Over My Head (Wildlings) (29 page)

"You're something, you know that?"

"Something good or something bad?"

Her smile gets bigger. "Probably a bit of both." She waits a beat then adds, "So will you ever come surfing with me?"

I smile right back at her. "Will you ride on my bike?"

"I've already done that."

"True."

"So will you?"

"We get through all of this," I tell her, "and there's no end to the things I'd like to try with you."

She ducks her head, but I can see the blush. Grabbing her board, she pops it free from its wheels and runs around the rocks toward the surf.

I stand and move to the far side of the rocks to watch the poetry in motion.

Man, I can't stop smiling. Her, me. Nobody else around. It doesn't get much better than this.

Josh

"Want to stop and grab your phone?" Des asks.

We've been walking in the direction of the beach to catch Ocean Avenue, which we'll then take out to the Pacific Coast Highway. The route takes us right through the east side of our own neighbourhood.

I shake my head. "That'd mean I'd have to talk to my mother. She's been pretty cool with all of this, but if I stop in now, she's going to want to know what I've been up to and where I'm going, and I wouldn't know what to tell her."

"There's that."

"Do
you
need to check in?"

"Nah. I already told Mom I was hanging with you and I might be late getting home."

"And what are we supposed to be doing?" I ask in case his mother asks me. It's always good to get the stories straight.

Des shrugs. "No specifics. Just hanging out."

We walk a couple more blocks before he adds, "Maybe we should have taken the Feds up on their offer of a ride, dude. It's at least a twenty-mile hike out to Tiki Bay. It's going to take us forever."

"We're not walking."

"I'm not riding you as a mountain lion," he tells me.

I have to laugh out loud at the image. "Like I could carry you."

But I know I'm strong enough to carry him in human shape and I could run the distance easily.

"Let's try hitchhiking," I say. "We haven't done that in a while."

"There's a good reason for that, dude. Nobody picks up hitchhikers anymore except for the surfers, and they're all out on the waves by now."

"Do you have money for a cab?" I ask.

"Dude. You're not seriously asking me that, are you?"

Des never has money. Soon as he gets any, he spends it.

"Then it's hitch or walk," I tell him.

"Hitchhiking it is."

There's still lots of traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway as we follow it south, but no Good Samaritans. We keep to the side of the road, sticking out our thumbs as we walk along. When we get near the Ocean Avers clubhouse I consider stopping in to get my bicycle, but I put the idea right out of my head as soon as it comes. If Chaingang's not there we'll just be walking into a whole new mess of trouble.

The sun is starting to lower onto the horizon. I figure we've got about another hour of light and there's still a long way to go. Des isn't going to like it, but if we're going to get to where the others are before the night's over, I really might have to piggyback him the rest of the way.

"Dude, we are never getting a ride," he says as another car goes whipping by.

There's just the driver, alone in a big Buick with lots of room. I watch him until a curve takes the vehicle out of sight and then give Des a glum nod.

When a white Dodge van stops for us around ten minutes later, it doesn't even register that they're offering us a ride until the driver beeps his horn. Des and I give each other a grin and sprint for the vehicle. The side door slides open and a big Latino guy smiles down at us.

"Come on in," he says.

But Des and I just stand there with our mouths open.

There are six people in the van—and all of them are Wildlings. One of them gives off the powerful vibe of one of the older cousins, the rest are like me. Newly minted. But that's not what has us staring.

I don't recognize the guy driving, or the guy giving off the old cousin vibe in the shotgun seat, but the other four I've seen a million times. On the sleeves of CDs and 7" vinyl singles. On YouTube and their website.

It's The Wild Surf.

Only our favourite band of all time.

Chuy Martinez, the drummer, is the one who told us to get in. Beside him is Eddie Myers, the bass player, looking thinner than ever next to Chuy's towering bulk. Behind them are La Bamba, the lead guitarist who looks like a young Mexican Elvis, but plays like Dick Dale on speed, and Joanie Jones, the singer, just as hot in person as she is on a computer screen. When she smiles at us, I feel something melt inside.

La Bamba waves a hand in front of her face.

"Jesus, Joanie," he says. "Will you tone it down?"

"But they're cute."

Joanie Jones thinks
we're
cute.

"Especially the surfer," she adds.

Okay, so she likes Des better, but she still thinks I'm cute.

"Joanie," the older man in the front seat says with a warning in his voice.

"Okay, okay."

And just like that, the melting feeling is gone. I shake my head. Joanie's still hot, but where a moment ago, awareness of her seemed to fill my every nook and cranny, now I can just admire her and still think straight.

"Pheromones," Des whispers beside me.

I cringe a little. Des thinks he's being subtle, but everybody here except him is a Wildling. They all heard him. But if he's right, if that's what pheromones can do, no wonder Ampora and Sandy were so into me.

"Hey, I know you," Des says to the older guy. "You're Tomás—the L.A. Wildling godfather or whatever."

Everybody in the van laughs.

"Oh, yeah," La Bamba drawls. "The Big Kahuna himself."

"Or at least he thinks he is," Joanie adds.

They all laugh some more, then Chuy repeats his invitation: "Get in, get in."

Joanie hooks a finger at Des and pats the seat beside her. He looks at me. When I shrug, he squeezes past Chuy to sit beside her. Eddie and Chuy move over to make room for me. I close the door and the driver pulls back out onto the highway.

"We're just going up as far as Tiki Bay," I say.

"Yeah, we know, Josh," Chuy tells me.

I turn to look at him. This is too weird.

"
How
would you know?" I have to ask. "How do you even know my name?"

Eddie starts to hum the theme from
The Twilight Zone
until Chuy elbows him.

"I told them to stop," the guy in the shotgun seat says. He turns to face me. "We're going to the same meeting."

"Meeting? I thought I was just going to talk to Auntie Min. I didn't know there was going to be a whole crowd."

"We're with Tomás," Chuy says. "We're not taking part in any meeting."

"Because it would be bor-ring," Joanie says from behind me.

"This isn't making any sense," I say. "Why's the band here? How'd you know I'd be on the highway?"

"He's our manager," Chuy says.

"Yeah," Eddie adds, "and we've got a gig in San Diego tomorrow night. Our sound crew's already gone ahead with the gear."

"Okay, but—"

"I didn't expect to see you until the meeting," Tomás says. "But when I saw you and your friend walking along the side of the road, I had Brian stop for you." He cocks his head. "Are you always this suspicious?"

"Hey, dude," Des says. "It's not paranoia when everybody
is
out to get you."

Joanie giggles. I'm fast losing any excitement I had in meeting her. She may be cool on stage and have a great voice, but here—away from the stage lights where she fronts a kick-ass band—she could be any one of a dozen or so of the interchangeable airheads at school.

"Who's out to get you?" La Bamba asks.

"
Every
-freaking-body, dude," Des says before I can reply. "We just had a guy with a sniper rifle taking pot shots at us."

That shuts them up for a moment. Then they all start talking at once.

"Seriously?"

"Did you get the guy?"

"Did you beat the crap out of him?"

"Either of you get hit?"

"Where was this?" Tomás says and everybody falls quiet again.

"We were just coming out of Riversea," I tell him. "On the west side of the barrio. We think it was one of the guys from Black Key Securities."

Tomás looks confused. "Okay, I know that you have some history with them, but why would they want to shoot you?"

"Someone's been killing the guys who kidnapped me. And they're making it look like it was done by a Wildling." I shake my head. "Maybe it
was
done by some Wildling, but I can't begin to figure out why."

"I hadn't heard that particular detail," Tomás says, looking a little peeved at being left out of the loop. "And it makes even less sense."

"Come on," Eddie says. "It makes perfect sense. Someone's trying to frame Josh."

Chuy nods sagely.

"Where did you hear about the Wildling connection?" Tomás asks.

"From the cops," I tell him. He gets that puzzled look again, so I add, "The Feds."

"Of course. You mean Agent Solana—the little pet of
los tíos
."

I feel the need to defend Solana.

"You shouldn't call him that," I say. "He's a good guy."

"And you know this because?"

I look Tomás straight in the eye. "Because I know him a hell of a lot better than I know you."

"Yet I was there to help with your rescue from ValentiCorp. Where was Agent Solana then?"

"Dude!" Des says. "You so bailed. You never even went into the building."

Tomás glares at him.

"And Solana was doing his job," I say. "With the limited information he had. Plus he's saved my ass any number of times since then."

"Yeah," Des says. "Who do you think chased off the sniper?"

Tomás nods. "I stand corrected. Brian," he adds, talking to the driver. "When we get to the parking lot at Tiki Bay, slow down, but don't pull in. We'll go a little farther down the road and work our way back on foot to make sure there aren't any more of these Black Key snipers lying in wait for us."

"How would they even know I'm going there?" I ask. "I just found out myself, an hour or so ago."

"How did they know to find you in the barrio?" Tomás asks.

Then he turns around to look out the windshield. Someone taps my shoulder and I turn to see it's La Bamba.

"So I hear you've got a surf band," he says.

I nod. "Yeah, we do surf and spy music. A few hot rod tunes."

"Cool. We should jam sometime."

I glance at Des and notice that Joanie's got a hand on his thigh. This whole experience might be the most surreal thing that's happened to me yet. We're riding in a freaking van with The Wild Surf. La Bamba wants to jam with us.

"So these pheromones," I say to Joanie. "How do they work?"

"You mean the ones like you're kicking out right now?"

"I am? I mean, I don't even know that I'm doing it."

She licks her lips and smiles. "Well, they sure taste sweet."

"How do I stop doing it? Is it the same as our other heightened senses?"

She shrugs.

Chuy nods. "Yeah, you just tone it down like you do with your other senses."

"So you all do it?"

Maybe that's contributed to why they're so popular—at least along the southern coast. Pheromones aren't something that would translate well on recordings or videos. But live and on stage? That'd be a whole different story. Except Chuy shakes his head.

"No, it's only Joanie."

"Do any of you have this kind of GPS tracker thing in your head?"

"What do you mean?"

"You sort of have a mental map of everything around you and you can tell where various people and animals and things are."

Chuy's shaking his head as Tomás turns around again.

"When did this start?" he asks. His voice is a little sharp.

"This afternoon."

"That sounds handy," Eddie says. "Hey, Tomás, when do we get ours?"

Tomás shakes his head. "That's only reserved for …" His voice trails off, then he quickly adds, "I don't know. It's different for everybody."

Except I can tell he doesn't think so.

"You ever cover any of our songs?" La Bamba asks.

As I turn in my seat to answer, Des's phone rings. He starts to reach for it, but Joanie lays her hand over his.

"You're going to talk on the phone," she says, "when you should be concentrating on me?"

It's obviously no contest. Des presses the button to kill the ring.

"Because," La Bamba goes on, as if there was no interruption, "I've always wanted to do the twin guitar thing live on tracks like 'Poppin' or 'Gimme Gimme.'"

Neither Des nor I have a chance to comment because just then we come up on the Tiki Bay parking lot. Brian slows the van down and we all look out the window. There's only a few cars there, including a Woodie like the one I saw that night when Elzie and I were down this way.

I feel a little guilty pang when I think of her and how I was drooling all over Joanie just before we got into the van. Sure, we split up a couple of weeks ago, but still. And then there's this odd thing I felt after Ampora kissed me. That's even weirder.

"Looks normal," Chuy says. "You can't expect the lot to be totally deserted."

"Yeah, it's probably just some surfers," Brian says.

Tomás nods. "But let's be safe. Keep driving until we get around that headland. You can let Josh and me off and then make your turn. The rest of you can wait for us in the parking lot."

"Des is coming with us," I say.

Tomás frowns and shakes his head. "This is cousin business."

"Then you're doing it on your own."

He gives me a hard look, but I hold his gaze until he's the one who looks away.

"Fine," he says. "Pull over here, Brian."

"You're really going to leave?" Joanie whines, looking all doe-eyed at Des. "We're just starting to get to know each other."

"Hold that thought," Des says, as he lifts her hand from his thigh and kisses it.