Authors: Susan Vaught
“We should tell them we didn’t find anything,” Drip says. Blood has dried on his arms. His mom probably won’t flip out because Drip’s always bleeding from somewhere, but you never know.
“
We didn’t find anything
sounds good to me.” Even though it’s a lie. And with Drip full of bramble holes and scratches,
We were careful
won’t fly, will it?
I wonder if Roland and Linden searched the rest of our area. They probably didn’t. I wonder if they’ll be at the VFW. They probably will. No doubt they told everybody we whiffed and they had to do all the work. If Mom and Dad are there, they’ll probably be pissed.
“As long as nobody tries to hug me, we’re good.” Drip cringes midstep, and I figure he’s pretty sore, and thinking about how one of his mom’s giant bear hugs will crush him like a bad grape.
“Where is she, Freak?”
“I don’t know.”
We’re at the clearing now, and we’re through it, heading forward, heading out of the woods toward the park.
“What happened to her?” Drip asks.
“I don’t know.”
Yes, you do. You hurt her. You humiliated her and disgusted her and she ran away because of you. Maybe you killed her. Maybe you killed her. Did you kill Sunshine, Freak?
No. NO! Just… no. I wouldn’t hurt her. I could never hurt Sunshine, never would hurt her in a million thousand years or even more than that. And why would I hurt her and stick her necklace in the rock to find later? That would be ridiculous.
You could have done that. You would have done that.
Covers your tracks, see? Liar, liar, murderer on fire. Maybe you really killed her.
If we weren’t already in the park, out in the open, I’d slap myself because I did
not
kill her and if I could kill the alphabet voices I would. I don’t know much, I can’t say much, I’m not much—but I know I’d never hurt anyone, especially not her.
Minutes pass, and more minutes. We’re walking more slowly than we should. Can’t help that. It does get better as we go though, like moving loosens up the bruised muscles and aching bones. It’ll be bad after we sit again, but we’ve been through this before, Drip and me, a few times. Alphabets like Roland, they never leave you in peace very long.
At least they never hit Sunshine. At least I don’t think they did.
“Here we go,” Drip says as we get close to the parking lot. “Look normal, or you know the parents will have a brain seizure.”
And they will, too. And there will be tons of fussing and questions and all of that will take away from looking for Sunshine, even though I’m not sure anybody should be looking anymore, because the locket—
What
does it mean?
I can’t wait to hold it in my hand. I can’t wait to open it. I hope there’s something inside. There has to be something inside.
We climb the curb of the sidewalk and the step up hurts and I wince and Drip groans through his teeth but we keep moving toward the coordination area, where lots of people have come back and lots of people stand around saying nothing and looking sad and the women with clipboards are checking stuff off and taking vests back and yeah, there’s Roland off to the side with his mom and Linden and his dad, and neither of them so much as gives us a glance.
Drip’s mom is back, and his brothers, and a little farther away, I see Agent Mercer, and past that, Mom and Dad, and they’re standing with Mr. and Ms. Franks.
I catch a breath and my ribs throb like awful and I almost shout. Seeing the dark Sunshine-hair glittering under the sun, it’s almost too much to stand, even if it’s not really her. I should go to her. Talk to her. Sunshine would want me to help her mom any way I could.
“Later,” Drip says as he breaks off, trying to keep an even pace as he heads for his mom, radiating no-don’t-hug-me as best he can. Drip’s never been able to put on much of an attitude, but he’s trying.
I’m trying, too, and probably doing horribly, just like him.
When I pass Agent Mercer and get closer, I can tell Ms. Franks is crying. My heart twists all over again. Mom looks up and sees me. She gives me a little wave and a sad frown and shake of the head.
No, I didn’t find anything.
Dad’s face tells me the same.
No, nothing. There was nothing.
And I want to say, I found something, and maybe I should say it, maybe I should tell them all and let them help me figure it out and Mr. Franks glances past me like I’m part of the scenery but Ms. Franks looks at me at first with pity and caring and then with wide eyes and then with narrow eyes and she bares her teeth and I stop walking because all of a sudden Sunshine’s mother looks like a Farkness Biter and I’m not sure if that’s my alphabet or if it’s real but I think it’s real because she’s pointing at me and charging toward me and now she’s screaming at me and yelling at the top of her lungs and Agent Mercer barely gets to her barely gets her arms pinned before she grabs me and maybe claws my face off and he’s asking her what is it what’s wrong and she gets one hand loose enough to point, to point at me and screech, “Monster! Monster! What did you do to her? Where is she? You tell me or I’ll kill you!”
And when everybody gapes at her, her face goes red from fury and she points at me again, and I realize she’s pointing at my neck and I look down and realize the gold chain has come out from my collar and oh, oh no, oh crap, oh shit, and she’s yelling, she’s yelling, she’s yelling, “Don’t you see it? Can’t you see it? That
freak
is wearing my daughter’s locket!”
Fight for Sunshine.
That’s my voice, not an alphabet voice because I do have a voice of my own. I do.
Fight for her
.
But I don’t know how anymore. I don’t know if I can.
The holding cell is dark and it’s stone with a metal seat and it stinks like piss and bleach and maybe old molded bread and it’s quiet because there’s no one in jail here—except me. Mr. Watson’s already been carted off to some big detention center, and I’m probably sitting right where he sat.
You deserve it you slime, you piece of trash, you stupid, stupid, stupid worthless FREAK. Freak is as Freak does, Freak is as Freak does. You’ll always be a FREAK.
I have to fight for her.
It’s so dark and smelly and the bars are so close and the alphabet voices are killing me or something feels like it’s killing me and I hurt I hurt all over but I can’t let go because if I fall into the darkness with the melty faces and evil trees and yelling screaming endless growling and insults and chattering and whispering and snarling I’ll never come out and I’ll be lost and she’ll be lost and I have to fight for her.
Don’t listen to the voices Jason I know you can do it I know you can focus there that’s it look at me what you’re hearing isn’t real what you’re seeing isn’t real don’t give in to it don’t let it take you look at me Jason look at me and everything will be okay and
Nothing will be okay because I can’t see her and I can’t hear what she’s telling me and my palm’s tingling for her locket but I don’t have it because they took it away from me. Chief Smith took it away from me and his men handcuffed me and they brought me here and half the town was following and yelling and it feels like a movie from the fifties where everybody wears cowboy hats and storms the jail and lynches some guy and I don’t really care if they do because nothing will be okay because I don’t have Sunshine and now I don’t even have her locket.
My eyes stay closed. I feel like I’ll never open them again. I’m sitting on the foldout metal bench thing,
holding one of the chains that fastens it to the wall, and I’m tapping my head
plop-plop-plop
on the stones behind me. No pain from that. Not really. Just a bumping. Maybe some comfort. Lots of hurting from everything else. Hard to think. Hard to hear. Hard to breathe.
Agent Mercer comes into the cell with me. I don’t have to open my eyes to know it’s him. I smell his FBI cotton-clean scent and hear the measure of his stride and the soft squeak of his leather shoes and I know it’s him when he sits beside me or maybe the alphabet tells me it’s him because the alphabet knows things sometimes or at least it seems to or I think it does.
There’s a click of heels and a waft of perfume, and the cell door closes. Another few clicks and still without opening my eyes I know Captain Evans is standing in the corner.
“This is ridiculous and you know it,” she says. She sounds lawyerly. The noise of her talking jabs into the rest of the noise in my brain and I want to cover my ears but covering my ears won’t help because so much of the racket comes from inside. There’s no running away from what’s in your own head.
“Does she have to be here?” I mutter, opening my eyes just enough to see fuzzy, dim images of her, of the bars, of the side of Agent Mercer’s flat-line mouth.
He’s here to kill you. You’re gonna fry. Fry and die. Fry and die! You’ll never get out of this alive.
I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care. See? I do have a voice. I still have my own words. I can still fight for Sunshine, at least a little bit.
“She doesn’t have to stay if you don’t want her to,” Agent Mercer says. “By the laws of this state, at seventeen, you’re not considered a juvenile anymore. Like any adult, you can waive counsel.”
The lawyer starts to talk but I ignore her like an alphabet voice even though I can’t ignore the real alphabet voices at least not much longer. “Seventeen? I thought I’d have to be eighteen.”
Agent Mercer pays no attention to her attempts to interrupt, and he says, “In some states, yes. In others, it’s sixteen. In this one—seventeen.”
Captain Evans finally makes it between our sentences with, “It’s a bad idea to waive counsel, Jason. Don’t do it.”
My gut hurts. My sides ache. My mouth is so dry I can’t swallow and every time I breathe, daggers stab into my sides. They aren’t real daggers, only maybe they are because they feel like big fat hot steel blades. I’ve got tears here and there, but not crying yet. As long as I don’t think about Sunshine—
Don’t cry Jason please don’t cry I hate it when you cry and I can’t make you better and I tell her I hate it when you cry too and I stop I stop for her and she kisses my cheeks where the tears
were and I wonder why I’ve never kissed away her tears before and
—Great. Now I’m crying. But only a little.
“See?” Captain Evans sounds like she’s won something. “He’s clearly distraught. He needs his lawyer.”
Shut her up make her stop talking make her go away make her die make everybody die you should die you should die you should die!
“What about my parents?” I ask Agent Mercer. “Do they have to be here when you question me?”
“No.”
Simple. To the point. That helps when the alphabet voices are so loud. He’s quiet, too. Quiet is good. I don’t want Dad in here because Dad thinks I’m bad. I don’t want Mom in here because if Agent Mercer gets me upset with Mom this upset she might kill him and I mean for real because my mom’s a colonel and she’s had to kill people in battles with her bare hands and she will protect me no matter what, no matter who. She could take out a nonmilitary guy, easy. Plus I don’t want her to cry and be upset. She’s my mom.
“That’s not—” the lawyer begins, but Agent Mercer cuts her off.
“There’s no law in any of the fifty states that says a parent has to be present when a minor is questioned.”
Her tone changes to mean shark but I’m not sure if
sharks talk and I don’t want to think about sharks because then I’ll start seeing them too and really, sharks I could do without right about now.
“He’s in custody,” she snaps. “He’s not just being questioned. Don’t mislead him.”
“In this state, in custody or not, at seventeen, it’s his call.” Agent Mercer doesn’t sound mean shark or annoyed or like he’s won anything. He’s flat. Like always. What you see is what you get with him.
Maybe.
Die die die death death death he’ll kill you kill you kill you kill you
.
Through the slits in my eyes, I see the gray stone walls starting to bleed and slide and split and nasty-looking plants come through the stones and fingers dead fingers and claws and no wait it’s branches the evil trees the Farkness Biters are here and when I catch a fast, scared breath it hurts so bad I have to bite my lip not to yell.
Dizzy.
I close my eyes again.
“He’s impaired and you know it,” Captain Evans says.
Agent Mercer moves. I think he just shrugged like me or Drip might do when we’ve had enough of a really irritating teacher. “Jason seems competent to me. Has since I got here. I think he makes more sense than most people I’ve met in this town.”
“Stop manipulating him,” Captain Evans says, only it
comes out like a hiss and she’s sounding like a snake and all my voices start hissing too. “You know he’s diagnosed with schizophrenia. Plenty of records to support that. Anything he says to you will get tossed if you don’t let me stay.”
She’s a snake she’ll bite you she’s trying to kill you you’re gonna die and fry and fry and die and nobody will help you ever again because you’re worthless worthless WORTHLESS FREAK.
“See?” I nudge Agent Mercer with my elbow even though I don’t much like touching people when my head’s this bad because my skin aches and frig when I move like that the hot dagger-swords in my ribs try to kill me. “Nobody pays any attention to what I want.”
There’s a pause.
Nobody talks. Nobody breathes except the thousand voices in my head that all breathe at once like monsters from hell and then they scream and roar and then Agent Mercer says, “Do you want Captain Evans in here with you, Jason?”
His question drifts through the black Hades burning desert of my head, floating around the voices and the evil trees and the sharks and for some reason, he’s easy to hear.
Fight for Sunshine. Fight, Freak. Fight… Jason.
“I waive counsel,” I tell them both. “I don’t want her here. I don’t want my parents here, either, or Chief Smith, or anybody but you.” That was hard. Too much
breath. Hurts. Dizzier. Everything in my head gets louder, louder, too loud to think to live to breathe to even die in peace. “I’ll talk to you, Agent Mercer. Alone.”