by Griffin, Gen
“I just want this nightmare to be over. I want my parents back. I want to go home,” I cried.
“Maybe we can find them,” Lola tried to sooth me. “And then you can go home.”
“I can't go home,” I said. “I'll never be able to go home again.”
“Then make a new home,” she said calmly. “You're still alive and hopefully we can help you find your parents. As long as you have your family, you can build a new life.”
Her words struck a chord of truth with me. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and pulled back from her slightly. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”
Lola smiled prettily at me. She reached out and brushed my hair away from my eyes. “You have to try to see the positive in your situation. You didn't get your parents back to today, but you didn't find out for sure that they were dead either. You still have hope, right?”
I nodded.
“Then buck up, kiddo.” Lola's eyes were incredibly kind. “You can't give up yet.”
“She's not going to give up,” a familiar voice echoed from the doorway behind us. “It's not in her nature.”
“You have too much faith in me,” I stood up and began to walk towards the shadowy figure in the doorway.
Lola's fingers dug into my arm as she gasped. “Jeremiah?”
Chapter 11
“Hello Lola.”
“Jeremiah? Is it really you?” Lola released my arm just as quickly as she had grabbed it. She ran across the room and then stopped abruptly when she was less than a foot away from him. I could hear her breath coming in heavy, almost frantic gasps as she stared up into a pair of mirrored sunglasses.
“No, it's me.” Seth flipped the sunglasses back onto the top of his head, revealing his dead white eye to her.
“Seth.” Lola took a step back from him, her voice shaky. “Oh god. Seth.”
“Not happy to see me?” He slipped the glasses back down over his bad eye.
Lola's slender chest heaved as she took a visibly deep breath and then flung her arms around his neck in a tight hug. “You know I'm always happy to see you. I just wasn't expecting to see you here. I thought for a minute that you were Jeremiah. You look so much like him now that you're older. ”
Seth wrapped his arms back around her. “Jeremiah's dead.”
“Have you found his body?” Lola pulled back away from Seth.
“No, but-.”
“But nothing. You're assuming he's dead, but you don't know for sure.” Lola ran her hands back through her hair and titled her chin up at Seth. “He's not dead, Seth.”
“He's dead.”
“He doesn't feel dead here.” She pointed to the spot on her chest where her heart would be. “I'd know if he were dead.”
“It has been four years and he hasn't come back. He was being held in the catacombs when they collapsed.”
“He could have made it out,” Lola insisted. “Don't lose faith, Seth. Jeremiah always told us that we can't ever lose faith.”
“I never had any faith to begin with, Lola. I only deal in facts.” Seth sighed and looked over at me.
“And yet you're the brother who everyone thinks is a god.” Lola didn't make any effort to keep the irony out of her voice.
“I'm not a god,” Seth said. “If I were, I wouldn't have spent the last three hours chasing rumors and whispers halfway through the city trying to figure out what had happened to Pilar's parents.”
Lola looked back towards me. “You're here because of her?”
“Yes,” Seth replied without explaining anything.
Lola took a deep breath and then exhaled it slowly. She was very visibly trying to pull herself together. “You're the boy Gauge told me about then?”
Seth shrugged. “I suppose I could be. Depends on what Gauge told you.”
“Let me see your arm.” Lola held out her hand to him. Seth hesitated for a minute and then held up his right arm. He'd traded out his ruined jacket for a new one while he'd been gone. The sleeve of this jacket was neither torn nor bloody.
Lola wasn't fooled. She caught his hand in hers and then pushed his sleeve up past his elbow, revealing spiral after spiral of angry, oozing puncture wounds. She let out a sharp hiss. “You let someone do this to you?”
“I wouldn't exactly say I let him do it. He was going to hit a little girl with the whip. I caught the end of the lash as it came down. It coiled around my arm. It doesn't hurt.”
“It doesn't hurt because you don't feel pain anymore,” Lola said. “It looks bad, Seth.”
“Who cares?” He countered. “It doesn't look any worse than my face does.”
Lola swallowed visibly and then looked away. She was still clutching his hand in hers. He wasn't making any effort to pull away. “Let me bandage it, at least.”
“No point. It won't get infected.” Seth smirked at her with more bitterness than I had thought possible. “Zombies can't get sick.”
“I'm well aware of what you are, Seth.” Lola began leading Seth to the windowsill where she had set down her medical supplies. “But I'm guessing you'd rather the entire Underground not find out that the high priest of the Church of Chaos is walking among them?”
“I don't even know what you're talking about,” Seth replied mildly.
Lola rolled her pretty amber eyes at him. She pulled a roll of thick white bandages out of her box. “Wrapping that arm will draw a whole lot less attention than pretending nothing is wrong. Dozens of people saw you get hurt. No one will be surprised to see you sporting a bandage.”
Seth stared down at his own torn flesh. “It won't heal.”
“You planning on hanging around the city long enough for anyone to notice that you don't heal?” Lola asked.
“No,” Seth said. “I wasn't even planning on staying tonight.”
Lola took out a small bottle of disinfectant and a clean cloth. She methodically began cleaning blood away from the cuts on his arm. “Don't underestimate Gauge. He already knows something isn't right about you.”
Seth scowled. “What did he say to you?”
“He told me that something strange had happened in the meat market today. He said a guy who he'd never seen before got in Merrick Mavon's face.”
“Who?”
“The owner of the meat market.”
“You mean the fat bastard?”
Lola nodded. “He's rather large.”
“I'm going to kill him before I leave the city. Just so you know.”
“Mmm, yes. Gauge mentioned that you weren't scared. He said you never flinched. You never shook. He said he half thought you were going to pull out a handgun and shoot Merrick where he stood.”
“Nah.” Seth shook his head as she began to wrap bandages up the length of his arm. “Not painful enough. That jerk is going to suffer when I get my hands on him.”
“My point is that you convinced exactly no one that you were just another rural taking a morning stroll through the sights of the city.”
“I had a feeling my rural story didn't fly,” Seth said.
“Yeah. No. You might pass for a rural to someone who catches sight of you from across a crowded market or a busy street. No one who has to interact with you is going to buy that story.”
“It was the best story I could come up with,” Seth said. “You have any better ideas for what to tell people?”
“Have you considered just telling the truth?” She sounded tense, maybe even upset.
“I am telling the truth. I'm just leaving out a couple of personal details.” Seth smirked. “Pilar's parents were taken by a flesh broker against their will. She asked me to help her save them. We tracked them to the meat market. They weren't in the meat market. We're looking for information about whether or not they're alive or dead.”
Lola sighed. “Do you know which flesh broker took them?”
Seth barely hesitated. “Bud Moon.”
“Bud Moon only takes people from the Cube,” Lola said.
“Yes,” Seth nodded. “Pila
r's from the Cube. At least, that was where she started out her life. I've been trying to convince her to come join me on the dark side.”
Lola turned her attention back to me for the first time since Seth had walked into the room. Her amber-eyed gaze traveled from the tips of my prettily painted toes, over my pretty yellow dress and up to the top of my once-again frizzy but still red curls.
“You must be something special,” she said after a short pause.
“Not really,” I disagreed with a shake of my head. “Mostly, I'm just confused and scared.”
Lola considered me for a moment longer and then offered me a small smile. “If your parents are still in the city, we'll be able to find them.”
“I hope so,” I said. “I really hope so.”
“Me too,” Seth commented idly. “Otherwise I just acquired a gnarly new scar for nothing.” He held up his freshly bandaged arm.
“It wasn't for nothing,” I reminded him. “If the whip did that kind of damage to you, can you imagine what it would have done to Moira?”
“He would have either killed her or disfigured her for life,” Lola chimed in.
“Which is why he has to die,” Seth said idly. “Believe me, that fat bastard will be roasting on a spit before I leave the city.”
“Oh, I believe you.” Lola walked back up to Seth and wrapped her arms around his neck. She was nearly a full head shorter than him. The top of her head barely came up to the bottom of his chin. “And speaking of when you leave the city?”
I felt a totally unexpected and unprecedented rush of jealousy flood through my veins as Seth put his hands on Lola's hips.
“Hmm?” he asked.
“You're not leaving me behind this time.” She stood up on her tippy-toes and pressed her lips against his. After the slightest hesitation, Seth kissed her back.
They were still kissing when Gauge walked into the room.
Chapter 12
“I think I've found a lead as to where your mother may be-.” Gauge stopped mid-sentence. He stared at Lola as she pulled back away from Seth, wiping her lips with the back of her hand.
“Gauge. I wasn't expecting you to find out anything tonight.” Lola shot him the same pretty, harmless smile that she had used on me earlier. I was beginning to suspect the smile was part of an act.
“I got lucky.” Gauge's eyes went from Lola to Seth and then back to Lola. “You two know one another? Or did you take me a little too literally when I asked you to help make our guests feel welcome?”
Lola let out a shrill, high pitched giggle. She fluffed her short amber hair and shrugged her slender shoulders in a delicate gesture that I could never have managed. “Sorry Gauge. I didn't realize you cared who I kissed?”
Gauge raised one eyebrow at her skeptically. “I don't care who you kiss. I just question the wisdom of making out with a potentially dangerous stranger.”
“We're not strangers. We grew up together. Seth was born in the Burroughs.”
Seth stepped in between Lola and Gauge. “You said you found a lead?”
“You're from the Burroughs?” Gauge's voice was thick with disbelief.
“I was born in the Burroughs.”
“I've never seen you there,” Gauge said.
“I haven't lived there in a long, long time.” Seth rubbed his hands together casually. “But where I spent my childhood really doesn't matter. We'll have all the time in the world to chat about the miserable, roach infested hellholes we grew up in after we've found Pilar's parents.”
Gauge chewed his lip for a minute and then shrugged. “You said her parents were taken by Bud Moon, right?”
Seth nodded.
“Something Pilar said earlier gave me an idea,” Gauge jerked his chin in my direction. His dark blue eyes were focused entirely on me as he spoke. “You said your mother would have been completely terrified by the city and the meat market. Do you think she would have been hysterical?”
“Yes,” I said with a nod. I didn't need to think about the question. Mom had gone hysterical at the sight of sunlight and open doors since before I was born.
“I thought so. I remembered you saying that she hadn't gone outside in more than 20 years.” Gauge rubbed one hand against the back of his own thick neck. “It got me thinking, what if they couldn't sell her?”
“Huh?”
“You mean if she failed a safety check?” Lola interrupted abruptly. Her eyes were bright and her expression thoughtful.
“A what?” I looked to Seth for an explanation but he just shrugged.
“The meat market has gotten a little more health conscious since the last time you lit it on fire- I mean visited.” Lola quickly corrected herself as she focused her attention entirely on Seth. She hurried on with her explanation. “All the people who are sold for their flesh in the meat market have to meet a certain health standard now. Someone sold a couple of contaminated girls last year. Infected the family of one of the king's personal advisers with the zombie virus. The adviser, his wife, all four of their kids and his mother-in-law had to be euthanized. It was ugly. The king passed a law that requires every person brought into the meat market to pass a health check before they can be sold.”
“What kind of health check?” Seth asked. “I mean, what are they looking for?”
“No cuts or open wounds anywhere on the body. They have to be able to perform an assortment of basic physical activities.”
“Perform physical activities?” Seth raised one eyebrow skeptically.
“They have to walk and talk coherently. Sometimes they're asked to perform a few basic exercises. Pull ups or jumping jacks. Something that proves they have human coordination.” Gauge crossed his hairy arms over his broad chest. He was watching Seth intently now.
“Clever.” Seth didn't look impressed.
“Do you think your mother would have passed the tests?” Gauge refocused his attention onto me. “No one I've talked to remembers seeing her in the meat market. Not one soul. It makes me think that she might not ever have made it onto the sale lot.”
“I don't know,” I admitted reluctantly. “There wasn't anything physically wrong with her, but she panicked every time she even thought about stepping foot outside the Cube. Dad couldn't even get her to go out into the garden with him. She'd freeze up and start crying every time she got within 20 feet of the outer doors.”
“Sounds like it's possible that she wouldn't have passed the health check,” Lola tapped her index finger against her chin. She turned back to Gauge. “What do the flesh brokers do with the people who don't pass the health check?”
“Rumor has it that Bud Moon houses them in a bunker on his family's property.” Gauge leaned back against the nearest wall.
“You think my mom could still be on Bud Moon's property?” I scarcely dared to hope that she might still be alive.
“She's not in the meat market. She's either at Bud Moon's property or-.” Gauge hesitated.
“Or she died in transit,” Seth bluntly finished the sentence for him.
I let out a sharp hiss of breath. Lola swatted at Seth, smacking him lightly on his chest.
“Stop scaring her.”
“Pilar and I have a relationship that's built on honesty, Lola.” Seth pursed his lips at her and then looked back at me. His mirrored sunglasses were starting to drive me crazy. I couldn't look at him without seeing this new version of myself, a girl I barely recognized, reflected back at me. Right now, my reflection looked a lot calmer than I felt.
“There is a difference between being honest and being cruel, Sethra.” She drew out the name with extra emphasis.
Seth positively glowered at her. “Don't patronize me. And don't call me-.”
“It's okay,” I said after a slight hesitation. “Sethra?”
“His holy name,” Lola said with a wink. “He hates it.”
“You have a holy name?” I blinked at Seth.
He rolled his eyes. “Assigning ourselves holy names wasn't one of Jeremiah's better
ideas. You can continue to call me Seth. You know I don't have much faith in religion.”
I nearly laughed. “Last I checked, you were trying to rewrite religion.”
“And you're going to help me do it,” Seth said with a smirk. “But back to the problem at hand. I guess I have something else to look for when I pay my visit to Bud Moon tomorrow morning.”
“You're going to pay a visit to Bud Moon?” Gauge gaped at Seth. “You think he's just going to let you stroll right into his heavily guarded compound?”
Seth laughed. “There are methods to my madness. Don't you worry your pretty little head about how I'm getting in. Just know that we're going in first thing tomorrow morning. I'll bet security isn't real good right around first light.”
Gauge hesitated again. He was very visibly taking Seth's measure. “You're probably right about the security, but I'm starting to think I should have asked you for more than just a handgun in exchange for my help. You're going to get me killed.”
“Actually, the survival rate for my help is pretty good.” Seth grinned cockily.
“Wait, you're trading Gauge a handgun in exchange for helping you?” Lola spun around on Seth with narrowed eyes.
“It was his price,” Seth said with a shrug. He gestured to Gauge. “You asked for the gun, didn't you?”
“I did,” Gauge acknowledged. “Lola, I know you don't approve of violence but the entire city is in upheaval. A gun would give us a backup plan if the king tries to raid the Underground again. It may not save us but it gives us the ability to put some distance between ourselves and our attackers.”
Lola opened her mouth and then closed it again. She pursed her plump, pretty lips and then shook her head. “Every time I start to think you might have a soul, your actions remind me otherwise.”
“Lola, I want that gun.” Gauge sounded distinctly annoyed.
“You'll get the gun.” Lola narrowed her eyes at Gauge. “It's a pittance for the crimes he'll want you to help him commit.”
“Crimes?” Gauge scowled at Seth. “I'm not about to get run through the corridor of zombies for you.”
“I doubt she's referring to tangible crimes. A better word to use would have been 'sins',” Seth commented dryly. “Lola considers me to be morally bankrupt.”
