UnBound

She’s pretty sure he’s dead. He must be. When she last saw him, the Juvey-cops were rounding up the kids at the airplane graveyard for unwinding. Then she was tranq’d. Then she was in a police car, being spirited back to her new old life.

  But what if he’s alive? Is he still an AWOL? If she saw him again, would she slap him silly or throw her arms around him? And if he is alive, does he think about her as much as she thinks about him?

  With a long future stretching before her, she knows she shouldn’t waste time thinking about someone who is probably dead. Better to focus on church, on saving lives, and on other matters of eternity.

  • • •

  “Not cheese puffs, please,” says one of the guests at the soup kitchen. “If I have to eat another cheese puff, I’ll barf.” Even though it’s warm inside the community center, he wears a long, woolen coat. “Do you have potato chips?”

  The best thing about the new church is the soup kitchen and thrift store in their community center. They give bags of groceries to the needy. They serve dinner during the week and a special supper after mass on Sundays. Clothing is distributed in the evenings and on Saturday mornings with coffee and cookies. They even have beds for those who want them. There are lots of opportunities for a girl like Miracolina to help out. She works in the community center every chance she gets. It’s not exactly donating a liver, but it’s something.

  “Coming through,” a nun yells. She slips a full vat of sloppy-joe mix into the steam table in front of Miracolina. “I may have made this batch a little spicier than usual—so make sure you warn people.”

  Sister Barbara (named after Saint Barbara, who was beheaded by her father in the third century) runs the community center with Father Lawrence (from Saint Lawrence, roasted over coals in Panisperna). Miracolina learned about martyrs in religion class last week. The idea appeals to her.

  On the other side of the counter a tiny girl with fat pigtails waves a chocolate chip cookie at Miracolina. “Thank you!” the girl says, and hurries off before Miracolina can say “You’re welcome.”

  As she spoons coleslaw next to the sloppy joes on their plates, a boy in line catches her eye. For a moment she thinks he looks like Lev and almost drops the plate. Then she sees that it’s not Lev. In fact it really doesn’t look like him at all.

  She puzzles over what made her think of Lev, when a thought electrifies her. The way the boy ducks his head and mumbles his “thank you” when she hands him his meal is what an AWOL does.

  She glances out of the window to see Father Lawrence on the street, talking to some of the homeless in line. Father Lawrence can usually tell if one of their younger guests is running from an unwind order and does what needs to be done. Maybe the boy snuck past him. Or maybe the boy told him he was eighteen. No way is he eighteen.

  “Hey, Mira,” Sister Barbara says.

  “It’s Miracolina, Sister,” she says politely. When she finishes spooning coleslaw on the next few plates, she turns to the nun—and cringes. Sister Barbara is waving a red Hawaiian blouse like a bullfighter.

  “Someone dropped it in the donation barrel yesterday, and I thought of you. It’ll look so much prettier than all those black outfits you wear. What do you think?”

  She wouldn’t wear something that gaudy even by papal decree. “I couldn’t take something meant for the homeless, Sister. And it’s a little bit flashy for me.”

  “Nonsense.” Sister Barbara holds the shirt up against Miracolina. “You’re young. You could use a little flash.”

  Which is funny, because the nuns often complain about how provocatively other kids dress. But apparently there are limits to modesty as well.

  Miracolina gently pushes the Hawaiian shirt away. “I appreciate the thought, Sister Barbara, but my mom chooses my clothes.” Which is mostly a lie, as her mother has been buying bright shirts and dresses for Miracolina even flashier than this one. She prefers black and wishes the adults in her life would leave her alone about it.

  Miracolina seeks out the AWOL-looking boy again. He sits as alone as he can at one of the long tables in the dining room, scarfing down his food as quickly as humanly possible. He glances furtively around at the other guests. Then he pockets the orange and the bag of cheese puffs that come with dinner and gets up to leave.

  2 • Bryce

  Every smart AWOL knows that a soup kitchen can be like a mousetrap. Tempting eats can trigger the iron arm of the law to swing around and snag the unwary. Juvey-cops are always staking out shelters and soup kitchens. Bryce had watched this one for hours before deciding that it was safe, then had tagged along behind a family that he vaguely resembled to get past the priest who monitored the line. Priests are unpredictable when it comes to AWOLs. The Vatican has never taken an official position on unwinding, which leaves priests the rare privilege of following their conscience rather than papal policy. The man might let him in or might turn him away or might call the Juvies. Best to avoid the confrontation entirely.

  It’s not the priest who troubles him now, though—it’s the girl who served him his meal. She keeps looking at him. Maybe she likes me, he thinks. Or maybe she likes the reward she’ll receive for turning me in. Not that the Juvies would pay much for him. It’s not like he’s the Akron AWOL. He steals a glance at her while she’s busy scooping out food. She’s cute in a restrained, every-hair-in-its-place kind of way. He wonders if she’s working here for community-service credit in school or because she actually wants to work here. Then he finds himself irritated by his own curiosity. “Curiosity dismembered the dog” is an expression known by all AWOLs. He’s known more than one AWOL who got caught because they stuck their nose somewhere it didn’t belong because they were curious. He will not make the same mistake. Whatever this girl’s interest in him, he’s got to treat it as if she’s a threat and get out as quickly as he can and never come back. It means more scavenging trash cans for food, but there are worse things.

  3 • Miracolina

  When she sees the boy get up to leave, Miracolina turns to Sister Barbara and says quickly, “Would it be okay if I left early, Sister? I have a test tomorrow.” Another lie for confession.

  Sister looks surprised but nods. Miracolina unties the apron, slips on her sweater, and hurries through the dining room. The boy is gone.

  Dusk is already settling into night as she reaches the sidewalk. She looks left, then right, and finally spots him turning a corner. The church is in a middle-class neighborhood, but the area goes bad fast as the boy heads toward the freeway. She keeps a safe distance between them. He doesn’t seem to hear or sense her behind him. She’s been tailing AWOLs and Juvey-cops for a few months now and has gotten good at it.

  When Miracolina was a tithe, she thought AWOLs were the worst sort. Criminals guilty of stealing a body that no longer belonged to them—allowing others to die because they were cowards. But ever since her misadventure with Lev, she’s much more ambivalent about it. In fact, it keeps her up at night. It’s become a bit of an obsession. She talks to Juvey-cops and muscled boeufs who track down runaways. She listens to them boast about their arrests. They don’t seem to care about the lives saved by the lungs and livers going to cancer patients or the hearts going to cardiac patients or the lives improved by corneas and brain sections. It’s adrenaline and quotas to them. A competition. A game. Nothing more.

  Some nights she sneaks out in search of AWOLs when her parents are asleep. Sometimes she finds them; sometimes she doesn’t. The adrenaline-charged fear of being alone in dark corners of the city has become like a drug to her. When she does talk to AWOLs, she finds that some are the criminals she thinks them to be. They run because they have broken any number of laws and feel little to no remorse for it. Whether their hearts were this toxic before they went AWOL is anyone’s guess. That’s just a very small fraction of AWOLs. Most of the ones she’s met aren’t so bad. They’re basically decent kids and certainly have something to offer the world. A lot of them care so much for their friends or for fighting against unwindi
ng that they would sacrifice their lives.

  Kids like Lev.

  Miracolina slips into a covered bus stop when she sees the boy ahead skirt a freeway overpass and head for a dimly lit pedestrian bridge instead. Her curiosity rises. He’s moving toward a really seedy area. Her mother would just die if she knew Miracolina spends time there.

  The boy still doesn’t seem aware that she’s following him. Her boots clang on the metal walkway, but the wind roaring around them and the cars thundering on the highway below muffle her passage.

  She loses sight of him when she reaches the end of the walkway at the spiral staircase to the ground. She doesn’t see him walking the main avenue to the factory district or the road to the dump or the streets to the bars, tattoo parlors, and strip joints that fill this part of town.

  Perhaps she lost him and should go home. They’re expecting her soon, and after her last disappearance, they’re sure to overreact. And anyway, this boy is probably another of those loser AWOLs who can’t tell her more than what she already knows.

  But what if he is the one? What if he knows the secret? What if he can tell her how to turn herself from a bucket of spare parts into a normal girl?

  With one hand on the staircase rail and one foot pointed back to the church, she grinds her teeth. She hates this worst of all. Not knowing what decision to make. Feeling that voice in the back of her head telling her that she should be more like Lev. In spite of the fact that he was a no-good clapper with a price on his head.

  Tired of waffling, she runs down the stairs as fast as she can in pursuit, fighting the urge to go home. She resolves to give up if she can’t pick up the trail in a minute or so.

  Out of breath once she reaches street level, she hesitates for just a second, trying to decide which street the kid would have taken, when he grabs her from the gloom beneath the stairs.

  “Who are you?” he rasps. With wiry strength he pulls her close to him. He stinks of sloppy joes and filth.

  The AWOL underestimates her. She twists from his grip and shoves him hard. He smacks against the staircase and slides into the trash and weeds. When he starts to scramble away, she jumps him and pins his skinny self to the ground. Sometimes a healthy diet and keeping yourself fit for parts donation comes in handy.

  “Settle down,” she hisses. “I’m here to save you.”

  4 • Bryce

  This must be the ultimate humiliation—not just to be bested by a girl, but to be bested by a girl who serves slop in a soup kitchen. He tries to wriggle out from under her, but the girl’s got moves and keeps him pinned.

  “Stop squirming, or I will hit you so hard you’ll think you’ve entered the divided state.” Then in one smooth motion she lifts him halfway to his feet and tosses him to the other side of the staircase, where they will be hidden from view of the nearly empty boulevard. The meager streetlights have come on, but the space behind the staircase, which smells of dirt and urine, is mostly dark.

  “I’ll kill you before I let you turn me in,” he threatens, although he’s not entirely sure whether he could follow through on the threat.

  The girl is not intimidated in the least. “What about ‘I’m here to save you’ is unclear?” she says. “You can’t be low-cortical, so you must just be stupid.”

  He ignores the insult. “Save me how? You mean go-back-to-that-church-and-confess-my-sins kind of saving? Because that’s not going to happen.”

  “Your immortal soul is your problem,” she says. “I’m talking about saving your hide, because in spite of your unwind order, it’s only semiworthless, not entirely worthless.” She shifts slightly so that the streetlamp lights her. “What’s your name?” she asks.

  Seeing her clearly makes him feel easier, but not easy enough to answer.

  “Are you a Juvey-cop?” he asks.

  She hoots. “Do I look like a Juvey-cop?” She straightens importantly. “I know what you’re up against—I used to run with AWOLs.”

  He throws her a doubtful look, and she qualifies it.

  “Well, with one AWOL in particular.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “Everything. That priest—the one at the soup kitchen—Father Lawrence, he looks for AWOLs and does what his conscience tells him to do. He gets them to safety—and I’m a key part of that safety net.” Then she looks him in the eye and asks, “Do you want me to save you or not?”

  Bryce doesn’t need some church girl to save him; he’s been saving himself since he turned thirteen and his stepmother signed his unwind order. On the other hand, he could use someone who knew a safe way out of town . . . but safe passage can be expensive.

  “I don’t got any money.”

  “I don’t want money. I just want to ask a question.”

  He tenses, which she must have seen even in the shadows.

  “But the question can wait. Let’s go.”

  He doesn’t move. “Go where?”

  “I know people who can take you to where you’ll never have to worry about harvest camps again.”

  She heads for the sidewalk and waits for him. Still feeling wary, he joins her.

  She sticks out her hand. “My name is Miracolina Roselli.”

  He gingerly shakes it. “I’m Bryce Barlow.”

  She squeezes his hand hard. “Pleased to meet you, Bryce.”

  About four blocks later she opens the door to a small store between a pawnshop and a tattoo parlor. The sign above the door says JACK AND JILL EXTERMINATORS. On the roof floats a huge roach balloon. In the window a poster states virtuously WE USE ONLY ENVIRONMENTALLY SAFE PRODUCTS TO RID YOUR HOME OF PESTS.

  Bryce stalls on the sidewalk. “Exterminators? I’m not a roach—I don’t want to be exterminated.”

  “It’s a cover for an AWOL rescue operation,” Miracolina says impatiently. “It’s supposed to be ironic. Now get in before someone sees you.”

  That makes him jump inside, and she shuts the door behind them.

  The front office looks more like a school counselor’s office than an exterminator’s place of business. She holds open the small swinging door at the counter and prods Bryce through it. At the back of the office she rings a bell.

  Immediately a voice sounds through the intercom, too distorted by static to distinguish whether it’s male or female.

  “Are you here for our termite special? A free inspection and ten percent off if you decide to use our service. Good till the end of the month.”

  It’s a pretty lame code, but the girl presses the button and speaks into the grille as serious as if she works for the CIA.

  “My fire ants are back.”

  In a moment the door cracks open. “That you, Miracolina?”

  “Yeah, Jack. I got an AWOL here name of Bryce Bower. . . .”

  “Barlow.” Bryce corrects her.

  “Bryce Barlow. Can you take him?”

  “Of course.”

  A man in his late twenties with thinning red hair opens the door wider. He yells over his shoulder, “Jill, we got a guest.”

  A woman immediately appears at his side, the top of her head barely reaching his chin. She’s wearing a moose oven mitt on her right hand and a wedding ring on her left. With a radiant smile, she pulls Bryce into a hug. He hasn’t been held by anyone since forever, but after about five seconds he pats her back awkwardly. When she releases him, he has to turn away because he doesn’t want anyone to see how watery his eyes have gotten.

  “I’m so happy you showed up, Bryce. We have about a gallon of stew left over from dinner and several pieces of my famous rhubarb pie. Hope you’re hungry.”

  Bryce, glancing at her oven mitt, says, “I could eat a moose, ma’am.”

  “Sorry, not on the menu,” Jill says. “And don’t be calling me ma’am. It’s Jill.” She leads him down the long hallway.

  5 • Miracolina

  Miracolina starts to follow, but Jack stays her with a hand to her elbow. “Let’s talk.”

  They return to the office,
and he peeks through the blinds for a second before turning to face her.

  He smiles, but it fades quickly. “You’ve become our biggest customer, girl. How many AWOLs have you brought us? Five? Six?”

  “Eight,” she says. “Bryce makes eight.”

  He tries another smile, but it vanishes as he looks through the blinds again.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  His forehead has more worry lines than she remembers. Suddenly he looks decades older. “We lost thirty-one kids last week. Parts pirates took a van in Milwaukee. Two days later, they clobbered the safe house in Saint Louis.”

  She sucks in a breath. “Were any of them mine?”

  He shakes his head. “No. But I’m not sure how long we’ve got before one of the kids that got taken cuts a deal with the pirates and tells them where we are and what we’re doing. Don’t bring any more kids till we find a new place and a new cover.”

  She frowns. “But what if . . .” She fizzles to a stop seeing the wretched look in his eyes.

  Jack nods to the back of the house. “I can’t trust anyone till I find out who’s selling us out. I’m keeping intel down to just family—and now you. We got twenty-seven kids upstairs. Twenty-eight with Bryce. Later tonight we’ll be driving them out in three vans to different safe houses, but I don’t want you coming around here again. Hear me?”

  She shivers, knowing the danger they’re in, and feels absolutely furious that she can do nothing to help. “I hear you, Jack. Promise me you’ll tell Father Lawrence when you’ve got a new place. He’ll let me know.” She jerks her head to the back door. “Can I tell Bryce good-bye?”

  Walking through the narrow house, she wonders what she’ll do if she can’t save AWOLs. This is how she keeps on living whole when she still has such a hard time believing she should be. She has a mission. Which she just lost to parts pirates.

  Remembering the parts pirate that kept her and Lev imprisoned, she seethes.

  In the kitchen Miracolina finds Jill ladling a second helping of stew into Bryce’s bowl. Even after dinner at the soup kitchen, he’s eating like he’s starved. The boy must have gone shy, because he’s pulled his hoodie low over his face. Jill’s brother, Griffin, is wiping down the stove. He’s got a shaved head and a bushy beard, but like Jill, he has a smile that can melt ice.