Indigo: The Saving Bailey Trilogy #2 (36 page)

“Aren’t we killing time now?” Holden asks, ruining the peaceful silence.

“No,” I say. “We’re living in it.”

I kick my feet around in the pool a little, to make it look like I’m doing something and I am not bothered by the silence. And that I especially don’t need his voice to fill it. Actually, I’m enjoying myself, here, eating my moldy sandwich and sitting in my wet underwear.

“If you won’t talk about that, then can we talk about something else?” he asks.

Aren’t you enjoying your moldy sandwich, the silence, and your wet underwear too?
I think. “What do you want to talk about?”

He takes a calculated sip from his Coke and puts one finger up to silence me. “Clad,” he says, swallowing.

“What about him?”

“Is it true he was going to shoot you at school? When he shot at the ceiling, what happened? There’re rumors, but nothing substantial. I want to know what really happened.”

“What’s the version of the story you’ve heard?”

He puts his Coke down and kicks his feet in the water with me. “Just that he was jealous of Trenton, so he brought a gun to school and was going to shoot him. The story becomes fuzzier from there. Some say you tried to grab the gun and aimed it at the ceiling. Others say that he changed his mind and shot at the ceiling.”

“He wasn’t going to shoot anyone. He was only trying to save me from myself. He’s in prison now, but he’s not the bad guy everyone makes him out to be.
I am
. But I had my reasons, whether they were valid or not,” I say. “I was trying to save myself, too.”

“So, Clad and you had the same objective:
save Bailey
. But from what? Why did you need saving? And why did it take the threat of Clad’s gun to do it?”

“You and Trenton are cordial; he must’ve told you already. Why bother asking me to retell the same story?”

Holden pours the rest of his soda, which has turned warm, into the pool. The brown bubbly syrup stains the crystal clear water. He mixes it in with his foot. “I stopped speaking to him after the shooting. Or actually, he stopped speaking to me. To all the Allies.”

“Holden, there are some stories that are never meant to be retold. I’m letting this one die here. Don’t ask me anymore about it, because I’ve locked it up and thrown away the key.”

“You’re full of stories, aren’t you, Indigo? You may not let me read you, but Bailey will. She’s too hurt to not let me.”

“You don’t know a thing about Bailey,” I say.

“I know she is stronger than Indigo and that you keep putting her in storage because you think she’s the weaker version of you. Indigo is fake. Indigo doesn’t even feel.”

“Exactly,” I say, pouring my soda into the pool. “How can anything hurt me if I don’t feel?”

Holden stands behind Cairen, a mime pantomiming. His facial expressions exaggerated, his hands talking for him. My eyes fasten to his mouth and I concentrate on his silent words. What was I supposed to say to Cairen? Something about the watch? Grayson…she had a husband or a son.
Grayson
.

Holden’s bottom teeth are crooked and out of place, like an earthquake rumbled through his lower jaw. They are yellow from smoking.
I kissed that mouth
.

“Got something for me?” Cairen asks.

“A platinum watch,” I say, timidly placing it in his open palm, “and a bracelet.”

Holden’s eyes grow large and his hands push up like he is trying to pry open a window.

What?
I mouth.

“So, we good now?” I ask Cairen.

He bounces the watch and bracelet in his hand, a greedy smile on his face. “We’re good, Indigo. See that wasn’t so hard, now was it?”

“Easier than I thought,” I mutter.

Holden, who had been holding his breath, exhales deeply and wipes sweat from his forehead. I had pieced together a pretty believable story while on the way over here. We must’ve run through it a dozen times, but Cairen didn’t want the details. And besides, I forgot everything I was supposed to say the moment I saw him.

Holden gives me thumbs up. I smile a little.

“You can go to the party, but I want you to be my escort. My
accessory
,” Cairen says.

Holden frowns and gives me thumbs down.

“What if I don’t want to go?” I ask, remembering my run in with the Apocys.
Bailey and Indigo had better sit this one out.

“You have to.” He takes his eyes off the watch and plants them on me.

“I really don’t want to.”

“Well, you’re going. That’s that,” he says.

I’m not paying attention to the change in his face, the change that would warn me to shut up. Holden is making silly faces that distract me.

“No, I’m
not.
”

Holden’s silly faces stop. He leans around Cairen and tries to push me back.

“Arguing with your leader?” Cairen says, striking out at me like the Cobra he is named for. Holden shoves me hard, sparing me from the attack. “You’re going to that party, Indigo. I didn’t ask if you wanted to.”

“Okay.”

“Yes, sir!” he corrects me.

“None of the other Allies have to call you sir!”

“You’re special. I don’t like any of the other Allies the way I like you. Call me sir or I will strike you down.”

“Yes,
sir
.”

“That’s better. Now follow me into the store.”

I’m breathing heavily, adrenaline pumping through me like a rash. Holden pulls me aside. “Are you all right? You’re shaking.” Cairen goes in without us.

“I want to rip him apart,” I say. “I want to kill him!”

“Quiet. Don’t let him hear you.”

“I want to go home,” I say. “Please, take me home. If I stay here he’ll kill me and if
he
doesn’t then the Apocys
will
!”

“Cairen likes you, he isn’t going to kill you. Just obey him. Don’t talk back and you’ll be taken care of. No Apocy will be able to get their hands on you.”

“Why should I have to obey him? I’m a member of his gang, not his bitch. We should all be equal!”

“He doesn’t think like that. He thinks he owns you. Better to stay on his good side, do what he says, and you shouldn’t have a problem.”

“I just want out,” I say. “I wish there was a way out.”

“There is, we could jump you, box you, or stab you out. Which would you prefer? If you live, you’re out, and if you die…well, you’re out too,” he says. “I’m sorry, Bailey, I wish there was a way out for you. But it’s best you realize it early on, that way you can please Cairen, ‘stead off ticking him off. Save yourself a few unnecessary beatings.”

“You’re just like him. You know that? All fucked up in the head. Thanks, but no thanks, Holden.” I open the door and close it in his face.

Grey plastic tables are piled with an odd assortment of items like ninety-nine cent tables at a department store sellout. Cairen is standing at one of them, showing-off the watch and bracelet.

“Grayson, what kind of faggot name is that?” Cairen says to an Allie who is bent over a tray of jewelry, polishing it like Spencer used to at Goodwill.

Spencer
. Can’t think about him. Can’t fall apart. Can’t remember his lullabies and sweet, sweet voice. The touch of his lips on my neck. My mind doesn’t listen to orders. It wants to remember him as badly as it wants me to return the watch and bracelet to that woman and tell her what an awesome name her son or husband has.

“Cobra Cai, what kind of—” I start to dis him, catching myself in the act.

“What, Indigo?”

“Never mind.”

Holden stands quietly at my elbow, I hadn’t seen him come into the store.

“These are my busy bees, Indigo. They sort through all the things we get from people,” Cairen says.

Pft
. He makes it sound like the stuff is donations, not stolen items.

“You don’t have to work back here because you’re a core member. They’re on the fringe- members I don’t have any interest in. You’re lucky; remember that the next time you start to run your mouth. Save the cockiness for the bedroom
.
”

Holden snickers. I suck air past my teeth and lock my jaws. We move past the jewelry table and follow Cairen to another, covered in sexy little pieces of clothing. Panties that are nothing but strings and skirts that could scarcely cover my backside.

“What do you do with all this stuff?”

“Whatever we don’t keep for ourselves we sell on EBay or Craigslist. I don’t know how they do it, but the money always ends up in my hands. That’s the thing about being king, Indigo; you take, take, take, and never have to give anything of yourself.

“Oh, it sounds wonderful… but sometimes I get tired of it and wish I could load the responsibility off on someone else.”

We all get tired of you
, I think.

“Anyway, Ashtray!” he says, snapping his fingers. Ashten comes from one of the tables. “Indigo will be going to the party tonight and I need her to look like a bombshell. Makeup, hair, the whole shebang. Don’t fail me, Ashtray, it’s very important. She represents us.”

Ashten casts her eyes down on me. “She’s going to need a lot of work,” she scoffs.

“Then let’s get to it,” Cairen says. “Take your clothes off, Indigo.”

“Wh-what?” I look to Holden, who is in the middle of a defeated shrug.

“Take your clothes off so I can dress you!” He yells, raising the back of his hand at me.

My hands snag at my shirt, I pull it off so quickly that my shoulders ache.

“Your shorts!”

My fingers shake; the button is stuck. I go for the zipper but it also gets caught. Holden’s hands roll into fists; he paces, not sure of where he should stand. I throw him a look of desperation and fear.

Cairen steps forward and rips my shorts open. The button flies off in an unknown direction. I fall and Cairen stands me to attention, his satanic glare burning me like the tail of a meteorite trailing against my skin.

“You don’t have to be so rough with her,” Holden says.

“Next time, you do as you’re told,” Cairen says to me.

“Yes, s-sir,” I stutter.

“I want you to wear this.” Cairen holds up a parakeet-blue corset with see-through, black lace roses running up and down the sides. “Take your bra off.”

I step out of my shorts and boots, keeping my eyes on my toes. I turn my back to Cairen and unclasp my bra.

Indigo is burning with anger; she only takes her clothes off for
paying
men. Bailey’s skin is crawling, like it’s covered in every species of insect in the world.

A smile creeps onto Ashtray’s face and, like an ugly caterpillar, it crawls across to Cairen’s, too. “Make sure you hide that cut on her arm with makeup, its nasty,” says Cairen.

My arms are crossed, covering my chest as best I can. Instinctively, I look to the cut on my arm; it’s puffy and streaked with red pinstripes.

“Lift your arms up,” he says, coming at me with the corset.

I put my palms to the sky and he tugs it over my breasts and ribs. He ties the silk laces that loop in and out of the back in X’s.
Tightly
. Too tightly. My chest is crushed; I take in tiny, shallow breaths.

“That looks nice,” he says, “very nice. Now, put this on.”

He holds a black skirt made of fake leather, out to me.

“But I can’t breathe…
sir
,” I say.

“Good, I was afraid I didn’t pull your corset tight enough!” He grins at me, his dull green eyes sparkling like shined pewter.

I take the skirt from his hand; pushing the hair from my eyes, I yank it over my thighs. Holden brings a chair over for me to sit. I thank him and ease myself into it, my corset becoming ever tighter as I bend my torso. Ashtray leaves and returns with a load of makeup-fake eyelashes studded with crystals, black eye shadow, and pens of electric blue and gold eyeliner.

“Play up her features,” Cairen says. “I always make sure the ladies look their best.” He winks at me.

This is me at my best?
Do I normally dress three notches
below
a drunken hooker who put her clothes on in the dark?

“He doesn’t even know what he’s talking about. And the way he just turned into a homosexual fashion designer is totally freak,” Ashtray says, motioning for me to close my eyes. “Anyway, your eyes are going to freeze men in their tracks.”

Ashtray with a sharp object near my eyes—
how could this get any worse?

The sharp point of the eyeliner streaks across the edge of my top eyelid, she is pushing too hard and her force is directing the pencil past my lid. I try to blink it away and she ends up stabbing me in the eye. I close both eyes and cover my face. She attempts to move my hands but they don’t budge.

“You’re going to poke her eye out!” Holden says, coming to my rescue. He puts my hands down and carefully inspects my watering eye. “Does it hurt?”

“Yes,” I say. “She scratched me!”

“Oh, puh-lease, you blinked.
It’s your fault!
”

“I wouldn’t have blinked if you hadn’t been pushing too hard. You wanted to hurt me.” I accuse her. “I can’t breathe, and now I can’t see. You and your brother are piecing me out like a junked car!”

My words echo against the walls of the large store building, everyone freezes. Cairen looks up from the table of Nike T-shirts and Puma sneakers he is working on; throwing a shirt down he comes away from the table and advances on us, in that long strided, threatening king walk, an imaginary red, velvet robe billowing behind him and bejeweled scepter in his hand.

Pressing a shank to the tip of his nose he says, “You poke her one more time and I’m going to poke
you
with this!”

“But she was whining that she can’t breathe!”

“Is that so, Indigo?”

“Yes, but…” I say.

“Yes
, sir
but,” Cairen corrects.

“Yes, sir! I can’t breathe!”

“Let me loosen the corset for you then,” he says, putting his shank away. I feel his hands on my back pulling at the strings and undoing the knot he made. But then he pulls tighter, as tight as he can—as tight as my ribs can stand without breaking—and knots the strings together again. “Better?”

“Yes, sir,” I say, through gritted teeth.

Ashtray laughs inside herself, her shoulders rising and falling. “Close your eyes,” she says. Her fingers wipe away makeup smeared by my tears.