Текст книги "The Moon Dwellers"
Автор книги: David Estes
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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
We are so close I can practically smell the freedom.
So close.
And yet so far.
Cole is straddling the barbed wire at the top of the fence, trying to avoid getting poked somewhere that will have a permanent impact, when I hear the next shout. It isn’t from the yard this time, but from the street outside the fence.
This time I look. I don’t even have to turn my head, just have to look down. Half a dozen guards, armed to the teeth with automatic weapons, which are pointed right at us, are shouting for us to get down.
We are trapped like rats.
Chapter Eight
Tristan
When we exit the transporter, it is getting very dark in subchapter 14. The day lights on the roof of the cavern—which are already dim to begin with—are nearly extinguished, simulating twilight. I am glad. It makes it easier to avoid being spotted.
Although most of the time the many subchapters in the Moon Realm blend together in my memory, becoming one continuous subchapter in my mind, I have a pretty good idea of the layout of subchapter 14 because we just visited it. Roc also has a map—he has a map for every place in the Tri-Realms—and we use it, along with our memories, to navigate our way from the transporter station, through the streets past the familiar government buildings, and into the light commercial district, near where the Pen is located.
I still haven’t worked out what to do when we get there.
We emerge from a crowded street, full of people bartering goods and services for their next meal, and see the intimidating fence surrounding the Pen. It is a formidable obstacle, complete with barbed wire and signs warning of “Electrified Fence—Keep Back!” It certainly makes you appreciate being on the outside of it.
The rock yard beyond the fence is empty. It’s getting late and the inmates are probably in their cells. I’ve never visited the Pen before—never had a reason to—so I don’t know their rules around prisoner visitation.
We have a choice to make. Hole up for the night and wait until morning to try to get inside the Pen, or give it a try now, at a time which will be considerably more suspicious. We decide to get a hotel room first.
The only option in near vicinity to the Pen is a ratty old building across the road. The ancient clerk at the front desk has a wispy white beard and pockmarks covering the whole of his face.
“We’d like a room for the night,” I say gruffly.
The guy doesn’t bother to look up from the newspaper he is reading. “Which one would ya like?” he says.
“Do you have anything available that overlooks the Pen?” I ask.
The man starts to chuckle, but then starts coughing—a heaving, wheezing blast of air from his mouth that reeks of disease. When he gets control of his lungs, he says, “We currently have one hundred percent availability.”
I guess I should’ve known, considering the number of people commuting out of the city every day. There is no reason for travelers to stop in the 14th subchapter.
“Top floor, dead center view of the Pen,” I say.
“Room twelve thirty-five,” the man says, handing me a key. He’d slipped the key from a peg on a board without even looking at it. Roc and I make eye contact; his lips are curled into a smirk that I am pretty sure mirrors my own.
The room is more like a closet, but is clean at least, with painted-white stone walls and slate floors. A single bed fills most of the room—we’ll have to duke it out for bed rights. There is a shared bathroom in the hallway, but with no guests other than us, we’ll have it all to ourselves. I close the door.
First we check the view. For someone wanting a view of the Pen—like us—it is a good one. The Pen is dark and quiet. I can picture the girl sitting on her bed in her cell, wishing to be anywhere but there. I don’t dare to picture her on a slab of rock in the morgue. She can’t be dead. Can’t be. If she’s alive, I wonder if she is thinking about me, whether she had the same strange feelings I did when our eyes locked. Probably not.
But even so, if I can somehow get her out of the Pen, no doubt she will be pleased, willing to get to know me. She will know who I am, but I hope that won’t be the reason she wants to get to know me. I am so tired of people liking me just because of my father. In my mind, that is more of a reason not to like me.
“I’ve got to find out if she’s alive tonight,” I say suddenly.
Roc glances at me, raising his eyebrows. I am ready for him to advise me that I should wait until morning, that I should do the responsible thing, be patient, but to my surprise, he says, “I know. Let’s go have a look.”
When we pass the front desk, the same old man is sitting in the same position, reading the same paper, like he is glued to the seat. Perhaps he has a neck problem, which explains why again he doesn’t bother to look up. Or perhaps he just doesn’t like guests, or more specifically, doesn’t like us. It doesn’t bother me—the fewer questions and looks we get, the better.
The security at the front gate of the Pen is light—only a single guard with an automatic weapon mans the station. I am impressed that they have guns. They aren’t easy to come by and the inmates are all less than eighteen years old; it seems like a lot of excess firepower to me.
I’ve removed my shades, as they will make me stick out even more wearing them at night. I hope the low-brimmed hat will be sufficient to hide my face. I approach the guard with my head down, but I can feel him eyeing us.
“Hoping to visit an inmate,” I say casually.
“A guest?” the guard replies.
I almost say what? but then realize we are talking about the same thing. Funny how they call their prisoners guests. “Uh, yeah, a guest,” I say.
“Visiting hours are over. Come back between ten and two tomorrow.”
The guard doesn’t sound like he’ll easily change his mind, but I have to try anyway. “Is there any chance of an exception?” I say.
“No,” he says simply, his voice sounding tired, like he hates having to constantly have this conversation with people. I consider playing my son of the president card, but decide against it for two reasons. First, I don’t really want to give away my identity just yet. There is a good chance the press will get wind of it and then my father will send guards to bring me back. Second, I don’t want to rely on my name, or my father, anymore. I am tired of it. I am ready to just be me, for better or for worse.
“Okay, we’ll be back at ten tomorrow,” I say.
The guard doesn’t answer, just stares at us. No, it’s not at us, more like through us, like we aren’t even there. We leave.
I know it isn’t a good idea to roam the city, especially at night, but we have to eat so we go for a walk. The subchapter has seen better days. Although the cavern it’s built in is magnificent, rising hundreds of feet above our heads and extending many miles in each direction, the town itself is deteriorating. Most of the shops and restaurants are boarded up, having insufficient business to exist. When people don’t have money, they can’t buy things—simple as that. I expect it means the remaining restaurants will be crowded, enjoying the benefits of being the only show in town, but I am wrong there.
We pass a tavern. Through the window I can see a lone drinker propped on an elbow, sitting on a stool at the bar. Nursing a drink. And I mean nursing. He is sipping it like it might be the last drink he will ever take. Maybe it is. Maybe things are so bad that he spent the last of his money on the drink, and plans to commit suicide later tonight. I don’t know. Things like that don’t happen in the Sun Realm.
We get to the end of the street without passing another open eatery. Turning left, I hear the distant murmur of music playing. Halfway down the block the soft glow of candlelight drifts through an open doorway. The sign above the door says simply Pizza. Not seeing any other options, we make for the light.
Entering the pizzeria, I let Roc step in front of me as I see half a dozen heads turn toward us. The music playing is by some sun dweller rock band, The Stone Crushers, I think, and has an up-tempo beat that makes you want to get up and dance. No one is dancing tonight. They are, however, eating pizza and it smells pretty good.
There is no one to greet us so we just take a couple seats and wait for service. None of the other customers pay any attention to us. A few minutes later, a short bald man with horn-rimmed glasses pushes backwards through a set of swinging doors. He is wearing a red apron and balancing four circular trays of pizza across his outstretched arms.
“Who ’ad the cheese?” he says with a grunt.
Every hand in the place goes up except ours. He quickly dishes out the pizzas and collects a few coins from each party. Then he turns toward us. “What’ll ya have?” he says.
“Whaddya got?” I ask. When the guy’s eyes narrow, I realize I should have just said cheese pizza, because I know he has it. Instead, my simple question instantly draws more attention to us than I want. I glance at Roc. He’s chewing his nails off one by one.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” the guy says.
“Just visiting for a day or two,” I say, hoping it will satisfy him and he’ll go back to serving us.
He raises a single bushy eyebrow. “Travelers, huh?” he says. “We don’t get many travelers. Where ya from?”
Now I know we’re in a bit of trouble. I can tell him the truth, tell him we are sun dwellers, but I have no idea what effect that will have. Will he and his patrons be excited that a sun dweller is visiting their subchapter? Or will they be angry, ready to have a political discussion that involves their fists and our faces? All it takes is one moon dweller with a chip on his shoulder to cause us serious problems. On the other hand, if I lie, tell him we are from some other subchapter, he might ask questions that I’m not able to answer. I will have to keep lying, spinning myself deeper and deeper into a web of deceit.
I opt for truth—big mistake.
“We’re visiting from the Sun Realm,” I say.
You could have heard the sound of one of Roc’s chewed off nails drop to the floor, that’s how quiet it gets. It even feels like the music stops playing, although in reality the song just happens to end at the exact same time.
“The Sun Realm, eh?” the pizza man says. I know that everyone inside is listening to our conversation now, slices of pizza dangling from fingertips, some in mid-bite. I know the man isn’t going to let it go in a hurry. I am glad the restaurant is only lit by candles—it will be near impossible for him to identify me.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Never served a sun dweller before,” the guy says, his light tone switching to heavy right about the time he says the words sun dweller. I sense a hidden meaning behind his words: It’s not that he has never had a sun dweller in his pizzeria, but that he will never serve a sun dweller, even if they are his only customers.
“Fair enough,” I say, standing up. “We’ll take that as our cue to leave.”
The pizza man puts a hand on each of my shoulders and pushes me firmly back into my chair. “There’s a first time for everything,” he says.
I’m not sure what he means. That he is going to serve us like any other customers? Or that he is going to head back into the kitchen and cook up the most delectable, hot, gooey, poisoned pizza he has ever made? Whatever the case, I’m not going to take any chances. As soon as the owner barrels through the swinging doors to the kitchen, I am back on my feet. Roc is up at the same time, knowing without asking what our next move will be.
We move toward the door.
Two big men block the door, standing tall with their arms crossed. Not good. I don’t even know where they’ve come from. I don’t recall seeing them in the restaurant—and if they had been, we would’ve seen them moving toward the door. They could have come from outside, but I probably would’ve heard them scuffle across the threshold, unless they are professional sneaks. There is a staircase that rises up from just to the right of the entrance, however, presumably leading to sleeping quarters for the bald pizza man. Perhaps he has sons who live with him, who, upon overhearing our conversation—key words being sun and dwellers—thought it polite to pop down and say hello. Of course, these men are staring right at us and their lips aren’t exactly moving; if not “hello,” I would take “good evening,” “welcome,” or even “hiya” at this point. No words—just stares. If these guys are his sons, they are genetic freaks, more than twice the size of their dad.
“Excuse me,” I say, still trying to avoid confrontation. They don’t move, just stand there staring. I try to squeeze through the middle of them, but they inch closer together, shoulder to shoulder. I attempt to skirt around them, but they move like a single organism, blocking the side. The only option left is through them. So be it.
I take a few steps back and charge.
The feint is as important as the attack itself.
I fake like I am going to try and club each of them over the head with a different one of my fists. Because all of my activity is aimed high, they counter with high defenses and attacks of their own. The guy on the left covers his head with his arms and hands to block my attack. The guy on the right goes on the offensive, attempting a haymaker punch intended to end the fight quickly, possibly breaking my jaw or giving me a mild concussion. Big mistake.
At the last second I throw my head back and launch both feet forward like torpedoes. Each boot heel hits one of the guys’ knees. I have so much forward momentum that the impact is like getting hit by a concrete block. I feel their knees buckle, crack, bend back the wrong way. And I hear their screams of pain, a harmonized “ARGHHH!” that will surely bring the pizza man running back out of the kitchen.
They tumble backwards out the open doorway and I land on them in a mess of arms and legs, at least two of which contain broken bones. Not mine.
While I attack, Roc is not idle. He is already out the door, grabbing me under my arms, hoisting me back to my feet. And then we are running.
The guys with the broken kneecaps won’t be chasing us, but we don’t know who else might come to their rescue. Given our first taste of subchapter 14 hospitality, we aren’t about to stick around and plead our case to the locals. Apparently, all those screaming, cheering girls—the ones chucking underwear—at the parade the day before live outside the town.
We don’t hear anyone pursuing us, but we don’t stop running until we are back inside our motel lobby.
The hotel guy should look up, considering the way we burst through the door, panting and sweating and out of control. But he doesn’t. He isn’t reading his paper anymore either. He’s rolled it up and is using it as a pillow, his craggly old cheek resting upon it, smudging the print all over his face. Buzzing snores arise from him. Deep sleeper, I think. Hear no evil, see no evil. The perfect place for us to stay.
I never thought I’d be so happy to see the inside of that tiny shoebox room. Roc and I sit down on the bed and look at each other, our eyes wide. Then we are laughing, in between taking deep, heaving breaths, happy to just be away from that terrible pizzeria.
“What was that all about?” Roc says.
“I dunno. I guess they don’t like us,” I say.
“More like hate us.”
I nod. “Good thing they didn’t recognize me.”
“We can’t stay too much longer in this place,” Roc points out.
“I know. But I have to at least try to see her, to do something, to make sure she’s okay.”
“Then we have to do it tonight. We can’t linger, Tristan.” Roc’s eyes are dark and serious. I value his counsel, even when I don’t want to hear it.
“We’ll go at midnight,” I say. “Let’s get some sleep.” My stomach is growling, but I ignore it.
We have three hours before midnight. I let Roc have the bed. It isn’t often he gets something that I don’t. Roc sets an alarm and goes straight to sleep. I linger, taking the time to brush my teeth and shower in the empty bathroom. I have to be presentable if I am going to see her tonight.
By the time I get back to the room, Roc is breathing heavily, twitching slightly on the bed as he dreams about getting chased by angry guards, or perhaps deranged pizza chefs.
I take my place on the floor, using the extra pillow to rest my head on. The stone is hard under my back, but that is one thing I am used to: stone. Everyone living in the Tri-Realms is used to it. I can’t wait for the day I’ll be free of it.
Before I drift off to sleep, I think about how I fainted when I was thinking about the girl. It is as if her beauty, or her presence—or maybe her aura?—is too much for my own soul to handle. I hope I won’t faint when I meet her—I’d die from embarrassment when I woke up.
I sleep, either dreamlessly or without memory of my dreams.
We wake up, not by Roc’s alarm clock, but by the muffled sound of gunshots in the distance. Before I am fully awake I know where the sounds emanate from: the Pen.
I leap to my feet, reaching the window at the same time as Roc. My back is aching from sleeping on the hard, stone floor. I’m not used to it.
We huddle together, gazing across the road and through the fence. The Pen is dark and quiet—like before. Gunshots once more reach our ears. Although the sound is stifled, both by walls and distance, neither Roc nor I have any doubt as to the origin: a semi-automatic weapon. Countless times we’ve heard similar sounds tremor through the walls of the palace, a result of army training exercises nearby.
I spot movement along the fence. I point it out to Roc, and we watch as a dark form creeps in the shadows, moving silently toward a door leading inside. The figure reaches the door and waits. A minute passes without gunshots or movement from the ghost.
The hollow door clangs open, ringing like a bell across the yard, through the fence, and into our ears. Two forms spill from the Pen, momentarily thrust into the glow of a single light illuminating the entranceway. They move quickly out of the light, joining the shadow in the shadows. Although they are only visible for a split-second, a mere wrinkle in time, I know without a doubt who they are—I suddenly feel dizzy.
Roc seems to recognize that something is wrong, and manages to thrust an arm behind me, catching me just before I collapse. “Tristan?” he says.
Thankfully, I don’t pass out. My legs feel like rubber and the whole room is spinning, but I hang on to consciousness. Roc holds me up until the feeling passes.
“It’s her,” I say. “We have to go.” Although she didn’t look at me, I felt the warmth of her green eyes hit me, like a blast of hot air from a furnace. She’s alive! Although I’ve been trying to convince myself that she survived the encounter with the big guy the day of the parade, in my heart I believed it had ended in tragedy. I’m not used to things going my way.
Before leaving, I risk a final glance out the window, hoping I won’t be affected by seeing her again. The threesome reaches the fence and starts to climb. “No electricity?” I say aloud.
A group of guards, at least six, I think, charge out into the yard. They are headed straight for her, toting guns and nightsticks.
Time to go.
Roc is already in the hall, looking back like he expects me to be right behind him. I cross the room in two long strides. We tear down the hall.
If the twelve flights of stairs have a hundred and forty-four steps, I think my feet touch about thirty-six of them. It is a wonder I don’t trip and tumble all the way to the bottom, breaking every bone in my body. As long as my heart is intact, I don’t care.
We rush past the sleeping deskman and into the cool night.
We freeze on the sidewalk when we see the scene before us.
Chapter Nine
Adele
The explosion rocks the still night air like a freight train crossing a rickety wooden bridge. I cling to the fence for dear life, as superheated air whooshes past me with the force of a stick of mining TNT.
We are lucky. Damn lucky.
The bomb blast knocks out a section of fence twenty yards to the left of us, leaving us relatively unscathed. Had we chosen that part of the fence to climb, we would’ve been hurtled to our deaths on the unforgiving rock slabs in the yard.
The good news: The bomb has also taken out every last guard in the yard behind us. Evidently they were running along the fence when it hit, trying to get to where we are climbing. Their bodies are scattered throughout the yard, some quite a distance away from each other, tossed like ragdolls by the power of the explosion. I don’t know if they are dead. Frankly, I don’t care.
The bad news: The guards on the other side of the fence were as protected as we were. They are still standing under us, still aiming their guns at us. Given the stress they are under—what with all their friends out cold on the other side and bombs going off (okay, it is only one bomb so far)—I am afraid they might just open fire and ask questions later.
We are frozen in place, waiting to be torn apart by hot steel bullets. All watching the guards, waiting. It is horrible. An eternity in hell wouldn’t be worse than these ten seconds. Or maybe it is only five. I don’t know—all I know is it is bad.
The next bomb hits a building across the street from the Pen, directly beyond our section of fence. A maelstrom of glass and rock rubble rains down upon the guards and they do what any other well-trained officers of a fine juvenile delinquent facility would do when three of their guests are trying to escape: they run. For good measure, they even throw down their guns to allow themselves to run faster. I’ve never understood the expression turned tail and ran until now. If the guards had tails, they most definitely would’ve turned just before they took off.
For the first time I wonder where the hell the bombs are coming from. When the first one hit the fence I was too shocked to think about the why or the who—plus I still had guns aimed at my head—but after the second blast I start thinking. My guesses are: 1) sun dweller military are attacking our subchapter because we only pay 80 percent taxes instead of 82 percent; 2) fed up, underpaid miners have gone crazy and are determined to destroy everything in sight; or 3) other Pen inmates have managed to get their hands on incendiaries and are shooting them off from the roof.
Cole swings his leg over the top and starts climbing down the other side. I am still frozen in place, trying to process all that has happened. As I watch Cole shimmy down, I can see the hole in the building in the background. The scorching hole is about three times his size, making him look extremely fragile and exposed all alone on his side of the fence. Not that Tawni or I are any more protected.
I am glad Tawni is there, because I’m not thinking clearly. I am ready to continue my ascent to the top of the fence, to finish what we started, carry out the original plan, when she brushes past me, heading back down on the Pen side of the fence.
“C’mon, this way, Adele,” she says.
Duh. Why fight gravity and barbed wire when we can go through the fence? Given a full fifth of the fence has been toppled, it will be far easier to just walk straight out.
We make it down without incident and climb over the mangled fence. We fight through a few nests of barbed wire, but it isn’t too difficult. Just as we get on the street side of the fence, Cole is running toward us. Alarms begin whooping in the background, coming from the Pen. Jailbreak alarms. For us. The jailbreakers.
We run. We run because we are worried about the alarms and the guards that will surely pour from the Pen as a result. We should be more worried about the bombs.
BOOM!
Hot stone shrapnel drills me in the cheek, snapping my head to the side. I see Cole and Tawni get pelted by similar flying projectiles, but none of us so much as considers stopping to check for serious injuries. I think we all know that the only thing to do is keep running, to try to get as far away from the commercial district as possible. Whoever is blasting away isn’t showing any signs of stopping anytime soon.
It is weird—the way the night can be lit up so brightly and quickly and then just as quickly return to darkness, lit only by the soft glow of the streetlights. That’s the way our run goes. Flash! And then dark. BOOM! And then silence. It is eerie, like we are in a war or something, bombs exploding all around us as we literally run for our lives.
The thundering explosions fade and the manufactured lightning grows distant as we escape the city limits, moving into the sparsely populated suburbs. None of us speak as we continue running, making our way around the huge stone columns that help support the cavern roof. I’m not sure how far or how long we run, or why we finally stop when we do. I think we all just stop at the same time, like robots, perfectly synchronized, slipping behind a high stone wall that rings one of the houses.
I’m breathing heavily—Tawni is, too. I’m out of shape. There isn’t much use for exercise inside the Pen. My mind is racing; my side is hurting. I feel a twinge of pain on my cheek and I flinch. Pressing a hand to my face, I feel the sticky wetness of drying blood. I guess the rock hit me harder than I thought.
“Do you…think…we’re safe?” I pant, directing the question at whoever has enough energy to listen.
Tawni hunches over, trying to catch her breath. Evidently she is as out of shape as I am. Cole, on the other hand, has apparently kept up his fitness while on the inside. He doesn’t even seem winded.
“I expect we’re all right,” he says, glancing to his right and left, as if they might be surrounding us any second. “Especially given everything else that’s happening.”
Everything else. If only we knew what everything else is.
“What do you think is happening?” I say.
Cole laughs. “Uh, I think our subchapter is getting bombed to hell and back again.” He laughs again.
“No kidding,” I say. “I meant who do you think is doing it? And why?”
“Another one of my guys,” he says. “I paid a little extra to get a small diversion to ensure we’d get away.”
A day earlier, before I knew him at all, I might have believed him. Not anymore. “Lie,” I say. “Is now really the time for sarcasm?” Despite myself, I smile. “Are we really free?”
Tawni’s breath is mostly back. She rises to her full height, once more towering over me. “For the moment we are,” she says. “As long as we don’t do anything stupid and get ourselves caught.”
I hope we don’t. My mind is clearing and already I am analyzing the situation. It is like a puzzle. There are certain tasks we need to complete, in a certain order, and wrapped around them all is the requirement that we can’t get caught. The first task is obvious.
“We need to get rid of these tunics,” I say.
Cole smirks. “Yeah, I was thinking going naked was a good idea. They’d never expect it.” He starts to raise his tunic over his head, revealing his strong dark legs and a pair of tight, black briefs.
“That’s more than I wanted to see,” I say, looking away. Really I am thinking that he looks pretty good under the gaudy prisoner’s tunic. I’m not attracted to him or anything, but I don’t mind looking at him.
When I look back he’s lowered his tunic and is winking at me. I smile the first real smile I have in a long time. It feels natural, easy, like life is good, full of good friends, good fun, good times. It feels really…really good. I cover it with a hand and wipe it away. Things are still too messed up for smiles.
“Where are we going to get different clothes?” Tawni asks. “I mean, I’ve got money, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea to walk into a shop wearing these.”
“Yeah, plus we’ll be public enemy number one after the breakout. Our faces will be plastered all over town,” I say.
“Do you think so?” Tawni says, suddenly looking excited. “I would die to see my parents’ faces when they see me on the news!”
“I knew I should’ve had them retake my mug shot,” Cole says. “I think I blinked during the first one.”
“No amount of retakes would be able to help you,” I say dryly.
Cole stares at me, his eyes widening and his mouth opening wide to form an O. “My gosh, Adele. Was that…was that a joke? Well played.”
I play-punch him in the arm and am surprised when he winces. At first I think he is kidding, but then I notice the slight tear in his tunic. “Are you hurt?” I ask.
“I think we all are,” he says. “But nothing serious for me. Are you guys all right?”
Tawni glances at me. “Just a few cuts for me. I think Adele is hurt the worst.”
I raise a hand to my face, once more feeling the stickiness. “Nah,” I say, “it’s merely a flesh wound. Probably looks a lot worse than it is.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Tawni says.
Damn, I was hoping not to talk about my other injury just yet. Evidently Tawni saw more than I thought. “It’s not that bad, really,” I say. “I’ll deal with it once we find a better place to hide.”
Cole looks at me suspiciously, and then at Tawni. I squeeze my fists tight, hoping they will both just let it go. Thankfully, they do.
“Okay, where should we go?” Tawni asks.
“First, we need clothes,” I say, bringing our strange conversation full circle.
“I can help with that,” Cole says. “We’ll just go shopping somewhere less visible.”
Tawni frowns, clearly not understanding his meaning, but I get the message. “You want to steal them?” I confirm.
“Not steal, just borrow,” Cole says. When Tawni gives him a look, he adds, “We can even leave some money for them if you want.”
I’m not that comfortable with the idea of stealing from innocent people, especially because things are so tough in our subchapter at the moment, but it’s not like we have much of a choice. Tawni, however, isn’t such an easy sell.
“I’m not stealing from anyone!” she says firmly.
“Shhh, keep your voice down,” I say, glancing at the house for any signs of activity.
“Don’t worry, Tawns, I’ll do the stealing,” Cole volunteers. “Consider the clothes a gift from me and don’t worry about where I get them from.”
“No,” Tawni says, lowering her eyes and putting her hands on her hips. I’m not sure why she has such a big problem with it considering our situation. I guess she is just a person of principle, unwilling to budge on certain things. It is probably caused by her parents—her way of proving she isn’t like them, isn’t willing to cross some line in her head. I am more of a realist.
