I shrugged. “He was late with his payment.”
“So you go in there and take some stuff, do some minor damage, embarrass him, scare him a little. Something to remind him to take you seriously. You don’t inhibit his ability to do business.”
“That was the plan! It was Joss and Dylan who came in and fucked everything up.”
“The same Dylan that screwed up your bank job and broke your crew? The same Joss you let get evidence of your Talent, who fucked up that adorable little blackmail thing you had going, got in the way of your recent bookstore robbery, and destroyed your last place of business? How many times are you going to let them take what’s yours, Marco? How much longer are you going to let those kids stand between you and what you say you want? Because let me tell you something: I’m already sick of this little shit-hole town of yours. That NIAC-affiliated idiot at the high school has provided me with about all the intel he’s gonna, and I’m sick of letting him grab my ass just to make sure he stays off yours.”
Tony reached out and picked up a bright red curl of hair that was lying on her chest. “Aw, poor Viv. If you want, I can—”
Tony was becoming a real moron lately, and, with a nerve strike to his arm and a roundhouse kick, Vivian put him on the ground.
“The only reason I didn’t put you over the rail just now, D’Attaviano, is because I just used a lot of Syndicate money and influence to get your ass out of jail. I don’t want to have to explain why I did that and then wasted you, when I could have just had you offed in custody. But I can talk my way out of a lot, so don’t try my patience again.” She turned back to me. “And that goes for you, too. My patience is at an end. If those kids are going to be a problem, get rid of them. Let’s get you in with the Syndicate and me away from that slobbering Dobbs. And back to the city where I can get a decent fucking manicure, okay?” She gave Tony, who was still lying on the concrete, a swift kick in the ribs with the pointed toe of her boot. “I just broke a nail you little shit.”
“All right, look. I’ve got a plan for some serious payback that will crush Joss—trust me, she’s the one causing the problem—and get both of them out of the picture. But to do it, I’m gonna need to put the hurt on another paying customer.”
“You don’t have a whole lot of paying customers to begin with, Finelli. You keep that in mind. But if you’re talking about putting that Army-Navy store out of business, I say go for it. That guy’s not right. He gives me the creeps.”
“That whole family’s full of freaks. And I’m gonna take them down.”
* * *
Joss
“Okay, that was a good one. Don’t be afraid to put some power behind that. Really hit me.”
“I don’t want to hit you,” Maddy whined.
“You’re not going to hurt me.” I was getting tired of repeating that. It had been a day of assessing Talents and trying to show them a few basic fighting skills and self-defense. Mostly I was just trying to get them used to the idea of hitting and being hit. These kids were so not used to violence in any way. Some of the girls had burst into tears, and I’d hardly even touched them.
It was hard. I understood that having to deal, really deal, with someone hitting you and having to defend yourself was shocking and upsetting. But damn I was tired. “You can’t let your brother fight all your battles for you,” I told her as we circled each other. “You totally jumped that NIAC ape at Kat’s party. I know you’ve got it in you. Come on.”
“Yeah you did, Maddy. That was awesome,” Dylan encouraged. We were in one of the tunnel intersections in the Warren, where there was a little more space for sparring. Dylan and Matt were lounging against the wall, a safe distance away, watching.
“Try to find an opening where you could use your knee or your foot. As a girl you’ve got a lot of power in your lower body. You can use that, if you can keep your balance.” I’d already given her several openings, times when I’d even closed her in near the wall so she’d have that to fall back on. But she wasn’t seeing it, or she wasn’t following through.
Something shrilled, echoing through the stillness of the tunnels. I turned to look for the sound, and that’s when Maddy found her power and clipped me in the jaw. No way that was going to put me down or anything, but it did send me back a step, and Dylan could tell. As Matt answered his phone, Dylan was all over me in a heartbeat.
“Okay, that’s enough of that. Let me see.”
“Oh my God, Joss, I’m so sorry! Did I really hurt you?”
“No, of course not,” I was trying to say to Maddy, whom I couldn’t even see. I could barely talk the way Dylan was twisting my neck around trying to get a good look in the lousy light we had in the tunnel.
“She’s fine,” he told Maddy. “You’re going to have to really work out before you can hope to put a dent in this hard head. But let’s cool it for today, okay? I think you’ve both had enough.”
“Fine by me,” Maddy agreed.
“Sorry about that,” Matt said, putting his phone away. “That was Mom. She’s held up so she says you’re cooking dinner.”
“What? No way. It’s so not my turn,” Maddy told him. I hadn’t brought out the boxing gloves today. I figured these guys needed to know what bare-handed fighting felt like. Maddy, of course, had worn the leather cycling gloves she always wore, one of which she was pulling off with her teeth. She reached out her bare hand toward her brother, who jumped away like she was threatening him with electric shock. “Come on, give me your hand.”
“Cut that out.”
“You won’t let me get your thoughts because you know you’re lying.”
“Maybe I’ve just been thinking how incredibly lame and girly you are, how you couldn’t fight your way out of a paper bag, and don’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“Nice, Matt,” Dylan said. “The bickering twin thing is really adorable and stuff, but how about you guys take it on home now.” He was looking at me with that concerned, thinking about lecturing me look.
“Come on, jerk. Drive me home. Let’s leave the lovebirds alone for a while.”
Dylan waited until we heard them climbing back up the ladder before he spoke again. “You are so done for the day.”
“Rob’s coming next. He should be here in like,” I checked the time, “Twenty minutes or so.”
“So I’ll call him and tell him to forget it.”
“No, you can’t do that. I really need to work with him on this information system phone tree whatever thing.”
“You’ve got a headache.”
As good as it felt to have him start massaging my temples, I was thinking that I was going to have to figure out how he always knew, find that tell and kill it.
“I’m fine.”
“Come on, let’s at least go lie down while we wait.” He took my hand and started to tug me down the tunnel.
I didn’t move. As nice as that sounded, I really didn’t want to go into that room with Dylan. I felt bad about holding back, but I just wasn’t sure how to deal.
“What?”
“Um, yeah,” I said, breaking free of him and moving down the tunnel, away from him. “That’s a good idea. I’ll go lie down, have a few minutes of quiet time. Maybe you could go up to the surface and look out for Rob. He hasn’t been here before, and he’s going to need one of us to show him the entrance.”
I had mixed feelings about revealing this location to more people, but we needed a place to meet and they couldn’t use the Warren to hide out from NIAC if they didn’t know about it. Right now I was just glad to have something to ask Dylan to do for me.
“Well, yeah, okay. I can go meet him up top.” Dylan started to follow me.
“Probably you should go up now. In case he’s early.”
“Um…yeah, okay.” He hesitated. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a headache, like you said. I’ll go close my eyes for a few minutes and it’ll be a lot better. Really.”
He did that stroke
my cheek thing and gave me a half smile before setting off down the tunnel. He’d looked worried, but that was nothing new. It was interesting to realize that the guy with the easy smile, who always knew what to say, was as much a worrier as I was.
I let myself into the storage room. In addition to the end of the world/NIAC siege supplies that were stashed there, there were now my school books and a bag of my clothes. The cot that had been bare the last time Dylan had been here, now had my sleeping bag rolled out on it. I’d cracked open a case of MREs and a case of water, and there were some empties I needed to take up to the trash. Not big changes, probably, but stuff I thought Dylan would notice—the way he watched me like a hawk—and stuff I didn’t really want to explain.
I felt bad for not wanting to explain it. I felt like we were together now and I should be telling him stuff. Maybe part of me even wanted to tell him about it. I’d left home, which was big, but I’d also left my dad, which was bigger. Dylan probably wouldn’t get that. He hated Dad now, after what I’d told him yesterday. So I already felt bad for talking about that and guilty for how good it felt to tell him and have him care so much. It was just…
Ugh. Stop thinking!
I stretched out on the cot and closed my eyes, trying to relax and let the headache pull back. I tried to shove the stuff about Dad aside. Tried not to think about the day, about all the kids I’d talked to, how clueless they’d seemed, and how deferential they’d been toward me, like I was some kind of expert or authority figure or something. Dylan had been at work most of the day, so he hadn’t been around to run interference for me, to say the right things, ask questions the right way.
“Hey, Joss, I—”
I sat bolt upright so fast I almost turned the cot over.
“Sorry.” Dylan said, “I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
“It’s fine,” I said, getting up and moving toward him. Maybe I could herd him out of the room. “Is Rob here already?”
“No, I…” He stood between me and the door. “Are we okay?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“I mean, you’re not…afraid to be alone with me or anything, are you?”
Oh. Oh, damn. “No, it’s not you. I’m sorry. It’s just been a really long day. I’m not used to so much…interaction.”
“Oh.”
Well, this is awkward. “I think I feel better, though. Let’s go up and wait for Rob together.”
“Joss, how long have you been here?”
Crap. Truth, lies, or evasion? “Since, um, Friday?”
“You’re staying here?”
“It’s not a big—”
“What happened? Did he do something to you?”
Dylan looked ready to explode. I knew exactly what he was asking and it immediately got my back up. “Of course not! I wish you’d quit acting like my dad’s some of kind of monster. Just because he’s had problems in the past—”
“Uh-uh. After what you told me yesterday, you don’t get to keep acting like I don’t have any reason to worry about you.”
“Well, I’m so glad I confided in you. That’s awesome.”
“And I’m immune to the sarcasm, Marshall. You ran away from home. Tell me what happened.”
“It’s not a big—” He gave me a look, and I realized I was repeating myself. “I got grounded.”
“Grounded.”
“Yeah. I got grounded when I got home from spending the night at your house. Which I kinda get, I mean—I snuck out and stayed out all night. And maybe if that’s what it had been about, I could have handled it. I can’t deal with him right now. I don’t have time. NIAC’s coming for us, and right now these kids are lambs to the slaughter. Marco’s out of control—”
He took me by the arms. “That doesn’t have to be your problem,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, it does. I didn’t want to see it before, but it is. When I had my head down—the way Dad wanted me to—it was just me. I didn’t have to see the others, didn’t have to worry about them. But now they’re in my life and I can’t help it. I can’t hide under my bed while Marco destroys the town and NIAC comes to take everyone away. Not if I can help.”
I broke away from him and flopped down on the cot, drawing my knees up to my chin. “I call into this voicemail number we have once a day and let them know I’m okay. Because, yeah, my dad gets freaked out about my safety and it would be cruel to make him wonder. But I’ve been walking on eggshells around Dad for years, and lately it seems like he’s a lot stronger than I gave him credit for. He’s going to have to deal with the fact that I have responsibilities and obligations that aren’t always going to match up with what he thinks is best. I totally understand where he’s coming from, but I can’t keep living like that.”
Dylan had followed me to the cot while I was talking. “Okay,” he said softly, pulling me into his arms. “Okay.”
The way he said it made my heart hurt. I took a deep breath. Let it out. “And I didn’t run away from home. I’m just…taking a break from my home life.”
“So how long you think this break’s gonna last?”
“I’m not sure. He’s gotta be pretty pissed at me by now. I’ve been out of the house all weekend, haven’t told them where I’m staying, blew off my shifts at the shop, and then there was the thing with the car…”
“That’s why you suddenly wanted to go home yesterday. You stole your dad’s car? To take me on a picnic.”
“I borrowed the family car. I took it right back.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I sighed and leaned into him. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t know how. Or I wasn’t ready yet. And then we were in a fight, and—”
“I am so sorry. You were going through this and I should have been there for you, and instead I was—”
I unclasped my hold on my knees so I could elbow him. “Shut up. What are you, psychic now?” I turned into him. It was so easy to turn into him, so natural. Like I thought he was mine now. I wanted to cry. I wanted to pound on his chest and yell at him and tell him how much I’d needed him, how alone I’d felt. But I wouldn’t do that to him.
“I was all caught up in my own crap.” He pried my hand from his shirt and brought it to his cheek as he said it, his voice full of regret.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not. I just want you to know that I would’ve figured out all on my own, that the ache I was carrying was me missing you. And I would have come crawling back on my knees asking you to forgive me.”
Jesus, how do you come up with this stuff, let alone actually say it? I felt liquid, like I had melted and might slide out of his arms and spill onto the floor.
He tipped my chin up, brushed a kiss across my lips as my eyes closed. “You don’t ever have to be alone.”
Something took hold of my throat and my chest and squeezed. It hurt for him to say that, a reminder of how much it hurt to feel that way. It was like that was all I knew and I hadn’t even noticed it was there. It was only when it was gone that I recognized it as loneliness. As pain.
He understood that. Somehow Dylan, with his friends and girlfriends, with his charm and careless smiles, knew what it was to feel that. And that we could make it all go away so we’d never have to feel it again. How could Dad ask me to give this up? How could he think that I could?
The kiss spiraled down, deep and frantic as though we thought that we could blot out the whole world with it. Because we could. We lowered back onto the cot. Dylan’s body settled warm and heavy over mine. What else mattered but him, but us, the way we fit together? Nothing else but his mouth on mine, his hands on my skin, the solid weight of him.
The buzz of the phone in my pocket startled us, but didn’t break the kiss. I reached for it but Dylan grabbed my hand, his fingers twining with mine, raising it over my head. “Don’t answer it,” he muttered, his voice thick as his lips moved down my neck.
“It’s gotta be Rob. I was supposed to meet him,” I breathed.
“Let him
wait.”
“How long?”
He took my mouth again in one long, heavy kiss that he broke off abruptly. “I see your point. All right, fine. Where’s the phone?”
It had stopped ringing. He batted my hand away and started digging in my pocket, shifting his body around like he couldn’t get a good angle and pretending he couldn’t quite get hold of it. When he finally got it he sat up and threw both legs over mine. He pinned me there, distracting me by running his fingers over my bare stomach while he called Rob back. I had little idea what he said.
I thought about the fact that Dylan was on my phone and Rob was going to know that we were both down here, why we didn’t meet him, and why we didn’t pick up the phone. It was kind of embarrassing, but it was kind of hard to get upset about it.
“All right,” he said, closing the phone and tucking it into my pocket. “Let’s go find Rob.” He bounced up off the cot and pulled me up, slinging an arm around my shoulders. “So I just found out that my girlfriend is a crazy homeless person.”
“I’m not crazy.”
“You wanted to answer the phone in the middle of that? I stand by my analysis.”
A few days ago I would have freaked out about whether or not he was mad or if I had done something wrong. But not today. I grabbed his hand where it hung over my shoulder and tugged it, hugging myself with his arm to squeeze us both through the doorway. “Yeah, okay, guess I’ll own that.”
“A crazy homeless person who lives in a boiler room. I don’t like the idea of you here by yourself. What if there are other crazy homeless people looking for a posh set-up like this?”
“I doubt that’s a big issue on campus.”
“Drunken frat boys, then.”
“It’s fine, Dylan. My family’s had stuff stashed here for the last few years and it’s never been touched. And I’m not exactly helpless.”
“Great. Then when the crazy drunken homeless frat boys show up, I’ll have you to defend me because I’ll be staying here until you decide to go home.”