Freaks Like Us (19 page)

Drip.
Dude. You’ll do anything to get out of homework and jail
.

Drip’s mom.
Touch that chest tube again, Derrick Taylor, I swear to God I’m gonna lay you out.

Drip.
Did you see that he smiled he really did smile
.

Drip’s mom.
Boy you better get over here to me right now
.

Nothing.

Smells like alcohol. At least it’s not piss. At least it’s not blood.

Nothing.

And then…
People are talking.
I try not to listen.

I’m getting better.
I’m not sure I want to.

Nothing.

And then

My head’s talking, but quieter. Thick tongue. I’ve had a whopper dose of fuzzy pills. Thanks Dad. Thanks Mom. I’m hooked to machines. I can hear them. I can feel them. But I don’t look at them.

I hurt, but it’s inside. Outside’s numb. Fuzzy pills. Pain pills probably, too.

Nothing

And then

My body’s better but it’s like I fell asleep and dreamed everything bad and then started to wake up only I don’t open my eyes because I don’t want to because I know the worst part is it’s been some time maybe a long time so the worst part is I didn’t dream the worst part that Sunshine’s gone that she’s gone and while I’ve been out and sleeping in blood and faceless people and poison and there’s a tube in my chest coming right out of my skin and I can breathe now but it doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter at all because while I was in the black in the nothing doing nothing being nothing—

Sunshine’s twenty-four hours ran out.

ONE WEEK, TWO DAYS

“Arrested.”

I sound flat. I feel flat on the top layer, the fuzzy layer all glued tight down by the fuzzy pills, but under that, I’m surprised and I’m shocked and I think I’m maybe even relieved.

Agent Mercer nods. “If I may ask, are you hearing or seeing anything disturbing right now?”

We’re sitting on Mom’s couch, in Mom’s living room, in Mom’s little base house at Fort Able, because he called right after Mom left, and he asked if he could come over, and I said yes.

Mom’s place is as small as the apartment where Dad lives, only there’s lots less white. Cream-colored walls. Green-and-brown carpet. Lots of green stuff—military green—everywhere. Even the couch is that color
green, with the only brown being the leathery arm guards and Agent Mercer’s brown leather briefcase beside the couch. It’s shiny, like it’s new.

I’m glad we’re alone. I’m glad I asked Mom to go do something today and give me some time to myself. Mom didn’t argue. She’s trying not to fight with me because it’s only a few weeks before she’s deployed again and I have to decide if I’m going to try to live with Dad even though he thought I could be a murderer or if I’m going to apply to get into some group home or something. School’s still in session, but I’m homebound at least until Christmas. So is Drip. Stress and all that—and there’s no SED teacher yet, since ours is in the big house now. The pervert.

“You can ask about my crazy whenever you want, Agent Mercer, and no. Everything’s a dull mumble right now. More meds because of all the stress and my injuries and all the medicines they had to give me for swelling and stuff. Steroids can make me crazier, so they have to give me more fuzzy pills for a while. That’s why I’m talking slow.”

And sounding like my tongue’s two sizes too big because it sort of is.

“Will you have to take a higher dose forever?”

“Hope not.” I hold up my hands. They shake. Tremor. Nice side effect of fuzzy pills. By the time I’m forty, somebody will probably have to feed me. “Great choices we get, alphabets.”

He doesn’t say anything, but I can tell he’s sorting it
out. If I take no pills or fewer pills I get loud voices and bloody rooms and evil trees and faces that go boom to the floor—or I can take more pills, like now, and get mumbly voices and dry mouth and slow, thick speech and slow, thick walking and the shakes.

“I might gain about fifty pounds and get diabetes, too,” I add.

Agent Mercer closes his eyes like he physically felt each of my words. When he opens them again, I notice they don’t seem so icy anymore. Just gray, like his hair. “How do you feel about Linden Green and Roland Harks going to jail for assault and battery? Because it is jail, not juvenile. They’re both legal adults.”

I give this some thought and try not to listen to the frenetic whispers in my head that sound like
shooshyshuttershsssshhhhhhshuttershooshy
because if I listen too long it might turn into words. “They didn’t make bail, did they?”

“No. It’s pretty high. And the judge already issued orders of protection for you and Derrick.”

But not Sunshine, because Sunshine’s not here.

My healing broken ribs and my healing bashed-up chest start to hurt, a dull, empty throb, and I don’t know if it’s real or alphabet or just… sad.

“You’ll have to testify against Harks and Green, you and Derrick both.”

“Not a problem. But you might want to put some guards on Derrick’s mom and his brothers, because if they get hands on Roland and Linden, it’ll be bad.”

“Noted.”

Agent Mercer waits. Obviously wants to say something. Doesn’t. Then he steels his face and here it comes. “Son, I came here today when you called because we’re wheels-up tomorrow. Sunshine’s case is passing out of CARD’s hands and reverting to state and local agencies.”

This hits me like a punch and everything hurts worse and tears pop straight into my eyes and I feel… lots of stuff… fuzzy layer and all. “You can’t just go. She’s not home yet. You haven’t found Sunshine.”

“I know that, and I’m sorry—but it’s how things work, Jason. Thanks to budget cutbacks and regulations, CARD is a short-term operation.”

“You can’t leave.” My words sound slurred now because I’m trying not to cry. All my green bruises match the green couch and now the bruises inside feel worse, too. “You’re supposed to be the best.”

“Obviously not this time.” Are there tears in his eyes? I think there are. “I wish it could have been different. Of all the cases I’ve ever worked, I wish this one could have had a better outcome.”

He’s abandoning Sunshine. I can’t feel sorry for him. He’s abandoning me. How can I even stay in the room with him? But I do feel sort of sorry for him. That, and I can’t seem to move. It’s the fuzzy layer. The medication sits on my skin, in my skin, in my blood, weighting me like chains. I might as well be tied to the couch, which is
why I don’t hit him, but he’s sorry. I can see that. He even says it.

“I’m sorry, Jason.” Agent Mercer clears his throat. “For mistrusting you when I shouldn’t have, and for being one of the people who never listened to alphabets in the past. But most of all, I’m sorry I didn’t find your Sunshine.”

It’s okay
. That’s the automatic response that tries to come out, but I don’t let it, because it’s
not
okay. Nothing’s okay. Maybe nothing will ever be okay again. The DNA tests cleared me. They cleared everybody, even that sleeze Mr. Watson, but his probation or parole or whatever got violated because he didn’t register and he was around kids and stuff. He didn’t go back to prison for hurting Sunshine. He went back to prison for being an idiot.

You’re in the clear now
, Mom told me, and Captain Evans, but they both stressed I needed to
stay out of trouble
and not
draw attention to yourself.

Maybe that should piss me off, but it doesn’t. I know Mom’s just trying to look out for me.

“I’ve been doing this for decades,” Agent Mercer says, “but I could still lose my job if I broke the rules. Do you understand that, Jason?”

“Yeah.” I give him a look and realize it’s probably a lot like Drip’s stink-eye. “I mean, yes, sir.”

He smiles. I think my stink-eye probably looked funny. Then his smile fades to another expression I can’t quite read. It’s sharp and intense, like it’s more important than
anything that I pay total attention to his next words, so I do.

“It’s against the rules for me to share facts or even opinions and theories with persons of interest in a criminal matter.”

Mumbo jumbo, some of that, but I sort of get it, so I nod.

“For example, it’s against the rules for me to say something like, I think you might be right, that Sunshine didn’t get kidnapped or murdered. I think you might be right that she left on her own.”

O.

K.

Not what I expected, but fuzzy or not, my heart beats faster and my brain whispers louder and my hands shake harder and even my lips start to twitch.

“It would be against the rules for me to say that even though there was no message in the locket, it seems to me the locket
was
a message to you. I shouldn’t tell you that if anyone can figure out where she went—or why she left—it would be you.”

My mouth comes open.

I think my tongue is shaking.

Stupid pills.

Stupid everything.

Me. Me? He thinks I can figure this out? He’s nuttier than me, and that’s a lot nutty.

Breathe, Jason.

Sunshine’s voice. Like a whisper, not an alphabet. It’s coming from so far away.

Agent Mercer looks to the side, then looks back at me with his jaw locked, like he’s pushing back a ton of emotion. “It would
not
be against the rules to say that it seems to me that she cares a lot about you, and that you care a lot about her.”

“I do,” I whisper.

Because she’s everything. She’s absolutely everything.

Agent Mercer coughs like he’s clearing his throat, then plows forward with, “Her family’s taking it hard. Her brother’s hardly speaking to anyone, least of all us. Her mother seems to be crying every time she’s in public.”

He waits. Looks at me. Like… he’s waiting for something. For me to get something? Piece something together.

All the army-green and leathery army Mom smells get a little too much as tiny black tornadoes try to spin in front of my eyes and the knives try to stab at my brain but the fuzzy pills make a wall, make a cushion and nothing too bad can get through except he talked about Eli and he talked about Ms. Franks and he talked about—but no wait he didn’t did he? No knives. No tornadoes. I hold them back long enough to ask, “And Mr. Franks?”

Agent Mercer keeps his gaze trained directly on mine. “He’s on a business trip. Might be gone for several weeks.”

“Yeah, he travels a lot. Sunshine likes it when he’s gone….”

Pain.

I squeeze my eyes shut and let the fuzzy pills wrap around the brain knives and soften their edges. My thoughts buzz and snap and pop like something electric is trying to come through, something big and burning and real, not my crazy, not my alphabet, but maybe—my memories? My real ones, not anything I made up or imagined?

How can I trust anything I think? How will I know I’m not making it up? I don’t have Sunshine. I don’t have any piece of Sunshine. I don’t have anything at all.

The knives melt away. The black clouds never come.

I open my eyes.

Agent Mercer sags, just a little, but I notice it.

“Give it time, Jason,” he says, quiet, like he’s breaking every rule he’s ever known. “I think the right information will come to you. I think all you have to do is turn the locks to triple zeros and pop the lid, and you’ll have what’s most important. As long as people like you are trying to help Sunshine, she’s got hope.”

“I’m just a stupid alphabet,” I whisper as everything inside me sinks because he’s going. He’s leaving, and he thinks I can do something. He’s trying to give me hope, but really he’s taking it because what can I do?

“You’re anything but stupid, Jason.” He stands, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a card. “This has my contact information. You call me or e-mail me if you need
anything
. And I mean that. I won’t let you down a second time, not if I can help it.”

I take the card. Study it. See nothing but blurry because of the tears because he’s leaving. The FBI is pulling out and poor Sunshine, she’s got nothing but local and state agencies now, and a torn-up family and pathetic me. Tears try to ambush me again as I realize her birthday’s coming up, that she’ll be eighteen and if she’s out there somewhere she’ll be eighteen all alone.

She’s out there. She has to be. Even Agent Mercer thinks she’s out there
.

Agent Mercer puts out his hand. I stand and grip it, even though I’m not sure I want to, even though my own hand shakes like an old guy’s because of the fuzzy pills. “I can’t help her,” I tell him. “You know that, right? I never make a difference and I can’t make myself be any different than what I am.”

He lets go of me and stands very still, keeping those gray eyes pinned to mine. No coldness there now. Something like warmth. Something like respect.

“Some people are so strong, they don’t need to change, Jason.” His voice cracks a little on the next words. “They change everyone around them.”

And then he goes. He just goes, out the front door, closing it behind him, and I sit down in a chair, facing the couch like he’s still there, and I pretend he’s still there for a few minutes because I need him to be there. I need him to help me find Sunshine because I don’t think I can live without her.

My brain trips and stumbles over everything he said.

Give it time Jason I think the right information will come to you
.

Eli not talking. Ms. Franks crying. Mr. Franks on his trips. I feel cold when I imagine all of this. Then I think about Mr. Franks, and knives, and black clouds, and I don’t like him. I never liked him.

People never listen to alphabets.

I’ve been telling Mom and Dad that for years, and I told Agent Mercer, too.

And I stop. Actually breathe, and I realize… alphabets don’t listen to alphabets, either, do we?

I don’t trust myself any more than anyone else does.

I don’t listen to
myself
.

I think all you have to do is turn the locks to triple zeros and pop the lid and you’ll have what’s most important as long as people like you are trying to help Sunshine she’s got hope