Out of This World (2 page)

So I tell her my idea of getting Josh's phone and letting the Feds handle it.

“I can do that,” she says. “Get the phone, I mean. Where does he keep it?”

“It'll be in his bedroom,” I tell her. “The room that backs
on to the yard on the ocean side. The one on the right if you're facing the house. But dude, you can't just—”

I don't get to finish. One moment the cute rasta girl is there, the next I'm looking at a coatimundi. I swear she gives me a wink from her masked features before she slips by me to scurry across the street.

I suppose I should be worried. The Black Key guys know all about Wildlings. If the sniper spots a coatimundi trying to get into Josh's house, he's likely to take a shot at her just out of principle. But as she takes her animal shape all I can think is, that is so cool.

I'm feeling a little shaky as I follow Tío Goyo into the otherworld. I can't get it out of my head. What I did to Vincenzo. The mess I left behind on the headland.

All those bits and pieces that I tore up used to be an actual living being. It's worse than when I killed the researcher at ValentiCorp. That was over so quick that I didn't have time to even think about it. I could put it down to instinct. Defending myself and Rico. A gut-reaction payback for what she'd been doing to those kids. But this …

What kind of a monster am I becoming?

It's not like Vincenzo left me any choice—not after threatening Mom and Marina and everybody. It's what I did to his corpse afterward. I can't reconcile that with who I always thought I was. What kind of a maniac does something like that?

I can't even imagine Chaingang doing it, and he's about as hardcore as they come. Yeah, he was a gangbanger, and pretty much the toughest guy I ever hung out with, but there was something noble about him, too. And now Chaingang's probably dead as well.

I think about Marina, and how she could have ended up
with a guy like him. I just can't imagine them as a couple. Marina has such a sweet, gracious nature. She's always looking out for other people's feelings. Chaingang might've had his friends' backs, but his social conscience ended there. Marina hates drugs and violence, so how did they end up together? And where could it possibly have gone? Like her parents were going to let her run around with a biker gang? Like she'd even
want
to be cruising around town on the back of Chaingang's Harley while he goes about his business, dealing dope, fighting with the Riverside Kings?

Nothing makes sense anymore.

I should be back home with my friends. Trying to fix my friendship with Marina and consoling her, and just getting past all this crap. Doing whatever it is that Auntie Min thinks I should to make sure nothing bad happens to the other kids who became Wildlings.

And Mom's going to be worried sick.

Instead, I'm literally in the middle of nowhere with some old guy I don't know and I'm not entirely sure I can trust, looking for my ex-girlfriend who dumped me. Okay, technically, I dumped her, except Elzie was the one who gave me that either-or choice.

I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing, but with Vincenzo dead, surely Auntie Min can look out for Marina and Des.

Elzie doesn't have anybody but me, and Vincenzo's crew are sure to kill her when they find out what I did to him.

Theo pulls over beside the corner groceteria near Papá's house and kills the engine. I hold on to him for a long moment, arms wrapped around his comforting presence. One of his big hands covers mine and gives them a squeeze. I could stay like this all night, but there's still so much to do. I give Theo a last reluctant hug, then get off the bike. Theo takes my hands before I can step away, concern plain in his eyes.

“Are you going to be okay?” he asks.

“It's just Ampora.”

He smiles. “Who you were ready to beat the crap out of yesterday. She pushes all your buttons, sweetcheeks.”

I know what he's doing. He's trying to get a rise out of me. Trying to get me out of myself so that I'll forget the fact that Josh literally tore a man to pieces before disappearing on us without a word.

“I could call Donalita back,” he says. “I really don't think those Black Key guys are gunning for Des anyway. I'll get her to return to my grandma's and then I can stay and have your back.”

I smile. “Oh, and you showing up is going to put Ampora in such a receptive mood.”

“Yeah, maybe not.”

“Besides, I'm not worried about dealing with Ampora. I'm worried about Josh.”

Theo gives me a slow nod. “I get that. I'm worried, too. But I'm also trying to figure out what changed him. The Josh I first met wasn't all jacked up with the big
cojones
like the one I was with yesterday. And then there's that whole business with Vincenzo. I'd never have thought Josh had that in him.”

I shiver, remembering the awful sight of Vincenzo after he'd been shredded by Josh in his mountain lion shape.

“Anyway,” Theo goes on, “if he can take out Vincenzo that easily, I figure he can take on anybody. So that's not the problem. I'm more worried about how he's handling all of this.” Theo taps his temple. “In here.”

“Me too,” I say. “He's on his own over there, without anyone that he can trust. Plus you know what the elders say about going too deep into the otherworld.”

“He's not all alone. You saw those other footprints. Somebody took him deeper into the otherworld.”

“Except, is it a good guy or one of Vincenzo's friends?”

“I hear you. Here's my take: we can beat ourselves up worrying about it, or we can deal with the problems we've got in front of us and trust Josh to handle himself over there.”

“It's just …”

He pulls me close. “I know,” he says into my hair. “You're in mama-bear mode. But there's nothing we can do.”

I nod when he lets me go. He's right. I don't know if I'll be able to keep it all together the way he can, but I can at least try.

I take out my phone and text Ampora to meet me in the playground. Theo waits until I get an answer.

“Are you going to need a ride home?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I'll either stay over at Papá's, or I'll need the walk to blow off steam before I have to face the music with Mamá.”

He nods. “I'm just a phone call away.”

We share a last lingering kiss, then he gets on his bike and pulls away while I walk to the playground to meet my sister. I sit on a swing, tapping my foot on the sand. She makes me wait. It's a full ten minutes before she comes sauntering down the street from her house and drops onto the swing next to mine. I get a twinge in my gut remembering how we played endlessly together when we were kids, just like our little sisters do now.

“So, how'd your meeting go?” she asks, her voice even, which is so much better than the usual vitriol that she reserves for me.

For a moment I don't know what she's talking about. Then I remember that I told her about the meeting with some of the Wildling elders, but I didn't give any details except to tell her that if she came along, it would make things harder on Josh. Now I don't know what to say.

Do I tell her how this guy Vincenzo crashed the meeting? How he killed Tomás and almost killed Theo? That Theo—who she knows better as Chaingang—is my boyfriend and we're both Wildlings? That Cory went into Theo's head and literally pulled him back out of a part of the otherworld called the dreamlands? How Josh tore Vincenzo into pieces in his Wildling shape, then disappeared into those same dreamlands?

She wouldn't understand any of that. I can barely believe Josh ever told her he's a Wildling, or that she's suddenly crushing on him.

“Good,” is all I say. “Thanks for covering for me.”

“I wasn't just doing it for you,” she says. “How's Josh? Is he okay?”

“Josh … went away.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

My heart begins to sink as I hear the faint edge of her usual belligerence.

“Honestly,” I say, “I don't really know. It's some kind of Wildling thing, I guess. He just took off. He didn't say where he was going. He didn't”—my voice catches for a moment—“say when he'd be back.”

“This is bullshit.”

“No,” I shoot back at her. “This is the truth. You don't get to call it bullshit just because you don't want to hear it.”

She glares at me, but I remember the advice Theo gave me earlier in the night, before I came by to get Ampora to cover me while I went out to Tiki Bay for the meeting.

Just give her the hard stare, no budging
.

So instead of looking away like I usually do, I hold her gaze until she's the one to break eye contact.

“But he's okay, right?” she asks, all the aggression gone from her voice.

I want to tell her that what she's feeling for Josh isn't real. It's only because of the pheromones that Wildlings give off. But that seems mean-spirited. And really, what do I know? Maybe she really does like him. He's a good guy. I crushed on him for years—long before he became a Wildling and there was any chance that pheromones were involved. So why can't it be the same for her?

Except I can't tell her any of that, either. And for sure I don't tell her that we assume he's gone looking for Elzie. If Josh
and my sister have something to work out, I'm not going to be standing in the middle. Des would say she's a bitch and deserves to feel bad, but I can take the high road.

“It's Josh,” I say, answering her question. “Lately he's been surprising everybody with how he can deal with anything that gets thrown at him. I'm sure he'll be fine.”

She nods. “Mamá called around eleven.”

Oh, crap.

“What did you say to her?”

“Don't worry,” Ampora says. “I was polite.”

“But—”

“It's cool. We had a deal. You don't tell Papá and Elena about the trouble I got into, and I cover for you. She thinks you're sleeping over.”

Wow. Ampora should get in trouble with the Riverside Kings and then crush on Josh more often. This is the most she's said to me in years without biting off my head. And she actually covered for me? I guess she took me seriously when I told her that if she wants to hang with Josh, she'd better get used to me being around, too.

“Speaking of which,” Ampora goes on, “we should get back inside.”

I nod. “What'll Papá and Elena say when they see me in the morning?”

“They'll be so happy we're getting along that they won't even stop to ask how you got there.”

“I owe you,” I tell her, giving the chain of her swing a little pull.

“I know,” she says. “Big time. And I won't forget.”

“Don't live inside your head so much,” Tío Goyo says, and I start.

But he's right. That's exactly what I've been doing. I've been walking beside him, staring at the ground and not paying attention to anything but the soap opera in my brain.