East One #2
My eyes were sliding shut, but I still could feel the front of the motorcycle press against my back, arching my body to conform. My upper back lay against the front fender and handlebars. My lower half was as over the front tire, my legs floating by the engine under the bike.
What a sight it must have been. A human. A motorcycle, and hope being raised to the surface by a mythical creature who isn’t even supposed to exist.
Next to Styx, raindrops pelting me, I stumbled to my feet and tripped forward, wanting, needing to see in the water again. If Saleeni had the strength to save me, I could muster the strength to fucking stand.
Styx said, in a bit of awe, “I’ve never seen a bike float up from water before, especially with a young man on top of it.”
As if I were carrying the heavy bike myself, I weakly turned to face Styx. That’s when I finally noticed the motorcycle I had crashed, now lying in the yard on its side.
She swam us both to the surface and saved my life. Again. My hand rose and pressed to my chest, to the spot over my heart.
Styx followed my line of sight and nodded at the motorcycle.
“She’s young but already strong. Bit right through your shoelace, then tossed the bike that had pissed her off.
” His throat sounded tight. “You were so pale I thought you were dead.” He coughed, then chuckled.
“I thought we both were when a bike landed nearby with a hell of a bang.”
I gawked at the bike on its side. “It has to weigh at least five hundred pounds.”
“Yeah, Saleeni is gorgeous as fuck, but slightly intimidating.”
Wanting to grin because Gramps wasn’t lying–she truly was more beautiful than any girl or woman I had ever seen–I was still full of too much worry.
Wait. Did he just call my reason for breathing ‘gorgeous as fuck’?
I puffed out my chest, ready to set him straight, but another look at the bike had me rushing with a question instead. “But you think she’s okay?”
As if my question wasn’t a legit one, he pointed to the bike. “Wouldn’t you need a breather?” Then he rolled his eyes. “Geesh.” Then the bastard got up from the ground and headed to the unlit clubhouse building. “We need towels.” He peered over his shoulder, accusingly. “And a beer.”
Suddenly, an array of floodlights on the building were triggered at his approach, blinding me and reminding me why I was taken from the East Coast. Security.
Safety. Protection. There was that old fear that somehow, I was the cause of the attack on my tenth Life Date.
Not until I was on the back of Dad’s bike did it happen.
In that moment, I stood, older, thinking about me being the cause.
Something felt off, but I couldn’t quite figure it out, maybe because I was too busy shielding my eyes just enough to see Styx hit a code on a keypad by a rear door and slip inside the building.
Maybe Grandpa has been up to more than I thought.
Reluctant to leave the spot, I glanced over my shoulder. If Saleeni required time to recover, I needed to give it to her. It was the only reason why, soaked and shivering in wet clothes, I followed Styx.
Stiff and chilled in clinging denim, I jogged in a slightly uncoordinated fashion until I was reached a studio apartment that had once been a small store. But instead of clothing racks, the room was set up with a bed, nightstands with lamps, a TV on the wall, a tall dresser, and a couch for two.
Styx was at the opposite side of the room, at another door, facing me and saying, “Lock that one.” As I shut the door behind me, I realized it was made of steel.
Styx instructed, “The code is zero-four-nine-nine.”
Nine… I thought of Talulah while I inserted the code and heard a deadbolt lock into place.
Tallulah was my high school girlfriend until she left for college, and Nine was her nickname for me since I didn’t have a full set of ten fingers.
Even after she left and we broke up, she was the one I turned to.
Called for advice. She was… gifted. Sexy Tallulah could always read me as if she wrote the book titled Johnny Watts: my alias name.
I eyed the phone on a nightstand, wanting to reach out to her. She could always handle—
“No-can-do, silly rabbit. Phones are not for those being hunted.” He pointed over my left shoulder, so I peered behind me. “That used to be a storefront window, but I made it smaller with blocks, of course. And inserted a bulletproof window.”
Having been on the run for so many years, limitations were nothing new. Bulletproof windows, however, were. Tallulah. I eyed the phone again while telling Styx, “Ain’t got no one to call, anyways.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“So I’ve been told.”
He was right. I was lying. Not only did I have Tallulah, but I also had a whole little family of friends I wanted to reach out to.
My fellow fosters—Sarah, Ethan, Gage, Sebastian, and Finn.
I even wanted to hear from Dale and Harmony, our foster parents, just a quick clip of their voices.
Sadly, there was no way to reach out to Caleb or Baby Blue. Both had been lost.
I grabbed my chest at the thought of all I’d recently experienced with the Misfits—what Tallulah called us. Will I ever see any of them again?
Styx said, “For now, this is your room.” He walked to his left, his voice soon echoing.
“Here’s your bathroom.” I heard a cabinet door close.
When he returned, he had two white towels.
After tossing me one over the bed, he began rustling his hair with the other towel while blindly motioning to a floor-to-ceiling wall cabinet.
“There’s for you to store your shit in.”
With a towel hanging in my four-digit hand, I stood there, motionless.
Here I was, once again, with a different bed, a different room, and a different home to get acquainted with.
And I had just turned eighteen. It was… exhausting.
Even though my dad had walked these grounds under my feet, I felt so far away from him.
So far from everyone. All I had left was Gramps and…
her. That’s why I numbly turned around, facing the door I had just locked.
“Maddox, you can see her when she’s ready.”
What right did he have to dictate shit to me? Peering over my shoulder, my upper lip lifted in a snarl. If Styx thought he could order me around, he had better step the fuck back. I could handle myself.
He shook his head. “Ease up. I’m saying that for both your benefits.”
Anything benefiting her was my main priority. Hence, my shoulders caved as my head fell forward and leaned against the door. “How will I know when she’s ready?”
I was desperate for the grounded feeling she offered when nearby. I needed not to feel so… lost. Or on another runaway train. With no brakes to stop. No seatbelt. Only an insane locomotive engineer as my guide.
Speaking of which, I whirled around and faced him, hearing clink, clink, clink, causing me to wonder what the fuck Gramps was up to now.
Styx was digging in a little side fridge in my room. He held up a beer bottle. “Want one?”
Drained beyond belief, I mumbled, “I don’t drink.”
Grandpa gasped in glee, then collected every beer into his arms. “More for me!” He left the room without a backward glance.
I peered up at the ceiling, speaking to the precious one in Heaven. “Really, Noma? This joker?”
I couldn’t recall ever meeting my maternal grandpa she once loved, but somehow, she ended up having ‘relations’ with this grandpa also.
Her being such a pillar in my life, such an ultimately wise soul, I was stumped by how she fell for this clown who thought bleach and wipes were the answer after every murder he was involved in.
Just then, still embracing beers, Styx reappeared in the doorway. A proud smirk on his face. “I have a TV dinner with your name all over it.”
I already miss your food, Harmony. I forced my feet to move around the bed and toward him. Rudely replying, “Nuked cancer food? Sign me up.”
“Pfft! You’re in love with a mermaid and think a microwave is a problem?”
There was no stopping my body as it jolted. Then my knees buckled. Fortunately, my ass landed on the bed. Sitting there, I looked up to the only family I had left. “Why do I feel like my mind keeps playing tricks on me?”
There was a long, weighted pause, but the man eventually approached the bed and sat next to me.
Setting his beers on the closest nightstand, he opened one and took a lengthy swig.
It must have been liquid courage because after the guzzle, he admitted, “Because everything we’ve been taught demands none of this is possible.
It takes time to teach your brain otherwise. ”
I tapped my chest, saying without words what only a few would ever understand.
Styx nodded. “Oh yes, but the heart has known the truth all along.”
It was amazing how he understood. Wait. “Why are you talking as if you have…” My words slowed as my mind revved up. “… walked in my shoes.”
Gramps guzzled more beer, then explained, “Many moons ago, I was trippin’.” Absentmindedly, he waved over his shoulder to the steel door behind us. “Not like you in the backyard minutes ago.” He smiled. “I mean, I tripped—like on some excellent LSD.”
You are so annoying. “Got it.”