Quarantine #2: The Saints (10 page)

Two months she kept that act up, and one afternoon when her mother was in the basement folding laundry, he kissed Lucy in her room. She had a video camera set up, and she made sure he was facing the camera when he did it. She e-mailed him that video, and told him to never contact her mother again, or answer any of her calls, or Hilary would send the tape to the cops.

Week after week Hilary relished getting to ask her mother the same question over breakfast …

“Hey, what ever happened to Gary? I liked him a lot.”

Hilary smiled at the memory. In her peripheral vision Hilary saw ten white dresses moving across the polished gym floor. Pretty Ones settled on the bleacher rows below her. Linda, the tallest girl in the gang, climbed up to Hilary. She’d been giving Hilary the most attitude of all the girls, and now she stood in front of Hilary with a wide stance, her hip cocked, and her yellow hair over one eye. The other Pretty Ones watched, eager to see what was about to happen.

“We’ve been talking,” Linda said. “We don’t want to be expected to date Varsity anymore. We’re sick of it, we want to date Skaters, or passionate artist boys from the Geeks, or whoever we want. And it’s not up for discussion.”

Hilary narrowed her eyes at Linda. That was a threat. Hilary looked around the room. Every Pretty One was fixing her with slitty bitch eyes.

“Why don’t you go help Suzanne make the soap.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“Do it.”

Linda held the stare. She was testing Hilary. The root of Hilary’s tooth ached in her gums. She had to shut Linda down right away. She needed something that would break her. Hilary reached down into the dark of her mind for something cold and sharp.

“Didn’t your last two boyfriends die?”

“Wh—what? What does that have to do with anything?”

Linda’s face sank. It was true, her last two boyfriends had died. The first, Dennis, got drunk and drowned in the pool over a year ago. The second, Antonio, the one she really liked, he was killed by the falling block of supplies at the parents’ first food drop.

“You really think you should be looking for another? How much blood do you want on your dress?”

Linda’s bit her lip. She cried.

“Linda,” Hilary whispered. Linda looked up at her like child who had just been spanked. “Soap.”

If Linda wanted to say something back to Hilary, the words weren’t coming. She shuffled off, confused. The other Pretty Ones drifted away, her leadership reasserted for another day.

Hilary had eagle eyes when it came to spotting someone’s weakness. She knew the brittle spot of every girl in her gang. Everyone had that thin part of them, where they were defenseless, a spot you only needed to push, and it would break them open. Cindy got a lazy eye when she was tired. Britt was dyslexic and was always trying to prove she wasn’t stupid. Megan’s father walked out on her family when she was ten. Maria had no waist.

Hilary tongued her tooth. It didn’t budge. The glue was holding. So far, no one knew that it had been knocked out, except David and Sam. But one was gone, and no one wanted
anything to do with the other. In her drunken stupor she still had the awareness that night to grab the tooth and put it in her pocket. She’d spent the next hour, while Sam was having his fight in the quad, swaying drunk in front of a mirror, fingers fumbling to stick her tooth back into her gums. She’d worn layers of duct tape on the back of her top teeth in the beginning. She might have to start doing that again, because she was running out of superglue. Hilary lived in constant fear that the glue would snap. That she would smile too wide and the pressure of her lips stretching around her teeth would pop the tooth right onto her tongue. She could hear the
click
of it displacing in her mind. What if a boy kissed her aggressively? He might kiss her tooth out.

She needed a new boyfriend. Someone to raise her back up to her rightful position at the top. But no one could know her secret. The leader of the Pretty Ones was not missing a tooth.

WILL SUCKED ON A MUSTARD PACKET. THE
traces of yellow he could get out would be the only meal he’d had in two days. He’d already traded everything that remained in the Stairs, and the only things he had left were items no one wanted. He had a belt buckle that was missing, the part that goes through the belt holes. He’d found some three-ring binders, but the paper-holding mechanisms had been ripped out. He had a plastic bag full of discarded sunflower seed shells. He’d already tried to get a Geek to buy it for an art project, but none of them went for it. His only hope was a half-full package of toilet seat covers he’d found the night before.

Will sat down on the elevator floor. He had moved back to the elevator after Lucy had left. He wanted to be where no one could find him. The elevator was secret. No one except for him and Lucy knew about it. It was where he spent all of
his days, and he went scavenging for food at night.

If Will had been willing to show his face at the food drop or the market, he might have been able to get more to eat, but he couldn’t do it. He was far too ashamed. Everyone had seen his body give out on him in the quad. They’d seen Sam decimate him, humiliate him. They knew he had a glitch in his brain that could hit at any time, and when it did, you couldn’t depend on him, and he couldn’t defend himself. They’d seen his flaw, and now the flaw was all they would ever see.

Will laced up his black Converse high-tops. He’d inked in the white rubber toe caps with blue ballpoint pen scribbles forever ago. One shoe had dirty white laces. The other had the cord of a broken pair of earbud headphones woven through the aluminum eyelets. He had to quadruple knot it to make it hold. The shoes hugged his feet. They had good cushioning. It was a sad fact that the soles of his shoes were the only thing supporting Will anymore.

His sneakers were his only truly valuable item, and he didn’t want to lose them, but he couldn’t go another whole day without eating. If he didn’t scrounge up food tonight, he’d have to bear his shame and go sell his shoes at the market tomorrow. It made him sick. He’d be walking into the market as a Scrap again, back on the bottom. If Sam had failed to murder his reputation in the quad, then Will walking out of the market barefoot would be the killing blow.

Will pulled his backpack off a high hook and stepped onto
an upside-down bucket on the floor. He hoisted himself out of the hatch in the ceiling, onto the roof of the elevator car. The shaft was dark, as usual, except for the dim glow of the maintenance light that escaped from the elevator. David’s laundry lines still crisscrossed their way all up and down the shaft. Nothing hung from them anymore, except for one magenta satin bra with a broken strap, dangling from the highest laundry lines, nearly thirty feet up.

Will approached the maintenance ladder on the wall of the shaft. Each rung was visible only as a single horizontal glint in the darkness. Will crouched to jump but hesitated. Hesitation was a new thing for Will, and he resented it bitterly. He’d jumped the gap from the elevator edge to the ladder a million times, but lately, each time he got here, it felt like the first. The threat of a seizure was ever-present. It could drop him at any moment, and he would plummet down the shaft. Death was everywhere, and he’d lost the urge to tempt it.

Still, life had this nasty habit of going on. Will took a quick breath and jumped for the ladder. His hands struck the cold metal bar. His full bodyweight pulled against the grip of his fingers. His right foot slipped off its rung but the left landed solid. Will climbed quickly. He wanted this over with. When he pulled himself into the air duct in the wall, he was hyperventilating. His fear sickened him. He couldn’t even climb a ladder without falling apart.

For all the complaining he’d done last year, the amount of
times he’d told David that he didn’t need him, that he’d be fine without him, what a crock of shit. He had needed David there, every minute, and he still did. Will needed someone to look out for him all the time, in case he seized. He’d always denied it, and wanted to disprove it, but now he knew it was a fact. And he’d either lost or driven away all the people who might even consider looking out for him.

Will stepped into the hall. He tightened the straps of his backpack, and ran.

If Smudge had been around, maybe Will would have had an easier time with living on the fringe, but there was no sense in wishing for things that couldn’t come true. Smudge was rotting under a pile of rubble in the East Wing ruins.

Will had heard about a trader that had filled the void left behind by Smudge, someone who would buy your stolen goods. The rumor was that he could be found somewhere on the third floor for an hour after midnight. Will had spent most of that hour trudging the halls in search of this mysterious, maybe mythical, character.

“This is stupid,” Will mumbled to himself.

He dragged his hand along the wall, coating his fingertips with char. The lights coming back on had revealed the scars left behind by weeks of hopelessness. A lot of walls were black and gray from torch soot, and some walls had been torn open and gutted by people looking for wood to burn for campfires.
The entire school was starting to look like the ruins.

The hall Will was in ended with a circular space that people called the Lighthouse. It had been built to be a student reading nook, and it supposedly had a panoramic view of Pale Ridge and the mountains. Now, it was just a steeled-in cul-de-sac. He was about to bail when he saw a long, thin shadow stretching out in the flickering fluorescent light ahead. Then, it vanished.

Will approached cautiously, moving his hand to the toothbrush shiv tucked in his belt. As he got closer to the end of the hall, Will could see somebody leaning against one of the steeled-up windows. The guy had shoulder-length, black hair and a ripped-up, vintage, heavy metal T-shirt. He looked like a Skater. That would have been just Will’s luck, trading with some dude he’d probably punched before.

The Skater kid locked eyes with Will and pushed away from the window.

“’S up,” the kid said with a nod.

Will kept his distance. “Are you Heath?” he asked.

“Totes ma’gotes.”

“I’m looking for food,” Will said.

“Let’s see what you got.”

Will was about to unshoulder his backpack, but he paused when he noticed that Heath didn’t have a bag or any goods around him.

“Where’s your stuff?” Will said.

Heath shook his head. “Number one rule of doing sketchy shit, never keep your stash on-site. I’ll see what you got, then we’ll talk for real.”

That seemed reasonable enough, and Will wasn’t in a position to argue anyway. He unzipped his backpack and held it open for Heath to inspect.

“What am I looking at?” Heath said.

“Three pieces of mirror and some paper toilet seat covers, fifty count.”

“You got a sock in there too.”

Will glanced in the bag. Sure enough, there was a lone sock in there. He’d never seen it before and had no idea where it came from.

“What’s the story on the toilet seat covers? Used, unused? What’s the deal?”

“Unused.”

“Interesting.”

Heath pursed his lips while he considered the goods. This guy hadn’t acknowledged that he knew Will, but how could he not? Will didn’t want to lose out on this deal, he couldn’t.

“I like that shirt …,” Will said.

Heath looked down at his black-and-red logo’d T-shirt.

“Yeah? You like Fastway?”

“Sure,” Will said. Who knew, maybe if he’d ever heard one of their songs, he actually would like them.

“Rad,” Heath said. “What’s your top track?”

“All of ’em, dude. I mean, come on,” Will said. Heath smiled. He seemed to like that. Will moved on fast. “So, you’re a Skater, right?”

“Yeah, I roll with P-Nut, but a guy needs a little money in the bank these days. Not like it used to be. Nothing’s set in stonehenge y’know. Who knows what will happen next week?”

“Sure, right,” Will said, nodding along.

“You know better than anyone. One day your gang could be on top, the next it could be Cinnamon Toast Crunch.”

“Yeah,” Will said. What else could he say? It was true.

“I mean … no disrespect,” Heath said.

Will gave him a shrug that must have looked pathetic.

“So, anyway … I’m gonna pass.”

Will stared at Heath. “Wait … What do you mean ‘pass’?”

“Pass,” Heath said and stepped away from Will’s backpack, “like not interested. Like no dice. I just can’t unload this stuff.”

“Yeah, but … come on, man. I gotta eat. The guy I dealt with before, he—he woulda given me five cans, at least, for just those seat covers.”

“So, take ’em to him.”

“He’s dead.”

“Sucks,” Heath said. “But like I said, it’s just the way things are now. Even though the drops started up, people are still saving for a rainy day, know what I mean? They don’t want mirrors. They want food. They want batteries. And if they gotta sit on a toilet, they suck it up and hover. ’Cause who
knows, man, those parents could split tomorrow. Then what?”

Will had stopped listening. “Is this because of that battle in the commons? Did I break your board too? Because if that’s what—”

“No, man, I’m professional here,” Heath said, offended. “Uncool.”

“I’m sorry …,” Will said, his voice choked with worry. “I’m sorry. I just don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

The Skater gave him a sympathetic look, the kind that usually made Will cringe, but at the moment, he’d take it.

“Tell you what,” Heath said. “It’s too bad you don’t have the other sock, but … I’ll give you a can of green beans for those shoes.”

Will looked down at his Converse. He was so damn hungry.

“It’ll save you a trip to the market,” Heath said.

He wasn’t that low yet. He refused to believe it.

“No,” Will said. “Forget it.”

He zipped his backpack, turned, and walked away. The night wasn’t over yet.

“Hey, if you every wanna just hang and crank tunes, lemme know!” Heath called out after him.

Will didn’t answer.

“All right,” Heath said, unaffected. “Later, man,”