"No!"
The word comes out harsher than I meant. Truth is, it was a gut reaction and I didn't even think about it.
"But she—"
"No elders. None of the older cousins."
"But why not?"
"I don't trust any of them."
"I hate to break this to you," he tells me, "but I'm one of the older cousins."
"Yeah, but you're different. More importantly, Josh trusts you."
"But if Josh is starting to show dominant—"
"No. Elders. Period."
Cory sighs. "Look, Vincenzo is before my time. I've only heard of him and none of it is good. If he's after Josh and los tíos are sniffing around—don't you see that this is getting too big for us to deal with? Bigger than anything Josh could deal with?"
"You didn't see Josh in the taquería. He got shot in the back, for Christ's sake—the bullet blew out half his chest —but then he did a quick change back and forth, and just got up again, ready to take on the whole gang. And he would have done it, too, if that other guy hadn't sent them all packing."
Cory nods. "I hear you."
"Do you really? Because from where I sit, I'm thinking not so much. All you want to do is go running to Auntie Min."
I hear a snicker from above, where Donalita's still cuddled up in the palm tree, but Cory ignores her.
"Let's look at it from another perspective," he says, his voice mild. "Do you know how many kids have become Wildlings here in Santa Feliz?"
"I don't see what—"
"Humour me."
"Okay," I tell him.
I try to do a mental count, but how would I know?
"No idea," I admit.
"Me, either," he says. "But you've got to figure maybe seventy or eighty—that sound about right?"
"If you say so."
"Now … how many have changed since Josh?"
"How am I supposed to know that?"
"None," Cory says.
"None?"
I've heard that twice today now and it still doesn't seem right.
"It's true as the sky," Donalita calls down in a singsong voice.
I look up to see she's changed back to a small girl. Holding on to the trunk with one hand, with her feet in the nest of dead leaves, she's swaying back and forth. She waves and grins when she sees me looking. I turn back to Cory.
"Now, you can come up with all kinds of theories about why that is," Cory goes on, "but the one I'm hearing most is that whoever was changing the kids stopped with Josh because they finally got it right. They got what they wanted."
"You mean the elders."
He shakes his head. "No. Or at least, none that you've met and no one's taking credit or even being suspected of doing it. We're as much in the dark as anyone."
"True-true-true," Donalita calls down.
"So what is it that they got?" I ask. "What were they shooting for?"
"No idea," Cory says. "All I know is that all the other kids who got changed are little cousins. None of you come from one of the big old tribes … except for Josh."
I give him a considering look.
"So you're siding with the elders," I say. "You think Josh should become their figurehead—the poster boy for the Wildlings."
He shakes his head. "I'm on the fence about that. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, but it has to be Josh's choice. No one ever followed a reluctant leader."
"Then why go to Auntie Min with this?"
"Auntie Min's got a lot of insight. If we give her all this new information, she'll probably be able to see something that we can't. From what you've told me, it sounds like Josh needs way more support and protection than you or I can give."
He's probably right, I think.
"I guess that makes sense," I say. "But it still has to be Josh's decision."
Josh
Now that I'm paying attention, I see that no matter where I go, there's always a hawk perched somewhere nearby. I never see them following me, but as I make my way to the skatepark, there's always one in sight. It'll be perched on top of a light post, maybe up in a palm, a eucalyptus, or on the rooftop of a building. Once I know to look, they're easy to spot.
When I get to the skatepark, sure enough, there's another one on a hydro pole across the street. Or maybe they've all been the same one. It doesn't really matter. I ignore the bird and drop onto a bench to watch the skateboarders. There's the usual gang practicing tricks and showing off. My attention keeps coming back to a girl I don't know in a tank top and Daisy Dukes, her long dark hair in a ponytail. She's pushing hard, totally focused, riding the kicker to see how much air she can put between the ramp and her board.
The whole time I've been watching, it's like she's in the zone and can do no wrong.
I know just what she's feeling. That micro-second when she's airborne and grabbing the tail of her board feels like it lasts forever. Like she's some high-flying bird. When she comes down, her balance is perfect as she rushes up the other slope of the kicker.
Watching her makes me wish I'd brought my own board. It's like seeing a great band. My fingers always get twitchy, wanting a guitar in my hands.
There sure hasn't been time for music lately. But before I can get too down about that, Des drops onto the bench beside me and offers me his fist.
"Dude," he says. "Way to stick it to the Kings."
I don't share Des's excitement, but I bump his fist anyway.
He checks out the blood on my shirt. "How's the cut?"
"It's nothing."
He grins. "Those Kings can't say the same thing, dude."
"I'd rather we didn't have to fight in the first place," I tell him.
"Well, sure," he says. "Nobody goes looking for trouble. But when it shows up, that's the way to deal with it, hard and fast."
"This isn't an action movie—it's my life."
He shakes his head. "Now it's both. So what happened this afternoon? Did you actually work out some kind of deal with the Kings?"
"I thought I had."
I tell him about going to the taquería with Chaingang. By the time I get to where I'm shot, he's bouncing on the bench.
"Oh man, oh man," he says. "The guy just shot you? What did it feel like?"
"What do you think? It hurt like freaking hell. Now let me finish."
When I'm finally done, he leans back on the bench, shaking his head.
"Dude …" is all he can manage.
"I know."
"This is …" He turns to me. "I get it now. It's not a movie. We don't get to leave it behind in the theatre."
"'Fraid not."
"Nothing's going to be the same anymore, is it?"
I give him a weak smile. "Way to sum it up."
"And you've gone public."
"Yeah. Well, just with the Kings so far, but there's no way it'll stop there."
"What are you going to do?" he asks.
"No clue. I keep wishing I could just dump the whole mess in somebody else's lap and have them tell me what to do."
"In that case, what about one of the elders—like Auntie Min or Cory? Or even these hawk uncle guys?"
My gaze goes to the hawk, still on its hydro pole perch, before it returns to Des.
"Everybody's got their own agenda," I tell him. "I don't think any of them are all that concerned about what it means to me."
"Well, dude," he says, "I don't know if it helps, but I'm not going to turn around to be the surprise villain near the end of this movie of yours."
"Thanks. It helps."
"Maybe you should talk to Marina about it," he says. "She always says she's the smart one in our crew."
"She must be. You don't see any of this crap blowing back on her, and she's been a Wildling for a lot longer than me."
He nods. "Except right now she's messed up because she didn't know that this time around, Ampora was on the side of the good guys."
I raise an eyebrow.
"Oh, she tore into her something fierce at lunch," Des
says. "Had her in a choke-hold up against the fence along the football field. I think she might have really laid a beating on her if I hadn't been able to talk her out of it."
"But Ampora was trying to help the kids at the park. A stupid move, but she meant well."
Des nods. "Yeah, except no one told Marina about that. She thought Ampora was running with the Kings. I've never seen her that mad."
"It's because we're Wildlings," I find myself saying. "We're tapping into primal impulses."
"You mean like, you're Hulking-out?"
"God, I hope not. But more and more, hitting somebody just seems to be the only solution."
"Some people deserve to be hit."
"Maybe, but you can see how quickly it can escalate, just by what happened with me and the Kings."
"It's not your fault they're assholes."
"No, but there must have been a high road I could have taken."
"Like you did with Gess? That turned out so well."
That reminds me of how the last time I saw Cory, he was going into Erik's house to deal with him.
"Have you seen Erik?" I asked. "Do you know what happened to him?"
He shakes his head. "If I ever see him again, it'll be too soon. I hope Cory took him to top of some cliff and dropped him into the ocean."
"You don't mean that."
Des turns to give me a serious look.
"Dude," he says, "I totally do."
We fall silent for a while until Des nods with his chin to the latest girl on the kickers.
"Damn, she's good," he says.
I nod, happy to be distracted. "Do you know who she is?"
"Her name's Sandy Mounts—Justine's cousin. She's just here for a week, apparently, because her dad had to go on a business trip. Her mother's not in the picture."
"How do you know all that?"
"Come on, dude. Cute girl like her? How could I not find out all I can?"
But I don't answer. I'm looking past the kicker where Sandy's rolled to a stop beside another girl. I look past the other skaters, too, all the way to the street on the far side of the park, where a line of custom cars is pulling up to the curb, one after the other. Classic machines with crazy paint jobs. Lowriders, chopped coupes, you name it. Rides that sweet around here only mean one thing: the Riverside Kings. Des's gaze follows mine.
"Oh, crap," he says. "Does that mean what I think it does?"
I don't bother answering. I just get up from the bench and start walking across the park toward them.
"Hey, wait up!" Des calls.
"Just stay back," I say when he catches up to me. "I don't need to be worrying about you while I deal with this."
I know he wants to argue, but for once he just does as I ask. Maybe he finally gets how serious this is. I don't want to make him feel useless, but I really need to be able to focus on having no distractions while I'm dealing with the Kings.
All around me the kids are stopping and getting off their boards to stare. Most of them are checking out the Kings, but a few of them are looking at me. As I pass Sandy, I hear her say to her cousin, "What's going on?"
"Don't get involved," the other girl tells her. "This is gang crap."
"But where's the other gang? Are they after us?"
"No, they're after him."
I don't have to look to know that she's pointing at me. Guess I've already got a reputation.
Marina
By the time we get to my house, Julie might as well be planning her wedding and how many babies she and Des are going to have. It's ridiculous, but it's also kind of cute, and I gave up trying to tell her why it would never work out blocks ago. And who knows? I could be wrong. It's not like I haven't already shown pretty much a complete lack of good judgment today. The best thing about Julie fixating on all of this is that listening to her keeps me out of my own head.
Or at least as much as anything can.
Still, nothing lasts. All too soon we're at the end of my walkway, Julie's saying goodbye, and I'm left standing there alone on the pavement with all the day's failures piled up on me. The huge muddle they make in my head isn't helped at all by the yo-yo of emotions I've been tangled up in all day.
I feel awful about how I treated Ampora. I'm also worried, and a little upset, that Theo hasn't called. But overwhelming as it's been for me, I find myself thinking about Josh and all he's had to deal with. If it's this overwhelming for me, how does he cope with everything going on in his life? Because let's face it: he's been living in the middle of some weird nightmare circus. Cops, kidnappings, our screwed-up friendship, losing Elzie, pressure from the elders, this whole mess with the Riverside Kings. And he doesn't even know about Vincenzo.
That stupid rogue elder brings me back to Theo. Okay, so we're only pretending to have a secret affair to throw off Vincenzo, but I know it's more than that. I know Theo feels something for me—the same way I feel something for him. Sure, it's complicated, but couldn't we at least talk about it? Instead all he does is send me a one-word question. All business, nothing personal. Maybe that's his way of saying that he doesn't want anything remotely serious. So many guys are like that—just want to hook you and then the challenge is over. Except we barely even got started.
And I don't believe it.
Or is it just that I don't want to believe it?
If we're going to be fair, I wasn't much better in the communication department, sending back my own one-word, all-business text because I had to rush out to save Ampora's ass. Not that she appreciated it. But I can't even be mad at her because she was trying to do the right thing and I was the one who assumed otherwise. I didn't stop to ask first. I just tore into her.
I'm usually pretty good at dealing with things, but not today. I can't even grab my board and let the waves clear my head because I'm still grounded. Plus I miss the otter in me. It's like that part of me that I so loved has been cut out and tossed away. The only thing that seems to be left is to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.
I open the door quietly. I can hear Mamá in the kitchen getting dinner ready, so I close it behind me just as quietly.
"Marina?" Mamá calls from the kitchen.
There's no sneaking by her. You'd think she had Wildling hearing.
"I'm home," I call back.
She steps into sight and looks down the hall to where I'm standing and touches my hair.
"How was your day?" she asks.
"Oh, you know—the usual. I have to go study."
I feel like the lie is written all over my face, so I duck and head through the living room before she can ask me anything else. Before I can get to my bedroom, I find myself pausing by Mamá's shrine to the Virgin and los santos. My gaze moves away from the paintings, votive candles and Mamá's beads to a small framed photograph hanging just to the right of an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It's an old picture from better times: Ampora and I can't be much more than seven or eight. Mamá's sitting in a plastic lawn chair in our old backyard with the two of us standing on either side, big smiles all around. We were happy because everything hadn't unravelled yet. Mamá hadn't had her affair, Ampora didn't hate us, and I hadn't become a Wildling.
I want to ask the painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe why it all had to happen, but there's no point. They never answer. Not the Virgin, not los santos and for sure not God himself. They're too busy amusing themselves by turning our lives into tela-novelas, and I'm left looking at a picture of what used to be.
But that's not really fair—and not even entirely true. I love my stepmother Elena and I adore Ria and Suelo. I can't imagine a world in which they don't exist. But I miss the family I had in that picture. I feel horrible for how I treated Ampora. And I miss the old days, when Mamá knew how to have fun. We would do such silly things and laugh for hours. Now Mamá's always sad and Ampora hates everything I say or do. What happened today will only make it worse. I don't care what Principal Hayden thinks. Going to talk to the guidance counsellor isn't going to solve anything.<
br />
I sigh and start to turn away only to find Mamá standing in the doorway, watching me with a concerned look in her eyes.
"Mija," she says. "What's the matter?"
There's no point in pretending that there's nothing wrong. Not with me standing here in front of her shrine. When has she ever found me like this? Try never.
But what do I tell her? That her daughter's a Wildling? That she might be falling for a guy who's in a motorcycle gang and he's also a Wildling?
I might as well stick a knife in her chest because I don't know which would horrify her more.
So I take the easy way out.
"What do you do when you find out you've misjudged somebody?" I ask her. "When you've told them off, except then you find out that they didn't deserve it?"
"You apologize."
"What if you're pretty sure they won't care?"
"If you are me," she says with a sad smile, "you pray to the Virgin and los santos that the ones you have wronged will eventually listen to you and see that your apology is sincere. You can't force anyone to forgive you. But first you must say those words to them. You must tell them that you're sorry."
I give her a glum nod. I know she's thinking of Papá and Ampora and how, even after all these years, they have yet to forgive her.
"Talk to me," Mamá says. "It hurts me to see you in such a state."
"It's Ampora."
"Ah."
"No, it's not like you think. She didn't do anything this time. It was me. I was the—" Bitch, I almost say, but this is Mamá and we're in front of her shrine. So instead I only say, "I was the one in the wrong."
"What did you do?" Mamá asks, her voice careful, as though she's not entirely sure she wants to know.
Explaining takes a while and there's only so much I can share. I tell her this: how Ampora stood up to the Kings to protect Ria and Suelo and the other children in our old neighbourhood; how that brought the wrath of the Kings down on Ampora, and through her, on all of us, her whole family; how I hadn't been aware of her altruistic motives and got mad at her for putting us all in danger. Yelled at her, pushed her up against a fence. Almost hit her.
I don't mention Theo—the last thing she needs to think is that I'm interested in a boy and, God forbid, one that's in a gang. And of course I don't tell her any of the Wildling business. But I do say that Josh managed to defuse the confrontation with the Kings.