Ink and Bone(94)

She had developed a good right hook, and she used it now to bash Crawley in the face again, eliciting a roar of pain and a spray of blood. But then he was on top of her, his strength, his weight too much. She was pinned. Never let them pin you, never let it be a match of strength alone. That was the first rule of being a girl in a group of boys. His mouth twisted into a cruel bloody smile, and struggle as she could, she couldn’t get away.

“You can kill me,” she said. “But they know who you are and where you are. And they’ll find you. You’ll never hurt anyone again.”

The girl was a bullet shot from a gun. She flew over them screeching, dive-bombing into Crawley, knocking him back and off Finley. She heard the unsettling crack of skull against rock. He slumped against the wall. The girl went tumbling, and Finley dove for her, catching her by the arm just as her body went flying over the edge into the hole. Using all her strength, Finley pulled the girl back onto the ground. Both of them lay spent, panting with effort. Crawley started moving.

Finley pulled the girl to her feet. It was then that she saw her face for the first time and drew in a ragged breath of surprise. The girl blinked, her gaze glassy and confused.

“Is he dead?” she asked. “Did I kill him?”

Finley could feel the girl’s shine, but it was just a candle flicker, something she might outgrow. She’d grow up to be an intuitive person, might even have a few dreams, or see shades and shadows that others never saw. Her rational mind, her intelligence would rule her, though. Those moments would be easily explained away. She wouldn’t be like Finley. Lucky girl.

“Don’t let him take you,” the girl whispered as she drew closer. “Don’t let him.”

Finley grabbed her by the shoulders, pulled her close.

“Run,” she said, through teeth gritted in fear. “Don’t stop for anything. Turn right out of this tunnel and run.”

The girl gave her a tight nod. And then she broke free, disappearing into the darkness. In her place, a form appeared, slim, not much taller than Finley. She knew him, not by face, but by his sad, angry, lost energy. When he moved into the light, she saw that he was a youngish man, maybe in his thirties, though it was hard to say. He seemed young and older at the same time. Lines of blood creased his face like warrior stripes, his breathing ragged and shallow.

“Put her with the others, Bobo,” the old man growled to him, getting to his feet.

“No, Poppa,” said Bobo.

His face wobbled between a frown and a strangled smile, as if he were straining under a terrible weight. A long moment passed between Finley and Bobo, a flicker of recognition in his otherwise blank eyes. Finley held up her hands, offered him a smile.

“You don’t have to do what he tells you,” she said. “Not anymore. The police are coming, yes. But they’ll understand what he made you do, that you helped when you could. You saved her from Momma. I was there. I saw you save her.”

“They’ll take you from me,” said the old man more loudly. “You killed your Momma, boy. They’re going to lock you away forever.”

Bobo looked between Finley and Poppa, the sound of his breathing filling the cavern in which they all stood. There were other sounds coming now, wafting like distant music on the cold still air.

“They’re coming for you,” said Poppa.

Finley inched closer to Bobo, away from the dark, empty hole. What was down there? The energy, a cold breath inhaling and exhaling, tugged at her and repelled her. She wanted to get away, and yet a part of her didn’t want to. There was something, a hypnotic hum, something dark that lured and pulled. She’d felt it before, on her bike when she drove too fast, when she explored that abandoned warehouse with Rainer, when she played chicken on the train tracks with her friends watching that moon of light growing closer, hearing the wailing of the horn. When she was under Rainer’s needle, feeling the heat and the pain, the metal in her flesh. How deep could he go? Her bones vibrated with the pain of it. She wanted it to stop—How much longer, Rain?—and yet she didn’t. She wanted it, the pain, to swallow her, the ink to leak into her soul and color her blue-black so that she disappeared. Because she was tired, tired of being what she was, tired of trying to alternately hide it and understand it. It was always there in her, that desire to surrender to the dark.

It was so close to the skin, that hunger for the darkness, that when Bobo tackled her, knocking her back, she didn’t even try to keep herself from falling. She let it rise up and swallow her whole.





THIRTY-ONE


Penny was on her knees, crawling, her leg throbbing, her body so heavy, her energy so used up. She was free from them, but she couldn’t go.

She could hardly move, as if there were still a tether to her ankle. Too much was asked of her and she could not perform, like sometimes in math class where the numbers on the board floated, frustratingly incomprehensible. Sometimes she’d get so angry over her homework that she’d cry. Oh, honey, don’t cry, her mom would say. I don’t get it either.

She let the ground take her, falling from her hands and knees with a sigh to her belly. She felt the earth rising up and embracing her, the dirt and blood in her mouth. She wasn’t sad or afraid as much as she was tired.

The tunnel was alive with sound, voices behind, voices ahead. She could hear some kind of song that was eerie and somehow beautiful. Little flowers in the garden, yellow, orange, violet, blue. The echo of it was like a lullaby. That’s what she was, a flower in the garden, attached to the ground beneath her, rooted, one with the black earth. She couldn’t leave this place. She belonged here.