Struck

  Acute Stress Disorder wasn’t normally supposed to last more than four weeks, but even then it often transitioned into Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which was nearly as bad. Parker and I couldn’t take care of her unless she was doped up.

  “I’m going to see the Dealer,” I told Parker, and pounded up the stairs to my bedroom to raid my rapidly diminishing store of cash.

  Parker followed on my heels. “You promised you wouldn’t go back there after what happened last time.”

  “It wasn’t that big a deal. People get mugged every day.” I grabbed the wad of cash I kept hidden inside the Monopoly box in my closet. I counted out the bills. Two hundred and seventeen dollars. Enough for another week’s supply of Xanax and Thorazine, but I’d have to forgo Mom’s sleeping pills.

  “Maybe there’s some other way to help her,” Parker said. “Like that earthquake survivor’s group at school. She might not even need the meds anymore. She seems a little better … sort of.”

  “She had another episode,” I reminded him. “With the amount of Thorazine she’s taking—overtaking—that shouldn’t happen anymore.”

  “Then let me go instead!”

  “No. The Dealer won’t sell to you. He doesn’t know you.” The Dealer only accepted patrons by referral, and I’d lucked out in making a connection to him through one of our neighbors, a woman who now bought her insulin on the black market for ten times the amount she used to pay. But it was either fork over the money or go into diabetic shock.

  I shoved the cash deep into my pocket. “I’ll be careful,” I said, but where I was going, it wouldn’t matter how careful I was.

  On my way out the door, I grabbed the can of pepper spray and slipped it into my other pocket.

  9

  THERE WAS NO other place in the world like the Ocean Front Walk on Venice Beach. If you took a circus, a hippie commune, an insane asylum, a homeless shelter, a gypsy caravan, and an inner city ghetto, mixed them up until they were jumbled together, and then set them down in front of a beach polluted by sewage where people still dared to surf and sunbathe, you’d have the Ocean Front Walk.

  Of course, that had been before the quake.

  Strolling down Ocean Front Walk was no longer an amusing way to spend a sunny afternoon. Now it was a good place to get mugged or beaten or maybe shot.

  Here’s what happens when several square miles of the poorest, highest-crime areas of Los Angeles are destroyed, and the city offers the former inhabitants of those areas no alternative but to migrate west, away from the ruins of their homes; offers them nowhere to stay, nothing to eat, no clean water to drink, no showers but those used to wash sand and saltwater off after a swim in the ocean or a day of sunbathing.

  Here’s what happens …

  * * *

  I did my best not to look conspicuous as I struggled through the crowd on the boardwalk, trying to reach the other side, where beyond a small, grassy rise lined with swaying palm trees lay the beach and Tentville. Getting across the congested boardwalk wasn’t much easier than attempting to walk through a concrete wall, and it was difficult not to stand out when you were one of the only people in sight who’d showered in the last couple weeks. I noted several sets of eyes following my progress, and I knew what the owners of those eyes were wondering.

  What does she have that I need, that I might take?

  I met those eyes with defiance. I couldn’t let them think I was weak. I’d made that mistake before.

  You don’t want to mess with me, I thought as I met the eyes of anyone who paid too much attention to me. I came prepared this time.

  I touched the bulge in my pocket, the can of pepper spray. I understood now why Militiaman Brent touched his Taser so lovingly.

  Fighting my way across the flow of people packing the boardwalk was like trying to swim through a fast-moving river. The rank smell of unwashed bodies filled my nostrils. And the noise … so many voices talking at once. Loud. Angry. Children crying. Babies shrieking.

  I didn’t normally have problems with claustrophobia. Small spaces didn’t bother me, but crowds … crowds were another story. Having so many people surrounding me, pressing against me with their unfamiliar dirty bodies, panic began to override all other brain functions.

  I came to a standstill. I couldn’t move, and no one else seemed to be moving either. Faces were the only thing I could see. Faces everywhere. And eyes. All looking at me. Seeing me for what I was. Not one of them. I didn’t belong here and everyone knew it.

  A baby screamed next to my ear.

  My paralysis snapped.

  I broke through to the other side of the boardwalk and stumbled up over the grassy knoll, past the palm trees, where I could look out over the expanse of sand to the water.

  Over the weeks, Tentville had come to resemble a sort of medieval village, only it was vast, stretching as far as I could see in either direction. A pall of smoke hung low over the area, fed by constantly burning cook fires. People huddled around those fires, even during the warm hours of the day, just staring into the flames. Children wandered lethargically through the space between tents, slow with hunger and exhaustion, their cheeks streaked with soot, ashes in their hair, their clothing getting looser by the day.

  Many of the tents had been brightly colored nylon when Tentville was first founded, but were now gray and faded from smoke. But one tent stood out from the others. This one was as broad as a small house, and large enough to stand up in. A heavy, canvas army tent, only it was not camo-colored. It had been painted a deep shade of purple. The color of royalty.

  The Dealer thought highly of himself.

  “Do you have an appointment?” The guard standing outside the Dealer’s lair looked like a retired linebacker.

  “No,” I said. “But I have cash.”

  He stared past me. His arms were so large and lumpy with muscle, he appeared to have babies stuffed up his sleeves. The Dealer probably gave him a discount on steroids.

  “You need an appointment,” the guard said. “The Dealer is a busy man.”

  “I’m a regular. Doesn’t that give me some sort of privileges or something?”

  “No.”

  “Look, just poke your head in there and tell him Mia Price is here. He’ll see me, I swear.”

  For a moment I thought the guard would choose to ignore me completely. But he turned and stuck his head through the tent flap. I heard him mutter something, and the high, almost whiny return of the Dealer’s voice, and then his cackling laugh, making my spine go rigid. The Dealer’s laugh always gave me the creepiest of creeps. He sounded crazed. Unstable. He had access to all these psychotropic meds; he ought to try some, instead of whatever he used that made his pupils dilate to the size of M&M’s.

  “Send her in,” I heard the Dealer say in a lilting singsong.

  His guard held open the flap for me.

  I squinted as my eyes adjusted to the shadowy interior of the tent. The purple paint that had been used to coat the canvas blocked out the light, and most of the air, too. It was so hot and stuffy inside, I began to feel faint and sick to my stomach. I could still smell the paint fumes. The chemical scent combined with the smell of the Dealer’s jasmine candles to make the inside of my head feel like it was full of bees and clouds.

  “I think this place is violating a few fire safety codes,” I said.

  The Dealer lounged on a patchwork pile of colorful pillows at the back of the tent, looking like some kind of ghetto maharaja. Most of the candles were placed behind him, so his face stayed in shadow. His hand rested on a huge black rottweiler that let out each breath in a rumbling growl.

  “Didn’t think I’d see you again so soon, Mia Price. Mia, Mia, Mia Price,” he sang, and then cackled. “It’s always a pleasure to see you, though, m’dear. You’re one of my favorite customers.”

  “I’m honored.” I wasn’t sure how I’d come to be a favorite, but if it got me what I needed, I was happy to accept the status.

  “Come,” the Dealer sa
id, patting the pillows. “Have a seat. Tell me what I can do for you.”

  “Actually, I’m kind of in a—”

  “Have a seat.”

  The rottweiler growled and licked its chops with a pink tongue the width of a shoe.

  I sat, keeping as much distance as I could between the Dealer and the rott and me without seeming impolite. Or afraid. Showing fear was as dangerous in this tent as it was on the boardwalk. The Dealer fed on it.

  “Closer,” the Dealer said. “I’m not going to bite. I can’t speak for Rosemary here, though.” He patted the rott’s thick skull.

  I told him what I needed.

  He whistled, impressed.

  “You went through that fast, girl.”

  “It’s not for me.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  I shook my head. It didn’t matter who the Dealer thought the meds were for. All that mattered was that he sold them to me. I pulled out my cash and counted two hundred dollars. A hundred dollars per bottle.

  I handed the money over. Rosemary watched my hand like it was a steak dripping blood.

  The Dealer counted the money, and then shook his head sadly. “It’s not enough.”

  I blinked at him. “But that’s how much I always pay.”

  He sighed as though it broke his heart to tell me. “Stock is low. I’ve had to raise prices.”

  My chest felt tight. “I can pay a little extra.” I shoved the remaining seventeen dollars at him, but he kept on shaking his head.

  “You know how many desperate people there are in this city? People who need what only I can provide, and will do whatever it takes to get it? I’m afraid prices have doubled, dearest. Two hundred per bottle.”

  The walls of the tent seemed to be collapsing around me. “I … I can’t pay that much. You said I was one of your favorite customers. Can’t you cut me a deal this time or something?”

  “Spoken like a true addict,” he said, his eyes laughing and cruel. He was enjoying this.

  “I’m not an—”

  “You know what I tell addicts like you, the ones who come to me and turn out their pockets and it’s still not enough, and they ask me, ‘Isn’t there anything I can do?’ I tell them … yes. Yes, there is.”

  The Dealer’s eyes lowered from my face and scanned down my body. My hand inched toward the pepper spray in my pocket, but froze when Rosemary snarled a warning.

  “She likes you,” the Dealer said. He reached out and curled a hand behind my neck. His pupils were enormous black marbles. “I like you.”

  Fear gripped my heart until I thought it would burst. “Never mind,” I said. “I don’t need the pills. I’ll … I’ll just go.”

  The Dealer’s smile dropped off his face. “No,” he said. “I’m going to give you what you came for. What you really need.”

  My hand raced for the pepper spray and lost.

  I didn’t have time to scream. It wouldn’t have done any good even if I had. This was Tentville. The residents were used to screams.

  The Dealer lunged on top of me, pressing me into a pile of pillows until I thought I would disappear, that we would both sink below the surface of them, sucked under like we were in water.

  I struggled, fought, scratched, kicked, snarled, swore, but the Dealer had nearly fifty pounds on me, and whatever drug was pumping through his system had made him strong. I tried to scream, but he clamped a hand over my mouth. I bit down hard and tasted blood and tried to spit, but I couldn’t because his hand was still on my mouth, and his other hand was pulling at my shirt and working at the zipper of my pants.

  The taste of blood in my mouth became the taste of copper wires humming out the flavor of electricity.

  The heat inside me came crackling to life, and for once I didn’t try to calm it. I let it rage.

  “What’s this?” the Dealer said, sounding mystified. I felt his hand on my bare stomach. So he’d seen the lightning scars. I should have cared, but I didn’t, because the fire in me had taken over and was traveling through my arms, and it was hard to care about anything when you were about to explode.

  “You got some kind of disease?” the Dealer said, suddenly repulsed.

  “Yeah,” I said, my voice faint to my own ears. “You want some?”

  He sat up, his face twisted with fury. “You weren’t gonna tell me, you little whore?”

  He hauled back to hit me. Before the blow could land, there was a sound like a baseball bat hitting a grapefruit, and the Dealer grunted, and his eyes bulged. Droplets of blood flew like splattered paint, and he fell flat on top of me. Smothering me. I shoved at his limp body, but he was dead weight and I could barely budge him.

  And then someone grabbed the Dealer and rolled him off me. It was so dark I couldn’t make out who stood over me. An image flashed behind my eyes. There was something familiar about the silhouette, but I couldn’t place it. The guy looming over me had something clutched in his hand, but in the memory trying to climb to the surface of my mind, there had been something else in his hand. Something shiny and—

  “Mia,” the silhouette panted. “Are you all right?”

  “Jeremy?” My mind went blank with surprise, and the recollection I’d been struggling to capture said goodbye.

  “Are you all right?” he demanded.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” I was getting there, anyway. The fire in me dimmed, making it easier to form a clear thought.

  Jeremy turned his eyes away. I looked down and saw that my pants were undone, and my shirt was pulled up to just beneath my bra. I sat up, scrambling to right my clothes. Had he seen my lightning scars?

  “Let’s get out of here before he wakes up,” Jeremy said. He scowled at the Dealer’s prone figure. In one hand he held a heavy, cast-iron skillet that he must have grabbed from someone’s cook fire. The way his fingers clenched so hard around the skillet’s handle made him look like he wanted to bash the Dealer’s head with it a few more times. I’d thought earlier today that Jeremy had the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. Now I thought he had the angriest.

  But how had Jeremy gotten past the guard? And how had he known I was here?

  He started to reach out his free hand to me to help me up, and then withdrew it, so my hand fell short.

  He shook his head. “Sorry. I can’t.” Can’t what, he didn’t say, but I got the point. The last time I’d touched his hand, I’d woken up on the floor of Mr. Kale’s classroom.

  I started to climb to my feet on my own, but a low, rumbling growl like the sound of a motorcycle idling froze me in place.

  Jeremy and I both looked toward the sound. Rosemary’s moist black eyes glinted in the candlelight.

  “No sudden moves,” Jeremy said, but I immediately reached for the pepper spray. I had to fight to get my hand into my pocket. Damn skinny jeans!

  I wrested the can loose and we began to ease slowly toward the tent flaps, the huge black dog’s eyes following. Then she grumbled a warning, but too late. A hand grabbed my ankle and jerked my leg out from under me. I landed flat on my stomach in the sand. The breath was pounded from my lungs.

  The Dealer’s eyes were wide open. Full of rage. But I was prepared this time. I pointed the pepper spray right at his eyes—at least I hoped the nozzle was pointed in the right direction—and pushed the button.

  Sssssss!

  The Dealer roared and released me to clap his hands over his eyes. He started coughing like he had a lung stuck in his throat. My own throat began to burn, and then I was coughing, too. And so was Jeremy. I doubled over, feeling like I’d swallowed a handful of fire ants that were eating their way toward my lungs. My eyes teared up and oozed fat droplets that felt thick as oil.

  The Dealer grabbed blindly at me again. I crab-scrambled through the sand.

  Rosemary barked. The sound was earsplitting, and seemed to make the walls of the tent shudder. Then she leaped, knocking over a scented candle onto the pile of pillows. Flames erupted instantly and spread to the tent wall as though the whole place was dou
sed in gasoline, which it might as well have been considering the recently applied coat of purple paint.

  Rosemary’s teeth sank into the Dealer’s arm. She shook her head violently, like she was trying to snap his bones, and the Dealer screamed.

  I found my feet and looked down at the Dealer. “You were right,” I rasped, my throat ragged from the pepper spray. “She does like me.”

  The fire consumed the mountain of pillows and had nearly enveloped the far wall of the tent. The heat was reaching unbearable levels. Still, I considered attempting a quick search for the meds before remembering the Dealer kept them locked in a safe.

  Covering his mouth with his shirt, Jeremy waved me toward the tent’s opening.

  I felt the weight of defeat on my shoulders. The meds were gone.

  A crowd of onlookers had gathered around the Dealer’s tent, but no one made any attempt to put out the fire. The Dealer had not allowed anyone to set up a tent within thirty feet of his, so they must’ve figured the fire wouldn’t spread. Apparently the Dealer didn’t have a lot of friends among the residents of Tentville. Even his guard had gone MIA, or so I thought until I saw him lying unconscious on the sand a few feet from the tent. No … not unconscious. His eyes were open, but twitching, as though he was experiencing some sort of waking REM sleep.

  “What happened to him?” My voice clawed its way through my throat. Tears continued to seep from my stinging eyes.

  Jeremy shrugged and looked away. “Maybe he’s epileptic.”

  “That’s convenient.” Before I had time to fully express my suspicion that Jeremy had done something to the guard, Rosemary shot from the Dealer’s tent and charged into the crowd.

  “Doggy!” a little boy with a severely runny nose shouted. His mother pulled him out of Rosemary’s path just in time to avoid his getting rammed.

  The growing crowd surrounded us.

  “We should probably run now,” Jeremy said.