by Ellery Kane
I could still hear my voice, quivering with anger. “I don’t get it, Quin. You hated him. Now you’re so desperate to have him in your life, you don’t even see what’s right in front of you. Have you completely forgotten what he did?” Quin assured me the bruise was an accident, an unfortunate bump against the door. With my best offense proven futile, I swallowed my doubt. But now, it was pushing its way up, demanding to be heard.
“I don’t see how I can help you,” I said.
“I just wanted to ask if you would consider not turning Quin against me right now. I need him on my side.” In a strong voice, he added, “I’m innocent.”
“But you said you don’t remember.”
With an intentional glance toward the camera, George McAllister replied, “I can’t say any more right now, but I promise you, Alexandra, I did not do this.”
“You have no idea how much I hope that’s true.” I stood up, determined to leave, to flee my confusion. I felt overwhelmed, uncertain what to believe.
I started to click the receiver back in its place, but the indignation stirring inside me willed me to reconsider. “Because if it’s not, you’re going to lose Quin forever, no matter what I say or do.”
My hands were shaking as I opened the door. I took a slow, deep breath, carefully rearranging myself. Quin’s expectant eyes were awaiting me in the hallway.
Feeling a sudden surge of guilt, I glanced over my shoulder to say good-bye, to say something, but I only saw the back of George McAllister, as he was led away. His shoulders were slumped, his hands pinned awkwardly behind him, already secured in cuffs.
With barely a word to Quin, I rushed back down the sterile corridor, eager to put my encounter with his father behind me.
“Hey, Lex, wait up.” I heard the rapid strike of Quin’s footsteps. “What happened in there?”
“Nothing,” I lied.
He caught up to me. “You know you’re not a very good liar.”
Withholding my reply, I contained the words turning in my mind. They were the regrettable kind—not like your father.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BARBARIC
QUIN AT MY HEELS and my father a step behind him, I zipped through the waiting room and straight-armed the door. It swung hard and wide, surprising the restless horde of reporters. En masse, they awakened—stunned, but not silenced.
“Quin!
“Quin?”
“Are you here to support your father?”
“Did he kill Shelly?” Their questions, like the fingers of a spoiled child—grimy, demanding, insistent—kept reaching for him again and again, even as he ignored them.
“Quin, were you afraid of him?”
I kept moving through the parking lot, past our car, until the sharpness of their voices dulled to a collective hum. My father stopped me from behind with a hand to my shoulder. Across the street, in the homeless encampment, a group of a different sort gathered. At their center was a makeshift ring—pieces of chain link fence, scrap metal, tires, odds and ends—assembled in a haphazard circle.
“What’s going on?” I asked. Inside the ring was a teenage boy. I could barely see his face—determined and bloodied—above the onlookers. Jumping, he raised his fist in triumph, as the crowd cheered him, transfixed. His arms were thin, but well muscled.
“Fights,” Quin answered. “Drug fights.” My quizzical expression mirrored my father’s. “My dad told me about it a while ago,” he explained. “They pit EAM users against each other and take bets. Whoever’s left standing is the winner.”
My father shook his head. “That sounds barbaric.”
I pointed back at the jail, a stone’s throw away. “Don’t the police stop them?” The line of officers was unmoving. They stared ahead blankly, acting completely unaware.
“They’re afraid to. They’re totally outnumbered.” Quin said. “Same with the media. They won’t go near it.” He gestured to the raucous crowd. It was expanding, spilling out of the encampment onto the street. A young girl—no more than five—scampered through the tangle of bodies, collecting money. “A lot of them are on Emovere, Agitor, or both.”
“Is that—?” Squinting at the ring, my father crossed the street, as if pulled by an invisible thread. I followed him with my eyes.
“Oh … my … God.” I reached for Quin’s arm. “Max.”
At center stage, Max faced the spry teenager. Now that I was closer, I could see he was just a boy, probably thirteen or fourteen. Next to him, Max seemed weathered, old. Both their hands were wrapped with white cloth. They matched each other’s stride, pacing right, then left, fists raised and ready.
“Get’em, J.D.!” The woman’s battle cry unleashed a fury from the young fighter. He plowed head first toward Max, his spindly legs turning as fast as a spider’s. Max hit the ground hard but bounced back up to his feet, grinning. As an oblivious J.D. waved to the crowd, celebrating, Max pushed him from behind, sending him tumbling through a stack of old tires into a barbed wire fence.
“Boo!” The crowd disapproved of Max’s success. When J.D. turned back toward his supporters, his face was scratched, a tear of blood trickling from eyebrow to chin.
“He’s going to hurt that kid. We have to stop him,” my father said, trying to push his way toward the ring.
Quin and I held him back. “Dad, there’s nothing we can do. If you go in there right now, these people will …” I looked around me, afraid to say the words out loud. Kill. They will kill you.
Undeterred by his injury, J.D. flailed his fists at Max in a wild fury, landing a few punches in his frantic onslaught. I watched in disbelief as Max absorbed the blows without a grimace. Instead, he snickered at his young opponent.
“C’mon, Son! C’mon!” The woman clung to the edge of the ring, still imploring J.D. On cue, each time she shouted to him, he attacked with inexhaustible fervor.
“Emovere?” I mouthed to Quin, as J.D. fired off at least fifty punches in rapid succession.
He shook his head. “Agitor. Watch his hands.” Quin was right. J.D.’s hands never stopped moving. Between those rapid-fire flurries, his fingers trembled by his sides. His teeth were clenched, probably grinding. When it was first released, Agitor was marketed as a drug for prolonged excitement. Constant agitation was more like it.
“And Max?”
Quin watched Max intently. “I can’t tell. Maybe nothing.” His voice was hopeful. But I wasn’t. Max’s eyes were different—he was there but not there.
As J.D. revved up for one more round, Max lunged forward and leveled him with one punch. He spiraled slowly on his way to the dirt, like water circling a drain. The crowd was silent as a victorious Max did a lap around the ring, laughing to himself, before collecting his winnings at the exit. Furious, J.D.’s mother pushed her way past and helped her son to his feet. He wobbled out, his hands still shaking.
“Max!” My father shouted before I could stop him. He reached out to Max, calling to him again as he passed, but Max kept walking. Heads swiveled in our direction. Suspicious stares followed. Then J.D.’s mother rushed up behind Max.
“Cheater.” She spit the word like a nail. “You’re not fifteen. And you’re not on Emovere. Those were the rules.”
Max giggled, shoving a wad of money in his pocket. “Prove it.” Nonchalant, he spun away from her.
The woman reached in the bag slung over her shoulder and withdrew a gun. “Prove it to him, J.D..” She put the weapon in her son’s quivering hands.
“Gimme the money. Or else.” J.D. had the voice of a boy trying to sound like a man, but when he jabbed the gun into Max’s side, I believed him.
Apparently, Max didn’t. “Or else what?” he asked, mocking J.D.’s serious tone.
The moment my father and I locked eyes, horrified, Quin seized J.D. by the wrist, easily disarming him. “What are you doing?” Quin demanded of Max. He gestured around him at the bloodthirsty onlookers. “This isn’t you.”
Max didn’t answer. He reared back and sucker
punched J.D. in the face. The young fighter fell hard to the ground. This time he stayed there, unmoving. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think,” Max sneered, as he brushed past Quin. “I don’t need your help.”
“Look out!” I yelled. A man in the crowd tried to grab Quin from behind, but Quin was too fast, skirting away. He drove his elbow into the man’s stomach, leaving him doubled over, gasping for air.
Turning to face the crowd, Quin backed away cautiously. Next to me, my father was frozen, a statue of shock. I pulled him by the hand, and we started running. I could hear Quin breathing right behind us. I didn’t look back until we crossed into the jail’s parking lot. The mob had dispersed. The ring was empty. Max was gone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CALCULUS
WE RODE HOME IN SILENCE, the quiet broken only by my father’s interrogation. He lobbed his questions into the void.
“Are you okay?”
“How was your father?”
“What’s going on with Max?”
Quin and I deflected, shrugging and nodding our answers, until he gave up. Once we were inside, my father made one last try. “You two sure are quiet. I guess my interview skills are getting rusty.”
Quin smiled a little, clipping Artos’ leash into place. “No offense, Mr. Knightley, but I just want to be alone for a while.” Artos began pulling him toward the open door, his nose eager, twitching at the smell of fresh air.
“Do you want me to come with you?” I asked Quin, already guessing the answer.
He shook his head. “I need to clear my head.”
“Okay,” I agreed, as Quin followed Artos’ lead out the door. I was simultaneously disappointed and relieved. I wasn’t sure what to tell Quin about my visit with his father and even less certain about our encounter with Max. But without him, my thoughts were inescapable.
With Quin gone, my father seized the opportunity to resume his cross-examination. “Did you know Max was doing that?”
“Of course not.” Whatever that was. “Maybe we’ve got the wrong idea.”
My father frowned at me. “Wrong idea?”
“I just can’t imagine Max using EAMs or fighting like that. He’s always been so good at …”
“Hiding his feelings?” my father suggested. It made my stomach ache, but I knew my father was right.
“So … how do you think it went between Quin and his father?” He changed the subject, pretending to tidy the kitchen, as he waited for my reply.
I took an exasperated breath. “Dad, you already asked Quin five times. He said it was fine.” Fine—literally, that was Quin’s exact word. Though I wouldn’t dare admit it, I understood my father’s frustration. “He hasn’t told me anything else.”
My father nodded, but his disappointment was obvious. Unlike my mother’s emotions, his were easily deciphered, telegraphed across his face with wrinkles and furrows.
“I didn’t mean to pry. I’m just worried about you … and Quin. He’s pretty hard to read.”
“You’re not prying … you’re just being a dad.” My father’s overprotectiveness was somehow both annoying and comforting.
He smiled gratefully at me. “A nosy dad?” he joked.
I chuckled. “If you must know, Quin’s father asked to talk to me.”
My father’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “Why?”
I shrugged. “He seems to think I have some kind of influence over Quin. I think he wanted to convince me that he was innocent, but …”
“But?”
“He said he doesn’t remember what happened, Dad. How can he be so sure he’s innocent, if he doesn’t even remember?”
“Hmm … interesting.” He focused his attention on the dishes. I watched as he arranged them one by one in the cabinet. When he finished, he turned to me.
“If that’s true, and he really doesn’t remember, then he’s going to need an awfully good attorney. Maybe even a Van Sant.” He winked at me.
Later that evening, I headed for the garage alone. Since my father and I still couldn’t part with my mother’s things, the lab was much as she’d left it. I sat on my favorite stool and stared absent-mindedly at the computer tablet in front of me, marked with a red Stanford logo. Inside were three of my course books: Introduction to Psychology, The Handbook of Classic Literature, and Calculus. Stanford was one of a few universities given a government subsidy to reopen for free online classes. In his State of the Union address, his first in several years, the president emphasized the decision as a “much-needed push” toward normalcy.
Preoccupied, I flipped through the first two chapters of Calculus, pausing to reread the first sentence of the introduction. It was the best part of the book, the part that made limits and derivatives sound revelatory: “Calculus is the mathematical study of change.” I sighed. If only it was as simple as inserting George McAllister into a differential equation.
As I pretended to study, my eyes settled on the row of familiarly marked, overstuffed boxes on the top shelf—Dishes, of course. Their squat bodies, filled with tangible data, seemed to beckon to me. Balancing on a stool, I lugged the first box down and over to the table, leaving a storm cloud of dust in my wake.
The box contained all of my mother’s Crim-X files. Eager, I flipped through them until I found George McAllister’s file. Unlike the other files, which were pristine and rigid, his was well worn at the edges, a coffee ring on its cover. Quin had examined it many times. I imagined my mother had as well. But I had never read the file myself.
Opening it now, I realized I was afraid. It was all there in black type, undeniable, unavoidable: George McAllister, the murderer, Quin’s flesh and blood. A progression of black-and-white photos lined the inside cover—George McAllister’s mug shots, beginning with his first at age eighteen. In that photo, his face was taut like a wire, rigged for explosion. With each successive shot, he grew older, but his expression was as unchanging as a birthmark. But now, time had drained the hardness from his face, softening his eyes, relaxing his jaw. Even so, I shuddered, as I imagined his first arrest. It foreshadowed everything.
On 3/13/20, Officer Simon responded to reports of a domestic disturbance at the Park Valley Movie Theater. At the scene, Officer Simon located the minor victim, Ms. Ginny Hansen, age 16. Officer Simon noted injuries to Ms. Hansen, including swelling, severe bruising around her right eye, and fingertip bruising on her arm, consistent with a grab. Ms. Hansen reported to police that she and the suspect, George McAllister, age 18, attended a movie earlier that evening. During the movie, Mr. McAllister became angry and accused Ms. Hansen of looking at another movie patron. The couple left the theater, where Ms. Hansen alleged she was grabbed and struck in the face repeatedly by the suspect. According to Ms. Hansen, this is the first incident of physical violence perpetrated against her by the suspect.
I paged to the third tab, Psychological Evaluations. The reports were familiar to me. I had read them in The Book of Quin. Uncertain as to what I was looking for, I began scanning my mother’s words again. Surely, there would be something here to direct me—signs of innocence, evidence of guilt. Though he was assigned to the Crim-X research trials, my mother cautioned against George McAllister’s release from prison because of his long history of violence. “Repeat offender,” she had typed in bold. “High risk for violence in volatile romantic relationships.” Definitely evidence of guilt.
Even in his own words, Quin’s father condemned himself. When my mother asked him to explain why he stabbed his wife, he said, “I wish I could tell you. I have these rages, where everything goes to black. I’m sure Angie said something to push my buttons—she was real good at that. She’d wind me up like a top, and I’d just keep going and going. But honestly, Doc, I just don’t remember.” Yeah right, I whispered to myself, his words a disturbing echo from the morning.
As I closed the file, disappointed, a note fluttered to the floor. I picked it up and held it close to my face, squinting to read it. It was in my mother’s handwriting, b
arely legible and cryptic, dated March 2039, probably around the time my mother paid her last secret visit to George McAllister: Improved insight/remorse. Asked about sons, parole planning, Prophecy.
“Prophecy.” I said the word aloud in the empty room, as the door burst open.
“Max!”
“Lex.” Max sounded just as surprised to see me. His face was swollen, his lip busted.
“Were you expecting someone else? I do live here. Remember?” I pocketed my mother’s note, as I spoke. “Then again, you did get hit in the head pretty hard today.”
His hand went to the dark bruise on his temple, but he didn’t laugh at my half-teasing. “I just thought—I didn’t think anyone else would be here. I was going to use the computer.” He gestured toward my mother’s laptop.
“Oh.” The detached look in Max’s eyes silenced all my questions. I saw he didn’t want to explain. The growing distance between us was becoming more and more impassable.
“Sorry about earlier. All of it,” he offered. “I was way out of line.”
I nodded. “You should tell that to Quin.”
“You’re right,” Max replied softly. “How is he?”
I shrugged. “Well, you know Quin. He’s fine, to use his favorite word.”
“To be expected,” Max agreed. He looked down, shuffling his feet with nothing left to say. “I guess I’ll leave you alone then.”
He turned the doorknob slowly, glancing back over his shoulder with hesitation. I wanted to stop him, to ask him what was wrong, why he was hitting people for money. I wanted to tell him I wasn’t fine, but I didn’t. I just watched him go.
CHAPTER NINE
THE BEST
WHEN I RETURNED TO THE HOUSE, Quin was sitting on the sofa engrossed in conversation with my father. His forehead was creased with worry.
“He can’t afford that,” Quin told my father, shaking his head. “He’ll be stuck with some lousy public defender.”
I sat next to Quin, interrupting their conversation. “I think we should go see Edison’s dad.”
