Demolition Love
17. HOOKED
Aidan—
D-town is rapidly becoming short for Demolition-town. A circular sign, new this morning, glimmers in the filtered sunlight below the entry to the Ashram as if to say, You have one attachment left, Aidan, and we’re here to take it from you. My throat convulses, trying to swallow the lump that’s been there since the night I ended things with Lawson. No sooner did I cut him out of my life because I need to belong somewhere than this shows up. It’s not just the DEMOLITION sign, either. Next to it, the GeeGee have installed a rubber rack with propaganda pamphlets. I grab the whole stack and just stand there, choking on irony, until I realize if I don’t call out no one will know I’m back from my mission.
After Lawson’s threat to kill the round-faced guy in his sleep, I expected some sort of backlash from the As, but they’ve left me alone. They’re still harassing the rest of my tribe though, so Karen’s been giving me the recon jobs, while the rest of the Bees keep mostly to the Ashram.
Once inside, I hand the recycled papers to Karen.
“The GeeGee’s back.” I force the words through my tight throat, directing them to the room at large.
Conversations hush as I report what I saw—a guard on every corner, decked out with weapons, and next to the guard a GeeGee teenager dressed in flowing bamboo clothing, a handful of pamphlets at the ready. Sonic earbuds peeking out of kempt hair make obvious how the kids are keeping it together in range of The Dance, cut off from the pulses that govern their emotional lives.
“How are the other tribes reacting?” Karen asks.
“Just like you’d think.” When the Lama keeps looking at me, I force out more words—As and Real Dealers ripping up the pamphlets, Logic debating with the GeeGee teens, Love Childs inviting the invading kids to hang out…
The whole time I speak, no matter how I plant my feet, my weight keeps shifting forward, in the direction of the Barracks, like there’s a metal hook in my chest, tugging just hard enough to make a point. It has the power to rip out my heart.
Karen turns the pamphlet over and over without reading it, then stands to pass the stack around. That one’s eyes, shadowed with dark circles, meet mine.
“Read and meditate,” the Lama says, once everyone has a copy. “You each need to make your own decision. A week from today, I’ll meet with those who decide to stay in D-town.”
The sun sinks in washes of pollution-vivid magenta, tangerine, and lilac. My unread pamphlet crinkles in my grip as I stand on the roof where I come to think. Leftovers of the old world litter the asbestos, things that will never decompose—a juice box, the rubber sole of a shoe. The bent pamphlet quivers against my thigh from the tremor running through me. What if I’m too weak? What if the propaganda gets to me and I leave D-town? What if I abandon Sam and Karen and the rest of the Bees and—heart collides with breastbone, and I sway toward the Barracks again.
But it’s Kylie’s face that takes shape in my inner vision. Not the way I should remember her, not the way I want to. Her shaven head rests on cracked cement, blood running from a cut on her scalp to pool in one open, staring eye. The cut is from when she fell. She fell because the bullet hit her stomach. The bullet hit her because I let myself get attached to That Guy.
Paper crumples in my fist, and I pace to the edge of the roof. I’m about to pivot when something moves in the alley below.
I drop to a crouch. Leftover pain from a past beating stabs through my right knee as I peer over the edge, half-expecting to see a GeeGee guard with a blaster pointed at me. Instead, a handful of D-towners stand crowded together at the foot of the wall.
Tanner is there, along with the beanpole Real Dealer guy, Cross Bearer Gina whom I know from Council, a Logic in-between I’ve seen around but don’t know by name, and a Love Child femme who seems oddly familiar…I blink in confusion. What is this? A new, secret Council? One Karen is deliberately keeping from me because of my attachment to Lawson?
Or have these kids come together without the blessing of their tribal leaders, to make their own plan?
My gaze traces the Love Child’s profile. Where have I seen her? Somewhere recent. She reaches into her shoulder bag, takes out a small cloth sack, pours a bunch of little somethings into her palm, and passes them around. Tanner sticks the object in his ear, while the other kids push aside their hair and do the same.
Sonic earbuds!
I reel back. Where could she have found five of those? A GeeGee teen might have dropped one—might even have given it to her—but five? No way. The GeeGee monitor electronics too closely for that. And besides, what would five D-towners want with earbuds programmed with mood-regulating tones? The whole reason D-town exists is as a bulwark against emotional control. Why would five teens from different tribes meet together, anyway? How would they know each other well enough, let alone trust each other that much? Unless…
How long has it been since kids stopped trickling in? Years. They would have had to have been here for a couple years at least, with only rare trips back into GeeGee territory.
The mismatched group stands shoulder-to-shoulder, eyes closed as they take in the tones. An expression of ecstasy rearranges the Love Child’s narrow features, and memory snaps into place.
Lawson’s back was to me. He faced a femme, pressed up against her, as she leaned against the wall with her legs wrapped around his waist…
A wrenching in my chest. Now that Lawson knows it’s over between us, how long until he starts seeing her again? I tried but I couldn’t, he said, but I’m not naïve enough to think he means forever.
Focus!
Right. The gathering in the alley below, the future of D-town, that’s what’s important. I crab-walk a few feet back before standing. I pause for a second, heart hammering, then I’m scrambling across the roof.
I need a second opinion, another witness. Now, before the group breaks up. And it’s got to be him, because he’s familiar with at least two of the people in the alley. I scramble down the fire escape, back through the window, descend six flights of stairs in a minute and stagger into the road, thighs burning, breath sawing in and out.
I sprint slash limp around the corner to the Barracks and shove at the door. It swings wide, almost dumping me onto the floor, but no one is waiting to laugh. The Real Deal headquarters is unlocked and unguarded. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Who do Real Dealers have to fear?
“Lawson?” I wheeze, voice echoing in the empty lobby of what used to be a bank. I rush down a strip of threadbare carpet and duck through a beaded curtain into a cavernous space with soaring ceilings and marble floors.
Sleeping bags are laid out or rolled up in clusters around little camping stoves. An in-between with red curls washes sheets in a big metal bucket. A few younger guys play a game involving sticks and a crumpled can. Other Real Dealers scarf down food, chat, or nap. As they begin to notice me, they halt their activities to stare. I cast around desperately until a hand closes on my bicep.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Lin hisses into my ear. She keeps hold of me and shouts at the top of her voice, “Lawson!”
“What?”
That familiar voice, carrying through the Barracks, sends a shiver through me.
A door opens and closes on the second floor, and then Lawson leans over the banister above us. His eyes meet mine, and for a second he looks like someone’s smacked him in the face with a board, and not just because of the yellowed bruises patterning his skin.
“Visitor,” Lin calls.
“Be right down.” He ducks out of sight and, a handful of heartbeats later, bursts through a doorway across from where I wait.
“Hey,” he breathes as he comes to a stop in front of us.
Lawson’s gaze is all for me. I definitely don’t have time to stand silent, while his hazel eyes search my face and he drags his palms down the front of his jeans and then tucks his hands under his biceps, trapping them against his sides. He takes a step, shaving away some of the distance between us.
“My room’s just—” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, back the way he came.
I shake my head, and my cheeks, already warm from exertion, burn hotter. “That’s—that’s not why I’m here. Outside…there’s something…I have to…”
He gives me a puzzled look and motions for me to lead the way. His heavy steps lend comfort as he follows me outside and around the corner, up the stairs, through the window to the fire escape, across the roof. Just shy of the edge, my intuition screams a silent warning. I grab onto his arm, using my weight to hold him back.
“Promise me, no matter what you see, you won’t kill anyone,” I murmur.
It’s the wrong thing to say. He yanks out of my grip and takes the last step. I follow. Beanpole guy, Gina, and the Love Child are still at the foot of the building, ears empty, but the other two are nowhere in sight. I relax a little; Lawson won’t see Tanner, won’t hurt him. I glance at his face as he stares over the edge with an impassive expression.
“—shooting people!” The harsh words carry to where we stand, claiming my attention.
Gina faces away, arms crossed, but she must have been the one to whisper-shout, because the Love Child makes a shushing motion at her, then gestures to beanpole guy. He slouches away to check the mouth of the alley.
Lawson and I both stay silent as the Love Child pulls her tattered sweater close. I lean forward as if doing so will help me hear better, but there’s no need. Her words come out louder than they should, as if she learned to speak to a crowd and doesn’t know how to moderate her voice.
“That was the military, not us. Violence is contagious, you know that. That’s why we have to get rid of D-town. And we need you to integrate the Cross Bearers. Unless Jesus himself shows up, you’re the only one they’ll listen to.”
They make such an odd group. The Love Child in her rags, apparently charismatic enough to convince someone that if Jesus of Nazareth showed up in D-town he’d vote GeeGee. Gina, in her modest if stained blouse, looking like someone from the old world who just got lost here. Beanpole guy, at the mouth of the alley, the kind of guy who wouldn’t know what to do without a back to guard.
He’s the only one showing anything like his true face. He’s a soldier. They all are.
“I’ve got to go. Chad will start freaking.” The Love Child strides away, dreadlocks a brown mass unmoved by the wind. Despite the urgency of her words, her steps slow at the alley mouth. Love Childs never rush.
She leaves the other two behind. After a beat, Dart closes the distance and wraps Gina in a hug. Her arms come up under his so she can hold on for a fierce moment. A simple gesture of friendship I’ve never seen between D-towners of different tribes, not even in The Dance.
Not until Lawson and I.
“You scared me,” Lawson says as soon as the last two leave. “Thought someone had my sister or something.”
“Don’t be dumb. I would hardly have just left and gone to get you, or brought you all the way up to the roof instead of straight to the alley. You think I’m a total coward, don’t you. Never mind, don’t answer that. It doesn’t matter. I saw—” I bite off the word, because again my internal warning bell goes off.
Lawson still hasn’t promised.
He grabs my shoulders, fingers biting. “What did you see?”
I slump in his grip. “They had earbuds.”
He lets go and pats my shoulders. “Sorry, sorry. Sometimes I get so…earbuds?”
“They were listening…”
He’s walking back across the roof before I can finish. He doesn’t have to say anything for me to know he’s come to the same conclusion I have; the tension in his shoulders is enough.
I rush after, pitching my voice low. “Don’t do something stupid!”
Still silent, he swings onto the fire escape. I hesitate, then clamber after him, but I can’t even begin to keep up. When I finally careen, panting, out of the building for the second time that day, I almost run smack into his chest.
“You’re…” I manage. “I thought…”
He grimaces. “I’ve got to think.”
“You can’t tell anyone,” I gasp out. “Think about it! The rumor will”—inhale—“spread. No one will”—inhale—“trust anyone else. The GeeGee won’t have to destroy us. We’ll do it ourselves.”
“Maybe that’s the point.”
We stare at each other in a moment of silent understanding, and then he dips his chin. The spies will remain our secret. For now.