Leon stood outside of the Trinidad Gym, reluctant to hop the fence. Men went in and out of the front doors, and Leon had to wait for the coast to clear. He had messed up big time, really bad, and there was no reversing it. He didn’t want to face Santino and the guys, but he had no place to go but back to them.
A couple of hours prior, he had snuck out of the shed in the back. At the time he’d had good reasons for leaving. He couldn’t go back to his parents’ house because then they might be exposed. But he did have two older brothers who might understand. He had gone to the second family home, where his brothers and sister lived. He wanted to talk to Derrick, the oldest, alone and explain what had happened to him, then have Derrick tell their parents and friends not to worry too much about Leon’s whereabouts. That was it—Leon’s plan had been simply to confide in his brother to get his message to the right people.
But it had gone terribly wrong. Derrick hadn’t been home, and Stewart, the middle brother, had opened the door. Stewart was a prankster who played around too much. The kind of guy who still gave other guys knuckle sandwiches and farted when someone pulled his finger. Stewart had gone to pull Leon into a bear hug when he’d seen him. Leon had seen it happening before it actually happened. He hadn’t meant to shove his brother off, but he couldn’t touch him…and yet he had. Leon had run from the house in a panic, and then turned to go back and try to fix whatever he had messed up. It was too late, though. Stewart had screamed for help, and his buddies who had been over to watch a game came to the rescue, only to be contaminated by the toxins in Stewart’s hands.
It was too much for Leon, seeing all those bodies gasping for air, heaving in and out and changing different colors. He had really run then, as fast as he could. He’d felt a burning sensation in his eyes and thought it was the wind.
Now, back at the gym, he tried to figure out his story so he could tell Santino. The first thing he thought about was why he hadn’t written a note and left it on the stoop for his family to see. He hadn’t been thinking clearly ever since accepting that he was a Phantom. His mind kept going back and forth: human or Phantom. Which brain should he listen to?
Leon crossed the street and scaled a fence. He went around a corner and saw the bunker some yards away. His heart skipped a beat. He approached it and turned the doorknob, then walked into the tiny space.
Santino looked up. “Where have you been since yesterday?” He had woken up to only two other people, Leon not included.
Kosner, VIN, and Santino had all been uptight since they’d found Leon missing. They didn’t know if he had changed his mind and gone to tell the cops or if he had gone rogue and left the city for good.
“Santino, can I talk to you real quick?” asked Leon.
“Sure, go ahead and explain.”
“No, I mean outside.”
“No outside until it’s fully dark. You shouldn’t be going out when there are so many people around and it’s light out,” Santino said.
“I know, but this is important.”
“Just tell us where you’ve been and what you did,” yelled VIN, then tried to calm his voice a bit. “No one is going to be mad.”
Leon didn’t believe him one bit. They were all mad, and would be even more so when they found out about what he had done. For all Leon knew, Stewart and his friends could be running around eating people and creating more Phantoms. The glass was looking pretty empty at this point.
“Did you do what I think you did?” asked Santino. He hoped and prayed Leon had just been out taking a walk, but he wasn’t that naïve.
Leon gulped big and shook his head. “I didn’t mean to. For God’s sake, I turned my brother into this monster that I am!” Leon shook and whimpered. His eyes stung, and his head started to hurt.
“What happened?” asked Kosner.
Leon tried to explain the best that he could. “I went to tell one of my brothers so he could deliver the message to my family that I’m not dead and not in prison.”
Santino was livid. He didn’t even want to hear Leon’s weak excuse. He had specifically said no Phantom was to touch a human being unless he planned on eating or killing them. What had Leon not understood about this one simple rule?
“The wrong brother was at the house. I wanted to tell my older brother, the more serious one, but I got Stewart,” Leon went on. “Stewart grabbed me, and I reacted. It wasn’t my fault.” Leon saw how the others looked at him with contempt.
“Then what happened, Leon?” asked VIN.
“Stewart had his friends over, and he turned them into Phantoms when they came to help him out. Before I knew it, they had all touched Stewart as he lay on the ground gasping for air.”
“So all we have to do is go back to your brother’s house and bring them here,” Kosner said. “All hope isn’t lost, Leon. Perk up.”
“You don’t understand. I saw my brother get up.”
“You left them there didn’t you, Leon?” asked Santino in anger. How irresponsible could Leon be? He had left newborn Phantoms to fend for themselves. Santino hadn’t done that to Leon, so why would Leon do it to them?
“I didn’t have a choice. There were too many of them, and I didn’t know what to do!” Leon shouted.
“Keep your voice down,” Kosner said.
“I’m sorry, alright?”
“Sorry?” asked VIN. “Sorry isn’t the word. You just orphaned how many newborn Phantoms? And now Alexandria will be their playground.”
“Not if we get to them first,” Santino interrupted. “We round them all up and find a bigger place to lay low for a while.”
“How many of them do you think were at your brother’s house?” Kosner asked Leon.
“There were four other guys watching football in the living room when Stewart opened the door,” Leon responded. “But I’m not sure if there were others in other rooms.”
“You mean the Quarries and the Buckhorns?” asked VIN. “Man, I had money riding on that game!”
Santino said, “VIN, try to stay focused.” He needed to find all of his underlings quickly, before they touched anyone else—and before the police got a hold of them. “How far away is your brother’s house?”
“It’s on the south side of Alexandria,” said Leon.
“We have to wait until nighttime to go looking for them,” Santino said.
“But they could be out eating people or attacking the city,” Kosner pointed out.
Santino knew that too, but still his hands were tied. He could only look out for his own, and at the moment, the Phantoms that were on the south side of Alexandria would have to fend for themselves. He hoped that his family was inside with the doors closed and locked. Until he knew the damage, he couldn’t jump the gun and react without thinking.
“What are we going to do with this guy?” asked VIN. “I personally don’t trust him, and I blame him one hundred percent for whatever is going to happen while we sit around!”
Kosner agreed.
Santino was angry at Leon but couldn’t be too mad because he had done the same thing when he’d turned Kosner and VIN by mistake. On the other hand, if Leon had just done as Santino had said then there wouldn’t be a mess to clean up.
Santino didn’t have an answer for the guys. They wanted results; they wanted to see Leon punished. But who was going to discipline him? Santino? He didn’t have a belt to beat Leon with, a set of rules to go by, or anything else that could be used for punishment. The Phantoms were created out of chaos; that was their punishment, to live in pandemonium. They were no longer humans, so the rules didn’t apply to them.
Santino hunched his shoulders. “Do whatever you want with him. We make our own justice now.” He sat back and kept his hands clean.
VIN cracked his knuckles and approached Leon. No rules were his kind of party.
25.
Night at
the Flora Plume Club