HUNTINGTON BEACH
It wasn’t until they’d been training and hunting for two weeks that they reached the ocean, and their prey. One moment they were in the never-ending sprawl of the city—Polly had already been in L.A. long enough to feel like the sprawl went on forever—then the road they were on ended at a T, and beyond, a great blue darkness stretching out forever. Polly never would have thought something so big could come without warning.
They walked toward the roar of the ocean. Polly took off her shoes at the edge of the sand. They stopped at a fruit cart and bought fruit bowls. Melons and papayas and mangoes. The woman squeezed a lime over the bowl, and salt and chili pepper too.
“Gracias,” Polly said. The bear blew the woman a kiss. The woman laughed.
Overhead, gulls did lazy circles. A group of girls walked by in bathing suits. Her dad watched them.
“Bathing suits didn’t used to look like that,” he said, and Polly didn’t know who he was saying it to but it sure wasn’t her. She put a piece of mango to the bear’s snout. It waved a paw over its snout like hot chili pepper.
Polly walked with her head up. When they first got to L.A. Polly had been worried about being recognized. She knew the police were still looking for her and her dad. Then one day she saw her face on a billboard. It wasn’t like the time she saw herself on the news. It was like a stranger looking back. She stood right under it without fear, people passing and not knowing it was her. She looked up at her dad with his beard and fuzzy head and sunglasses. She knew then she was safe from being seen.
They reached the wet sand. They padded to where the water could lick the sand from between their toes. Sea foam glided across the wet sand. It hugged its way around her foot. Colder than she ever thought it would be. The water sucked sand with it as it fled back to the ocean. She liked the feeling of it, the sharp air and cold water and rough sand.
She looked up at her dad, found him staring down the beach again. Probably more girls, she thought. But then she saw them. A group of men and women drinking beer in cans. The men in cutoff jeans, the girls in tiny T-shirts. The men had tattoos, mostly dark blue, scribbly, like the ones all over her dad.
Young bodies, hard eyes.
She gave her dad a look like them?
“Yeah,” he said.
They waited for the party to wrap up. Polly watched them side-eyed. It seemed like the way a spy would do it, or a ninja.
Her dad wasn’t as sneaky as she was. He took peeks. He watched one of them in particular. A woman. Her hair was cut boy short, with long bangs that that flopped over her forehead. She had green eyes too big for her face. She didn’t wear a swimsuit, just cutoffs and a T-shirt, tight so it showed off her boobs. And she was with the group, but she wasn’t really with them. She was just outside the circle, and she sat with her body facing a bit away from everybody else. Polly was good at noticing stuff like that. She wondered if that’s why her dad was looking at her. Or maybe it was just her boobs. The thought gave Polly a feeling she didn’t like. She had to hunt for the word. Doom. Doom was the word.
Beach cops walked by. The air changed. The party got quiet. Next to her, Polly felt her dad go still. He pulled down the sleeves on his shirt to make sure the ink was covered. He ran a hand over the week’s worth of fuzz on his head and face.
“We’re not doing anything,” Polly said.
“The one thing I’m scared of,” he said, “is being locked up again. Out here I can fight. I can keep you safe. Inside it’s all over.”
“They don’t recognize us.”
“Just takes one is all,” he said. “And everything goes to shit.”
The people they were watching seemed like they felt the same way. Even when the cops walked on their moods had soured. The group broke up, headed up the sand toward the parking lot.
“Who do we follow?” she asked.
“Her,” he said, pointing to the dark-haired girl. The one Polly knew he was going to pick.
“Why?” Polly said. “Don’t we want one of the tough guys?”
“We’re hunting,” he said. “When you hunt and you find a pack, you got to find the loner. The weak one. The one you can split off the fold. She’s the one. We stick with her.”
It made sense to Polly. After all, Polly had noticed that the girl was an outsider too. It was even scientific choosing her, the way he said it. So why did it sound like a lie?