The Color of Rain

by Cori McCarthy

  THE COLOR OF

  RAIN

  THE COLOR OF

  RAIN

  CORI MCCARTHY

  RP | TEENS

  PHILADELPHIA • LONDON

  Copyright © 2013 by Cori McCarthy

  All rights reserved under the Pan-American and

  International Copyright Conventions

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher.

  Books published by Running Press are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail special.markets@perseusbooks.com.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012953353

  E-book ISBN 978-0-7624-4846-3

  987654321

  Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing

  Designed by Frances J. Soo Ping Chow

  Edited by Lisa Cheng

  Typography: Berthold Baskerville, Capture It, Dead Man’s Hand, Frutiger,

  Letter Gotic, Mr Moustache, PiS NeoPrintM319, and SS_Adec

  Published by Running Press Teens

  An Imprint of Running Press Book Publishers

  A Member of the Perseus Books Group

  2300 Chestnut Street

  Philadelphia, PA 19103–4371

  Visit us on the web!

  www.runningpress.com/kids

  To Mario,

  for brazen honesty

  CONTENTS

  PART I: YELLOW

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  PART II: BLUE

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  PART III: RED

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Of all the directions to be looking, I stare up.

  So I see her second foot leave the forty-something floor windowsill. Her dark form opens against the gray sky, her arms and legs out like a star falling—a falling star.

  Akimbo.

  Her hair splays brown. Her face coming clearer, so serene. She falls while I almost forget to pull my brother by his collar, to bring us out of her landing. I almost forget that there are really only two directions in this known universe: we accept it or we escape.

  She falls, her eyes as open as mine, and I grip my brother and run, hearing the flit flit flit of her clothes beating the wind followed by the pavement moment when she

  Hits.

  PART I

  YELLOW

  CHAPTER

  1

  The smoke sky is impenetrable. Gray billows against gray, but still I search for a glimpse of the stars beyond.

  No luck.

  With the sea and its aging docks at my back, I hurry downtown, into the labyrinth of decaying skyscrapers and tall shadows. It’s been a long while since I haven’t been glued to my little brother, and I dig my hands into my pockets to keep from reaching for him.

  My shirt snags the wind, snapping against my chest like a worn-thin flag.

  Lo picked it out for me—her lucky shirt, she calls it. The very shirt she wore when she sold her virginity, but then, I’m not sure that I need luck for what I’m about to do. Even if he is twice my age and decidedly nasty. The luck was finding him in the first place.

  It won’t be that hard, I chant through my thoughts. It won’t be. It won’t be. It won’t . . .

  But still, my feet grow heavier and my body runs cold. I shouldn’t be late, I know.

  He’s waiting.

  His money is waiting, and yet unbelievably, beyond the towering buildings, a sole cloud throbs slightly whiter against the smog. It dares me to think about other things, about Simon, and that feels a little like luck.

  I turn left instead of right, instead of going straight to him. Now jogging, I weave through a wave of factory workers until I reach the boarded-up windows of Dex’s restaurant, the biggest one wearing the slapdash spray-painted words, WE’RE ALWAYS OPEN.

  The only remaining window makes me pause; this was where I dreamed of the Void and its stars while scrubbing tables. And that day—hours before she fell over us—I was staring out that window when Simon caught me by my hips. He blew raspberries on my neck until I screamed and Dex roared Shut it! from the kitchen.

  Was that really only weeks ago?

  The window now glitters with a spiderweb of a smashed pane. Someone must have chucked a brick at it, and why not? For some hurts, there’s nothing better than the sound of breaking glass, and there’s not much glass left on Earth City.

  Dex is probably still mad that I had to quit, so I head up the back alley, leaping over the piles of trash. After all, maybe this isn’t the day I take a swan dive into the desperate world—maybe there is some hope here. Simon always thought of me as just a kid, but no kid would be on the edge of doing what I’m about to do.

  I bang a fist against the screen door and wait, the wafting scents and sounds of frying food mix with an old rot smell. “Simon!” I yell. “Simon!”

  My braid is coming loose, and I untangle my hair. Has he ever even seen it down? I center the loose neck of Lo’s shirt around my shoulders. It’s a little too obvious that I’m not wearing a bra, but then, as Lo said, “That’s the point.”

  Simon whacks the screen door against the brick. His hands are covered in bits of raw meat; he must have been working the sausage pump.

  “Look at you, Rain White.” His hair is sandy and frayed at the temples, and his skin is that never-seen-the-sun color like everyone on Earth City, but he wears it well. “I heard you were following Lo the Ho into the street-corner life, but I didn’t believe it.” He flashes a tricky sort of grin.

  “I wanted to talk to you before I . . . just before.”

  “Sorry, Rain.” He flicks his fingers and bits of meat go flying. “I already talked to Dex, and he can’t give you the kind of raise you want. Even with the whole situation with your brother. He feels bad about it. We all do.”

  “That’s not it.” I shift in Lo’s shirt, wishing I was wearing my own clothes.

  “No one’s going to report Walker to the cops, if that’s what you’re worried about. We’ll all remember the scruffy little ginger at his best. But still, I wouldn’t bring him near here.”

  “It’s not that. Walker’s . . . fine. I just I wanted to see you. See if you’d ever want to sometime . . .” I’ve never been so timid of tongue, and it annoys me. “If you want to be with me.”

  He grins. “I do miss that too-forward way of yours, but I don’t have that kind of money. Can’t afford you, Rainy day. But I guess . . . thanks?”

  I sway on the spot. “You think I want you to pay?”

  “If this is your new business, you should
n’t be giving it away for free.” He might be about to laugh, and heat claws up my neck like a hot hand. It closes around my throat and chokes my words.

  “But I meant . . .” Lo was so right about him. “You’re an ass, Simon.”

  “Kid, wait.” He hasn’t called me that in years, and maybe he realizes it. “Just hold on a second.” His hands are still slimed with meat, and he shakes his fingers without loosing any of it. The globs are drying, clinging to his skin, and he smears them against his stained apron. “Now don’t get all crazy.”

  I wince. He should know better than to use that word after what my brother is going through. “You’ll need the hard lye soap to get that off,” I say.

  The alley blares with the sound of the changing shift bell.

  “I’m late.”

  “All right.” Simon’s grin twitches, but it’s somehow already not as cute as it was a few moments ago. “Don’t be a ghost, Rain.”

  I hurry to the street, hearing the screen door slam behind him. The heat of my embarrassment leaves me in a hurry, and now I feel the swish of my empty pockets. I picture my brother below the spacedocks with Lo, locked in his distorted mind. But above it all, I feel the spiky place in my chest where my childhood crush just fractured like Dex’s front window.

  What was I thinking? I’m no kid anymore.

  But now, at least, I can go to him.

  A decrepit skyscraper slants against the smog, leaning over me. Its black windows spot like cavities—a grin with broken teeth. It seems to sneer:

  You are here. This is happening.

  His name is Hallisy, and he squeezes my hips, each of his jagged nails biting in. His breath comes in rapid grunts: animal sounds. I’m trying so hard not to hyperventilate that I may not be breathing at all.

  I grip a ridge in the alley wall and begin to slip into some fantasy about the stars, but then I blink hard instead. We will break from this planet for real. That’s why I took his money. No more daydreams. No more . . . Simons. I go over Lo’s advice: Be soft. He’ll do the rest.

  The rest of what? I had asked. But now I know it. Little bit at a time, he does what he wants with my clothes. My neck. My belt.

  Be soft.

  But I can’t, and I know that I’m as supple as the brick I’m pressed against. Hallisy seems to like it, though. He snorts into my hair, his body all rods and twisted wires. Still, he’s taking too long to get to It. He’s playing. And time is running out for Walker.

  “Go on.” I bite my tongue.

  He peels his pants down and grinds his steel coil of a torso against mine. I feel too much—so much of him—and I lose my hold on the wall.

  “LEAVE HER ALONE!” My little brother streaks like a bald bird up the alley, the flaps of his too-big jacket flying up like wings. “GET BACK!” He swings a piece of broken pipe at Hallisy who falls, caught up in his own pants.

  “What the shit!” Hallisy scrambles to stand, to yank the pipe from Walker and to hold his belt up. Walker makes another solid loop with the pipe, but Hallisy wrenches it out of his grasp.

  I refasten my pants and get between the rusty weapon and my small brother. “Don’t be stupid. He’s just a kid!”

  “I’m more man than him!” Walker yells from behind me. He has a death grip on my shirt and is already tugging me backward. “Come on, Rain!”

  Hallisy sneers. “That ain’t even a kid.” His pants are tented with a misdirecting arrow that makes a horrible taste rise in my mouth. “Looks to me like he’s got a bit of the crazy touch.”

  I close my hand around my brother’s wrist. I don’t know how he knows about Walker, but if he knows . . .

  He points the pipe at me. “Now you—”

  “Sweet freakin’ mess, Hallisy. You going to keep her all night?” Lo’s lithe body slips around the corner. My best friend leans against the Dumpster, her hip bones jutting through her stretchy skirt like concealed guns.

  “I’m on my business, Lo.” Hallisy tosses the pipe behind him, causing a racket. “Moneys been exchanged. So you take that”—he says, jabbing a finger at Walker—“somewhere else while I finish.”

  Lo swings her stringy blonde hair behind her shoulders, revealing the dyed pink underneath. “Finish? You haven’t even got going.” She shakes her head at me. “I’ve changed my mind, Rain. He ain’t worth it. I was down a bottle when I told you he’d do.”

  I touch the thick fold of bills through my pocket. “Moneys were exchanged, Lo.”

  “I’ll finish him.” She shimmies her shoulders out of her wide-necked top with a speed that would impress a Void captain. “He’ll agree. He probably doesn’t want his work buds finding out that he’s a sweet freakin’ mess with a taste for cherry popping.”

  “I don’t want some used bag.” Hallisy hooks his belt. “I’ll have my moneys back, or I’ll call that in.” He points to my brother again, and I want to spit.

  I dig out most of the bills and toss them at his feet. “I’m taking ten for what you already got.” I sound more sure of myself than I am, but then, that’s always been my superpower.

  “I didn’t get ten worth. And you were late.”

  “Not that late. And you’re the one who took your bleeding time!” I scrub the spot where he sucked my neck. The pile of wadded-up notes jeers from the cracked pavement louder than any leering skyscraper. I pull my brother into my arms, the stubble of his shaved head pricking my chin. We were so close to having enough to buy passage off this planet.

  Now we’re not.

  “Rain.” Walker’s voice shakes along with his hands. I clasp his arms together as though I can stop the tremors by sheer will, but the symptoms come on too fast, and I feel his fear like it’s my own. “Rain?”

  Lo steps close and fixes her elastic top over her bony shoulders. “There’re cops down the way. How do you want to play this?”

  “He’ll make it to the pier.” I eye my brother with a dare. His mouth seals in a firm line, nodding through his fear. I lead Walker down the alley.

  “Where you think you’re going?” Hallisy yells.

  “You missed your chance,” I toss back.

  Hallisy charges, his steps echoing like gunshots through the alley, and I duck to cover Walker as he almost rips my shirt off. Lo shoves him with her whole body, and he bangs into the Dumpster, driving it against the wall to the tune of rippling, crashing steel on brick.

  We hustle onto the main street, elbowing against a new wave of workers. I glance back, but the mouth of the alley is clear. No sign of Hallisy. Lo gets hung up in the crowd behind us, waving us on. I hate to leave her, but a squat woman with a metal hook through her earlobe scowls at Walker’s trembling frame.

  “Run with me, Walk,” I whisper. “Run!” His feet stumble as we duck onto a side street and break into a sprint. Anyone could snatch us. Start a panic. And the cops would be here in a blink with their restraints, ready to take away the mentally diseased, the people we call Touched.

  People like my little brother.

  CHAPTER

  2

  By the time we reach the pier, I want to scream. Gone! That chance—maybe our only one—and it’s gone. The neck of my ripped shirt slips down to my elbow, and I drag Walker’s now rubbery frame. “Do you have any idea how much money we just lost?”

  His shaking has stopped, but now his eyes are blank. Empty. “Who are you?” he asks. “Am I home?”

  “No, Walker. We’re not home.” The wind whips off the oily ocean, and I maneuver us around the broken planks of the ancient pier. “We have to wait for Lo.”

  “What’s a Walker?” he asks, and I swallow my irritation and pain. My brother is now the shell of the person who just stormed the alley to fight a man three times his age.

  And that shell is cracked.

  High above us, silver starships hang in invisible parking spots like stars lured too close to earth. Some are as large as skyscrapers while others are only big enough for a captain and crew, but they all gleam with blue light, the pulsing proof o
f their mighty engines. Engines that can break through the smoke sky. . . . Engines that run the Void and weave between the stars.

  I’ve always been drawn to that blue. The color is so much more vivid than the monochrome ash and age of Earth City, and it’s long since been my hope for our escape.

  At the end of the pier, the hull of a small, abandoned starship rots. I guide Walker through the missing passenger door, situate him on the ratty covering of the old captain’s chair and climb up on the stripped control panel. He gazes through the rusted-out ceiling, and the sapphire lights of the spacedocks reflect over his green eyes, shading the emptiness.

  “Do bugs . . . like ships . . . forgotten wings,” he murmurs.

  “That’s right, Walker. They’re just forgotten.” I try not to imagine the day when he doesn’t come back from the fogs or what might happen if the disease takes me as well. Who would keep the cops from taking us then?

  Lo drops into the passenger seat, making the ship’s metal carcass groan. She’s out of breath. “You didn’t have to keep running. Hallisy wasn’t chasing anything with that bobbing thingy between his legs.”

  “A woman was looking at us weird. Maybe a reward chaser.” I wipe spit from Walker’s lip with my sleeve before I remember that it’s Lo’s shirt. I finger the now ripped neck. “I’m sorry, Lo. Your lucky shirt . . .”

  She sighs. “Well, it used to be my lucky dress.” She points to the ripped hem at my hips. “Suppose it’ll turn into my lucky headband. No biggie.”

  “Still . . .” We don’t have much, and what we have we share. After all, she’s helped take care of Walker like he’s her own brother. She hasn’t called him in even though the reward would be enough to put a roof over her head for months.

  I can’t help but remember the money at Hallisy’s feet. The bulge of it. “What happened back there?”

  She kicks her legs up on the dashboard. “I was sitting with Walker, and he just kind of blinked and woke up. He knew what you were up to, but I swear I said nothing. He’s pretty smart for a kid, when he’s not . . . you know.”