Indigo: The Saving Bailey Trilogy #2

by Nikki Roman

  Spencer follows. He has no idea where I’m going. And neither do I, until I find our picnic table beneath a tree standing half as tall as ours once did. I punch the rough bark and Spencer stands to the side, afraid to intervene.

  “They were only little birds,” I say, “and they killed them. Someone killed them.”

  “They probably didn’t see the nest. I’m sure it wasn’t on purpose. Everything has to die someday,” he tries to level with me.

  “Don’t you think I know that? But why couldn’t something here be nice for once, a place where we used to lie when I was scared and you were scared. The birds were more than just birds. They were like us.”

  I punch the tree again.

  “Stop doing that,” Spencer says.

  I open and close my hand, the knuckles bloody.

  “What does this mean for us? Is something going to come along and kill us, too? Just when things start to get sweet?”

  “Stop!”

  When I try to punch the tree again my fist hits Spencer hard in the stomach. He grabs my fist, encasing it in his hands. “It doesn’t mean anything for us,” he says kissing my knuckles and uncurling my fingers. “I watched the birds, too. Don’t you think I noticed how similar we were to them? And I’m sorry they’re gone, but to everyone else they were just birds. Nothing more. To everyone else, that was just a tree, not the place where you and I felt safe.”

  “Can we bury them?” I ask, my muscles loosening in accepted defeat. No matter how much blood I leave on that tree, the birds won’t be coming back.

  “And say a prayer,” he says. “You gather the flowers and I’ll go back to my house and get a shovel.”

  I pick purple weeds and white dandelions. I can’t easily describe the feeling roaring through me, except to say that it is something similar to the loss of a really close friend. They told a story, the birds, a love story that Spencer and I had been a part of. When things were uncertain in my life, they were sitting in their little nest, never-changing.

  “I’m gonna start digging the hole,” Spencer says. He stands over me, leaning on the handle of his shovel.

  I’m crouching in a patch of colorful weeds, fistfuls of them in my hands. I stare down at the ones I’ve picked, making sure they are the best, and notice how gaudy my bloody knuckles look against the counterfeit flowers.

  “This is a bad omen,” I say. “Right before I go to see Clad. We shouldn’t have come here.”

  “Hey now, don’t say that. If we didn’t come here, who would have given the birds a proper burial?”

  “I guess you’re right,” I say, staring out at nothing in particular. “What do you think their heaven looks like?”

  “I’ll sing it to you after we bury them.”

  We sulk back to the tree stump, I holding the flowers and birds together in their nest, and Spencer dragging his shovel behind him.

  He digs a shallow hole. When he’s finished I place the birds inside, nest and all. I stick the weeds into the little bump of dirt that covers it.

  “Sit next to me,” Spencer says, “and I’ll sing to you all about their heaven.”

  We sit on the stump together, the mound before us. All the wild things fall silent, paying respect to the two birds. Everything is muted, the wind stops blowing. Spencer’s song carries through the park, through my soul, every part of me dipped in his melodic voice.

  Chapter 10

  Miemah

  I’m tied to a formal dining chair. Ropes cut into my wrists, throat and across my shoulders. I’m not going anywhere.

  “What we gonna’ do with you, Apocy lady?” Afro Boy says.

  “I say we slice her face open,” says Clover Tattoo.

  I’m guessing his tattoo is a symbol of whichever gang he’s in, though I can’t recall any gangs with a clover emblem.

  “Or we could fuck her,” the man with the sagging face says. I’ve named him Senior.

  “You guys looking for money?” I cut to the chase. My mouth is the only part of me that’s not tied up.

  “Yeah, we want cash,” Afro says, “but you mugged me, so why would we believe you have money?”

  “I don’t,” I say slyly, “but my boy does.”

  “You told me no one liked you,” Afro says.

  I shake my head as much as the ropes will allow. “Boy, do you believe everything you hear?”

  “Don’t get cocky,” Clover Tattoo says, whipping out a pocket knife.

  “What you gonna’ cut with that, tissue paper?” I smirk.

  “Your skin ain’t much thicker.”

  “Look, you want money, I can get you money. My boy’s loaded. He’ll pay to have me back—unharmed.”

  “Who’s your boy, then?”

  “You don’t need his name.”

  “We want a grand, and then maybe we won’t cut you open,” Clover says, twisting the knife in his hands.

  I look around the dimly lit room and a rat crawls over my feet. There’s a family of them buried beneath a pile of sweaty shirts and Chinese takeout boxes. Foul; my body odor blends right in.

  “Fine, one grand,” I agree. “Let me call him.”

  “No, no, no,” Afro says. “We’ll do the calling.”

  The ceiling is leaking overhead; it drips brown sludge on my face when I tilt my head up to look at the heavens for mercy, for the strength to not mouth off to these guys.

  “Okay.” I begrudgingly spit out Trenton’s number.

  “Good girl,” Clover Tattoo says, caressing my face with his knife.

  My stomach drops.

  Lower than The Titanic.

  Lower than bedrock.

  Lower than an old lady’s tits.

  Lower than the pits of hell- our homeland.

  I might be coming home today. I get it, God, I think. You’re finally getting me back for all the shit I put Bailey through.

  Trenton picks up on the first ring, they have him on speaker.

  “Hullo,” he says.

  “Hello,” they sneer, gathering around the phone like a group of witches around a bubbling cauldron.

  “Who is this?” Trenton says in an uneasy voice, immediately catching on.

  “You don’t need to know,” says Clover.

  “We have your girl,” says Senior.

  “HELP!” I scream.

  “Miemah?” he asks in confusion.

  “If you don’t bring us a grand within the hour we’re going to chop her into itty bitty pieces and feed her to our pit-bulls,” Senior says.

  “Is this a prank call?” Trenton asks.

  I tense against the restraints and wait to see if they’re going to give him proof that this isn’t a hoax. Afro snatches Clover Tattoo’s knife out of his hand and advances on me. I scream as he comes nearer.

  “Miemah!” Trenton bellows.

  Afro cuts a bloody red ‘X’ over my Apocy eagle, like there’s buried treasure underneath it. My blood drips over the ropes and I lose it. “It’s real!” I cry. “Do what they say.”

  “Have they hurt you?” Trenton asks.

  “Promise you’ll pay them. Please, they are not fucking around!”

  “Enough,” Senior grunts. “You talk to us, not her. We want the grand in exchange for your girl.”

  “Under one condition,” Trenton says, “and this condition is for Miemah.”

  Conditions? I have a condition for you, Trenton, pay up or I swear to God my ghost will haunt you ‘till the day you die!

  “I want the locket back.”

  “Are you crazy?” I shriek.

  “You have fifty eight minutes left,” Senior says before hanging up.

  •••

  They play the five finger-fillet game with my hand, slipping once and catching the inside of my index finger with a crude looking shank. I close my eyes, praying for Trenton to get here soon, even if my prayer is falling on deaf ears.

  I imagine the minutes ticking off the melting clocks in the Persistence Of Memory, the sound of them as they hit open air res
ignation that I am one minute closer to being tortured to death.

  I almost don’t believe it when, at the last five minute mark, Trenton appears at the door and shoves a wad of hundreds into Afro’s hands. There really is a God… maybe.

  “Here’s your ransom money,” Trenton says, trying to see past Afro’s shoulder to make sure I’m alive.

  “Untie her, boys,” Afro says, licking his thumb and flipping through the bills.

  Clover and Senior use the same knife they cut into me with to slice open the ropes. I leap from the chair and bolt for the door.

  “Miaaa,” Trenton says with affection. “Where did they hurt you?”

  “It’s fucking nothing,” I say, maintaining my hard-ass composure. “They just wanted your money.”

  Trenton grabs my hand and flips them the bird. We run to the car and Trenton tears out of the driveway, hitting ninety with my door hanging open as we fly down the street.

  •••

  “You’re crying,” Trenton says.

  “I’m not,” I say, secretly wiping a tear from my face. I pull my sleeve down to hide the red ‘X’ on my wrist and bleeding finger. “Here, this is all you really cared about anyway.” I thrust the locket in front of his face. “Take it.”

  “No. You hold on to it.”

  “You wanted it so bad!” I scream pushing it in his view. “Take the damn thing!” The car swerves but Trenton regains control.

  “Stop it, Miemah! God Damnit, I’m trying to drive! You’re going to get us both killed!”

  I steal away to the window; pressing my face against it, I give all my attention to the outside world.

  The world that watches me, as I slowly fade, without so much as a passing glance.

  The world that let my father beat me all my life, saw the bruises and the scars, but did nothing to stop it.

  The world that let me play out the same abuse on Bailey, without consequence.

  “That was my dad’s social security money,” says Trenton, an icy inflection to his voice.

  “What the fuck do you care? He’s dead. Better spent on keeping someone alive, right?”

  Keeping one hand steady on the steering wheel, he shoves my head against the window. This time, the car doesn’t even swerve.

  “For a minute there, I thought you actually cared about me,” I say wiping away snot and blood.

  “I do,” he says, “but you can’t say shit like that about my dad. You make me—”

  “Violent? Abusive? Turn you into a monster? I have that effect on people.”

  He sighs. “Okay, I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” I relent.

  “Where do you want me to take you?” He leans back in his seat and brings an arm around me.

  “Jupiter,” I laugh half-heartedly. “Anywhere but back to Papa.”

  “I know you’re more scared of him than you are of any sleazy thugs holding you hostage.”

  “I have to go back. No point in skipping ‘round town when we both know he’ll be searching for me.”

  “If he isn’t already,” Trenton says. “I’ll take you home.”

  The further we drive from Fort Myers, the smaller the distance becomes between Trenton and I, until I’m practically on his lap.

  “You don’t have to go in,” he says, idling in front of my house.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “No, you could live with me. We could get married.”

  “Listen to you, you sound like an idiot,” I say.

  “I’m serious, I love you. What if he kills you?”

  “What if?” I say. “I’ve made it sixteen years.”

  “You’re beautiful,” he says suddenly, his eyes opening like he’s seeing me for the first time.

  “You want the locket or what?” I smash my teeth together, resisting the urge to kiss him and give in to his sweet talk.

  “No, I mean it, you’re beautiful. I’m not one with words but, Mia, I want you to know, you’re drop dead gorgeous.”

  Drop dead. Yep, that’s exactly what I’m about to do.

  “Are you saying that just because you think he’s going to kill me?” I ask stubbornly.

  “Yes, and because it’s true. You’re soft, but no one knows it.”

  “No one but you,” I say.

  “I love the soft part of you and the rigid part, too. I love every part of you, the good and the bad.”

  “What about Bailey?”

  “Everyone loves her. But, I want to love you because no one else will.”

  “You like me because I’m undesirable.”

  “I like you because it’s a challenge,” he says. “A challenge to love the pretty and the ugly. With Bailey, all there is, is beauty. I want to fall in love with the beast, too.”

  He kisses me long and hard. When we pull apart, I let Bailey’s locket swing between us, unfurling the chain from my grip.

  Trenton looks at the locket thirstily, like a bottle of water in the middle of a desert. I am equally as thirsty. It is the last piece of the bird we have. I won’t be going back to watch her. I may never live to see another day. Trenton knows that to try and see her would mean his arrest—or worse.

  We are both stuck with Bailey wedged between us.

  “You take it,” I say.

  “No, you take it.”

  “No, you,” we say at the same time.

  “You’ve kind of had this sick grip on her since you guys were little. I guess it belongs to you more than me,” Trenton admits.

  “But you drowned her in the pond,” I counteract.

  “Yeah, but she didn’t die…I mean, she didn’t stay dead.”

  Sick of listening to us bicker, the sun goes to bed and the moon rises, telling us that we must conclude this fight; Papa will surely be rampaging down the lawn at any moment.

  “It’s getting late,” Trenton says. “Please take it. I think you should have it. Maybe it will help you face your dad tonight. Maybe, someday, you can return it to her.”

  “That would make her so happy…” I say, my voice trailing off as I picture the look on her face when I hand over the locket she’d been blindly reaching for this whole time.

  “But you aren’t in the business of making her happy?”

  “I wasn’t, but I’ve changed. I’m tired of hurting people. I’m even remorseful for what I did.”

  “Okay… why the sudden change?”

  “I guess being kidnapped and threatened like I was made me see her in another light.”

  “Scared you straight, did it?”

  “Scared me right silly. I can’t stand to think of what I put her through. Her and everyone else. She’s a stronger person than me, that’s for sure.”

  “She’s the strongest…but you are, too,” he says. “The way you put up with your dad.”

  “Speaking of which, I better go do that,” I say, opening the passenger side door.

  “Wait!” he shouts, reaching over my seat and accidentally knocking the hula girl off his dashboard. “Give me another kiss…or just stay. Don’t go inside.”

  “It’ll only make things harder.”

  “One more kiss,” he begs. “For the road.”

  I look over my shoulder to make sure Papa isn’t hurtling toward me at top speed in his white wife beater with the yellow pit stains, then I lean forward, into the car, and seal lips with Trenton.

  If a kiss can be peppered with acid, this one is. The signs melt the same way they do when I’m rolling, the ground once solid beneath my feet turns to rubber, soft and bouncy. I float on the ecstasy of Trenton’s kiss all the way up my driveway and through the screen door. Then it washes right out of me; Papa’s heavy footfalls as he comes to answer the door and the sound of Trenton’s car driving into the night.

  I close my fist tightly around Bailey’s locket and my eyelids around tears that I swear to myself I will not let fall. Papa opens the door and I step inside, giving over to the inevitable beating that is sure to come.

  The door clicks shut
behind me. Papa locks it.

  Chapter 11

  The prison building, a structure of cement and red brick cloaked in silver sheets of rain, looks particularly ominous from where I stand. Yellow shafts of light from towers in the courtyard where prisoners are let out to exercise and convene, break through the heavy downfall. Guards stand in the towers with pensive eyes, surveying for a criminal gone astray.

  My stomach has that feeling you get when you’re on an airplane and it drops during turbulence. My hands are clammy, and even the rain can’t hide the nervous sweat that is pouring out of me.

  I go through a pair of gates and am pointed in the direction of the visitors’ center by a guard. There is a waiting room with plastic molded chairs of various colors and styles, a mismatch of whatever the community donated, or what could be picked up at thrift stores. I’m about to sit down on one of the sturdier looking ones when a large lady at the front desk calls me up. She asks me where my parents are and who I’m here to see. I shyly slide my fake I.D. under the glass window that separates us.

  “You don’t look twenty one,” the woman says, cocking an eyebrow.

  My heart pounds. Look twenty one, look twenty one! I scream from within. “I have a baby face,” my words squeak out of me like an invisible hand has a stronghold on my throat.

  “Mhmmm,” she says, winking. She pushes a clipboard at me with a pen and an official-looking document attached to it. “Sign this, sweetie, and then you can go back and see your boyfriend.”

  “Oh, no, you misunderstood—we’re just friends,” I say.

  “Sure thing, sweetie, just sign here.”

  I scribble the fake name Clad made up for my driver’s license: Sherry Williams.

  Is that his idea of a romantic name for me? Does he dream of making love to Sherry, only with my body? Shivers run through me.

  “What’s wrong?” the woman asks.

  My eyes automatically snap to her nametag, “Nothing, Sherry.”

  Now, I really might vomit, never mind that my stomach was already churning because I’m about to see Clad for the first time in six months. Can vomit cancel out vomit?

  “Do you have anything on you? Jewelry? Cellphone?” Sherry asks.

  My hand goes to my neck, reaching for the locket that’s not there. “No,” I say.