Flanked Read online

  Marcus glared and stuck out his tongue. “God didn’t make me outta a monkey.”

  “Says you.” Peter stuck out his tongue back, then turned to watch the way Flix crowded Joe. “And God doesn’t exist.”

  “God is as real as you and me.”

  What an idiot. “Only heathens believe in God.”

  Marcus grabbed the front of Peter’s shirt and pulled him close. His lips curled in a snarl. “Say that again.”

  Peter’s breathing stuttered. He froze, even though his brain screamed at him to run. He’d never fought, never been attacked, not until the men came...

  A warm hand gripped his upper arm roughly, jerking him back to the present.

  Mr. Fake-White tightened his fingers on Peter’s arm and shoved Marcus away. “Cool off, Marc.” He dragged Peter down the narrow road. “You stay with me. Flix?”

  Flix bounded up to Joe like an eager puppy.

  “Help Devin walk.”

  The way Flix’s expression fell would have been hilarious if Peter wasn’t shaking and ready to pee his pants. Flix nodded once and wandered over to Devin.

  Joe sighed and loosened his hold on Peter. They walked in silence for a few minutes, until Joe said, “Do you know where Minneapolis is?”

  Joe hadn’t turned to look at him, so Peter studied his face. The man really could almost pass for white. The pale skin. The dark, curly hair. Not at all the way the brown people looked in the pictures his Society and Culture teacher had shown them. Even Flix didn’t look like that. Those photos showed ugly dolls. Dull, vacant eyes. Dirty. Shoeless and brainless.

  “It’s not contagious, the gay, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “I wasn’t... I...” Was it? “It’s not?”

  A corner of Joe’s mouth quirked. “Did you go to school, Peter?”

  “Of course.” What an asinine question coming from an ignorant streetwhore.

  “Was there a girl who liked you, but you weren’t interested?”

  Momma had raised Peter not to brag, but, well, he’d been rather popular. “Yes.”

  Joe nodded. “It’s the same. You are who you are, and you like who you like. Me touching you isn’t going to turn you gay any more than that girl touching you is going to miraculously make her appealing.”

  “Oh.” Peter tried to find some spit to swallow. He hoped they got to this lake soon. He thought of Marnie Venters, her wide, enhanced-red eyes and the line of yellow flower implants down her neck. The way she used to touch his shoulder whenever she passed. Nothing in the world could have made him interested. “Okay.”

  “Can you answer my question now?”

  What was the question? Oh, yes. Minneapolis.

  “I know it’s central. Kind of in the middle west.”

  Joe released his hold on Peter’s arm. “It’s where we’re headed. Tell me everything you know about it.”

  Peter wracked his brain. “It’s pretty big, way bigger than home, I think. Has at least a few domes. That’s really all I know. Sometimes the politicians talk about moving the government there.”

  “Pittsburgh not working out?”

  Peter blinked. He hadn’t expected these people to know about New America. “Politicians are babies. It was hard to build the domes there because of the mountains, so they’re small. Air quality is nasty outside the domes, and there’ve been some bad storms the past couple of years.” Huh. Maybe he’d paid a bit more attention in school than he’d thought.

  “Fools. Do you know scientists predicted it, The Change, ages ago? Cassandras.”

  They slowed as the road curved and opened to a row of large houses angled on a gentle downward slope. Tall grass and weeds, all dead, covered the hillside.

  “What does that mean? Cassandras?”

  Joe smiled. “Greek mythology. The god Apollo gifted Cassandra with foresight. But she spurned his romantic advances, so he cursed her. She’d be able to see the future, but no one would believe her.” Joe put a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Minneapolis is 1173 miles from Austin, where we escaped from. We’ve gone about eighty miles.”

  Peter sucked in a breath. He wasn’t even going to try the math, but he got it. They had a long way to go.

  “Try, Peter. Try to get along.”

  Joe patted Peter’s shoulder a couple of times, then turned to the others and began giving orders.

  ***

  “Lake” was an overstatement. Joe had left Devin with Flix and Peter back on the road and fought his way through a hundred yards of waist-high brush to stand on the cracked, barren, dry remnant of a large pond. Not a drop of water in sight. They were all dead.

  “This is bad, isn’t it?” Marcus asked. He touched Joe’s elbow, skimmed the notched, sharp cut there.

  Joe swallowed and tried to make his voice work. Already, he was parched. How long had it been since he’d had a drink? Five, six hours? More? The sun had set already. The temperature wasn’t even high. How would they manage if tomorrow’s sunshine brought heat?

  “Joe?”

  “We’ll need to go to the houses. Cross our fingers.”

  Joe headed back toward the old shoreline, and Marcus fell in step beside him. The cracked lake bed gaped beneath their feet. No evidence existed that the place had ever borne animal life. No fish bones, no clams. Had they been picked clean, or had the lake been dry so long that evidence of their lives had melted into the dirt, been lost to the earth?

  Dead vegetation greeted them at the bank. The path they’d followed on their way down had disappeared, and Joe cringed at the idea of walking through the brush again. The area near the old Lady Bird Lake back in Austin had been home to snakes and rats, some of the few animals left. Even though this lake was dry, Joe couldn’t shake the feeling that its brush concealed the same pests. He slipped his fingers over the VICE-shot he’d borrowed from Devin and kept moving.

  Since Joe had left the other set of vision shields with Flix so at least one person from each group could see in the dark, he needed to guide Marcus up the slope. He took Marcus’s hand and was pleased at how normal it felt. Wandering around holding hands wasn’t something he’d ever done, not before Devin had come into his life. Then a few days ago — when Devin found out that Joe had withheld the truth about Boggs and their friend Ebony’s baby, Nina — they’d stopped touching, at least until the dazzler had messed with Devin’s sight. Joe had missed holding hands, had wondered if he’d ever have it again. Holding Marcus’s hand wasn’t anything like holding Devin’s, didn’t give Joe a thrill of heat. It was just a friend’s hand.

  “It’ll be fine, right?” Marcus asked. “We’ll figure it out?” Away from his brother, the difference in their voices was even more pronounced. Flix was brash and confident, and he often tried to sound seductive, older. A boy trying to be a man. Marcus sounded like a kid, one who’d lived his life in his brother’s shadow.

  Joe tapped his thumb on the back of Marcus’s hand. “We will find water.”

  “It was my fault, the water spilling. Peter made it sound like Flix was perverted or something, liking boys the way I like girls. I should have expected some white northerner to be a spigot.”

  Joe snorted. “Bigot. The word’s bigot.”

  “Whatever.” Marcus swung his and Joe’s hands like a rope between them. “I mean, I see how they act, the men who come down here. They’re sneaking away from their wives and girlfriends to get a bit of dick. Tells me all I need to know about the north.”

  Joe hated to think of Marcus seeing himself as a “bit of dick.” What they’d done at Flights of Fantasy was different than simple prostitution. At least, that’s what he’d always told himself. Not that he’d minded being a whore, not really. What he minded was feeling like he’d had no choice, no say in who’d touched him or how. And the jobs had been different for different runners. Their friends Trig and Roxy had a filthy bondage routine that kept Trig covered in bruises and left Roxy almost untouched. James and Ebony had been popular using a few stereotyped shticks th
at made Joe gag. But Marcus and Flix... Joe had started at Flights of Fantasy when he was fourteen. He’d been the baby-faced little pretty boy. He knew what happened, even with a female partner, as he’d always been paired with before Devin came along. He didn’t want to think of those things happening to the twins.

  “Peter’s been through a shock,” Joe said, hating the way they’d refused his pleas to come along when they ran away from Flights of Fantasy. “He’ll come around.”

  “I thought he was.” Marcus almost sounded like he was whining. “We wouldn’t have let him come with us if —”

  Joe wheeled so he could see Marcus’s face. “No matter what Peter believes right now, you were right to take him with you. Devin and I really do regret leaving him at the Flats.”

  “No one deserves our life,” Marcus whispered, staring at his feet. “Even before Mr. Boggs did what he did to Flix.”

  “No one,” Joe agreed. He turned and headed back up the bank, only to be stopped two steps later when Marcus didn’t follow.

  Marcus’s hand began to shake in Joe’s grip. “Joe.”

  Joe heard it then. The rustle over his shoulder, the rattle. He slipped the VICE-shot from his pocket and shifted his feet, not daring to pick them up. When he looked in the direction of the noise, his breath caught.

  A large, thick snake sat coiled two feet to Marcus’s left, its head lifted, ready to strike. Even with Nightsight activated on his vision shields, Joe couldn’t see the snake’s head well enough to get a fix on the type, but he wasn’t about to take any chances with that rattling sound it was making.

  “Slowly, Marcus. Don’t look at it. Walk slowly toward me.”

  Marcus lifted a foot, and the snake began to hiss. He whimpered and placed his foot on the ground.

  “Good. Other foot now.”

  As soon as Marcus lifted the other foot, Joe jerked him forward.

  Faster than Joe could react, the snake struck. It lunged for the spot where Marcus had been, and its jaw missed his calf by inches.

  Before the snake could try again, Joe zapped it with the VICE-shot.

  The snake froze, fangs extended, body shocked straight. It sizzled and popped, and Joe had a brief fantasy of eating it, before smoke curled from under its belly.

  He stopped the current of the gun and kicked the snake to the side. Around the carcass, black and orange embers spread, eating the dead brush. Joe whipped off his shirt and dropped it over the fire. He stomped on it, trying to smother the blaze. The fire burned through his shirt.

  “Marcus, get your shirt off. Help me —”

  Too late. Bright orange flames curled over the brush and licked their way up a tree. Bark peeled back, split, and smoke poured out of the wounds.

  Joe stood still for a second, transfixed by the way the fire devoured the tree from the inside out. Then heat touched his shoes and legs. While he’d been watching the fire in the tree, the fire on the ground had grown. The first heavy hit of smoke curled around his head and made him cough, jerking him out of his stupor. He grabbed Marcus’s hand again and ran.

  The heat of the blaze chased them up the hill. Smoke swirled around them and pushed ahead, blinding Joe to everything except the glow of the flames. Only the tension between his hand and Marcus’s was enough to convince him that the fire hadn’t caught him. One slip by either of them and they’d be lost. To Joe’s right, fire leapt into a tree even with him. A moment later, the tree ahead had caught, the branches a halo of destruction. The ground around them dissolved into a molten lake.

  “Run!” Joe screamed. “Fire!” He kept it up, screaming and hacking, until they burst onto the road. The smoke thinned enough to see. Devin and the boys weren’t where he’d left them, and panic squeezed Joe’s burning lungs. His eyes watered as he scanned the area, searching for his partner. “Devin!”

  “Joe!” Devin’s pale hair emerged fifty yards to the northeast.

  Joe ran for him, dragging Marcus along behind. He didn’t dare let go. The smoke was getting worse again, and he and Marcus both coughed as they ran. As soon as they were within a few feet, Joe dropped Marcus’s hand and pulled at Devin’s elbow, urging him forward.

  Flix jutted his face into Joe’s space. “We’ve got to run at a diagonal, get north of the fire. We run straight east toward the highway, the wind’ll push it on top of us.”

  “You have a path?”

  In answer, Flix rattled the map in his hand.

  “Go. Marcus, Peter, hold hands and stick tight to Flix’s ass.”

  “I think he’d rather you did that,” Devin said.

  “Be a jerk after we live through this.” Joe took the hand he’d been meant to hold and ran after the others into the night.

  THREE

  With Devin’s hand in his, Joe fled an orange nightmare at their backs. The fire gorged on the big houses at the lake, running white and hot at their sides, climbing the walls, licking the roofs, before spreading, spider-like and unimpeded, across the dead grass.

  In brief glances over his shoulder, Joe watched it all happen. He couldn’t stop looking. The heat pressed against his back, scalding his skin, and still he turned to mark the fire’s progress. He ran through the streets, coughing and yelling, “Fire! Fire!” hoping the town was as deserted as it had seemed; there hadn’t been time to check. No other footsteps joined the frantic drum of his little group’s feet on the pavement. He screamed again and again, all the way to the highway, when his voice cracked and broke.

  When they’d climbed up the steep slope and stood fifteen feet off the ground on an overpass, Joe turned again and watched the fire approach. Alive, it stalked through the withered vegetation, undulating low and soft, eating the plants and everything it touched.

  Joe startled when Devin’s hand fumbled against his back.

  “Keep moving,” Devin said. “I feel it behind us.”

  They jogged along the highway, Joe minding the road for potholes and other dangers. It helped, the running. It always had. Freed his mind. The smoke had battered his lungs enough that he had trouble drawing breath, but he kept going, twisting every once in a while to see if anyone had joined them in their escape. The road remained empty.

  The fire would spread with the wind, but maybe the highway would provide a barrier, keep it contained. The thought that people might have been living in those houses being devoured by the fire plagued Joe. He reminded himself he’d seen no firebreaks, no solar panels, no evidence of people. These small towns had to have been among the first to wither away. But what if someone had been there? If he’d tried to check, to go door to door, he’d surely be dead. But not just him. Devin. The kids. He’d have gotten them killed, too. He very nearly had as it was. He shook his head and let himself bump into Devin’s shoulder. The slight contact woke him up, got him out of his own head. He focused on the pavement in front of him and on keeping his companions safe.

  They needed to find water. He needed a new plan. If they could get to Dallas... but no, that was too far. Joe wracked his brain, trying to remember what else had existed along this highway. He’d been a boy the last time he’d traveled this way, but cities had seemed to connect most of the area between Dallas and Austin. Surely they’d reach one soon. He didn’t want to stop and have Flix look at his maps. That’d only waste time.

  After a few miles, Peter gave out. He dropped to all fours, and Joe jerked Devin to the side to keep him from tripping over Peter’s heaving body.

  Flix grabbed Peter’s shoulders and tried to pull him to his feet. “Get up. We don’t have time to waste.”

  His red face glistening with sweat, Peter glanced behind them, and Joe did, too, staring at the fading glow in the distance, still brighter than the sunrise off to the east. Peter shook his head. “We’re...far enough.” He sucked in a breath. “Need to rest.”

  “Flix said get up.” Marcus coughed hard, then joined his brother at Peter’s shoulders and hauled him upright. “We’re not risking the rest of us because you’re weak.”

/>   Peter pushed Flix, sending him back a few steps, and Marcus grabbed Peter by the upper arm and punched him in the stomach.

  “Don’t hurt my brother,” he growled.

  Peter doubled over, cradling his belly, but he looked up at Marcus and said, “You’re awful people. I bet you started that fire on purpose.”

  Marcus glanced at Flix, who sighed and shook his head. “Not worth it, Marc.”

  “Sorry, brother,” Marcus said, then he darted toward Peter.

  Joe rushed between the boys. He threw up a quick forearm to the chest and knocked Marcus aside. They weren’t going to fall apart on their first day together. “No fighting,” Joe said. Ouch. Every word scraped over his throat. Worse was how he hated admitting that he’d let them all down. “I started the fire on accident.”

  “What the fuck, Joe?” Devin said. “How?”

  “I shot at a snake, and the brush under it caught fire.” Joe wrapped his arm around Peter and helped him upright. “If we walk, Peter, can you keep going?”

  “He’s such a brat,” Flix said. “We’re going to end up carrying him. I don’t even know what we were thinking, bringing him.”

  “You’re all pains in the ass,” Devin said. He stumbled toward Joe, but bumped into Flix, who seemed to be refusing to get out of his way. Flix’s eyes had narrowed and he’d opened his mouth, so Joe jumped in before a bad situation got worse.

  “When’s the last time anyone checked our surroundings?” he asked.

  As one, all of them, even Devin, swiveled their heads, eyes wide. Other than flat land and dead brush, the only object for as far as Joe could see was the metal roof of a half-collapsed building, but he figured he’d made his point.

  “There’s nothing there,” he said. “We’re safe, this time. But every time we get distracted, we’re vulnerable. And we have over a thousand miles to go, through places none of us have ever been. Who knows what we’ll face? Even though we’re only two days out, we have no water and we just survived a fire. The only way we’ll survive is by being unbreakable, by sticking together and getting along. You understand?”