Dylan looked at Friday. "Are you all right?"
She nodded and held her head.
Dylan thought about getting out, but Shadow was making too much noise, ranting and kicking the wreck. And Latina was sniveling about her nose: "I think-oh God, I think it's broken." The car was much quieter.
Friday leaned between her legs as if to puke.
Dylan went to lay a hand on her back, but hesitated. He knew she wasn't contagious. If she was, he was dead already. But touching her-that was commitment. She had taken his hand; he hadn't taken hers. She had made the first move. He wasn't sure if he could do the same. He wasn't sure he wanted to. In the end, he would have to leave her to find Minnie. He would have to leave her with Shadow.
Friday rested her face against her knee. She looked so pale, ill, and tired.
Dylan sighed and withdrew his hand. "Are you sure you're okay?"
She nodded again. "Yeah," she said. Her pink scar burned.
Dylan looked away, a little sick himself. That scar.
In front, the airbag had wilted like a lung against the steering wheel. The windshield was shattered, with a huge hole on the passenger side. Big enough for a body.
"He's gone," Dylan said, pointing to the empty passenger seat, empty except for the briefcase.
Friday put her hand on his knee and questioned him with her eyes.
"The guy in the suit. He's gone." Dylan realized what had happened. Geoffrey had not put on his seatbelt. On impact, he flew through the windshield, like a bird in pitiful flight.
"I have to find him." He didn't know why. He didn't even know the man. He could care less. But he had to look, in case he was alive. It's what Hero would have done.
Dylan climbed out Latina's door and pushed past her.
"Sneaking off?" Shadow asked. He stood on the station wagon's crumpled hood, pissing through its broken windshield to desecrate the driver's ashes. His boots crunched gems of glass.
Dylan ignored him, knowing it was the wrong thing to do but doing it anyway.
"Hey, I'm talking to you!"
Dylan rounded the rear of the station wagon. The road was empty except for scraps of camel-colored blazer and skids of blood. It led down the bank, toward the creek.
Fifteen.
At the shoulder, a slope descended to the rocky bed of Quartz Creek. Geoffrey lay facedown in the water. His hair floated in wisps around his head.
Dylan made his way down the bank, through the ferns and the underbrush. He braced himself on the maple trees and used their roots as footholds. The air was cool near the stream, shady, a crisp breeze of wet soil, leaves, and moss. The water gurgled and whorled around rocks and dead limbs; it babbled and sighed.
Dylan knelt on the bank beside Geoffrey, establishing his footing on the rocks. He prepared to flip the man over, to see if he was okay. He couldn't let him drown.
Shutting his eyes, Dylan listened to the burble of water, let it soothe the shakes in his hands. What if he just stayed? To hell with Minnie and Friday and Shadow. Just stay by the creek and ignore the world as it burned.
In the darkness behind his eyelids, the runaway cars plowed through the Beret and the black girl. The Beret bounced beneath the wheels like a dummy.
Shadow had left them. He had done nothing to save their lives, and neither had Dylan.
Growling, he wedged his hands beneath Geoffrey's chest and tried to flip him over. The body was heavy, and Dylan slipped into the water, soaking his shoes.
"Damn it!"
He bent in the stream and flipped the body so hard it splashed him. He stumbled back, tripped, and sat on a rock. Geoffrey stared at the tree canopy, part of his face scraped down to muscle and bone. In places, the pavement had abraded the skull.
Dylan puked on the rocks. He shut his eyes again, hunched over. All he saw was Geoffrey's face.
"Well look at what the cat dragged in," Shadow said. He stood at the top of the bank.
Dylan climbed up and pushed past him. At the car, Latina sat in her seat, legs hanging out the door. Her nosebleed had stopped, leaving her front a tie-dye of red and pink. Friday leaned against her side of the vehicle, holding Geoffrey's briefcase.
"Come on," he said. He grabbed Friday's arm and marched her down the road.
Shadow blocked them. He grinned, so close Dylan could feel his heat and smell the alcohol and shit on his breath. He hadn't realized until now how much taller Shadow was. Skinny, but all sinew.
"Going somewhere?"
Dylan tried to step around.
Shadow pushed him and snatched Friday. He trapped her against his chest and pressed his butterfly knife to her throat.
"So," he said, grinning at Dylan over her shoulder. "We're playing for keeps, huh? All right, Dylan Bradley, let's play.
"You're going to take me to your little girlfriend. Because if you don't . . ." He pressed the blade deeper into Friday's throat and she tensed, as if the slightest movement would cut her. "If you don't, I'll just have my fun with Little Miss Speak No Evil here."
Dylan flexed, ready to punch him, ready to break his smug grin. He could just leave, just walk right past Shadow and keep going. He knew his way.
"Dylan," Friday said, her voice small and pinched. "Please."
Dylan disregarded her for a second and glared at Shadow. "He wanted out."
"Say what?"
"The guy in the suit. Geoffrey. He wanted out. You killed him."
"Yeah, well, it wouldn't be the first time, Dylan. Now are we going to play or not?"
Dylan stepped back, and Shadow took his knife away from Friday's throat, but he kept ahold of her arm, hard enough to bruise.
"All right," he said. "Let's get us some wheels."
Sixteen.
They found a gravel driveway off Hugo Road, and Shadow pushed them up it. He and Friday took the rear.
"What's with the knife?" Latina asked.
Shadow glanced at her. "Shut up."
"You shut up, prick."
"I'll cut you," he said.
"You wouldn't do shit."
A rock struck Latina in the back of the head.
"Ow-what the fuck!"
Shadow grinned. "I told you to shut up."
Latina rubbed the knot on her skull. "Fucking psycho."
Dylan expected her to start slapping him as she had in the car, but she pouted instead. For once he was disappointed: an outburst might have allowed an escape.
The driveway curved behind pine trees and led uphill. A house became visible through the boughs: dark wood siding, the glint of a window. Soon, the whole structure came into view.
The house was a single story with forest-green shingles and a screened-in porch. A backhoe sat in a cove cut into a bank of decomposing granite, and a four-door Impala was parked on a concrete apron next to the house. The car sparkled black in the sun.
"There's our ride," Shadow said. "Dylan. Go knock."
Everybody waited in the driveway as Dylan entered the porch. A round wooden table stood in the middle of the space, surrounded by chairs with armrests and backrests made of twisted manzanita. An ashtray rested atop the table, half full of butts. A pack of cigarettes and a lighter lay beside it.
Dylan approached the door. He could hear nothing from inside the house.
"Knock, knock," Shadow said.
Dylan jumped, and the punk chuckled. "Hurry up and knock," he said.
Dylan rapped his knuckles on the door. It creaked open, and a draft slithered out. It smelled of air-conditioning and something burnt. He shivered and gagged.
"Knock, knock, who's there?" Shadow asked.
Dylan shook his head. "I think . . . I think they're gone."
Shadow brought the two girls onto the porch and peeked through the door. "Little pigs, little pigs, let me in."
No one answered. Just the whisper of the air conditioner.
Latina lit one of the cigarettes left on the table. She sighed, exhaling a big cloud of smoke.
"You," Shadow said. "You first." He nodded toward the door.
Latina crossed one arm below her breasts and rested her other elbow against her hand, holding the cigarette between two fingers near her lips. "I'm not going in there. No way."
Shadow grabbed her by the hair. She squealed and dropped her cigarette as he dragged her toward the door.
"Pearls before swine, sweetheart." He shoved her inside and took hold of Friday again. "You next," he told Dylan.
"Guess you're the swine," he quipped, surprising himself. He started to shake.
Shadow's face went slack, serious, no more smile. "I thought we'd already established that."
Dylan nodded. "I guess so."
Friday stared at him, maybe with a bit of admiration, her blue eyes clear and strong now, an extract of the sky. Just by the look she gave him, he knew he had been right to stay. And he shook a little less as he entered the house.
Shadow and Friday followed him inside.
In the kitchen sink, dishes soaked in bubbly water. On the floor below lay a pile of ashes and a charred shoe, with a black burn mark on the counter above. Something black and shriveled hid in the ashes, something like a shrunken skull, looking fragile, as if it might crumble in the slightest breeze.
"I think they're dead-" Dylan began.
Then a man sprang up behind them and cracked the punk over the head with a gun.
Seventeen.
Shadow ducked and turned, dazed from the attack but conscious enough to use Friday as a shield. He pushed her into the ambusher and bolted onto the porch. The attacker aimed, but the screen door clapped shut and Shadow was gone.
The man cursed.
Dylan started toward him, not sure what he would do. Maybe punch him, maybe run like the punk.
"Don't even think about it," the man said, pointing the gun at Dylan's chest. The guy was short, and his hair looked like pubes. He wore glasses, a white t-shirt, dirty jeans, and work boots.
"Go," Pubes said, gesturing toward a black granite bar with dove-gray stools. "Take a seat."
Latina sat down and Dylan walked slowly toward her, holding his hands in the air. He hoped Shadow burned.