The Empowered, page 8
“It’s the truth. Really.”
She coughed again. “If you say so,” she said when she could speak again.
“Is there anything I can get you?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “No.” She drew in a slow breath, managed not to cough and sat up again. She squeezed my hand. “Mat, I need to tell you something.”
My heart stopped for a moment. When Ruth said she “needed to tell me something,” it was always important.
“I understand why you fell in with the Renegades and ended up in prison, back when you were sixteen.”
“You do?” She had never said anything before. Not the last time I saw her before prison, not when I got out. I knew she was disappointed in me, but Ruth was always about moving forward and dealing with things as they were now, not as they had been.
“You wanted a place to belong.”
“I was an idiot.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to have a place where you can belong.” She squeezed my hand.
“But I…” I stopped. I wanted to say, but I belong here, with you and the twins. But if I did, that would make it even harder to leave now. Damn it.
I sighed. “I screwed up.”
“We all make mistakes, Mat.” She squeezed my hand again. “I’ve certainly made my share.” She swallowed. A muscle worked in her jaw.
I got the impression she felt guilty about something. She wouldn’t meet my eye.
She faced me. “I’m why your parents died.”
“What?” I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
“Your father wanted to get back to me in time for my birthday.” She swallowed. “There was a snowstorm.”
Her birthday was in December.
“The roads were bad. But he said he could make it.” A tear ran down her cheek.
“I should have told him to stay in Colorado.”
The anger went out of me like air from a balloon. I sat back down beside her.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
She shook her head. “I should have insisted harder than I did.”
“Mom went along with it,” I said, bitterness thick in my voice. My parents had done a stupid thing and the twins and I had ended up orphans because of it.
A muscle twitched in Ruth’s neck.
“Don’t feel guilty,” I told her. “It wasn’t your fault.”
She hugged me close, wiped her face. “I appreciate that you think that. Thank you.”
But she wasn’t going to stop feeling guilty.
“Enough about me,” Ruth said. She touched my face. “You’ve felt abandoned all these years. But you weren’t abandoned. I’m still here. I’m not leaving. Not ever.”
I hugged her back, hard. She was dying. She shouldn’t make promises like that.
This was why I had to leave, so that I could accomplish the mission for Support and get her and the girls help.
Ruth pulled away, still holding me and looked me over. “I understand your anger, Mat. But you can’t skirt the law anymore. You’ll be caught and returned to prison for good.”
“I’m not breaking the law.” I hated lying to her but there was no alternative.
“Mat, we both know you are.”
“I’m only trying to do what it takes to help this family. To help you.” That was the truth. It was so unfair I couldn’t tell her it was the truth. “I don’t have any choice.”
She lifted my chin and looked me in the eye. “Yes! You do have a choice.” She spat out the words. Her weariness was gone, her gaze steady as she looked at me. “You always have a choice.”
I ground my teeth. “Not now.”
“You always, always have a choice, Mat.”
I pulled away, got to my feet. “I can’t hold down a job.” Damn it, I blinked away tears, but they kept flowing, hot, down my cheeks and dripped onto the carpet.
“We’ll find a way,” Ruth insisted. “Crime isn’t the way.”
“I’m just doing what I have to.”
“Mat, if you continue, you’re abandoning us.”
How dare she!
I smacked my fist into my palm. “I’m not the one who died,” I said. “I’m not the one sick. I’m not the twins, who think the world owes them everything. I’m trying to take care of you, and them!”
“Not like this.”
Damn her. She could be all high and mighty about what I should or should not be doing, but she had no idea. No idea at all.
I stormed into my room and shoved clothes into my duffel bag. Zipped it shut with a jerk and went back out to the living room.
Ruth grabbed at my arm, but I pushed her hand away.
“Don’t do this!” She said. “We’ll find a way. Don’t leave.”
I slammed the door behind me and stomped down the stairs to my car. I took a sharp breath. I wasn’t going to cry. Not ever again.
I threw my duffle bag in the back seat of the Dasher and glanced back up at the apartment, half expecting Ruth to be at the window looking at me, but she wasn’t.
I jumped in behind the wheel, slammed the door shut, and started up the car.
No one understood what I felt.
6
It monsooned as I drove the Dasher to North Portland. I was gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles hurt; I was that angry. Stupid rain chose a great time to come down in buckets. The car’s windshield wipers did a crappy job, and the headlights from oncoming traffic turned the water on the windshield into a sheet of glare, forcing me to slow the car to a crawl.
It seemed to take forever to drive the five miles or so from Ruth’s apartment to North Portland.
The new place turned out to be an old house built just before the Three Days War, in the early 1960s. A willow tree stood in the front yard, behind an overgrown hedge. I drove past, as instructed in the file, and parked in an empty lot two blocks away, beside another boarded-up building.
Ruth liked to say Portland had its ups and downs, but mostly downs. While I had been in Special Corrections another recession had hit Oregon. Portland still hadn’t recovered. Another reason why I’d had trouble finding work.
At least it made finding empty lots beside boarded-up buildings easier.
The rain came down even harder, pounding the pavement. I ran the whole three blocks to the house. The trees I passed murmured in a slumbering chorus.
I wondered if the green giants dreamed, or if the murmurs were just them trembling in their sleep? The thought rattled around in my head as I ran.
I reached the dark house. A towering row of arbor vitae surrounded the backyard. No fence. I eased my special sense into the arbor vitae, urged it to move. The bushes trembled and the branches shifted slowly to create an opening in front of me.
My stomach churned. I bent over and gagged bile. Awakening the slumbering plant hurt. It wasn’t like urging blackberry vines to grow, the arbor vitae moved so much slower.
I staggered through the opening.
I couldn’t do this every time I went through the arbor vitae. I sucked in air, straightened, and tried to ignore the flaring pain as I directed the hedge to close around the opening until a thin curtain of branches hid the passage.
That would have to do. I winced and massaged my side. The bullet wound was gone, but the exertion made my side ache where I’d been hit. Still couldn’t believe I’d nearly died.
Now here I was, about to sneak into my new place.
I unlocked the padlock on the back door with the key Support gave me, then unlocked the deadbolt. The top corners of the door frame were covered in old spiderwebs.
The air inside the house was musty. Not a huge surprise.
No lights, when I flicked a switch. On the kitchen counter was a battery-powered lamp, I flicked the penlight I’d been given on, and looked at it. A note written in block print said “use this.”
Okay, so I was an idiot.
I half expected to find a hoarder’s paradise, but the house was nearly empty. The floors were bare and the place was actually pretty neat for being “abandoned.” We-think-of-everything Support actually owned the house, and used foreclosure as a convenient cover. Must be nice to be able to control things like that. Assuming you didn’t mind doing everything because you were assisting the Hero’s Council. Yeah, I was feeling cynical.
The bedroom had a clean floor, a clean sleeping bag and pillow, and another battery-powered lamp.
I checked the bathroom—the plumbing worked. Thank God for small favors.
There were insta-meals in the cupboards—enough for weeks.
I should be starving, but I wasn’t hungry, despite my nearly killing myself getting the arbor vitae to play open sesame. I was restless. I paced the house until I got bored walking around the dark rooms.
I knelt in a corner and stared at the hardwood floor in the yellow lamplight. I traced my finger along the whorls in the pine. The pattern the whorls made pulled at me. I caressed the wood. I couldn't help myself. I extended my sense into the dead pine.
Sensations flashed in my mind. Sticky hot. Dry hot. Warm. Frozen water. Rain soaking, splashing, pounding.
I gasped. Past seasons ran through my mind. I trembled. I had never tried to reach into dead wood before. The seasons echoed through my mind, so many seasons, flying by now.
I struggled to pull my awareness away. The wood was dead. It should be easy, but there was something locked inside, a final message.
Pain’s sharp edge still screamed in the pine. Great pain. Searing pain still echoed in the dead wood. I jerked my awareness away from the tree, yanking my fingers off the floor. So much pain still locked away in that dead wood, the last impression of the pine tree’s life.
The next morning lasted forever. I woke, ate an insta-meal of oatmeal and apples, drank some instant coffee, and sat in a chair in the kitchen, waiting for Gus to call. But the damn phone remained silent.
I paced the house. Lunchtime came and went. I had no appetite but ate anyway. Pasta with chicken and broccoli.
Still no call from Gus.
Damn him, this was supposed to be a shoo-in. I exercised in my bedroom, pushups, dips using the windowsill, followed with squats and lunges but the nervous energy wouldn’t go away.
By 4PM I was ready to climb the walls. What was taking the little jerk so long? Screw it. I had to take a walk. I slipped out the back, checking to make sure no one was watching me, and slipped through the arbor vitae. I fast-walked down the street, hood up, face down.
I called the number Winterfield gave me from a pay phone at a gas station a few blocks away.
Always keep in persona, the briefing had stressed.
“Mister Winterfield, it’s Mathilda Brandt.”
“Good afternoon, Miss Brandt.”
We sounded like clichéd versions of the parolee and her PO, but this was the procedure.
“Have you heard back about that job?” Fake PO Winterfield asked.
I fought to keep the frustration out of my voice as I answered. “Not yet. I thought they would have called by now.”
“These things can take time, Miss Brandt. Keep me posted.”
Click. Gee thanks for the information, Winterfield. Always nice to chat with you. He was a big help.
All the next day, my phone remained silent. I didn’t hang out well. I needed to be doing something, moving this job forward. Not just sitting around on my ass and watching moss grow in the backyard.
The day after that I was not only ready to climb the walls, I was ready to tear them down.
I had to get out again.
After the sun went down, I got in the Dasher and drove over to Ruth’s. At least I could see how they were doing.
Yeah, I know, Support had specifically instructed me to not see my family, but the hell with them. I couldn’t wait around any longer.
I parked the car next to the storage building, and sat there for a long time, warring with myself. I had left with lots of drama, left like I was supposed to leave. Burned my bridges.
Screw it. I went up the stairs, shoulders hunched, and knocked on Ruth’s door. If I could talk to her, I could make things right.
I shifted my feet, stared at the door handle rather than the peephole.
The door’s deadbolt clacked. The door opened a couple of inches, the door chain still hooked.
Ella peered at me through the crack.
“Mat? What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see how things were going.”
“About the same.” Talk about a non-answer.
“How’s Ruth?”
“About the same.” Ella wasn’t budging. Come on open up, I wanted to shout. Let me in!
“Can I come inside? I want to talk to Ruth.”
Her expression hardened. “She doesn’t want to talk with you. I don’t either.” She closed the door in my face. I heard the sound of the deadbolt locking.
I stood there like an idiot, staring at the door, wishing it would open. I still had my key. I could unlock the door and slam it open, snapping the chain. It wouldn’t be hard.
I slunk down to the car and drove back to the house.
Noon the next day there was still no word from Gus. I’d had enough. I was going to track that weasel down and find out why he hadn’t called me. I had memorized his haunts from the files Support had me study. Typical Gus. Dive bars and bookstores, the grungier the better.
I went to his hidey-hole first. I climbed the fire escape and slipped inside.
No Gus. I cased the place. Just as when I'd first visited, piles of moldering newspapers and magazines clogged the place. There were dog-eared paperback books, a cassette player so old it was covered with chips and dings. The only tapes were classical. I hadn’t known Gus’s taste in music. He'd never seemed interested in music back in the Renegades, so I never imagined he would be into Brahms and Handel.
The copy of Great Expectations still lay on the old chair by the window.
I picked the book up. An Oregon Shakespearean Festival leather bookmark, one with a unicorn stenciled on it was in the book. The bookmark Gus had had since forever.
I left, and spent the rest of the day hitting up every dive bar and bookstore on the list. No sign of him. I asked around, mentioning I was a friend. None of the staff at the various places recalled seeing him lately. I got a few looks—no surprise there, they were probably all shocked that a young woman was looking for scummy Silco. That’s what my best friend Tanya used to call him back when we were in the Renegades together.
I can’t believe I had defended Gus, back then. Sure, he didn’t stink—no matter how much time he spent on the street—and his clothes, despite being old, always somehow managed to be clean, but he was a weasel.
He was still a weasel. He was hiding, or dead. It would be just my luck if he were dead. My chance of getting into the Scourge cell would be blown for good and with it, my freedom.
Winterfield wasn’t the understanding sort.
Then it hit me. I’d missed the obvious. Gus loved to read. He always had a book with him. Always. And he always had to finish what he started.
That copy of Great Expectations and the bookmark in it. He wouldn’t be parted more than a day from that bookmark, or from reading the book it was in. He had to get in his reading fix and, like I said, could only read one thing at a time.
Stupid—I should have saved myself the runaround.
I raced back to his hidey-hole. Up the fire escape and into the grunge.
No Gus. My heart pounded as I reached the end table. The book was still there.
Good. Now I just had to wait.
Of course, if he was dead, then I was out of luck, but if there was one thing I was sure of about Gus, besides his being a weasel supreme, it was that he was a survivor.
I’d never read Dickens, this was as good a time as any. I found a place near the window but out of sight of the outside, and settled in to read.
A soft clumping on metal brought me out of the story. Someone climbed the fire escape. My skin tingled in that way it did when another Empowered was near.
I slipped further in the room, deeper into the shadows. I reached with my power, brushed the ivy growing up the back of the building, urged it to strengthen and pull nitrogen from the air.
A silhouette appeared in the window, framed by daylight, and dropped down into the room.
Grow, I commanded the ivy and it snaked up, vines like hot wires in my mind, until it covered the window behind the figure.
The hood fell back, revealing Gus’s long tousled hair. He went to the end table, froze.
“Looking for this?” I held up the book. “Pretty good read.”
He jerked away from me, stumbled over a pile of magazines and fell backwards into another pile. And then he was gone.
The mesh of vine trembled. I pushed my essence into the mass, thickened the vines into rope.
Gus reappeared against the window, frantically trying to burrow through the tangle of green.
I grabbed his hood, hauled him off the windowsill, and then whirled him around to face me.
“I thought you were going to help me, Gus.” I pushed him away from the window and into a wall, still facing me.
“I tried, Mathilda, I tried, but they said no.”
“Who said no, Gus?”
He flinched away from my glare. “Mutter. The cell leader. He said no.”
“And you caved just like that? You promised me, Gus.” I didn’t have to fake my rage.
I slammed him into the wall.
“Ow,” he grunted.
Blood pounded in my ears. Everything was on the line here: my family. My freedom. This weasel wasn’t going to stop me from getting into the Scourge and completing my mission.
I leaned in close to him. “You promised,” I said in a low voice.
He sucked in air. “I couldn’t do anything. I tried, but you don’t know Mutter. He’ll kill me if I go against him.”
“Weasels always say they’ll get in trouble if there’s something they don’t want to do. You need to be worried about what I might do to you right now.”
I shoved him, hard, back into the wall. Banged him again. He had promised me, and again, he was letting me down.
