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Seb ran a fingernail along a thread in his jeans. “I saw a lot of things happen there,” he said finally. “Things much worse than stealing a wallet, I think. ” He smiled again; there was a hard edge to it this time. “I saw a boy try to escape, and they caught him – they tied him to a tree and left him there for days. No food or water. None of us were allowed to help him. ”
I picked up a sudden image of this, and desperately wished I hadn’t. Oh god, the boy’s eyes. His face. I could hardly get the words out. “What. . . what happened to him?”
Seb gave a small I don’t know motion with his hand. “After a week, he was gone. We didn’t see him any more after that. ”
“But – is that even legal? How can they be allowed to do that? Couldn’t you have told the police when you got out?” My voice had gone high-pitched with horror.
Seb’s eyebrows shot up in surprise – and with something almost like pity, that I’d think this might be a solution. “No one would care,” he said. “We were thieves and runaways – street boys, with no families. ”
I hugged my knees tightly, feeling shaken. Above us, I could still hear the others practising in the target range. The exercise machines around us looked weirdly ordinary, as if they belonged to a completely different life than the one Seb had been through. I supposed they did.
“How did you get out?” I asked finally.
He shrugged. “There was a loose piece of metal on my bed frame. I got it off, and sharpened it against the wall when no one was watching. It took months, but finally it was sharp enough. I threatened a guard with it, and I got out. Then I ran as fast as I could,” he added, his mouth twisting. “I ran so fast I could have been in the Olympics. ”
I stared at him, amazed that he’d somehow held onto his sanity enough that he could joke about this, even a little bit. I threatened a guard. The words didn’t surprise me, yet I knew what a fundamentally good person Seb was – a gentle one, even. Thinking about my own life when I was eleven, I mentally shook my head at the contrast. Even with all my problems, I’d had it so, so lucky, and I’d never even known.
“Did you hurt the guard?” I asked.
Seb shook his head. “No, he was a coward. And I think I probably looked very determined. Like I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. ” Faint amusement crossed his face, remembering.
“Would you have hurt him?”
The amusement faded. As his eyes met mine, I knew Seb wasn’t going to lie to me – that he never would. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I would have done anything to get out of there. And I hated humans, back then. For what they did to each other – for what they had done to me. ”
My eyes went to a small scar on his arm, just where the sleeve of his T-shirt ended: a deep, dimpled hole, white against his tanned skin. About the size and shape of a cigarette burn. My heart chilled. Oh god, had they done that to him there?
Seb noticed me looking, and glanced down at the scar himself. “No – this was from my mother’s boyfriend, when I was small. ” He shrugged; fingered the scar lightly. “My mother didn’t have very good taste in men. ”
There was no real bitterness to his tone, though I sensed how much he hated the boyfriend. Fleetingly, I wondered about his angel father, but now didn’t seem the time to ask. I swallowed. “Seb. . . ” I couldn’t finish the sentence; there were no words.
He saw my face and instant regret came over his, that he had upset me. He reached out and put his hand over mine, gripping it gently. “Querida, it’s all right,” he said. “No one has hurt me in years. ”
I hated it that anyone had ever hurt him at all. I squeezed his hand back and then drew away, wishing my traitor pulse hadn’t skipped at his touch. “Hey, you’re supposed to be my brother,” I said, trying to joke. “Brothers don’t hold their sisters’ hands or call them querida. ”
Seb smiled, his hazel eyes starting to dance. “Yes, they do,” he said. “This happens all the time. ”
“Well, I guess things are different in Mexico then,” I said. “Because in America, no way. And I’m an American. ”
“But you’re in Mexico now,” he pointed out.
“Right. And you’re saying that here, boys hold hands with their sisters and call them sweetheart. ”
“Oh, yes. We’re very friendly, we Mexicans. ”
I laughed then; I couldn’t help it. Seb grinned. I could sense his pleasure to see me smiling again, and something stirred deep inside me, a feeling I didn’t really want to analyze. I just knew I was very glad that Seb was in my life now. Aside from anything else, it felt wonderful to have a friend again – apart from Alex, I’d felt like such an outcast these last few weeks.
“So what about your angel?” I asked.
A few soft-looking brown curls were hanging over Seb’s forehead; he shoved them back impatiently. “After I escaped the reformatorio, I went back on the streets. And for three or four months. . . ” He shook his head. “I wasn’t a person you’d want to know. I hated humans; I wanted to hurt them. All I wanted was to be pure angel, so nothing could hurt me. I got into fights all the time – I almost dared people to look at me wrong, so I could jump them. I smashed windows, I burned cars, I stole. . . ” He fell silent, his eyes troubled. “Not a good time,” he finished finally.
And all I could think was. . . before he went to get improved at that place, the worst he’d ever done was pick pockets.
“Anyway, my angel didn’t like this,” said Seb. “Before, I never really felt him inside me. He was always just me. There when I needed him, but me. ”
“Yes!” I burst out. “Yes – that’s exactly what it was like at first. ”
Seb nodded. “But then my angel saw I was going to die young if I kept on the way I was. So he was always—” He frowned in thought; reached over and pushed lightly at my arm a few times. “Like this, inside of me, day and night. ”
“Nudging,” I said. “Yes. Yes, me too!” I was sitting straight up now; it felt like electricity was coursing through the room. “But Seb, what does that mean? Does it mean they’re separate from us? That they’re not us?”
He was shaking his head before I’d finished speaking. “No, they’re us. Definitely us. I think it’s like. . . sometimes you have two thoughts at the same time, you know? You might be thinking, I should do this thing, and at the same time you’re thinking, I’m hungry, or I don’t like this person – deep down, but both at the same time, do you see what I mean?”
I understood exactly. “So sometimes our angels have their own thoughts? Or they don’t agree with us about something, but they’re still just a part of us – like having mixed feelings about something?”
“Yes, I think so,” said Seb. “That’s how it is for me. ” He was sitting with one knee up, his arms draped loosely around it.
I told him about my angel breaking free during target practice, and he looked like he was trying not to laugh – though in a friendly way that made my tension ease. “I think your angel must want you to notice her very badly,” he said mildly. “What’s she nudging you about?”