Undertow (20 page)

“He didn't hit me,” he says. “I tripped over a chair and hit the coffee table trying to punch him in the face. I knocked him down three or four times. When he realized he couldn't hurt me, he ran off.”

“Where is Bex?” my dad asks.

Shadow points up.

We take the steps two at a time until we get to Bex's floor. The front door is off its hinges, splintered and smashed. Tammy is in the living room sitting on a dusty futon and smoking a cigarette. She has a bruise under her eye, and part of her scalp looks raw, like a handful of her hair was yanked out by the roots.

“Where's Bex?” my father asks.

“Packing some things,” she says without looking at us. “She'll be out in a second.”

“What happened? Or is that a dumb question?” I say.

My mother catches my eye and gives me a disapproving look.

Tammy takes a deep drag and lets it out. “Can Bex stay with you for a while?”

I'm stunned. Tammy has never asked for help. She's never asked for anything, except the time she bummed ten bucks off of me so she could buy a pack of Merits.

“I'll pay you back for whatever she eats. I just have to get her out of this house.”

“Don't even think about it,” my mother says. “She can stay as long as you need.”

“Tammy, do you need to tell me something?” my father asks.

Tammy takes another drag. “Bring the dogs, Lenny. Search the place. Maybe you'll find something that will make him go away.”

Bex enters the room. She's got a pillow in her hand and a toothbrush in the other.

“It's cool tonight,” Tammy says to her. “Take something warm. Take the hoodie.”

“I'll be fine,” Bex says. “I'll be back tomorrow.”

Tammy shakes her head. “I'll come get you when it's safe.”

Once we're outside, my father pulls us all under the tattered awning of the liquor shop next door. Scraggly-faced men watch us with yellow eyes.

“What happened?”

“It's nothing,” Bex says.

Shadow shakes his head. “Tell them, Bex. I can't keep this promise.”

Bex looks like she wants to dig a hole and bury herself inside it. “Tammy fought back. That's what happens when you fight back.”

“Bex!” Shadow shouts. “Tell them!”

Bex explodes in tears. “Russell was being weird, saying creepy stuff. I thought when he went away he'd stop. Tammy said he couldn't come back. She tried to lock the door and—”

“What kind of creepy stuff?” my father asks.

“I was in the shower and he—” She chokes. Her face is red and frantic like she's reliving something ugly. “He pulled the curtain open and . . . he was drunk and he took off his shirt.”

“No, Bex,” I say.

My father reaches for her. “Bex, did he . . .”

Bex throws her hands up and takes a step back, as if the question is a rattlesnake springing from a bush. “No. I fought back.”

I wrap my arms around her tight. She tries to pull free, but I refuse to let her go.

“Tammy came in and stopped him,” she says, breaking down even more. “But he hit her and she fell into the mirror. There was glass everywhere, and he was shouting and cursing and calling me a whore and blaming it all on me. But Tammy knew and she hit him with a skillet.”

“I wish I had seen that,” Shadow says.

“Why didn't you call me?” I cry.

“I always dump my stuff on you.”

“Because I want you to!”

“I'm taking you down to the precinct, and we're going to get this on record,” my father says. “I'll have some guys pick him up. One good thing about the Zone is he can't get far.”

“Why bother? It just makes him worse,” Bex says, turning to face him. “He gets arrested and he comes back meaner.”

“So this happens a lot,” Shadow says as if all his questions have been suddenly answered.

Bex watches him, near tears and frightened that the boy might dash off into the night, never to be seen again.

“I can't help you or your mom if you don't file a report, Bex,” my father begs. “I can have your apartments searched, and I'm sure we'll find lots of drugs and weapons, and we'll arrest him—”

“And they'll let him go,” Bex says.

“And they'll let him go,” he repeats, defeated. “Here in the Zone, there won't even be a trial, but if he's dangerous and we can show he's predatory, then we can keep him.”

“And what happens when you're wrong and he comes home?” Bex shouts, her words bouncing off the grim-faced buildings that line the street. She stomps off down the street, leans against a streetlight, and sobs. I'm about to go to her when Shadow stops me.

“Let me try,” he says, then rushes to her side. They talk in the bright spotlight, their bodies glowing like angels.

“When we leave town, she's coming with us,” I whisper.

My father frowns. “Lyric, no.”

“I won't go without her,” I say.

“We'll discuss this later,” he says.

“That's fine, as long as you know I won't go without her.”

“Does everything have to be a fight with you?” my dad cries.

“Not everything is a fight with me! I've done what you two wanted. I kept my head down.”

“We've all given things up, Lyric,” my mother says.

“True, but the difference is you two chose to. I was forced. I won't give up my best friend, especially not when she needs me most, and you shouldn't ask me.”

“Fine,” my mother says. “She comes with us.”

“Summer, you can't promise that!” my father croaks.

“She's right, Leonard, she's given up enough. But Lyric, you'll have to tell her the truth.”

Suddenly, I feel sick.

“Do you think she's going to be able to handle it?” my father says. “She's got a lot on her plate right now. What if she doesn't understand?”

I watch my friend crying in Shadow's arms. What if she doesn't understand? What if it's too much for her to deal with? What if she's horrified? I'd lose her and every connection to the Lyric Walker I was supposed to be.

Shadow asked her to be brave, so she was. Bex filled out the paperwork and wrote down what happened and then had a counselor give her an exam. Then she came home with us. Now she lies next to me in the dark, fidgety, tossing and turning, and unable to get comfortable. I'm doing it too.

“He kissed me,” she whispers.

“Oh, Bex. I'm so sorry,” I say.

She laughs. “Not Russell! Shadow!”

I flip on my bedside light, nearly falling off the mattress in the process. Her face has the biggest smile I have ever seen.

“Oh my God!”

“I don't know what it means yet.”

“Then you're an idiot! Did you kiss him or did he kiss you?”

“Sort of both at the same time. We were at the police station, and I think there was so much emotion and then . . . oops.”

“Very romantic,” I say, though I immediately wish I could take it back. I don't want to tease her into second-guessing what's going on. I so badly want something good to happen right now. “So, Shadow and Bex,” I sigh. “Saw that coming a mile away.”

“Slow down, cowboy.”

“Wait, let me guess. You two didn't talk about it after it happened?”

“No, we just kept kissing and holding hands.”

I laugh again. “You know he loves you.”

“Well, duh!”

“Don't screw it up,” I say.

“Why would I screw it up?”

“You have to talk when you're in a relationship. You have to share stuff.”

She reaches over me to flip off the light, and we lie in the dark for a long time.

“Now we have to find you a Shadow,” Bex says.

My mind flashes on Fathom, but I don't say a word, and long after Bex falls asleep, he is still running through my thoughts. He has moved into my mind, cluttering it with his hands and eyes and his ridiculous laugh, knocking down walls that should protect me from him. He's built an addition inside my imagination, a closet like the one at school where we held each other. I can go there again and again, feel him, strong and sturdy, anchored to that spot like a statue commissioned just for me. But he is not mine, can't be mine, and it makes me ache.

“W
e are going to binge-watch
N
etflix until it explodes
,”
Bex cheers when we wake up and find out school is closed for the foreseeable future.

And we do, and I am more than happy—anything to take my mind off of Doyle, Fathom, Terrance, and how easy it is to buy a grenade in this country. Bex is a lovely distraction. We watch movies on the laptop and small-claims court shows on daytime TV. Shadow comes over and brings us another ten-dollar window fan so that we now have three roaring and whipping warm air in every direction. With a little duct tape he manages to rig one so that it hangs over the open freezer door, filling the kitchen with bursts of cold air. It's totally redneck, but it works and it makes my mother laugh. It's a welcome sound in the apartment, an echo of days long ago.

Shadow is also very good for egg-roll runs and games of UNO, but he and Bex drift off every so often to kiss in the bathroom. I'm happy for them but also feeling like a loser. I pick up my phone and sort through the hate texts, hoping I missed something from Gabriel. I shouldn't care. What he said about the Alpha was not cool, and the temper tantrum he's been throwing at school has knocked him down a few points in my eyes, but I could use some male attention right now. Unfortunately, there isn't so much as a keystroke from him among my messages. He's either busy with some other girl or he's still mad I sent him home to take a cold shower.

A knock at the door brings everyone to the living room. None of us is expecting anyone.

“Maybe it's Mrs. Novakova?” I suggest.

“Maybe it's the prince,” Bex says.

My father slides back the chain and answers it tentatively. Bonnie is on the other side.

“Mr. Walker, I'm Specialist Bonnie Ralston, one of the soldiers assigned to protect Lyric,” she says. “I'm here to escort her to meet with Fathom.”

My father turns to me, confused. I shrug because so am I.

“Where do you think you're taking her?”

Bonnie frowns. “They didn't call you, did they? Sir, your daughter agreed to meet with the Alpha prince each school day. I'm here to escort her to the camp.”

“There is literally no chance that's going to happen,” my father challenges.

“I understand your reluctance, sir. Bringing him here today proved to be a logistical impossibility. It's much safer to take her to him.”

“You tell Doyle he's lost his mind. She's not going.”

“Sir, you know I can't tell him that.”

“So, what now? Are you going to send up a platoon to arrest me?”

Bonnie frowns. “Sir, I'd like to handle this without any—”

“The camp is dangerous for a human being,” my mother interrupts. “Aside from the war games, the Alpha have very little experience with surface people. Some of them are really aggressive and hostile to outsiders.”

Bonnie's eyes open wide. “You know the camps.”

I cringe, gearing up for Mom's scales to come out now that she's been put on the spot, but she stays calm. “They live less than a mile from my home, and my daughter meets with one every day. I have taken an interest,” she says.

“Bonnie, Fathom told me he didn't want to meet with me anymore,” I explain.

She shrugs. “He changed his mind.”

“Can I go too?” Shadow says.

“If he goes, I'm going,” Bex says.

“No one is going,” my father cries.

“We have an armored car downstairs to make sure she gets there safely. She'll have a military escort in the camp, and she only has to be there for an hour each day.”

“I don't care if you have Superman fly her there! It's not going to—”

“Mr. Walker, Mr. Doyle asked me to remind you that your daughter made a deal.”

“What deal?” Bex asks.

“I'll get my shoes,” I say.

“Lyric, I don't—”

I shake my head at him. We need my mother's identification, and I'll do anything to get it. “It's fine. Fathom will make sure nothing happens to me.”

“I'm going with you,” my father says, then turns to Bonnie. “It's not open for debate.”

Bonnie nods. “I can make that happen.”

I haven't been on the boardwalk since the Alpha arrived, and it's clear no one is taking care of it. As the three of us walk up the wooden ramp that leads to the beach, I notice the planks are cracked and rotting and many sections have collapsed entirely. Some are covered in sheets of plywood and surrounded by orange cones. Others are wide open and ignored. Trash is piled in enormous heaps, and when a breeze sweeps through, it spins a hundred newspaper pages into a cyclone of filth.

We walk past abandoned food stands that once had lines for miles. Now they are shuttered and forgotten, their faded paint still tempting with promises of fried clams, corn on the cob, burgers, pizza, chili dogs, and Italian ices. Most of the rides were trucked away and sold long ago, but a few are still standing. The Cyclone can't be moved. They tried. It's still in working condition because the city and the owners are hopeful that the park will someday reopen. Some of the rides couldn't be sold: Wild River, the Freefall, the Sea Serpent, all of them rusty and suffering from the bullying pull of gravity and the sand in the wind. A bumper car lies on its side like a dead beetle. It's such a sad, helpless thing. I spot an ancient flyer stapled to a post advertising the date for the now-canceled Mermaid Parade. They put a stop to that right away. It wasn't silly fun anymore.

Soldiers line up along the boardwalk's five-mile stretch. Their guns are ready, but the men holding them are listless and bored
.
They were supposed to be weekend warriors in the National Guard. Now they're full-time security guards watching a tall chainlink fence topped with coils of barbed wire. I guess after a while even the chaos on the other side gets dull. They don't seem at all interested in the roars and cheers and the sounds of brutal battle. I don't know how they can ignore the thrum.