Cold Springs

Page 19

 

  But the whistle blew, and Mallory hit the mud on her chest, started crawling under the rope net.

  Leyland yelled, “Dont you touch my ropes, Zedman! Dont let your dirty back touch my ropes!”

  Then he turned and yelled at Morrison, who was lagging behind.

  Morrison got in trouble almost as much as Mallory. Not because Morrison was a rebel, but because she was a weak fat slob who could never make the course. Shed taken all the abuse the instructors could dish out, but every day she failed to get even halfway. They all had to wait for her while she tried repeatedly, and cried, until finally the instructors walked her through and punished the whole group for what she couldnt do.

  Mallory was grateful for her, though—grateful that there was another girl in the group. Grateful that Morrison sometimes took the instructors abuse instead of her.

  Mallorys elbows felt like spikes going through her skin, pulling her along through the mud.

  “Move, Zedman!” another instructor yelled. Always a new voice—another anonymous demon with a pitchfork. “This is what you ran away for, isnt it? Youre all grown up now! Take care of your own life!”

  Mallory clenched her teeth to keep from screaming obscenities.

  She got out from under the rope net and started the tire gauntlet.

  The two boys in her unit—Bridges and Smart—were already ahead of her. Smart was the kid with the spiky yellow hair, the one whod gotten his mouth taped for cussing the first day. Ever since then, the instructors had had a good time calling him Smart-Mouth, like that was some hysterical joke.

  Bridges was the fat kid with the bad acne, yet somehow he was always the first one under the ropes.

  Mallory didnt know their first names. She didnt care.

  Behind her, Leyland yelled, “Come on, Morrison!”

  Mallory could hear Morrison sobbing, which was predictable, like every other damn thing in this place. Every day—yelled awake, drilled to death, fed bread and water for breakfast. Then the damn counselors pulled them aside for the “program”—lectures nobody wanted to hear, followed by chances to talk nobody ever took. And then there would be the slave labor—building a new dorm for the next group of victims.

  What would Race think of this? Mallory tried to imagine him here. Race would fight the instructors, she decided. He would succeed where she failed.

  She slowed down on the tires. The new assistant instructor got in her ear, yelling at her to keep her knees up. Mallory didnt look at the guy, but she could tell it was one of the older kids—the ones they called white levels. No one would ever brainwash Mallory like that.

  She tried to keep her mind on Race. The guilt swelled up in her again—the knowledge that she had left him, didnt even know where he was staying now, or if the police had caught him.

  Everything had gone horribly wrong. Her mom finding the gun in the locker—somebody mustve told her to look, but Mallory couldnt figure out who. Then the argument with her mom, running away to Race, that nightmarish week at Talias. The Halloween party, coming home and finding the body. Then afterward . . . hiding out with Race, holding him while he cried, making love in the stairwell of that abandoned apartment building.

  It had all been a mistake—even the sex.

  She understood now why they called it losing virginity. She had lost something of herself, and what had she gotten in return? She didnt even feel what she had wanted most—closer to Race.

  She tripped on the last tire, fell flat on her face. She turned over, wheezing, her eyes stinging with mud, and stared at the canopy of cypress branches above. The white levels face hovered over her, hollering at her to get up.

  She got to her feet, managed not to take a swing at the kid. Shed tried that when—yesterday? Shed popped some instructor in the eye and paid for it with four hours in solitary, locked in a lightless shed until shed started to see spots like jellyfish floating in the darkness.

  She jumped up to the balance beam—still thinking about Race, and Pérezs words. If it wasnt for those people, your dad would be okay. They keep a gun to his head.

  Mallory wasnt stupid. Shed never met Races older brother but she knew Samuel had supplied Katherines drugs. She understood why her dad wouldnt like her hanging out with the Montroses. But still, the hate in his voice when he talked about them . . . it was way beyond fear for Mallory. It was murderous.

  And the idea that he was planning something, that the Montroses were keeping a gun to his head—what the hell did that mean?

  Shed tried to talk to Race about it, but hed gotten really quiet.

  He admitted his brother had been a dealer, a real bad-ass. He told her how Samuel used to beat up his mothers boyfriends—grown men, twice his size. Samuel had made Race work as a spotter for cops on the street corner. The same year Mallory had been starting kindergarten, Race had been working the drug trade.

  But that was a long time ago, and Race had been adamant—Samuel wasnt in the picture anymore. He wouldnt say where Samuel had gone, but Mallory was pretty sure Race was telling her the truth—on that point, anyway.

  What bothered her, the more she thought about it, was something Race had told her after theyd made love, when shed asked if there was any relative he could go to—anybody he trusted.

  He had propped himself up on his elbow, stared over her shoulder long enough for a BART train to blare past outside the grimy window. “Insanity runs in my family, Mal. Theres nobody I trust. Nobody. ”

  He opened his palm. His nails had cut deep crescents into his lifeline.

  Ever since that night, shed been thinking. Little things, like the fact that shed woken up the morning after Halloween, crashed on a couch in an abandoned house, and Race hadnt been there. Hed come back soon enough, bringing donuts and beer for breakfast, but she had no idea how long hed been gone. And after that theyd walked together to his mothers.

  That didnt mean hed killed Talia. Of course it didnt.

  But if the police questioned her, if they visited Cold Springs and pressured her the way the instructors did, told her it was her ass, or her boyfriends—what would she say? Would she have the courage to lie? To be Races alibi?

  She was falling behind on the course. She hit the parallel bars, arm-walked across, caught up with Smart and Bridges, who were throwing themselves uselessly at the wall.

  “Lets go!” Leyland bellowed. Hed traded places with the white level—let the white level chew out Morrison for a while. “This is a little wall, Zedman. My grandmother trains on this wall. Get your sorry butt over the top. LETS GO!”

  Mallory knew the wall wasnt more than six feet high, but it felt a lot taller. She could get her fingertips to the top, but there was no way she had enough strength to pull herself up. She slammed into it anyway, grabbed the top, felt the blisters break on her hands from where shed done the same thing the day before. She ended up sprawled on the ground, staring at the gray cinder blocks. Her whole damn life came down to cinder blocks—sleeping in them, climbing them, building with them. The instructors would have her eating cinder blocks pretty soon.

  Smart and Bridges werent having any more luck than Mallory. Smart wasnt strong enough. Bridges was too damn fat; he could get his meaty hands around the top, but then hed climb about two feet and hang there like a sandbag before falling on his butt.

  Mallory got up and tried again, hating the wall, wanting to bust it down.

  Morrison came up next to her, huffing and sobbing, and Mallory realized that nobody had walked her up this time. Shed made it herself. Mallory didnt know why, but she liked that Morrison had beaten the bastards, shown them she could get this far.

  Mallory looked down at her raw hands. She was about to throw herself at the wall again, then she stopped.

  She remembered a time in second grade—Mrs. Sanfords class, Laurel Heights, the new kid Race huddled under the sand table because the boys had teased him about wearing the same shoes five days in a row, asking him if his mom had e
ver heard of Goodwill. And Mrs. Sanford not seeing any of it—blind to what was going on right under her nose, just like every teacher. Just like Mallorys mom.

  Mallory had scooted under the sand table with Race and apologized to him, even though she hadnt done anything. Right there, theyd formed a friendship, writing their names for each other on the sandy cement. Theyd ganged up together and become the terrors of the class.

  “Hey,” she told Morrison. “Come on!”

  She laced her fingers together, made a foothold. Morrison looked at her like she was from Mars.

  Morrison had lost all traces of that heavy mascara shed worn on arrival, but her eyes were still swollen from constant crying. Her stringy hair had been dyed four different colors and was matted to her cheeks so it looked like several different animals had crawled on her head to die.

  “Dont mess with me, Zedman,” she muttered, but she didnt put any heart in it.

  The instructors were still yelling, but they werent yelling specifically at Mallory or Morrison. Mallory felt as if shed suddenly created a bubble of neutral space, the drill sergeant crap flowing right around her.

  “Im serious,” she told Morrison. “Screw Leyland, okay? Come on!”

  Morrison hesitated, then, awkwardly, put her foot in Mallorys cupped hands. She almost fell trying to get her balance, but she got her hands on the top of the wall and held on. Mallorys raw blisters hurt like hell, but she kept her fingers laced together and stood, pushing Morrisons leg up. It was like trying to balance a barbell on one end, but Mallory kept pushing and suddenly Morrison was at the top, and then over the wall with a painful thump.

  Mallory had forgotten how good it felt to smile.

  Bridges and Smart were staring at her like they were sure shed just signed their death warrants.

  Leyland shouted, “Keep it moving, Zedman!”

  And Mallory heard something new in his tone—approval.

  Thats what they wanted. They wanted team cooperation.

  Mallory was about to offer Smart a boost over the wall when a whistle blew two times—that sharp signal that meant “faces to the wall. ” Black levels werent supposed to see anyone but their own team. They werent supposed to make eye contact with any visitor. Smart and Bridges turned so their noses were touching the cinder block.

  Morrison scrambled around from the other side of the wall to join them. Her whole left side was caked with mud, but she gave Mallory a strange look that made her feel they had a new understanding—an alliance.

  “Wall!” the white level screamed.

  Mallory made the mistake of glancing back before complying, and when she did she saw Dr. Hunter and his visitors.

  One was a young black woman. From her street clothes, and Hunters body language, it was obvious she was getting a tour—maybe a parent, or a reporter. The other newcomer was the butch-looking blond woman whod been with Chadwick, the day theyd picked up Mallory.

  What was her name—Owens? No. Olsen.

  She was dressed in white sweats. She joined the line of counselors at the end of the course.

  Then Mallory understood what she was doing here—she was going to replace Wilson, the guy Mallory had kicked in the balls. The realization was like a drink of acid.

  Leyland was yelling at her now, telling her to get her nose to the cinder block, but she didnt.