Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A tale of Atomic Love (13 page)

He was raging, trying to keep the fury in. Montessa’s eyes reflected the sparks coming off his skin.

“Don’t hold back, baby,” she said. “Let’s burn this place to the ground.”

She put her hand on his shoulder and closed her eyes. The wind started around them, blowing candy and engine oil and baby food off the shelves. The wind fanned Lu’s flames, and they
roared higher and higher.

“Burn,” she whispered, and the building ignited. Deadly Hanukkah candles. The most exquisite of joys in the most horrible of circumstances.

“Burn,” she said again and used her hand to direct Lu’s flames toward the bodies on the ground. The clerk seared and sizzled. Flames danced in his open mouth, in his throat. She saw firestorms in his eye sockets.

“We have to go,” Lu said, and struggled to his feet. Montessa helped him.

“Now.” And he started to run. Montessa ran beside him.

Away from the gas station.
Fire erupted at the pumps, their truck starting to ignite. Montessa realized the danger they were in and gasped.

“Yeah, I know. I couldn’t help it,
” Lu answered, and they ran like they had never run before. They were used to being chased by the cops. By ex-lovers, or ex-fathers, but this wasn’t anything of the sort. This was a different sort of terror.

“Keep going, baby!” he yelled, and Montessa didn’t say anything, but focused on her steps, on her breathing, on getting as far away as she could before the entire thing, and the gas pumps…

The explosion was deafening. She was knocked to the ground, hard, her breath slammed out of her. She heard the sound of Lu’s beautiful bones hitting the pavement next to her, and then she heard nothing.

Nothing.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

She opened her eyes and moaned. Her body hurt. Felt broken. She turned and looked behind her. The gas station was in flames, the hottest of fireballs. Lu’s truck was burning as merrily as everything else.

“Oh, Lu. What did I do?”

She crawled to him,
his body bloody and unmoving on the pavement. His shoulder was soaked with red, his shirt torn. He had cuts on his otherwise perfect face, and she ran her hands over his arms and legs.

He seemed whole. He seemed unbroken.

“Baby? Baby, wake up.”

His eyelids fluttered, and then he was on his knees, trying to stand up.
Montessa put a hand on his arm.

“Stay still, darling
.”

“We need to get out of here.”

“I’ll get us a car. Sit tight.”

She stood up and ran to the road nearby.

“Help!” She screamed, waving her hands above her head. “Help me, please!”

A small white Honda stopped. A man leaned over, rolled the window down.

“There’s a fire!” Montessa said, and pointed at the blazing gas station. “I just made it out, and my friend is hurt. Can you help us? Get him to the hospital?”

“Oh,” the man said, and his jaw worked. He blinked behind his thick glasses.

“Please?”

The man righted himself.

“Yes. Of course. Climb in.”

“Oh, thank you!”

She went back to Lu, put his arm over her shoulder. The man ran over to help, and they walked Lu to the back of the car. Lu dragged his feet, leaning heavily on the man. Much heavier than necessary.

“Thank you,” Lu said weakly, and flopped into the back seat. His eyes met Montessa’s.

“Gladly,” the man said, and leaned in to help situate Lu. “What happened out there?”

“I don’t know. Everything just went up in flames,” Lu said, and yanked the man fully into the car.
Montessa tossed him the knife, and Lu slit his throat cleanly.

“Sorry,” he whispered as the man clutched and squirmed and bled out, “but we need the car. Hope you understand.”

Montessa shoved the man’s kicking feet inside, shut the back door, and climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Anywhere in particular, my love?” she asked. She used the blinker, pulled onto the empty road. Driving carefully. The absurdity of it struck her, and she laughed.

“Anywhere you want, Montessa. We’re free. We can do anything.”

She drove, wearing her long gloves of blood, with Lu and the dead man resting in the backseat. Nobody looked. Nobody noticed. The sun went down and she followed it down the road. She turned on the dead man’s radio. Switched it from NPR to something with more pep.
An old Styx song. “Renegade.”

She sang at the top of her lungs. Bathed in blood and music and love.

“This is happier than I’ve ever been, Lulu.”

“Me too, baby.”

Tonight was perfect. A perfect day. Tomorrow, she hoped, would be even better.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

They ditched the car and the body. Cleaned themselves up as best they could. Rented a squalid room at a motel that looked the other way concerning most things. Drugs. Gunshot wounds. Blood.

Montessa
used tweezers to pull shot out of Lu’s shoulder. Sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip like dew on a rose. She had never seen anything so lovely.

“I’m sorry, baby,” she said
, and kissed him. Bit his lip. Cleaned and bandaged his shoulder with gauze and cheap bandages purchased from a gas station she didn’t burn to the ground.

“No worries. Thanks for cleaning it.”

“Of course.”

“Think we should take off tomorrow? Or lay low?”

Lu wrapped his good arm around her.

“I think we should go to the sea. Once more. Then we can do whatever we want.”

“Lulu, I feel like—”

“What? Time is short?”

“Yes.”

“It is. That’s why the sea is important. Will you go with me?”

“Gladly.”

She knew what he was asking, and it was
n’t just to go to the sea. It was Something Important, something Of Worth. He was asking her what she had been asked a million different times by a million different men who never meant it. She had never said yes. But Lu, he was different. He was where she wanted to be forever.

They slept in, and the sun was already glaring when they staggered into the motel’s parking lot.

“Only a few more hours,” Lu said, and Montessa stood on tiptoes to kiss him. To lick his mouth. To tell him that she had never felt this way, not once, and it was the very best and most special of feelings.

They stole a rusty, brown Camaro that didn’t have locked doors. Lu concentrated and the wires sparked just right. The engine hummed, in surprisingly good condition.

Montessa raised her eyebrows.

“Nice.”

And they were off. Montessa’s feet on the dash, and Lu singing along with the golden oldies, the only station they could pick up.

“What if I never met you?” she asked.

“Then you’d be at home with Renan right now. Sleeping. Getting ready to dance tonight.”

“I was dead, Lu. My soul was dead. My body, it’s getting there. You saved me, do you know that?”

She took his hand, kissed his blunt fingernails sweetly.

“Thank you. Thank you for saving me. I was asleep and you woke me up.”

He didn’t say anything, but his thoughts were daisies and sunshine and rainbows. The sharpest and sleekest of knives. Dahlias and straight blades.

You saved me, too,
is what he thought. He thought it with so much intensity and love that it was a firestorm in Montessa’s head. The force of it blew her hair back, and she bit her lip.

So this is what it was like to have a soul mate. To be tied together with the Red Thread of Fate. It’s loving somebody so much that you’ll murder to be with them.

They reached the Pacific Ocean shortly before the sun was to go down.

“Come on,” Lu said, and they hopped out of the car. Followed the trail to the water. This beach was different, sandy and soft, and the water seemed calm.

“It isn’t angry at all,” she said, and leaned her head on Lu’s good shoulder. “The sea is happy.”

Lu wondered if she could calm it somehow. If Montessa’s moods played out over the water. He wouldn’t be surprised, not really. Her mama always said she was special.

“What happened to your mother?” he asked. The breeze was stiff and cold, blowing the hair back from their faces. It felt like a caress. It felt like a slap in the face. Either way he looked at it, it felt good.

“She died,” she said simply, but Lu read the expressions running under her skin. Her Face Beneath A Face.
She died
is what she said, but it was so much more than that. The sand began to tremble beneath their feet, began to lift and spin in the air in a small tornado of stinging diamonds.

“Shh,” he said, and kissed behind her ear. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Let’s talk about something else.”

The sand fell to the ground instantly, and the earth stood firm.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and for a second, she looked like a little girl. Mini Montessa, with pigtails and pink party dresses and ice cream cones. Her eyes were wide and innocent. She was unspoiled. She wasn’t a victim yet.

Then it all went away, and she was his Apocalyptic Montessa, a woman who had lived a thousand lifetimes in less than 30 years. He kissed her until her lips were swollen, and then he kissed her again.

“You kno
w what takes away every pain?” he asked.

She smiled up at him, blinking with her long lashes.

“Salt water,” she answered. “Sweat, tears, and the sea.”

She took his hand and ran for the water, kicking off her shoes. Laughing. Her dark hair flew in the sea breeze, and Lu found himself laughing, too. They played in the surf, like lovers do. It was far too cold to be pleasant, and barely bearable. But it was their time, their moment. Lu heated the water until it was warm as blood. They played. Splashed each other. Fell down in the water, screaming and shrieking and kissing. They chased gulls, and watched tiny sand c
rabs crawl back and forth. The sun sank into the sea, and Montessa couldn’t stop staring at the color of the clouds, at the idea of the sun sinking low, low, low, until she thought she’d see steam and it would be put out completely.

“I’ve never seen anything so lovely
.” She exhaled, looking at the ocean.

“Neither have I,” Lu said, looking at her.

He fell on one knee, there in the Oregon sand, and took both of her hands in his.

“Will you marry me?” he asked.

She sank down to her knees, as well.

“Yes, my Lulu! Of course I will!”

And she flew into his arms, knocking him onto his back in the surf, and the water ran past and around them both, dragging the sand out from underneath them until it felt like they were falling. Falling like comets, like angels out of the sky. Like demons into Hell.

The stars came out. The sea continued to happily rage. It was the most perfect moment in either of their lives.

Lu reached into his wet pocket and pulled out a red string. He used the First Kill knife to cut it in half.

Montessa felt the sea water beading her face, until Lu reached over and kissed beneath her eye. She realized she was crying.

“Do happy tears taste different?” she asked as Lu carefully tied the string around her left ring finger.

“They do.”

“I’d like to taste your happy tears sometime,” she said as she wrapped the other red string around his ring finger.

“I never cry.”

“Liar.”

They held hands, their new red thread wedding bands shining, and knew they were married in the eyes of god or demons or hell, sanctified in blood and the sea, sealed with slices and blazing fires and kisses, but they were certainly married in the eyes of each other and of themselves. And really, that was all that mattered.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Lu had a present to give his new bride. A gift. Something special and wonderful and deeply, deeply horrifying.

“Wake up, darling.”

She murmured and snuggled closer into his side. She had branches and weeds tangled into her hair like wedding flowers.

“Montessa. Wake up. Today is a new day.”

She yawned and stretched and sat up. Looked around with eyes still bleary from sleep.

“Lu? Where…ah, I remember. We slept outside last night.”

They had. Several yards back from the beach. Across a small freeway. Up in the tree line with a few scattered rental houses here and there.

“Did you sleep sweet?” he asked.

She popped her back, winced.

“I slept sweet. How’s your shoulder?”

“Stiff. But not bad. The salt water hurt like the dickens last night, but I think it helped.” He grinned, kissed the makeshift wedding band on her finger. “It really does heal everything.”