Estranged (33 page)

Kalei stopped at the top of the
ladder. “What’re you doing here?”

He shrugged. “What does it look like?
I’m sitting here, waiting for you.”

She stepped onto the roof, confused by
his appearance. “How’d you know I’d end up here?”

Marley replied, “Don’t you recognize
this place? You and Fenn always hung out here. Mostly you, when you
were upset, but Fenn would always find you and talk you
down.”

He was right. As she pushed away the
haze of the day’s events and finally took a clear look at her
surroundings, she realized this was indeed a hangout from her
childhood. It was just a few blocks from her old school, and she
had spent many a summer on top of this roof. It was true what
Marley had said; she had often retreated here when she was upset,
but their little group had also played games here, watched the
clouds from here, dared each other to stand at the edge and look
down, Fenn and Kalei giggling when Marley got nauseous at the
sight.

Kalei sat down beside Marley, settling
her back against the bricks as he had. “Wow. You have a good
memory. And good instincts too. I didn’t even know I would end up
here.”

Marley replied humbly, “Eh, maybe
that’s why they gave me the job.” He returned his gaze to the city
stretched out beyond the roof. They couldn’t see much from their
short outpost; it was only about four stories up, nothing compared
to the daunting heights of the adjoining buildings. But in the few
gaps between the skyscrapers, she could see for miles. Kalei
remembered how, on a clear day, she could see all the way to the
ocean, just a speck of grayish-blue beyond the city
streets.

Kalei looked down at her hands as they
busily worked on a hangnail. Her swirls calmly watched the process,
thick and throbbing lethargically. Finally, she asked, “Why are you
here?”

He replied, “I want
answers.”

Kalei nodded and looked away. Then she
chucked the discarded scrap of nail and leaned back again. “I
don’t. I’m sick of answers. And I’m sicker of
questions.”

“
Then why’d you ask to
meet me?”

Kalei rubbed a hand across her face,
then she dropped it and said, “I wanted...” She looked down at her
hands. “I thought I wanted to find Fenn.” She took a deep breath
and returned her gaze to the city view. “Now? ... I don’t
know...”

“
You’re a danger to
them.”

“
Yup.”

Marley didn’t say anything for a
while. Then, after several minutes, he said, “Tell me about
SWORDE.”

Of course. Kalei knew this wasn’t a
simple house call. “So you’re still on duty then.”

Marley smiled. “No, just sick of
questions.”

She knew that arguing with Marley
would take more energy than she cared to spend, so Kalei explained
what she knew. The sooner he got his answers, the sooner he would
get off her damned roof. He asked about SWORDE, Estranged, and even
Tusic, once she mentioned Landen as a player in this game. It was
almost like old times. Sitting in a patrol car, shooting the breeze
as they waited for a speeder to come along. They had talked about a
lot of things: family, police tactics, politics. But today, it was
all about the Estranged.

When she was done, Marley leaned back
against the bricks and said, “I always thought SWORDE was full of
super soldiers or something. People the government souped up with
experimental drugs, or sent off for incredibly intense training in
the mountains. When I heard on the news that you were with SWORDE,
I thought, ‘Hey, I guess she didn’t get the bad end of that attack.
Looks like she made out all right.’ I guess reality isn’t so
nice.”

“
Yeah.”

He turned to look at her again. “So
what’s the deal with Xamic?”

She fidgeted with a piece of gravel
she had picked up and said, “Bad deal, that’s what.”

“
But you said so yourself,
he was at the scene of those attacks, but there’s no proof he was
behind them.”

Now Kalei looked at him. “Hello! He
snapped my neck! He caused a pile-up on the freeway and laughed
about it. There’s nothing good about him.”

“
I see your point. But why
was he there? What is his motive?”

“
I really don’t care. I
just want to see him burn in hell.” She threw her piece of gravel
off the roof.

“
This is why you never
made Detective.”

“
I never wanted to be a
Detective. I wanted to be a Warden.”

Marley sighed. “Yeah, and now we know
how that one worked out too.”

Kalei scoffed. “Yeah.”

“
But seriously, what is
Xamic’s angle? We know Tusic is in it for the money and the highs,
we know SWORDE just wants to keep everyone locked up behind their
little gate, but where does Xamic come into this?”

“
I don’t know.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Kalei
saw Marley watching her for a few seconds, and then looked away.
“Kalei, I need you to think. I need you to work with me on this. I
have two dozen call girls showing up dead on the East Side and
Xamic was spotted leaving the site. A bank robbery up on High
Street, a small riot in the financial district— you get the
picture. What I am saying is, the number of Estranged-related
deaths in my city have more than tripled since Xamic showed up. I
want to know why.”

“
Easy. He did
it.”

Marley sighed. “You know that doesn’t
work. We need motive, we need opportunity—”

“
Fuck that stuff and put a
bullet in his head. Problem solved.”

“
You know we can’t do
that. I’m legally bound
not
to do stuff like that, and we don’t know how to
kill him even if we could find him. See, that’s the problem. We
don’t know anything. We don’t know where he is, we don’t know where
he’ll attack next, we don’t even know where he came from. I checked
all of the system records— he doesn’t exist. I have Debbie going
through the archives to see if she can dig him up in the old hard
copies, but the point is, until we know more about this guy, he’s
just going to keep burning through this town like it’s his
playground, and I am sick and tired of him using my friends as his
playthings!”

Kalei was surprised by the anger in
Marley’s voice. She met his eyes and found a burning anger and
determination she had never seen in the man before. He was always
the calm, levelheaded one; slow to anger and always bailing out his
erratic cousin and her quick-to-cry tagalong.

She wasn’t sure what to make of this
new change. She looked away and said, “Well, now you know
everything I know. Time to go out and do your detective thing. Save
the world, protect the people; it’s what you do these days,
right?”

“
Is that it, Kalei? Are
you just going to roll over and quit like a wounded
dog?”

“
Are you calling me a
bitch?”

“
No, I’m calling you a
quitter. When you were on the force, you were unstoppable. You
didn’t give a damn about the rules, you didn’t give a damn about
your safety. You just went out there and did whatever you had to do
to get the job done. You used to care about the people who live
here. What is it? You become Estranged and now you don’t care
anymore? C’mon, Kalei. I know you. Not even becoming Estranged
could rip that out of you.”

Kalei watched the swirls on her nails
squeeze and pulse. Her hands clenched into fists and she felt her
despair coalesce into anger. He was so high and mighty. He was so
sure that he knew exactly what she was going through, he was so
sure he knew exactly who she was, that she was going to run into
the burning building and save them all. But he was wrong. He
thought she ran into those scenes to save the good guys, but the
reality was, she ran in to kill the bad guys. Her hatred for
Estranged, for herself, was so strong, that all she could think
about was destruction. And now, she couldn’t even deliver that to
the people who had hurt her most. Marley could never understand
that. He still had both his parents, he still had his kids, and his
wife. He was Untouched. He would never know what she had been
through.

“
Kalei, hey, I’m serious.
You’ve got what it takes to—”

Kalei stood up and screamed, “Shut the
fuck up, Marley!”

He stood up as well, standing his
ground as he said, “Kalei, I know this is hard, but—”

“
What the hell do you
know? You have no fucking clue what I’ve lost. It’s not just pretty
black nails and a few sweet highs, Marley. I lost
everything.
You hear me?
Everything! I will never be able to kiss my husband, I will never
be able to hug a friend, or hold my own child in my arms. Any
chance I had at love or family is gone now, Marley. But you still
have all of that. When you leave here, you’re going right back to
that world. Your wife is going to welcome you home, your kid is
going to run into your arms, and you’re going to hold him close,
and that feeling will be better than any damn high my black nails
could give me. Go back to your kid, give him that hug, and remember
that I will never have that.
Get the fuck
out of here, Marley!
”

He stared at her. Kalei could see
determination still in his eyes, but the anger was replaced with
pity. She hated him for that. Her fists clenched and every inch of
her craved to knock those pitying eyes right out of his
skull.

Quietly, he said, “I know how lucky I
am. Every night when I tuck Tyrell in, I am praying that I can
protect him, praying that I can keep this city from falling apart
around him. But as long as Xamic is out there killing, I can’t do
that. Every day, the violence from Estranged in this city is
escalating, and no matter how hard I try, there is nothing I can do
to stop them. Do you have any idea how terrible it is? Knowing that
you are completely helpless to protect your little boy? Of course
you don’t. There may be things I don’t know, but there’s a whole
hell of a lot you don’t know either, Kalei. And you’re not as
helpless as you think. I’m helpless, Kalei, but you aren’t. You
haven’t lost family, and you haven’t lost love. Celan has always
been your family, and now your brothers and sisters need you. I
need you. But most importantly, Fenn still needs you. You have to
put an end to Xamic so Fenn can live out the rest of his days in
peace.”

Kalei couldn’t stand how stupid this
man was. She screamed, “What the fuck kind of fairytale are you
living in, Marley? Running around playing hero isn’t going to
change jack shit. It’s all pointless. Can’t you see that? Putting
an end to Xamic is not going to change the fact that our city is at
the mercy of Estranged, and it is just a matter of time until every
one of you has nails to match mine.” Marley opened his mouth to
talk, but she cut him off. “Shut the fuck up and go home, Marley.
Enjoy this time with your family while you’ve still got them,
because one of these nights, hell is going to break open and we’re
all going to be swept in.”

Marley glared back at her, all the
sympathy gone from his eyes, his own fists clenching and
unclenching. Finally, he said, “Fine, I’ll leave you to your little
Estranged world of self-pity and hellfire. But I know you still
care about Celan. It’s time you woke up and figured out that
becoming Estranged didn’t change that. As far as I’m concerned, you
are still a cop, and you have been given an opportunity to do
something. Remember all those rules you broke to bust into
Estranged crime scenes? Well, guess what? No more rules, no more
danger. You have the freedom to step in and make a difference,
Kalei. You’re right; if SWORDE decides to open their gates tomorrow
and go nuts, I can’t stop them. If Tusic decides they want to start
going door to door demanding a Safety Tax, I might as well empty my
bank and pray they’ll feed me. I’m not Estranged. You’re right
Kalei, I don’t know anything. I’m Untouched, and I can’t do jack
shit against any of them. But you can. So this is on you.” He
turned to leave.

“
Fuck you, Marley. I’m not
the only Estranged in this city. You cops have SWORDE to do your
dirty work, and I’m out of that picture.”

Marley turned back and yelled, “You
don’t get it! I don’t trust SWORDE. I don’t know who they are. I
don’t know what they do behind that gate. For all I know, they’re
going in and getting high with the culprits, laughing at all us
weak little folk huddled outside. I don’t know SWORDE, Kalei, but I
know you. And right now, you’re the only one I trust to help me
protect my son.”

Kalei glared at him, unable to find a
retort, but unwilling to let go of her anger. She was still pissed
as hell and convinced that his head was in the clouds.

Marley straightened his jacket, gave
her one last glare, then walked over to the ladder. When he reached
it, he turned and tossed something to Kalei. She caught it without
taking her eyes off him.

He said, “When you get my call, you’d
better damn well be ready to answer.”

Marley didn’t stick around for a
response; he descended the ladder.

When she heard his feet hit the
pavement, she looked down at the item in her hands. It was a small,
simple flip phone with just enough buttons to get the job done. She
put it in her pocket and sat back down, pulling her legs up to her
chest, and resting her head against her knees.