Everyone goes out. The door to the cell slams shut.
I'm gonna need luck. A frackin' dump truck full of it.
The fear is all over me, covering my skin like a sweater made of centipedes. It's finally time. All this worry about if I'm taking Garrett or leaving him, if I'll be able to find my way to the Core, if I'll be able to make it out of the hotel--all of it is heaped on this one very breakable moment.
My heart starts pounding and no matter how hard my hands shake, they still can't bounce the centipedes off. The binding box rattles between Garrett and I. He reaches for my hand.
"I'm right here," he says. He doesn't really look any better than I feel. I try to pull off a smile that is all cheeky and calm, but all I pull out is jittery.
The lights blink off.
My skin is wiggling with the willies, but I'm friggin' paralyzed. The centipedes skitter all over my last, flimsy bits of calm. I've got to suck it up, right now.
I force out my whisper in the dark, "Time to go."
Maybe Garrett's nodding, but it's pitch black and I can't see it. My energy surges back into my legs in a rush, knocking the centipedes loose, but when Garrett doesn't move with me, I tug on the cable.
"Don't leave me," his whisper crumbles. "Promise me that when we get to Robin, you're not going to cut me loose."
"I won't."
"You won't or you won't promise? Promise me, Nalena. I need it."
I understand him. I've only ever been the student, the daughter, the new Contego, the Waste, and now, the long shot. All my life I've been decided against, underestimated, let down, left behind. I can see how he's not sure I'm for real, even though it's a done deal in my own head.
It's a bizarre that I'm the one making the decision now and it's a little scary to realize how much impact a decision has. The tension rises off him and rubs me like a steel brush. All it's going to take, to make or destroy Garrett, is a couple of words. The power rests on my tongue.
I reach through the dark and bump into Garrett's skin. I take hold, sliding my fingers the length of his forearm, to his hand, opening it and intertwining my fingers between his.
"I promise," I say. "I will never leave you behind."
I pull on the cable, feeling for the edge of the bed. I get the blanket between my fingers and toss it over the end of the mattress, so it hangs to the floor, in case the lights pop back on. It might shield us enough, unless they barge in mid-getaway. I can only hope that Mrs. Reese is out there making sure that won't happen.
Holding his bound hand in mine, so the binding box doesn't whir too much, I tug Garrett down onto the floor. He doesn't resist and he's not full of questions. He just stays close as I scoot beneath the bed and reach up, feeling along the mattress for the opening.
I try to relax, remembering how hard it was to locate the first time. I reach up and when I still can't lay my fingers on it, I blow out my frustration. I thought it would be a piece of pie to locate this time, now that I've already done it once, but on the second pass and then on the third, I still can't find what I'm looking for. I try again. And again. Sweat beads up on my forehead and slides down my temples, into my ears. I never even considered what I would do if I couldn't even get out of the cell.
And then my nail catches on the rough edge of the flap. I exhale and Garrett's exhale follows right after mine.
"It's tight," I whisper. A blush immediately hits my cheeks as I realize exactly what those words imply, if the wrong people happen to be listening. Garrett's hand traces up my arm, up into the mattress opening.
"It is," he whispers back, a grin in his words.
"So dirty talk can get us through this," I say. It's a statement, not a question. Garrett hums his amused agreement.
"Sure will," he adds, his voice all thick and sexy. Considering this escape holds our lives on the line, his tone and his ragged breathing shouldn't affect me at all, but it does. I feel like we're doing bigger things than lying under a bed, with our hands stuffed up inside a mattress tunnel. My mind races, trying to phrase my next directive in dirty talk.
"You're going to let me go first, aren't you?" I say.
He draws out his hum, mmm hmmm.
"A little to the right," I say.
"You got it," his tone is so deep it's almost a moan. "Whatever you want."
I almost forget what I'm doing. Garrett reaches out and gives me a nudge that sets me back on track. Just like that, I push my hands into the mattress, spread it open and stuff my head inside. I push myself in, the stuffing closing up tight around me. I push through. When I finally break through to the tiny pocket of air, I have to hold back from coughing on the dust and my claustrophobia kicks into high gear.
I don't have all day to panic and I'm the only one who knows the way out. I've got to get us gone. I wiggle my way in, feeling Garrett's bound arm slide up into the mattress along with my leg, probably trying to muffle the zip of the cable. I drag myself in and close my eyes tight as I push along toward the wall. The stuffing presses into my face, and suddenly, I'm yanked to a stop.
We're at the ends of the binding cable. Garrett's not moving for some reason and I'm stuck in the land of suffocation and box springs.
Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic, I chant in my head as I give Garrett a firm tug on the cable. I feel him moving, feel the cable bite into my wrist with his struggle. What if they've got his feet on the other end? The dust and stuffing foam are so close, it seems like the stuff is trying to worm into my nose and ears. My chant becomes a runaway locomotive, racing over my nerves: dontpanicdontpanicdontpanicdontpanic
I give the cable another heave and the thing goes slack. I don't know if he's maneuvered his way into the mattress because the squeeze around me in the tunnel is too tight. I could be kicking him in the face and I'd have no idea. Shoot, I can barely feel my legs. All I know is that I can't breathe and I've got to get out of here.
I keep one arm at my side, so we're not tearing off each other's arms. I shove myself along until I flop into the wall chute. I take that plunged-from-the-deep-sea breath of air and then I work my free hand up to my face, so I can swab the dust off my eyes and nose and mouth. I keep my bound hand close to the opening, to give Garrett as much cable as I can. Stuck in this chute, the feeling returns to my legs pretty quick. Breathing normally, I wrap my fingers around the cable and give it a tug. It's only as far as my wrist will bend, but what I don't feel starts my heartbeat draining away like syrup.
The cable is still slack.
He cut it. Garrett must have cut the cable to get me out.
We are lost to each other forever.
The agony of it surges up in my throat and stings the back of both my eyes and nose, like I'm being dunked in salt water. My lungs are instantly waterlogged and heavy with an ocean of tears. I clasp my hand over my mouth in case I'm even able to choke out a sob that could echo through the walls.
And then the cable trembles. It's only the tiniest quiver, but I go rigid and still, trying to figure out if it is me doing it or something else. The cable does a sharp wiggle against my raw skin and I catch my shriek as a hand shoots out and grabs hold of my ankle.
I shove my elbows up to my sides. There is so much slack in the cable that I dig my elbows into the floor of the tunnel and give myself a hard scoot forward, the way Mr. Reese had instructed Sean and Garrett and the way they'd taught me. I plant them again, the shimmying combat crawl moving me down the tunnel. The hand loses its hold on my ankle. And the cable tugs at my wrist.
I hear his voice.
It's the only one in the world I want to hear. I stop moving. My entire life rushes back at me, jumping into my grip again. I squeeze my eyes shut tight, to stop the whole new wave of tears.
"Rebel!" Garrett whispers. "Let me catch up, before you rip my hand off."
Once we're both safely in the wall, we feel around for the handle that collapses the tunnel opening. It's less of a collapse as it is a shift. The chute rotates, soundlessly, even though Garrett and I are rolled along with it blocking the opening.
Garrett's so much better at moving through the tunnel than I am, but he's patient as I squish along. We get to the turn, where we can go left or right, and there is no straight away, so this time, I go right. With me in the lead, it's slow progress. We can't talk, we do our best to make zero sound and the only thing that keeps me going is when we stop for a rest. Garrett reaches up and holds my ankle in his hand. He rubs it with his thumb and gives it a gentle squeeze of encouragement when he feels my muscle tense, right before I start moving again.
We work our way along and then, I see a dingy light up ahead. When I get close enough to see what it is, I'm not sure how we'll get through it. It is a grate with some thin carpet thrown over the top of it. It dilutes the light that filters into the tunnel. I reach out for the grate and a hazy shadow passes over it. Like the edges of an actual shadow.
I crush backward on Garrett, but he doesn't make a sound, even though my feet slip down and I'm pretty sure I'm kind of stomping on his clavicle. I stay as still as a pile of rocks, but nothing changes. It wasn't like I could've missed a turn someplace. I focus, but hear no sound, no breathing or movement. Nothing. I wait a minute more and then, the cramping in my legs says I have to take the chance on going out there.
I reach out for the grate again and this time, there's no shadow. I push on it, lifting the layer of carpet with it. My first idea is to get out of the tunnel as fast as I can, so whoever is out there doesn't have time to lop off my head first. But I have to jackknife my way up and out, moving slow so I don't pull off Garrett's arm. This might cost me a head and there's nothing I can do about it.
I drag myself up and onto the floor, gaping at what's I see. There's no Robin. No anyone. This is some kind of meeting room, with a huge window overlooking the buildings and street leading away from the hotel. The shadow must've come from clouds drifting past the window.
I get out of the way so Garrett can join me, the binding box whirring angrily at the workout we keep giving it. If it had a mind of its own, I bet it would slap us both with its cables.
"No Robin," I whisper. He looks around to be sure.
"Not good," he mumbles. I want him to say something reassuring, but he paces to the window and the tug on the cable has me following. We press our foreheads to the glass, looking out and looking down.
We're on the first floor of the Celare. Milo's Cura's floor. With no Cura left and Milo gone, this floor is a ghost town.
Looking out from this room, we can see the intersecting roads that weave their way to the Celare between buildings. The roads are nothing like I remember the roads being around here. They are cluttered now, like some giant had a tantrum over having to clean his room. There is a couch, flipped on its back like it's been shot, in the middle of an intersection. There are cars with doors hanging open and parked at weird angles in the middle of the streets. Broken glass and paper and litter of all kinds is spewed everywhere.
Garrett puts a finger on the glass and trails it downward. I follow it, looking down at the parking lot below. An enormous pile of mattresses is piled up on the cement below the window. They look like flat marshmallows or fat sheets of paper, heaped into a pile, as if they're getting ready for a bonfire that would set the entire hotel on fire.
"What do we do now?" I ask Garrett, rolling my head on the glass from my forehead to my temple.
"Look for a blue Ford," he says.
"Huh?"
"What Robin said to us? She wasn't hitting on me. She was telling us to look for a blue Ford," he says.
"Oh," I say as we both look out at the streets. I'm an idiot. I should've known she's happily unhappy in her marriage to Zane. I'm a dishbag for ever having doubted her. "What else did she tell you?"
"I'm not 100% positive, so let's just hope she shows up. Then we won't have to guess."
The sun is setting and all I can make out are the looters who are starting to pick through town with their flashlights. Their beams swarm around like deadly fireflies. Cars flash down the streets too--some past the Hotel, some away from it, but finally, a pair of hi-beams are headed right at us.
"Is it a Ford?" I ask.
"I think so, yeah," he says. "It's hard to tell until it gets closer."
I eye the parking lot, a whole floor below. It's not like we can just ride down in the elevator. We might be able to sneak down the stairs, but The Fury are all over the place. All the Curas know who we are now and I can't believe that they wouldn't recognize us.
"Even if it's...for us," I say, looking around the room for anything we could use as camouflage or a costume. There's nothing. Just a long table and chairs. A pristine whiteboard. "How are we supposed to get down there?"
"Ahhh," Garrett stalls the answer and I look back out the window, zip lining his gaze to the ground. The blue Ford bumps its way through the streets, the tires jumping off the curbs, as if whoever is at the wheel is completely smashed. Or only has experience with bumper car rides. By the time the car rolls into the parking lot, its bashed up on all four sides. Instead of stopping, the Ford just bulldozes straight into the pile of mattresses. At least it pushes them into a tighter pile.
"Who's driving that thing?" I ask as the Ford reverses, jerking over the top of a stray mattress. Garrett's eyes don't leave the car.
"I don't know."
"Got any ideas about how we're going to get down there?"
The answer comes from outside the meeting room as a man shouts, "Check the conference room!" Footfalls pound in our direction and Garrett actually pulls me away from the glass and rushes me toward the door.
"What are you..." I begin, but I don't need to finish. The doors fly open and The Fury burst in, guns aimed to fire. Garrett grabs my hand and with one tug, I know exactly how we're getting down to the blue Ford. We barrel at the window full speed and at the last moment, as The Fury start pumping lead, I leap into Garrett's arms and we launch ourselves sideways, through the shattering glass.
We spill into the pile of mattresses below and they swallow us up like a mountain of marshmallows. We fight our way out of them and I hear a squealing shriek from the blue Ford. The thing roars into drive and nearly blasts right into us before it screeches to a sideways halt.
"YOU DRIVE! YOU DRIVE!" A voice shrieks from inside. Garrett doesn't waste any time ripping open the door and shoving me inside. I move fast, making room for him as he drops behind the steering wheel. Garrett jams the gas pedal and we shoot out of the parking lot, as the car's trunk absorbs a few bullets. Thank goodness The Fury aren't very good shots.
Something hanging from the rearview mirror keeps bapping against my forehead. The girl beside me erupts in a string of frightened giggles as she holds tight to the dash. My eyes dart over to her, sliding up her light-knit, sweater-ed arms, the cuffs bulging with tissue.
"Cora?" I shout, and in her wide-eyed, hysterically-laughing terror, Cora releases one hand from the dashboard and rocks sideways to bash-hug me. A looter runs into the street with a flashlight aimed at us like a gun. Garrett swerves the car and we blast over a curb to avoid the guy. Cora and I knock heads together.
"You look so different!" Cora bubbles. "You got so...I don't know...old?"
"Thanks," I laugh. If nothing else, Cora being Cora makes things feel familiar. And if she actually said something nice, I'd think she was an imposter. With all the adrenaline ripping through me and the Hotel Celare getting smaller in the rear view mirror, Cora could tell me I'm a fat old ninety-year-old and I'd still want to hug her. But first, I want to find out the obvious. "What are you doing here?"
"Zane wrote me on the old Quantus! Nobody is ever on it anymore, but I still check it because you never know, and I was right! Zane was on there! He said you needed a lift! I don't have my permit yet, but I figured the cops wouldn't care, since they're all breaking into Best Buy themselves..."
"Are you serious?"
"About the permit or the cops? Well, it doesn't matter anyway. Both. Everything's a mess out here!" She gives me her huge grin and a trademark sniffle that has nothing to do with sadness and everything to do with cat dander and pollen. She twists around on the seat to look out the back window. "Nobody's following us. I guess Zane busted all their tires after all."
"Zane?"
"Yeah. He said he needed a getaway car and I told him I had one. He asked what kind and when I told him I was worried about getting away, he told me he'd be sure to take care of it by giving the chase cars flats. I didn't know if he'd do it, but I guess he did."
"Good ol' Zane-O," Garrett chuckles.
The ornaments hanging off the rearview mirror swing forward and slap against my forehead as Garrett hits a straight away that will take us out of town. I sway back, to pull them off the rearview mirror, and pause when I see what they are.
Tiny pom poms. I've seen them before. I would never have recognized the car with all the dents and scrapes on it, which Cora undoubtedly inflicted on it during the drive here. But glancing around the interior, at all the clothes bunched in the backseat, along with the bags burping designer jeans and heels from a certain upscale store, my final assessment of the ride ends with my eyes on Cora. She gives me a sheepish smile.
"This is Jen's car, isn't it? You stole Jen's car?" I say. Her sheepish smile turns pure fox. Her eyes flash with the adventure of it.
"I told Zane I'd be coming with a Ford and when my mom wouldn't let me take hers out of the garage, I had to borrow one."
"Borrow?"
"Well yeah. No way was my mom going to let me take hers. I flunked Driver's Ed twice and now, with everything going on, it's not like I'm going to be able to take it again anytime soon. I don't think it matters anyway. It's not like anybody cares if you drive on the road or the sidewalk anymore. Oh! And by the way, Garrett, you are so lucky you didn't get with Jen." Cora leans around me to stare at Garrett. "Do you know what she's doing right now? Jen's with Kris Lukevitch. And I mean with. While he's still with Audrine. Audrine's across town and she doesn't have a car, so Jen's been hanging out with Kris, and yes, I do mean hanging out."
"Oh yeah?" Garrett says, but I can tell he's completely uninterested. He's too busy navigating all the garbage and looters who don't seem to bother with looking before they dash across the street. At least no one's tried to get in the car with us or used us for target practice.
Cora pulls in a deep, bubbly breath. She runs her first three fingers up and over the tip of her nose, bending it like a pencil eraser as she wipes her nostrils all the way into her palm. Garrett hits a bump and she plants her gooey fingers back on the dash, beside mine. I give her more room.
"Good thing Audrine's cell was still working," Cora giggles, dropping her head between her elbows with a laugh. The road finally evens out and we both sit back. "I thought she should know what was happening, so I told Nikki Legarno what was up. You know Nikki. She hot-lined Audrine. And I guess Audrine flipped out. And I mean--flipped. Out. She said she was getting to Kris's any way she could, so Nikki offered to pick her up and take her. I figured I'd help out and take Jen's car, so she'd be sure to stick around and see her friend. Myra snagged the keys for me. She can't stand Jen either and she wants her brother away from her." Cora catches me gaping at her. "What? Jen and Audrine kind of owe all of us, don't they?"
Months ago, when Jen still had the name The Waste pretty much tied around my neck at school, I would've said yes. And every time I found the nickname carved into my books or my locker or my desk, I would've said yes. A few months ago, I wouldn't have minded having their heads on sticks, like Tiki torches, at the homecoming dance.
But things are totally different now. I don't give a crap about Jen or Audrine or even brick-headed Kris anymore. They're all in my rearview mirror, just as much as the Hotel Celare. I mean, I've lost my parents, I've killed two human beings, I've been close to death several times myself, and I've escaped going instantly Looney Tunes in the Jamb. A stupid high school nickname seems about as terrifying as gum on my shoe now.
I think it's fair that what they did to all us is about the same as Cora taking Jen's car and destroying it with her complete lack of any kind of driving skills. A prank, right? Maybe we should even let Cora drive a little more.
"What do you think Jen's going to do when she finds out you took her car?" Garrett says. Cora shrugs, all innocence.
"Took what?" she says, dragging a tissue from her sleeve. She wipes heartily and happily and gets her palm too. "How am I supposed to know what happened to her car? There's looters all over the place, if you haven't noticed."
Dang, I love Cora.
We drive past Simon Valley High. The school is tattooed with graffiti and the windows are busted out. It's weird to see it like this, spray-painted with tags and misspelled curse words and enormous penises. Even weirder is that the streets here are deserted.
"Where is everyone?" I say as we travel through with the doors locked and windows up. As if that can stop bullets or rocks or cans of soup--whatever The Fury might decide to whip at us.
"The looters move in groups usually," Cora says, as if she's explaining what her grandparents do on Sunday afternoons. She tucks away a tissue, all nonchalant before asking, "So where are you two going?"
Garrett and I exchange a look. We have no idea. All we know right now is that we need to get away from the Hotel and find Nok's breadcrumb path of gears. We haven't seen one yet, that we know of. It makes me itchy to think we might've missed it.
Cora licks her chapped lips. "Is there some top secret party going on? I mean, I'd be totally down to tag along...if I can bring a friend."
She's grinning so hard it looks like her entire face will crack in half. I poke her in the ribs. "A friend? What kind of friend?"
"Got yourself a new man, Cora?" Garrett asks and Cora busts out in giggles and nods.
"He's a bad boy."
"A bad boy," I say, drawing out more of Cora's excited laughter. It feels good in my ears. "So what's this guy's name? Anyone we know?"
"Nope, nope, nope." She stretches her neck as she shakes her head. And her smile splits her from ear to ear. "His name is Ramsey. He's incredible. I met him at my mom's work."
"What does your mom do?" Garrett asks.
"She works the front desk at Serene Meadows Rehab facility."
I glance over at Garrett. His smile is stuck to his face just like mine is. I'm not sure what to ask Cora now. How old is this guy? Why's he in rehab? Is he a first-time weed whacker, or if he is one of the hardcore heroin addicts? What is Cora getting herself into? It's a good thing that Cora steamrolls right over our silence.
"He's got a bike--not a Schwinn either, I mean a real bike. Motorbike, you know, a motorcycle."
"Oh yeah?" Garrett kicks in a cocked brow of interest. "What's he ride?"
She sniffs up her nasal drip. "It's black."
"Oh." Garrett looks away, out the window. "Nalena..."
I look up. We're on a long stretch of expressway, bumper-car-ing around abandoned cars, but looming over the road is a billboard with a few graffiti artists busy at work. Between their tags, there is a snapshot commercial for some steampunk movie. There are close ups of women in bustiers and tiny, plumed fascinators, men in confederate coats, top hats, and goggles, but what stands out to me is the background. It's a black background, with rust-colored gears all over it. I focus and the words sail off the billboard right at my face: F--pop!--O--pop!--L--pop!--L--pop!--O--pop!--W--pop!
"Yes," I tell Garrett as calmly as I can, despite the explosions in front of my nose, "this is the right way."
"So, where is the party? I can call him and tell him to meet us." Cora pulls her trusty cell phone from her sweater pocket and thumbs through her numbers. She giggles as she puts the thing to her ear. "He's never going to believe that I was just in a shoot out!"
"Hold up, Cora," I say. "There isn't any..."
But she's already squealing into her phone. "Ramsey? Yeah, it's me! Guess where I'm at? Hang on. I'm going to put you on speaker phone..."
"Babe?" A guy's voice rolls into the car and Cora squeals again, bugging her eyes at me as if I can see the guy.
"Hi!" she shouts. "I'm on the road with my friends, Nalena and Garrett."
"You be careful out there, Sweet Pea," he says, and Cora lights up like an angel just kissed her forehead. "There's all sorts of ass clowns running around, pulling all kinds of garbage. I just clobbered one dingo that was trying to bust into an old lady's house..."
"Ramsey's a vigilante," Cora whispers to me, but of course, he hears it.
"It's ain't just me. All my brothers are working 24/7 to keep our streets under control..."
"He's got a gang! Of vigilantes!" Cora hoots.
Ramsey's voice sounds just like his name: big, powerful, fifty-years-old. I'm a little scared of what Cora's gotten herself into, but she's bouncing on the seat next to me, as she gives this guy our coordinates. "We're going to a party--where is it, Garrett?"
"Uh, there isn't any party," Garrett answers. I have visions of Cora's Ramsey hearing that and hunting us down like the Big Bad Wolf on a Harley. And that's the inspiration for my lie.
"No, no party. We're trying to get to Garrett's grandma's house," I say. Garrett doesn't argue. He nods and I take it as his agreement that I should tell whatever whopper I can come up with, to stop Cora from inviting herself along on our mission. "His grandma's all by herself and she wanted us to come stay with her."
"Oh." Cora sags in the seat, her good time gone. "Wait, weren't you giving him directions?"
"My grandma just got a new condo," Garrett interjects quickly. "Nalena always remembers the directions better than I do. I guess I'm just too busy admiring her to listen when I should."
"Awwww," Cora grips the front of her sweatered chest. Garrett piles on the cheese, and I even wish I'd met his grandma.
"Yeah, my grandmother adores Nalena. She said she can tell that I'm the happiest I've ever been."
"That's so sweet! Your grandma is going to be so happy to see you two!"
"She will, but I don't know how we're going to do it in this car," Garrett murmurs.
"I bent it up pretty bad, huh?" Cora says and Ramsey's voice vibrates the phone.
"You got yourself a car, Sweet Pea?"
"Yup, I did. My friends needed help, so I borrowed the car. Don't worry, I got it off a low life."
Off a low life? Who is this girl in Cora's tissue-stuffed sweater?
"Atta girl. Proud 'a you, Sweet Pea. We always answer the call for a friend," Ramsey says, like he's reciting his gang's mission statement. "So the car you've got, it's not up to making the trip?"
"I don't know for sure," Garrett says, "but it's looking pretty rough."
"Yeah, I've seen how Sweet Pea drives," he guffaws. "Well, let's see what I can do about this. How'd you like to do a little swap?"
Garrett takes his eyes off the littered road to shoot me a puzzled look, as if he's not sure that Cora's boyfriend is suggesting what he thinks he's suggesting. I shrug at him. Cora beams, like this conversation is coming straight from the North Pole.
"I don't have anything to trade," Garrett answers carefully.
"You got Sweet Pea in the car--that's good enough. I'll come to you. You can take my bike to Granny's and me and Sweet Pea'll hoof it on back here with the jalopy."
Garrett's brows shoot up, surprised. Cora lets loose a ripcord of shrieks and giggles.
"I told you he's incredible!"
"Awww, babe," Ramsey's big voice dips as if a Girl Scout just handed him a box full of kittens. "I'll be there in ten!"
I know there's no way this Ramsey is going to find us in ten minutes, until he does. We don't even chance parking to wait for him, since it's dark and the looters pop out of shadows.
But Ramsey has some kind of Cora-GPS. He roars up on a bike that sounds like it's shooting potatoes from the exhaust pipe once it idles beside us. Garrett pulls off on the shoulder of the road.
Even in the dark, I can make out Ramsey. He's a big guy with mirrored sunglasses propped up on top of the bandana fastened over his forehead. He cuts the bike engine and leans over his handle bars, swinging his leg over the seat to get off. Cora scrambles out the car door, but I watch as he approaches the trunk from over my shoulder.
He's even bigger than I thought--his bare biceps, hanging out of his leather vest, look like they should be painted green, they're so thick with muscles. Cora jumps into his arms and he scoops her up against him, his surly-cop expression immediately blowing apart to reveal a grin as wide as Cora's. Except that Ramsey's grin looks like a corn cob with a few bites missing.
Garrett and I finally climb out of Jen's car and stand on the pavement. We hold hands, but Ramsey spots the binding box the minute he sets Cora down. He points to it.
"Those for play, or did you get yourself in a jam?" he asks. I almost smile at how unintentional and accurate his question is. Ramsey squints at the box and cable. "Ain't like any cuffs I seen before, but it wouldn't be nothin' to get 'em off."
"They're for play," Garrett says and Ramsey does a really sick huh huh ho! Even Cora elbows him.
"Nalena's got a fetish with wearing weird stuff like that," she explains.
"No I don't!"
"Come on," Cora juts out one hip and drops her nostril-wiping palm on it. "You were wearing a rock around a couple weeks ago..."
"Hey, we ain't here to judge," Ramsey says, lifting his hands. Cora squeals a giggle, but I still feel like I should set the record straight.
"I don't have a fetish!"
"You do like this kind of stuff," Garrett laughs, swinging our hands so the binding box clacks against our cables. I would pound him, if Ramsey and Cora weren't laughing too.
"You're not helping." I say, finally giving in with a laugh, even though it's between my teeth.
"Well, we shouldn't hold you up if Granny's waitin' on you," Ramsey says. "And it's never good standing in one place too long with things bein' like they are. Think you can you handle a Hog, uh..."
"Garrett," Garrett says as the two shake. "I think so. I've ridden before."
I don't hold up our leaving by asking Garrett for the history on this, but I'm a little surprised to hear it. I had no idea.
Ramsey gives Garrett a few pointers about the bike: the clutch can be a little feisty, the stereo speakers don't work. Then he hands Garrett a helmet he had secured on the seat behind him and slips one off the back rest for me.
"Don't much use 'em myself, but thought you might. Brought an extra, for your woman," Ramsey says.
Cora giggles at his side, "Your woman!"
"We'll try to get the bike back to you as soon as possible," Garrett says, but Ramsey slaps the air and blows a snort out of his nostrils that reminds me a lot of Cora, but in reverse.
"No worries. Borrowed this one off a...uh, well, it doesn't really matter. Twelve years as a roofer in hootsy-snootsy neighborhoods, I figured they wouldn't miss just one Harley. Especially when it's going to a good cause."
Great. We're about to ride off on Cora's fave-new-felon's bike.
But then, looking out at the landscape, I don't think the cops will be the ones trying to stop us.
Ramsey turns on the headlights once he's got the car moving in the opposite direction. He told us he would do it, hoping it would draw any attention away from us. But firing up the Hog, the muffler is about as stealthy as an air raid siren.
I slide onto the back of the bike and wrap my arms tight around Garrett's waist. I lay my head against the flat of his back and the hum he makes with my contact sounds like he's licking a chocolate spoon. It rumbles in my chest. I hum back and he returns a soft laugh. Then the bike thunders between my legs as he releases the clutch and we take off down the road.
In the first ten seconds, after we race away from Cora and Ramsey, I'm clinging to Garrett for life. I feel like a flag, flapping off the back, and as he weaves through road debris, I'm positive I'm going to topple us or fly off. My body seems to know what to do, leaning at the same moment Garrett does, but I still think it's a miracle that he keeps us upright and steady. The wind blows my hair off my neck from beneath the helmet and I'm guessing the pinging little stings of debris hitting my skin is actually bugs. I don't know how Ramsey could stand it, only wearing a bandana.
We drive along, seeing less and less looters as we get out of town. We are passed by a swerving truck that has a barbeque grill in the bed. The grill is open and sizzling burgers as it lurches behind the cab window, and the five partiers packed in around it try to knock us off the bike by throwing their empty beer cans at us. They stop when the grill burns two of them. There is a man, his skin spray-painted orange, but otherwise naked, walking on the shoulder. He doesn't look up as we pass.
The stretch we're on goes country before it leads into the next town, and when we spot an abandoned hole-in-the-wall bar at the side of the road, there are two signs that we're supposed to stop there. One is that we're both exhausted, and the second is that the bar is called The Gear Shaft.
I tell Garrett when the tin, painted sign tralates the letters: H *pop* E *pop* R *pop* E *pop* and he lets us coast into the dirt parking lot.
The place is a dump. It's got a tree house kind of building plan that looks like it limped into the Cusp as it is: with a buckling floor, a leaky roof, and probably a zillion health code violations. We coast around the empty parking lot, to the back of the building.
All the windows are busted in. Chairs and broken tables litter the lot. The aftermath tells a familiar story now: the place was looted, a party broke out and it got out of hand. The partiers trashed the place and left. From the looks of it, they left quite a while ago too.
An empty dumpster stands at the very back of the lot, surrounded with a closed, wood fence. There's a heap of gutted garbage bags in front of it, as if no one could be bothered to actually open the gate and throw the garbage in the container. The flies rise us like a tiny patch of black fog as we coast toward them. I wonder why Garrett's taking us back here.
He cuts the engine and even though I'm glad to get off the bike, I'm afraid to take a breath. I hold my breath, keeping my free hand over my nose.
"It's not that bad," Garrett tells me. "At least, not as bad as I thought it would be."
I take a precautionary whiff. It's not great, but he's right. It's bearable.
"What are we doing back here?" I ask.
"We're going to sleep," he says. "It's too dangerous to drive at night. We need to go at first light when I can actually see the road. A lot of the looters will probably be passed out by then too."
He pushes the bike past all the garbage an into the fenced area around the dumpster. I follow, the cable hissing between us. I pull the fence closed behind us, but looking around, I don't know where Garrett means for us to sleep. He wedges the bike between the back of the dumpster and the fence before climbing up on the edge of the metal garbage vat and peering inside. My arm is dragged up over my head as he does it.
"You're not thinking of sleeping in this thing, are you?"
"Nope, not in here."
"You said sleep right? Where else is there to sleep? Not in the bar," I moan. The bar looks as bad as the dumpster.
"Nope. We're going to sleep here." He hops down off the dumpster. "Behind the dumpster. We can drag in some chairs to sleep on, and wedge them further back, behind the bike. That way, if anyone does come in, they'll try for the bike and we might be able to surprise them before they get it."
"There's probably rats..."
"I don't see any," he says. "But even if there are, I'll take the rats over a gang of Fury looters."
I wouldn't. My stomach flips like an omelet. "I don't know."
"I know it stinks, but I think this is the safest place we've got. Most looters aren't going to pick through all this mess to bother with a dumpster."
It's not like there are a lot of options. Well, it's not like there's any, really. I sigh and try to lift my lips in a grin. It's an epic fail. His grin is more encouraging, as he pats me on the back.
"At least we're off the ground, right?" I say and I follow Garrett out to the parking lot and help drag in the chairs.
I wake up three dozen times at least, sure each time that I'm falling off a cliff. Really, I'm just squashed between the fence and the ledge of chairs Garrett and I have brought in and pushed together. Each time Garrett wakes too, rubbing my back when I sit up, with a reassuring and groggy mumble of it's okay. Luckily, I pass right back out just as fast.
In the morning, we both wake with stiff backs. Instead of getting right on the bike, we go into the busted-up bar and hunt for food first. We get peanuts. Literally. And stale peanuts never tasted so good.
We wheel out the bike and get moving as the sun rises, but the ghost road doesn't stay exclusive to us very long. I feel Garrett's body shift, loosen, and I peek over his shoulder, squinting to see what's coming up ahead.
I know this place. This is Skyline. A huddle of expensive, high-end shops where a lot of kids at school talked about taking the two hour trip to visit this place and blow their cash on designer names. In the middle of almost nowhere, some developer had a dream of building a posh little shopping district with an exclusive, gated subdivision where the rich would flock and the poor would be locked out. It almost, but didn't, work. I saw on the news how some of the big retailers pulled out of the deal. The wealthy never quite bought into the sub. Skyline became a really cool collection of stores with outrageous prices, almost like an outdoor mall/tourist attraction for the locals, surrounded by chalets and summer cabins, rather than mansions.
As we approach the main drag, I can see that Skyline is just like everywhere else. The shops have been looted, with merchandise barfing out of the open doors and broken windows, onto the wood boardwalk outside the shops and even onto the road.
But the weirdest thing I spot is a group of girls, around our age, walking down the middle of the street. They're talking and swinging trademark, handled bags, as if they've just finished shopping therapy rounds at Victoria Secret, Aeropostale and Hollister. I guess they wouldn't look out of place if they were strutting down Skyline's slatted walkway during a school break, but coming straight down the center of this demolished street, they make the whole scene look like a freaky, B-rated, post-apocalypse movie. Or like a tomato is going to come leaking out of one of the stores and swallow us all.
As we cruise closer, Garrett guides the bike in as wide a circle around them as he can, considering all the crap in the street that our wheels could slide on. The girls stop swinging bags. They stop talking. They stare right at us, like they're tracking dinner.
"WASTE!" One of them shouts. Holy crap. One of them recognizes me. Or, at least, the person I used to be.
My bones suddenly relax, like they're settling into the calm before the storm. The muscles go loose down my back and I recognize the feeling as something I usually see instead of experience. Garrett does this. When there's a threat of a fight, he relaxes completely.
As if I'm in sync with his routine, my whole body follows the same steps, like it's reminding me to keep calm, that the fastest way through a fight is to have a calm head on my shoulders. But as my eyes sort through the faces in the girl crowd, I see girls that look a lot like I used to feel.
At Simon Valley, nobody's drawn like a wild card into the popular crowd; these girls are being saved by someone and I'm sure they've already been instructed of how grateful they should be for the intervention. I search for the savior and find her.
It's the one person who would most like to rip my head clean off my body.
Regina Runklan.
It can't get much worse than this. Not because I'm afraid, but because I have this adrenaline blasting through me and this messed up desire to show Regina how easily I can waste her now. Right in front of her new lap dogs.
I don't know if Garrett can tell by my Jell-O muscles or if he just knows by seeing Regina, but he speaks over his shoulder gently to me. "Fight that feeling, Rebel. We've got more important things to do."
I glance back at Regina. I know he's right. I'd love to beat her like a drum, but we have bigger things to take care of.
Regina shouts at us again, "Hey! Is that you, Garrett? You still taking out the trash?"
Garrett glances over, just as we are coasting by, maybe fifteen feet away but parallel to Regina. He flips up his helmet shield so she can see him and he calmly salutes her with his middle finger.
Regina's rosacea flares up her face like a lit fuse. She drops her bags with a roar. She launches herself into a sprint toward us, but her foot gets caught on something and she stumbles.
And she belly splats. A really fleshy sounding splat too, right onto the pavement.
It's beautiful.
At first I think that her stumbling was due to an unexpected ally in the group--one of the revised wallflower that suddenly remembered her roots and does me a solid by tripping up Regina. But that's not it. What got her is the pile right in front of her. It's a mound of gears, all heaped together like a robot ralphed its intestines in the street.
I nudge Garrett and point at the gears. He nods that he sees them too.
But Regina thinks I'm pointing at her. She shrieks and curses as one of her girl-gang members tries to drag Regina back onto her feet. Her scraped face is enough for me. I wrap my arms even tighter on Garrett's waist and he pops the clutch. The bike leaps forward, like it can't wait to finally leave all this garbage behind.
We rocket out of town. I hang onto Garrett's waist, hoping that these gears are indications that we're on the right path and not just coincidences.
We stop to syphon gas out of an abandoned car and I lean against the car as Garrett dips the plastic tubing we scrounged up, three cars ago, into the gas tank. He sucks on the end until the gas rises up in the tube and then he holds the other end over the mouth of an empty milk jug we found. I'm glad he's doing it. My first shot at it, I threw up all over the street after I sucked in too hard and the gasoline shot into my mouth.
"What's on your mind, Rebel?" Garrett asks as I rap my fingertips on the car. The binding box dances in the air between us and I don't even bother to beat around the bush. I ask the question that's been sitting in the middle of my head for the two hours.
"Do you think we're going the right way?"
"I hope so," he says, glancing away only briefly from the tube.
"All of this could be total coincidence," I say. "The gear stuck in the tree trunk at the side of the road seemed like a real sign, but that gear box you saw--it could've just been gutted car parts. That town clock with the face ripped off and the gears hanging out...every place we go, everything looks wrecked. It might not mean anything."
Nothing except that danger is everywhere we go. The last three places we stopped, we were chased. One stop, they threw stones, trying to knock us off the bike. Both of us have cuts and bruises, but I clung to Garrett and he managed to get us out of there.
Garrett stands up and lifts the jug, gauging the level of gas inside. He pulls the tube from the container, tipping up the end so it doesn't spill gas all over the place. He hands the end to me before he pours the gas into our tank.
"I know what you mean, but you know what Addo would say? He'd say there's no such thing in this world as a coincidence. Since we don't have anything else to go on, I think we should rely on that."
"An adage?" I hike up the edge of my lip in disagreement. Garrett reaches out with a chuckle and presses it back down with a gentle fingertip.
"Faith," he says. He moves his fingers from my mouth to my brow, brushing downward so my lids close. "Think of the mission and tell me what your gut instincts say to do. Your instincts, not your reasoning."
I don't even need to close my eyes. It's pretty obvious, from not even knowing where we're going, how we're going to find where we need to be, or how to do what we need to do. This whole goofy mission is built on believing that we can do the impossible.
"Faith," I grumble when I open my eyes. He smiles.
"You've got great instincts, Rebel." His eyes sink to my lips and I know he's thinking of kissing me, but we're standing in the rubble of a deserted highway that could get un-deserted at any second. I lean in and give him a peck on the cheek.
"Being out here gives me the creeps," I say in way of apology. "At least when we're moving, I feel like the looters can't get us."
"It's better to be moving," he agrees.
I bend down and pick up my helmet as he twists the cap back onto the cycle tank. "We've been going for hours though. Do you think we're even getting close?"
"Don't know." He puts on his helmet. "But I hope we find it soon. I'm starving, aren't you?"
"Yeah," I say and my stomach rumbles it's own answer; an angry master clanging a dinner bell. We climb back on the bike and take off down the road again.
We follow the road forever, until we hit a fork. An overturned bicycle sits off on the left shoulder, dead wheels in the air, the chain drooping off the gears like a punk rock necklace. We hook a left and the road signs, the ones that aren't bent over backward, painted over, or shot full of holes, immediately try to warn us of what we can already see rising up over the trees ahead. Mountains. All the road signs would be more useful if they dispensed motion-sickness meds instead of warnings of steep drop offs and blind curves of road. As soon as the road starts to incline into a curl, I turn seaweed-green. The only thing keeping me from losing everything in my stomach is that there's nothing in my stomach to lose.
We go for two more hours, the road never straightening out. My spine is numb. The insides of my thighs are rubber bands, stretched beyond their stretchability. I'm positive that my back, from leaning against Garrett so long, is permanently arched into an Igor-slouch. I give up hanging onto Garrett and hang onto the edges of the cycle seat, daring the wind resistance to just blow me off the back end. I'm almost craving it. Funny how hours upon hours spent on the back of a motorcycle can make you do nutty stuff like that--like silently begging an inanimate object for mercy.
The only good thing is that the road seems completely abandoned. There are no restaurants, no gas stations, no signs of life. I'm shocked that there's still pavement, because there aren't even guard rails to stop us from shooting off the steep edge, into the sharp bristles of trees.
With such thick foliage, if we were to go off the road, someone would not only have to know the exact spot that we careened off, but they'd have to be totally determined to find us. And one good rain, like the one stuck in the dirty clouds overhead, could make a skidding crash a reality while also erasing any clues that might help find survivors.
This mountain would be the perfect place to pull an Amelia Earhart, find Elvis, or hide the crown jewels. It is a place that swallows up and spits out, whenever it feels like getting around to doing either.
I press my cheek even harder against Garrett's back as the bike continues on its slant around the never-ending coil of road. I don't know how he's doing it; he's got to be as hungry as I am, even though maybe it's easier to handle when you're not so sick that you're wishing you could just do a sea cucumber in the middle of the street and get it over with. As if on cue, Garrett throttles down and eases the bike to a halt.
"What's the matter?" I say. My rib muscles ache from the constant lean around the endless curve of the mountain.
"We're out of gas."
I'm ecstatic to get off the back of the bike. Even happier when Garrett decides it's too much to push. I never want to see another motorcycle again. It's like Christmas when Garrett suggests we roll it off the edge of the road. We watch the riderless machine jog down the steep slope a couple feet before the handle bars jackknife and the whole bike flips, bouncing in somersaults the rest of the way down. At least, as far down as we can see. The bike breaks through some trees and just disappears with hardly even a poof of dust. We watch a second more--I expect some action-movie kind of explosion--but nothing happens.
Then it registers just how far down really is. As we back away from the edge, it also registers how screwed we are, on a road that doesn't have any other signs of life on it.
"The only way to go is up," Garrett says. "We know what's behind us, and the last time we saw of anybody was a couple hours ago. There's got to be something up ahead."
"I don't know if that's better." I look up and I look out. These aren't the kind of mountains that rise up to permanently white, frosty peaks. These are mountains upholstered with trees and bushes and bugs.
"There's got to be some people left that don't belong to The Fury. Where better to find them then in the mountains?" He takes my hand with a slanted smile that tells me he doesn't exactly believe what he's saying either.
And we start walking.