St. Clair (Gives Light Series) (36 page)

If all three of the guys want to mate with the girl,

they're going to get competitive. So they'll fight

each other, probably to the death. If all three of

'em wind up dead, then all you've got left's the

girl. There's no one for her to mate with. The herd

dies out." He started looking for his pencil again.

I hid a grin. He'd forgotten where I'd put it, hadn't

he? "But instead, if two of the guys are already

mated with each other, then the other guy can go

mate with the girl and have babies. The whole

herd thrives. No one's dead. Natural selection.

Sometimes competition's not the best thing for the

species."

I grinned roguishly.
So...
I signed.
Are you saying

you're my bison?

Rafael grinned back. "Nah," he said. "Pilot

whale." He picked up his wrist, showing off his

blobby blue bracelet.

The bus emptied out slowly, stop by stop. I

wanted to play the plains flute, but I didn't want to

annoy anyone. Plains flute, I thought. Weird that

"plains" isn't capitalized. I guess it doesn't stand

for the Great Plains. In Native American music,

there's a plains flute and a woodland flute, each

producing a different sound. The prefix just

differentiates between the two.

We got off the bus around two o'clock. Rafael

held my notebook at his side and looked around

with distaste.

"Why would you build a city on top of the desert?"

he said, disgusted. "They wasted a perfectly good

desert."

We walked the smooth streets together. "Welcome

to the heart of Pima County!" one sign read.

Rafael found a reason to scowl at it. "So when

they stole the land from us, they kept the names we

gave it. That's nice." He explained to me that

Pima was the name of the tribe that lived in Tucson

before the Europeans forced them out. "Tucson"

was a Pima word that meant "Spring at the Bottom

of the Black Mountain." And it made sense, too; I

looked above the ugly, artless skyscrapers and saw

a mountainous backdrop in the far distance, Titanic

in size, craggy and faint-black against a dust blue

sky. I realized I was looking at the Black

Mountain Reservation, where the Hopi lived.

"What's FCC, and how do we find it?"

Good question. I linked my arm through Rafael's--

ignoring the occasional glower from passers-by--

and started looking for a payphone. Back in Angel

Falls, the city Dad and I had lived in before

Nettlebush, there was a payphone on every other

street corner.

Victory. I found a payphone booth on West Ajo

Way. Fifty cents? Jeez. Just a few years ago, they

were only a quarter.

I stuffed the phone into Rafael's hand. I dropped

change in the slot and dialed 411.

Rafael raised the phone slowly to his ear. He

jumped. He must have just figured out that

someone was on the other line.

"Uh," he said. "Hello? Uh..."

I could have watched him for hours, I swear.

"Do

you

know

what

FCC

Tucson

is?

...Okay...okay...uh, do you know how I can get to

it? ...Where am I? I'm in Pima County. ...What do

you mean, 'whereabouts'? ...Okay...okay..."

He hung up at last. I smiled expectantly.

"She says I should get a lawyer before I turn

myself in."

I plashed my hand against my forehead.

"Yeah, I know. Oh, and she says the FCC's not

actually in Tucson. It's just
called
FCC Tucson,

for some stupid reason."

I stared.

"We've gotta go back to the interstate," Rafael

said. "C'mon. We're looking for Wilmot Road."

He took my hand, my notebook under his arm, and

we walked back down the street. I was starting to

feel kind of thirsty. Maybe Granny was right, I

thought absently. Maybe it was too soon after

cancer treatment for me to run around Southern

Arizona on a stealth mission. But then Rafael

squeezed my hand, and I felt his fingers locking

with mine, and I felt inexplicably strong.

Together we walked the parched and weedy

terrain on the western side of the speeding

highway. Now that I'm looking back on it, we

were total idiots. What if a car lost control and

smashed into us? It didn't, obviously--or I

wouldn't be telling you about it right now--but

seriously? I guess there's a reason they don't hand

out Nobel Prizes to eighteen-year-olds.

"There," Rafael shouted above the traffic. He

pointed at the hanging green highway sign.

Wilmot Road was sparse and dry; the loose rocks

all over the ground reminded me distantly of the

badlands back in Nettlebush. We passed rural

railroad tracks and Rafael kept looking over his

shoulder at them, obviously intrigued. I nudged

him until he remembered why we were really here.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly. "I've never been on a

train."

Note to self, I thought; take Rafael to an Amtrak.

FCC Tucson was a two-building complex at the

end of Wilmot Road. It was built in a very grand

fashion--huge parking lot, arching doorways, an

American flag standing proudly outside the doors--

but in reality, it looked so desolate to me, so final

and hopeless, that just standing in its vicinity made

me want to hurl. Or scream. I don't know which

one. Worse still, I thought, spirits breaking, Dad

was inside one of those buildings.

"That's Nola Red Clay's car," Rafael said, and

pointed to a battered Honda outside the lefthand

building. "I've seen it before."

I read the signs outside the buildings carefully.

One building was a minimum-security penitentiary;

the other was for processing. I knew right away

which one was the penitentiary; the tan building

was fenced in, the roof laden with barbed wire,

just like you see in the movies.

"Place gives me the creeps," Rafael muttered.

Me, too, I thought.

We walked together to the domed building. The

lobby doors were glass and unlocked. From the

outside, it looked elegant.

The inside was a different story.

Cold air blasted us from the vents in the floor. The

floor was shiny, a weird slush color, and smelled

oddly like garbage. Prison administrators in tan

uniforms and brown ties walked from doorway to

doorway, always looking busy. I guessed this was

the visitors' entrance, because I didn't see a single

pair of handcuffs.

The woman at the front desk surveyed Rafael and

me dully. "Name," she said.

Rafael shifted. "His name? Or--"

"Name," she said.

Dad's name
, I signed to Rafael.

"Paul Looks Over," Rafael said.

The woman typed on her ancient computer.

"Sit," she said.

I exchanged an uncertain look with Rafael. We sat

together on the glossed bench against the starchy

white wall.

Rafael's knee started to bounce. I gripped it; he

relaxed.

A prison administrator came out of one of the

plastic-looking doors. I quickly let go of Rafael's

knee. "You're here for Paul Looks Over?" he

asked the two of us.

"Yessir," Rafael said.

"You his son?" the administrator asked Rafael.

"No," Rafael said, and jerked his head at me.

The administrator scratched his head. Don't

remind me, buddy, I thought.

The guy in the tan uniform led us through the side

door. We walked between office blocks and

utility closets. The scent of garbage was stronger

here. "You're probably going to have to wait," the

guy told us. Why did we have to wait? It wasn't

like this place was teeming with visitors. "Just sit

tight."

He led us through another doorway. A second

blast of cold air hit us. I shivered. The walls

were dark, the halls narrow. Smart, I thought.

You already feel like you're in prison.

We came at last to a glass room with wooden

benches. At the door was a standing metal

detector. I was reminded strongly of family court,

a building far less pleasant than this.

"You're gonna have to give me your bags," the guy

said.

I hesitated. I'd heard stories about prison guards

stealing money from visitors; I wasn't keen on

finding out whether they were true. You've got to

see Dad, I told myself. Just do what they tell you.

I handed over my backpack and my duffel bag.

The guard set them on a table beside the metal

detector.

"The flute, too," he said.

I
really
didn't want to part ways with that. What if

I never saw it again? Maybe I was paranoid. But

especially after previous stints with foster care, I

didn't trust the law.

I took off the plains flute, smiling weakly. The

guard dropped it into a plastic basket.

Rafael and I passed through the metal detector one

at a time. The metal detector beeped and the guy

made Rafael take out his earring. I think it says a

lot about Rafael, that it never occurred to him to

complain.

We sat down on another bench. The guard closed

and locked the door behind us. I stirred. I didn't

like that.

"Oh, damn," Rafael said. "I forgot to call Uncle

Gabe."

Granny will tell him
, I signed.

"She knows I went with you? How?"

I smiled lightly.

The booking staff were as good as their word: We

waited. And waited. And waited some more. I

checked my watch. 4:17, the digital face read.

I tilted my head back and peered at the ceiling. I

knew there were cameras. Just because I couldn't

see them didn't mean they weren't there.

"Do you have any gum?" Rafael asked.

I shook my head helplessly.

"Okay. Oh, you know what I read in one of those

anatomy books? The nerves in your index finger

are directly connected to your hippocampus--"

Hippo-what?

"--shut up, Sky, it's this thing in your brain, the part

that controls memory. So, like, if you wanna

remember something easily, you should tie a string

around your finger while it's still on your mind."

I quirked my eyebrows and smiled innocently.

Imagine all the hours of studying we could have

saved.

"I know," Rafael grumbled. "I definitely would've

gotten into college."

I looked at him. Did that mean he'd gotten a

rejection letter? I hadn't heard anything yet.

"No," Rafael said. "I mean, I don't think the letters

came in yet. But I'm sure I'm not gonna get in. I'm

not that smart."

He couldn't be serious, I thought. After that crazy

awesome stunt he pulled? Finding out you can

grow vocal cords from umbilical veins?

"I'm not smart," Rafael insisted. "I just know a lot

of stuff. That's two different things."

A door on our other side suddenly opened up. A

new prison guard walked in. He looked around

the room in one big sweep, his eyes falling on us.

"Here for Paul Looks Over?"

I nodded, my pulse beating fast, erratic patterns

beneath my skin. I stood up.

The guard looked down at a list in his hands.

"Name?"

"Skylar St. Clair," Rafael said.

"I asked
him
," the guard said.

Rafael bristled. "He can't talk," he spat. "Just

look at his throat, you dum--"

I covered his mouth. I didn't want him saying the

wrong thing to the wrong person.

The guard led me into another small room. I

looked back at Rafael, just once, and smiled

mutedly. I wished he could come with me. He

lifted his hand in a stationary wave, touched his

fingers to his mouth. The guard slapped the door

shut.

We walked a narrow concrete hall. We passed

empty holding cells, my skin crawling. We

stopped outside another adjoining door. The guard

placed his list on the desk.

He put his hands on my waist.

It was weird how quickly I tensed up, how

automatically I tried to shove him away. He

slapped my arms down. "If I don't search you, you

don't see him," he said.

Resigned, my shoulders slumped.