The Color of Rain (2 page)

I grip a ridge in the alley wall and begin to slip into some fantasy about the stars, but then I blink hard instead. We will break from this planet for real. That's why I took his money. No more daydreams. No more . . . Simons. I go over Lo's advice:
Be soft. He'll do the rest
.

The rest of what?
I had asked. But now I know it. Little bit at a time, he does what he wants with my clothes. My neck. My belt.

Be soft
.

But I can't, and I know that I'm as supple as the brick I'm pressed against. Hallisy seems to like it, though. He snorts into my hair, his body all rods and twisted wires. Still, he's taking too long to get to It. He's
playing
. And time is running out for Walker.

“Go on.” I bite my tongue.

He peels his pants down and grinds his steel coil of a torso against mine. I feel too much—so
much
of him—and I lose my hold on the wall.

“LEAVE HER ALONE!” My little brother streaks like a bald bird up the alley, the flaps of his too-big jacket flying up like wings. “GET BACK!” He swings a piece of broken pipe at Hallisy who falls, caught up in his own pants.

“What the shit!” Hallisy scrambles to stand, to yank the pipe
from Walker and to hold his belt up. Walker makes another solid loop with the pipe, but Hallisy wrenches it out of his grasp.

I refasten my pants and get between the rusty weapon and my small brother. “Don't be stupid. He's just a kid!”

“I'm more man than him!” Walker yells from behind me. He has a death grip on my shirt and is already tugging me backward. “Come
on
, Rain!”

Hallisy sneers. “That ain't even a kid.” His pants are tented with a misdirecting arrow that makes a horrible taste rise in my mouth. “Looks to me like he's got a bit of the crazy touch.”

I close my hand around my brother's wrist. I don't know how he knows about Walker, but if he knows . . .

He points the pipe at me. “Now you—”

“Sweet freakin' mess, Hallisy. You going to keep her all night?” Lo's lithe body slips around the corner. My best friend leans against the Dumpster, her hip bones jutting through her stretchy skirt like concealed guns.

“I'm on my business, Lo.” Hallisy tosses the pipe behind him, causing a racket. “Moneys been exchanged. So you take
that
”—he says, jabbing a finger at Walker—“somewhere else while I finish.”

Lo swings her stringy blonde hair behind her shoulders, revealing the dyed pink underneath. “Finish? You haven't even got going.” She shakes her head at me. “I've changed my mind, Rain. He ain't worth it. I was down a bottle when I told you he'd do.”

I touch the thick fold of bills through my pocket. “Moneys were exchanged, Lo.”

“I'll finish him.” She shimmies her shoulders out of her wide-necked top with a speed that would impress a Void captain. “He'll
agree. He probably doesn't want his work buds finding out that he's a sweet freakin' mess with a taste for cherry popping.”

“I don't want some used bag.” Hallisy hooks his belt. “I'll have my moneys back, or I'll call
that
in.” He points to my brother again, and I want to spit.

I dig out most of the bills and toss them at his feet. “I'm taking ten for what you already got.” I sound more sure of myself than I am, but then, that's always been my superpower.

“I didn't get ten worth. And you were late.”

“Not
that
late. And you're the one who took your bleeding time!” I scrub the spot where he sucked my neck. The pile of wadded-up notes jeers from the cracked pavement louder than any leering skyscraper. I pull my brother into my arms, the stubble of his shaved head pricking my chin. We were so close to having enough to buy passage off this planet.

Now we're not.

“Rain.” Walker's voice shakes along with his hands. I clasp his arms together as though I can stop the tremors by sheer will, but the symptoms come on too fast, and I feel his fear like it's my own. “
Rain?
”

Lo steps close and fixes her elastic top over her bony shoulders. “There're cops down the way. How do you want to play this?”

“He'll make it to the pier.” I eye my brother with a dare. His mouth seals in a firm line, nodding through his fear. I lead Walker down the alley.

“Where you think you're going?” Hallisy yells.

“You missed your chance,” I toss back.

Hallisy charges, his steps echoing like gunshots through the alley, and I duck to cover Walker as he almost rips my shirt off. Lo shoves him with her whole body, and he bangs into the Dumpster, driving it against the wall to the tune of rippling, crashing steel on brick.

We hustle onto the main street, elbowing against a new wave of workers. I glance back, but the mouth of the alley is clear. No sign of Hallisy. Lo gets hung up in the crowd behind us, waving us on. I hate to leave her, but a squat woman with a metal hook through her earlobe scowls at Walker's trembling frame.

“Run with me, Walk,” I whisper. “Run!” His feet stumble as we duck onto a side street and break into a sprint. Anyone could snatch us. Start a panic. And the cops would be here in a blink with their restraints, ready to take away the mentally diseased, the people we call
Touched
.

People like my little brother.

B
y the time we reach the pier, I want to scream. Gone! That chance—maybe our only one—and it's gone. The neck of my ripped shirt slips down to my elbow, and I drag Walker's now rubbery frame. “Do you have any idea how much money we just lost?”

His shaking has stopped, but now his eyes are blank. Empty. “Who are you?” he asks. “Am I home?”

“No, Walker. We're not home.” The wind whips off the oily ocean, and I maneuver us around the broken planks of the ancient pier. “We have to wait for Lo.”

“What's a Walker?” he asks, and I swallow my irritation and pain. My brother is now the shell of the person who just stormed the alley to fight a man three times his age.

And that shell is cracked.

High above us, silver starships hang in invisible parking spots like stars lured too close to earth. Some are as large as skyscrapers while others are only big enough for a captain and crew, but they all gleam with blue light, the pulsing proof of their mighty engines. Engines that can break through the smoke sky. . . . Engines that run the Void and weave between the stars.

I've always been drawn to that blue. The color is so much more vivid than the monochrome ash and age of Earth City, and it's long since been my hope for our escape.

At the end of the pier, the hull of a small, abandoned starship rots. I guide Walker through the missing passenger door, situate him on the ratty covering of the old captain's chair and climb up on the stripped control panel. He gazes through the rusted-out ceiling, and the sapphire lights of the spacedocks reflect over his green eyes, shading the emptiness.

“Do bugs . . . like ships . . . forgotten wings,” he murmurs.

“That's right, Walker. They're just forgotten.” I try not to imagine the day when he doesn't come back from the fogs or what might happen if the disease takes me as well. Who would keep the cops from taking us then?

Lo drops into the passenger seat, making the ship's metal carcass groan. She's out of breath. “You didn't have to keep running. Hallisy wasn't chasing anything with that bobbing thingy between his legs.”

“A woman was looking at us weird. Maybe a reward chaser.” I wipe spit from Walker's lip with my sleeve before I remember that it's Lo's shirt. I finger the now ripped neck. “I'm sorry, Lo. Your lucky shirt . . .”

She sighs. “Well, it used to be my lucky dress.” She points to the ripped hem at my hips. “Suppose it'll turn into my lucky headband. No biggie.”

“Still . . .” We don't have much, and what we have we share. After all, she's helped take care of Walker like he's her own brother. She hasn't called him in even though the reward would be
enough to put a roof over her head for months.

I can't help but remember the money at Hallisy's feet. The bulge of it. “What happened back there?”

She kicks her legs up on the dashboard. “I was sitting with Walker, and he just kind of blinked and woke up. He knew what you were up to, but I swear I said nothing. He's pretty smart for a kid, when he's not . . . you know.”

“I thought he'd be out of it all day. He's been out of it for full days lately.”

“He's getting to the end fast, Rain. You can't hide him from the cops forever.”

I glare up at the starships. “I should have done it. All that money . . .”

“Hallisy said you were late. Why?” Lo knows me too well. “Rain, you didn't . . . not Simon! Didn't we talk about this?”

“It was stupid.”

“Yep,” she agrees. “He's the wrong sort of boy for anyone to love, let alone you. He's got just enough coin to make it to tonight.”

“I don't love him. I just liked him . . . a lot. And I wasn't thinking about his pockets.”

“You were thinking about the way he always flirted with you and made you feel like you weren't on the most forgotten planet in the universe.”

“Little good it did. You were right about him.”

She nudges me with her foot. “Wish I wasn't, Rain. Really.”

“Yeah, I know. You're far wiser than me.”

“Only when it comes to the opposite sex.” Lo crosses her thin
legs beneath her and sifts through a pile of coins from the previous night's work. She sells herself cheap these days, and the more she sells herself, the cheaper she gets. Walker wanders through the missing door, and she leans out to watch him round the side of the ship. “He's just staring off into nowhere.”

“Tell me if he moves.” I dig out Hallisy's ten-credit note and hold it out to her. “For looking after him.”

She shakes her head. “Did a zero job, didn't I? Besides, I was the one who said Hallisy would be fine and that one is clearly not fine. And how're you supposed to save up enough to jump planet if you give away what you earn?”

Earn
. I remember Hallisy sucking on my collarbone and crumple the note in my fist.

“Don't worry. You'll find another. With your looks and clean record, someone will spill their banks to have you. You just got to find the right guy with the right offer.”

I shove the wadded money in my pocket. “Walker's only got a few months before he slips away for good. Maybe less.” I try to see around Lo. “What's he doing?”

“Told you, he's just staring.” Lo shines her biggest coin on the edge of her skirt. “You know I love you gingers like my adopted family, but you're blind to the facts. He's a goner. If you wanted to jump planet, live your dreams, I'd take care of him here and—”

“If I get him to the Edge, the Mecs could cure him.”

She sits up. “You don't know that freak Mecs could sort him. And I still think they eat their dead's brains. It's what gives them freak intelligence.” I don't have to tell her that she's being ridiculous; my grimace says it all. “Well, you do only know rumors
about a cure. So, don't go putting store in stories.” She pauses to grin. “Hey, that sounded clever, didn't it?”

Lo makes me smile, but even rumors have hope if you let them. And hope isn't something that I'm ready to trade in. Not yet. Not ever. Just the thought of that distant planet—a technological paradise, people say—is enough to keep me going.

“We're getting out of here, Lo. I won't lose him like I lost the rest of my family.”

Lo sighs. “Okay, Rain. If that's what you want, I'll say . . . okay.”

I give her a smile, but it fades fast. “You don't think Hallisy will call the cops on Walker, do you?”

“Nah, he'll want another shot, and he won't have it if he gets the kid hauled away with the rest of the nutsos.” Her shoulders sag. “Sorry, I'm a tad nasty today.”

“Only today?” I tease. Most people, like Simon, wouldn't give Lo a second thought. Her body has that worn-through look that doesn't match her twenty years, and she drowns herself in drink a little too often. But she's real. And she found me on this very pier when I was on the edge of jumping into the rocks and waves with Walker. She was like an angel. An angel in pink spandex.

Lo pulls a rolled-up scrap of paper from her cleavage, gazing at a photo of her mom. Lo spent years trying to hide her from the cops, but then one day, the Touched woman wandered out of their apartment and was never seen again.

At least I got to say good-bye before they took my mother.

“What are you thinking about? You're looking weird,” Lo says.

“Just when I met you out here. When I first saw you. I bet you thought I was nuts.”

“I'd seen you lots before. Did I never tell you that?” She had, but I want to hear it again. “You used to come out here with that whole lot of a family. And I used to watch you with your dad and your brothers. Looking at stuff in the surf. Pointing out trash.”