Burned (2 page)
Tron closed his eyes and shook his head. Opening the wallet, he peered inside. “No cash?”
I shrugged.
He heaved a long sigh. “Where’s the cash?”
“I honestly couldn’t tell you.”
“Look, I trust you, but if—”
“When you return the wallet,” I said, “you should tell him that if he’s going to rent people, he should pay for their time with money, not fists.”
Tron jerked back, staring at the billfold like it was a snake about to bite.
I stepped through the door and he followed, walking with me to a city garbage bin. Lifting the heavy lid, he wiped the leather, then tossed the wallet.
“Can you believe how careless some people can be?” He shook his head and wiped his hands on his dress pants. “He should’ve been more careful.” He gave me a final once-over, then turned and walked back to his store.
I slid my sunglasses back on. Then I headed to Hastings Street—specifically, the stretch that made up the Downtown Eastside, Vancouver’s skid row. The dealers hadn’t come out to play, and the drunks were still hunched in alleys, letting the hot rush of cheap booze warm their bellies. A few girls were on the corners. If their super-short skirts and thigh-high boots didn’t tell passersby what they did to make a living, then the flat, empty light in their sunken eyes did. I went to my usual spots and handed off the cans to the old-timers of Hastings. Some of these guys were only in their forties, but life on the streets made them look and move like seniors.
Giving them food wasn’t straight kindness on my part. Sure, for some of
these guys, I stood in the gap between hunger and a half-full belly. The food banks were great, but for some of them you had to have government
ID
. And an address. Laughable. A lot of the people on the streets came here to disappear. They didn’t want to remember their lives, let alone their names. Besides, there was more need than supply. A person could only visit the food bank once a week.
If I didn’t bring food, they’d starve for the other six days, or dig through Dumpsters or go to the soup kitchens. The kitchens were the best option, except that charities run on the generosity of people with money. If people don’t donate food and money, then those places don’t have enough to go around. Too many nights, I’d had only my hunger to keep me company in the dark. If I could help even one person, then it was worth it.
But there was another reason.
The homeless had a network, a line of communication, a system of order.
Keeping in their good books meant that if I ever needed their help, it would be there. I moved through the network of alleys and sidewalks. For those with roofs over their head, a road was the thing that took them from one place to the other. For the homeless, the streets were a concrete jungle, complete with two-legged vipers, gold-toothed lions. Danger didn’t lurk at every corner. It stood strong and confident, waiting for someone to do something stupid.
And that wasn’t going to be me.
Not anymore.
I handed out the food and kept an eye out for Amanda. I wanted to give her the cash I’d lifted. She deserved it, and besides, walking around with two hundred bucks in twenties and fifties seemed a surefire way to get myself beaten up. The last time, it had taken three weeks for me to recover, and my ribs still ached when it rained. I didn’t need another visit to a hospital, another
“talk” with some nameless counselor who would fake compassion with empty eyes and an overly caring voice.
If Amanda was around, though, I didn’t see her. Like oil on water, fear floated in my mind, always there, always reflecting back the questions I didn’t want to ask.
After I finished handing out the cans, I headed to the East Hastings Community Kitchen. The facility was split into two sections. One had a kitchen and tables, and volunteers served dinner there three times a week. The other side was like a grocery store. Sort of. Shelves of food sat behind a long hip-high counter.
Volunteers were on one side. The clients were on the other. They gave us their family information and details on allergies, and we packed them a week’s worth of groceries. The community kitchen tried hard to make sure all members got what they needed: baby food for the tots, prunes for the older folks. It was hit and miss, and the shelves
were full or empty based on the community’s generosity. Christmas was the best time. In summer, we all lost weight.
In exchange for helping to stock the shelves, I got food. Technically, the policy was volunteer once a week and get a week’s worth of groceries. In my case, the organizers made an exception. I went there when I needed it and they gave me enough food to get by. It was safer. Too much of anything on the streets—food, clothes, money…happiness—and someone’s going to come and rob you of it.
I got to the kitchen and found Clem glaring at a clipboard. “Where should I go?”
Clem was ex-military, bald with a ruddy face and wide chest. He’d still be serving Queen and country if a missile strike at his convoy hadn’t taken out half his team and left him unable to reenlist. His gaze on his work, he said, “What’s the rule?”
“How do you know I’m wearing sunglasses? You’re not even looking.”
“Don’t have to.” He stretched his thick neck. “Feel it in my bones.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me.” He scribbled on the page. “Off.”
I took off the sunglasses and tucked them in my pocket.
He looked up from his clipboard. “Better.”
“You seen Amanda?”
“Nah.”
Crap. A wave of anxiety washed over me. Horrific images of what might have happened to her filled my brain. I swallowed. “You sure? She’s never missed a day—”
“Since you’ve known her,” he said. “She missed plenty before that.”
Yeah, but the past few months had been different. And I knew why. “She wouldn’t just go missing.”
Clem shook his head. “Eventually, they all go missing.” He impaled me with his stare. “Even you.”
There was no judgment or meanness. Just the truth of the life I led. That we all led, though
led
wasn’t the right word. None of us on the streets were leaders of anything. We were all just dragging our chains behind us and hoping the Vancouver rain would rust the shackles so we could finally break free.
He jerked a thumb to the left. “Go help that lady. She’s new to the kitchen.”
Yeah. I could tell. She was a fiftysomething blond whose designer clothes said she should’ve been at a country club, not here.
I collected a bag of pasta, milk, butter—the basic stuff that would get her through the week. Then I watched through the window as she shuffled to an S-class Mercedes sedan. I wondered why she didn’t just sell her $100,000 car but came up with the answer almost as soon as the question came to mind. In the neighborhood she lived in, it was probably better to sit hungry in the dark
than have the neighbors ask why she no longer had a vehicle. Pride. It was full of empty calories and did nothing to fill a belly.
I finished my shift, and Clem found me at the back door.
“Here. A hero sandwich.”
“Thanks.”
“And something extra.”
Frowning, I peered into the bag. Wagon Wheels.
“I saw you staring at them the other day—thought you might enjoy one.”
My vision blurred with memories of the past, a time when chocolate-and-marshmallow treats could solve all my problems. If people’s indifference left me wounded, their kindness killed me. It was too random, too unpredictable. There was no protection against it, and it didn’t come often enough for me to use it as inoculation against a world that saw me as two-legged vermin.
God. I needed to get off the streets before I lost everything that made me human.
“See you tomorrow,” said Clem.
“Tomorrow.”
The wind coming off the ocean had turned the night chilly. I tucked my bag close to my chest and hurried down the street. A sub and dessert for dinner. The night before, I’d had some pizza that someone had dumped in the garbage. Tonight I wanted to eat by the ocean, to savor the rare joy of eating food that hadn’t been pre-chewed, to sit and watch the waves and pretend—just for a minute—that I was a normal kid with normal problems.
I walked down East Hastings to Gore Avenue. At least, I meant to. As soon as I approached the corner, my skin flashed cold. I caught a glimpse of a big bald guy with a two-headed-eagle tattoo. It extended above the collar of his shirt
and encircled his neck. He looked up, stepped forward. The action cast a shadow over the person he was with, leaving him a faceless figure. Every instinct told me to run. Twisting on my heel, I did a one-eighty. A few steps away, I breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever was going down on the other side of the street, I wasn’t the target.
Then I heard footsteps behind me.
Heavy, hard and coming up fast.
First rule to surviving the streets: trust no one. I paid for that lesson with broken fingers and cracked ribs. Second rule? Show no fear. That one cost me bruised kidneys. The guy—those heavy steps could only belong to a dude—thundered toward me.
Option one: stop, turn and meet his gaze. But doing that was gonna mean losing teeth. Forget the hero sandwich. Bye-bye Wagon Wheel.
Time to run.
If I could make it to the SkyTrain, I could hop a car. No way was this dude going to outrun a train. Except the station
was four blocks away, and even if I could get there, I’d have to hope there was one already waiting. Rule number three of living on the streets:
hope
is just another way to spell
dead
.
I tossed the food in the garbage and took off. No point in remembering where I left dinner. It would be gone when I got back. The guy behind me didn’t call out as I took flight. Crap. His silence meant big, bad things for me. I upped my danger level from losing teeth to losing an organ. Couldn’t let that happen. I was partial to my organs.
My lungs pumped the air, my legs moved like pistons, and my brain raced for a way to get myself to safe ground. Priority: get off Hastings. No one would help if I got in trouble here. Water Street would be good. Shops. Night traffic. And a couple of blocks down.
I dodged the people littering the sidewalk, skating close by them and hoping
the bruiser behind me would slam into one. No sound of collision met my ears, but I didn’t look back to verify his agility. My brain stayed three blocks ahead, reminding me of construction detours, closed streets and dead ends. I let my feet follow instinct and did a hard right on Carrall Street.
My ragged breaths and the constant slap of his feet behind me were the only sounds I heard. Which, as I raced across the street and ignored the don’t-walk sign, was why I didn’t hear the car coming at me until it was too late to stop or change my direction.
Before She burned my life, I had a home. Friends. Homework. Team sports. I rocked track and field, was a master at the diving board. When the dark sedan rocketed my way, my years of training came back. Avoiding a run-in with a car was a mix of hurdles and high jump. As the bumper kissed my knees, I leaped
and landed on the hood. Perfect. The one thing I didn’t take into account: speed.
The car rocketed me off my feet. I slammed shoulder, then face, onto the hot metal and bounced into the windshield. The driver, his eyes wide with terror, hit his brakes, and I became the rock in the slingshot. I flew into the air, and then gravity yanked me down. As I smashed onto the unforgiving road, I tucked and rolled. It felt like the impact cracked every vertebra in my spine, but I didn’t hit my head. Stumbling to my feet, I hobbled to the other side of the street.
My body didn’t ache. It howled in pain. Legs burning, lungs about to collapse, bones cracked. I paid the price because it gave me the distraction I needed. On the road, his car blocking traffic, the driver held on to his door, yelling at me to do something anatomically impossible. Behind him stood the bruiser, thick-necked, crazy-eyed, ham-fisted, pissed and
unable to do anything. If he came at me, I was going to the driver and screaming for an ambulance, and the bruiser knew it.
I limped to a brick building at the corner of Powell and Columbia. A rattle from above made me look up. A girl dropped from the metal ladder. The ease of her jump labeled her an urban climber. She turned, made eye contact.
Nothing about the two of us was similar. I was taller, thinner and, because of my African-Chinese heritage, darkerskinned. But I looked into her eyes and was hit with the insane certainty that I was looking at my reflection. Instinct said she was like me: lost, alone, struggling to survive.
Then again, I’d just been rolled by a sedan and chased by a guy whose neck was thicker than my head. Maybe it was just the pain and adrenaline talking.
“Having fun?” I asked.
“Time of my life.” She spun on her heel and ran down the sidewalk, her black
hair spread like the wings of a dark bird as she ran.
I bent to catch my breath and ease the throbbing pulse in my back. Man, I was hungry.
And tired.
I pressed the heel of my palm to my forehead.
And lonely.
And freaked.
My pursuer was taking his steroid-fed body down the street, but the eagle tat was burned into my brain. The image originated in Albania and tagged him as part of a gang called the Vëllazëri. The word meant
brotherhood
, but
legion
was more appropriate. These guys made the Russians look like Boy Scouts and the Italians like choirboys. Whatever had gone on earlier, whatever he thought I’d seen, it wasn’t going to cost me teeth or an organ.
If he ever caught me, I was going to pay with my life.
“You.”
“Me.”
Vincent leaned against the door of his apartment. His watery blue eyes took in the scrapes on my face, the bruises forming on my cheeks. The throbbing around my left eye said I was going to wake up to a shiner. “You look better than last time.”
“You gonna let me in?”
