Flanked Read online

Flix and Marcus mumbled stereo versions of “sorry, Joe.” Peter looked at the ground and nodded his head. How much any of them meant it and would take Joe’s words to heart — well, Joe wasn’t sure. Teens that age were so unpredictable. He wouldn’t make them apologize to each other, though; when he was a boy, his father had made him apologize to his step-mom, Maria, when he’d called her an ignorant embarrassment, and all it had done was make Joe resent her more.

  He swallowed a few times, tried to find even a little spit to soothe the ongoing pain in his throat, and said, “Let’s go.”

  The boys stumbled a bit, shifted on their feet, and began to move. They’d gone a few feet when Flix bounced back to Joe and kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry you’re all hoarse, but I’m glad you keep us safe.” He patted Joe’s chest and ran back to his brother.

  “He kiss you?” Devin sounded more curious than accusatory.

  In answer, Joe kissed Devin’s cheek.

  Devin grumbled. After a moment, though, he tucked Joe against him and slid his thumb around until he found Joe’s mouth. He jerked Joe to a standstill and kissed him, brushing over his lips and slipping his tongue inside.

  Joe melted against him, savored the feel of Devin’s mouth. He didn’t deserve the affection, hadn’t proved himself worthy, but he craved it anyway.

  Devin pushed in deeper, dragged Joe closer, then pulled away. “You taste like smoke.”

  Joe wanted to say that Devin tasted like fire, but instead he whispered, “Smoke inhalation.”

  They walked along, Devin’s hand slipping back to hold Joe’s, and Joe scanned the sides of the highway. Dawn approached, her feathery lightness streaking low on the eastern horizon. The sunlight glinted off the metal roof in the distance. House or barn, Joe couldn’t tell. He didn’t dare risk their safety by chasing another maybe. Whatever they found, whenever they found it, and God, Joe hoped it was soon, would need to be close enough to the highway to recover from any mistakes they may make. Mistakes he may make.

  “It didn’t mean stuff.” Devin bumped Joe’s hip. “Me kissing you. I just...”

  Needed you to be real. Joe understood. He kissed Devin’s shoulder and walked on.

  ***

  With the sun reaching high enough to warm Devin’s face, they took shelter in another abandoned house on the outskirts of some town. Wacko. Devin wasn’t pronouncing it right, but he was too tired to care. He sank to the floor on his butt and dug his fingers through the carpet.

  No one talked much. Joe didn’t seem to be able to talk at all, though Devin wasn’t sure if that was from the way he’d abused his voice, the smoke he’d inhaled, or his concern for the damage he’d left behind in that small town. It rattled Devin, Joe being so quiet, but he did his best not to let on. They were partners still, even if they weren’t exactly lovers, and he could do some time as the strong one.

  Trouble was, his throat hurt like hell, too. Parched. Not only that, he hadn’t needed to piss once the entire night. They’d only stopped for one meal, and he’d barely been able to choke it down. His head throbbed.

  At least his vision was beginning to clear. He hoped. Light streamed through the windows; he saw that, vague and diffuse. A blurry blob dropped onto the ground in front of him. One of the kids, surely. He reached out with his toe and poked at the shape. A dull grunt. Peter. Another human-sized splotch moved through the light from a window. Flix or Marcus, Devin couldn’t tell.

  Joe sat next to him. He’d know Joe anywhere. Didn’t need to see him, didn’t need him to speak. Just his breathing, his smell.

  Joe took his hand and placed an object in his palm. “Eat.” His voice came out raspy and quiet, but at least it came out.

  Nutrition bar, what Joe had given him. He recognized the rectangular shape. Couldn’t see it, any more than just a darkening of the palm of his hand, but he could damn well eat it.

  Joe stirred beside him. “I want to take Flix and find water.”

  “Did you check the taps?” Devin asked.

  “He’s not stupid, blondie,” Flix said. “That’s the first thing he did.”

  “Shut up, Junior.” Devin didn’t want to fight with Flix. The kid had started to grow on him back in Austin, but the blindness was making him cranky. Or was it the thirst? To Joe, he said, “I don’t think splitting up again is a good idea.”

  “Me neither, but we need to check out some other houses, maybe find some locals, see if we can trade. It’ll be easier if you and Peter aren’t there. Someone sees your blond mop or his green eyes, they could try to kidnap you.”

  The logic sucked, but it was accurate. That’s how Peter had come to Flights of Fantasy in the first place. Poor kid, how horrible it must have been, his parents murdered and him sold off to a whorehouse. “Peter, you doing okay?”

  A sniffle. Another. Peter cleared his throat. “I’m...okay.” He scooted closer, and Devin resisted the urge to offer comfort.

  “Yeah, well, we’d understand if you weren’t,” he said.

  “For sure, Peter.” Joe shifted so his chest pressed against Devin’s drawn knee. He spoke over Devin’s lap. “You’re allowed to —”

  “I know. I don’t want your pity, any of you. Bunch of gay people and immigrants.” Peter sniffled again.

  “See why I spit on him?” Enough humor laced Marcus’s words that Devin wasn’t worried about a repeat of the spitting incident. Not that Marcus probably had any spit left anyway.

  “Not you,” Peter whispered in Devin’s ear. “You’re like me.”

  Devin laughed, the noise a little broken by the dryness in his throat. Peter must have missed the kiss Devin had planted on Joe earlier. “Man, I’m way gayer than him.” He thrust his thumb in Joe’s direction.

  “True,” Flix said, managing to sound jealous and admiring at once. “Joe banged all kinds of girls before Devin came along.”

  “You should have seen the last one,” Marcus added. “Bombshell gorgeous, tits out to here, lips that...” He trailed off like he’d noticed the pain slice through the room. He cleared his throat. “She was beautiful and a good person.”

  Devin wrapped an arm around Joe and squeezed. I’m sorry. Bea had been lovely to look at, no denying. She’d also been angry and vindictive and cruel. And so damned hurt.

  Joe pressed against him. Me, too.

  “Anyway, Flix and I will take some of the old money and the backpack I made.” Joe patted Devin’s knee and stood. “We want it to look like we don’t have much. I’ll take the VICE-shot but leave the rifles with you. Don’t use them, don’t even mess with them, unless someone tries to come into the house. Got me?”

  Devin stood, too, and caught Joe’s elbow. He ran his finger over the V-shaped scab. They walked to the door, the light from its high window cluing Devin in to its presence. Joe turned, and Devin slipped an arm around his waist. “This doesn’t mean anything, either, okay?”

  “It means ‘be safe.’ I know.” Joe rested some part of his face, forehead, probably, on Devin’s cheek. “You be safe, too. Get some rest in turns. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “I’ll wait for you. Keep these dumb boys out of trouble.” Devin tightened his grip on Joe’s back but didn’t pull him closer.

  “See you soon.” Joe stepped out of his embrace and left.

  After the door closed, Devin twisted the locks and swallowed hard. He wondered if he’d be this worried about being separated from Joe if he could see. He told himself he wouldn’t, even though he knew the truth. What would Joe find out there in the daylight? Devin traced the dusty edges of the window in the door and hoped all Joe found was water.

  ***

  Flix’s blisters had sprouted blisters. His eyes burned, his throat burned, he’d thrown up his dinner, and he was so tired he could have dropped down and fallen asleep on the street. He and Joe had been searching Waco for hours now, breaking into abandoned buildings to check the faucets, peering in windows, peeking down alleys, acting like burglars, terrified of people who didn’t exist. Noth
ing. Not a soul. And no water.

  He gazed down a deserted cross-street and sighed. He’d been excited that Joe had chosen him to come on this water-finding mission and had thought maybe he’d get a chance to bond with his idol-slash-crush. After all this searching, most of it done in silence, Flix would rather be back with Marcus, talking and laughing. Or sleeping. Even Peter and Devin sounded more appealing than listening to Joe not talk. Flat-out sexy beautiful the guy may be, all tight pants and silky curls, but his conversation skills stank.

  “So, Joe —”

  Joe pressed his thumb and forefinger together in front of Flix’s face.

  Flix huffed. He was rewarded a moment later, though, when Joe’s calloused fingers ran down his forearm.

  “Follow me, and stay close.”

  Joe led Flix down a side road and up a hill. At the crest, an immense five-story building raked the sky. Flix had seen taller, more impressive structures back in Austin, but this one was so much bigger than anything else in the area. Even the buildings they’d explored on the Baylor University campus to the north weren’t so huge.

  The jagged, cracked glass at every window looked like fangs, and Flix found himself pulling on the back of Joe’s shirt. “I don’t think we should go in there.”

  Joe didn’t even slow. “We shouldn’t.”

  Flix dug in his heels and yanked hard enough that little ripping noises came from the fabric near Joe’s shoulders and armpits. Joe stopped, and Flix twisted Joe’s shirt around his wrist until his fist was snug on Joe’s back. “Then why are we?”

  Joe turned, and the movement pulled Flix’s forearm tight against Joe’s side. No more than a foot separated their faces. Joe was talking, something about “out of options,” but all Flix caught was the way Joe’s mouth moved. Full, chapped lips, white teeth, and damn, that tongue. It was enough to...oh, God. Not now. He could not pop wood while Joe was talking about serious stuff. But bam, insta-stiffy just the same. Joe’s mouth got closer, so close Flix’s eyes crossed keeping it in focus. They were going to kiss. So close...

  A hard hand shoved Flix’s shoulder, and Joe spun away. “Let go of my shirt before you tear it more.”

  Flix gazed at his hand, still wrapped in the back of Joe’s shirt. His dick deflated as all the blood rushed to his face. God, no. He’d tried to kiss Joe. Lack of water didn’t matter. Embarrassment would kill him first.

  “Your hand, Flix. Get it off me. Now.”

  Joe had the decency to keep his back turned until Flix had untied the mess he’d made in the soft white cotton. He smoothed the fabric down Joe’s back, tried to press out the wrinkles, but stopped when he realized how his roaming hands added to the weirdness.

  When Joe looked back, his eyes were hard. His voice was the same patient rasp it had been all day, though. “Did you hear what I said about why we’re going into this hospital?”

  “‘Out of options,’” Flix whispered. He wanted to sink into the ground.

  Joe rolled his eyes, the movement obvious even under the vision shields. He resumed course for the building. “Close enough. Some huge buildings had private water supplies. A hospital this size is a pretty safe bet.”

  Flix resisted the urge to grab Joe’s arm — God, one unwanted groping event was mortifying enough — and fell into step next to him. “Why didn’t we start here first?”

  “Hospitals would’ve been prime targets for scavengers: lots of medicines, food, first aid supplies, vaccines. Who knows how long ago this place shut down? I don’t want to bump into bad guys with us unable to quickly run away if necessary.”

  Flix hadn’t worried about people; he was with Joe. But now, the thought of going into that big dark building with its shattered window-teeth... Someone had broken all those windows, maybe claimed this place for their own. They wouldn’t want to share. Flix shivered. “You have that gun thingy.”

  Joe stopped walking. “That’s a last resort, not a first defense.”

  “You used it on Mr. Boggs. And on those men on the highway the night we ran in to you.”

  Joe’s mouth pinched, and a vein throbbed near his temple. After a moment, he shook his head and started walking again. Flix got the message: Conversation finished.

  At the back of the hospital, six access doors had been blown off their hinges. Whatever had destroyed the doors seemed like one more reason to steer clear. Joe stepped over broken glass, and Flix followed him into the dank building. Their footsteps on the brown and beige tile echoed throughout what appeared to have been a large waiting room. Tipped-over chairs littered most of the space. A wide, dusty desk ran along the wall on the right. Was that a —

  “Look, Joe. An old entertainment console. Did you have one?” Flix ran his fingers over the corners of the flat wall-length monitor. He and Marcus had wasted hours at Abuela Carmen’s, playing enough VR Retro Skater Pro that he was sure he’d know how to use a skateboard if he ever came across one. The little kids had used it, too, for math and reading games, mainly. Carmen dreamed of making the little ones smart and sending them off to New America. For a while, Flix thought she dreamed of sending him and Marcus away, too. She had sent them away eventually, only not where he’d thought they’d go. Flix swallowed the resentment that always surfaced when he thought about what Carmen had done. Understand? Sure. Forgive? Not so fast.

  “Ours flashed green around the edges.” Joe’s quiet, broken voice echoed almost as much as their footsteps. He was exploring the area behind the desk, his head dropping below the surface then poking back up again as he spoke. “Dumb thing couldn’t remember when it was supposed to wake us up in the morning. Always went off in the middle of the night instead. My dad was late to work so often his coworkers started calling him ‘Easy’s bitch,’ all because of the EC. It was almost a relief when the electricity finally went off just so the EC didn’t start squawking in the middle of the night.”

  Flix chuckled along with Joe, but the end of electricity hadn’t been a laughing matter in his house. Four kids and Carmen stuffed in a one-bedroom box with no entertainment, no working stove, no air conditioning? It hadn’t been fun.

  “We need to find a bathroom or a cafeteria, someplace with plumbing.” Joe jerked his head toward a dark hallway and headed in that direction.

  Flix scurried to catch up. Joe flicked on some sort of handheld light box he’d pulled from his pocket. The thing spread light all over the space, illuminating the dusty floor tile and the spattered, stained walls. Eerie shadows danced behind carts and poles lining the hall. Everything seemed to move and menace, and Flix drifted close enough to Joe that he felt Joe’s body heat.

  Joe swept the beam of light upward. It lit a faded blue sign that said the cafeteria was straight ahead. Thank God, because Flix’d had about enough of the place. He curled his pinky into the edge of Joe’s front pants pocket.

  “You don’t have to be scared,” Joe said.

  Flix inhaled so sharply the space between his shoulder blades hurt and the scabbed cuts across his back sang their displeasure. “I’m really inappropriately hitting on you again. That’s all. Not scared. Being gropey. And gross. It’s a little gross, probably, or creepy, how fascinated I am by your —”

  “Flix?”

  “Mhm?”

  “Shut up.”

  Flix snapped his mouth closed and dropped another finger into Joe’s pocket. Up ahead, a set of double doors dangled from their lower hinges. They bowed outward from the frame, their knobs pointing toward the floor. How did they get like that? Why would people have been trying that hard to get out?

  Joe pressed himself between the doors, leaned over one, and slithered across it like a snake. Flix took a deep breath and followed.

  Far to the right, light spilled into the cafeteria from huge windows. In front of the windows, scorch marks smeared across the floor. The ceiling above them was black and eaten away.

  “Bomb, most likely,” Joe said, rubbing his toe over the black on the floor. “Someone probably lobbed it up thro
ugh the window from outside.” He glanced back at the door. “The people inside panicked, pushed against the door they’d probably chained shut to keep the bombers out.”

  Flix leaned against the wall to keep his shaky legs from giving out. “Shit.”

  Joe looked at him. “They’re gone, Flix. This all probably happened years ago. Look at the dust in the kitchen. Now it’s only a few people once in a while who ever come here.”

  Against the wall opposite where they stood, the kitchen area gleamed in the afternoon sun, dirt-covered metal smudged and exposed by a few handprints. The pit of fear in Flix’s belly tightened. He’d seen people on the streets in Austin, even been approached occasionally. But the idea of running into someone here, in this tight, desolate building, sent ice prickling through his veins. Even Joe’s presence didn’t make him feel safe.

  Joe jumped the barrier between the cafeteria and the kitchen, his ass and feet smearing the dirt as he went. Flix climbed up on the counter and crawled over, adding hand and knee prints to the metal.

  He straightened when Joe turned on the water, the sound of it flowing through the faucet and pattering in the sink making him sway. His throat, which had been dry, grew parched, and he was desperate, dying for the water. He forgot his worries and hustled to Joe’s side. He stuck his hands out to catch the water and bring it to his lips.

  Joe swatted his hands away. “We need to filter it. Turn around.”

  Flix did, and from the backpack, Joe pulled out the two water jugs and the filter. He fitted the small silver filter over the mouth of a jug and placed it under the flow of water. Flix watched greedily as the water pattered into the container. He needed all his patience not to grab away the jug and down all the water. When the jug filled to capacity, Joe removed the filter, slapped it on the other jug and set it in the basin. Flix reached a hand toward the filtered water.

  “Wait.” Joe took Flix’s hand and pressed it down. “We’ll drink from the second jug. That way we make sure there’s enough water for us and for Devin and the boys.”

  Always, Joe thought of Devin. Sometimes it made Flix want to punch Devin. Even now, when Joe’s concern was completely understandable, jealousy crept into the edges of Flix’s consciousness. “There’s enough for everyone. We can take a drink now.”