by Lex Thomas
“What is this place?”
“A secret,” Lucy said. “I think you’ll be safe here.”
Lucy moved to the window and placed the potted flower on the sill. She gave it special attention, more than Will thought a flower needed. She turned it until it faced out the window, as if she wanted it to have a view of the quad below. Will walked to the shelving unit that spanned the entire wall opposite the copiers. The shelves were stocked with pickle jars and plastic cups full of quad dirt. In some of the dirt was dried fruit left to rot slowly. There were a couple spray bottles and a hot plate with a pot on it. At the end of one shelf was a black light that looked like it came from a science lab.
“Is all of this for that one flower?” Will said.
Lucy turned and nodded. “Makes you wonder what else is in this school we don’t know about.”
She crossed the room to a mattress of blankets on the floor next to the opposite wall. Lucy sank down to the makeshift bed, sitting with her back to the wall. Will sat down beside her. The room was as quiet as a snowed-in house. The madness he’d left behind in that sour-scented classroom seemed so far away. For now, he was safe from that demented red eye, but it would find him eventually. That thought made him treasure every moment he had alone with Lucy.
Her posture was better than ever before, her back was parallel with the wall. Moonlight made her short, red hair a shimmering purple. It highlighted the cuts that latticed her arms and the long thin scabs that lined her face. He hadn’t mentioned them before, in the cafeteria. He didn’t want her to feel self-conscious, but he was pissed off that anyone would lay their hands on Lucy. It was all part of the new her, he guessed.
“Who did that to you?” Will said.
“This is bad, Will. It’s really bad.”
“I know. I’m sorry I pulled you into this.”
“Yeah, but you always do this! You always do shit that means somebody has to bail you out! I’m not your babysitter.”
“I said I’m sorry,” he said, raising his voice.
“Can’t you ever just do the right thing? Why do you make friends with these lowlifes like Gates and Smudge? Does it make you feel better or something?”
“Feels better than being rejected by you every five minutes!” Will yelled back.
Lucy’s face flushed red, and their eyes locked. She grabbed his head and kissed him. Will’s mind reeled. How was this happening? Her lips were soft and hot. They felt unbelievable. They separated, but only a few inches. They stared into each other’s eyes. They were more intensely connected than Will had ever experienced with someone. She wasn’t pulling away either. In the Saints he got to ask for whatever he wanted, and he usually got it, but it never really made him happy. Right now, he was truly happy. The thing he really wanted, the thing he wanted most in the world, was still Lucy, and she wanted him back.
He took her head in her hands and kissed her. That second kiss would have been enough for him, but it was only the spark. It led to more kissing, and groping. Lucy’s raspy moans sent an electrical current crackling through his body. Soon, Will was tugging off her clothes and she was doing the same to him. He grabbed, he caressed, he tasted. He kissed around her bruises.
This was real. They were going to have sex. Will didn’t want to screw it up. For all the hours of porn he’d seen, once it was really happening, he felt like a tap dancer on a frozen lake. He wanted her to love it. Each thing he did, he did with a terror that she’d push him away and look at him like he was a pervert, or a child. She’d realize that he wasn’t good enough, that he’d never done this before, and she’d be disgusted. She’d demand that he stop.
She didn’t do any of those things. She kissed back with equal passion. She sucked on the skin of his neck. She grasped him, and guided him inside. Heaven.
35
WILL STARED AT THE COPIER ROOM CEILING. It was lit by sunlight now. He didn’t know how long he’d been doing it, picking out weird faces and shapes in the patterned tiles, like he was staring at a cloudy sky. It was impossible to sleep with Lucy in his arms. Her head was tucked warmly below his chin. He didn’t dare move and make her stir. He wanted her so happy she’d never want to leave. Her hip filled his hand. His heat mixed with hers until he couldn’t discern the border between them.
She purred. He felt her eyelashes tickle his chest. She must have opened her eyes.
“You awake?” he said.
“Mmm-hmm.”
She lifted her head and turned to face him. She smiled.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she said.
One look, and she could dissolve him until he was nothing but a shadow in the shape of a boy.
“Wish we had something to eat,” Lucy said.
“Well, darn it, I forgot to go to the store.”
“That’s dumb,” she said through another smile.
“You’re dumb.”
He squeezed her and she squeaked, and he wanted to hear it again and again. Their clothes were strewn over their naked bodies like blankets.
“What time is it?” Lucy said.
Will groaned and pulled her closer. “Who cares?”
“Nobody knows where I am. I should’ve told Sophia. They might get worried.”
“Really? What do the Sluts look like when they get worried?”
Without missing a beat, Lucy bore her clenched teeth at him with wild, furious eyes. She looked like a constipated piranha. Will cracked up. Lucy shook with laughter, trying to hold the face until she couldn’t anymore. She covered her mouth and snorted a giggle. Will put his forehead to hers, she settled into him.
“I’m serious, what time is it?” Lucy said.
Will sighed and found his phone in his pants, which were laid over Lucy’s calves. The screen was shattered, but it was still in one piece. He clicked it on. The upper corners of the display were discolored, pinkish, and the rest was littered with dead pixels.
“Eleven a.m.,” Will said.
“What’s that?”
Lucy was looking at Will’s phone, the screen still illuminated. She sat up, holding his and her clothes to her front. She took the phone out of his hand to get a better look at his phone’s wallpaper. It was a dim snapshot of the Loners gathered around the TV he’d stolen from the Freaks and hung in the Stairs lounge. Lucy sat in the middle, in her pale blue dress, looking back at the camera and sticking out her tongue.
“I don’t remember this picture,” she said, staring at the pic, the phone’s blue light gleaming off her bare shoulder. She seemed mesmerized by her former self.
“It was a while ago.”
“Do I…,” she said, still puzzling over the picture. “Do I seem different to you now?”
“You definitely look different.”
“Yeah, but… am I different?”
“You mean aside from eating bricks for breakfast and punching babies in the face or whatever you Sluts do?”
“Hey, I’m serious!” she said, and gave him a hard slap on the chest. He laughed.
“No, not really. You’re still the same.”
“Oh,” she said, clearly let down.
“But, I like that person. I’m having a great time with that person.”
“I know. Right,” she said.
He’d upset her, and he wasn’t sure what he’d said wrong.
“I’m gonna go,” she said. Lucy started gathering up her clothes.
Will sat up. “Come on, don’t go. The Sluts can wait.”
“It’s not them,” she said. “You’ve got to eat eventually. I’m going to go to the market and stock up for you.”
She pulled on her clothes. Will looked at Lucy standing above him. Her short red hair tousled. Sleeveless white T-shirt, torn all to shreds with a drawing of a chain saw on the front. Tight, burned-up jeans that showed off taut muscles that Will was sure she didn’t have before.
“By yourself? I should go with you.”
Will stood and pulled on his pants.
“Will, stop,” she said. �
�You know you can’t leave.”
Will was afraid of Gates, but he was more afraid of letting Lucy leave. Things were so perfect up here, in their third-floor hideaway. This little place of their own. Outside, anything could go wrong.
“I’ll come up with a disguise—”
“Will, Gates is crazy, you told me yourself. You know you have to stay here. That’s the whole point.”
“It’s not safe.”
“I can handle myself,” she said. She stepped up onto the copier to climb into the vent.
“Well, that’s something,” Will said.
“What?” she said from above him.
“The old Lucy never would have headed out alone like this.”
Lucy smiled.
“I guess she wouldn’t.”
She knelt down until they were face-to-face and she kissed him. He’d done something right.
“I’ll be back later,” she said, still smiling. “Take care of Minnie.”
Lucy hurried down the hall, on her way to the market. She was desperate for a bathroom after spending all night in the copier room, but still she couldn’t help feeling light on her feet. Alone, she was finally able to really enjoy what had happened. The push and pull of the pleasure. How alive her body felt after it was over. The warmest, deepest night’s sleep she’d gotten in a long time. She was maybe the happiest she’d ever been. Once she was in Will’s arms, she knew that, after all her turmoil over who she’d lose her virginity to, and whether she would, she’d ended up in the right place, with the right person. Her first time had been perfect.
Lucy pushed open the door to the girls’ bathroom. This particular bathroom had become a sort of public works project for all girls, initiated by the Sluts. They had installed new stall walls and stall doors that had long ago been destroyed, so that girls from any gang could pee in peace. Over only one sink, a mirror had been reassembled like a jigsaw puzzle out of odd, mismatching shards. Another mirror was in the works soon, sponsored by the Nerd girls. And girls from every gang chipped in when they could to supply toilet paper. It wasn’t a perfect system, but today was Lucy’s lucky day. A full roll was waiting for her in her stall. Lucy closed her stall door and began to unbuckle her jeans.
A conversation in the hall, just outside the bathroom, made her pause. Some girls were arguing. She heard the door open. One of the voices cut through the others; it was higher, sharper, more vicious. It was unmistakably Hilary.
“Watch the door, girls. Don’t slouch, Tabitha. No one needs to see your gut,” Hilary said.
Lucy very quietly stepped up onto the closed toilet seat, and crouched there.
“Nobody comes in here until I come out,” Hilary said. “You included.”
She heard the noise of the hall quiet. Hilary must have shut the door. Lucy could hear her footsteps. Lucy lowered her hand to the handle of her knife and wrapped her fingers around it. She waited for Hilary to throw open the stall door. It didn’t happen.
Hilary walked away from the stalls. Through the space between the stall door and stall wall, Lucy had a narrow line of sight on her old gang leader. Hilary looked at her distorted reflection in the mirror mosaic. She placed her little white purse on the edge of the sink, leaned forward, and began to examine her teeth.
Lucy stepped down from the toilet, quiet as a cat. She crept to the gap and pushed her eye closer to get a wider view. Lucy nearly yelped when, in the mirror, she saw Hilary pull one of her teeth out.
“Oh my god,” Lucy mouthed silently.
The tooth had a strip of duct tape along the back of it. Hilary panned her head back and forth, examining herself. Her lips were peeled back to reveal a gaping black space on her upper row of teeth, to the right of her front incisors. Just that one, empty, gummy arch between the otherwise perfect row of white Chiclets made Hilary look sickly and sad. She tongued the gap.
Hilary held up her tooth and peeled the duct tape off of it. She balled up the tape and chucked it on the floor. Hilary delicately placed the tooth on the corner of the porcelain sink. She removed a small roll of duct tape from her purse and began to fashion a fresh strip of adhesive.
Lucy couldn’t stop staring at that tooth. Hilary’s pride, her power, her vanity was resting on the edge of the sink.
Hilary dropped the roll of tape by mistake, and it rolled under the row of sinks.
“Ugh,” Hilary said. She got down on her hands and knees to pick it up. Lucy yanked open the door and ran for the tooth. She snatched it off the sink, and bounded back into the stall.
“Hey!” Hilary yelled.
Lucy kicked the toilet’s flush handle, and looked back in time to see the terror seizing Hilary’s face.
“NO!” Hilary wailed, and charged at Lucy.
Lucy dropped the tooth into the flushing toilet. The whirlpool of water carried the little pearl straight down the tube. Hilary shoved her hands into the toilet bowl, frantically feeling around for it. Lucy ran for the door.
A Pretty One threw open the bathroom door, and Lucy kicked her in the shin. The girl buckled. She punched another one in the nose, just like Sophia had once shown her. She elbowed past the next two Pretty Ones in her path. They didn’t chase. They were probably too busy trying to figure out why their leader was clawing through toilet water like a dog trying to dig under a fence.
Lucy booked it down the hall, laughing with pure joy. Hilary had it coming.
She knew Hilary would try to make her pay for this at some point but she didn’t care. At least for a while, at least for today, Hilary was ruined.
She neared the cafeteria. She’d have to gather some stuff to trade at the market. The ceiling lights by the front doors to the cafeteria were functional, but the fifty feet of hallway between her and the doors was blacked out. Lucy didn’t bother to take out her phone for the weak light it would cast. She ran in the dark.
Lucy saw movement in the unlit hall. Shapes. Murky lumps lurking in the corners of her vision. She slowed her pace. Were her eyes playing tricks on her? The shapes grew distinct. They were boys and girls standing still in the darkness. Lucy slowed more. And when she did, the boys and girls began to walk toward her. They converged on her from all around. She whipped out her phone and clicked it on. They had white hair. Saints. What felt like ten pairs of hands grabbed her.
Someone plucked Lucy’s phone out of her fingers. The boy who did it, he shined her phone’s screen up to his own face. Her heart went cold. It was Gates, his face screwed up with tension, and his one red eye shut.
“Well, look who decided to come home,” Gates said.
36
WILL SMILED LIKE A FOOL. HE COULDN’T stop. He had everything he wanted. The afternoon sun streamed in through the window of the copier room. It had nearly set behind the roofline, on the opposite side of the quad. He watched the last little curve of blazing light as it disappeared.
Will sprung to his feet. He took a spray bottle from one of the shelves nearby, and walked to the flower in the window. Will gave it six squirts from the spray bottle, just like the directions required, covering the flower in a fine mist. Lucy cared about this thing, and if it was important to her, he wanted to take care of it right. He leaned in and smelled its wet petals. He thought of how fantastic Lucy smelled. He thought of the wonders of her body. Her skin against his. He wished she was there with him right then. He wanted another thousand nights, just like the last one.
A faraway noise drifted in from the hallway on the other side of the door, beyond the copier. It was muffled, merely a murmur, but still, it was familiar. It was definitely someone talking, but he couldn’t make out a single word. He’d crawl into the vent and see if he could hear it better. No matter what Lucy had said, he couldn’t bear to stay put any longer. He felt too powerful to just lay around. Maybe this was what being a man felt like.
Will jumped up on the copier and pulled himself into the vent. The vent cover was dangling down by a string, a convenience made by whoever repurposed this room. He lit the shaft with his
phone. He slid through, making sure to keep the bend and pop of the metal to a minimum. The voice was still speaking, still unintelligible, but a touch louder than in the copier room. It was an announcement over the PA system. It had to be, no normal voice would be loud enough to carry this far.
Will knew better than to head out into the stairwell when he reached the next vent. He knew better, but he still did it. Will popped the vent cover off. It dangled down by another string. He slid out and placed his feet on the third floor banister. His balance was precarious as he clicked the vent cover back in place, but eventually he got it, and jumped down onto the stairs. The stairwell was quiet. He maybe thought he was losing his mind, until P-Nut’s voice resounded from a hissing PA speaker located only a few feet from the vent.
“I get it,” P-Nut said. “You want me to stop playing it. I want to stop playing it. It’s a little on the weird side. But I’ll play it for a month if that’s what old Gates wants. I think he’s going to be one of my best customers when I open my new strip club, the P-Nut Gallery. You heard that right. Come forget your troubles with our lovely ladies, opening soon. But anyways… back to our regularly scheduled programming.”
There was a click, and Gates’s voice replaced P-Nut’s, icing Will’s blood in an instant.
“Will…” Gates’s voice was heavy, full of emotion. “Lucy is with me now. If you want to see her again, then you have to come back, buddy. I’m not mad at you. I know you think I’m mad, but I’m not. It’s not safe for you out there. I can’t keep you safe when you’re not with me. Please. I’m begging you. Come home, Will.”
Will knocked hard on the door to the cafeteria. He wore a gray hoodie that was three sizes too big for him. The front was splattered with deep brown soil stains thanks to what looked like a year or so of use as a rag for potting and unpotting the flower. The hood covered Will’s face though, as long as he kept staring at the floor. It had kept him from being identified so he could get here, and that’s all he needed from it.
