by Nikki Roman
I could have got jumped; I could have got jumped. Innocent people paying the price for my mistakes. An innocent old lady being mugged because I’m too scared to let the Allies beat me. My weakness hurting others again. Bailey’s weakness.
The door opens and Holden jumps in his seat and the van reels forward. I drop the pillows and stare at the back of his head.
I lean over his seat and play with the fringe of his bangs as we drive away from the Topps grocery store.
“Here, these are yours, I’m keeping the money,” Holden says. He gives me the woman’s watch and bracelet. I fall back onto the mattress and look them over. On the inside of the watch is an inscription, Love, Grayson. I put the watch on and twist it around my wrist, it is heavy and large. A man’s watch. Maybe her husband’s or her son’s. Maybe they are gone and this watch was all she had as a memento.
“We’re definitely going to hell,” I say.
The van swerves.
“Damnit, Bailey, would you stop saying that? We’re not going anywhere but in the ground. Okay? In the dirt, with the worms.”
“What about heaven?”
“Do you want me to crash this van? ‘Cause I’ll do it. Kill us both, and then you can fucking go to heaven! ‘Cause you’re the only one out of the both of us that will be accepted there.”
“You feel guilty. I knew it, you aren’t an emotionless rock.”
“I don’t want to do this,” he says. “No one wants to do this, but what choice do I have? What choice do any of us have? If God really wanted people to join him in heaven, wouldn’t he have made it easier to live a good life, here on Earth? Why judge us for something out of our control?”
“It isn’t supposed to be easy; it supposed to be worth it.”
“Worth what, Bailey?”
“Worth entering the pearly gates.”
“My life ain’t worth shit,” he says. “Pulling knives on little old ladies and taking their money. I’m nothing but a crook, a coward.”
“Maybe you should crash the van,” I say. It jerks to the left and we turn a corner sharply. The mattress slides around in the back and I giggle. Holden chuckles. All little boys go to heaven, I think.
“You better be good at lying. You have to make Cairen believe that you mugged her, not me. Got it? Give him the details, the look on her face, her words.”
If Bailey describes the mugging to Cairen, it definitely won’t sound believable. Better let Indigo do the talking. “I got it,” I say.
We pull into a gas station; Holden gives me a portion of the money and sends me in for drinks and sandwiches. He watches me with a close eye as I skip around the parking lot, avoiding puddles of gasoline. My hair is in a loose braid slung over my shoulder; it bounces like the tail of a scorpion. A construction worker holds the door open for me, and I smile and nod politely.
My boots grind on the sandy tile as I walk to the back of the store where the beers and sodas are kept. I grab one large water and two Cokes. The cheese on the premade sandwiches is molding and the bread is soggy. I pick two up and figure if Holden wants he can take the cheese off, it doesn’t bother me much- I can pretend its blue cheese instead of Swiss.
The cashier shifts her eyes to me as she rings up the sandwiches and drinks. She’s either intrigued or freaked out by my style. But by the way she smiles at my blue bangs that fall forward when I take my change, I’d bet on intrigue.
“Have a nice day,” she says.
I go out the door. Holden is outside his van, leaning against it. He looks worried. I wave the bag of food at him and he rolls his eyes. I step off the sidewalk and a car pulls out in front of me. I pause and wait for it to move. Holden comes off his van- he starts to run in the direction of the car blocking my path.
“Move it!” I yell at the driver. The car is spray-painted with eagle emblems; shadows against the matte black finish.
“Indigo,” one of the men in the car says. He turns to another man in the backseat. “She’s an Allie. Grab her!”
The backseat passenger moves over to the driver’s side and flings open the door. A brown arm reaches for me. This all happens in a matter of seconds, and I am frozen as I watch it unfold. Holden, however, makes it around the car in less time than it takes for the men to grab me.
Both heads in the car turn and look at Holden. They see his bandanna, know he is an Allie. My heart knocks hard against my chest.
“See you at the party, Indigo!” they holler; the car speeding away.
Still, I don’t move. Indigo, they know my name. “How do they know my name?”
“That was Allegiance, the Apocalypse leader. What were you thinking? Why the hell did you just stand there like that?”
I don’t answer because I have no good answer for him. I’m an idiot; Indigo is an idiot, and Bailey, too.
Holden shakes me, the cans of Coke clank together in the bag, plastic rustles. “I didn’t know who they were, I didn’t see the car until it was right in front of me,” I say.
“They could have pulled you in!”
My mind has lost track of his voice. I am seeing Indigo pulled into the car, being driven to the Apocalypse set and beaten, tortured, raped. Murdered because she is an Allie.
“Bailey, are you listening? Listen to me!” He slaps me, my blue bangs fly in front of my face like a wave crashing over my vision. My eyes smart.
“You didn’t have to slap me!” Yes, he did.
“Bailey, do you understand how serious this is? It’s life and death, and you were teetering between the two, only a moment ago.”
“I understand it too well,” I say.
Indigo doesn’t get it. Indigo is thinking about the party and how she is going to make the Apocy leader eat his own teeth.
“Good. Now, get in the van before anyone else realizes who you are!”
•••
The back doors shut in my face. My eyes stay on them as Holden lectures me for not running from the Apocys. The one bad thing about Indigo is that she doesn’t know how to run. Not like Bailey, anyway, unless trouble is biting at her ankles. Bailey can smell trouble a mile off.
“You’re a stupid kid, sometimes,” Holden says. “I ought to put a leash on you.”
“Lock me a way, I’ll be safe,” I say.
“Not from the Allie, you wouldn’t, and certainly not from the Apocalypse.”
“Which one am I supposed to be afraid of, my own gang or the rivals?”
“Both.”
We are driving away from the underground. The houses and buildings gradually become more attractive. Pink houses, teal houses, white houses with clay tiled roofs. Manicured lawns with bushes trimmed into perfect ovals. Snowbird homes; rental homes that are only occupied during the winter months because the heat is too intense for the northerners in the summer.
“My dad owns this rental house, it has a killer pool and he always leaves the pool cage unlocked. Do you want to go for a swim?” Holden asks.
“I’m sweating my skin off, dude. Yeah, I could go for a swim,” I say.
“Skinny dipping?” he asks, with a crooked smile. We pull off the road and Holden parks in the grass of a vacant home. This one is a canary yellow with white trim and coconut trees guarding the front doors.
“In my underwear,” I say.
I climb over the front seats and get out.
We stumble around in the thick grass. The cold Cokes and sandwiches smack against my hot thighs. My toes inside my boots are as slimy and slippery as baby slugs.
Holden holds the screen door open for me.
The pool is bluer than the ocean. I want my skin to drink it up. Two dolphins on either side of a waterfall spit glassy streams that break the calm surface of the water.
I put our drinks and sandwiches on a plastic table inside the lanai. Holden and I sink into weather-proof cushioned chairs, and take off our shoes.
“Ah,” Holden says. “This is the life. Forget Allie life, this is how I want to live.”
“You make money �
��stead of taking it, maybe you can, someday.”
“I only know how to take,” he says, popping open his Coke; it fizzes over the top from being shaken. He puts his mouth to it and sucks back the foam.
“I could teach you how to give,” I say.
“Okay, Sykes, teach me.”
“Okay, let’s start with your Coke. I’m thirsty can I have a sip?”
“No, you have your own.” He chuckles.
“So? Let’s try again. Can I have my sandwich?”
Holden unwraps his own sandwich, sniffs the cheese and nibbles at the corner. He stuffs it in his mouth, deciding it’s safe. “You didn’t say please,” he mumbles with his mouth full.
“Please, can I have my sandwich?” I say, tired of the game already.
“Now who’s teaching?”
“I give up.”
“That’s right Bailey, now you’re getting the hang of it!” He breaks out laughing.
“Ugh!” I say, slamming my unopened Coke onto the table.
“Okay, okay, I’ll give you something,” he says. “Come closer. Closer, closer, closer.” He grabs my face in his hands. “I’ll give you a kiss free of charge.”
“And I’ll take it,” I say. “Teach me how to take.”
I kneel on in his lap, my knees balancing on his thighs, breathing in his syrupy breath. Our lips find each other like they were preprogrammed to meet this way. Indigo comes out to play, she dances in my head; her tongue dances behind Holden’s teeth.
“You take very well,” Holden says, biting my lip.
“And you give just as easily.”
“I guess that completes today’s lesson.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Your mouth tastes like old blood, Indigo.”
“Spencer has a taste for my blood,” I say.
Holden leans back in his chair, the thrill of our lesson gone from his eyes. “Everybody has a taste for Indigo,” he says. “And she’s given out free samples. I’m not anyone special.”
I get off his thighs and tiptoe around the pool, dipping my foot in the water, testing it. I remove my shirt and shorts and toss them onto the lanai. I walk backward to where Holden is sitting and break into a run.
When I reach the pool, I flip into the air and land in the water. My flip is a little off and my head cuts through the water like a hand breaking a two-by-four in half. I surface with my head in my hand, water streaming from my nose.
Holden is laughing, rocking back and forth in his chair, spitting lettuce and ham from his cackling mouth.
“I could’ve broken my neck!” I say.
“Yeah, thank God you have a hard head.”
I splash him and he leaps out of his chair. He tugs his shirt over his shoulders and does a cannonball, landing next to me in the water. Lifting me up by the waist, he throws me into the deep end.
I stay under as long as I can. Holden swims to the bottom; eyes open despite the burn of the chlorine. My eyes open too; we pretend to have an underwater tea party, sipping on our invisible tea with pinkies out, bubbles rising from our mouths to the surface as we laugh.
We pop up for gulps of air. “I wish we had scones to go with our tea,” Holden says in a dignified voice.
“Yes, but we do have finger sandwiches,” I remind him.
“That’s right, let’s finish eating,” he says. “You look like you’ve never finished eating a thing in your life!”
“I eat when I feel like it.”
“Which, apparently, is never.” He teases.
I dry my hands on my shirt. Holden finishes his sandwich and I start mine. We hang our legs over the pool while we drink and eat.
I am tired again. Seems I can hardly make it through an entire day, anymore. Maybe being two people at once is making me twice as sleepy.
“My dad has a bunch of rental homes,” Holden says, “and he makes a ton of money off them. Sometimes I just wish he would share the wealth. I’m his only kid and even though I’m practically an adult, I think I’m entitled to some of his prosperity. Does that sound selfish?”
“Not at all,” I say. “My parents don’t have any money. But if they did, I would expect them to share.”
“I don’t even talk to my dad anymore, not since becoming an Allie. I just left home one day and never looked back. He was so blinded by my mother’s suicide he didn’t even look for me. Days turned into years, and I stopped wondering if he would send the cops for me.”
“I thought you said he left?”
“He did. But he paid all the bills while I lived in the house my mother killed herself in. I couldn’t live there anymore, with the memory of what had happened. So, I left.”
“I’m so, so sorry, Holden.”
I remember him sobbing in his van last night, and then my mother trying to beat me. Dad hugging me so tight, like he thought if he hugged tight enough he could make all the pain and hurt go away. Eleven years of pain and hurt. Then, I remember Miemah is dead and that I maybe could have prevented her death if I had only spoken up and shown somebody the video. Shown my video and hers. Saved us both.
I’ve been silent for too long; Holden thinks I’m still upset over his pathetic life story. “Welcome to the real world honey, it’s a whole lot nastier than fairytales lead you to believe,” he says.
“You don’t need to welcome me,” I say, “my dad did that eleven years ago. Laid out a whole welcoming committee of paramedics, policemen, and threw in a dead guy for good measure.”
“You were five? What happened?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I say cynically. “It’s a long story, I’ll have to tell it to you someday, when we have time to kill.”
We both fall silent. The soggy bread of my sandwich is stuck to the roof of my mouth, I kick it with my tongue. Holden eats stray pieces of lettuce off his wet boxer shorts. Like cows in a pasture on a hot day, we are lazily grazing on our food, our feet kept cool by the water.
“Aren’t we killing time now?” Holden asks, ruining the peaceful silence.
“No,” I say. “We’re living in it.”
I kick my feet around in the pool a little, to make it look like I’m doing something and I am not bothered by the silence. And that I especially don’t need his voice to fill it. Actually, I’m enjoying myself, here, eating my moldy sandwich and sitting in my wet underwear.
“If you won’t talk about that, then can we talk about something else?” he asks.
Aren’t you enjoying your moldy sandwich, the silence, and your wet underwear too? I think. “What do you want to talk about?”
He takes a calculated sip from his Coke and puts one finger up to silence me. “Clad,” he says, swallowing.
“What about him?”
“Is it true he was going to shoot you at school? When he shot at the ceiling, what happened? There’re rumors, but nothing substantial. I want to know what really happened.”
“What’s the version of the story you’ve heard?”
He puts his Coke down and kicks his feet in the water with me. “Just that he was jealous of Trenton, so he brought a gun to school and was going to shoot him. The story becomes fuzzier from there. Some say you tried to grab the gun and aimed it at the ceiling. Others say that he changed his mind and shot at the ceiling.”
“He wasn’t going to shoot anyone. He was only trying to save me from myself. He’s in prison now, but he’s not the bad guy everyone makes him out to be. I am. But I had my reasons, whether they were valid or not,” I say. “I was trying to save myself, too.”
“So, Clad and you had the same objective: save Bailey. But from what? Why did you need saving? And why did it take the threat of Clad’s gun to do it?”
“You and Trenton are cordial; he must’ve told you already. Why bother asking me to retell the same story?”
Holden pours the rest of his soda, which has turned warm, into the pool. The brown bubbly syrup stains the crystal clear water. He mixes it in with his foot. “I stopped speaking to him after the shooting. Or ac
tually, he stopped speaking to me. To all the Allies.”
“Holden, there are some stories that are never meant to be retold. I’m letting this one die here. Don’t ask me anymore about it, because I’ve locked it up and thrown away the key.”
“You’re full of stories, aren’t you, Indigo? You may not let me read you, but Bailey will. She’s too hurt to not let me.”
“You don’t know a thing about Bailey,” I say.
“I know she is stronger than Indigo and that you keep putting her in storage because you think she’s the weaker version of you. Indigo is fake. Indigo doesn’t even feel.”
“Exactly,” I say, pouring my soda into the pool. “How can anything hurt me if I don’t feel?”
Chapter 33
Holden stands behind Cairen, a mime pantomiming. His facial expressions exaggerated, his hands talking for him. My eyes fasten to his mouth and I concentrate on his silent words. What was I supposed to say to Cairen? Something about the watch? Grayson…she had a husband or a son. Grayson.
Holden’s bottom teeth are crooked and out of place, like an earthquake rumbled through his lower jaw. They are yellow from smoking. I kissed that mouth.
“Got something for me?” Cairen asks.
“A platinum watch,” I say, timidly placing it in his open palm, “and a bracelet.”
Holden’s eyes grow large and his hands push up like he is trying to pry open a window.
What? I mouth.
“So, we good now?” I ask Cairen.
He bounces the watch and bracelet in his hand, a greedy smile on his face. “We’re good, Indigo. See that wasn’t so hard, now was it?”
“Easier than I thought,” I mutter.
Holden, who had been holding his breath, exhales deeply and wipes sweat from his forehead. I had pieced together a pretty believable story while on the way over here. We must’ve run through it a dozen times, but Cairen didn’t want the details. And besides, I forgot everything I was supposed to say the moment I saw him.
