7. GRENADE
We break apart. Standing there, in a bowl in the earth, surrounded by the broken remnants of the old world, I feel more at home than I ever have, anywhere—The Dance, the Ashram, with my parents before D-town. At the same time, there’s an ache, because here among the uninhabited wreckage is the only place Lawson and I can ever be friends, or anything more.
And besides, with the latest pulse still affecting my brain chemistry, how can I know if anything I’m feeling is real?
A moment of silence and then, as one, we surge toward the purple house. Lawson hits the door with his shoulder, and it grinds back, carving a divot into wood flooring that’s still polished under the thick layer of dust. A gust of wind follows us in, stirring the dust, and I break into a sneezing fit.
“You okay?” Lawson asks.
I nod, eyes watering. As I lead the way, I’m overcome by an eerie sense of déjà vu, as though my five-year-old self walks in step with me. The echoes of memory grow too loud to ignore.
I sat on a hard wooden stool, and a woman with salt and pepper hair leaned toward me. Her wrinkled-up forehead seemed to take up the whole world. Jane, my godmother.
“You’re going to stay with us from now on,” she was saying. “Okay, Aidan?”
“I want to go home.” I hadn’t said anything else for days.
My godfather, Pete, slammed his hand on the table, causing me to jump and startling tears to my eyes. I swallowed the lump in my throat and blinked hard.
“I want to go home.” I crossed my arms, hating how my voice quavered, the way my lower lip jutted out and trembled like a baby’s.
“You can’t go home!” Pete roared, rising to his feet.
Jane, my protector, rose and turned so her back was against me. She wrapped her arms behind herself, and I jumped onto her back. Without a word, she carried me from the room.
Something warm around my wrist. Lawson’s hand. He yanks me back, just as a large object crashes to the ground in front of me, so close I feel the air of its passing. I stumble back against him.
“Pay attention, hey,” Lawson says.
We’ve passed through the living room and kitchen into the hall behind. I nod and step around the broken beam puncturing the floor right where my next step would have landed.
“I don’t think this house likes being disturbed,” Lawson says, skirting the beam as well.
“Missing your pointy hat?” I tease. The Witch tribe is known for being superstitious; Real Dealers usually aren’t.
He chuckles.
We’re almost to the basement. Two more steps, and my hand closes around a brass door handle. If the house were sentient, I’d say it wants us to go down there, because the door swings open without even a squeak. The dark stairwell stretches before us, remarkably free of dust. I step down, wishing hopelessly for a flashlight. Lawson stops me with a hand on my shoulder.
“This is where the weapons were kept?” he asks.
“Yup.”
“Careful, then.” He steps around me and leads the way, holding an arm out to keep me behind him as we descend into darkness.
“I’m supposed to be the self-sacrificing one, remember?” I whisper.
“That’s why I’m going first. I’m not in the mood for a sacrifice. Let’s leave that to the Wit—oomph.” Lawson’s shadow stumbles.
My heart hammers, and I reach for him, but my fingers close on air. I take another step. “What happened?”
“Hit my head, no biggie. Duck a bit there.”
I duck. “Jeeze, don’t scare me like that.”
“Jeeze?” His voice holds a smirk. “Is that the best you can do?”
“Shut up.”
He fumbles along the wall, and light comes on, flickers, flickers, holds.
“Bang,” I say. “It’s a bloody miracle.”
Lawson waves me to silence as he turns, taking in the stacks of boxes, neatly labeled. Guns. Ammunition. Explosives. Bio-weapons. Chains.
Chains that are so not worth it. What have I done? My stomach tries to sink, but the effects of the pulse keep it buoyant.
“No way I can carry all this,” he says, but a grin lights his face anyway.
I’ve given the Real Deal and the A what they need to start a war with the GeeGee, that’s what I’ve done, and it’s clear from Lawson’s expression that he thinks they can win. I reassess my assumption about our respective Real Ages. I know I’ve just signed the death warrant for a bunch of kids, the guy I love included, while at the same time I understand that I’ll never convince him to leave the weapons here. I’m pretty sure that kind of acceptance makes me older.
I sink to the floor. Lawson, unaware of what is going on with me, walks from box to box, opening them and making noises of satisfaction at each find, like a child getting presents. I wrap my arms around my torso and rock back and forth to self-soothe.
Gangs! the little GeeGee femme shouted earlier. Gangs in the toilet!
That’s what we are to them, to the citizens as well as the government. Dangerous. They will put us down like feral dogs, and it will be my fault, unless…yes. Yes, it will lose me the chains, and Lawson—
Pain spikes, somewhere deep and far away, unable to penetrate the high levels of serotonin my brain began manufacturing at the command of the pulse.
—But a Real Dealer could never have been mine anyway. I use that thought to steady myself as we sort the supplies. If not for the pulse, Lawson would trust me less, realize the fact that I’m helping means something is wrong. Instead, he teases and smiles like we’re spending quality time. Where guilt should fill me there is only gratitude, like I’m wrapped in emotional gauze. I still have to pee, but I can’t afford to go upstairs and have Lawson follow. Not yet, not until it’s time.
Dad’s voice chants in my mind as we work. The ends don’t justify the means. The ends don’t justify the means.
This one time, I hope he’s wrong.
Lawson was right; there’s too much for us to carry. A smorgasbord of destructive possibility, and he paces back and forth, muttering to himself about what to take and what to leave. I watch, getting a sense for his rhythm. About fourteen steps each way.
He walks to me, turns. On his third step with his back to me, I filch a grenade. I jam it into the top of my left sock and pull my loose pant leg back down to conceal it.
The FOLM stash includes a pile of worn backpacking-style rucksacks. Lawson loads up one huge pack and a second, smaller one. I don’t ask how he plans to carry both. Doesn’t matter. He fills the little pack with a few guns and a bunch of ammo. The big pack he reserves for explosives—including a selection of nail bombs. The sight of those steadies my hands. I won’t be responsible for those being used against living beings, even GeeGee. I shove a couple chains, all that fit, into the pack I’ve chosen. The load is too heavy for me, but that doesn’t matter either. I tighten the cord and stand.
Lawson closes his second bag and smiles. “Guess we’ll just wait for dark.”
“I have to pee,” I blurt.
“Bang, me too.”
I leave the pack and head for the stairs, trying not to knock my other ankle against the grenade as I walk. I hold my breath until Lawson’s steps clomp up the stairs after me.
“It’s just this way. Follow me.” Is that high, thin voice really mine?
Lawson marches along behind.
I shove into the bathroom. Chunks of drywall litter the room, and the sink is halfway through the floor, but I get to the toilet well enough. I wipe my hands on my pants after and stare into a shard of broken mirror. One dark eye stares back. Dusty black eyelashes blink-blink. I squeeze my hands into fists, count to three, and open the door. Lawson steps past, and it’s only then that I notice he’s wearing the small pack. The larger one rests on the ground in the hall.
He doesn’t trust me completely despite the pulse. For some reason, that makes what I’m about to do seem almost okay.
I step all the way into the hall, and he pulls the bathroom door
closed behind him. I roll up my pant leg and pull out the grenade, hands shaking—hurry, hurry, hurry—as urine tinkles into the toilet beyond the door. Hopefully Lawson took off the second pack and put it down. I undo the clip and place the end of the grenade between my teeth—stupid, stupid—so I can heft Lawson’s big pack. My arm muscles strain, and I swallow a grunt as I heave the bag back down the stairs.
Clomp! Bang! Crash!
“What was that?”
“Something fell,” I call. “Don’t worry.”
He’s stopped peeing. The zip of his fly breaks the fresh silence. I yank out the pin of the grenade, keeping a grip on the safety.
The bathroom door flies open.
“Aidan, wha—” Lawson’s eyes widen, and he lunges to stop me.
Not fast enough. My arm rocks back, I let go, and the grenade sails into the basement.
“Run!” I scream.
He swears. But he runs, grabbing the back of my shirt and propelling me in front of him, stepping on my heels. We fly out the front door at the same time as the grenade goes off. The explosion throws us over the steps and onto broken ground. I land face down, hear a crack, feel the pain a second later. My arm.
Or maybe my heart breaking.
I raise my head, blinking as my vision spins. Lawson sprawls a few feet away, lying on his little pack; so he never took that off. He struggles to his knees, and looks at me.
I swallow and glance away, wanting to sink through the cement.
He crawls away from the burning building. As best I can, on two knees and one hand, I follow his blurry shoes, blinking stinging eyes. The effects of the pulse must be wearing down, which means it won’t be long until the next one.
When we reach a safe distance, Lawson sits back. His elbows rest on his knees, hands hanging loose. I still can’t bring myself to look at his face. I don’t know why; I’m not ashamed of destroying the weapons. I just wish I got rid of his small backpack as well. I stare at his knuckles. Black dirt ground into the cracks of his skin makes the tattoos look smudged. He stares back and barks a harsh laugh. He flows to standing, shouldering his pack. Flames crackle from the burning house as Lawson watches my struggle to get my feet under me.
I make the mistake of letting a little weight fall onto my right arm, and it goes out, pitching me forward. My cheek hits cracked cement. Lawson’s boots move a few steps away and then return, blurring in and out. His pack plunks down, and he crouches at my side to feel along my forearm. I cry out and jerk away, but he holds tight.
“I have to see if it’s broken.” His motions remain economical, removed.
Not rough; I just didn’t know how tender he was being until he’s not anymore.
“I don’t think it’s broken,” he says. “Or if it is, it’s just a hairline fracture. You can walk, can’t you? We have to get away from here. The GeeGee’s going to be on this place like flies on spilled pop in a minute.” He grabs me by the left bicep and hoists me to my feet, then dusts himself off.
I nod, swallowing hard, holding my arm to my chest as I sway. He picks up his pack and starts walking, and I stumble after. When he halts a few steps later, I nearly walk into his back. I follow his line of sight. The flames from the burning house have spread to the bike.
That was his dad’s.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
“Don’t,” he bites out. “We’re not tribe.”
As if I don’t know that.
My gaze follows as he lifts one arm. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. It’s not conscious, I don’t think—that would be too petty for him—but I get it. He’s wiped off our kiss.