CHAPTER 30

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5

TYLER

A small window looks out over Montreal’s skyline, mountains to one side, river to the other, millions of people sandwiched in between. The beeping is softer now. The steady pulse of one of the many machines they have me hooked up to. Damn, I hurt. Don’t want to admit it to Ani, though. Try to just be happy that I’m still alive and not think about the tube running up beneath my ribcage. Reinflating my lung. Stupid surgeries. The bullet went in through the back, just beneath my shoulder blade and clipped my lung. I look out the window, trying to feel like I’m someplace else, at least until all the smoke in my head clears. I’m not really ready for visitors. Well, people other than Ani, anyway, but here they are. There’s a policeman and everything.

Some guy, maybe Todd, sits in a large wood chair, pillowed with pleather, too large for the small room. He pulls his eyes off of his phone when he hears me move. I’m young, covered in dirt, bullet hole in my body, smelly, I’m sure. I can’t blame him for looking at me like I just walked off a spaceship or something.

“Hello there. Welcome to Canada.” The cheer in his voice is not entirely sincere, you can hear the annoyance in its undertones.

“Hey,” I say.

“I’ve called the authorities. Tyler, you understand this: they will record your claim of refugee status and make sure that you are given your temporary permits.”

“Yeah,” I say. Ani called him from the bus station right before we got on the bus for Montreal. From a pay phone. The pleather on his seat just looks awful. Almost looks slimy. Gross.

“So, what do you have for me?” he asks, not in an aggressive way, eager, sure, but not nasty.

Ani looks over to me, handing him the first hard drive.

I ask, “Are we on record?”

“Yes,” he says. He has red hair. Red hair and bright blue eyes. His manner is open, smart-looking, I guess, non-judgmental. “Let’s start with your name.”

“My name is Tyler MacCandless,” I say as Ani hands him another hard drive from her backpack. I look him dead in the eye as I say, “I’ve killed one hundred and sixteen people.”

Including my brother.

“Can I look at this now? Do you mind?” he asks, reaching around the back of the bad chair for his briefcase. They really have to update that chair. Looks awful.

What if this isn’t enough? What if he can’t read the drives? They don’t believe me? They send us back. We’d be traitors. I nod.

He exhales, a low, long sound, and plugs the hard drive into the computer he takes out of his bag. After a few minutes watching the gun camera footage of a drone piloted from my bedroom, he looks up, first at me, then Ani. “This is unbelievable.” Is that good? Bad? “I’ll sponsor you both for asylum myself,” he grins. “Mr Anderson has some pretty long arms, but we should be able to find a way to keep you safe.”

The two guys standing against the wall move closer to the bed and start going back and forth with Todd in rapid-fire French, and I squeeze Ani’s hand, tight. “Where’s Rick?”

“They didn’t catch him, Tyler. They chased him out of the bus station, but they didn’t catch him. His face is all over the news. For some reason they think that he’s your father, and they have the video of him shooting you on every major Canadian news network.” Ani rubs her small fingers over the back of my hand. Sound from the video must not have come through. That’s OK, though, we have plenty of evidence on the hard drives, the flashes, on the cloud. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

Not lucky. Rick was in the military. If he wanted to kill me, he would have, would have shot me in the head. Why didn’t he kill me? That question’s gonna keep me up at night.

“We will have to contact your parents. But in the meantime, can we put you both down as students? Or do you have any skills that would qualify you as skilled labor?” the policeman asks.

The policeman is named Laurent, or so says his badge. He pours me a cup of water from a pitcher.

The pitcher is a horrible shade of pink. Like old salmon. “Hey, can I use your phone to call my mom?” I ask, and Todd pushes me his cell across the table.

Ani looks at Laurent and declares herself to be a student.

“And you?” he asks, watching me move my leg back and forth beneath the covers. Need to move. Need to get out of this bed and just move. Hate this stupid bed.

“I think I’m qualified as a skilled laborer,” I say, drawing weird looks from Todd and Laurent. “I’m really good at piloting drones.”

 

A little while later, Ani’s sleeping on a cot pulled up next to my bed, curled up on top of the covers in a really weird position. I feel weak.

A doctor walks in. Her name tag says something long and French-ish that I’m never going to be able to say right. But nobody has cared, yet. Canadians are pretty nice.

“How are you feeling?” she asks. She’s round and kind and wearing one of those shirts that are just tragic. Her brown hair is pulled up high into a ponytail, and she starts to prod at me. Taking my blood pressure and stuff. She’s trying to be careful not to wake Ani. It’s dark outside. Must be late.

“OK, I guess.” It’s true. I’m alive. Mom knows I’m safe, though. I had a hard time understanding her when we spoke on the phone. She couldn’t stop crying. I’ve got Ani, though, and Rick hasn’t tried to visit me in the hospital yet, which is good.

She pulls an IV out of my arm, pushing gauze into it quick so it doesn’t hurt so badly. After a few general doctor-like questions, she hands me a little cup. Two pills. Familiar pills.

“What are these?” I ask, staring at the pills.

“Your new pain medication. We can’t keep you on the morphine any longer.”

“But what are these?”

“Oxycontin. Should help you with the pain as you recover.”

“No. I’m not taking these,” I say and all I see is Brandon, like me, sick and broken and hurting. And this is how it all started. No. Fucking. Way.

“But–”

“Can’t you just give me like a super-dose of Advil or something? Please,” I say, not wanting to hear how my voice wobbles and how my eyes sting and how much I miss B. How much I want him right here.

“Alright. I’ll order you Toradol injections, it’s like ibuprofen, only stronger. But it may not take care of all of your pain, Tyler. Your injury is very serious.”

“It’s OK.” I lean my head over, looking over at Ani’s sleeping face. “Pain’s not fatal.”