Landing (5 page)

“I’ll…I’ll try,” I say, because,
let’s be honest here, I can barely hold myself together, much less go around
spreading joy and love throughout the land. I am a danger. An albatross. The
dead kind. The kind that sinks ships.

Chapter 7

“Home sweet home,” Gabe crows as
Tarren pulls the SUV into the driveway. Gabe’s more than a little toasty, and I
try to ignore how his energy loops in bright, sloppy ellipticals around his
frame. Tarren is usual quiet self, and I’m…I’m just numb.

As soon as we stop, Gabe turns in
his seat to look at me. “Okay Maya, you can’t go anywhere. We have stuff for
you.”

“Stuff?”

“Let’s go inside first,” Tarren
says to his brother.

“Yeah, course.” Those playful green
streaks light up in Gabe’s aura. We get out of the car, and he chants,
“basement, basement, basement,” as we walk toward the house.

“Do you want any water?” Tarren
asks me when we get inside. We look at each other, and there might be just a
smidgeon of sympathy in his face.

“No, I’m fine. What’s going on? Do
I need Alpha 5 clearance?”

“Come on.” Tarren follows his
brother down the stairs. The basement air is cool and forever holds a smell of
damp cotton.

Gabe strokes his Keira Knightley
cutout and murmurs, “Hey baby,” as we move past the exercise equipment, the
scuffed pool table, and the stained frat boy couch.

“To the Fox Cave!” he shouts
dramatically as he swings open the door to the small storage/planning room.

“Oh wait, never mind. Don’t go in
yet. I have something to say first.” Gabe pulls the door shut and stands in
front of it protectively. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m fine,” he says to
Tarren.

“By all means.” Tarren takes a step
back so that the three of us make a lazy triangle.

Gabe drags his bangs out of his
eyes, but as soon as he moves his head they fall back into place. “Okay, so
Maya, we know that you’ve been through a lot,” he starts.

I have no idea what’s going on
here, but already I feel my skin prickling.

“And we hope that, ah, that you’ve
started to feel at home here. I know that we’re not so great and everything. I
mean, I’m pretty awesome, but Tarren well, total buzz kill, right? He comes
with the house though. I checked the original contract and we’re stuck with
him.” Gabe grins at his brother. “But, anyway, we hope you’re happy here. Well,
maybe that’s kind of…look, we know that you’d rather not be here, be with us,
but since you are, we hope that you’re okay with that.”

The silence stretches.

“Oh,” I say, because I am
absolutely brilliant.

“Yeah, I mean it sucked…well, wait,
no. One more thing.” Gabe looks down, gathers his courage, then meets my eyes.
“Maya, I’m glad you’re here. You’re funny and sarcastic, and you actually clean
things, which is awesome. Me and Tarren, we’re lucky to have found you.” A
flush creeps up his neck, but Gabe presses on. “And it’s a long and dark road
ahead, and shit, but uh, I’m glad we’re on this road together. Family is what
makes everything bearable.” He pauses and tucks his bangs behind his ear. “Was
that good?” he asks Tarren.

“Yes,” I say, “it was beautiful.”
And it was, because as Gabe spoke his clumsy words, lavender threads infused
his entire aura, and this—I have learned—is the color of his trust, of his
acceptance. The color of his love.
You are beautiful,
I think but am way
too much of a coward to say it out loud.

Instead, I whisper, “thank you.” I
mean it. I really mean it. Sometimes Gabe makes me believe that everything will
turn out all right.

“Happy birthday Maya,” Tarren says
next to me. I look up and try to find the same feelings in his aura, but he
keeps a tight rein on his emotions. That muddy blue energy lies low across his
frame, moving in slow twitching tides that tell me almost nothing.

“Okay, come on.” Gabe opens the
door to the Fox Cave. Inside, a huge cage on wheels stands in front of the
table. It is filled with colorful plastic tubing, toilet paper rolls, wood
shavings, and little ramps that go up to multiple levels.

“This, my friend, is the Super Pet
Delux Multi-Level Manor House,” Gabe says proudly. “I figure you can keep a
whole platoon of rats in here. Breed ‘em even, if you want. That way we don’t
have to keep making trips to the pet store every couple days.”

“Wow,” I say. This is kind of
funny, but not really. My own personal rat gulag to supply me bodies for my
insatiable murderous rampages. The shame wraps around my throat and gets a good
choke hold going. I want to kick the thing over, smash all those colorful
plastic tubes into bits, and then dissolve into a weeping mess.

“Thank you Gabe.” I manage to keep
my voice level.

My brother beams. “We’ll go pick up
our first inmates tomorrow,” he says. “Oh, I put it together, by the way. The
whole thing.”

“Gabe of all trades,” I mutter, and
he laughs but doesn’t remember that I’m repeating his own joke.

“This is…something for you,” Tarren
says and hands me a slim package neatly wrapped in silver paper. I hold the
present for a while, running my fingers across the folded edges.

“Thank you,” I say, because I know
that there isn’t a speck of wrapping paper in this house. Tarren must have gone
out and bought it. Just for me. And cut it and carefully wrapped it. I know
that Tarren can be strangely thoughtful sometimes, but it still always
surprises me when he is.

“You haven’t opened it yet,” Tarren
says.

“Oh.” I pull the paper apart, and
it yields a box for an Amazon Kindle e-reader. “Oh,” I say again, flipping the
box over. An Amazon gift card is taped to the back.

“Dude,” Gabe whistles.

“It’ll be a lot more efficient for
travel,” Tarren says, and then adds “I know you’ve gone through everything on
the bookshelves upstairs.”

I tuck the box under my arm. “It’s
very thoughtful,” I say. We stand there for a while. All of us are
uncomfortable. No one dares instigate a hug.

“I didn’t even know it was my
birthday,” I say lamely.

“Yeah, we didn’t get you a cake or
candles or anything, but it’s not like you could have eaten any of it anyway,”
Gabe says. His smile falters when Tarren throws him a look. “Oh, sorry.”

“It’s okay, I’m just tired,” I say.
“Thank you both. It means a lot. It does.” But I am having trouble focusing,
because on my last birthday Karen came up to school and took me and Ryan and
some of our friends out to dinner. They made me wear a stupid little crown, and
despite my protests, had the waiters sing me happy birthday and deposit an ice
cream Sunday on my place setting. Everyone gave me gag gifts except for Karen
who got me vitamins, fluffy towels, and a $200 Visa gift card.

That night Ryan gave me a matching
topaz necklace and earring set and painted messy flowers on my legs and stomach
and breasts with body paint. I thought it was crazy romantic, even if I’m
pretty sure he got the idea off the Internet. We both woke up the next morning
with paint smeared all over our bodies. Then we had our first experience with
slippery shower sex.

Without realizing it, I’ve turned
away from my brothers and am now marching up the stairs.

“Was this a bad idea? She looked
kinda freaked,” Gabe whispers to Tarren as I reach the top of the stairs.

“It’s been a long night,” Tarren
says, demonstrating his fondness for noncommittal statements.

I keep going, through the kitchen,
through the living room, and up the stairs to the top level. My strides are
fast, but I don’t run and I don’t slam the door closed when I finally make it
to my room.
Diana’s room.
I lean against the door and hold my breath
until the light starts getting bright in my eyes. Then I go into the bathroom
and stare at the tub.
White knuckles clutching the sides, panting breath,
pink water lapping at her thighs, two hearts fluttering out of sync.

“I am twenty years old today,” I
say. I get inside the tub and tuck my knees to my chest. Rock back and forth. I
stay in there for a long time, but I don’t cry.

Chapter 8

Gabe is good to his word. The next
day, he and I jump into the cab of his blue Ford truck and rumble into town. I
wait in the truck while Gabe buys the rats. I’ve quickly learned never to enter
a pet store or animal shelter. Animals can somehow sense my “otherness,” and
they break into spasmodic barks and growls and chirps whenever I get within
their vicinity. Just one more delightful side effect of my change. It’s amazing
that my eyes don’t intermittently blaze red.

I convince Gabe that we should roam
around town a little bit. Tarren would have objected on two grounds. He doesn’t
like me near other people unless absolutely necessary, and the idea of doing
anything without a strict purpose would probably give him hives. Gabe, however,
is hip to the idea and so we wander.

Farewell, Colorado is an old,
sallow dump. It’s there, and that’s about the best thing it’s got going for it.
In the late fall, when the air is cold enough to threaten snow, everything
takes on a hoary gray hue, and the colors lay flat and unassuming across the
landscape.

There are a few little strip malls
that we can walk to from the pet store. I follow Gabe through the aisles of a
GameStop until I get bored. Then I head over to the used clothing store across
the street.

I’m still technically a missing
person, but the police called off the search for me a while ago. The news
coverage of my disappearance and my desperate parents didn’t even get much play
in the West. Still, I’m terrified of being recognized. Today I’m wearing
sunglasses and a black knit cap, but I feel exposed, vulnerable. Tarren’s
paranoia must be rubbing off on me, because as soon as I step inside the store,
I automatically stake the place for cameras and memorize the swiftest routes to
each exit.

A single clerk stands at the counter.
She’s got a large mole on her chin and a blue-green aura that brightens as she
greets me with a smile. I give her a short nod back and then plunge into the
aisles. The store is small but well organized. There’s sort of a funky odor
lingering over the merchandise, but I get used to it after a while. I discover
cool checkered sneakers, a purple headband that maybe I’ll wear if I’m in a
weird mood, two sweaters, and a brown and blue nylon jacket that will work with
this weather.

Then I see a brown duster hanging
in the men’s section. I pull it out and search for stains or holes. The coat is
clean and fantastic and utterly perfect for Gabe. I glance furtively at the
door, but he is nowhere in sight. I pay for my purchases, nearing the end of
the $150 prepaid credit card Gabe gave me last month. I’ll have to ask him to
put some more money on it if he can. Gabe doesn’t tell me much about our
financial situation, but I think things are pretty tight. The boys are always
careful in buying supplies, and we usually stay in cheap motels when we travel.

The lady with the mole and the
blue-green aura folds up the duster and double bags it on my request. I’ll have
to think of some grand presentation.

After a short while of wandering, I
find Gabe in a RadioShack looking at some sort of router configuration. Somewhere
along the way he has come into possession of glowing plastic devil horns, which
he wears on his head.

“It’s amazing people pay retail for
this stuff,” Gabe says, scowling at the price tag. “Hey, I got
Lords of
Darkness IV
; prepare to be fire-balled into oblivion!” Gabe holds up a
video game box on which a ridiculously-chested heroine swings a glowing sword
at a huge goblin creature. Her tattered blue dress struggles mightily to shield
her private parts.

“You just bought that because her
boobs are about to pop out,” I tell him.

“Well, if her clothes are in this
shape now, I figure she’ll have to be naked by the end of the game.” Gabe gives
me a raunchy grin.

“You got hosed by some marketing
intern. That game probably sucks.”

“As long as she looks like this the
whole way through, I won’t even notice.”

And this is the way things are
between us. Comfortable. Teasing. Gabe’s aura always follows the expressions of
his face; jumping up when he laughs; flooding with green streaks when he thinks
he says something especially clever; and dimming down into pale lavender hues
when we fall into those reflective, quiet moments together. It’s easy to
believe we’re just a normal brother and sister, that I’m wearing these gloves
as a quirky fashion statement.

***

Gabe is running late to MMA
practice, which means there’s not time to drop me off at the house. On the way
over I try to predict which particular scowl Tarren will use on us when we
arrive. I think I do a pretty good Tarren impression. I clench my jaw, press my
lips together tightly, and squint my eyes just a little. I stare down at Gabe.

“Nah, that’s not it,” Gabe says.
“He’s more like: ‘You.Are.Late. Does not compute. Does not compute.”

We are giggling stupidly like kids
by the time we reach the gym’s parking lot.

“Who dares flaunt the sacred rule
of Tarren?” I boom.

“You fools! Your insolence has torn
open a vortex in the space-time continuum,” Gabe mimics the same tone.

“Now the entire universe will
collapse unto itself. All of humanity will be destroyed.”

“Thus is the penalty for not
following my orders. The great Tarren is never wrong.”

“Stop, stop, stop,” I say, trying
to catch my breath. We reach the door of the gym. “We’ve got to be cool,” I
wheeze.

“Totally…totally cool. No emotion,
like the Tarren-bot,” Gabe says, and that starts us all over again. We are
forced to retreat back to the truck where we both sit on the hood and try to
compose ourselves.

This takes a while, but when the
laughter drains away I’m left in a strangely somber mood.

“Can I ask you something?” I
whisper to Gabe, who is leaning his elbows on his knees.

“Shoot.”

I don’t really know how to approach
this; if I should even bring it up at all, though it’s one of those nagging
question that won’t leave me alone.

“The scars. Isn’t there some kind
of…um, treatment? You know, something that could help him?”

Gabe’s aura flutters and turns
dark. We never talk about Tarren’s scars. He hides them beneath long sleeve
shirts and pants, and we all endure the silent tension of his pain.

Gabe is quiet. Real quiet. I don’t
think he’s going to answer. Then, without looking up, he tells me a story.

“When, uh, when Tarren was
recovering from his…wounds, I went out and did a job. I was going stir crazy
with Tammy dead and Tarren all drugged and mummified at Dr. Lee’s house. It was
an easy job. New angel. Didn’t know nothing about staying under the radar. Had
this huge mansion in Los Angeles. I actually hotwired a BMW, pretended to be a
harried personal assistant to get past the front gate. That was pretty
awesome.”

Gabe’s aura remains dark, and the
words stream out of him like he’s afraid that if he pauses he might not make it
to the end.

“Got to his house, and the maid was
dead, iced, on the floor in the kitchen. Wife was dead out back. Her little
Chihuahua or whatever was running around barking like crazy. The husband, the
angel, was in the bedroom in a panic, packing a whole set of suitcases, ready
to get out of Dodge. I gave him two bullets in the back of the head. And there
was this duffle bag on the floor next to him. I opened it up, and it was full
of cocaine, jewelry and cash.”

“No way,” I interject.

“Scout’s honor,” Gabe holds up his
hand. “Just like in the movies. Well, I left the jewelry and coke, but I
grabbed the cash.” He whistles low. “Dude was loaded. There was three hundred
grand in that bag.”

“You just took it?”

“It was cash. The guy cleaned out
his bank account. None of that is traceable.”

“So, then, what? We’re rich?”

“Well,” Gabe looks down, and the
color runs up to his cheeks. He fiddles with the sleeve of his jacket. “I put
it all into a safe deposit box for Tarren. I haven’t touched it since then. I
wanted to use it to…” Gabe takes a breath, powers through, “to pay for whatever
he needs to get rid of the scars. I’ve looked into it. There are some
options—laser treatments, skin grafting, even stem cells—but it’s pretty damn
expensive. I mean, they can’t completely get rid of them, but they can do
amazing things. Only, Tarren doesn’t want it. He won’t even talk about it. He’s
just so fucking stubborn!”

“He feels guilty about Tammy,” I
say, “that he got out of Grand’s clutches and Tammy didn’t. The scars are a way
to punish himself.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Gabe says. His
voice is rising and so is his aura.

I’m bewildered that he hasn’t made
this connection before. Then again, the fact that Gabe is not a very intuitive
person is one of his most endearing character traits as far as I’m concerned.
If he ever knew me for what I truly was, I would never see those lovely
lavender shades in his aura again.

“What’s the point?” Gabe goes on.
“Him being miserable and unhappy isn’t going to change what happened. Doesn’t
he know that I’d do anything, anything to bring her back too? Or that maybe it
tears me up inside just like him?” Gabe clenches his hands into fists. “It
still hurts every fucking day, but Tammy would have beat the living shit out of
the both of us if she saw us going all teary-eyed over her. Fuck.” The energy
around him blooms bright, flickering at the edges. I shiver and look away.

“Tammy was always the strong one,
you know,” Gabe says after a while, his voice softer. The colors of his anger,
deep reds and elastic yellows, merge together and begin to dim in his aura. I
keep my hands balled into fists, but the orbs are sinking back down.

“Anyway,” Gabe finishes, “I put
that money away for Tarren. Never even told him about it. He’d just insist we
buy more guns, more supplies, or whatever. But when he’s ready, when this thing
is over, and the angels are all gone, I’m going to make him forgive himself. I
will.” Gabe’s voice wavers, and he ducks his head away from me. “Whatever’s
left we can, I mean it’s not really a lot of money, but we can start over.”

Even though this is stupidly
dangerous and I have to clench every single muscle to control myself, I lean
over and reach out to my brother.

“Gabriel is an angel’s name,” I
tell him and pull the devil horns out of his hair. At least this is what I try
to do. The headband gets tangled in his wavy locks, and my hands are kind of
shaking, so Gabe has to lean his head toward me and help.

“Nice try,” he mutters as I get the
headband free of his hair. I make to put it on my own head.

“Don’t!” Gabe’s aura flares again.
I freeze with the headband right in front of my face. “There aren’t any angels
in this family or devils,” he insists.

We look at each other. Beneath the
weight of our shared sorrow, even Gabe’s nearly invincible shield of sarcasm
can crumble, his Teflon smiles can buckle, and his mischief brown eyes can fade
and grow distant.

I drop the devil horns. We stand up
together and walk into the gym.

***

Tarren does give us a grandiose
scowl when we arrive, which is impressive considering that he’s wearing a
mouthpiece. His displeasure, however, is the least of my worries. Upon entering
the building, I know I’m in trouble. There are entirely too many people here.
In front of me, a class of men spar against each other on a black mat that
covers three quarters of the room while an instructor barks corrections. On the
other side of the mat, a group of rangy teenagers watches a lithe black woman
demonstrate an arm bar submission technique on an unlucky volunteer. Each
person is filmed in bright energy that flows in stark peaks and valleys as they
practice. The noise of grunts, groans, and sudden yells breaks over my
eardrums, and the scents of sweat and hormones mix a stiff soup in the air. I
pause just inside the door, dazed. Then I force all the shaking pieces of
myself together and demand that the cogs of my mind get back on the track.

This is going to be bad though. That
dark part of me, Monster Maya, purrs inside my head.

One hour
, I think to myself.
I don’t consider the hour after that or the rest of the day or, you know, the
rest of my life. Just one hour.
One hour, one hour, one hour.

Gabe changes into long shorts and a
tight muscle shirt and pops in a mouth guard while Tarren practices by himself
against a punching bag. In the proper spectators area, the teens’ overweight
mothers sit in folding chairs and flip through beauty magazines. I don’t need a
frown from Tarren to know I should stay away from them, so instead I sit Indian
style against the wall on a strip of hardwood floor next to a lot of gym bags
that assault my sensitive olfactory sense.

When Gabe is ready, the brothers
stand apart from the classes and spar. Facing off against each other, they
hardly look like brothers at all. Tarren is tall, thickened with long, lean
muscle. He so often reminds me of granite or steel or some other unbending,
impenetrable element. Gabe is at least five inches shorter and fifty pounds
lighter than his brother, but seems unconcerned by this discrepancy. He is a
whirl of energy, amazingly quick and flexible. His speed and agility seem to
always get him out of trouble. It’s really his lack of discipline that hurts
him the most. I can see it now — how he fixates on the attack and lets his
guard down — and I think I understand why it worries Tarren so much.

Today, Gabe is distracted, and
Tarren methodically breaks through his defenses and gets him down onto the mat
into a submission hold. As soon as Tarren releases his grip, Gabe bolts up, and
they go again. Gabe ends up back on the mat in short order.

“Concentrate,” Tarren tells his
brother. “You’re slow today.”