The Brokenhearted (8 page)

“Here’s what happens now,” Miss Roach says, her tone as neutral and crisp as a flight attendant’s, but her stance is menacing as she leans toward me, her face just inches from mine. She pulls the bottom of her gas mask away from her mouth again so her words are crystal clear. Her matte red lips curve into a smirk, her breath a mix of cigarettes and bubblegum. “We take your boyfriend away to a special place we know. You get us $250,000 by midnight on Friday. Someone—
one
person,
un
armed—delivers the money to Dimitri’s on the Water, on the south side of the Bridge of Unity. We’ll be waiting there, watching carefully for any cops.”

I nod, my eyes glued to Gavin’s. He looks both furious and fearless, propped up by a masked thug on either side, his arms wrenched tightly behind him. A vein bulges on his forehead, and he shakes his head, communicating one thing:
Don’t do it.
I stare into his eyes, refusing to back down. Hoping my gaze reassures him somehow.

“Sweet pea?” the girl says, poking the muzzle of the gun deeper into my ribs. “Pay attention, okay? Here are the rules. You go to the cops, he dies. You don’t bring the money in full, he dies. Your delivery guy shows up at Dimitri’s on the Water with someone else, he dies.”

“Take me instead,” I moan quietly, even though I know they won’t. “Kidnap me and go to my parents. They’ll give you anything. Just let him go.”

“Too risky. You’d be splashed all over the papers. We’d rather roll the dice with loverboy.”

“Gavin!” I choke out as they drag him toward the door. “I’ll get the money. Just stay alive!”

And then they’re gone, out the door, pulling him with them. The girl leaves last, her gas mask fixed over her face again. She backs out, her gun aimed at me the whole time, then gives me a little finger-wagging wave and slams the metal grate back down over the door. I’m left alone, sitting still as a statue on the bed where earlier tonight I lost my virginity. Where I drifted off to sleep in Gavin’s arms. A hot wave of anguish presses in on me from all sides followed by a thudding fear that I’ll never see Gavin again.

Gavin’s blood glistens on the cement floor, a boot print’s edges tracing the wet, black smear. I swallow down a mouthful of bile and concentrate on what I have to do. Thanks to years of memorizing dance sequences and teachers’ lectures, I remember every word of her instructions. Any wrong move has the exact same consequence.

He dies. He dies. He dies.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

CHAPTER 10

I walk and walk.

In the hushed darkness of 5
A.M.
, I begin to retrace the path we took on Gavin’s motorcycle. It’s much slower on foot, and terror has made me disoriented. Twice, I turn down dead-end alleys before I find the artery that takes me north again. On the sidewalk opposite me, a man with a face like a gnarled tree trunk pushes a shopping cart full of cans. His body is bent, feet swollen, bluish toes poking out of his broken shoes. “Kill ’em all!” he shouts, his voice surprisingly loud and clear. “Every last one of ’em. Explode the whole city, start again!”

I pull my hood up around my face and avert my eyes, quickening my pace when I see the Bridge of Sighs looming up ahead, ornate and shining, illuminated by spotlights from below.
Light.
In the dark grid of busted streetlights and abandoned buildings, light means safety—and help for Gavin. The bright order and logic of North Bedlam is just across the bridge. I aim myself like a missile toward it, not daring to run but walking fast.

The entrance to the bridge is only two blocks away, then one block.
Almost there.
I whisper the words to myself in time with my footfalls, until they become a mantra:
Al-most-there al-most-there al-most-there
.

The pedestrian entrance to the Bridge of Sighs is marked on either side by stone carvings, the olive-wreathed heads of goddesses with their mouths open, serene eyes tilted skyward.

“Yougotanypills?”

My stomach drops. A low voice keens in my direction. Out of the shadows lumbers a hugely fat man, his wide nose webbed with broken capillaries. Tufts of wooly greenish hair spring at funny angles from his head. He’s fashioned a voluminous robe from hundreds of tattered pages of newsprint, all scrunched together, the edges of it shredded and filthy. The sleeves rustle in the wind like feathers on a great carnivorous bird. He lurches toward me, his eyes askew. A pale slice of his stomach peeks out from a rip in the robe, garish and pale in the light of the moon.

I shake my head and turn away, but he comes closer. His teeth are splayed out in all directions.

“AnypillsIaskedyouaquestion.” He steps between me and the waterfront, leaning close enough to engulf me in the fetid cloud of his breath.

“No pills,” I say hoarsely, my eyes scanning the bridge for signs of life. I turn to run, but my foot catches on his leg and I stagger forward against the balustrade. My forehead smashes against the stone filigree, and I crumple to the ground. A sticky warmth drips down my face. When I sit up and reach to wipe it away, my fingers are covered in blood.

He looms over me, his walleyes looking in two directions. He bends toward me, and his laugh is the high-pitched squeal of a pig.

“Pretty.” He strokes my hair until his filthy hands catch in the tangles. I don’t even scream when I feel the paper feathers of his sleeves tickling my neck. Not even when they’re followed by ten thick fingers encircling my throat.

“Prettygirl. Iusedtoliveinahospitalbuttheysetmefree.” His grip on my throat begins to tighten.

I come back to myself as his grip gets tighter, clawing at his wrists, desperate for air. “Let me help you,” I whisper. “I’ll find you some medicine.” But my windpipe is shutting. I claw wildly at his feathery wrists, bits of paper flying into my mouth as I try to rip his hands off me, but he’s far stronger than I am. The world starts to fade to black, a few white stars flaring and dying out—

“Hands off.”

The birdman’s grip suddenly loosens, sending me falling back against the balustrade. His leering face lunges toward me again, only to be pulled away by a set of strong arms reaching around his huge paper shoulders.

“I said to leave her alone!”

From the ground I watch as the birdman turns and fights back, flailing his paper-covered arms. After a short struggle, a punch lands squarely between his lunatic eyes. He falls backward, whimpering in that same high-pitched, piggy squeal, and lands face-up on the bridge, arms spread wide, eyes rolling into the back of his head before shutting altogether.

“You okay?” My rescuer stands over me, his teeth stark white against his olive skin in the moonlight. He wears a thin, black long-sleeved tee with a rip at the collar, his wide shoulders straining against the fabric. His forehead gleams with sweat, and a bead of it crawls down his smooth cheek. He looks like he’s been out jogging.

“Yeah,” I say, still slumped on the ground, shaking a little.

“They never should have closed the asylums,” he adds under his breath. He crouches down to my level, taking care to be gentle as he studies the cut on my forehead, his brow creasing above his dark eyes. He offers me his hands, gently pulling me onto my feet. “You’re going to need stitches.”

“Thanks,” I croak, bringing my hands to my throat, rubbing the places the birdman squeezed, the sensation of his fingers crushing my windpipe still lingering.

He nods, his eyes zeroing in on my neck. I reach up and feel the delicate chain of the heart necklace Gavin gave me, miraculously unbroken.

”You shouldn’t be out here alone late at night,” he says, his eyes landing on the glinting gold. “But since you’re here, and we’re meeting like this, I’d accept a little reward.”

I shake my head, hoping I’m misreading the covetous expression clouding his dark brown eyes. “I don’t have anything,” I whisper, panic ricocheting through my torso.

“Come on,” he coaxes, impatiently shifting his weight from one sneakered foot to the other. “Nothing at all?”

My heart racing, I take stock of him. He’s tall and built to hurt. My eyes flick past him, toward the South Side. No way am I going back there. I’ve got to get across the bridge and head north.

Adrenaline flooding my veins again, I do the only thing that makes sense. I pirouette around on the narrow pedestrian walkway, and I run.

“Really?” he shouts, incredulous. “Hey! I’m not going to hurt you!”

I sprint harder than I ever have before, my lungs burning with every step. Behind my own ragged breath and the slap of my shoes on the cement, I hear him following me.

“Wait up!” He catches up to me easily and grabs my hand. “Calm down, I’m not—”

“No!” I twist desperately away from him, lunging backward toward the bridge’s worn stone railing. The stone has crumbled into nothing, leaving a gap in the railing that puts me on the edge of the bridge. “Get away from me!”

His eyes wide with alarm, he offers his hands to me again. “I’m sorry I scared you.” His voice is quiet, no longer playful or irritated-sounding like before. “Come away from the edge, okay?”

“Walk far away from me, and I will.” I shudder and almost lose my balance before I grab onto a section of the railing to my right. The chemical decay of the river hits my nostrils. He shakes his head again and backs away, raising his hand to show he means no harm.

Just as I’m about to move away from the edge, the corner of the stone railing I’ve grabbed onto breaks off in my hand. I look down at it, dumbfounded, as a strong gust of wind pushes me backward, sending my right foot out from under me. I flail, my arms reaching wildly in front of me as my body careens into thin air.

I try to grab onto the bridge again, but my fingertips barely graze it. I see the jogger’s face twist in horror as he races to the edge, and then all I see is the starless sky.

He’s too late. His hands clutch at the air, his mouth a black circle of shock.

I turn midair to meet the greasy gray-green of the Midland churning beneath me, its surface dotted with small chunks of ice.

My scream is one long, shrill cry of horror.

And then I’m

falling,

falling,

falling

through

the

empty

moonlit

sky.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

CHAPTER 11

I wake with a gasp.

My vision floods with blinding white light. A blade of pain slices through my skull, so sharp it sends my head slamming back down against hard, unyielding metal. I’m ice-cold. I move to wrap my arms around myself, but they’re tied down, my wrists and elbows secured with thick straps.

Wincing, I squeeze my eyes shut again, longing to return to the darkness of unconsciousness—to an endless, floating dream—for just a few more minutes. In the dream, I drifted through icy green water, through murk and rot, all alone but for the occasional one-eyed fish. I was neither dead nor alive. I felt no pain.

Being awake is agony
.
Every tiny movement brings a new kind of hurt, every part of me searing or frigid or sore. I concentrate on the sensation of my torso rising and falling with every breath. There’s heaviness in my chest, an itchy, tingling sensation. Something inside me seems almost to be
whirring
. It feels simultaneously like a spinning disk and like a hundred tiny needles pricking me from the inside. As my panic mounts, the whirring seems to get faster, louder.

I open my eyes to slits, letting the bright light in a little at a time. Shapes begin to come into focus, textures emerge and start to make sense. I’m in a small, dank room. At eye level is a rolling metal table scattered with small scissors and gleaming scalpels. Rusty old machines, tubes sprouting from them like weeds, line the gray walls. The walls, the machines, and the floor are all speckled with something dark and dried. Blood. I quickly turn away.

I lift my head and peek at the long expanse of my body. I’m covered in a thin paper hospital gown and strapped to a narrow metal gurney. An IV is affixed to my hand, and the pole stands next to me, a clear bag sending drips of pinkish liquid down a long tube one at a time.

My eyes are drawn to movement in the corner of the room. A high-pitched squeak is faintly audible under the humming of the medical equipment. Four glass aquariums sit on a metal table in the corner. One contains a cluster of tiny light-brown hamsters, and in another, a swarm of black mice with pink ears scurry over one another. Nearest to me, a pair of albino lab rats with blood-red eyes run frantically on an exercise wheel in a glass cage.

How did I get here?

Everything comes rushing back to me—the kidnappers in their gas masks; the cold steel of Miss Roach’s gun in my chest; the anguished look on Gavin’s face before they took him away. I cringe at this last image. The bridge. The birdman’s hands around my windpipe. The bridge railing. Falling into the river. An icy sweat starts to pool under my arms. I need out of here,
now
. But the straps dig into my arms when I try to move again.

I open my mouth and cry out for help. My voice is hoarse-sounding, barely louder than a whisper though I’m trying to shout. After a few minutes where nobody comes, I resort to banging my head against the metal table in the hope that someone will hear.

A tall, slim, silver-haired woman wearing goggles and army-green scrubs races through the door, a surgical mask pushed down around her chin. She’s followed by the jogger from the bridge. He stands to one side of the gurney, and the surgeon stands on the other. I thrash on the metal table, my hospital gown billowing up around me like a sail.