Undertow

by Michael Buckley

  She explains our plan to him. He sits back in his chair, slightly stunned.

  “And you can come with us,” I say.

  Bex’s face glows. “Really?

  Shadow looks to me and then Bex, then shakes his head. “I can’t. My mother is stuck here, and without her citizenship papers, she will never get through the blockade.”

  Bex stands. It’s clear she can’t handle this. Her father walked out on her when she was three, and we never saw him again. This isn’t the same, but I can hear what she’s thinking: here’s another man she cannot count on.

  He stands with her and takes her hand. “But I can spend the rest of the year setting her up to be on her own. I’ll graduate. She needs to see that, Bex. The site is making money. I can make her comfortable, and when that happens, I will find you.”

  Bex shakes her head, fighting back tears. She doesn’t believe him.

  “And then we’ll get married.”

  “Whoa there, cowboy,” I cry. I can’t believe how bold he is.

  Bex looks right into his eyes. “Deal.”

  At the end of the day, Bex and Shadow walk hand in hand through all the anger and hostility that await us outside. The crowd doesn’t even exist to them. I invite them both back to my apartment, but she wants to pick some things up and say goodbye to Tammy. Shadow wants to be there when she does.

  That evening I’m on my own. Dad is on duty, and my mother is in her room searching the web. It’s quiet and peaceful, which is the last thing I need right now. I can’t find anything that keeps my attention on TV. I try to read a book but find myself reading and rereading the same paragraph. With nothing to distract me, my mind soars back to the kiss. It makes me anxious. I can’t get comfortable. Finally I snatch my phone and beg Bex to hurry home. She promises she will as soon as she can.

  DID U TELL TAMMY UR ENGAGED?

  The answer comes fast.

  SHUT UP, WALKER.

  I make my mother a sandwich and take it into her room for her. Since I told her about Doyle’s promise and that we’ll have her ID on Friday, she’s been frantically searching the Alpha sites, looking for her family. She barely notices when I come in, and when I wish her a good night she grunts one back.

  I think that maybe if I get some sleep, it will clear my head. Today felt like there were more than twenty-four hours in it, and even though my thoughts are on fire, my body is dragging. I turn on the sound machine, find my mouth guard, and swallow four melatonin pills. Before I pull my blackout blinds down, I peek out the window. There’s a man leaning against the streetlight below. I can’t make out his face, but I know he’s wearing a Niner shirt. He waves, sending icy chills through me. Something about him is familiar, but it’s too dark to make out who it is.

  “Screw you,” I say as I close the blinds. “I am so out of here.”

  My phone’s buzzing wakes me. I pick it up, expecting a text from Bex, but she’s actually calling me. People our age do not call each other unless something horrible has happened.

  “Bex?” I ask.

  “They hurt him,” she sobs.

  “Bex, what’s wrong? Who got hurt?”

  “A bunch of guys jumped him . . . Russell, he did it.”

  I sit upright in bed. “Shadow.”

  “He’s bad,” she sobs. “I called an ambulance. I don’t know if they’re coming.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Tammy’s.”

  “I’m coming!”

  I don’t bother getting dressed. I snatch my shoes and sprint for the door. I’m so frantic, I fall over a chair in the kitchen and my mother appears.

  “Lyric?”

  “Shadow is hurt. He’s at Tammy’s. Call Dad.”

  “Let’s wait for him,” she says.

  “No,” I say, throwing open the front door.

  I’m breaking curfew as I run down the street. If the cops catch me, they’ll stop me, maybe even force me to go home, but I have to get to Bex. If I get spotted, they are going to have to chase my ass.

  The front door to Bex’s building fills me with dread. It’s wide open, and when I run up the three flights to her apartment, I see Tammy pacing in the living room, smoking and crying.

  “Lyric—”

  I raise my hand and she shuts up. “This is your fault.”

  She doesn’t say anything, just points to a door. “They’re in there.”

  I nearly knock it down trying to get to them. Shadow is on the bed, his face destroyed, unrecognizable. He is still. His chest does not rise and fall. His eyes do not flutter under their lids. His fingers do not twitch with signals from the brain. There is no sign of my friend in the body. He has left it behind. Bex stands over him, using a towel to try to stop the bleeding, not noticing, or refusing to accept that it has stopped on its own.

  Bex turns to me. She’s beaten badly, her eye so swollen I fear it will be permanently damaged.

  “He fought them,” she says.

  “My father is on his way,” I say.

  She’s not listening. “Russell let them in. They were Niners. He said they were there to teach me a lesson, and the weirdo here jumped in. Can you believe him? I mean, who is this kid?”

  She smiles at me and then turns to him, as if she’s expecting him to roll his eyes and give her a laugh because he just can’t help it—he is so madly in love with her.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I wrap myself around Bex and hold her through the night, crying for the both of us because she is still and silent and stiff, like she’s going through her own rigor mortis.

  “He loved me,” she whispers in the darkness of my room.

  “I know.”

  “Russell did this. He joined the Niners.”

  “The police will—” I stop myself, hearing how stupid I sound.

  “They’re going to kill me,” she says. “They won’t stop. Russell told me so.”

  “We’re leaving on Friday,” I say. “We’ll keep you safe until then.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Denver.”

  “What’s in Denver?”

  “Mountains.”

  “Denver,” she repeats. “That’s, like, a million miles away.”

  I nod.

  “Good.”

  She pulls herself free of me, then asks for something to drink. I rush to the kitchen, where my mother is looking out the kitchen window.

  “How is she?”

  “I don’t think she gets that he’s gone. She’s not even crying,” I say as I take a glass out of the cupboard.

  “She’s in shock. How is your head?”

  “I’ll survive.” A migraine showed up while I watched the ambulance take my friend away.

  “I’ll run you a bath. You can take it when she falls asleep.”

  Bex is sitting when I return to her. She drinks the entire glass and asks for another. When she’s finished, she falls back into the pillow. I watch over her until she drifts into sleep, then I take her clothes to the bathroom to try to rinse them out. I use the water my mother ran for me in the tub and get down on my knees to submerge them. I rub soap into the fabric and scrub. It’s pointless. The bloodstains are too thick and deep. Angry, I thrash them around and begin to cry, and my tears drip into the bloom of blood slowly spreading through the water.

  There’s a knock. “Lyric?”

  “I’m okay, Dad.”

  “Did you leave the front door open?”

  “No,” I say, suddenly alarmed. I wipe my forearm along my face and step into the living room. My father is waiting. I can see the yellow light from the hall lamps glowing on our floor.

  “Stay here,” he whispers, and I obey, standing perfectly still as he creeps from room to room, investigating every corner. “Lyric? Where’s Bex?”

  I rush past him and into my room. My backpack is spilled out all over the floor. I sort through the mess, but I already know what’s missing.

  “She took the gun.”

  Doyle calls in the morning wit
h his condolences. I tell him I’m not coming in to school today, snapping at him before he can tell me I have to hold to my end of our deal, but he doesn’t.

  “Take care of your friend,” he says before he clicks off.

  “I will.” But I’m lying, because I have no idea where she is right now. My father has officers watching Tammy’s apartment, and a few hovering around Tito’s place, but so far she hasn’t shown up at either. I’ve sent a thousand text messages to her, with no replies. It makes me frantic, horrified, and worried all at once. I know what she’s going to do with my gun.

  “I had to shoot someone once,” my father says. “He stabbed a pregnant woman on the boardwalk and ran around threatening to do it to others.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  He looks out the window.

  “You kept that from me,” I say.

  “I keep it from everyone.”

  In the afternoon my mother walks me over to meet with Mrs. Ramirez. Her home is alight with candles. A photo of Shadow from the fifth grade is on the wall. A wooden cross is nailed beneath it. She quietly sobs and squeezes her rosary beads so tightly, I worry she’ll crush them. An old woman, maybe Shadow’s grandmother, wails with grief and beats on her chest, as if it were her own body that killed her grandson.

  I tell Mrs. Ramirez how much I loved her boy. She says she’s grateful, but it makes her cry, and I feel terrible.

  “When someone is grieving, even a kindness feels like a slap in the face,” my mother says when we make the long, sad walk home.

  Later in the day my father and I walk the streets of Coney Island, and I point out anywhere Bex might be hiding, every little place we got into trouble together. I no longer want to keep secrets, and things come out that I know he would rather not hear, but if it helps us find my friend, I will strip myself bare in front of the whole world. I even tell him about Gabriel’s rooftop. We make our way up the fire-escape ladder, but there’s no sign of her.

  At midnight I collapse into bed, exhausted and frustrated, my head ringing with pain. I won’t sleep tonight, but there’s nothing else to do but lie in wait for the phone to ring. I send her one last text.

  I LOVE U, BECCA CONRAD. PLEASE COME BACK.

  Outside my window I hear the Alpha racing past, their horrible sound crashing through the night. They drown my anguish with their thrum and move on to terrify the next block.

  Three a.m. I’ve tossed and turned myself onto the very edge of an F5. I have to get myself into the bathtub and slow it down. I wake to find my parents drinking coffee in the dark. My mother is crying. My father is slouched. The act of sitting is just too exhausting. He looks like he’s just lost a fight.

  “What happened?” I panic.

  “We haven’t heard anything,” my father assures me.

  “Then why are you two awake?”

  My father gestures to his wife. “You tell her.”

  “Mom?”

  She takes a deep breath and tries to smile. Even in the dark I can tell it’s phony. “I have made a decision. I want you and your father to leave without—”

  “No.”

  “Lyric, it’s just for a little while,” she says. “You can find a place and get settled, and then I’ll join you.”

  “We’re not splitting up,” I say. “Doyle is going to give me the IDs. We can leave on Friday if we want. Bex will come back, and we’ll all go together.”

  She shakes her head. “I can’t leave until I find them.”

  “Mom, they aren’t there!” I rage.

  She’s taken aback by my anger. “Then they will come with the next wave.”

  “And when is that?”

  She tries to say something, but I won’t let her.

  “You don’t know, Mom. You have never known. You don’t even know why they sent you here in the first place.”

  “I can’t explain this to you, Lyric,” she cries. “I understand it’s too dangerous for the two of you, but—”

  “I’m glad you see that!” I yell. “One of my best friends is in the morgue, and the other one is missing, so yeah, thanks for noticing it’s dangerous. So that’s it? We’re staying?”

  “No, you and your father will go,” she says.

  “He won’t go without you, and you know it!” I say.

  “Let’s quiet it down,” my father says, pointing to the door that leads to the hall.

  I take a deep breath, but it doesn’t calm me. “So let’s imagine what’s going to happen when your family shows up—that is, if they show up. They are going to shun you like all the others. You are an untouchable! They will spit in your face right before they try to kill you. I’ve seen how your honorable people treat their children, Mom. Fathom’s father cheers for him to die in their stupid arena, and he isn’t a traitor. They teach the babies to fight as soon as they can stand. There’s no love. No compassion. It would get in the way of their honor. They will turn their backs on you.”

  “Summer, she’s got a point. How do you know they will want to see you?”

  “I’ll come as soon as I can,” she says. She’s unbendable. I now know why my father looks so beaten. She may have exhausted him, but I’m still boiling mad.

  “If we leave you behind, we will never see you again. The government will catch you, or the same gang that just beat Shadow to death will.”

  “How long would you want me to look for you if you were missing?” she says.

  “Don’t turn this around on me. You’ve been huddling over that laptop knowing full well you weren’t going anywhere. Well, we’re staying with you, Mom. And if the Niners kill us, too, it will be your fault.”

  My mother stands and slaps me. The sound is harsher than the sting, but it’s the way she’s looking at me that really hurts.

  “You two are always saying I need to grow up,” I say. “I think I’ve done more growing up than a person should have to do. Now it’s your turn.”

  If they weren’t holding a memorial for Shadow, I would never go back to school again. The thought of having to deal with his death in front of everyone is unbearable. Doyle promises to keep it short and respectful: a gathering in the auditorium, a video presentation of some of Shadow’s vlogs, and a moment of silence. He asks me if I want to speak, but I can’t think of a single thing to say that isn’t depressing or hateful. He asks about Bex, but I still haven’t seen her.

  Doyle meets us inside. He’s wearing a dark suit and sunglasses. He peers up at the camera on the wall. I look up at it too, but I don’t see what was so interesting.

  “I had to make sure it was off,” he says before reaching into his pocket. Then he hands me an envelope.

  “Go,” he says. “Get the hell out of this town.”

  I nod.

  “Thank you,” my father says.

  Doyle nods. Men are so weird. They can beat the crap out of one another, and then they’re fine.

  I turn to my mother and hand it to her. “Well, here you go. A lot of hard work for nothing.”

  My father frowns. “Lyric, this isn’t the time.”

  I turn away from them. “You’re right. Let’s go say goodbye to my dead friend.”

  Shadow’s mother sits at the front of the auditorium, sobbing. Mr. Ervin sits nearby, fighting back tears. I look around at my classmates. Most of them are stunned silent, horrified by what has happened.

  I spot the Alpha near the front. They sit quietly among the crowd. Fathom is with them, as is Arcade. For some reason it surprises me that they came. They show so little interest in us as individuals. I wonder if the prince made the others attend. I’m grateful for it.

  “He wanted me to tell you that he is sorry for your loss,” Terrance whispers when he finds a seat next to me.

  “Tell him it means a lot,” I say.

  “I hear you are leaving.”

  I’m troubled that he knows my secret.

  “Doyle and I share information,” he explains.

  I shake my head. “My mother won’t go until she finds he
r family.”

  “You have to convince her,” he says. “You need to go as soon as you can.”

  “Why?”

  Suddenly, Gabriel is standing over me. He bends down on one knee, his face a mess of tears. “I am so sorry.”

  “I appreciate that, Gabriel,” I say stiffly. His angry words still reverberate in my ears.

  Mr. Doyle calls us to attention, and Gabriel disappears to the back of the room. The principal speaks about my friend, his kindness, his talents, his easy smile. He shows us videos of Shadow, his movies, his reporting on the boardwalk. He talks about the huge web community he built, sharing with the world what we see in the Zone every day. He calls him special and remarkable, and it’s sincere. He ends by showing us a video of Shadow break dancing with some other kids. He was good, another marvelous layer to my friend.

  I look around, hoping Bex is here, watching her boy dancing and laughing and being eminently cool. I know she’d want to see this, see him one last time as she knew him, but she is not here.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Why am I still at school? My parents went home hours ago, and every class is just another memorial service. I suppose I’m hoping Bex will materialize. Or maybe I just don’t want to be at home with my mother. I can’t help but feel like she’s a traitor to us as well.

  I’m starving, so I head to the cafeteria. I haven’t eaten in a day and a half, and with my migraine I’m feeling very shaky. I need to get something inside me so I don’t pass out. I snatch some kind of sandwich, not bothering to find out what it is, and head to a table to sit by myself. I haven’t sat by myself since the third grade. As I chew, I fight back the tears again.

  “I thought we were going to be friends.”

  I turn to find Governor Bachman standing over me.

  “Um—”

  “You made me look very foolish the other day. I bet you thought that was funny,” she says. It takes me a second to realize she has figured out there is no Sendak Island. “You’ve made a mistake, kiddo. I’m the last person you want as an enemy. You and your friend Mr. Doyle kept me busy while he emptied the school. He’s not the only one who has tricks up his sleeve, though.”