Under My Skin (Wildlings)

by Charles de Lint

  At least nobody's asking me if I want any help. If anything, they're avoiding eye contact and walking a little more quickly. They're probably scared that I'll hit them up for spare change. Or that I'll start ranting and yelling or something, the way street people sometimes do.

  But here's something else new—at least for me. I can smell that fear on them. It's weird and not particularly pleasant, but at the same time, I have to stop myself from strutting a bit as I walk because the mountain lion part of me kind of enjoys making them feel that way.

  I look again across a couple of parking lots to where the ValentiCorp building stands gleaming in the sun. The place gives me the creeps. It's not quite noon, but it's already hot. Not enough to burn the bare soles of my feet, but I can feel it on the asphalt. Beyond the yellow tape and the cop cars scattered around the front, I can see that they haven't even boarded up the entrance yet.

  I'm looking for someone in charge as I approach the police cars. On TV, the detectives are always in suits, but too many people around here are wearing suits. The one thing I don't want is to get nabbed again by one of those guys from ValentiCorp.

  I see a couple of familiar faces. I don't know what Agents Solana and Matteson are doing here—investigating, I guess—but this will make everything a lot easier.

  I head toward where they're leaning against the hood of their black SUV, arms folded as they lean in toward one another, talking and checking out what's going on in front of ValentiCorp. Solana notices me first. He glances my way, then does a double-take and elbows his partner. They both start to push away from the car hood, but by that point, I'm in speaking range.

  "Boy," I say with a loud sigh. "Am I glad to see you."

  Marina

  Crossing back over is easier than I expected. I don't know why I thought it might be any more complicated than going to the spiritlands, but that time I was a passenger in a vehicle. This morning it's just a matter of everyone except Chaingang taking a step forward and we're out of the spiritlands and back at the ValentiCorp complex—this time behind the big Target store. A moment later, Chaingang comes through in the vehicle just a few yards to the left of us.

  There's no one around, but we still get out of there as fast as we can. All of us except for Chaingang, who immediately begins to wipe his prints off the car, and Josh, who stays behind with Chaingang. That's not what Cory told us to do, but Cory's already jumped the fence behind the Target and disappeared along with Rico, who changed to a snake and went under it.

  I don't know why Chaingang called Josh over, but as I look, I see him handing Josh those trash bags. I'm glad he thinks of all that stuff. I look at the wrecked SUV and my fear of being discovered near it has me moving out of there quickly.

  I reach the back corner of the Target store and look out toward the parking lot. ValentiCorp rears in the distance, surrounded by police barricades and the proverbial yellow tape. There are a lot of cop cars over there, too. People in the Target parking lot seem oblivious—caught up in their own little worlds—just going about their usual shopping and walking back and forth with bags, shopping carts and noisy children.

  Except for what's happening over at ValentiCorp, life looks completely normal. But normal feels strange right now, as though this is a dream and everything that happened yesterday was more substantial, though disturbing.

  I could easily get lost in thought about that, but right now I need to come up with a story that might appease Mamá about why I didn't make it home last night.

  Then I think of Julie, my old surfing buddy. She'll back me up. I take out my phone and look at it. Almost noon. Luckily I still have about an eighth left on the battery. It's enough. I start to jog toward home.

  When noon comes, I stop jogging and dial Julie's number. As usual, she's hanging around outside the school campus, where cell phones are allowed.

  "Hey, girlfriend," I say. "I need a favour—parent business. Can you back me up on a story? I didn't make it home last night."

  Normally, I would never dream of doing anything like this, but Julie's got a wild side and this is right up her alley. I feel bad for taking advantage of her, but I'm not the best schemer in the world and she's the only resource that I can come up with on such short notice.

  "I never thought I'd see the day," Julie teases. "Welcome to the club."

  We agree that I'll say I was with a bunch of friends out searching for Josh last night and that we knew our parents would be worried about the danger, so we didn't want to tell them what we were up to. We searched all night and then I was afraid to go home, so I crashed at Julie's for a couple of hours.

  The searching for Josh and being afraid to go home parts of that story are true. I wish I had something better, but concocting lies isn't my forte. I hope I haven't given Mamá a heart attack worrying. I pray she hasn't called Papá. Ampora would have a heyday with this. If she finds out, she'll mock me forever, plus she'll rat on me if she so much as suspects my story is untrue.

  Julie is dying to know exactly what I did do all night, but the most that I give her is 'you wouldn't believe it if I told you,' which just makes her all the more curious. But I say that my battery's dying, which it is, and that I'll tell her the juicy details in person when I see her at school. That'll be yet another complication, since I'll need to come up with a whole other story for her, but that's the problem with lies, I suppose. They complicate everything.

  I start to run again, praying to all the santos I only half-believe in that I won't be grounded forever when I walk through the door.

  Josh

  Solana and Matteson push off the hood of their car and close the distance between us.

  "Are you okay, kid?" Solana says, holding my upper arm. "Do you need a medic or anything?"

  "What happened to you?" Matteson asks. "Where have you been?"

  I'm surprised that he seems genuinely concerned.

  I remember the advice that Cory gave me what seems like a century ago now. The best way to lie is to have your story be mostly true. I point to ValentiCorp.

  "I was in there," I say. "Guys that work there Tazed me when I was leaving school and when I came to, I was locked up in a laboratory five stories underground."

  "You did that?" Matteson says, pointing at the twisted metal and broken plate glass that litters the area where Chaingang drove the vehicle through the doors.

  Some of his former antagonism is creeping back into his eyes.

  "As if," I say. "I don't know what happened over there. All I know is that I was able to escape in the confusion."

  Matteson frowns. "But that happened hours ago."

  I nod. "Yeah, it was night when I ran out of the place wearing this crap." I pluck at my shirt. "They took my clothes and dressed me in this. When I ran, I was still feeling kind of woozy—they shot me up with tranquilizers or something."

  "Are you sure you don't need a medic?" Solana asks.

  I nod. "I'm okay now. I didn't get far last night, but I managed to hide behind a dumpster before I collapsed. I only just came to."

  Solana is giving me all of his attention, but Matteson's not as focused on me. I can almost see the cogs whirring in his head.

  "The people who snatched you," Solana says. "You're saying they brought you here—to ValentiCorp?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Would you stand up in court and swear to that?"

  "Yes, sir. It's the truth."

  He puts a hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry, son. You're safe now."

  "I hope so," I say. "The other kids they took didn't ... they didn't get a chance to escape like me."

  "Other kids?" Solana asks. "Did you know any of them?"

  I shook my head. "It was awful ... I think they were all dead. They were in this kind of morgue. They'd been all cut up … dissected."

  The agents exchange glances.

  "Goddamn," Matteson mutters and pulls out his phone. "Chief?" he says into it. "We just caught a break. We found the Saunders kid—yeah, he's safe. But get this. He's
fingering ValentiCorp for the abduction and he says he's not the only one they snatched, but he's the only one who survived. That's right. He says there are kids' bodies in the building. I think that gives us enough probable cause to get a warrant, don't you? And since Black Key runs their security, we should run the faces from those abduction videos against Black Key's staff here in Santa Feliz."

  He listens for a moment longer, then takes the phone away from his ear and looks at me.

  "The Chief wants to know if you can hang on until he gets here."

  "Sure, I guess ..."

  "We'll be waiting for you," he says back into the phone.

  He puts it back in his pocket and gives me a thoughtful look.

  "You're not shitting us on this, are you, kid?" he asks. "It's not too late to come clean, if you are. But once we've got that warrant and go in there—if things aren't like you say, you're going to be in real deep shit."

  "Jesus, Paul," Solana says.

  Matteson turns to him. "The Chief's been out for blood ever since this whole thing blew up in our faces. Do you really want to take the fall if this goes sour? His job's on the line and that means our jobs are on the line."

  "I get it," Solana says. "But after everything Josh has already been through ..."

  "It's okay," I say. "I know how crazy this all sounds. I can't even guarantee that the bodies will still be there."

  Matteson whips around to fix me with a dark look. "What?"

  "Well, they've had all morning to move them, haven't they?" I say.

  "We would have seen them doing that."

  "Sure, except do you know they've got a network of maintenance tunnels under these parking lots—just like at Disneyland?"

  "Aw, come on," Matteson groans.

  "It's true." Remembering some of the details that Cory told me about last night, I point to Pep Boys at the far side of the parking lot. "One of them comes out at the big bay on the side of that building. There are more exits behind some of the other stores. They could have moved the bodies out through any of them."

  He gives me a long, dirty look. "Yeah, right."

  I don't say anything more. I just meet his glare.

  "Crap," he says. "We'll need to cover those when we go in."

  He gets back on his phone and asks for backup.

  "Are you sure you don't need anything while we wait?" Solana asks. "Something to eat or drink?"

  "Well, I wanted to call my mom last night, but I lost my phone."

  "Here," he says and hands me his.

  It's hard talking to Mom. I try to tell her what happened to me—sticking to the same story I gave the FBI agents—but she keeps asking me over and over again if I'm all right and then I have to backtrack to fill in the parts she missed, because she's too panicked to listen.

  "Just a sec," I finally say. I hold my hand over the mouthpiece and turn to the agents. "Can my mom meet us here?"

  They exchange looks, then Solana nods.

  "Of course," he says.

  "What if she doesn't give permission for him to come in with us?" Matteson asks.

  "She'll be cool," I say. "And I'd like to ask her to bring me something else to wear."

  "Crap," Matteson says. "If she sees him looking like this ..."

  "Tell her where we are so that she can meet us," Solana tells me, "but don't say anything about bringing clothes. We'll get you fixed up."

  I raise my eyebrows.

  "Don't worry. We won't get anything that sucks."

  I tell Mom where we are, then Solana takes me to Target. By the time she arrives, I'm waiting with the two agents dressed in baggy new skater shorts, a Wild Surf T-shirt, sneakers and a baseball cap to cover my lack of hair. I shouldn't have bothered trying to hide the fact that my dreads are gone. It's the first thing she notices.

  She jumps out of the car and grabs me. "Honey, your hair! What happened? I've been so worried. What did they do to you? Where did they take you?"

  The barrage of questions comes so fast that I have no time to answer. I don't know that I could. She's holding me so tight that it's hard to breathe. I realize she's crying.

  "Calm down, Mom. I'm okay."

  She gives me another hard hug, then she steps back. She pulls a tissue from her pocket and composes herself as best she can. But a tissue can't hide the dark hollows under her eyes, or how red they are from crying. She looks way older than I remember.

  When I think of how it would have been for her if I'd stayed in that other world with Elzie, I feel a little sick.

  Finally she turns to the agents. "Are you the men who rescued him?" she asks them.

  "Your son rescued himself," Matteson says. "That's quite the boy you've raised, ma'am."

  Wow, I think. Who knew he could brown-nose so well?

  "Please," she says. "Call me Naomi."

  He smiles. "Naomi it is, then." He takes her hand in both of his and holds it for a long moment before dropping it.

  I give him a closer look and realize that he's not brown-nosing. He's flirting with my mom. How gross is that? Who flirts with a woman who's just gone through what she has? But then I realize I'm wrong about that, too. He's just being kind. Compassion is such an alien thing when it comes to how I see him that it didn't register.

  "Maybe you should sit down for a moment," he says to Mom.

  He lifts the hatch of the SUV for her and ushers her over. She pats the space beside her and I sit down. Her arm goes around my shoulders and she holds me tight. I can feel her still trembling.

  Marina

  I'm making good time in spite of feeling exhausted. Physically, I'm not so bad, but emotionally, I've pretty much been steamrolled. Thinking back on yesterday almost makes my head spin. So much went down that it's hard to believe it could all take place in the space of a day. I'm going to be in huge trouble at home, but I'm actually looking forward to getting there. Sleep is what I want more than anything. And after that, the freedom of getting on top of some waves. That is, assuming I'll be allowed to get out on the waves. I've never pushed the envelope this far.

  I jump when my phone rings. I'm surprised there's enough juice left. I pull it out to check the display and see that it's Desmond. Thank God, he's safe. As least, I assume so. Julie would have mentioned any trouble regarding Desmond. She's had the hots for him since grade ten and watches him like a hawk. He never even notices, big lovable lug that he is. I've thought of setting them up, but it would be too weird when they broke up, and for sure they'd break up.

  I'm about to answer when I hear the roar of a motorcycle coming up the street behind me. I send out another silent prayer. Please, please, don't let that be a cop.

  The motorcycle comes right alongside me and slows down. My heart is in my throat. I have to look.

  "Nice locomotion you've got there, sweetcheeks."

  I come to a dead halt. I am so relieved that I could hug him. "Jeez, you scared me half to death. I was sure you were a cop."

  "Well, if I were a cop," Chaingang says, lowering his shades, "I'd want to arrest you and lock you up tight where I could keep an eye on you."

  I can't help but laugh. It feels unbelievably good to laugh, to be back in Santa Feliz, to be standing here on the street with Chaingang, even to be going home to face the music. And it feels good to have someone so obviously into me. It's not that I've never had guys hit on me, but this feels different. Deeper somehow. Perhaps it's only that shared camaraderie that we're both Wildlings and we've just gone through something huge. Maybe it's more than that.

  "Hop on," he says, patting the seat behind him. "I'll drive you partway home—give you something solid to hang on to again."

  I swing my leg over the seat and hold on tight.

  Josh

  We've just finished telling Mom about my having been kidnapped by ValentiCorp when another black SUV pulls up. I glance across the parking lot and see a half-dozen others enter in a line, one after the other. The lead vehicle pulls away and drives toward Pep Boys. The rest continue along th
eir way until they're out of my range of vision.

  A big guy with a shaved head steps out of the SUV that stopped near us. By the way Matteson and Solana straighten up, I figure this is their boss. Mom and I stand up as he approaches us. He puts out his hand.

  "Mrs. Saunders?" he says to Mom. "My name's Jason Lindel. I can't tell you how sorry we are for the worry you've had to go through."

  "Thank you," Mom says as she shakes his hand.

  He looks at me with what appears to be genuine concern. "How are you holding up, son?"

  "I'm okay."

  His body language and voice are easygoing, but his eyes have steel in them and they don't seem to miss a thing. He studies me for a moment, then turns back to Mom.

  "Have the agents explained why we need your son's help?" he asks.

  "Yes, but ... I've just got him back ..."

  Lindel nods. "His safety is our number one concern, Mrs. Saunders. We won't bring him inside until we're sure the building's cleared of danger. But if he can just lead us to where he was held captive and—" He shoots an unspoken question to the agents and Solana nods. "—to where he found the bodies, it will make our job that much easier."

  She looks reluctant and even horrified, but if there's one thing I know about my mom, it's that she'll do the right thing.

  "As long as you're certain it's safe … and Josh doesn't mind ..."

  "Absolutely," Lindel says. "I guarantee your boy will be fine. He'll be of immense help to our investigation. We have to think of those other kids and their parents."

  That cinches it.

  "All right, then," she says.