with a large book in his hands-biology, I think it was. “I told you to leave me alone,” he said calmly, as if it were the most rational request in the world. Maybe it was in the outside world, but here… Allgood was going to have to keep swinging those books.
He was put in the Quiet Room that night, which didn’t bother him in the slightest. Charlie was perfectly happy with his own company. The next day, he was assigned to my room. Shotgun Jack and Book-Thumping Charlie, one helluva dynamic duo. In the beginning, I ignored him. I wasn’t there to make friends. I was only marking time until I could get out and find my sister. I couldn’t do anything for her now, just as I hadn’t been able to do anything for Tess, swallowed by water, but when I was eighteen, they’d have to let me see Glory. I was her brother, her only remaining family. That meant something. It had to.
Charlie didn’t mind the rejection. He only fixed me with his odd blue eyes, smiled, and reached for the next book. He was seventeen, a year older than me. A little short for his age and wiry, he had a close-cut pelt of intensely black hair that whispered of Asian or Hispanic blood. That might have been belied by the pale color of his eyes if it weren’t for the slightly almond shape to them. Despite that exotic feature, he had a face typically referred to in the South as five miles of bad road. And the hair, while short, was always disheveled, as if distracted finger- combing was the most attention he could spare it. Pleasantly homely was what Granny Rosemary would’ve called him. If she’d still been around.
He kept to himself, studied nonstop, and left me alone. Once in a while when I was erasing holes in my paper with frustrated force, he would offer to help me with my chemistry homework. Usually, I said no, but once… hell, it only takes once. Math I got. It was just numbers, like money was numbers. For that, I had an innate skill, and it was one that I still planned to use to make a life far different from this. People left you, people died, but money was forever-if you knew what you were doing. And when it came to money, unlike everything else, I always knew what I was doing.
After the chemistry, he started to creep in, bit by bit. I put it down to boredom. I mean, it wasn’t as if I needed anyone. I didn’t. But when you spend the better part of your day with someone in a nine-by-twelve room, you eventually have to talk… talk or kill each other. And Charlie wasn’t as annoying as some. He was quiet, he didn’t steal, and he kept his shit on his side of the room, which kept me from accidentally touching any of it. And two months later, he was still swinging a mean book.
I grinned to myself as I moved my eyes from the hated pink to the neutral tile of the ceiling. Charlie said he wanted to be a doctor, and that’s why he carried so many books around. It was true enough; the kid had his nose stuck in one 24/7, but they also came in handy reenacting his first day. Thick and heavy, they were better than a sock full of pennies. Charlie might be a few inches shorter than I was, but he took care of himself fine.
“I saw Ryder in the library yesterday, believe it or not,” I said, hands behind my head. Hunger was a junkyard-dog growl, even at the prospect of a breakfast of leathery scrambled eggs and petrified mystery-meat sausage.
“Library.” Charlie snorted as he turned over in a rustle of sheets. “Five books in a milk crate isn’t a library.”
“Whatever, geek boy. I think he was looking for a weapon. Maybe he’s going to challenge you to a duel.” Dusty yellow light began to creep across the ceiling like the incoming tide. “Lab manuals at fifty paces.”
“If it got that idiot to pick up a book, it might actually be worth it.” There was the sound of his bare feet slapping against the floor. I expected him to follow his usual routine. Up to squeeze in ten minutes of studying, then off to the showers. But he didn’t, not this time. Instead, he said quietly, “My birthday’s next week.”
“You saying you want five bucks in a card?”
There were eighty-four tiles up there under the shimmering light. Correction, there were eighty-four spaces, and one was empty. Underneath the missing tile was a black hole that blew sour air directly over my bed. In the middle of the night, I could easily imagine it was the tainted breath of death itself. Not for one moment did I think he’d come to take me away. That would be too easy. No, he was only paying a visit to a junior varsity player, clapping my shoulder with an approving bony hand.
“No, I don’t want a card.” His foot tapped on the floor, the bump of heel then slap of toes. “I just wanted you to know, Jack. That’s all.”
He would be eighteen. Eighteen and free. Charlie had told me that his parents had both been killed in a car accident several months ago. With no other relatives in the picture, he’d ended up here, but as of next week, he could walk away. As solid and logical as he was, I was sure he already had things worked out. An apartment, school… like me, Charlie had his plans. They were different plans with different goals, but we were both looking to get away from our here and now.
“So, now I know.” My eyes dropped back to the pink wall. Next week was as perfect a time as any to leave. It would give me time to squirrel away some supplies, maybe steal some money from one of the teachers. Neither Charlie nor I would have to break in a new roommate. It was good… right. No more bullshit, no more being at the mercy of people who were damn deficient in the emotion. And no more goddamn pink.
“Sorry, Tess,” I murmured under my breath. She’d loved it, but the color reminded me of too much.
“How much longer for you?”
Exhaling, I sat up. The morning was moving along, and if I wanted any breakfast, I’d better get moving with it. “Two years,” I answered absently. It wasn’t surprising that he didn’t know. I wasn’t one for telling personal details. As for my story, how I’d gotten here, he probably did know that… from the grapevine but not from me. Whether he knew or not, he didn’t treat me any different from how he had since the first day. He didn’t stare, and he didn’t ask prying, greedily vicarious questions. A good roommate, all right. Damn good.
“Two years,” he repeated, the corners of his mouth tightening. He’d experienced two months in Cane Lake; he could certainly imagine two years more of it. “That’s a long time. Maybe I could write you sometime, see how you’re doing.”
I slid him a look that wasn’t half as scornful as I meant it to be. “You’re not a doctor yet, Allgood. You’re not getting paid to take care of me or anybody.” I didn’t have a problem not telling him that I wouldn’t be around to receive any letters. He had a conscience, Charlie did. As bad as Cane Lake was, it was possible he might think that being on the streets was worse. A runaway from the state didn’t have many opportunities in the way of legal jobs or housing, and Charlie was smart enough to know that.
“They say they might let Hector come live with me,” he said, changing the subject, or so I thought. “I just have to prove I can provide a stable household.”
I could hear the bitter emphasis on the last two words. Even easygoing Charlie knew that the places the state sent kids were anything but stable. Not enough foster homes. Blah blah blah. Like any excuse could explain away places like this. Skimming my sleep-rumpled T-shirt off, I grunted noncommittally. Hector was Charlie’s brother, younger by a year. He was in another facility. Charlie said Hector was more of a jock than he was and capable of watching his ass. Not that he had put it quite like that, Mr. Prim and Proper. Still, I knew the separation bothered Charlie, like being apart from Glory bothered me. They were all either of us had left.
“I wish they’d let you come, too.” He said it with such sincerity. He meant it; he really did. The guy would take a killer like me into his home because he thought it was the right thing to do. Because he thought he was my friend.
It wasn’t going to happen, of course. There were rules. Strict rules, fair rules, the kind that put children back with their biological parents to be beaten to death all in the name of keeping the God-given natural family whole. Rules to keep people like me away from good, wholesome folks until I was old enough to do some real damage. But even if those rules were different, I wouldn’t go with Charlie. Couldn’t. Depending on someone else only got you in trouble. I’d learned that the hard way at fourteen, and it was still true at sixteen. Trusting your parents, trusting your friends, it just wasn’t a route I was going to go. Not again. I liked Charlie, I did. But like wasn’t anything more than that. Like wasn’t trust. I was going to be there for Glory, one day, but I didn’t plan on anyone being there for me. Depend only on yourself, and you won’t be let down. That was a rule of my own. An iron-fucking-clad one.
“It’s the thought that counts,” I said with an honesty that I rarely bothered with anymore. You didn’t need the truth when you couldn’t be bothered to waste words on anyone. Charlie had made himself the exception to that when I wasn’t looking. Sneaky little bastard. It wasn’t trust, but it was something. Yeah, something. Slapping the warm feeling back down to the murk where it belonged, I grabbed a towel and a melted bar of soap wrapped in plastic wrap before heading toward the door.
The week passed quickly, for both of us, I think. Charlie spent his time finishing off paperwork, talking to his brother on the phone, and neatly packing his few belongings. Or putting together his bookmobile, as I told him. It
