Indigo: The Saving Bailey Trilogy #2 (16 page)

“
You’re
going to stich me up?”

“Yeah, I know what I’m doing. I’ve been the nurse for years, now.” He stands.

I nod reluctantly and flash a look to Ashten.

“See you inside, Ashtray,” Holden says climbing back inside the trashcan.

“
Ashtray?
”

“They started calling me that after Trenton threw me in the fire,” she says, her eyes looking away and settling on the alley wall behind me.

“Are you going to help me up, or what?”

“Oh,” she says.

She approaches me slowly, like I’m a dangerous, wounded animal. Then again, maybe I am. She wraps one arm around my waist and eases me up the wall, against my protests of pain.

“There,” she says, “not too bad, huh?”

Don tucks his IPod in his waistband and lifts me over the side of the dumpster. Ashten climbs down the ladder before me. She places her hands on the small of my back to steady me as I climb down.

When I get to the gap between the floor and last rung, I hold my breath and jump. My cut stings in fresh pain, I grimace.

Don snakes an arm around my waist. “Don’t worry, babe, I’ve got you.” I internally roll my eyes. He keeps his arm around me, until I step foot into Cairen’s anything- but -private office.

“You’ve come back!” Cairen says, enthusiastically lifting his hands into the air like he’s directing an orchestra.

“Yeah, after your sister slashed me open.” I inhale sharply.

He pushes a paper to me on his desk- the Blood Oath- and reads it aloud.

I block him out though, because the only reason I’m signing the oath is to avoid death and nothing it says could be worse.

“Sign here. In blood
,
please,” he says, as blasé as if I were signing a car rental agreement.

I dip my fingers in my cut, wincing, and sign my name in wide, crimson cursive. No emotions. No resistance. Just compliance.

“Will that work?”

“It’s not the conventional way, usually people just prick their finger, but it works,” Cairen says.
“
Welcome to the Allie
.”

This is
not
the same Holden from high school; that Holden was an indentured servant to Trenton. He was an inconsiderate slug, pulling his weight around the school, his mind always drifting to faraway places. The kind of guy who would hit a girl, not pet her hand as he readied a syringe of medicine to ease her pain.

I’m lying on a white cot in the second cube of the warehouse while Holden stiches my stomach closed. He flicks a syringe full of the clear liquid that will take away the pain in my stomach but not the pain in my heart as I think of the mess I’ve gotten myself into.

A quick jab, the pressure of the morphine as it travels through my vein- a warm, burning sensation, and then suddenly the fact that I’ve just signed my soul to the devil doesn’t seem so bad
.

Holden pulls a white sheet up to my chin. I touch the scratchy fabric; see his hand and the empty syringe, and then pass out.

The first thing I see when I wake is Cairen’s hideous, moss-colored eyes as they look me over tentatively. It gives me gooseflesh, his gaze heating me up as if I have a fever.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” he says.

I moan when I hear his voice
. The wail of ten dying infants would have been a more welcome sound.

“I want to have a talk, do you mind? And then I’ll have Ashten take you home so you can rest some more.”

I do mind—
greatly
—but my mouth is locked to the words I want to say.

“Okay look, I’m sorry about trying to rape you and the whole shebang.” He claps his hands together. “It got out of hand,” he says. “This is kind of a big deal… me apologizing for drugging a girl. Imagine if I had to say sorry to every girl I ever drugged…I wouldn’t even be able to find half of them. Don’t take it personally. I don’t
actually
give a crap about you. But you’re a member of the Allie now, so I thought we should start anew.”

He sticks his hand in front of my face.
Spear hands
,
jackhammer, stone, vice grip hands
. “Hi, I’m Cobra Cai,” he says.

I find my hand in the sea of white cotton and place it in his. “Hi,” I say, faintly. “I’m Bailey Sykes.” He wraps his hand around mine and gives it a firm shake.

“We need to think of a better name for you,” he says. “I know, how about Indigo?”

“
Indigo
.” I let the name roll around my mouth. I like the way it feels on my tongue and sounds in my head. “I like it.”

So, my near rapist just gave me my street name. Something about that seems wrong, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let it get to me. After all, it’s kind of the least wrong thing about the situation I’ve been backed into—forced into a gang and cut open
.
Yep, what really counts as
wrong,
anymore?

“Your eyes are the color of Indigo,” Cai says.

“Your eyes are the color of puke.”

“Fair enough. I’d say you’ve earned a few stabs at me.” He chuckles.

“I don’t have to live here, do I?”

“No, you just have to be around. Stay where we can reach you. Come to hang out on your off days. We’re family, now.”

“So, who are you? The creepy uncle that molests everybody?”

“Second stab,” he says, “you only have one left.”

Ashten comes to the foot of the cot, her gaze settling on my sheets. “I can take you home now,” she says softly.

I sit up and am surprised by how little it hurts; maybe the morphine is still working. I don’t know how long I’ve been knocked out for. Cairen offers to carry me, which I reject without a second thought.

When I cross the warehouse floor this time, the Allies are awake and conversing in small groups. They part for me like the Red Sea as I head for the ladder.
We’re family now
.

I climb into the sunlight and Don waves as I return to the surface. It takes a while for my eyes to adjust, but when they do, I hyper focus on every little detail of the alley. I’m particularly intrigued by an old refrigerator, gutted out and lying on its side at the end of the alley. I motion to it, “What’s that for?”

“You don’t want to know,” Ashten says.

“If I didn’t want to know I wouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s for when an Allie gets boxed out.”

I nod for her to explain further.

“If an Allie brings dishonor to himself, or runs away from the gang like Trenton has, then the leader, or a worthy Allie takes him and puts him in the fridge.”

“And buries him?”

“Oh no, that’d be too hard,” she says. “One of us fires off three rounds from a shotgun. The bullets could miss you completely or hit you in every one of your most important organs.”

“Are you guys going to box Trenton out?”

“Not ’you,’ Bailey.” She pauses. “
We
.”

In silence, I follow her to the car, my stomach churning from the thought of being crammed into a refrigerator and blindly shot at.

“You won’t have to shoot him,” Ashten says.

“How about we
not
talk,” I say. “You aren’t exactly my favorite person right now.”

“You’re moody, you know that?”

“You cut me open. Sorry if I’m acting a little cold.”

“Not cold—lukewarm. But still, I had Holden take care of you.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” I mutter.

She takes a different route back to my apartment, one that passes through neighborhoods of foreclosed homes, with overgrown yards dominated by weeds. The windows busted out from kids throwing rocks or shooting at them with B.B.s; Graffiti marking the front doors and garages.

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” Ashten says.

“Not really,” I say.

“Bailey, look deeper. They’re works of art created by the hands of the underground children.” Her voice gets this wondrous tone to it, as if we’re in a museum examining one of her favorite exhibits.

“Underground children?” I snort.

“Kids that eventually end up in the Allie—underground.”

“Why is that?”

“Why do we hangout underground? Because it’s harder for the Apocys to attack us… and they do enjoy attacking us
.
”

“Why do they attack?”

“For all kinds of reasons, but mostly for crossing territory.” She waves her finger in my face and says, “Never cross onto the Apocalypse’s home turf, unless you want a bullet in your head.”

“Got it,” I say.

She parks in my driveway; I get out and slam her door hard.

“Watch it, Indigo!”

I flick her off from behind, not bothering to turn around. Mom, who is on the couch with her nose in the blinds, glares at me.

“What did that girl just call you?” she asks when I step inside.

“Nothin’,” I say, anticipating a lecture.

“I better never see you flick someone off again, or I’ll break your finger,
young lady
.”

“I think we’re past that.” I laugh inwardly.

“Past what?”

“You telling me how to behave myself. It’s a little late for that.”

“Apparently, by the way you’re talking back,” she says. “Go to your room, now. You’re grounded.”

“What!” I shout. “I’m not twelve, Mom. You can’t
ground
me.”

“I just did. And, I’ll slap your mouth the next time you talk back to me like that.”

“Oh, really? Will you, Mother? And then what? Slice my throat with a piece of broken glass? Oh, wait you already did
that
.”

Not giving her time to respond, I storm into my bedroom and kick down my prescription bottle pyramid. Angel growls at me for my Godzilla-like rampage. “Shut up, boy!”

“Don’t take your anger out on the dog,” Mom huffs. She comes into my room, picks up Angel and takes him to the couch with her.

I grunt and throw my door shut.

Sent to my room like a little girl
. I can be initiated into a gang, yet I am still sent to my room like a child. I kick the wall and wish I had more things to kick, but my room is as sparse as a grocery store after an epidemic.

Mom knuckles on my door and yells for me to stop, or she’ll beat me.

“You don’t understand!” I scream at her, sounding like the child I was trying so hard not to be treated like.

“Bailey, what’s going on? This isn’t like you to be acting out without reason,” she says, finally catching on to my air.

“I just want to sleep,” I say. “
Leave me aloneee!
”

She goes back to the couch to snuggle up with
my
dog, while I spread out on the floor like an eagle, the white gauze Holden taped over my cut showing as his jacket rises above my torso. Baggy sleeves hang from my stick arms like wings. Curled fingers, talons. I pull the hood over my head- completing my metamorphosis into the eagle I’ve seen on Miemah’s wrist.

I’m weak and weary from the day; my eyelids close, shutting out the room as I spin in its epicenter. I envision the floor as a piece of paper in a spinning paint machine. I’m the various bright colors of paint dripping onto the paper and swirling together.

I wake frequently, for a number of reasons; sometimes the night terrors and dreams of Cairen stripping me naked, other times because the light has been turned off.

Jack still haunts me, but less than before. Actually, I’ve been so consumed with Clad, Spencer, and Cairen that Jack has been hitting the back burner lately. The darkness I felt that night still comes to steal my breath away, though; it’s as relentless as ever. But the thing that makes my heart feel like an apple with a worm crawling through it is the presence of someone watching me as I sleep.

My eyes snap open for the tenth time tonight.

The sensation of a person standing outside my window makes it impossible for me to fall back to sleep; usually I would calm my fretful mind by watching out my window until the dawn breaks, but tonight I’ve hit the end of my rope. I want my privacy back, my sleep, and the peace of mind that my window can be ajar without someone snooping outside of it.

I find a flashlight in the kitchen, and take Angel out of Mom’s sleeping arms. I unbolt the door and run outside, the small flashlight held in my teeth and Angel tucked under my arm like a football.

I run circles around the apartment and go into the street, not really expecting to see anyone, when suddenly a shadow forms beneath the glow of the street lights. A person steps out from behind a car; I shine my flashlight at the face that squints back at me in the darkness.

“Don’t move, stay right where you are!” I holler. “I’ll call the cops!”

I run up to the figure. “What the…” I trail off in shock. “You’re the one who’s been watching me sleep?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Thomas man says, clutching his baby tight to his chest, safeguarding her.

“I give you money and you follow me home like a stray cat?” I say. “I know it’s you who’s been stalking me every night.”

“What are you talking about? I was only resting against this car,” he says in earnest.

“And I’m supposed to believe it’s some coinkidink that you were right outside my apartment?” I say.

Angel growls at him.

“Well no, that wasn’t. I did follow you here, one day. But I never came near your apartment. I’ve always kept my distance.”

“I don’t believe that for a second!” Angel snarls and I pet his hair, which is standing on end.

“It’s true; I only followed you here because I felt safe. Thought maybe you would give me a few more bucks for the baby. She’s been sick and hungry.”

“Why don’t you take her to a shelter?”

“I have, but the men there don’t like me. They start trouble. ‘Sides, the baby and I fare better on our own. We’re a team.”

“You do realize your teammate is no bigger than your arm, right?”

“She’s all I have.”

“Stay away from my window,” I say.

I give the baby a quick once over before running back up the sidewalk and into the apartment. I plop Angel on top of Mom’s outstretched legs.

Sleeping on the floor hurts my stomach, so I give up my Egyptian sleeping ways for Mom’s queen sized bed. I curl into a ball and put the covers over my head, tucking into myself like an armadillo and falling back to sleep.