by Anna Silver
It was a low blow. Her question carried the thinly veiled accusation that the police were not doing their job. Even if she was the victim’s mother, there was no way that cop was going to let her in now. Rye wrapped a hand around her other arm to pull London away, but she managed to jerk out of his grip, defiant.
The cop sneered. “Club owner. Burglary gone wrong. I’m gonna need to see some identification if you really are a relative.”
He loosened his grip and London snatched her arm away but made no move towards the doors. There was no point. There was nothing inside there for her now. “I-I don’t have any,” she stammered.
“Figures,” the officer said. “Dumb kids. Always poking around where they don’t belong. What’s it to you anyway? Shouldn’t you be in school?”
London’s chest puffed up, but anyone could see the tears spill over her shattered face.
“It’s Saturday, dipshit,” London snarled.
A gurney rolled out in front of them. Two white-washed paramedics were pushing it silently from the alley. A threadbare sheet outlined the obvious body beneath, and a profusion of blood was seeping into it around the chest and face, like inkblots. They pushed it dolefully to a waiting ambulance, one of only a handful still running in the whole city. Most people didn’t even bother calling anymore until there was a body to collect.
London covered her face and turned away, digging her fingers in above her eyes, wishing she had the will to claw them out. Rye wrapped her in a protective hug, and she buried her face in his chest.
“What happened to him?” Rye asked the cop.
“Bludgeoned,” was the stark reply.
~
They approached the gleaming exterior of the Rise with their heads hung low. Neither had spoken a word on the way over. London had her arms knotted across her chest, as though her heart might flop out onto the pavement if she didn’t hold it in. Rye smoked next to her, occasionally placing a hand on the small of her back to gently push her forward.
Kim was standing outside the revolving doors in a black button-down and jeans. He waved as they approached, a cigarette in one hand. Avery’s place was nonsmoking, as was the lobby. You had to ride the elevator down thirteen stories and step outside if you wanted to satisfy your craving for city-issue cigarettes. But Kim dropped both his butt and his smile when he saw London and Rye’s sullen expressions.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
London couldn’t bring herself to say it. She stood there mutely, holding her bleeding heart.
Rye told him. “It’s Pauly, Kim. He’s…he’s dead.”
Kim took a step back and ran a hand through his chin-length, jet hair. “No. No way. I don’t believe it. How?”
“We don’t know really. They said it was a robbery. Said he was bludgeoned,” Rye said.
“Murdered,” London whispered.
“What?” Rye asked. Her voice had been so low they couldn’t make out the word.
London cleared her throat and repeated coldly, “I said he was murdered.” She wouldn’t meet their eyes. She stared at the scuffed tops and frayed laces of her boots instead.
“Right.” Rye nodded, turning back to Kim. “I mean, that seems obvious. Too much of a coincidence after Degan. We just came from the club.”
“Shit. I guess we better go inside and tell Avery. Zen’s on his way. We can do the notebook thing another time,” Kim suggested, but London stayed rooted to her spot, and Rye could see she was in no condition to make the announcement again.
“Uh, I think I better take London home,” Rye said. “We just came to give you guys the news; neither of us has a phone.”
“Here,” Kim said, holding out a phone in one hand. “It’s Avery’s. You take it. I’ll stay with Zen tonight. His parents have one.”
“You took Avery’s phone?” Rye asked.
“I borrowed it,” Kim clarified, though they both knew his reputation for stealing. “You should have a way to get a hold of us. You know, in case. I’ll tell her I gave it to you.”
“What about Avery?” Rye asked.
“Please. She probably has a back-up stashed. And her parents each have their own if she needs it. Besides, this is the Rise, remember? They’ve got doormen and security guards and cameras. She’ll be safer than any of us.”
“Okay, thanks,” Rye said.
“Just keep in touch, okay? I’m gonna run up and tell Avery, and I’ll catch Zen on his way over. This way, everyone’s got a way to stay connected. Strength in numbers, right?”
“Right,” Rye agreed.
Kim took a long look at London and patted her on the arm a little awkwardly. “I’m real sorry, London. I know Pauly meant a lot to you.”
She sniffed but couldn’t bring herself to say anything back.
“You’re gonna stay with her, right?” Kim checked with Rye, unsettled by her silence.
“Yeah, I can’t leave her right now. We’ll call you guys tomorrow.” Rye put an arm around London, turning her away from Kim, and they started back toward their own building several blocks away.
London sat by her window, arms wrapped around her knees, staring out at the brown brick building across the narrow street from them. She’d taken a shower, and her hair hung damp and dripping down her back, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t even bring herself to smoke, and she didn’t want to cry in front of Rye anymore.
She remembered the first time she went to the club alone. She couldn’t have been more than five or six. She’d been there before with her dad, though most of those memories were lost to youth. She went with her mom for the next year or two, when Diane knew she need only show up for Pauly to give her rations. That’s when her mom started drinking. At the bar. Then at home. Eventually, she quit going to the bar altogether. Just stayed at home and got drunk alone, rations or no rations.
So London finally pranced down to the club herself. Bored and hungry. Lonely. Pauly brought her in and made her a sandwich. Let her hang out behind the bar once the night crowd arrived. Let her hound him with questions about discs and music and drinks. Then stuffed her pockets with ration tickets and took her home. He was gruff, but she could see that soft look in his eye that told her he cared. He would always slap playfully at her hair and say, “You’re something else kid. You know that?”
She didn’t bother telling her mom he was dead.
If it weren’t for Pauly, she wouldn’t play guitar or have an outlet for all the crap she was going through besides bloodletting. If it weren’t for Pauly, she wouldn’t have written that song. In an ironic way, it was all his doing. He loved her when no one else did. Kept her alive. Watched out for her. He taught her most everything she knew. About music. About life. In the end, she’d managed to bite the hand that fed her.
Pauly was gone.
And it was her fault.
London sniffled and wiped her eyes on her sweater. She looked at Rye who was lying quietly on the floor.
“Why Pauly?” he asked when he saw her watching him. “He wasn’t Otherborn. He didn’t even know about the dreams.”
“Yeah,” London sighed. “He did.”
“What? You told him?”
“No, of course not. He didn’t know about the dreams, per se, but he knew something was up. I played the song for him. The day we found Degan. I just didn’t want to tell you.”
“Why not?” Rye asked.
“Because he was upset. He kept saying it was dangerous and he wasn’t going to let us play it. He didn’t want me to do it again. To write something New. So you see, he knew. And they killed him for it.”
“Is that enough of a reason for murder?”
“I guess so,” London answered. “He would have helped us once he realized what was going on. That someone was after us. They had to know that.”
Rye sighed, and they fell silent again for a while. Finally, London said what she felt he was waiting to hear.
“You can go,” she told him.
“No. I can’t.”
Sh
e saw his eyes dance to where they both knew the bandage was hidden under her sleeve. “It’s okay, Rye. I won’t do it. Pauly wouldn’t want me to remember him like that.”
Rye didn’t answer.
“Do you believe me?” she asked.
“Yeah. I believe you,” he said with a sigh. “But I still can’t leave.”
“Why not?”
Rye moved to the bed and put a tentative hand on her knee. “Lots of reasons.”
“Like?”
“Like I don’t want to be alone either. I lost someone, too. And I’m scared. I’m really scared now, London. Pauly seemed bigger than life, you know? Invincible. Now he’s gone. And…” He didn’t finish.
“And what?”
“And I care about you. I can’t stand seeing you like this, but I can’t stand the thought of leaving you right now. I’m…I’m all messed up. I can’t think straight yet I can’t stop thinking.”
“Yeah well, murder does that to you,” she said sarcastically.
“Not about the murders, London. About you. I can’t stop thinking about you.”
London blinked her dark, wet lashes, leaving salty, tear-damp marks beneath each eye. She wasn’t prepared for this.
Rye leaned in and ran a finger along her cheek. She shivered at the touch, but she didn’t pull away. Her mind and her nose were stopped up with grief, and she felt like she had cotton between her ears. This wasn’t the right time or place. Not the right way. But she couldn’t think to avoid what she knew was coming. And she didn’t want to. She’d waited a long time to feel him touch her like this. She’d lost every man in her life. First her dad, then Pauly. Karma owed her Rye.
Rye carefully placed his lips to hers, moving slowly, cautiously. The flesh of his mouth was a soft, easy comfort, like balm for her raw heart. London melted against the feel and smell of him, detergent and smoke and boy, her pain slipping into the background as her desire took over.
It wasn’t her first kiss, but it was the first one that mattered.
SEVEN
Missing
“Get over here now.”
London could hear Kim’s voice through the phone Rye called him on. They’d fallen asleep together on her bed after a long night kissing and whispering in the dark, remembering the best of Pauly and their times at Dogma. In the morning, they dressed in silence and ducked out of the apartment. She knew her mom made it home because of the half-empty bottle on the kitchen counter as they left.
London’s eyes were still puffy from the day before, but her appetite was returning slowly. She chewed absently on a piece of toast as they rushed out the door of their building and onto the pockmarked sidewalk. She held Rye’s other hand as they walked. They’d intended to spend the day at Old Green, enjoying what little patch of nature the city could afford, to keep her mind off the funeral she would never witness for the man who should have been her father. But it sounded like Kim had other plans.
“Where are you? Zen’s?”
“The Rise. It’s Avery. She’s missing.”
Rye hung up the phone and stared at London. She’d overheard every word. There was no time to comment and no time to mourn. London tucked her grief away in a pocket of her heart, among the other disappointments too painful to look at—her father’s disappearance, her mother’s surrender. They broke into a run, sprinting the rest of the way, being sure to avoid Dogma’s yellow tape and memories like the plague, until the sun reflecting off the silvery glass exterior of the Rise filled their view and burned their eyes, and their lungs felt like deflated balloons in their chests. No one was waiting outside this time.
Thirteen stories up, they made their way down Avery’s hall just as a police officer was leaving the condo. He tipped his hat at them casually and brushed past, as if he’d been enjoying a Sunday stroll around Capital City’s only affluent complex. London took it as a sign that things couldn’t be that bad. Surely Avery had only gone out for some breakfast. Surely they were not about to walk in on another crime scene. Surely she had not lost someone else.
“Look at that.” Rye pointed up.
A security camera was dangling limply in the hall corner from a nearly severed cord, inoperable.
London held her breath as they knocked on the door.
Surprisingly, Kim answered. “There you two are.”
London moved into the marbled foyer, looking around the pale living room with white chenille sofas, a potted Ficus, and silk rug. She didn’t see Avery’s parents.
“What’s going on?” she asked Kim.
“This is how we found it when we got here. The front door was wide open, and there was no one home. No signs of struggle or forced entry. No explanation of what happened. We called the police right away.”
“Maybe they just went out for breakfast, Kim. I think you’re being a little paranoid,” London said.
“And left their front door open? And Avery’s dog, Maltese, was shut up in the bathroom with no food or water. You really think Avery or her mom would do that? They treat that dog like it’s a baby.”
Kim had a point. Maybe calling the cops was the right idea, not that they’d do a thing about it. They’d be lucky if the report even got filed.
“I saw the camera as we came in,” Rye told him.
Kim nodded. “It’s not the only one like that. And check this. It’s Avery’s room.”
Kim led them back toward the carpeted bedroom. The violet and white bedspread was neatly tucked. Avery’s collection of eyelet pillows arranged, as always, like she’d never slept there. Gossamer curtains hung in a row across the wall of windows, suffusing the light to a soft glow. Next to the bed, Avery’s mahogany shelf sat bare.
“That’s where she kept them, remember?” Kim pointed.
“Her notebooks,” Rye whispered.
“Yep. All gone,” Kim confirmed. “Even her dad’s collection of pre-Crisis books is gone. We checked.”
Zen was hunched on Avery’s desk, looking like a lost puppy. London put an arm around him. He had it bad for Avery. This would be tearing him apart inside.
“Is there a note?” Rye asked. “Avery would try to find a way to tell us what was going on if this was her choice. Even if it wasn’t, she would try to message us somehow.”
Kim shook his head. “We haven’t found anything.”
“I just don’t get it,” Zen mumbled. “How could she just leave? Where would she go?”
London faced the guys. “Listen, we don’t have to think the worst. Okay? They murdered Degan and they murdered Pauly,” her voice cracked over his name, “but Avery isn’t lying here dead. She’s just missing. Maybe Avery ran away and her parents are out looking for her. Maybe she told them what was happening and they fled together. She could be anywhere.”
“What about the cameras and the books?” Rye asked.
“Avery could have done that. If she was scared and wanted to run and didn’t want anyone to follow her. I think my comment about the library thing really freaked her out the other day. Maybe she was afraid someone did see her,” London suggested. “And it would be just like Avery to take those damned books with her. If nothing else, they’d be good to scrap. She could get all kinds of food and stuff with those.”
“That’s a lot to carry,” Rye argued. “She might have been scared, London, but why would Avery leave? She’s safer here than anywhere.” Rye had his arms folded. “And why not tell us?”
“Like she told us about her research? Come on, she panicked. Do you feel safe here? Anywhere? Avery isn’t like you or me. She’s…” London looked for the right word to use.
“Fragile,” Zen supplied.
“Yeah, she’s fragile. Thank you, Zen. You know this had her freaked more than anyone. And then you went spouting that shit about her being next,” London pointed out to Rye.
“Not to her!”
“Maybe not, but she’s not an idiot. She can count and she can think. First Degan. Then Pauly. They’re picking us off from the outside in. She would know that leav
es her wide open to be next.” London couldn’t allow herself to believe that anything worse happened to Avery than she ran of her own accord. She needed to believe her friend was still alive and well somewhere. She couldn’t face more grief. That drove her argument. She was convincing herself as much as she was the guys.
“She was reading all those books, too,” Kim added. “She believed her drawings were a language. Maybe she believed they were telling her to run away somehow.” His white, ripped t-shirt was layered over another, darker one and he fiddled with one of the holes as he spoke.
“Maybe,” London agreed.
Zen looked up. “She was asking a lot of questions about that band of Outroaders you saw the other day in the tunnels and told us about. Remember? She kept asking me stuff like what they ate and where did I think they went when they left the city. I told her I just knew they were out there somewhere, around the Houselands. I’d heard stories, and, on occasion, you see ‘em when they come in for supplies.”
“See?” London said. “She probably got some hair-brained idea about running away with the Outroaders because Rye told her she was gonna get killed next.”
“I did not tell her that!” Rye argued.
London didn’t care. She was just trying to talk herself and everyone else out of believing Avery was dead. She couldn’t face that possibility. Not now. Not after Pauly.
“So what do we do?” Kim asked after a few moments of silence.
“We go get her,” Zen suddenly straightened. His voice was stronger than it was before, his words backed by conviction.
“Now hold up,” London hesitated. “We don’t know where she is, and running around in the Houselands, where there are no witnesses to call in your mangled body, is not exactly the best idea.”
But Rye was on Zen’s side. “No, Zen’s right. If you really think she ran, we should go look for her. She can’t have gotten far.”
London’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t believe her ears. “Rye! Have you lost your mind? We don’t know what’s out there—who’s out there.”
