Chapter Twelve
COLD AIR WHIPS THROUGH MY hair as Jasper and I ride his bike over dirt roads flanked by decrepit houses.
Most, if not all, of these houses are occupied.
A man peers at us out of his window. Two men sit on a rooftop.
An elderly couple perches on the stoop of a rickety wooden house.
Their figures meld with the wood like they’ve been there for their entire lives.
But it’s the little girl on the sidewalk that makes my gut twist. One hand grasps her mother’s while the other holds a paper sign.
A half-empty carton of Minute Maid and four Dixie Cups rest on the ground beside her feet. “Lemonade for trade.”
I wonder what she wants for it.
I always pictured Macoby as some kind of black hole—a place where bad people did bad things. Not a place where eighty-year-olds hang out on stoops holding hands. Not a place where little girls smile.
The sheer number of homes surprises me. In Egal, any standing house was torn down, the scraps used to build the row house.
I bring my mouth close to Jasper’s ear and ask, “Did most of these homes survive the flood? Or were they rebuilt after Z Day?”
Jasper shouts back, his voice muffled by the wind. “We’re scrappy around here.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” I say, but my words fall on deaf ears.
Jasper picks up speed. My fingers, clinging on to his backpack for dear life, have grown numb. Grandma was right—nothing’s as strong as L.L.Bean stitching. If only my quads held such strength.
I’m in good enough shape—slinging box after box into the truck has kept me fit—but my body is tired. Worn. Hungry. My wrists are sore from where the rope dug into them, and my muscles are on fire. Fire. Burning like Dante’s Seventh Circle of Hell.
Mr. Martinez, are you proud?
What I would do to sit, bored, only half listening, in a literature class right now.
Jasper is taking our long journey in stride. His back is tense, strong, and his traps pop out of his T-shirt. He maintains speed as he climbs the rough, hilly streets, bearing my extra weight with ease.
He slows down as we approach a long dirt driveway bordered by a haunting blend of tall, warped trees and stumps—used for firewood, I’d imagine.
The sun is high in the sky, casting shadows that dance like ghosts on the ground.
Jasper comes to a halt right before we run over the most phallic-looking rock I’ve ever laid eyes on.
“Hop off real quick,” Jasper says.
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” I say, stretching out my legs. Jasper picks up the rock and lobs it into the eerie forest to our right. “Was that rock shaped like a penis?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Did you mold it yourself? Is that what you do in your spare time—carve rocks into penises?”
“Kota.” Jasper fixes me with a stern look.
I shrug. “Just getting to know the man I’ll be spending the next forty-eight hours with.
Don’t worry, I won’t write home about it.
Though, if I did, I’d say something like, ‘Dear Grandma, my kidnapper has a thing for sexy stones. He saved face and threw it into the woods, but my gut tells me he’ll sneak out late tonight to find it, and then maybe curl up with it in bed.
Anyway, what’ve you been up to, Gran?’ ”
“Please stop.”
“Everyone has their quirks, Jasper.”
“I regret offering to house you.”
“You didn’t offer. You were bribed.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Same difference.”
Jasper wheels the bike down the driveway, and I limp by his side.
My thighs won’t stop shaking, which makes me worry how they’ll feel tomorrow.
Mom always said soreness kicks into high gear on the second day.
Though memories of Mom are sparse and hazy, she was rarely wrong.
I wish she were here to carry me and my trembling limbs home.
I jolt backward as a one-story stone cottage comes into view.
It’s like something out of a fairy tale.
Gray-brown stone hugs the curved front door, and square windows on either side make it look like a smile.
A stone chimney juts out of the roof. The door is an unpolished, muted brown.
To my naked eye, the cottage shows no signs of damage or deterioration.
I grab Jasper’s arm, stopping him in his tracks. He looks at me with wide eyes, like an orchid just sprouted from the top of my head. In fairness, I’m probably giving him the same look. “How’d you manage this?”
“Plenty of spare time when you’re not working toward the communal good.”
I ignore the jab. I’m not certain he’s wrong. “You mean, while you’re not shaping stones into sex objects, you’re building houses out of them? I’ll have to update my letter to Grandma. Where’d you even get the materials?”
“Plenty of spare parts around Greenville if you know where to look,” Jasper says, wheeling the bike forward. “But no, I didn’t build the cottage—the stone held up great in the flood. I just put on the roof. And now I’m going to picture dicks every time I hear the word stone.”
“And the roof . . . it won’t collapse on us?”
“That’s the hope.”
A gust of wind sweeps through the air. The house creaks as we walk onto the front porch. Jasper twists a key into a padlock lodged in the rusty door handle. Does everyone have locks here? The idea of personal property has already become foreign to me.
Jasper’s body fills the frame when he opens the door. He makes a sweeping gesture. “After you.”
The bright interior takes my breath away.
Not only because the living room is three times the size of the apartment I share, but also because it’s clean.
The stone floors, a mishmash of rustic colors and sizes, bear little dirt.
The walls, too. Cobbled together with worn wood planks, the ceiling appears sturdy.
With a mixture of materials and trimmings, the cottage feels warm and cold, all at once.
Our home—the one I lived in with Mom, Dad, Bunny, and West—was a simple bungalow.
When Mom died, Dad sold the house and took everything—except for us, of course.
He bid us adieu on Grandma’s front porch with little else beyond the clothes on our backs.
Grandma let Bunny and me paint our room, to give us a fresh start.
Bunny chose pink. To match Grandma’s rose scent, she said.
We even ripped out the carpet to reveal the hardwood underneath.
Grandma’s eyes were ablaze with astonishment when the first slat peeked through.
These haven’t seen the light of day since when I was a kid, and cartoons were still played on Saturday mornings! she exclaimed.
Later, I’d set swim team trophies on the dresser and stick glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling for Bunny. The room became ours, and Grandma’s house became home.
Jasper gestures to the small hallway. “I’ll show you to your room.”
“Don’t you mean cell?”
He frowns. “Kota, I’m not your enemy.”
“What are you, then?”
“I’m your . . .” He trails off, shaking his head. “Forget it. Your room awaits.”
My body groans as I trek through the house.
I walk slowly, dragging my hand along the walls, thinking of the stories this texture tells.
The eyes of three portraits follow me through the living room: a toddler with two missing front teeth, a child with bright blond pigtails, and a teenage boy who looks like he’d rather be anywhere else.
I lean left, right, left again. Still, the portraits stare.
I’ve never seen the Mona Lisa, but I imagine it feels something like this.
“Who are these people?”
Jasper shrugs. “No idea,” he says, pushing open a curved wooden door.
Then why does he keep them? Maybe they make him feel less alone. I can’t imagine having a whole house to myself.
“Shoot,” I say, looking down at my feet. I’ve left dusty brown footprints on the stone floor. “Is this a no-shoe household? Or should I call for the maid?”
“Your relentless sarcasm is astounding.”
I curtsey. “Thank you.”
Truth is, the big mouth I’ve sprouted astounds me, too. Why can I speak freely with this stranger when I never could with Chandler and Peter? Is it because he doesn’t hold anything over me? Because he can’t threaten my family?
Jasper motions for me to get a move on. “Keep it up, and you’ll turn into Greeley.” He narrows his eyes. “And are you? Planning on keeping it up?”
“As long as I’m a prisoner here.”
“Kota, the moment you realize that what’s on the other side of the wall is ten times scarier than what’s in here . . . you’ll see this place as a palace.”
“You mean Egal, don’t you? Not the world outside the Split.” Jasper nods. “We’re doing just fine back home, thank you. We’re peaceful. Happy. And we don’t steal.”
“So we’re the big bad guys because we steal? To survive?”
I pause, at a loss for words. “Yes,” I finally answer. “You stole me. From my family. That makes you a bad person.”
“You don’t really believe that.”
“I—” I don’t know what I believe.
I bite my tongue and shove past Jasper, marching into my room. No, my cell. That’s what it is: a cell.
Right?