“That park we passed might have something,” I say.
Bex and Arcade respond with grunts, too tired and cold to argue or agree. They follow me back down the street, into the shadows, where we hustle double-time, staying away from streetlights. The park is a lot bigger than it seemed each time we passed it. Inside, it is massive and fancy, considering the size of the town. It has a small lake, baseball diamonds, fountains, tennis and volleyball courts, and a nature trail. We run through it all on our way to a gazebo at the center. It’s an open-air building with a roof supported by sandstone pillars to keep rain and sun off, but not cold air. There we spot a couple of kids hanging around. One is using a picnic table as a skate ramp. The other kid is lying on top of another picnic table, staring up at the sky and burning a cigarette between her two fingers. I can’t really see what she looks like, but the skater is unforgettable. His arms are covered in tattoos. He’s also got piercings in his eyebrows and a huge one in his right earlobe. He’s got that urban wildness I used to see in the kids who lived on the boardwalk back home. It’s a combination of grime, nervous energy, and sunburns. I’m guessing they are probably homeless. They’ve got dogs with them, which is always a giveaway. Homeless kids love dogs. Maybe it’s the whole “unconditional love” a dog is happy to give. The kids back home paid for that love with loyalty. They would let themselves go hungry to buy kibble.
“Maybe they know a squat,” Bex whispers as we watch them from the safety of the shrubs.
“Can they be trusted?” Arcade asks.
I peer closely, wondering the same thing. My father told me that most of the homeless kids he dealt with were runaways trying to put distance between themselves and something back home. Others were dumped from the foster care rolls when they got too old and had nowhere else to go. They were all pretty harmless, he said, but he warned me that some had serious drug problems and mental health issues. But honestly, I’m more worried about how they might react to us. Bex and I come off pretty normal, if smelly, but one look at Arcade is all you need to know she’s not human. Her features are too perfect, too symmetrical, breathtaking and otherworldly. The scars on her forearms where her blades jut out aren’t exactly inconspicuous either. Maybe this isn’t a good idea.
“You need something?” a voice says from behind me. Startled, we spin around and find a tall, broad-shouldered Asian kid in baggy camouflage shorts, a Burger King T-shirt, and road rash on his forearm. His hoodie is strewn with patches from hardcore bands I’ve never heard of, and like the other kids, he’s got a beat-up skateboard under his arm.
“We need a squat for the night,” Bex says bravely.
He studies each one of us, as if we’re wearing little signs that read TRUSTWORTHY or UNTRUSTWORTHY. Oddly enough, Arcade doesn’t seem to intrigue him. He spends a lot of time on me.
“Are you Coasters?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you get dumped too?”
“Um, no,” I say, confused by his question.
“You got through the roadblocks?” he cries.
“Yes,” I say, though he doesn’t need to know we used our magical mittens to make it happen.
He nods approvingly.
“You got anything to eat in that pack?”
“Plenty.”
“Yeah, I got a place,” he says with a smile, then gestures for us to follow him as he joins his friends at the pavilion.
The dogs are the first to notice us, and their barks are shocking and loud, like thunderclaps on a clear day. All their hostility is aimed at Arcade. A golden retriever charges at her and bares its teeth, then circles around her slowly, sniffing and snapping. A German shepherd takes the opposite approach, lying on its belly, a sign of submission. Even the dogs know Arcade’s an Alpha.
“Easy now, Phil,” Tattoo Boy says as he hops off his board and hurries to the retriever’s side. He’s calm and loving, caressing the animal’s great golden head and neck.
The girl sits up and turns to us. She’s beautiful in a way that’s hard to define, with long black dreads that hang like ropes, light skin, freckles, big green eyes, and full brown lips. Unfortunately, all those amazing features are twisted and annoyed.
“You’re scaring our dogs,” she complains.
“Which city?” Tattoo Boy says as he rolls up to join us. He kicks off his board and it pops up into his hands.
“What do you mean?” Bex asks.
“You’re Coasters, right? What city are you from?”
Bex flashes me a look, and I shrug. What’s the point of lying?
“Brooklyn.”
“Whoa!” he cries. “Near Coney Island?” our host begs.
I nod. “Near.”
“Criminals or refugees?” Tattoo Boy presses.
Bex and I share a look, which makes him laugh.
“My favorite combination. They call me Duck,” he says, and then he gives me a hug. Bex is next, but when he tries it with Arcade, she growls. He tosses his hands into the air in surrender. “Not a hugger. That’s cool.”
“Duck?”
“Yep. Do you like it?” he says, then lets his face unfold into a grin. Oh, boy, he’s flirting.
“I’m Bex. This is Lyric and . . . Jill.”
“Jill?” Arcade growls.
The Asian boy offers his fist for a pound. “Lucas. That’s Sloan with the sour expression. Jill doesn’t talk?”
“Jill doesn’t talk. Will you take us to this squat or not?” Arcade cries.
“What did you do?” Sloan asks suspiciously.
“What did we have to do? We’re Coasters,” Bex says.
It seems like a good enough answer for Sloan. She shrugs and turns to lead us away when the retriever launches into panicked barking. The shepherd joins him, and this time their attention is on the road. As if on cue, a cop car cruises slowly by, shining a bright spotlight into the park.
“Is he looking for you?” Lucas asks.
“Maybe,” I confess.
“I think that’s Ferguson,” Sloan warns us.
Lucas points toward a playground to the left of the pavilion. There, among the slides and swings, is a kids’ tree fort. It looks like something out of the frontier age, with little windows and a rope ladder. It could be a great hiding place, or the perfect cage if one of these kids decides to rat us out. Sloan looks eager to get rid of us. Lucas and Duck, however, seem sincere.
“C’mon,” I say, and Bex and Arcade and I race across the grass. We scamper up the ladder, then duck out of sight inside the tiny tower. It was designed for little kids, and scrawny little kids at that, not a gang of tall teenage girls.
“More hiding,” Arcade growls.
“Shush,” I say.
“You see any other kids out here tonight?” a voice booms. It has to belong to the cop they call Ferguson. “You, speak up. Have you seen anyone?”
I poke up enough to see its owner. He’s short, maybe no taller than five foot four, with a port-wine stain smeared across his left eye. He’s got a shaved head. What is it about the shaved head with cops?
“No, sir,” Duck says a little too enthusiastically. I suddenly know everything I need to know about that kid. He’s the one who never knows when to shut up, especially around authority figures and people who can make his life hard. He just can’t help himself.
“What about you, girl? Have you seen any strangers around today?”
Sloan turns toward the fort and locks eyes with me. I bite down hard on my lip, sure we’ve been betrayed, but then she turns back to Ferguson and shakes her head.
“You speak English?” the cop demands.
“Of course I speak English,” she snaps. I guess Duck and Sloan were made in the same factory.
“We haven’t seen anyone, but we could keep our eyes open. What do they look like?” Lucas says, stepping between the cop and his friends.
“There are three of them. They’re about your age; pretty girls. Two of them are wearing metal gloves.”
“Metal gloves? Like
Shredder?” Duck laughs.
“What?”
“The bad guy from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” he explains. “His name is Shredder. He wears gloves with razors on them so he can shred. What did they do? Are they dangerous?”
“Heck, yeah, they’re dangerous. Do you think I’m out here looking for them because they’re selling illegal Girl Scout cookies? One of them is one of those fish things.”
“Fish things?” Lucas asks.
“Forget it,” the cop barks, then turns to Duck. “Are you sure you haven’t seen them? You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you?”
“No, sir,” Duck says.
“Are you a citizen, boy?”
“I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, pal,” Duck says.
The punch comes from nowhere. Suddenly, Duck is on the ground and Ferguson has his foot on Duck’s head.
“You a Coaster, smart-ass?” he shouts. “Do you have your paperwork? Did you sneak over the border? I bet you’re all illegal. What about you, girl? Where are you from?”
“Sir, let him up,” Lucas begs.
“Shut up! You kids are out here loitering day and night, and I never hassle you. I could send Social Services over here, but I don’t. I’m a nice guy up to a point, but if ya’ll push my buttons, I get angry. Girl, you better get a hold of those dogs, or I’m gonna put them down.”
Sloan quickly grabs the dogs by the collar. She tries to calm them, but their frenzy of barking continues.
“Sir, please let him up,” Lucas cries, panicked but trying to play by the officer’s twisted rules. Unfortunately his pleas are ignored.
I watch in horror from the safety of the fort. Those kids are suffering because of us, and I can’t let it continue. I shift so I can get my gloved hand out in front of me, but Bex pulls me back.
“C’mon, Lyric. Using that thing shouldn’t be the first option,” she hisses.
“Then what do you want to do?” I cry, bewildered.
She peers through one of the tiny windows.
“There are a million things you can do with it. Pick one that doesn’t put him in the hospital,” she begs.
I tuck my hand under my hoodie to block the light from radiating out and revealing our hiding spot. Then I strain to hear the water’s call. There are pipes running beneath Ferguson’s feet, eager to explode and knock him down. There’s a sprinkler system I could use to drown him. There’s even a garden hose lying in the grass nearby that I could turn into a whip. All of them are deliciously vengeful, but for Bex’s sake I’ll try to be creative.
“Use some restraint,” I whisper to the voices.
A second later, a fire hydrant in the street blows up and its metal cap sails through the air, landing at Ferguson’s feet. A jet of water shoots into the sky and comes down on his car with such force, the back windshield collapses. Water floods through the broken glass and quickly fills the car.
“What on earth?” Ferguson hollers, and all of a sudden tormenting children is not at the top of his list. Duck scampers to his feet, embarrassed, angry, and hurt, but he knows better than to fight back. Instead, he steps as far away as he can from the cop.
Ferguson calls to his dispatcher. She accuses him of throwing a temper tantrum, then promises to send a fire truck.
“Get out of the park,” Ferguson spits. “If I see you Coasters again, I’m calling Immigration.”
He stomps back toward his squad car and suffers through the ceaseless spray to get behind the wheel. It’s so powerful, it knocks him down before he finally gets the door open and crawls inside. While he’s busy, Bex, Arcade, and I climb down from the fort. The kids eye us with both wonder and fear.
“Did you do that?” Lucas asks.
I nod.
“I won’t hurt you,” I promise.
“You’re that girl from Coney Island,” Sloan says.
“We need a squat for the night. If it’s not cool, that’s fine, but say it now, please, so we can keep looking before it’s too late,” Bex says.
She reaches over and gives my hand a squeeze. I return the show of affection.
Lucas speaks to Duck and Sloan. Tattoo Boy wipes the blood out of his eye and listens, his face full of suspicion, but then he eventually nods.
“You can come,” Lucas says. “But whatever food you’ve got, you have to share, and Malik gets first pick.”
“Who is Malik?”
“The guy who decides whether you sleep outside or not,” Sloan explains.
She grabs Lucas by the arm, whispering something to him while staring at me the entire time.
“C’mon, we’ll take you.” Duck picks up his board and walks into the dark. Lucas and Sloan do the same.
Chapter Eight
THEY WALK US ALONG A LONELY ROAD TO A BRIDGE. Once there, we crawl down the embankment and find a huge metal drainage pipe big enough for a grown man to walk into upright. It leaks murky brown water into a muddy creek basin. Without hesitation, Duck plunges us into the dark. Sloan and Duck follow, then Arcade.
Lucas happens to have a small flashlight in his pocket, and he takes the lead for Bex and me. Soon we’re so far in that I can’t see the light of the entrance any longer. Along the way, Duck tells us his life story. He and his father left Newport, Rhode Island, when it was ravaged by the Rusalka—who he calls the “frogs.” They packed all their belongings in the car, only to get stopped in their tracks at the Texas border. They were separated by the mobs, though, he admits, his dad might have ditched him.
“I wasn’t his favorite child. Unfortunately I was his only one.”
He laughs at his own expense, but it’s not loud enough to cover up the pain.
Sloan says she’s from a little town in Delaware that was overrun by the monsters. She and her mother and father abandoned everything they had and took off in the family’s SUV. When they got to the Texas border, they were stopped and searched. The soldiers threatened to arrest the whole family, but her father bribed one with the car. He would only let Sloan pass through, all alone. That was a week ago. They were supposed to meet here but she hasn’t seen them since.
Lucas, on the other hand, doesn’t offer much.
“Are you from the Coast?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
That’s his answer for everything. He’s like a male version of Bex. Getting him to share is like pulling teeth.
Finally we reach a ladder. Duck climbs up while Lucas shines his flashlight at him. When he gets to the top, he pounds his hand on a metal grate that blocks his way, first three times, then once, then four more times.
“Secret codes.” Duck chuckles down to us.
There is movement from above, and then the grate opens and the tunnel fills with light. Leaning down into the hole is the face of a dark-skinned boy with a shaved head and the beginnings of a sad, thin mustache.
“What happened to your face?” he asks. He seems genuinely concerned for Duck, as if they were family.
“Ferguson.”
He frowns, then peers down at us.
“Who are they?”
“They need a place for the night,” Lucas replies. “Let us in.”
“We don’t have room for three more,” Malik argues.
“You know we do, Malik,” Lucas argues. “Let us in. I’m standing in sewage.”
“We will only be here until morning, and then we’ll be gone,” I promise.
“They got anything to contribute?”
I take off my pack and hand it up. Malik snatches it and unzips it, peering inside. He rifles through it like it’s his own, pulling out the last of the protein bars and the cans of soup, then takes out the package of bologna and smells it.
“One night,” he says sternly, then moves enough to let Duck finish his climb. We all follow until we find ourselves in what appears to be an ancient boiler room, not unlike the one we used to have in the basement of my apartment back in Brooklyn. Once we’re all out of the tunnel, Lucas closes the grate and then fastens a padlock to keep it shut. He hangs the key
on a nail pounded into the nearest wall.
“You’re gone by eight,” Malik commands like it’s the law of the land. He snatches the bread for himself, then hurries up a flight of stairs and vanishes from view.
“Don’t mind him,” Lucas explains. “He’s sort of the mayor of this place, and he’s very protective.”
“Paranoid is what he is,” Duck says.
“He needs to be,” Sloan chastises.
“What is this place, exactly?” Bex asks.
Duck grins from ear to ear. “You’re going to love this.”
He hurries us up the stairs until we’re standing in a room with soaring ceilings and a hardwood floor. Before us is a monstrous curtain that must be forty feet tall. There’s ancient electrical work on the walls and huge black panels filled with tiny bulbs. Ropes, pulleys, and catwalks hang from a ceiling that soars to dizzying heights. Duck pulls back one end of the heavy curtain and urges us to step through. Once there, I find myself on a stage in a huge sloping room with hundreds of velvet chairs.
“It’s a theater,” I gasp.
I don’t know how old this building is, but it was built with a lot of care and craftsmanship. The balconies are carved with cherubs, and the walls are decorated in a glitzy art deco design. There is a pipe organ to the left that looks as if it sinks into the floor, and the ceiling—oh . . . it’s breathtaking. It shoots high above us, and it’s painted to look like an endless blue sky dotted by chubby clouds made of milk. Unfortunately it’s marred by water damage, and there’s a hole up there somewhere that’s allowing birds to nest. A few pigeons circle the room, spiraling around and around as if they are wheeling in a real sky.
“Welcome to the Royale,” Lucas says when he joins us.
“It’s incredible,” Bex says.
“Malik found it a while back. He’s been on his own for a couple years, so he cleaned it up. When Duck and I wandered into town a couple weeks back, he took us in.”