Certain Dark Things(39)

“… Atl?”

“Yes,” she whispered, trying to pull herself back and focus on him.

“It’s two more stops. Hey, are you okay? You seem a bit weird.” Domingo said, frowning.

“I’m fine,” she muttered.

“Your hands are trembling.”

So they were. Atl clutched one hand with the other. The emptiness in her stomach was increasing, the ache of the hunger building. She should have brought sugar cubes. They helped take her mind off the hunger. The lack of blood lowered her glucose levels, driving her close to what humans called hypoglycemia.

She was starting to lose her shit. Just like in Guadalajara. She’d faced off with Godoy’s men, managing to escape, though suffering a few scrapes. She ran. She jumped a barbed-wire fence to land on an abandoned property where a hobo was sleeping under a few newspapers. He wasn’t young. He was an old guy, his face wrinkled. But she had been hungry … and she’d attacked him. Ripping his throat open with her talons. A few minutes later she had puked the blood out, a sticky, dark, smelly mess that had splattered over the ground.

She had barely managed to drag herself back to her hiding place, back to Cualli. And then she’d gotten lucky. Because a girl was walking back home from a party as the sun edged the sky, dawn announcing itself.

And she’d fed. She’d fed well.

She couldn’t do that shit in Mexico City. It had been sloppy. Stupid killings, the bodies like markers pointing to her location in neon. No honor in it, either. Just fury and hunger.

“You don’t have gum, do you?” Atl asked.

Domingo patted his clothes and handed her a pink strip of bubble gum.

“Do you want something else? Do you need us to step down and go to a bathroom?”

“No,” Atl said. “I just need this.”

Focus. It wasn’t really that bad. It’s just that she was a * who had never worked for a meal, never spent a day—never mind several—eating but her fill, never mind hungry. At a biological level, though, she could take it. Her body could take it. Psychologically? It was getting weird.

Though that was perhaps not that uncommon. Atl had never expected to be in this position, half-starving, hiding in Mexico City.

The subway car moved jerkily and she clasped his shoulder, steadying herself, glad he was with her.

Aw, come on, her sister said. Are you going to faint in his arms?

“How’d you end up collecting garbage?” she asked him. There were definitely some psychological issues at this point and she didn’t want to dwell on them.

“I just kind of fell into it. When I left home I wandered around the city and met a group of kids living on the street. They washed car windows at the stoplights or sold candy to people on the street.”

It sounded familiar. Her family often recruited kids like Domingo for their operations. They’d offer them a hundred pesos to stand at a street corner and keep watch for them, in case the cops were in the mood for busting one of their joints. There was always a young fool willing to do anything for cash.

“Then I had enough of that, of them. It was harsh for a while. Quinto lent me money and that helped me. I started collecting bottles ’cause someone told me they gave you money for those at the recycling center. And when I was taking bottles there I met this rag-and-bone man who does a lot of business. He’s constantly looking for people to bring him stuff. So I started bringing him things. He likes the stuff I collect. He says I’ve got a good eye for it.”

“No offense, kid, but it sounds like a shitty business,” she said.

“Nah. Garbage is good. Trash pickers work hard. We sift through the crap and find treasures. It doesn’t pay too much and there are people who get a lot more than you do. But there’s no one beating you at the end of the day.”

You’d be better off dealing drugs up North, she thought. You’d make more. Die faster, and that’s not too bad sometimes. Not that I intend to die fast.

“Plus the Jackal never let me take a bath. Now I can go to the baths whenever I want. He ain’t there to tell me if I can bathe or if I can read my comic books. It’s honorable work. And I don’t get to hear him say I’m vain and stupid and ugly.”

“You’re not stupid,” she said, but not with any degree of kindness. It was a simple fact.

“You don’t have to tell me that. It’s all right. I don’t mind.”

“You can’t go around believing that you’re shit, all right? I said it was a shitty job, not that you were shitty. That dude who said you were stupid and ugly? I’d bet he’s jealous,” she said, and this time she did attempt a small amount of kindness, probably because she was tired or, you know, going crazy.

“That’d be something.”

Domingo scratched his head and smiled at her, showing her his goofy teeth. His teeth were bad, but his hair and eyes were dark and attractive, both a pleasing, rich shade of brown.

Their stop was coming up. She drummed her fingers against her leg, chewed the bubble gum slowly.

“Just … um … so you know. I think you’re really cool,” Domingo said. “I think you’re the coolest person I’ve ever met.”

“It’s bound to be a small social circle, huh?” she replied.

Domingo just smiled even more, in earnest appreciation.