Undertow (9 page)

“Dad—”

My father waves me off and reaches into his pocket. He hands her two, one for her and one for Shadow. Bex promises to get it to him.

“Bex, wait!” I cry.

“It's cool,” she says, though her face looks panicked. She waves down Shadow, who is waiting nearby, and the two of them dart into the crowd and vanish.

“Russell's back.”

My father looks incredulous. “You should have said something, Lyric.”

“And interrupt your lecture?”

He snarls. “I'll go by tonight and check on her and Tammy. Don't look at me like that. I didn't know he was home.”

“You should look before you leap,” I shout. “Sound familiar?”

He spins around on me and grabs my wrist. “Do you think this is a joke? I've done everything I can to get you to understand how serious this is, and you fight me at every turn.”

“What was I supposed to do? Let that kid get killed?”

“You're supposed to grow up, Lyric. Every choice you make in the Zone has a ripple effect. This time it has turned into a tidal wave and we can't get out of the way.”

“Why? What happened?”

He sighs in frustration and makes a path for us through the crowd.

My mother is camped on the floor in the hall. She's got her phone, her bottle of water, and her panicky eyes. When she sees us, she lets out a long exhale. I bet it's her first of the day.

“What happened?” she begs, leaping to her feet and clasping my hands in hers.

“It's fine,” I lie, and pull away. “They didn't take me to jail.”

“It's not fine,” my father growls as he stomps us down the hall to our apartment.

My mom flashes me a pained look. “What did you do?”

A door opens, and Mrs. Novakova's head pops out. “What's going on out there?” she croaks.

“Nothing,” my father snaps. “We just got home from school with Lyric, Mrs. Novakova.”

She glares at us for a moment, then disappears back into her cave.

My father turns to us and holds a finger up to his mouth, reminding us that there are ears everywhere. He leads us into our apartment, where he locks the door, slides the chain, and bolts the deadlock. Then he stuffs a towel under the door to keep our conversation from seeping into the hallway.

“Mr. Doyle called me at work,” he says.

“Who's Mr. Doyle?” my mother asks.

“He's the new principal,” I explain. “And a cop.”

My father shakes his head. “He's not a cop. He's military, maybe CIA. I don't know yet.”

My mother sits down on the couch. “What did he want?”

“He wants our good Samaritan here—”

I frown. “I stopped a fight. One of the kids was a Nix and—”

“Oh no, Lyric,” my mother moans.

“I had to do something.”

“What exactly did you think you were going to do against a Nix?” my mother cries. “I've told you about them, Lyric!”

“I didn't think—”

“That's the problem, Lyric,” my father says. He falls into a chair like it reached up and yanked him down. “Now this Doyle is poking around our lives. He called me at work. He knew everything about my career. He knew how long I've been on the job, who I report to, and how many times I've been passed over for promotions. He knew your grandfather was a cop!”

“What does he want?” my mother cries.

“He wants Lyric to let the prince of the Alpha follow her around the school.”

My mother shakes her head. “No.”

“Yeah, that's what I said, so he called Mike, and five minutes later I got dragged into his office and told in no uncertain terms that saying no was not an option. Then the mayor called to tell me the same thing, and then someone named Armstrong from the State Department.”

“All right, let's not panic. It's going to be okay,” my mother says, but it comes out sounding naive, less like a fact and more like wishing upon a star.

“Summer . . . it's not going to be okay. Our lives are paper thin. If Doyle looks any closer, he's going to see you're an invention. We should—”

“I can't go until I find my family,” she cries, throwing her hands up like she's swatting at bees.

There's a long silence while my parents have their silent showdown. Mom searches the Internet every night, sifting through the latest footage from the TV news and local bloggers. She's spotted a couple of Alpha she knows, but nothing on her parents and sister. My father has done his best to be patient and supportive with her—he says we aren't leaving without her—but right now he's exasperated.

“We've survived this long without anyone finding out,” she continues defensively.

“And if this prince guesses she's Sirena? She's practically your twin.”

My mother shakes her head. “Leonard, we don't all look alike! Besides, he couldn't possibly know Lyric's mine. He wasn't even born when I left. He has no idea what I look like. Just calm down.”

He slams his hand down on the table, and a glass bounces off and shatters onto the floor. “I CAN'T CALM DOWN!”

My mother jumps up, but my father waves her off. “I'll clean it up,” he says, then drags the broom and dustpan out of the closet. While he sweeps up the shards, his anger melts into something like exhaustion.

“It's more than Doyle and that boy. I wasn't going to tell you this, but we arrested three people this afternoon. One was on top of a house on the next street over from Hylan. He had a bow and arrows. We took him to the precinct, and he told us that it was his duty as a Christian to kill the monsters. The second man was a Desert Storm vet with his own personalized M-16 who came to “fight the invasion.” The third sauntered down Surf Avenue with a machete and told us the Alpha kids had diseases and needed to be purified. That's on top of those Niner lunatics, whose membership doubled this week. They set two cop cars on fire this morning and broke an old woman's kneecap for daring to hold a sign that said ‘We Are All God's Creatures.' They're even attacking the soldiers down at the beach. That's what I have to deal with all day, then I get to come home and see that our daughter has put a target on our backs. So, yeah, I wish I could calm down, but I'm not allowed.”

I run into my room before the tears come, and slam the door behind me. I press my back against it and slide down to the floor, pushing hard, like some rogue wave might knock it down from the other side. And then I cry, because what else is there to do when nothing is fair?
Screw them,
the wild thing whispers.
They don't understand.
But that's the problem, isn't it? The wild thing, despite my effort to bury her, is alive and well, telling me to fight back against all that's happening around me, and sadly, I listen.
You shouldn't have to change. Being yourself is more important than safety,
it says, and I've been all too eager to agree. Am I really that self-destructive? I mull the answer over and over, wishing it wasn't yes. The truth is sour in my mouth, but my father is right. I have put us all in danger because I don't want to accept reality. It's time to grow up and stop half-assing this life. Getting good grades isn't enough. Dressing like a hobo isn't enough. I have to do what my parents want, without question. Today is all the evidence I need to see what happens when I don't.

I'll start by repacking my stuff. If my father's fears come true and they do come for us, I need to be ready. I leap up and grab my pack. Mom and Dad are always on me to keep it up to date, and like everything else, I have blown it off—just more of my passive-aggressive fight against who I am. I open it up and peer inside. It's a mess, just as I suspected, full of things long forgotten: pens, hair clips, shoes I've outgrown, and then stupid things I don't need, like art projects and a journal I haven't opened in two years.

I pull everything out and toss it aside until the pack is almost empty. But I can't bring myself to touch the thing at the bottom. It sits there like a freshly hatched baby cobra, ready to strike. My father taught me to aim and fire, but every time I see it, I break into a cold sweat. I can't imagine having to use it, having to point it at another person and squeeze.
Okay, I see you. You're where you are supposed to be. You stay put.

I snatch a couple of pairs of jeans out of a drawer, one for me and one for Bex, since she's coming with me—that's one thing I won't keep my head down about. Next are some T-shirts, and a hoodie and a jacket. I shove in sneakers, socks, bras, and underwear. The bag is filling up fast, and I realize I need other things too: my toothbrush, toothpaste, tampons, soap, my phone, my charger, my contact solution, my glasses. Where is all of this supposed to go? I keep squeezing more and more inside and watching it all spill out. I can't possibly stuff my whole life into one stupid backpack, and still there is more I should pack.

I stand up and open my closet, looking in at everything I own—every dress, blouse, and strappy shoe. I can't have any of it. There just isn't any room, and so much of it would just draw attention to me. I open one of the hat boxes and take out a floppy straw hat with a baby-blue bow wrapped around its brim. I set it on my head and stare at myself in the mirror. I would have been so pretty in this. I could have worn it on a date, maybe with Gabriel.

Damn it! I want my hats! I'm crying again, and before I know it I'm tearing it apart with my bare hands. When it's ruined, I throw it on the floor and drag more things off hangers to destroy. A silk shirt screams as I shred it. Hangers bend and sweaters are stretched. Loose buttons bounce off my hardwood floor. Jackets, jeans, shifts—all of it has to be destroyed. I want to pour gasoline on it and set it ablaze, throw open my window, and let the ashes of what will never be trail out into the sky.

My phone buzzes a text.

LOOK OUTSIDE.

Gabriel. I crawl to the window. He is on the street below, leaning against a stop sign. I can see his cocky grin all the way from the fourth floor. He hasn't texted me in days, but he was never good at texting.
What he's good at is kissing and making me forget myself.
Wouldn't you like to forget yourself, Lyric?

I'm out of my room and through the front door before anyone can protest. My dad catches me at the elevator.

“Where are you going?”

“Away.”

“Away where?”

“Away from the family secret,” I say as I push the Close Doors button.

“What is going on out there?” Mrs. Novakova shouts as the elevator doors shut in my father's face.

Gabriel waits beneath a lamppost. “Hey! Don't they let you keep the prison jumpsuit when you get out? I was hoping you'd still be wearing it.”

I pull him close right there in the street and press his lips to mine, hard.

“The Big House has changed you,” he says.

“Take me away from here,” I say.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He grins and leans in close. His breath on my ear feels like a furnace. “I know a place.”

I know what “I know a place” means. Gabriel has an endless number of places, dark corners, and abandoned subway platforms—semiprivate escapes for hands up shirts and breathy make-out sessions. He uses me, then vanishes, sometimes for weeks on end, but right now it's my turn.

“Let's go.”

I grab his hand, and we run down the street like we're being chased. We zip down an alley, then another, and with a mighty leap Gabriel snatches the end of a fire-escape ladder and pulls it down. Flakes of decades-old paint and wrought iron shower down on us as the metal shrieks against itself. He's up it like a squirrel, scurrying from rung to rung, urging me to do the same. I follow the best I can, until we are on a rooftop—the open sky above, Coney Island stretched out for miles, and not a building nearby high enough for anyone to spot us.

Gabriel rushes to the edge of the roof and sweeps his arm out at the neighborhood like some teenage conqueror. “Nice, huh?”

“Is this your clubhouse?” I ask as I take in the rusty lawn chairs and discarded beer cans scattered as far as the eye can see. There's a pack of rolling papers sitting on a nearby ledge and a pair of grimy Air Jordans that must be twenty years old.

My inner-city Peter Pan grins, then sits down and pulls me into his lap. He offers nothing romantic, nothing to be pressed into a scrapbook or to give comfort in the quiet, lonely hours. Gabriel is what he always is—sloppy and hot. He is lips, tongue, fingers, and gasping breaths, a noise that drowns out the world. I want to melt into this boy, kiss him until I can't remember who I am. I want to drown in the smell of his neck. I take a peek around. We could make a secret I wouldn't mind keeping, something to hold on to, a last memory of teenage recklessness. This isn't how I imagined my first time, on some dirty rooftop with a boy who doesn't know my middle name, a boy who has never once asked when my birthday is or how I got the little scar on my upper lip
.

But who cares? You could be dead tomorrow or in one of those camps you've heard about. Right now you're alive and free. It's the best you can hope for in Fish City.

But this is ridiculous. I'm going to get sunburned on my back, and a pelican will take a crap on me. Plus, this boy doesn't love me. This is just part of his routine: kiss, fondle, unbuckle, unzip, stop texting, repeat.
I'm sure I'm not the only girl he's brought up here.

He frowns. “Headache?”

“I'm just trying to ignore myself.”

“Huh?”

“I think I'm ready.”

He looks at me, mildly confused, and then a smile stretches across his face. “Ready ready?”

“I need a second.”

“Yeah, sure,” he stammers. “That's totally cool. Can I do anything to help?”

“No, I mean, yes. Just go away for a second. I need to think. Do you have any condoms?”