Indigo: The Saving Bailey Trilogy #2 (9 page)

The tabby rubs against my legs, purring. Picking him up, I walk away. “Fools,” I say to him, “you can tell the Allie that.
We’re all a bunch of fools
.” I put the cat down and push him with my foot when he refuses to leave.

The marmalade sky is a contradiction to the stormy air I bring with me down the street. I wanted Trenton to be an Apocy from the get-go, but he chose the Allie; or rather, the Allie chose him. Gladly, I would have accepted him as one of my brothers. But you can’t just get up and walk away from your gang, you either get beat out, boxed out, or they find you and put a bullet through your skull.

When I get to my car, I notice my Apocy emblem is no longer on the windshield. In fact, I don’t have a windshield anymore—my car has been ransacked. Whoever did it is long gone. The radio has been ripped out, an empty rectangular space with wires spilling out left behind. The seats are slashed and my binoculars are missing.

I sit in the backseat, picking stuffing out of the slashed leather, trying to control my rage; I can’t take it out on the perpetrator and it’s coming out of me in the form of tears. Weak-ass tears.

I scrunch up and lie across the backseats, sobbing.

A moment later, someone raps on my car door and I kick it, telling them to go away.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!” I screech.

“What happened to your car?”

I wipe my face and look up; the kid with the afro, who I mugged earlier today, is sticking his face through the broken windshield.
“You again?”

He grins. “I guess you didn’t scare me away.”

This is the first time one of my victims has followed me. And I like him, or at least I’m interested in him. He seems nice, anyway…

“You need a ride somewhere? Your tires are slashed,” he says pointing down to the car’s deflated tires.

“Ohhh,” I groan forcing my palms into my eye sockets, “they slashed the fucking tires.”

“They who?” he says cocking his head. He walks around to the driver side backdoor and opens it; my head at his knees.

“Maybe some Allies, I don’t know. It’s not like many people like me around here.”

“I like you,” he says, touching my hair that I haven’t washed in a week.

“Well, that makes one person,” I say, looking up at him from where I lie.

“You can stay at my house, if you want. My parents are away.” He grins at me sheepishly, “
We can have a sleepover
.”

Parents? Sleepover?
What
is this kid like twelve or something?

I get a whiff of my body odor, though, and decide that a shower is enticing enough to spend the night with anyone. “Let’s go,” I say. “I have no place else anyway.”

“Why aren’t you staying at the Apocalypse?”

“They all went and got stupid,
realll
stupid.”

He gives me his hand and helps me out of the car. We walk a little ways down the street, and he shows me his ride—it’s nice, real nice. His parents bought it for him, he says.

He holds the back door open for me. I sit down and two different sets of hands reach around me, covering my eyes and mouth. Something sharp is placed against my throat and someone laughs cynically. The laugh is chillingly familiar. It is a laugh the same breed of one that has come from my own mouth during my never-ending torment of Bailey. It is my turn to play the victim.

The car starts up and pulls away.

If using another person’s shower, sharing their shampoo and body wash could change your identity, then I would come out of Spencer’s bathroom a hard-headed teenaged boy.
If only
. If my head were harder, dense words could not penetrate and wounding blows would land soft as smacks from a pillow fight.

I come out of Spencer’s shower the same old me, but smelling like a man. I wonder how Clad will feel about that when I see him today.

“I smell like you,” I say.

Spencer circles me, sniffing my hair and shoulder. “I smell so enticing,” he says.

“It’s not good. Clad will be pissed.”
If
he could smell through two-inches of bullet proof glass… I realize I have said this not out of true concern, but to make Spencer jealous.

“Even better,”
Spencer says, unfazed.

Sarah always manages to come in at the worst times, and this morning is no different, when she comes waltzing in and sees Spencer circling me like a predator.

“Are you going to eat her?” Sarah asks.

“Maybe,” he says, kissing my shoulder.

“Gross,” Sarah says, putting her hands out in front of her. “Really gross.”

“She smells like me.” He chuckles lightly.

“Ugh,” she says, “that’s awful. Want to borrow some perfume?”

I rapidly nod my head before Spencer can abject.

He throws his hands in the air. “Just what I want! My girlfriend smelling like my little sister!”

We giggle as we leave the room. I follow Sarah down the hall.

“How’s your wrist?”

“It stings but it’ll be all right. Thanks for asking.”

We get into her room and she lets me sit on her bed while she looks for her perfume.

“Can I see it?” she asks, holding the perfume as ransom.

I twist my arm around, displaying the red line. Dropping the perfume on the bed, she moves in on me to get a closer look. She puts my palm face up in her hand, and stares hard at the red line as if she could make it absorb back into my skin.

“Bailey,” she says.
“
Why would you do this to yourself?
”

I’m suddenly uncomfortable and embarrassed, two things I never thought I would be around Sarah. “I –I don’t know,” I say.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “for being such a jerk to you all the time.”

“You don’t mean to,” I say, although I know very well she does.

“Does Spencer make it better?” She gives me back my wrist.

“I sleep better when I’m with him.”

She smiles. “I’m glad he’s there for you.” Then, she drowns me in her cotton candy perfume. “There, now Clad won’t even smell Spencer’s body wash,” she says, crossing her arms and nodding her head.

Yep, no way he’ll be able to smell anything past this sugary concoction you’ve drenched me in.

Spencer comes in, coughing and waving at the air. “What is that
smell?
”

“I think it smells nice,” Sarah says, through gritted teeth.

“Can I borrow a shirt?” I ask Spencer. Clad will definitely be upset if he realizes I’m wearing Spencer’s shirt, but it’s the closest thing I can get to having Spencer’s arms around me. I’m going to fall apart when I see Clad, I just know it.

“Plaid or T-shirt?”

“Something with long sleeves,” I say.

“No problem, let me go look.”

“You’ll be okay,” Sarah says. “You’re strong.”

Sarah isn’t the best when it comes to advice, but I’m pulling for straws and any words of encouragement mean the world to me right now.

“I better go get dressed,” I say, leaving her room.

I’m standing in Spencer’s room, in just a towel, when I’m slammed with reality.
Today I’m going to see Clad,
the boy who went to prison for me.
The only person who knew about my plan to kill all those people on my Bullet List. Things can never be the same between us. I get dizzy; not lightheaded dizzy, but everything-around-me-starts-to-spin-dizzy
.

Spencer comes out of his closet with a logger plaid shirt; he looks down at it for a second, deciding if it might be too large for me.

In the time it takes for his eyes to come back up from the shirt, I go from dizzy to feeling like I will drop to the ground. “I don’t feel good,” I say. “Come get me before I fall.”

I struggle to stay upright, and even though he runs to catch me, I feel like we’re in The Matrix, every step taking minutes instead of seconds.

“It’s okay, I got you,” he says, wrapping his arms around me.

“I don’t think I can do this, Spence. I love him and what if he doesn’t love me back? How will I live with myself? I don’t want to slide back into depression. Things were just starting to look up.”

Spencer eases me onto his bed. “Lie down,” he says, pushing my head onto a pillow. “Breathe, it’ll be all right. He’ll be thrilled to see you.”

“I just want to lie in your bed forever.” The spinning stops but the force of it has left me weak.

“You owe him at least one visit,” Spencer says. He pulls the comforter over me and tucks me in. “Rest your head until you’re feeling better, okay?”

I won’t ever feel better if he doesn’t lie down with me. “Don’t go,” I say when he rises from the bed. “Stay with me.”

Not hesitating, he sits back down. “Okay, let’s cuddle.”

We’re under the covers, his breath separating the hairs on my head. He moves his hand up and down my arm, his touch feather light and soothing. “My poor baby,” he coos.

I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep. He’s sweeter when I’m sleeping; he gives his kisses more freely.

“Mom’s going to wonder what we’re doing if she sees you half naked under the covers with me,” he says.

I keep the sleeping act up.

“If you stay asleep too long you’ll miss the visiting time for Clad. Think about how upset he’d be.”

I shut my eyes tighter.

“Bailey, I know you’re faking,” he says, tickling my stomach. “Come on, get up.”

I keep my eyes closed, but can’t help but laugh.

“That’s what I thought,” he says.

The dizziness has been replaced with a sick heaviness in the pit of my stomach; I roll out from under the covers to get dressed.

“Let me guess, you want me to turn around?”

“Well, yeah, it would be kind of weird if you just sat there staring at me.”

“I’ll be in the kitchen, come out when you’re done.”

“Okay.”

I pull on Spencer’s shirt and the jeans I wore yesterday. I throw my hair up in a quick ponytail so it won’t drip on my shoulders.

When I walk into the kitchen, Sarah and Spencer are eating cereal.

“I, uh, I better go, now,” I say.

“I’ll take you back to your car,” Spencer says, shoveling in his last few bites of Frosted Flakes. He stops short when he sees my hair. “You’ve never worn your hair like that before.”

“Do you like it?” What I really mean is—
do you think Clad will like it?

“It’s different,” he says.

Well, a lot of things are different now. Different seems to be a recurring theme lately, so maybe different is what my hair
should
be.

We walk outside. The day is beautiful, the air crisp and fresh like after a rain shower, the flowers full in bloom and even the weeds look attractive.

“Can we go to the park first?” I ask. “I need to calm myself. I don’t want to cause any stress for Clad by being overemotional.”

“A walk to the park?” Spencer says. “Why madam, that sounds ever so
delightful
.”

I’m as far from a fair lady as can be, hair pulled back, shirt hanging past my knees, boots untied and the tongues flapping with every step. Nonetheless, Spencer treats me as if I’m the queen of England, holding out his arm for me in a gentleman-like manner and gently kissing my hand.

“Come along, my lady,” he says, and we start out for the park.

I’m swinging Spencer’s hand and noticing how shiny my boots look in the bright sunlight, when he lets out a sudden gasp.

“Oh, man,” he says.

“They’re not
that
shiny,” I say.

“No, not that.
Look
.”

I don’t look up at first, afraid of what I will see.

“They tore it down,” Spencer says. He lets go of my hand and combs is fingers through his hair.

There’s a wide stump where our tree used to stand, and the picnic table that once sat beneath its shade is gone. “What!” I yell in disbelief.

I run to the stump.
The birds
.

“Bailey, wait!” Spencer runs after me, struggling to keep up.

I bend down and dig through the mulch and grass around the stump. Sure enough, the nest is there and in it, the birds as stiff as stuffed taxidermy animals.

“Bailey, stop!” Spencer says his hands on his knees as he tries to catch his breath.

“
They killed them
,” I cry. “The birds are dead.”

“I’m so sorry…” Spencer says, not sure how to console me.

“The tree was perfect here!” I scream, getting up.

I’m too angry to sit still, I want to punch something, kick something, or destroy something. I trudge away from the spot where the tree once stood, so tall and full of life—
bird
life.

Spencer follows. He has no idea where I’m going. And neither do I, until I find our picnic table beneath a tree standing half as tall as ours once did. I punch the rough bark and Spencer stands to the side, afraid to intervene.

“They were only little birds,” I say, “and they killed them. Someone killed them.”

“They probably didn’t see the nest. I’m sure it wasn’t on purpose. Everything has to die someday,” he tries to level with me.

“Don’t you think I know that? But why couldn’t something here be nice for once, a place where we used to lie when I was scared and you were scared. The birds were more than just birds. They were like us.”

I punch the tree again.

“Stop doing that,” Spencer says.

I open and close my hand, the knuckles bloody.

“What does this mean for us? Is something going to come along and kill us, too? Just when things start to get sweet?”

“Stop!”

When I try to punch the tree again my fist hits Spencer hard in the stomach. He grabs my fist, encasing it in his hands. “It doesn’t mean anything for us,” he says kissing my knuckles and uncurling my fingers. “I watched the birds, too. Don’t you think I noticed how similar we were to them? And I’m sorry they’re gone, but to everyone else they were just birds. Nothing more. To everyone else, that was just a tree, not the place where you and I felt safe.”

“Can we bury them?” I ask, my muscles loosening in accepted defeat. No matter how much blood I leave on that tree, the birds won’t be coming back.

“And say a prayer,” he says. “You gather the flowers and I’ll go back to my house and get a shovel.”