– You ever try dragging a screaming teenage girl down the street?
I remember a night over twenty years ago: a young girl screaming, a hunger I didn't know how to control. But it doesn't matter. The past is a dead thing. I can't change it.
– You ever been knocked out and hauled around in a sack?
– No way. My dad would freak and you would never get paid.
– Not taking you to your dad.
She bugs her eyes at me.
– Oh, no!
She laughs.
– Her? She sent you?
She picks up the picture.
– Of course she gave you this one. She knows I hate it.
She tears it in half and drops the pieces to the floor.
– Bitch. So what's she want? There a junior deb ball I'm supposed to go to or something?
I pick up the pieces of the picture and put them in my jacket pocket.
– She doesn't want you to end up like Whitney Vale.
She starts to say something else, closes her mouth instead. She looks at her shoes, rubbing the toe of one against the bile stain on the other.
– Whitney got what she deserved.
Whitney Vale, eighteen, jamming a knife into the back of a kid's skull; her body being eaten by a germ.
– For what?
– I don't know. Maybe for fucking my dad?
– Like I said, your mom doesn't want you to end up like Whitney.
– Oh. My. God. She told you that? She is such a freak. I know what she says about him. But my dad has never touched me. The only reason he fucked Whitney is 'cause she was all over him. So gross. The only guy who ever touched me was one of mom's creepy boyfriends. So what's she want to do, kidnap me to protect me from my dad? She is so lame.
She stands up.
– Let's go.
– Huh?
– Take me home.
I look at my watch, it's just after sunrise. She yanks on the cuffs.
– You got me, toughguy, now take me in.
– We can't go yet.
– Look, I'm not going to spaz or anything. I mean, the sooner you take me back there, the sooner I can run away again. So let's just get it over with.
– We have to wait.
– For what?
– For the sun to go down.
– Why?
– Because I'm allergic to it.
She stares at me.
– You are such a loser.
– Because. It's hard to pee when you're handcuffed to some ass-hole and you're both just waiting for the pee.
The door is swung open. I'm squatting on one side of it with my arm stretched out, and she's on the other side. Our hands grip the edge of the door, mine just slightly above hers.
– So say something.
– For a girl who has some experience living in squats, you're awfully pee shy.
– Fuck you.
I chew on my split lower lip, sucking at one of the cuts, trying to ease the prickles inside me with the dull copper taste of my own blood. It doesn't help. All it does is whet my appetite, as if I need it whetted. I stop sucking.
Blood still fills my veins and pumps through my heart and carries oxygen to my brain, but as far as the Vyrus is concerned it might as well be dust. My blood has been occupied and harvested, whatever it is that the Vyrus consumes has been stripped away. But there's more of what I need right on the other side of this door.
– Hey!
– What?
– Don't pull on the cuffs.
I look. She's right, I've been tugging her toward me from around the door.
– Sorry.
– Yeah you're sorry. And stop being so quiet, I told you to say something.
– Like what?
– Anything. Tell me who busted up your face. Not that I don't think there's like a line of people waiting to bust it up.
– Guy doesn't like it.
– Your face?
– Yeah.
– Well. Can you blame him? Are you going to kick his ass?
– Hadn't thought about it.
– Maaan.
– What?
– For a big guy.
– Yeah?
– For a big guy, you're kind of a pussy.
– You pee yet?
– Damn it. I was almost there. Why'd you have to say that? Now talk about something else.
– How'd you get in here?
– There's like an alley around back, off of Tenth? The gate's not locked. Whitney showed me last summer. Go through the gate and there's the basement door. Squatters busted the lock off that couple years back, I guess.
My legs hurt from squatting. I'm pretty sure I fractured something in my right ankle when I came down the stairs. I shift to keep it from aching and I lose my balance for a second. Our wrists tug-a-war before I steady myself. I grab the edge of the door and accidentally touch her fingers.
– Don't touch me.
A moment's silence.
– Talk.
Jesus fucking.
– Why'd you run away?
Now it's her turn to get all silent.
– If it's like you say and your dad isn't messing with you?
– None of your business.
– OK.
More silence.
– Are you jerking off back there?
– No.
– Then stop getting all quiet, it's creepy.
– OK. Why'd you run away?
– I told you, none of your business.
– Fine.
Silence.
– Fuck do you care?
– I don't. I just want you to piss so I can stretch my legs.
She laughs.
– Stretch your legs, I just went.
She digs through her little backpack looking for something. She's holding her flashlight in her cuffed right hand as she searches with her left. She jerks my left hand this way and that as she rummages.
– Why'd you have to cuff my right hand?
– If I'd cuffed your left you would have to walk around backward.
She stares at me.
– Yeah, right. Like I would have done that.
Our hands bump.
– Your hand is all cold and sweaty.
She gives me a fish-eye.
– Are you sick? 'Cause if I catch something from you I am going to be so pissed.
– Just clammy by nature.
– Gross.
I am cold and sweaty. The Vyrus is downshifting, trying to save energy, storing up for its last big push. But sick is not a big enough word for what I am.
She pulls a few things out of the pack; some extra clothes, an MP3 player, batteries, a bottle of water, and finally comes up with what she's looking for: a handful of diet bars. She holds one in her left hand and tears the wrapper open with her teeth. She catches me watching her.
– You want one?
I do want one. I haven't eaten for awhile and I usually eat like a pig. You have to, just to keep up with the high revs the Vyrus usually runs your metabolism at.
– Sure.
– There's peanut butter or chocolate and coconut.
– Peanut butter.
She hands me the bar and we eat by the dim light cast by her flashlight. She finishes hers, throws the empty wrapper on the floor, and picks out another.
– So my mom was the one who called you?
I chew for a couple seconds. The peanut butter was a mistake, it's hard and sticky and hurts my sore jaw as I chew.
– Yeah.
– What'd she say?
– Said you were missing, said she wanted to find you.
She's picking at her second bar, pinching tiny pieces of the chocolate coating between her fingernails and nibbling them.