Burned

by Natasha Deen

  In exchange for helping to stock the shelves, I got food. Technically, the policy was volunteer once a week and get a week’s worth of groceries. In my case, the organizers made an exception. I went there when I needed it and they gave me enough food to get by. It was safer. Too much of anything on the streets—food, clothes, money…happiness—and someone’s going to come and rob you of it.

  I got to the kitchen and found Clem glaring at a clipboard. “Where should I go?”

  Clem was ex-military, bald with a ruddy face and wide chest. He’d still be serving Queen and country if a missile strike at his convoy hadn’t taken out half his team and left him unable to reenlist. His gaze on his work, he said, “What’s the rule?”

  “How do you know I’m wearing sunglasses? You’re not even looking.”

  “Don’t have to.” He stretched his thick neck. “Feel it in my bones.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Don’t roll your eyes at me.” He scribbled on the page. “Off.”

  I took off the sunglasses and tucked them in my pocket.

  He looked up from his clipboard. “Better.”

  “You seen Amanda?”

  “Nah.”

  Crap. A wave of anxiety washed over me. Horrific images of what might have happened to her filled my brain. I swallowed. “You sure? She’s never missed a day—”

  “Since you’ve known her,” he said. “She missed plenty before that.”

  Yeah, but the past few months had been different. And I knew why. “She wouldn’t just go missing.”

  Clem shook his head. “Eventually, they all go missing.” He impaled me with his stare. “Even you.”

  There was no judgment or meanness. Just the truth of the life I led. That we all led, though led wasn’t the right word. None of us on the streets were leaders of anything. We were all just dragging our chains behind us and hoping the Vancouver rain would rust the shackles so we could finally break free.

  He jerked a thumb to the left. “Go help that lady. She’s new to the kitchen.”

  Yeah. I could tell. She was a fiftysomething blond whose designer clothes said she should’ve been at a country club, not here.

  I collected a bag of pasta, milk, butter—the basic stuff that would get her through the week. Then I watched through the window as she shuffled to an S-class Mercedes sedan. I wondered why she didn’t just sell her $100,000 car but came up with the answer almost as soon as the question came to mind. In the neighborhood she lived in, it was probably better to sit hungry in the dark than have the neighbors ask why she no longer had a vehicle. Pride. It was full of empty calories and did nothing to fill a belly.

  I finished my shift, and Clem found me at the back door.

  “Here. A hero sandwich.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And something extra.”

  Frowning, I peered into the bag. Wagon Wheels.

  “I saw you staring at them the other day—thought you might enjoy one.”

  My vision blurred with memories of the past, a time when chocolate-and-marshmallow treats could solve all my problems. If people’s indifference left me wounded, their kindness killed me. It was too random, too unpredictable. There was no protection against it, and it didn’t come often enough for me to use it as inoculation against a world that saw me as two-legged vermin.

  God. I needed to get off the streets before I lost everything that made me human.

  “See you tomorrow,” said Clem.

  “Tomorrow.”

  The wind coming off the ocean had turned the night chilly. I tucked my bag close to my chest and hurried down the street. A sub and dessert for dinner. The night before, I’d had some pizza that someone had dumped in the garbage. Tonight I wanted to eat by the ocean, to savor the rare joy of eating food that hadn’t been pre-chewed, to sit and watch the waves and pretend—just for a minute—that I was a normal kid with normal problems.

  I walked down East Hastings to Gore Avenue. At least, I meant to. As soon as I approached the corner, my skin flashed cold. I caught a glimpse of a big bald guy with a two-headed-eagle tattoo. It extended above the collar of his shirt and encircled his neck. He looked up, stepped forward. The action cast a shadow over the person he was with, leaving him a faceless figure. Every instinct told me to run. Twisting on my heel, I did a one-eighty. A few steps away, I breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever was going down on the other side of the street, I wasn’t the target.

  Then I heard footsteps behind me.

  Heavy, hard and coming up fast.

  THREE

  First rule to surviving the streets: trust no one. I paid for that lesson with broken fingers and cracked ribs. Second rule? Show no fear. That one cost me bruised kidneys. The guy—those heavy steps could only belong to a dude—thundered toward me.

  Option one: stop, turn and meet his gaze. But doing that was gonna mean losing teeth. Forget the hero sandwich. Bye-bye Wagon Wheel.

  Time to run.

  If I could make it to the SkyTrain, I could hop a car. No way was this dude going to outrun a train. Except the station was four blocks away, and even if I could get there, I’d have to hope there was one already waiting. Rule number three of living on the streets: hope is just another way to spell dead.

  I tossed the food in the garbage and took off. No point in remembering where I left dinner. It would be gone when I got back. The guy behind me didn’t call out as I took flight. Crap. His silence meant big, bad things for me. I upped my danger level from losing teeth to losing an organ. Couldn’t let that happen. I was partial to my organs.

  My lungs pumped the air, my legs moved like pistons, and my brain raced for a way to get myself to safe ground. Priority: get off Hastings. No one would help if I got in trouble here. Water Street would be good. Shops. Night traffic. And a couple of blocks down.

  I dodged the people littering the sidewalk, skating close by them and hoping the bruiser behind me would slam into one. No sound of collision met my ears, but I didn’t look back to verify his agility. My brain stayed three blocks ahead, reminding me of construction detours, closed streets and dead ends. I let my feet follow instinct and did a hard right on Carrall Street.

  My ragged breaths and the constant slap of his feet behind me were the only sounds I heard. Which, as I raced across the street and ignored the don’t-walk sign, was why I didn’t hear the car coming at me until it was too late to stop or change my direction.

  Before She burned my life, I had a home. Friends. Homework. Team sports. I rocked track and field, was a master at the diving board. When the dark sedan rocketed my way, my years of training came back. Avoiding a run-in with a car was a mix of hurdles and high jump. As the bumper kissed my knees, I leaped and landed on the hood. Perfect. The one thing I didn’t take into account: speed.

  The car rocketed me off my feet. I slammed shoulder, then face, onto the hot metal and bounced into the windshield. The driver, his eyes wide with terror, hit his brakes, and I became the rock in the slingshot. I flew into the air, and then gravity yanked me down. As I smashed onto the unforgiving road, I tucked and rolled. It felt like the impact cracked every vertebra in my spine, but I didn’t hit my head. Stumbling to my feet, I hobbled to the other side of the street.

  My body didn’t ache. It howled in pain. Legs burning, lungs about to collapse, bones cracked. I paid the price because it gave me the distraction I needed. On the road, his car blocking traffic, the driver held on to his door, yelling at me to do something anatomically impossible. Behind him stood the bruiser, thick-necked, crazy-eyed, ham-fisted, pissed and unable to do anything. If he came at me, I was going to the driver and screaming for an ambulance, and the bruiser knew it.

  I limped to a brick building at the corner of Powell and Columbia. A rattle from above made me look up. A girl dropped
from the metal ladder. The ease of her jump labeled her an urban climber. She turned, made eye contact.

  Nothing about the two of us was similar. I was taller, thinner and, because of my African-Chinese heritage, darkerskinned. But I looked into her eyes and was hit with the insane certainty that I was looking at my reflection. Instinct said she was like me: lost, alone, struggling to survive.

  Then again, I’d just been rolled by a sedan and chased by a guy whose neck was thicker than my head. Maybe it was just the pain and adrenaline talking.

  “Having fun?” I asked.

  “Time of my life.” She spun on her heel and ran down the sidewalk, her black hair spread like the wings of a dark bird as she ran.

  I bent to catch my breath and ease the throbbing pulse in my back. Man, I was hungry.

  And tired.

  I pressed the heel of my palm to my forehead.

  And lonely.

  And freaked.

  My pursuer was taking his steroid-fed body down the street, but the eagle tat was burned into my brain. The image originated in Albania and tagged him as part of a gang called the Vëllazëri. The word meant brotherhood, but legion was more appropriate. These guys made the Russians look like Boy Scouts and the Italians like choirboys. Whatever had gone on earlier, whatever he thought I’d seen, it wasn’t going to cost me teeth or an organ.

  If he ever caught me, I was going to pay with my life.

  FOUR

  “You.”

  “Me.”

  Vincent leaned against the door of his apartment. His watery blue eyes took in the scrapes on my face, the bruises forming on my cheeks. The throbbing around my left eye said I was going to wake up to a shiner. “You look better than last time.”

  “You gonna let me in?”

  “Why? So you can clean up, do a little presto chango, then bugger off until the next time?”

  I’d met Vincent years back, when hanging with the homeless and ex-cons was a volunteer gig and not a way of life. He was the only one—other than Amanda—who knew I was really a girl.

  “You take off until your bones are broken or you’re bleeding—”

  “Not true.”

  “Yeah?”

  I nodded, smiling even though the action sent a shock wave of pain through my muscles. “Last time, my bones were broken and I was bleeding.”

  He scowled. “Yeah, you play Ninja Turtles in the sewers—”

  “I’ve never been in the sewers.” Just the thought made my spine tingle. “You know how I feel about rats. They should stay above ground and in public office.”

  “—and I spend my time wondering if you’re dead in a gutter.”

  “Aw, I didn’t know you cared.” I got a glare for that one. “We have a deal,” I said. “Don’t mess with it.”

  Another scowl. “Fine.” He stepped back and ran his hands through his grizzled hair.

  I moved into the worn apartment and grimaced. Vincent was into knickknacks. No. Obsessed with them. Ceramic milkmaids, dogs with bones…every cheesy figurine ever poured into a mold, he had. They were stacked on shelves, wobbled on the edges of his tables and crowded the coffee table.

  “It’s good you’re here,” he said. “I have some work.” He jerked his pointed chin at the narrow hall. He gave me a once-over. “Hungry?”

  Starving. I shrugged and didn’t bother to hide the grimace of pain. “Yeah. I guess.”

  Vincent nodded at the easel in the corner. “Fix it. You good with ravioli?”

  “Yours?”

  “No, Chef Boyardee’s.”

  “I’d prefer his. Yours tastes like wet cardboard.”

  “You could starve instead.”

  I grinned and held up my hands as though weighing invisible objects. “Die of starvation, or eat your food and have midnight cramps that make me wish for death.”

  His long face fell into serious lines. “Milk too. Right?”

  I ignored the sudden lump in my throat. He was the only one whose kindness didn’t make me feel weak. “Whatever.”

  “Think I got some Flintstones vitamins around here somewhere.”

  “I’m not ten.”

  Vincent took a step toward the kitchen, then looked back. “Prove it. Work and earn your dinner.”

  Long ago, he’d seen my art and called me a savant. Maybe. I just called myself passionate about the craft. I went to the covered easel and flipped up the cloth. “Bazille.”

  “Always a favorite with the illegal art crowd.”

  “Didn’t one of his paintings sell for three million?”

  “Four.”

  The carpet and walls muffled the sound of his voice, and I had to strain to hear.

  “Can you fix it?”

  I bent to inspect the paints and canvas, breathing through the pulse of my protesting sore muscles. “It’s good. It could almost pass for his work.” Before my life was taken from me, I’d been an average kid. Almost. I loved art. Loved everything about it. Thanks to art camps, the finearts program at Lord Byng Secondary School, student rates at museums and the Discovery Channel, I’d inhaled all the knowledge I could about visual arts. These days I got my art fix via the books at the public library and the rare visit to Youth Unlimited’s Creative Nights.

  “Almost is the word. I have to get it to Munich by next week. The owner’s going to claim to find it in an attic.” That was our deal. Vincent gave me the chance to remember who I used to be. In return, I helped him fake paintings. He fenced the forgeries and gave me a cut of his take, which I appreciated. But until I got justice for my family, no way was I going to spend the money and live some soft life.

  I sank to my knees, holding my breath against the pain. “The strokes are off in the lower left. Not sure about the formation of the flowers, the color on the—”

  “Make it perfect. Then sign it—and none of your secret identifying markers this time.”

  “An artist always needs to mark his work.”

  “Only Bazille’s signature.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “No additions. Got it.”

  “Here.”

  I jumped as his voice sounded right behind me.

  “Painkillers and milk. Dinner will be out in a bit. Drink. Eat. Paint. Shower.” He waggled a crooked finger at me. “In that order.”

  Three hours later, with enough pain medication to put down a horse and sufficient vitamins to live forever, I straightened. “Done.”

  “Good. Food’s staying down?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You seemed to enjoy it.”

  “Ate to be polite.”

  “Four helpings?”

  “The first one needed company.”

  “That’s two.”

  “What if they fought? Had to have another piece.”

  “Three.”

  “Odd numbers are never good.”

  “Right.”

  I stood. “Shower.”

  “Still in the same place it was last time.” He kept his eyes on the canvas. “Hey, kid.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Take your time. Water bill’s paid.”

  I didn’t say anything; I didn’t need to. Vincent knew all about sink baths in gas stations, washing up in fast-food restaurants. Thirty minutes later, smelling like soap and not street, I wrapped a towel around me and went into the room he kept for me. Vincent was already there, riffling through the closet.

  “Still want to be a boy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Rapper clothes again?”

  “For now, but I need a second boy outfit.”

  He jerked from his position. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. Time to c
hange identities.”

  Vincent cussed long and hard. “What happened?”

  “A soldier with the Vëllazëri thinks I saw something go down.”

  That got another string of cusses. “You’re not going anywhere tonight!”

  “Oh, okay.” I let sarcasm ooze over my fear. “I should stay here with a convicted art forger who’s still on probation and subject to surprise inspections.”

  He tossed me jeans and a shirt and focused on my long hair. “I got a blond wig you can use.”

  “With my skin color? I’ll stand out.”

  “Exactly. Hide in plain sight.” He rose, his arthritis making his movements slow and pained. “Dress.”

  He left. I scanned the pile of clothes—stuff for girls and guys. After tossing a layer of rap guy on my body, I put a chick outfit in the bag and followed that with a second dude outfit. When I came out, Vincent jerked his thumb at the easel. “It looks good.”

  “It looks perfect.”

  “Usual payment?”

  I nodded. “Offshore.” That was the nice thing about having a felon for a friend—he knew how to hide my money.

  “Don’t know why you don’t take a cut of the profits. Get off the street.”

  “And miss out on all the glamor?”

  He scowled.

  I shrugged. We both knew why I was on the street. I couldn’t do it—live in a comfortable house with money and clothes while my family rotted in their graves, cursed by the lies she’d told.

  “Here.” He handed me food. Then he gave me a plastic container of pasta. “Consider it a bonus.”

  “I’ll see you later.”

  “How long?”

  “Not as long as last time.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yeah.” I went to the door and wished him a good night.

  He snorted, then folded his arms across his chest and watched me as I started down the hallway to the exit. Four steps later, the sixth sense that had kept me alive for the past two years went on high alert.

  Crap.

  What was on the other side of the door? No way could it be the guy who had been chasing me. I’d made sure he was gone before I’d set out for Vincent’s. I turned the knob, slow and steady, then opened the door to the stairwell and walked into my nightmare.