at them.
“I don’t ever want him seeing that,” the woman said. “Ever.”
“Okay,” Lizzie said. “Yeah.”
Magda nodded, and stopped at the side of her car.
“I’ll call you when your car is free. Do you want me to send Paul to drive you over?”
Lizzie sighed. She wanted to be independent. So much. But it was so very cold.
“If you don’t mind. I can meet him at the park.”
“Do that,” Magda said. “I’ll be in touch.”
Lizzie stepped back as Magda started t
he car and watched the woman drive away, then she started back toward the building.
Despite the wind and the howling cold, she cried all the way.
***
Magda was true to her word. Lizzie’s car was ready for her to pick up that afternoon, and when Lizzie gave her the name of the apartment complex where she wanted to rent, Magda told her that the manager there would have a deposit for the down payment before the end of the day. And that she wasn’t to spend another night outside, because the temperature was supposed to drop again that night.
“Thank you, Magda,” Lizzie said.
“If you stopped and thought about what it is you’ve done,” Magda said, “you’d agree with me that it’s nothing. If someone could have done for your brother what you’ve done for my son…?”
“Yeah,” Lizzie said. “I get it. I do.”
“I want to sit down with you and talk about his episodes,” Magda said.
“Once I get moved in, you’re welcome to come see me at my apartment,” Lizzie answered, “but I’ll warn you that there isn’t much I can do to help, there.”
“All right. Paul is on his way,” Magda said. “He’ll see you at the park.”
Lizzie closed her phone - a cheap plastic flip phone was enough to see her through her need to communicate - and she started down the stairs. It was like sneaking out of the house when she was a teenager. She prayed the entire way out of the building that she wouldn’t run into Zee, wouldn’t have to decide between going on a battle and going to meet Paul to get her car and then go get her apartment. The relief was almost so much that she couldn’t bear to believe it.
Paul was at the park with the car still running and the heat on high. Lizzie shivered as she got into the car. He laughed at her.
“It’s still fall,” he said. “It’s going to get so much colder.”
“I’m not used to even this cold,” Lizzie said, and he grinned.
“I’m not sorry I told my mom,” he said.
“I’m grateful,” Lizzie said. “I underestimated her.”
He nodded.
