"You knew how important it was to keep this quiet," I say.
He nods. "Yeah. I'll take the fall for this. But first chance I get, I'm going to find Erik Gess and beat the crap out of him."
"That won't solve anything."
"No, but it'll make me feel better. He needs to know that ratting anybody out is not cool."
"Ironic, since you're the one who really ratted Josh out."
Desmond looks mournful, but just as he's about to say something, some of the kids who took off come drifting back. They mill around Desmond and me, jabbering like monkeys.
"Did you see?"
"Holy crap!"
"Who did they grab?"
"Saunders."
"Who were those guys?"
"The one who had the fight with Erik at lunch?"
"I think they were cops."
"Holy shit. I've already got thirty hits on my upload."
"What do the cops want with Saunders?"
"Too bad no one got it from the start."
"I heard he's a Wildling."
"I thought that cop was going to get me for sure."
"So now it's against the law to be a Wildling?"
"My dad'd kill me if I lost my phone. I just got it last week."
"Jeez. First Dillon and now this."
I try not to pay attention to them. Instead, I make a beeline to where I saw something fall when the agents zapped Josh. Bending down, I retrieve Josh's phone.
"What've you got there?" Desmond asks.
I hold up the phone. "It's Josh's. I saw it go flying when they Tazed him."
Desmond picks up Josh's backpack from the walk where it fell.
"There's this, too," he says.
He makes the backpack as small as he can and stuffs it into his own while I scroll through Josh's contacts. I stop when I find the one I'm looking for and thumb the call button.
"What're you doing?" Desmond asks.
"Calling Elzie."
He starts to say something else, but I hold up a finger because the call has gone through.
"Hey there, what's up, lover boy?" Elzie says.
Her voice is light and warm with humour and affection.
"Sorry," I tell her. "It's Marina. The FBI has Josh."
The change in her voice is immediate.
"What? What happened? When did—"
"Is there someplace we can meet?" I break in. "I don't want to do this on the phone."
"How about in front of the old amusement park?"
"I'll be there in ten minutes," I tell her.
"Be where?" Desmond asks as I pocket Josh's phone.
"I'm going to see Elzie," I say. "You should head home."
"What do you mean?"
"There's nothing you can do now."
"But you two can? Are you really that pissed at me? Can't you see it was a mistake?"
This is where I should be telling him about the otter in me, except I've already seen how well that went with him knowing about Josh, so, no. I don't think so.
"I can't have this conversation right now," I tell him. "I have to meet Elzie."
"I said I was sorry and wouldn't do it again. Josh said we were cool. What more do you want?"
"I know, but this has nothing to do with that. Can't you please let it go for now and I'll come by your place later?"
"I just don't get what the big secret is."
And then I realize that not having him come along might be the very thing that gives me away. Elzie won't out me. If she hasn't told Josh or Desmond by now, it's not going to happen.
"No secret," I say. "Come along then. But you do realize that Elzie's going to be royally pissed at you, right? Next time you need to open your mouth, think first."
"I get it," he tells me. "Trust me, this isn't a lesson I'm going to forget."
I feel like yelling, too bad you couldn't have thought of that earlier, but I hold back. Instead, I set out at a brisk jog. Screw Des. He can keep up or not.
But I don't have it in me to be mean for long. After a few blocks, I slow down so that he can catch up instead of half-jogging a block or so behind me, trying to follow. I'm not even breathing hard, but he's really winded.
"Holy crap," he gasps. "I wish I had my board. You are in excellent shape."
A few years ago, when Desmond thought his considerable charm would work on any girl he met, that might've been a come-on. Back then he was mooning over me while I was mooning over Josh. Somehow, Josh remained oblivious to it all and after awhile Des and I settled into the easy friendship we have now. The three of us are great together.
Sometimes I have to watch myself, though. I can still be caught off guard by something—like the tilt of Josh's head back dropped by a setting sun, the dying light haloing his hair. That quick grin when he actually catches a wave, or pulls off a particularly tricky lick on his guitar.
But Josh has never looked at me in the same way as he looks at Elzie and there's nothing I can do to change that. Not without maybe screwing up our friendship, the band and pretty much everything.
I should try to go easier on Desmond. I know that deep down he's even more upset with himself than I am. That's got to be hard. Desmond can't help his unbridled enthusiasm and it's a big part of why Josh and I love him.
"You should come out running with me in the morning," I say to Desmond, "instead of lolling around in bed the way you do."
He's still too out of breath to make with a smart comeback. Or maybe he's just being careful because of the way I lit into him earlier.
When we arrive at the old amusement park, Elzie's already waiting for us on a bench. As soon as she sees us, she jumps up and starts running toward us.
The hot sunny weather we've had all week has gone grey this afternoon—just like my mood. Out past the ruin of the carnival, I can see the ocean. The wind has picked up, carrying the smell of brine and fish inland. The swells are good—not huge, like they are running in front of a storm, but solid.
I don't even feel a twinge that I'm not out there on my board.
As we approach Elzie, I think about how I've never really liked this place the way that Josh and Desmond do. Those broken down rides and abandoned buildings look lost and sad in the daylight and way too creepy at night. But right now I'm happy to be here.
No, that came out wrong. How can I be happy with Josh in Federal custody? I'm just glad to be meeting Elzie here, because maybe we can come up with a way to get Josh back.
I give Elzie a hug when we meet. As always, she looks like a million dollars. I know she shops only in thrift shops, but I never find things like she does.
Her usual radiant smile is replaced by worry. "Tell me everything," she says.
"It's awful," I begin.
"Hey, let's grab that bench," Desmond says. "Marina went like a bat out of hell to get here and I need to catch my breath."
Elzie fidgets on her end of the bench while Desmond and I go through what happened. Her gaze grows dark as we relate the events of the day and darker still when Desmond admits how the mountain lion remark blurted out of his mouth. I have to give him credit. He doesn't whitewash it.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she demands of Desmond. "Can't anyone be loyal anymore?"
"I know, dude. I get it now. He's my best friend and I totally betrayed him. I didn't mean to. It just, like, slipped out. I'm such a jerk. You guys must hate me."
My own anger dissipated during our jog. I can't blame Elzie for being upset. I needed to vent just like she does, but now I'm feeling kind of sorry for Desmond. At least he's taking responsibility for messing up.
"We don't hate you, Des," I say. "At least, I don't hate you."
Elzie seems somewhat appeased by Desmond's obvious regret. "What happened next?" she asks.
I tell her how the FBI agents were waiting for Josh when we left the school. She jumps to her feet when I describe how the agents took Josh down with Tasers, even though he was only trying to surrender.
"Those bastards!" she c
ries. "I should have been there."
"And then they'd have both of you."
She shakes her head. "With two moving targets and civilians all around, they wouldn't have taken the chance of hitting a bystander. We would have gotten away."
"Weren't you listening?" I say. "Josh surrendered and they still Tazed him in front of everyone. He hadn't even shifted or anything."
"Yeah," Desmond adds. "And they didn't give a crap who saw."
"He's right," I say. "Kids were videoing with their phones, but the agents barely even tried to confiscate them. It was almost as though they didn't really care. The footage is all over the Net now."
Elzie frowns. "There's only one reason why they'd make such a public display of capturing him."
I realize she's thinking about Danny Reed, her friend who went to work for the FBI using the subterfuge that he'd been "snatched" to go away with them. I don't know how she can even think that Josh would do something like that, but Desmond jumps in before I can call her on it.
"Uh-uh," Desmond says. "No way was Josh selling out like your friend did."
"Then why were they so blatant about it?"
"They're the FBI," Desmond says. "A bunch of goddamn all-powerful sons of bitches. They probably were making an example of him—trying to scare Wildlings into turning themselves in, rather than get taken by force. It won't matter about that evidence all over cyberspace. They'll just claim that there's missing footage that shows Josh was a threat. Or that he's a big-time drug dealer."
"I don't know … it's a lot like what happened with Danny."
"Maybe," I say. "But come on. This is Josh, the original good guy."
Elzie gives a slow nod and sits down again. Her shoulders are slumped, but both hands are clenched into fists.
"This Erik Gess," she says. "He needs to have his lights punched out."
"Totally," Desmond agrees.
I don't argue with them. I'm relieved she's directing the brunt of her anger toward Gess. He's the one who started it all anyway.
"We need to focus on rescuing Josh," I say. I turn to Elzie. "Can you get hold of Cory? Like, now?"
Elzie gives me a puzzled look. "What for?"
"Didn't he already break some people out of the FBI's holding facility?"
"Yeah, but because of Cory's little rescue mission, the Feds will have that place locked up so tight nobody's going to get in or out. Hell, they probably didn't even take Josh there. Now that they know the place is on our radar, they've probably already got him on a plane to who-knows-where."
"We don't know that for sure," I say. "There could still be time to get him back."
Elzie gives an unhappy nod. "I hope so. But I'm not so sure Cory will have anything to do with it if I'm involved."
My stomach is in knots. This is taking way too long.
"We need to get help from somewhere and fast," I say. "We can't do this on our own."
Elzie looks away, past the old rides. For a moment I don't think she heard me, but then her eyes meet mine.
"Let's go see Auntie Min," she says.
"Cool," Desmond says. "What kind of an animal is she?"
"Des!" I say. "I don't think that's something you just ask anybody."
"What? Why not?"
"Your animal skin's a personal thing," Elzie says, "and so's the decision about whether or not you'll go public with it."
"So being a Wildling's like being gay?" Desmond asks.
I think for a moment that he's being serious, but then I catch the smile in his eyes. The silly goof is irrepressible. I elbow him at the same time as Elzie does, so we get him from both sides.
"Ow!" he cries.
"You can be an ass now," Elzie says, "but let's see how funny you end up being with Auntie Min."
"Why?" he asks. "Is she scary?"
Elzie nods. "Formidable is a better word. It's not that she doesn't have a sense of humour. She just doesn't put up with crap from anyone." She stands up and turns to look at us. "So let's get out of here already."
Desmond and I jump up and follow Elzie's quick pace down the boardwalk.
Josh
I come to, lying in a fetal position on the floor of a van. The after-effects of the Tasers leave me feeling more disoriented than anything else. My body is soaked in sweat, I have tears in my eyes and both nipples are on fire. My arms and legs are tingling and twitching involuntarily. The tremors seem to be diminishing, but the fact that the agent on my left is still aiming his Taser at me stops any notion I might have to sit up. I'm not sure I could yet, anyway, but I am recovering quickly. I wonder how long it would take if I weren't a Wildling.
I look up at him sitting on a sideways bench in front of me.
"I want to call my mom and a lawyer," I say.
"Shut the fuck up," says the agent on my other side.
I can't see him because of my position, but I assume his Taser is pointed at me, too.
"Stay where you are, you little freak," warns the cop I just spoke to. "Move one hair and we'll fry your ass again."
I can tell he's really hoping I'll move.
I find it hard to believe that the FBI would treat a kid like this. I think about Chaingang and what he might have gone through before he went to juvie. Either the cops treated him better or he's way tougher than I am. Probably the latter.
I have no idea how long I was out cold. I think I read somewhere that loss of consciousness from being Tazed doesn't last very long, so I assume I woke up pretty quickly after being dumped here on the floor of the vehicle.
There are no windows in the left side panel that I can see. I try to use my Wildling hearing to figure out what's going on beyond the vehicle so that I can figure out where they're taking me, but the sounds of the motor and the wheels on the pavement echo through the van. I can't clearly make out other noises. I'm pretty sure they must be bringing me to the naval base. I'll know when we hit the gravel road that they're taking me there. Maybe Cory will be able to break me out.
But a few minutes later the van starts to slow right down and I hear what sounds like a massive garage door reeling up. Judging by the echo, we seem to be entering some sort of cavernous place and then we're driving downward. My body starts to slide forward involuntarily, but the cop behind me jams his foot hard against my shoulder to stop the momentum. Under my skin, the mountain lion wants to tear off that foot, but I remember what Chaingang told me and I play it cool.
The incline levels back out and a few moments later, the van comes to a stop. The cop on the left pulls a black hood out of a bag beside him and tugs it roughly over my head.
"Don't try to be a hero," he says. "Make a move and you burn—got it?"
I feel a little panicked when the bag cuts off my sight, the mountain lion grumbling deep inside, where only I can hear it. I'm trying to make sense of this. How do the Feds get away with this shit? When I get out of this, I am so going to expose these sick creeps and sue their asses.
The back door of the van clicks open.
"All yours, Doc," says the agent who just threatened me.
I feel him move aside and then there's someone else bending over me, holding my left bicep. The cloth over my head is making me claustrophobic as hell and it's hard to breathe properly. The mountain lion wants to rip into the hand with its claws. I'm seconds away from letting it out when I feel the prick of the injection and sink into oblivion.
Marina
I'm so relieved to be actually on our way to see this Auntie Min. I think about Josh and where they might have taken him. I hope that they haven't put him on a plane somewhere. And I pray that he'll resist the urge to change. I don't know that I could.
"Remind me," Desmond gasps as we jog east through town, "why we didn't bring our boards to school today?"
Elzie and I are having no trouble keeping to a nice stride, but poor Des is really being put through his paces today.
We're almost at our destination now. We went through some chi-chi neighbourhoods along the way, but here, rundo
wn adobe houses with big dusty yards have replaced all pretence at classy residential housing. Yard decorations run to junked cars, broken plastic toys and old appliances. The sidewalk is littered with debris from the unkempt palms.
When we reach the lights at Rio Grande Drive, we cross the four lanes of traffic, then turn south to where the homeless have set up their camp of cardboard boxes and lean-tos below the freeway overpass. I've driven by this place lots of times with Mamá and my step dad, but this is the first time I've been up close.
The smell hits me first. I thought it would be rank—some horrible stew of garbage and urine—but it smells sweet, like walking through one of the fruit orchards up north when the trees are all in bloom.
The other weird thing is the silence. You can hear the traffic, but it's not much louder than the sound of the tide from my bedroom. It's quiet enough to hear the birds and the wind in the ragged trees, and I don't think it's just my Wildling hearing that's letting me notice this.
But the visual chaos is anything but peaceful. As we follow in Elzie's footsteps, we pick our way through old mattresses, rusting appliances, broken furniture, and an acre of plastic bottles, pop cans, wrappers and other litter.
It's odd that the city doesn't haul this garbage away, but my step dad says they leave it alone because the town council likes to group all the homeless in the same place. That way they don't have to worry about them camping out in alleyways or on the beach.
There certainly are a lot of people here today—a couple of dozen, at least. I guess the ones that got away after the police crackdown have all drifted back. They may be unkempt and dressed in raggedy clothes, but they also look tough. I try nodding to one or two, but they just watch us pass by with expressionless gazes. I get Wildling pings from some of them, but most are ordinary people—or at least as ordinary as anyone can be who lives in a place like this.
The ping's a funny thing—a weird combination of a barely-there scent, a tickle and a tiny bell sound. It's just this little low-key awareness that settles somewhere deep in your head.
So I'm surprised when the pings I'm getting ramp up as we approach a sofa at the top of the slope by the freeway's pylons.
Under My Skin (Wildlings) Page 16
