The kitchen windows of the Lowell’s house glowed in welcome, and Gabi quickened her pace, already tasting the warm apple cake Grammy Low baked on Fridays for the other Minders at the Care Center. She always put three pieces aside for Gabi, Mathew, and Sam, and the house never lost the sweet, spicy smell from one Friday to the next. Almost there, Gabi coached herself. Just a few more yards. Maybe they’d finally gotten bored and moved on to someone else.
No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than the skin on the back of her neck prickled. She tugged at the actual scarf around her neck as the invisible one cinched tighter. The metallic tang of snow and the complex gases exhaled by each of the houses along Cambium Terrace mingled with a waft of greasy-hair smell. Gabi’s nose filled with the stench of unwashed bodies fueled by hormones and the need to hurt. The swish of nylon accelerated toward her. The air was too thin for her to contemplate trying to run or yell for help even if she could manage it. Working adults and kids occupied with after-school activities meant Cambium Terrace was deserted when Gabi reached it each afternoon. Her only after-school activity was this. Surviving them.
Bradley Fiske first started following Gabi home after school six years ago, which coincided with Mathew’s first day of seventh grade when her brother began doing after-school tutorials and stopped walking Gabi home. The first attack broke slowly, unlike the swift assaults they would later become. Bradley trailed behind her most of the way, calling the occasional insult and whipping small pebbles at her back. Gabi had no idea how to handle it at the time, just tried to walk faster despite the rattle in her chest. Her passivity enraged him, and just as she stepped onto her driveway, Bradley tackled her and sat on her back. His weight pressed the air out of her, and she started going under, but that wasn’t the worst of it. There on the ground, with Bradley Fiske’s chunky thighs squeezing her rib cage, Gabi lost all control of her bladder and peed her pants.
Frightened by her loss of consciousness, but by some stroke of luck unaware that she’d wet herself, Bradley left her there in the yard. When she awoke, Gabi was too embarrassed to consider telling anyone what had happened. Gram was late coming home from the Care Center that day, so Gabi snuck inside, stripped off her soiled clothes and washed them as she bathed, using her entire water ration for that day and the next. What Bradley had done to her, and would keep doing for many years to come, made her feel ashamed. Something about her incited Bradley to violence, and she suspected it was the same thing she loathed about herself. She was a weakling—a drain on precious resources.
The only advantage Gabi had during her after-school encounters was that she always knew Bradley Fiske and his two thuggy friends, Geoff Morehouse and Noel Sutton, were near before she saw them. Geoff was more scared of Bradley than Gabi was. She could hear it in the high mosquito whine of his voice and see it in the way he caved in from his midline whenever Bradley spoke. He would do anything to keep the red rage in Bradley’s eyes pointed away from him. Gabi used to think that Noel had a crush on her back in third grade when he sat behind her in class and passed her knock-knock jokes. Now he glared at her in the hallways as though her mere presence was a personal insult.
There was no place to hide, no trees to climb even if Gabi were strong enough, and no concealing dips or features in Alder’s flat, postage-stamp–size lawns. The Great Strain had taken care of that. They were lucky to have the meager patches of biograss, a synthesized algae frozen into a dull green crust beneath the toxic snow, to break the monotony of asphalt and concrete. At least she could prepare herself. Gabi turned to face the fumes that preceded the gang just as they rounded the corner onto Cambium Terrace. She closed her eyes and willed herself away through the hatch in the corner of her mind. Beyond that hatch was nothing but space, and all the air she needed. Each strand of hair on her head became a straw through which she sipped the rich brew of oxygen sparkling with stars. Gabi’s version of space was not an airless void. It was heaven, inhaled.
All the boys wanted was to play their favorite game, she reminded herself to quiet her galloping heart. It would be over quickly, which was why they loved to play it. Instant gratification. Bradley rocketed into her and pinned her arms to her sides. He was far stronger than she, and Gabi couldn’t run or thrash, but it was part of the game. The air crackled as the boys drew in tight around her. Bradley would be the one to do it, of course, but letting the others feel a part of things was important. The boys’ leader knew he had to give them something to keep them interested.
“Hold her arms,” Bradley yelled, his voice breaking in his excitement. Geoff’s hand encircled Gabi’s right arm in a meaty cuff. Noel was gentler with her left arm, Gabi noted from the velvet envelope of her faraway place, but clamped his other hand hard at the back of her neck for good measure.
Bradley drew off one glove, grimy from his sweaty palms, and pinched Gabi’s nostrils closed with his fingers. His other glove he left on, the better to seal off her mouth. The air in space grew a fraction thinner, but she wasn’t worried. She felt as though she could last out there forever, but the boys liked it better when she struggled. Not fighting made Bradley angry and more prone
