The Twelve-Fingered Boy (11 page)

Before we go, I check pulses. Reasoner's moaning. Kung-Fu is bleeding pretty bad where a desk edge caught his leg. He could be in bad shape, really. But he deserves it.

On the way out I pull the fire alarm so these assholes don't die. With Jack helping me, we make it out of the classrooms and into Commons before the guards arrive.

We duck into the Commons bathroom, surprising the titty-babies there getting shook down by a couple of oxymorons. When they see the blood streaming from my face, they stop their reindeer games and vacate.

We clean up my cheek as best we can. Jack brings me paper towels to wipe the gore, but there's nothing we can do about the side of my kisser. It's swollen to twice its normal size and beginning to discolor. It feels as bad as it looks.

I look like the Elephant Man.

“Gotta get back to the room, Jack.”

“Okay.”

“We're gonna have to split, you realize?”

“Yeah, we can't stay here.”

“I don't mean the bathroom. Split here. Casimir.”

Jack's eyes widen just a little, but he understands.

“Quincrux.”

“Yeah. When he gets wind of this, he'll be back. And the witch will be with him.”

Jack looks puzzled. The witch really must have scrambled his noggin good. He can't remember.

“It doesn't matter if you can't remember her. Quincrux is bad enough by himself. And this time he won't be content with asking you to move glasses of water. He'll take you away to … to … wherever.”

Jack sighs, squares his shoulders, and says, “I'm tired of moving.”

“Nothing for it except to run. You believe that?”

He looks at me, face-to-face, and nods. “Yeah. I guess so. I remember the man.”

I hold out my hand, like I've done a million times with Vig, for him to slap. To give some skin. But Jack just puts his hand in mine, as if to shake. I look down at the over-fingered hand in my mitt, cover it up with my other hand so I'm giving the politician's pump, and smile.

“This is nothing,” I say, meaning his extra fingers, or his explosive ability, or even his strangeness. Or maybe I mean the fact we're incarcerado. Or my mangled face. I mean it all, maybe. Or nothing. I don't know.

But maybe Jack understands what I'm trying to say.

“We stick together.” That's pretty clear, even with my throbbing head. “So let's go back to the cell. Stay between me and Norman. Right? Otherwise, he'll see…” I point at the pulsing balloon that's the side of my face.

I feel dizzy for a moment and catch myself on the sink before I fall. Ox messed me up good. I'd like to pay him back … but … I guess I had it coming. I rode him too hard.

Nothing happens. We walk past Sloe-Eyed Norman with no problem. He presses the button that opens our cell door, and it swings wide and stays that way—no closed doors on the wing during daylight hours with wards inside.

Once we're back in the room, I lie on Jack's bunk. I can't manage to climb into mine.

“Your face looks horrible.”

“Thanks. And you're a beauty, too.”

When I giggle, remembering Reasoner's expression right before Jack blew up, the movement sends shooting pains through my face, but damn … I don't even care. Thank god I'm as abrasive as I am, otherwise I might have never figured out our twelve-fingered boy was a timebomb. A walking timebomb.

Jack pads into the bathroom. I hear the water run, and when he returns he's got a hand towel dripping with water. It feels like ice when he puts it on my cheek.

What a guy.

Once the towel warms, I say, “Listen, Jack. Can you do your explodey trick without … I don't know… getting angry?”

Jack's reaching for the towel and stops. He cocks his head.

“What do you mean?”

“Jack, the explosion. The shockwave that came from you. Don't you remember?”

Jack's looking at me but not seeing me. His eyes are going back and forth in their sockets, moving over a mind's-eye scene. Now they grow wider, and he drops his hands and stares at me helplessly.

It doesn't take a mind reader to see Jack's putting it all together now. His hurt, roving gaze settles on me. It looks like he's out of it, the fugue or whatever it is, wherever he went.

“I guess so.”

“You remember?”

“Yeah. I remember. I was furious.”

“Do you have to get all Mr. Furious for it to happen?”

He takes the towel from me and walks back to the bathroom. I hear the water run once more, but this time he doesn't come back very quickly. Maybe he's staring into the mirror, thinking about things.

When Jack does return, I can tell he's been crying. His face is puffy and red, and his eyes look glazed. He sits down next to me and puts the towel on my face. God, that feels better.

“I don't know.”

“Know what?”

“If I can do it without being angry.” He holds his hands out in front of his chest and splays them out like a fan. “Shreve, I didn't even know I was doing it.”

“I think you knew.”

“Not really.”

It's my turn to stay silent. His eyes are doing their thing, looking at other times, other places, remembering. He stays like that for a long while, and then he shuts his eyes tight against what he's seen.

“Yeah, I guess I knew.” He shakes his head. “Yeah.”

“Listen. We've gotta get out of here. Quincrux is gonna be coming for us. And the witch, Ilsa. You remember her now?”

“I think so. She wasn't … nice. She was inside me. She made me do what I didn't want to do.” He shudders. I know how he feels. If I could wash my head out with Lava soap, I sure would have done it by now.

“Yeah. I don't know how you compartmentalize that.”

“I … I didn't. I guess I knew if I was aware of it … I would've…”

I can feel the pressure building around him. He's about to go shockwave, and I don't think my head or face can take another blow. Who am I kidding? If he goes supernova now I'm dead.

“Jack! NO!”

He blinks. He clenches and unclenches his hands. He looks at me. Maybe it's something in my face, but the pressure eases.

“When I think of her… inside me … I don't think I can control it.”

“You've got to. Jack. Man. This is important.”

He nods, but his face is flushed and his eyes are narrow and his whole body has the aspect of the Angry Kid statue I saw earlier. Rigid and pissed the hell off. My ears pop again.

“Jack! I want you to stand up, go into the bathroom, and let loose there. Can you do that?”

A little muscle is popping in his cheek and cords are standing out on his neck, but he manages to nod again and stands stiffly. His walk to the shitter is slow and deliberate, like he's thinking about the placement of each footfall. I sit up, even though my head is killing me, and grab the mattress I'm lying on. I pull it off the bed and onto the floor, over my body.

I yell, “DO IT! DO IT, JACK! THINK OF WHAT THE WITCH DID TO—”

I hear a gigantic whoosh of air, an eruption of debris and paper ripping my posters and pictures and scattering my books across the floor, while the bunk beds make a horrible screeching wail and slide forward to slam into the wall. The sound is massive and painful. A fist of air slams into the mattress and shoves me along with it, and we go skidding off the floor and halfway out the front door. The desk chair is thrown so hard against the desk that one of the metal legs is bent at a jagged angle when it comes to rest.

Jesus H. He's volatile, my Jack.

I pull myself from underneath the mattress and see him standing in the doorway to the bathroom.

He gives me a bewildered look, and then he smiles sheepishly. “I think I broke the toilet. The metal bowl is kinda crumpled.”

I laugh. “Holy smokes, man. You're like … I don't know… a superhero or something.”

I stand, go to him, and stick out my hand, flat, palm up. Finally, he gets it and gives me some skin.

“I've got a plan, bro. And we're gonna have to do it quick. By tomorrow.”

He nods, serious, and then he grins. “Hey, if I'm a superhero, does that make you my sidekick?”

I don't know if I'm more stunned by the fact Jack just made a joke or that it was at my expense.

“Don't get too big for your britches, man.”

We laugh again, but it dies pretty quick because Booth stands in the doorway.

“What the hell is going on here?”

It's official. I have, with Jack's help, unhinged Assistant Warden Horace Booth. His shirt is untucked, his hair, normally so neat and well groomed, is lopsided, and his expression is one of panicked bewilderment. I should feel better seeing him like this, but really it just scares me. Enemies are supposed to do their best, and he's not even trying.

“Answer me! I just put three boys in an ambulance bound for the hospital. Twenty boys have told me that you were present at the … altercation. And now this!”

He glares at the room. It looks like a tornado has come through the cell.

“Those boys were … Shreve, what happened to your face?”

Words are my thing. Words are my curse. But now, words are what might save us.

Jack looks at me expectantly.

“Ox. He wanted to do a fight club, made us challenge him. Hit me twice in the face. Then his face got all flushed, and he started spasming or something like he was having a seizure. Then he went crazy. I mean, buck-wild, throwing fists, knees, elbows, knocking desks everywhere.

“When Jack saw what was happening, he grabbed my arm, pulled me out the door. Ox caught Fishkill … I mean Jim … and Reasoner.”

Jack looks at Booth, and—an uncaring god as my witness—he makes his eyes go all puppy-doggish. He looks at Booth like he's still terrified and nods emphatically. That kid, he keeps bringing the surprises.

Booth looks back and forth between the two of us. Then he slumps his shoulders and passes a hand over his face. The peacock is gone.

He walks to the desk—he's lucky it's bolted to the wall—uprights our single chair, and sits down heavily.

“Listen, boys. I'm trying to get my head around this. You're saying that Jeremy went crazy? Beat everyone up?”

I blink, look at Jack, and shrug.
Who's Jeremy?

Booth sighs and throws his hands into the air. “Ox. Jeremy Williams.”

I nod. “Yeah, that's what I'm saying.”

“So what happened in here?” Booth looks at the disaster area that is our room.

I don't have any words for that. Jack and I remain silent.

Booth rubs his face again, like he hasn't had much sleep. Then he puts one hand on his knee in the Conan pose, elbow out.

“You see my problem? Something is going on around here. And I'm inclined to talk to the Warden, but I think she'd pack you all off to the Farm. Which might do you all some good.” He waves a hand at me. “Or maybe not.”

Booth pauses and squints, like he's trying to read my thoughts.

“For some reason, I can't shake the feeling that Mr. Quincrux … that he has something to do with all of this. I can't…”

I'm doing whatever I can to look nonchalant. I'd whistle if that wouldn't look incriminating. That name makes me want to run screaming from the room. God help us if Booth mentions the witch. Jack might explode.

“Ever since … ever since his interview with you boys … I've been having trouble…” He coughs. “Sleeping. Remembering things. And now it looks like Armageddon in here. What am I supposed to think?”

You'd hear crickets if this were a TV show. I don't know if I'd change the channel. I might stick around just to see what kind of trouble these kids get into.

Booth gives out a huge exhalation of air and stands, brushing his slacks. He looks down at himself, and I can see him going through a mental checklist. Shirt tucked? No? Now it is. Belt fastened and shiny? Check. Shoes sparkly? Check. Hair? He pats his head, and then he removes the black pick with the fist in the handle and swiftly addresses the situation.