Mixed Signals

by Alyssa Cole

  A bomb. A bomb heading for the nuclear power plant.

  Beside me, Danielle began to breathe in great, noisy gulps of air. “Let me out! I need to get out of here right now!” She began kicking at Devon’s seat, clawing her way over him to try to release the lock on his door. Her behavior didn’t make sense, given the speed of the car, but she was in the middle of a full-fledged panic attack.

  “God damn it, Devon, was I wrong to bring you? You’ve gotten your ass kicked by two chicks already.”

  I was trying to calm Danielle down, but Devon whirled, leaned over his seat and landed three blows to Danielle’s head in quick succession. She immediately went slack. He shrugged her back behind him, and she slumped in her seat.

  “You’re disgusting!” I shouted. I struggled against Felix, but there wasn’t much I could do even if my hands were free. Tears slid down my face as I slumped back in my seat, defeated. “I wish you really had died after the Flare so I would never have known what an awful person you are.”

  He said nothing.

  Greg laughed. “Can’t live with ‘em,” he said nonsensically. His banality made me hate Devon even more. If he was following someone charismatic, it would be understandable. But this guy?

  It didn’t matter what I thought, though. The lights of Falling Leaf illuminated the road a few miles ahead. If they succeeded in their ridiculously narcissistic mission, they would fuck up all the progress of the last three years, in addition to killing thousands and creating a nuclear wasteland.

  I tried to think of anything I could do to stall them, to prevent this from happening. As usual, only one skill set came to mind, but it played right into the “annoyance as distraction” plan.

  “I hope you guys like show tunes,” I said. Then I took a deep breath and started belting. Thank goodness for the Sondheim songbook John had gotten me as a gift. At that moment, “Send in the Clowns” was the only thing between a car full of eco-terrorists and nuclear fallout.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  My brilliant plan of annoying them to death with the power of my pipes earned me a balled-up cloth shoved in my mouth. It was gently shoved, since Felix had retained his respect for women, but it tasted like burnt hair smelled. I had to wrestle my body for control over my gag reflex; I wouldn’t give Greg the satisfaction of making me choke to death on my own puke.

  As we pulled up to the power plant, Felix looked at me apologetically. “If you do anything stupid, I’ll have to kill you.”

  It was then that it sank in. I was going to die. I remembered a sick game my friend and I had played back in high school. We’d discussed international disasters and decided how we would have done things differently. “I wouldn’t sit there and let them cut my head off.”

  “I would have karate-chopped that dude when I saw him trying to enter the cockpit.”

  I cringed to think of our lack of empathy and our overconfidence. We’d talked a big game, like asshole teenagers tended to do, but Marisa was dead so I was the only one who’d have to pony up. I wasn’t braver than any of the people whose memories we’d disrespected with the stupid shock-value games teens played. Given my track record, I was positive about that. When things upset me, I ran. When I was frightened, I did the same. But there was no running now. I’d either die in this car, or in that power plant if I remained silent and we got through, or when the explosion happened—I doubted they were going to take Danielle and me with them once they achieved their objective. I wasn’t even sure they had an exit plan. Fanatics weren’t always partial to that key part of a well-laid caper.

  As the floodlights surrounding the plant grew brighter, a sudden melancholy descended on me. My life didn’t flash before my eyes. Maybe that was because I hadn’t gotten to live it yet. Instead, I briefly revisited a memory of my family playing poker. My parents cheating like mad by signaling each other; Arden and Gabriel dead-set on beating each other even though others were playing; John and Mykhail playing one hand between the two of them because it was always them against the world. I’d won that game, even though I’d been alone.

  Not such a bad life, if this was it for me. I’d even gotten to experience falling for someone. I thought of Edwin, chained in his room and frantic because he had to have figured out what Danielle’s message meant by now. I wished there was some way to tell him that it was okay that he didn’t protect me. He’d let me make my own decisions leading up to that moment, and I’d chosen to protect him.

  We were approaching the gate. I could see the forms of the guards and their big guns, and the way they were all turning to face the car that approached without slowing down. An incongruous muscle car screaming toward them in the middle of the night.

  I made a decision. If I was going to die, it wouldn’t be in some tool’s blaze of glory. I wouldn’t let Greg think he’d gone out a martyr. The handcuffs keeping me from moving too much were metal, linked by eight chain links. I stared at them for a long time, then inhaled deeply. I’d sat relaxed for so long, and Felix was so enthralled with the scene approaching through the windshield, that I moved before he could act. I leaned forward with both hands straight out, and when I pulled back and down, Greg’s neck was beneath the chain links. I planted my feet against the back of his seat to provide added pressure as I pulled down, then clasped my hands together and twisted at the wrists so they couldn’t be pried apart. I garroted him like my dad had taught me once he’d been satisfied with my skills at eye gouging and palms to the nose. “When someone is much, much bigger, or maybe just depending on your mood, you’ll need to know how to choke the hell out of them.”

  The car careened off the slippery road, away from the gate. Devon grabbed the wheel, trying to course-correct, but Greg was pressing down on the gas hard as he tried to bend away from the pressure cutting off his air supply. Felix was hitting me, raining punches down on me, but I only relaxed my grip when the car wobbled and left the ground and my feet could no longer keep me planted back in my seat.

  We rolled and rolled for what seemed like an hour instead of a few seconds. I felt the briefest moment of victory, but then the car jerked and there was a sharp pain in one of the arms that were still stretched out in front of me, trapped in that position by the handcuffs. Glass rained around us, the little pebble-like bits pinging against my face and landing my mouth. No one had worn their seat belts, so we were tossed like rag dolls.

  The cuffs wrapped around Greg’s neck pulled me in the opposite direction my body was flying just as Felix slammed into me. There was a sickening pop followed by a searing pain, and I didn’t need Gabriel to tell me that my shoulder was dislocated. My head hit the top of the car and then the seat, and then finally we stopped moving.

  I closed my eyes for what I thought was a minute, but when I opened them the car was surrounded by men who hadn’t been there before. Felix lay beside me unmoving, but breathing. Having his neck cinched hadn’t done Greg any favors, though, and he slumped to the side in his seat. Danielle had slid to the floor and was clutching her hatless head; blood gushed from a cut across her scalp, but I knew head wounds bled heavily.

  I couldn’t see where Devon was.

  My arms were still stuck around the front seat. I lifted my left arm to see if it was working. It was, so I disengaged myself, letting out a wail as my limp right arm dropped to my side. My arm, back and chest were ablaze with a pain that went from bad to excruciating with the slightest jostling.

  “We’ve got movement,” a voice said outside, followed by the crackling of dozens of walkie-talkies.

  “Please help,” I shouted. “They took us as hostages and were planning to bomb the Falling Leaf.”

  More walkie-talkie feedback crackled in the cold air. I started crawling over Felix and toward the window when a megaphone-enhanced voice shouted, “Don’t move!”

  Danielle began to come around then. Her eyes were wide with panic, more
white than blue, and she suddenly hauled herself onto the seat. “Have to get out of here.” She tried to move again, but her leg was trapped.

  “I said, don’t move!” The voice sounded anxious, and I knew at least a dozen machine guns were pointed at us.

  “The woman attempting to exit the car is Danielle Donninger,” I screamed, but my voice wasn’t as loud as usual and my lungs felt like they’d been used as a pincushion. Each word was like a sharp needle being pushed deeper, but if I shut up, Danielle would pay for my silence—again. “Her parents died to secure this plant, and she’s having a panic attack. That’s why she’s not listening to you. We were kidnapped by these men. Please don’t shoot.”

  I collapsed into a shaking mess after pushing those last words out. Tears fell from my eyes from the combination of pain and fear.

  There was no response. I figured they were consulting with each other, trying to figure out protocol. That was what I hoped, at least. Otherwise, they had just ignored me. Finally, the voice addressed me again. “Is the car rigged with explosives?”

  “We rolled like a hundred times, so I’m gonna guess no.” I coughed, and a warm, salty taste filled my mouth. “I think I might be bleeding internally, please...”

  “We can’t approach the car until the bomb-sniffing dogs have given the all clear.”

  “I always wanted a dog.” Why did my words sound slurred? Why was I revealing my unrealized pet dreams?

  “Stand back, sir. Stand back!”

  I couldn’t see his face, but I’d recognize those thighs anywhere. “Edwin.”

  He was shouting something at them, but I couldn’t hear. All I cared about was the fact that his feet were heading in my direction.

  “Maggie!” His voice was so warm, like maple syrup. His hand touched mine and then an awful, grinding noise filled the air. The car was hot, and Edwin wasn’t next to me anymore. Or maybe he was—I didn’t know where I was anymore at that point. I could see orange and red, but that was swallowed by the darkness like everything else.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was my mother hunched over my bed, eating a brownie from a plate of bland-looking food that had been placed in front of me.

  “Kit, stop it.”

  “She’s not going to eat it,” she said. “And you know I’m an emotional eater. I’ve eaten half a year’s supply of peanut brittle in a week.” She stuffed the brownie in her mouth vindictively, then turned and saw me watching her. “Oh!” Her wrinkled brow smoothed in surprise and tears filled her eyes. She jumped up and down and massaged her cheeks as she chewed, trying to get the food down faster. “She’s awake! See, I knew if I took her food she would wake up just to have something to hold over me.”

  There was a scuffle of shoes, and my dad’s face filled my vision. His mustache tickled my eyes as he kissed my brow again and again. “Thank God you’re finally up. I’ll get John and Mykhail.”

  “What’s going on?” The words didn’t come out, and that was when I first realized that something was shoved down my throat, choking me. For a moment I thought it was some kind of karmic payback for Greg, and the horrible memories of the crash started filtering in. I raised my hands to my throat, but only the left one listened; the other arm was completely encased in a cast that encircled my chest, as well.

  “You have a tube there,” my mom said. She ran a cool cloth over my brow, like she used to do when I was sick. “You got airlifted to Burnell Medical Center after the explosion. Don’t worry, we checked with Gabriel and he said the doctors aren’t incompetent. Your friend is here too.”

  “Edwin? Danielle?” Much like talking to a deaf person, screaming didn’t make me better understood. Instead it made me feel like I was choking again, which increased my panic. I thrashed the parts of me that weren’t constrained by casts, tubes or wires, and tears of frustration and pain spilled down my cheeks. I couldn’t remember anything, except now I knew there had been an explosion. I hadn’t prevented anything. I had failed, and Edwin... I sobbed miserably and, because she didn’t know how to help me, my mom cried too, grabbing at my hand.

  “Do something!” she commanded as John strode in. His hair was a tangled mess and scraggly bits of beard had claimed small plots of his face. He ran the last steps, took up my good hand and kissed it. “I should have listened to Gabriel. You’re grounded forever. Don’t even think about ever going outside again.”

  I tried staring and waggling my eyebrows at him, hoping I could communicate with him the same way Mykhail did, but when he started to look worried, I stopped.

  “The power plant is fine. Danielle told us what she remembered, and it sounds like you screwed up their plans royally when you decided to choke a motherfucker out. They were planning two waves of attacks, with the second wave following on the tail of the first. Your car was supposed to get through the gate, either with hostages or by ramming their way through, and the second would have sped through the aftermath and into a building housing a reactor. They were stopped early because of what you did and blew the car before they reached their goal. Fucking morons.” His hands shook as he ran them over my head. “I’m so glad you’re in one piece. Recovery is going to be a bitch, but you’re alive.” He opened his mouth and then closed it, and I knew he had something bad to say. I gripped his hand, and he shook his head.

  Mykhail came in, trailed by a doctor. Mykhail’s face was red and he kept wiping tears that rolled out from under his glasses, even though he was trying to be stoic. The doctor began examining me and then suddenly I was sleepy again.

  “They’re giving you morphine,” my mother explained.

  I tried to fight it. Why hadn’t they mentioned Edwin? He couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t...

  When I came to again, it was dark in the room. I could tell I wasn’t alone, though.

  “Mom? Dad?” My voice sounded like I’d been screaming Norwegian death metal songs for hours, and it hurt to talk. They’d removed the tubes from my throat.

  “I told you I prefer God, Jesus or Papi if you’re going to call me something besides my name. Remember?” Relief flooded my system, overwhelming me much as the morphine had but with the opposite effect. I wanted to jump out of my bed and run to him, but that wasn’t possible. He shuffled toward me in the darkness, and there was a thumping sound punctuating his steps as he walked. The bedside table lamp switched on, and I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my life. Well, half his face was a scabbed-over mess, but it was complete. He was complete.

  “Kiss me. Please. I’d get up but—” I glanced at my cast and my IVs. There was also the stuff he couldn’t see, like how I was so, so tired and how my body felt like it had been pummeled by angry giants.

  He leaned a support crutch, the kind that always reminded me of pictures of people with polio from my history books, against the side of my bed. His hands cupped my face and he gave me the most chaste kiss we’d ever shared, but it thrilled me from head to toe, sending endorphins rushing through my body to counteract my pain and misery. We were both still here, able to touch one another even in this demure way.

  “What happened to you?” I croaked.

  “The explosion threw me face-first into the ground. Nothing a little cocoa butter won’t clear up. My leg bent the wrong way, so it’s jacked up too. Your parents already hooked me up with some Tiger Balm, though. That stuff is magic.”

  “That means they like you,” I said. I wasn’t joking. I’d tell him that later when each word didn’t feel like striking a match against the lining of my throat.

  “I hope so. Although I care slightly more about what you think.” How could he doubt what I felt for him? My eyes welled with tears, and he wiped them away. “I was so pissed when you left with Felix. Mostly because I was scared I’d never get to see you again, but also because you didn’t give me time to respond.”r />
  “What?”

  “You thanked me. I wanted to thank you too. And I wanted to say I think I’m falling in love with you, but I should probably save that for when we’re not all souped up over the fact that we survived a terrorist attack.”

  “Why? Think you’ll change your mind?” I croaked.

  He shook his head. “Not a chance. When I say something like that, I want you to be sure that it’s not because I feel bad for you or because of some misplaced sense of guilt. I know you can hold a grudge, so I’ll make sure I do it right the first time.” He kissed my nose, and I bit back a yelp.

  I wanted to tell him there was no way he could do it wrong, but my throat hurt too much for all that.

  The sense of harmony that spread through me as he sat and talked and made me laugh when there wasn’t anything to laugh about proved my point. Edwin was showing me how much he cared for me, even if he never said it again. Finally, when I’d had my fill of reveling in the fact that he was alive, I asked what I needed to.

  “What happened to...?” What happened to Devon?

  He took a deep breath, a bracing breath, but he didn’t have to say it. My tears came more readily than I expected. Edwin held me even though he knew I cried for someone who’d done nothing but harm, even though he could never understand how different the Devon I’d originally known all those years ago was. Devon had taken everything good about himself and presented that to me, and while it wasn’t entirely truthful, it had been real, to me at least. It had gotten me through lonely nights and rough patches and days when I’d wanted to give up. So I mourned the loss of the boy who’d been most real to me through the glow of a computer monitor.

  “Greg...died during the crash,” Edwin said when I’d composed myself. “Felix was severely injured and was arrested. Devon tried to escape...” He shook his head. My tears dried then. They weren’t for the Devon who’d aided and abetted terrorists and never even given me a reason why he chose lies over me.