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Chapter 20 - Hayden Martinez
Ihate myself for admitting it, but the Pretty Boy Jasper is almost starting to impress me. Almost. He was willing to shoot himself over the projection of Emerson in the chair. He covered for us and almost seemed genuinely concerned when she passed out.
But still, I know first-hand how deceiving charm can be. My mother used to be full of charm. She was the most loved woman on our street: so caring, so hospitable, so full of life. And look what she turned out to be. A monster.
That’s why I’ve learnt to never trust anyone, especially if they have the ability to be the most charming person in the room. Those people are the most dangerous.
As we drive closer to Calveron, my heart rate quickens in anticipation. I’ve never been inside here before. The only place even closely connected to the CSO that I’ve been in, is their testing facility when I went to get my mark. Besides, I make it my duty to stay out of the way of anything that has evidence of the CSO in it. I hardly ever went to school before the test results confirmed I was Ransacked because I couldn’t bear seeing so much of the CSO in one place.
The car drives into a garage underneath a monstroserous building and I can’t help but wonder how any of this is fair. Good people have bad things happen to them all the time, while some egotistical megalomaniac gets a whole building with his name written all over it.
We make our way out of the car, and into a massive room full of cars similar to the one we just hopped out of. The sight of his indulgence makes me want to go to war. Every day, we get up and struggle to find things to eat, clean water, and enough electricity to keep us comfortable at night. Everything we have, we’ve had to steal to get. Ever since the Bunford’s were murdered, no one has been willing enough to keep the shop running. All the produce they had kept stored away and portioned to feed everyone, had been stolen within a week. Since then, we’ve had to rely on either stealing food or seeds to plant. Or we’ve had to get Aubrey, the only one who is Civilised in the gang, to go to her parents and get food from them.
Since the store shut down, we’ve had to rely on our cold, weathered hands to do the dirty work and get people fed. And while we are becoming thieves to survive, here is Cunningham who has a different car for every day of the year.
We head through a door and towards a ‘T’ section with an elevator on one side and stairs on the next.
“I’m taking the stairs,” Emerson states matter-of-factly, as if it is the normal thing to do.
“Me too. I need the walk,” Jasper adds quickly. I narrow my eyebrows at him, knowing exactly what he’s trying to do.
“Me three.” I walk to the front of the line and push past Jasper.
Emerson looks to Aubrey and Aubrey sighs, looking down at her knee-high boots, “stairs for me too.” Emerson laughs. It’s refreshing to see them back together again. Aubrey is always happier when Emerson is around, which makes Crusoe happier, which makes me happier, which in turn makes Mason happy since he just likes seeing everyone else happy.
Without missing a beat, Tyler says that he is coming too, winking flirtatiously at Aubrey. She blushes intensely and rolls her eyes, trying to play it cool.
“Coming,” Mason sighs in obligation.
“I guess I should come too,” says Crusoe. “But I’ll have you know Emerson, that when I break my back because I am too old for stairs, you are paying for my retirement home.” He bends his back till it cracks to prove his point.
It’s just a passing comment, and I know I shouldn’t dwell on it too much, but I do anyway. It’s all well and good that he can joke about it, but we all know that there is no way Crusoe will ever be able to go to a retirement home. Firstly, he isn’t Civilised, so that rules out any possibility of it happening. Even if he was, I know they are expensive, and we would never have the money to be able to pay to be in one.
Everyone doesn’t think about it as much as I do though, so I laugh along with them, because he’s my twin and that’s what I’m obliged to do. But it’s not funny; we’re 16. We shouldn’t have to be dealing with sore backs from our uncomfortable, stone hard mattresses and uncertainty about our future. We should be doing whatever normal people do. Not fighting for our lives.
Emerson smiles, “put it on his tab.” She points to Cunningham. “He’ll pay for any pain that he’s caused you.”
“Really?” Cunningham says, glowering at her. He pushes through everyone and begins to head up the stairs without another word. Everyone else follows.
I’ve always admired that about Emerson; the way she has the ability to say something, and everyone will just follow suit. She isn’t any older or wiser than any of us, and yet everyone here seems to trust her completely.
Emerson is walking next to Aubrey, and they seem to be having an intense conversation, so I don’t interrupt. I will just have to talk to Emerson a bit later. The walk up the stairs is a long, tiring one. I should have taken the elevator. I would have already gotten to wherever we were headed if it weren’t for that Pretty Boy and his frustrating inclination to hang around Emerson.
I catch pieces of the conversations between Aubrey and Emerson. Aubrey is talking about everything that has happened since she’s been gone, nothing, and Emerson is talking about her new favourite food, waffles.
“Oh, and it turns out that mum is here,” Emerson says casually.
“WHAT!” Aubrey sequels excitedly. “But-” She stops and looks at Emerson pointedly. She nods. “How?”
“Apparently the day she went to get groceries was the same day the Bunford’s were attacked,” she took a deep breath, “by the CSO. They killed them because they were looking for her, for me.”
“Emerson! That’s horrible,” Aubrey puts a comforting arm around Emerson. “Why?”
“Because I supposedly know something that no one else knows. Isn’t that right, Albert?” Cunningham doesn’t turn around but nods his head in a vague agreement.
“That’s right, Emerson. You know something they don’t.” he replies to her. I wonder if she has any idea what he is talking about, but if she does, she doesn’t say so.
“Anyway,” she continues, “it turns out that I spent ten years of my life wasting away, crying over somebody that isn’t really dead.”
