UnSouled

Page 11

 

  Then suddenly some kid leaps into the road in front of him, and he immediately flashes back to the damnable ostrich—but if there’s roadkill today, it will be a lot worse than a dead bird. Connor slams on the brakes. He and Grace lurch forward. He hears the thud as the reckless kid connects with the front bumper. The car finally stops, and mercifully there is no telltale lurch of the car climbing over the kid’s body. He was hit, but not run over. He had been hit pretty solidly, though.

  “Ooh, this is bad, Argie!” Grace says, probably not even realizing she just called Connor Argie.

  Connor considers just speeding off and leaving the scene—but he considers it for only a fraction of a second before dismissing it. That’s not him. Not anymore. Some things have grown larger in him than primal self-preservation. Instead he gets out of the car to assess how bad this is and makes a pact with his survival instinct. If the kid is dead, then Connor will speed off and add hit-and-run to his list of offenses. Staying at the scene will not help a dead kid. But if he’s alive, Connor will stay and do what must be done until help arrives. And if it means capture, then that will be that.

  The figure lying sprawled on the road is groaning. Connor is relieved that he’s alive but gripped with the fear of what will happen now. Then those feelings are slapped out of his head by shock and absolute disbelief when he sees who it is.

  Lev’s face is a grimace of pain. “It is you,” Lev says. “I knew it. ”

  Speechless doesn’t even begin to describe Connor’s state.

  “Is he dead?” Grace asks, stepping out of the car and covering her eyes. “I don’t wanna look—is he dead?”

  “No, but . . . ” Instead of saying anything more, he lifts Lev up, and Lev releases a helpless wail. Only now does Connor notice that Lev’s shoulder is bulging forward in a very unnatural way. Connor knows he can’t allow himself to think about that now.

  “It’s him?” says Grace, having uncovered her eyes. “What’s he doing here? Did you plan this? It wasn’t a very good plan, if you did. ”

  On porches around them, people have come out to observe the little drama. Connor can’t think about that now either. He gingerly puts Lev into the backseat and has Grace sit with him. Then he gets back in himself, feigning calm, and drives off.

  “Hospital’s up on Baxter,” Grace says.

  “Can’t,” Connor tells her. “Not here. ” Although he knows he means not anywhere. Medical attention brings other attention, too. If they bring Lev to a hospital, they’ll know who he is within minutes. Not only did Lev break house arrest; he ran from the people protecting him from the Juvenile Authority. Which means there’s no place safe to take him between here and Sonia’s.

  Grace leans closer to Lev, looking at his shoulder. “Dislocated,” she says. “Happened to Argent once. Playing Ping-Pong. Rammed his shoulder into a wall. Blamed me for it, a’ course, since I sent him chasing the ball. Won the point too. ” She puts both her hands on Lev’s shoulder. “This is gonna hurt like a son of a bitch. ” Then she shoves with the full force of her weight.

  Lev releases a siren wail of pain that makes Connor swerve out of his lane. Then Lev sucks in a breath and screams again. The third one is more of a whimper. When Connor looks back, he sees that Lev’s shoulder has popped into place.

  “Like diving into a cold pool,” Grace says. “Gotta do it quick before you start thinkin’ on it. ”

  Even in his pain, Lev has the presence of mind to actually thank her for fixing his shoulder, but there must be more going on inside that they can’t see, because Lev grimaces in pain every time he shifts position.

  Following Grace’s plan, they pull into the supermarket parking lot and leave the squad car there, along with the keys and the deputy’s gun—because a missing gun will beg too many questions. Leave the man his car and his gun, and he might just keep quiet to save himself from humiliation.

  Connor hot-wires a blue Honda, out in the open, caution be damned, and in two minutes they’ve switched vehicles and are on the road again, heading for the interstate. It’s not a pleasant vehicle. The entire car smells of ass sweat and stale potato chips. The steering wheel shimmies, betraying poor alignment. But as long as it gets them the hell out of Heartsdale, it’s a magic coach as far as Connor is concerned. The town itself, however, seems to have taken umbrage against them. They hit every vindictive pothole and every pointless red light Heartsdale has to offer. Lev groans, grimaces, and hisses at every jolt.

  “It’ll get worse before it gets better,” Grace says, stating the obvious, and Connor must suppress an urge to yell at her the way Argent might. Unlike Argent, Connor knows that it’s not Grace he’s frustrated with; it’s the entire situation.

  At the last stop light before the interstate, Connor turns to look at Lev and asks him to lift his shirt.

  “Why do you want him to do that?” asks Grace.

  “Because there’s something I need to see. ”

  Lev lifts his shirt, and Connor grimaces as his worst fear is realized. The accident didn’t just dislocate Lev’s shoulder. His whole side has turned sunset purple. There’s internal bleeding, and there’s no way to know how bad it is.

  “Lordy, lordy, lordy,” Grace says, her voice shaky. “You shouldn’t a’ hit him! You shouldn’t a’ hit him!”

  “Okay,” Connor says, feeling himself getting light-headed. “Okay, now we know. ”

  “What do we know?” warbles Grace in a panic. “We don’t know nothin’!”

  “You know my deep dark secret,” Lev says lazily. “I’m turning into an eggplant. ” He tries to laugh at his own joke, but the laugh is aborted because it causes him too much pain.

  Risa would know what to do, Connor thinks. He tries to hear her voice in his head. The clarity of her thought. She ran the infirmary at the Graveyard better than a professional. Tell me what to do, Risa. But today she’s mute and feels farther away than she ever did. It only increases Connor’s longing for her and his despair. When they get to Sonia, she’ll have a whole list of physicians supporting the cause, but this is still Kansas. Ohio never felt so far away.

  He glances at the glove compartment. People sometimes keep ibuprofen or Aspirin in there, although he doesn’t expect that much luck, considering how his luck has been running lately. Luck, however, is too dumb to remain consistent, and as he reaches over and opens the glove box, a clatter of orange vials spills out.

  Connor releases a breath of sheer relief and begins tossing them to Grace in the back. “Read me what they are,” Connor says, and Grace almost preens at the request. Whatever developmental issues she has, difficulty in reading complicated words is not one of them. She rattles off medication names Connor probably couldn’t even pronounce himself. Some of them he recognizes; others he is clueless about. One thing’s for sure—whoever belongs to this car is either very sick, a hypochondriac, or just a druggie.

  Among the medications in the dashboard pharmacy are Motrins the size of horse pills and hydrocodone caplets almost as big.

  “Great,” he tells Grace. “Give Lev those two. One of each. ”

  “With nothing to drink?” asks Grace.

  Connor catches Lev’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “Sorry, Lev—either swallow them dry or chew them. We can’t stop for drinks right now, and better you get those meds in your system now than wait. ”

  “Don’t make him do that!” Grace complains. “It’ll taste bad. ”

  “I’ll deal,” Lev says. Connor doesn’t like how weak his voice sounds.

  Lev works up some saliva, pops both pills at once, and manages to swallow them with just a little bit of gagging.

  “Okay. Good,” says Connor. “We’ll stop in the next town and get ice to help with the swelling. ”

  Connor convinces himself that Lev’s situation isn’t all that bad. It’s not like bone is poking through the skin or anything. “You’ll be fine,” Connor tells Lev. “You’ll be fine. ”

  But
even after they get ice ten miles down the road, Connor’s mantra of “you’ll be fine,” just isn’t ringing true. Lev’s side is darkening to a dull, puffy maroon. His left hand and fingers are swelling too, looking cartoonish and porcine. It’ll get worse before it gets better. Grace’s words echo in Connor’s thoughts. He catches Lev’s gaze in the rearview mirror. Lev’s eyes are wet and rheumy. He can barely keep them open.

  “Stay awake, Lev!” Connor says a bit too loudly. “Grace, make him stay awake. ”

  “You heal when you sleep,” Grace tells him.

  “Not if you’re going into shock. Stay awake, Lev!”

  “I’m trying. ” His voice is beginning to slur. Connor wants to believe it’s because of the medication, but he knows better.

  Connor keeps his eyes fixed on the road. Their options are slim and the reality severe. But then Lev says, “I know a place we can go. ”

  “Another joke?” asks Connor.

  “I hope not. ” Lev takes a few slow breaths before he can build up the strength, or perhaps the courage, to tell them. “Get me to the Arápache Rez. West of Pueblo, Colorado. ”

  Connor knows Lev must be delirious. “A ChanceFolk reservation? Why would ChanceFolk have anything to do with us?”

  “Sanctuary,” Lev hisses. “ChanceFolk never signed the Unwind Accord. The Arápache don’t have an extradition treaty. They give asylum to AWOL Unwinds. Sometimes. ”

  “Asylum is right!” says Grace. “No way I’m going to a SlotMonger rez!”

  “You sound like Argent,” Connor scolds. That gives her pause for thought.

  Connor considers their options. Seeking asylum from the Arápache would mean turning around and heading west, and even if they pushed the car, it would take at least four hours to get to the reservation. That’s a long time for the state that Lev’s in. But it’s either that, or turn themselves in at the nearest hospital. That’s not an option.

  “How do you know all this about the Arápache?” Connor asks.

  Lev sighs. “I’ve been around. ”

  “Well,” says Connor, more than a little bit nervous, “let’s hope you’re around a little while longer. ” Then he turns the car across the dirt median and heads west, toward Colorado.

  11 • Rez Sentry

  In spite of all the literature and spin put forth by the Tribal Council, there is nothing noble about being a sentry at an Arápache Reservation gate. Once upon a time, when the United States was just a band of misfit colonies, and long before there were fences and walls marking off Arápache land, things were different. Back then, to be a perimeter scout was to be a warrior. Now all it means is standing in a booth in a blue uniform, checking passports and papers and saying híísi’ honobe, which roughly translates to “Have a beautiful day,” proving that the Arápache are not immune to the banality of modern society.