Under My Skin (Wildlings) (11 page)

"That's enough," Desmond told Castle. "Leave him alone."

"Why? What are you going to—"

He never got to finish. Desmond just hauled off and punched him in the face. Before you knew it, he had Castle on the ground and was pounding away on him until me and a couple of guys pulled him off. I'd never seen Des lose it like that before. When I asked him what happened, he could only shake his head.

"Dude, I have no idea," he'd said. "I just saw Castle pushing Dooley around and I saw red. I mean, everything really just went red."

"So what did he do?" Desmond asks David now.

"He took his dad's .22 up under the freeway with Brian Canfield and they killed Laura Connor with it."

"
What
?"

"The cops showed up because somebody'd complained about hearing shooting. When they got there, they found the two of them standing over Laura and she's lying on the ground with a bullet in her head. And get this. She was naked."

A couple comes up while he's telling us this. Todd Copley and Juanita Herrera. I know them from school.

"What I heard," Todd says, "is that they were fooling around trying to shoot birds, then he shot a rat up on the embankment, but when it fell back to where they were standing, it was Laura."

Juanita's got a tight grip on his arm.

"Jesus," Desmond says.

Marina and Elzie are white with shock. Marina's trembling. I put my arms around both of them. I want to say something comforting, but I feel sick myself. Desmond holds Cindy, who's starting to cry.

"Man, I
knew
her," Kevin says from where he's sitting on his board. "I used to think about asking her out ..."

We all knew her. Everyone kind of knows everyone around here—in a town of twenty thousand people, that just happens. Not that we knew her really well, but she was on the girls' volleyball team and she often came down to the pier when we were all hanging around. A tall lanky girl with a bright smile and a big laugh.

David shakes his head. "I can't believe Laura was a Wildling."

"If she even was," Desmond says. When everybody looks at him, he adds, "Come on. This is Mike Castle we're talking about. I wouldn't put anything past him. And Canfield's not much better."

People start talking about stuff Castle and Canfield have done in the past, and how well they did or didn't know Laura, and how if you're going to be a Wildling, it's pretty lame being stuck as a rat. I feel Elzie's shoulders stiffen under my arm.

"I'm out of here," she says.

"Yeah, can we just go?" Marina adds.

I nod. "Des?" I say.

"On it," he says.

He takes Cindy by the hand and we leave. The others are so busy with what they're talking about I don't think they even notice us going.

"I didn't mean to set that off," Desmond says when we're walking away.

"You didn't," Elzie tells him. "It's just the way people are."

He looks at his feet. "Guys like Castle really push my buttons."

Elzie nudges Des with the tip of my spare board.

"We're cool," she says.

"I can't stop thinking about Laura," I say later that night.

We gave up on band practice and we're all hanging around in Desmond's back yard. Our hearts just weren't in it and we were playing like crap.

"Do you think she was happy being a rat?" Desmond asks.

He's stretched out on a patio couch, his head in Cindy's lap. Marina's sitting cross-legged on one of the patio chairs. Elzie and I are slouched on two more, holding hands in the space between our chairs.

"Do you mean having a rat as her Wildling shape?" Marina asks.

"Yeah. If it happened to me, I'd be majorly disappointed. Like when you consider all the cool animals you could be ..." He shrugs. "I don't know. I'd just feel cheated."

"I think rats are cute," Cindy says. "Not the scuzzy ones that live in storm drains and stuff, but the kind you get from a pet store. I had pet rat when I was a kid and I just loved him."

We all look at her.

"Well, I did."

It's been different having someone hanging with us who doesn't know the secret that Elzie and I are carrying. We find ourselves talking around the simplest things, having to be careful we don't say something that'll give us away. I like Cindy, but having her here gives me a whole new respect for those spandexed superheroes with their secret identities.

"I'd think," Elzie says, "that you'd end up embracing whatever your animal spirit was."

Marina nods.

"Because no matter what it was," Elzie goes on, "it would still be a gift. It wouldn't make any difference how small or insignificant your animal shape might seem from the outside. Or what kind of a bad rep it has in terms of how people look at you."

That's when I remember that I have no idea what kind of Wildling Elzie is. I keep meaning to ask her, but I only think of it when she's not around. What if she's something small like Laura was and somebody takes a potshot at
her
?

"Do you really think it's a gift?" Cindy asks. "Wouldn't it just make your life a complicated mess—and I'm not talking about what happened to poor Laura. I mean the general day-to-day business of living."

"Life's probably always going to be complicated," Marina says. "It doesn't matter if you're a Wildling or an ordinary teenager."

"I suppose," Cindy says, but she doesn't look convinced.

Marina

What happened to Laura changes the whole weekend. Where normally we practice at least a couple of times—we've had some of our best practices on Sunday afternoons—we don't take our instruments out again. We don't go skateboarding or even hang out together. I think Desmond spends at least Saturday night with Cindy. I don't know what Josh does. He's probably hanging out with Elzie.

It's not like I was best friends with Laura, but the shock and the senselessness of how she died really gets to me.

On Saturday I spend most of my time alone in my room. Mamá has tried to talk to me about what happened to Laura, but nothing she says helps. I know she really believes that God called Laura home and now she's up in heaven with Our Lady of Grace and Los Santos—but you can't tell me that this wasn't way before her time. I keep going back and forth between being really angry and really sad.

A few of my blog subscribers knew Laura pretty well, so they're a mess, just trying to deal. I wish I could say or do something concrete to help them. I wish I could turn back time and save Laura.

In the end, all I can do is monitor the comments—listen, sympathize and remind people to try to stay safe. It doesn't seem like enough.

I wake up just before dawn on Sunday and decide to check out the waves with my board. I walk down the street away from my house, heading for the boardwalk. I feel as though a mental fog is lifting. I love this time of day. It's so full of possibilities. There's just me and the other early birds—a handful of joggers, a few surfers on the far side of the pier, people walking their dogs, the old Chinese man who does his Tai Chi on the beach every morning, no matter what day of the week it is.

I'm wearing my wetsuit with the top unzipped and rolling my surfboard behind me. I go south, as far as I can get from the pier without trespassing on government land. The swells are small, but I just want to get out into the water and be by myself.

It's going to be a beautiful day. There's still a bit of the night's coolness in the air, but I can tell by the sky that it's going to be clear and sunny. And hot. But right now I need my wetsuit. I zip up and kick off my sneakers. The sand is cool and grainy against my soles. I'm just about to head down to the water when I hear footsteps behind me.

"Hey, sweetcheeks."

I turn around to find Chaingang crossing the beach toward me and I have to shake my head. Only
he
would be wearing a pair of shades at this time of day. If I didn't know he was a Wildling, I'd be wondering how he can even see with those on in this poor light.

"Don't call me that," I tell him when he reaches me.

He pauses, then smiles. "Why not? You don't think you're some tough chica like your sister, do you?"

"How would
you
know?" I'm acting like a jerk, but I can't seem to help myself.

He lowers his shades and studies me for a long moment. I know it's just one of his poses, but I can't help but feel like he's giving me his full attention all the same.

"You're right," he says. "I don't."

"Maybe I'm just as tough as her. Maybe I'm tougher."

He nods. "Yeah, you probably are."

"What are you doing here anyway?"

Another pause. "I thought we should talk."

"About what?"

"Me reaching out to Josh. I started to think later that maybe you might've wanted to do that yourself."

When I shake my head, he lifts his eyebrows.

"You're not planning to tell him, are you?" he says.

"It's awkward. How am I supposed to explain why I didn't tell him earlier?"

"The longer you wait, the harder it's going to get."

"You think I don't know that?"

He holds his hands up, palms out.

"I didn't come to fight," he says. "Or point a finger. I just came to apologize if I stepped over the line."

I really don't get Chaingang. He's done time, then went right back to the gang when he got out of juvie. Yet, when he talks to me, all of that seems to fall away to reveal some sensitive guy and it just doesn't compute with that other stuff. Plus I can't seem to bury this weird resentment that he's going all sweet and sensitive with Josh, too. I know I should be okay with it, but I'm not. I don't know why.

"You didn't," I tell him.

"So we're good."

"Sure. Now I'm going to catch some waves."

I turn without waiting for his reply and head for the water. I can feel him just standing where I left him, watching me go, but I don't look back. I paddle out to where I can catch one of the little swells. When I turn around and look at the beach again, he's gone.

Josh

The aftermath of the shooting seems to leave a pall over all of Santa Feliz. Elzie is restless, so we do a lot of walking. She says it helps ground her. I find it does the same for me, too.

On Sunday evening we've wandered up as far as the old Santa Feliz Beach Boardwalk, which is an abandoned amusement park north of the pier. We sit on a bench and look through the chain-link fence at the old rusting Ferris wheel, the Tilt-a-Whirl and the other rides. There's something both sad and fascinating about the place. Every kid who lives in Santa Feliz has snuck in at one point or another, but once you're inside, it's a bit of a disappointment. The rides are small, everything's broken down and there's scrap lying around everywhere. It's only when you're looking at it from the outside that it holds on to any of its faded glamour. Especially at night, when it's all just dark shapes against the sky.

"I'm not sure of the protocol here," I say to Elzie, "so don't get mad at me if I step out of line."

She gives me a curious look.

"I was just wondering what kind of animal you are," I say.

"Why? Are you afraid I'm a rat?"

"No, no. I'm with you and Marina on this. I think we appreciate whatever we get—once we get over the shock of it happening in the first place. But it's going to be more dangerous to be some shapes than others, don't you think?"

"Because of what happened to Laura Connor."

I nod. "When you're her size, how are you supposed to defend yourself against a guy with a gun?"

"So you're worried about me."

"I know you can take care of yourself. It's just ... yeah, I guess I'm sort of worried."

"I think that's sweet."

I sigh.

She bumps her shoulder against mine. "There's nothing wrong with being sweet."

"I thought girls liked the bad boys."

"Not me. And since you asked, I'm a jaguarundi."

"A jaguar-what?"

"A jaguarundi. I'd never heard of it before, either. It's like a big cat that likes to swim. Sort of a smaller version of a mountain lion—except for the swimming part."

"
My
animal shape is a mountain lion."

She smiles. "I know."

"So we're compatible."

"We're compatible on a lot of counts—don't you think?" she says with a wink.

"I ... yeah. Yeah, I do."

Except I'm still confused about how she doesn't want to actually call our relationship a relationship. Though maybe that's my fault, too. I haven't actually said anything to her since she first told me she didn't want any kind of commitment and then it turns out she wants to hang around with me every day. Right now doesn't seem like a good time to get into it.

"What happened to Laura," she says. "That was just a horrible, tragic fluke. It's hard to accept it happened, but I don't think those boys were deliberately going after Wildlings."

"I guess not. It's weird. I'm the Wildling and Des isn't, but I think he's more pissed off than I am. I'm just sad. A little freaked out, but mostly sad. I mean, she was our age and she had the whole Wildling thing thrown at her, which is tough enough. But then this happens."

She squeezes my hand. "Sad's exactly what it is."

We sit for a while, looking at the shadowed rides on the other side of the fence. The roller coaster's like an old
Mario Brothers
video game compared to the
Halo
of the roller coasters they have in amusement parks today, and the Ferris wheel only has fourteen or fifteen cars that don't go much higher than thirty feet. But I remember climbing to the top one time and sitting up there in a chair, rocking back and forth, the whole beach spread out before me all the way down to the pier and beyond. I may not have been very high up, but I felt like I was on the top of the world.

"I bet this place was cool in its day," she says. "Cheesy, but cool."

"My mom says we came here when I was a kid," I say. "When I was five or six."

"Do you remember it?"

I shake my head. "Not really. I get confused between my maybe memories of it and similar places I've seen in movies and on TV."