The City Series (Book 1): Mordacious

  “You wanted to play with the big kids.” Guillermo smacks his shoulder and looks to me. “When are you guys leaving?”

  “As soon as we’re done with our cake, which, let me say, makes me want to live here with you. The only thing stopping me is that you’re far too cheerful for someone who drank the night away.”

  Guillermo leans in, hand cupped at his mouth. “You’ve got to drink water before bed. No hangover. Let me make sure you get home okay.”

  After yesterday, we can manage this comparatively easy trip even with hangovers. I look to Grace, who lifts a rounded shoulder, and then say, “We’re fine, thanks. But we might leave our bikes here so we don’t have to carry them in and out of houses on our way.”

  “Okay.” He places the plastic bag full of produce he carries onto the table. “For you,” he says to Grace. “I know you miss the fresh stuff. It’s apples and carrots and things that didn’t go bad yet.”

  Grace dredges up a smile. “Thank you.”

  “Sure. All right, I have to check they’re working on the wall, but I’ll see you soon.” We say goodbye, and he smirks under his beard. “What happened to I love you, Guillermo? What’s up with that, Sylvie?”

  I give him my best death-ray glare.

  “I didn’t forget,” he says, and taps his temple. “I don’t forget anything.” And, with that, he claps his hands and walks away laughing.

  We finish our breakfast, wish the two hungover boys good luck, and leave for home, as Guillermo called it. It does feel like home, and I can’t quite wrap my rattling walnut brain around that sentiment.

  Our journey up stoops and over fences is slower than usual, but we reach our yard alive. Before we make our presence known, I say, “We’ll try again.” Grace nods and strips off her gloves without making eye contact. “Grace, say something. If you don’t talk then I’m going to have to, and I know no one wants that.”

  “It’s my civic duty?”

  “You know it is. Without you to smooth me over, they’ll kill us and eat us in no time.”

  “You’re deranged, you know that?” she says with the hint of a smile.

  As we reach the back door, we hear a child’s voice and an unfamiliar deep voice, followed by Eric’s. I never had any doubt he’d get back in one piece, but that doesn’t stop my heart from galloping at the sound. He’s leaving soon and there are more important things to think about, so I attempt to ignore how glad I am he’s here.

  The living room is dim after the brightness of outside. Maria and Jorge sit in the chairs, and a big guy sits on the couch with Eric. The new guy has slicked-back brown hair and a square jaw and muscles everywhere—Paul.

  A little blond boy lies on the rug, busy with paper and pens. “…because this one shoots out lasers and—” he stops and looks up at us.

  He’s adorable, with big, black-lashed eyes and chubby cheeks. He crawls across the rug and Paul pulls him onto his lap.

  “Hi,” I say, which comes out squeaky. We’re back, as promised, but it’s occurred to me that they might’ve realized how nice it was not to have me here. There’s no indication they feel that way, but my brain still whispers that it could be true—that it’s possible, even likely. My brain is an asshole.

  Maria is up in an instant. Her eyes flick to the barren space behind us, and she pulls Grace into a hug, then puts her arms around me. I give her a little squeeze. Jorge is next, murmuring an apology in Grace’s ear. He smiles his wide, plump-cheeked grin and then mushes me into his warm chest. It’s heartening and comforting, and I hang on for a second longer than normal.

  Eric rises to his feet. “Did you make it there?”

  “We had to turn around just after Cadman Plaza,” I say. “There were so many and we didn’t know if we’d be able to get out once we were in. We’ll try again.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says to Grace, who gives him a hug. He flashes his high-wattage smile at me, and I wear a ridiculously wide one in return. “I’m glad you’re both okay, though.”

  His arms are loose and sort of welcoming, as if he anticipates a hug, but I don’t move and the moment passes. Now it’s weird that I didn’t hug him and Grace did. I’ve put far too much thought into a hug and will probably spend the next three hours torturing myself about it.

  He introduces Paul and Leo. I know Paul has a wife, but we don’t ask about her. Paul looks like a man who has been through the wringer—his face is unshaven and he nods as if it’s all he has the energy for.

  “We got back a couple hours ago,” Eric says.

  Maria serves drinks while we recount meeting Brother David and the rest of our trip, omitting the part where I proclaimed my love for everyone.

  Eric tells us about the Verrazano. Maybe I had no intention of crossing the bridge, but a rush of apprehension comes anyway. Knowing I could cross it if necessary was more important than I realized. He lets that sink in for a moment before he tells us he found plenty of seeds. I’m sure he purposely did it in that order to buoy our spirits, and it works, except for the part where I envision myself having to eat large amounts of spinach.

  “Do you want to get cleaned up?” Maria asks Paul.

  He rubs his chin. “Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks.”

  “I’ll put on water,” I say.

  In the yard, I pass the time at the stove by attempting to change myself into a sane person with socially acceptable reactions. I’m all aflutter about Eric and unsure if I’m still welcome and uneasy that the bridge is gone and worried I’ll have to eat vegetables. In order, I should be: unconcerned about a guy, confident the people who seem happy to see me really are, fine with the bridge since I wasn’t going anywhere, and glad we’ll have food—even if it is vegetables.

  Everyone joins me outside. Leo, Grace and Maria head off on a mission for toys in the other houses. Paul sits in a chair and lets his head fall back.

  “Your water’s almost ready,” I say.

  “Thanks,” he says.

  “Sure. How was the trip here?”

  Eric appears at my side. “It was nothing. We drove most of the way and left the car at Third Avenue. We got out, Paul set off the alarm’s panic button to distract them, and then we cruised up here.”

  “Better than surprise zombie bombs dropping on your head, which is what happened to us. I can’t believe the bridge is gone.”

  “You weren’t going to cross it anyway.”

  “You never know,” I say. “With the right impetus, I might have.”

  “Like orange candy on a stick?”

  “That could work.”

  “I’ll have to remember that. Paul, I’m stealing some of your water.” Eric dips a bowl into the pot, then lathers up his hands and face. He walks to the drain in the next yard and rinses off before he comes back. “I’m going to work on Operation Caffeine Strike.”

  “Aren’t you tired?”

  “Not now that I’m back. I started it the other day. Don’t you want coffee to go with your cake?”

  “Sadly, I believe the cake is gone.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to make some more, won’t we?”

  I fight every instinct I have that wants to say I don’t care. I do care. I want cake. “I guess we will. Thank—” I close my mouth.

  “Nice save. I moved my stuff upstairs with Paul, so you and Grace are back in Cassie’s room.”

  “You didn’t have to—”

  “Be awesome? Can’t help it.”

  And I can’t help my laugh, so I push him. “That is definitely not what I was going to say.”

  “Pretty sure it was,” he says. “I also checked our word: mulct. To punish by a fine. Or to attain by theft or fraud. So put on your thinking cap.”

  He places an imaginary hat on my head and buckles it under my chin. He’s so ridiculously jovial that it buoys my spirits the way spinach never will. “You’re a dork,” I say. “Like, from the Planet Dorkatron kind of dork.”

  “You’ve been? Nice place, right?”

  He chucks m
e under the chin before he walks to his pile of assorted junk a few yards down. I watch him pick through pieces of metal and what looks to be part of a metal garbage can. This must be Eric one hundred percent better—goofy, strange, and so amiable I don’t know how to react except to wish he hadn’t walked away.

  “What’s this word thing?” Paul asks.

  I turn back to the stove. Paul watches me, although it feels more like an appraisal. “We have a word-of-the-day calendar and we try to use the word in conversation. Whoever uses it first wins a point.”

  He nods as though it’s the most uninteresting thing he’s ever heard. There’s no reason for him to be excited by this breaking news, though it still makes me feel stupid.

  “So you’re Eric’s best friend,” I say, in a feat of brilliant repartee.

  “Yup.”

  “I’m glad he found you. Leo’s really cute.”

  “Thanks. I heard you were at the hospital. How come you didn’t go home? I’m sure you’d rather be there than with strangers.”

  I’m struck with the idea that somehow he can see into my mind and wants to use my insecurities against me. But that’s Crazy Sylvie talking, and Sane Sylvie is on the scene today. “Well, we did just try. But we were coming back anyway.”

  He grunts. “Eric told me about your mom. Sorry.”

  It’s the last thing I expected to hear, and I wonder what else Eric told him. “Thanks, but we weren’t very close,” I say, and try for an expression that implies I don’t need sympathy although I appreciate the thought.

  Paul nods, his blue eyes cool above his stubbly cheeks, and it’s clear I haven’t nailed this particular reaction. But he also looks like the quintessential Brooklyn brawler, and that type is happy only when getting into a fistfight at a bar. I try not to take any of the conversation personally after the few weeks he’s probably had.

  “Your water’s done,” I say. He rises. I feel dwarfed, and not in a good way. “There are towels in the clo—”

  “I know where towels are. I practically grew up here.”

  He lifts the pot and walks past me to the house. And I thought I was brusque around new people.

  Chapter 62

  We sit in the yard to eat Second Meal. The food will go faster with seven of us, and I assume Second Meal is here to stay. The calorie obsession is creeping in again, not that it ever left completely. I point to the large cylinder of metal on which our dinner was cooked. It’s a stove of some sort, the product of Operation Caffeine Strike. “What is that exactly?”

  “A rocket stove,” Eric says. He points to a metal tube that juts out of the cylinder near the bottom. “You put the fuel in there, on the fuel shelf. You can use twigs to cook an entire meal. The insulated combustion chamber and vertical chimney mean you lose almost none of the heat. It’s pretty much complete combustion.”

  “So what you’re saying is that it’s magic?”

  Eric leans back in his chair, eyes twinkling. “That would be the shorter explanation.”

  “And how did you make this magical thing?”

  “You know, I just rolled up my sleeves and did a bunch of manly stuff.”

  I roll my eyes even as I appreciate the vision of him doing manly things with his sleeves hiked up.

  “You cursed a lot,” Leo says. He sits with his knees bent and feet splayed out behind him in a position only a five-year-old could find comfortable.

  “That I did. But you’re not supposed to mention that part.”

  I smile at Leo. When he grins back, it becomes apparent why they call them the apples of your cheeks. There’s not a booger in sight. I’m not sure where his mom is, but Paul has shaved, accentuating eyes that carry enough luggage for a grand tour of Europe, so I think wherever she is can’t be good.

  “We need to get to any food before someone else does,” Paul says. “Bay Ridge is getting cleaned out. Whoever’s doing that might move this way next. Maybe it’s that group supplying the monastery, and they’re storing it somewhere.”

  There’s no reason I should be wary. After all, here we sit, a group of people surviving on stored food. But I still don’t like the sound of it, or the fact that Paul said he heard gunshots on a regular basis, or that one day we might be in a race for food or it’ll become so scarce that people are willing to kill for it. I think of Mrs. Hernandez—they already are willing to kill for it.

  “There are other people around here, too,” I say. “One group seems young. We heard them outside our first night. Some of them got eaten, but we don’t know how many are still around.”

  Paul frowns and then tilts his chin to where Leo sits, listening with rapt attention. I’m about to apologize when he stands and lifts Leo under one arm like a football, disapproval radiating my way. “Let’s go check out that bike Jorge found, buddy.”

  I should’ve known not to discuss this stuff with kids around, although it didn’t seem any worse than what Paul has said so far. Another reason I’d be unfit as a mother—I’d read them Stephen King books at bedtime or something equally terrifying.

  “Sorry,” I say to everyone else, since Paul has moved out of earshot, “I’m not used to having a kid here.”

  “It wasn’t a big deal,” Eric says. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Jorge sets down his bowl. “Eric, does Paul think that group in Bay Ridge is dangerous?”

  “He doesn’t know. Maybe they’re not all bad if they’re supplying nuns with food. We could try to meet with them at some point, make a deal, like that deal Guillermo made with Chinatown. But they could be the ones from the other night and, if they are, I’m thinking they don’t want to make friends. We should have someone on watch all night.”

  Jorge nods. “We should make this block look abandoned. Crack windows and doors like someone broke in and cleared it out. The other side, too.” He points at the houses whose backyards are now ours. “I thought it before, but after Guillermo came by all I could think was how obvious it is they’ve got supplies. If I was gonna hit anybody, it’d be them, but if they know we’re here…”

  “It’s a great idea. We should’ve done that before now.”

  “Jorge is full of good ideas,” I say, “but he likes to keep them to himself and drop them in at random moments like little bombs of good sense.”

  Jorge opens his hands. “Still waters run deep, mami.”

  “That’s what I hear, papi chulo.”

  Jorge’s booming laugh fills the yard. I’ve been waiting for him to call me mami again, hoping he’d be amused by the response. Maria shakes her head but laughs along with everyone except Paul, who has returned and put his feet up on the table, completely at ease with his bowl of rice and beans in a way that makes me envy his level of security.

  “We’ll start the watch shifts tonight,” Eric says.

  “How are we going to see anything?” Maria asks. “The block is huge and it’s pitch black.”

  “We’ll listen. It’s better than nothing.”

  “I can do early morning,” I say. “Since I’m up anyway. And I have a book that says—hold on.” I run into the house and return with my latest survival book.

  “When All Hell Breaks Loose,” Jorge reads when I hold it up. “I think it has.”

  “What’s that on the cover?” Maria asks.

  “Just a piece of paper,” I say.

  “There’s a picture of a roach on the cover, so she taped a piece of paper over it,” Grace says, altogether too pleased to alert everyone to my insanity.

  “Really?” Maria asks, and bursts into laughter at my nod.

  “I couldn’t touch it.”

  “It’s a picture,” Maria says.

  “Doesn’t matter.” I tried it uncovered for a day, but it made me have to smash imaginary bugs on my legs, so it had to go. If it was my book, I’d cut it out. “But this is a good one—it even has a section on how to wipe your butt with your bare hand.”

  “Now that’s a survival book,” Eric says.

  “Gross,” Grace say
s. “I am not wiping my butt with my bare hand. No matter what, there has to be something else nearby that’s better than that.”

  “But it’s eco-friendly,” I say, to which she flips me the bird. I open the book to the chapter on self-defense. “It even gives defensive moves.”

  I show the page to Grace, who pretends to do the illustrated open-handed strike on me. It’s basically a face mash with an open palm and, assumedly, a bit more force. “Now imagine if I’d used my hand to wipe,” she says.

  “Poop strike!” I say. We crack up, as does Leo, which serves to demonstrate our level of maturity. I clear my throat. “It talks about having a signal so the other people in your group know something is wrong without giving it away to others, and maybe a safe room or an exit strategy, and—” I stop yapping. “Well, you get the idea, but you never know when someone will try to mulct our supplies.”

  Eric levels his finger at me. “You. You.” I bat my eyelashes and he shakes his head good-naturedly. “But it’s true, they might.”

  “Anyway,” Paul says, “how are we on food?”

  “We need more,” Maria says. “We have maybe a couple months if we ration it. We already aren’t eating enough, and plants will take a while to grow.”

  “So we should go out looking. Eric and I can start tomorrow.”

  “We’ll come?” Grace asks me. I nod.

  “That’s all right.” Paul gives a small laugh. “You should stay here and…”

  He trails off when Grace straightens, hands gripping the arms of her chair. “And what? Bake you cupcakes?”

  I glance at Leo to see if he’s noticed his dad is about to be taken down a notch, but he’s happily throwing dirt in the air with explosive noises. He’s going to be a mess later, but that’s not my problem, thankfully. Maybe Paul expects us to babysit his kid for him while we bake those cupcakes.

  “We’ve been going out all the time,” Grace says in a voice that’s both soft and deadly. “And we can show you the best route because we made it. We went farther yesterday than anyone else here except Eric.” Her eyes are steely. “Do you think we should stay because we’re women? If so, I’ll tell you right now that is not happening.”