The Wicked City (20 page)

“Take this.” Cindy pulled her gun out and held it out to June, butt first.

June stared at it.

Cindy jerked it at her. “You might need it. It’s the least I can do.”

“You’ll be driving the getaway car,” June said. “I think that’s quite a lot.”

“You might need to shoot someone.”

June took the gun, delicately. The weapon was lighter than she expected, and she held it out at arm’s length, fearing she would accidentally pull the trigger. Cindy hurried out the door after the other two.

“Thanks,” June said after her.

Sam produced a duffel bag full of clothes and toiletries from one of the closets. “I keep stuff in here in case I ever need to make a getaway. I have bags all over the city, actually. I’m going to give you this one in case you can’t get back to California right away.”

“I haven’t brushed my teeth in over a week,” June said. “I’m not too concerned with hygiene right now. I’m more focused on living.”

“Still,” Sam said. “It’ll make me feel like a Good Samaritan. Take it.”

“Thanks.” She placed the gun gingerly on one of the sofas. “We need to get Micha ready too.”

June went into the bedroom and fished a blue cable-knit sweater out of Micha’s bag and, with Sam’s help, got it on him. She wanted to keep him from freezing to death when they hauled him out in the cold. He barely woke up during the procedure.

“He’s burning up,” Sam said. “Jesus Christ.”

“He needs a doctor, I think. He was also talking about Rose earlier.”

“He remembers?”

“I don’t know. It was strange. Like, he seemed to remember, but there wasn’t any emotion attached to it.”

“Something is definitely going on with him. As soon as we get you and your brother out of here, I’ll try to get a doctor to look at him. I have several private ones.”

“Thanks.”

When they returned to the main room, June spied a furry form slipping into the duffel bag on the floor.

“Dipster,” she said sternly.

The cat gazed out at her, eyes reflecting the light.

“I was only kidding about taking you with me. You don’t wanna go where I’m going, trust me.”

She sat down on the sofa. “I’ve never fired a gun,” she said. “This thing is useless in my hands.”

Sam sat next to her and picked the gun up. He turned it over in his hands. “It’s a Glock twenty-six,” He pushed something, and a narrow cylinder slid out the bottom. “Fully loaded, you’ve got ten shots.”

“Is the safety on?” June eyed the gun cautiously.

“Glocks don’t have safeties.” He pushed the cylinder back in. “The safety is in the trigger. They don’t fire unless you squeeze it. You can shake it.”

He did, and June winced.

“You can drop it,” he said. “Throw it against a wall, it won’t fire. You have to actually pull the trigger. It’s accurate. Very little recoil, so it won’t jerk your arm out of the socket. The only thing that scares me is Cindy totes it around.”

“I’m not sure I have the guts to use it.” June hadn’t been able to answer Sam’s question earlier, about killing for her brother.

Sam motioned for her to stand up. She did, wary, and watched, cringing inwardly, as Sam stood up as well and reached around her side.

“We’ll tuck it in your pants.” Sam stood so close she could smell him. Apparently he was still making showers a priority, as well as that interesting cologne he wore.

“You promise it won’t go off?” June said.

“Not unless you reach down and squeeze the trigger.” He made a space between her jeans and body. “You don’t have to be afraid. You can handle this gun.” He worked the muzzle into her pants.

“Why are you still helping me?” she asked. “Is this really benefiting you?”

“I hate the Institute. I’d do anything to make them pay.” He drew back.

The gun pressed against her hip, heavy and menacing. “It has to be more than that. You sound like you’ve got enough evidence to back them into a corner. You don’t need my plight to help you accomplish anything.”

“Do you want me to say I care about you? That I’ve taken some kind of liking to you?” He shrugged. “Maybe I have.”

“You don’t care about me. You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know you’re willing to risk your life to save your brother.”

“I ran when they took my brother.”

“If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t be able to save him now. Things happen the way they do for a reason. I know what’s inside you.”

“You don’t.” She tensed, on the defensive. “You see me in this situation, fighting because I have to. I’m not like you, Sam. I’m not proud of this thing I have. I grew up ashamed of what I am, when I saw it ruin lives and break up my parents. I never embraced it, and I never
will
. I’m an artist. I tattoo people. I hang out with my friends in shitty bars. I like whiskey and wine and I’ve never figured out how to have a boyfriend longer than six months. I’m a mess, but it’s my life. It’s normal, compared to all this. I just want a normal life.”

“I know what you want.” His eyes were intensely dark. “I know why you act the way you do, why you look the way you do. You draw attention to everything else so no one notices the one thing you want to hide.”

She took a step back, an instinctive wall going up. “I’m not this thing inside me. I don’t give a damn about the paranormal community, and activists, and science. This world just wants to make me a lab rat. You don’t know me, Sam, because you’ve only seen me trying to escape my inevitable persecution.”

“June.” He spoke as though addressing a temperamental child.

“Listen to me.” She held up a hand. “Everything you’ve done for me is phenomenal. I will be indebted to you until the day I die, which hopefully won’t be any time soon. But please, don’t think I have some emotional connection to you or anyone else here, not even Micha. I just want to get my brother and go home, and after that, I never want to see this city again.”

“I can understand that, trust me.”

“No you can’t. You love this city, and these people. You love your followers. You’re kinda crazy, but you’re a good person. I can see that. But we don’t want the same things.”

He snorted. “You think I’m a good person?”

“I think you’re a great person.”

“As great as your darling Micha?” He motioned toward the bedroom.

“I told you, I have no emotional connection to him.”

“You feel more than you think you do.”

“We could all die today.” She raised her voice. “The only thing I’m feeling right now is terrified.”

He reached out, grabbed the back of her head, and jerked her in close; he was surprisingly strong. June widened her eyes.

“Just shut up and kiss me good-bye,” he whispered, close to her mouth. “I’ll regret it if you don’t.”

June stared into his eyes, so close. “Who do you think you are?” The words didn’t come out as severe as she wanted them to.

“I know who I am, but you don’t know me. You mistake me for a selfless person. I’m not, and it’s better that you’re leaving. Now do as I say, like you’ve been doing all along.”

June did, though she wasn’t sure if the kiss was of her own volition. Sam’s lips felt the way they had at the pier, soft and smooth but much more yielding this time. She liked it, found herself willing and sinking into it. When he broke the kiss and drew back, her cheeks were burning. Sam turned away.

“Don’t get yourself confused with someone else.” He snatched his mug from the table. “You’ll realize who you are, who you really are, before this is over.”

June patted her hip and the gun under her waistband, awkward and searching for something intelligent to say in return. She didn’t know how to react, if she even should react, if she needed to. She licked her lips and tasted Sam’s mouth, the taste of coffee and something dark and dangerous and thrilling. Her stomach sank. His words foretold the end of her life as she knew it. She couldn’t turn back now.

“You’re awful pushy.” She tried to sound belligerent. She didn’t so much.

“Someone has to be.”

The others returned with two cars, and they left for Promontory Point a half hour before the press conference. Sam, June, and Muse rode in one car, while Robbie, Cindy, and Micha followed in the other.

June sat in the passenger seat, Sam driving, entombed in tense silence. They took a freeway, speeding over pavement washed white by the winter’s punishments. The lake loomed to their left, choppy and dark under a low bleak sky. They seemed to be driving to the end of the world, and June figured they probably were. Sam's earlier, prophetic words still rang in her ears. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel, his skin pale in the stark light. He glanced at her.

“What did you mean?” she asked, voice low. “Not to get myself confused with someone else?” She didn’t care if Muse heard, but speaking too loudly seemed wrong.

“Most people like to think they’re someone they’re not.” He flexed his fingers on the wheel. “It’s a symptom of being alive in this world, in this day and age. It’s worse for us, for people like us.”

She gazed past Sam, at the water. “What if I don’t like the person I might actually be?”

“Of course you don’t like the person you actually are. That’s why you don’t try to be her.”

“What will happen to you after today?”

“What will happen to any of us? Let’s throw the dice and find out.”

When they exited the freeway, the clock on the dashboard said 2:56. They entered a parking lot situated below an overpass, the lot packed with cars and news vans. They parked at the back of the lot, and Cindy pulled in beside them. A tunnel opened beneath the overpass, gaping like a mouth, complete with an arch of granite teeth waiting to chew them up.

“Looks like the whole damn circus is here,” Sam said.

June wanted to get out, and at the same time, she wanted to stay in. Her brother might be close, but untold dangers stood between them. She slid her hand over her left hip, over the bump under her jacket.

Everyone started getting out. June opened her door.

Cindy's face was scrunched up as she got out of the other car, her cell phone in hand. Robbie got out of the backseat and pulled Micha out after him. Micha was sagging, limbs flopping. Even though Robbie was slightly shorter, he didn’t seem to exert any great physical effort in maneuvering Micha upright.

“This is perfect,” Sam said. “Everyone’s here by now. I can make an entrance.”

“Sam,” Cindy said, “I just got a call from Kevin.”

“How unfortunate.” Sam grabbed the duffel bag out of the back of the car and held it out to June. “Put that in the other car.”

June took the bag with a mumbled “thank you.” She opened the back door of Cindy’s car and set the bag on the floor of the backseat. When she turned around, Muse was watching her, one eye twitching rhythmically. Muse had her fluffy furry white coat wrapped around her, like the day June met her. She still looked like a snowball with legs.

“Kevin said the police came by to dig the bullet out of the bar,” Cindy said. “Except…they didn’t find one.”

Sam went still. Cindy withered under his gaze.

“What?” Sam asked.

“He said there wasn’t a bullet in the bar when they went to take it out.”

Sam was unmoving except his hair being tugged by the wind. Muse, standing beside him, was also completely still, her face blank and no longer twitching.

“How could there be no bullet in the bar?” June asked. “We saw the hole.”

“I knew it.” Sam glanced sideways at Muse.

“What the hell is going on?” June asked.

“We should go,” Robbie said, from the other side of the car. “We can’t wait much longer. The conference is about to start.”

Sam nodded at Muse. Muse looked around the parking lot. June tensed, and her heart pounded even harder.

“He’s right.” Sam snapped to attention. “We need to get in there. Muse and I will go in first. Then June, you and Robbie follow exactly two minutes after. We don’t want anyone to see us together. Remember the plan.”

Cindy frowned at her cell phone and got back in the car.

“Good luck,” Sam said. “You’ll need it. We all will.”

“Be careful.” June gazed at him. “If this is the last time we see each other—”

“We already said good-bye.”

He turned and strode toward the tunnel, coat billowing, scarf flapping. Muse followed. June shivered as they went, unsure if fear or cold was making her shake as much as she did.

When they disappeared through the tunnel, Robbie looked at his watch. Micha sagged against Robbie’s side, head hanging. The whole world seemed to stop, poised on the brink.

“What the hell is going on? With the bullet thing?” June’s question was more to the air than Robbie.

Robbie didn’t respond.

Two minutes seemed to take forever. Then Robbie said, “Time to go,” and the wait didn’t seem long enough.

They crossed the lot, pressing against the frigid wind. Robbie appeared to glide, pulling Micha along. Passing into the tunnel did indeed feel like being swallowed up; stepping out on the other side proved worse. Suddenly they were in the wide vulnerable open. No turning back.

Straight ahead stood a fountain comprised of a basin and a short black pillar, a sculpted sleeping fawn curled on top. A rather subdued greeting for Hell’s lobby. Paved paths wound through snow-caked lawns and snaked under the bare black branches of trees. No one was walking or biking. Aside from the sound of cars on the freeway above, all was still.

“This way,” Robbie said.

She followed him along one of the paths. The sight of him nearly floating unnerved her, so she stopped watching him and kept an eye out. In short time, a building rose into view: a one-story white stone structure with a red brick roof and a turret in the middle. People stood outside.

“That’s the field house,” Robbie said. “This way, we can’t walk past it.”

They veered onto another path.

They didn’t stay on the path for long, leaving the pavement and crossing the lawn instead. June crunched through the snow, while Robbie and Micha didn’t even leave tracks except for faint lines on the top layer. After a few minutes, they reached the edge of a revetment bordering the lake. Wide slabs of rock provided uneven steps down to a concrete promenade. In the distance, beyond a flat, pale beach, the looming buildings of Chicago extended out into the water, ominous against the dismal sky.