Dead Water Zone - Kenneth Oppel [18]
“When we get back to the pier, you’re staying inside. Understand?”
Paul nodded mutely, keeping pace with her through the maze of alleyways. His mind kept circling back to the photograph of him and Sam. When had it been taken? Where? What were he and Sam doing? The details seemed important somehow. Get a grip, he told himself. But how had they got hold of it? He imagined them going through the closets of his brother’s room at college, handling his clothes, pulling pictures from the bulletin board. Paul suddenly felt afraid.
“Runaway brother,” Monica was muttering. “What crap!”
“Why are they carrying guns?” he said. “What’s the point of guns?”
“You tell me. Maybe they want something your brother has.”
“What do you know about the water?”
“What are you talking about?” She looked at him, surprised.
“It’s got to have something to do with the water. He said there was something strange about it.”
“It’s polluted. Nothing lives in it. You can’t drink it.”
“He found something new. He didn’t say what.”
“What was it about the water?” she asked fiercely. “What are you so afraid of?”
“That he’ll kill himself.”
He was almost as surprised as she was.
“What?”
He shook his head. “It was a stupid thing to say.”
“Why would he do that? Because he got beat up at school?”
Paul didn’t have time to answer. Three kids slid out from an alcove on the jetty, mean looking, all wearing ripped-to-hell black jeans, shredded at the seams and held together with safety pins and staples. Torn shirts hung down past worn-out jackets; metal-toed boots sounded against the planking. He felt his jaw tense, sweat prickle under his arms. Monica touched his hand lightly. Let me handle this.
With predictability that almost made him laugh, the three kids languidly blocked their way. It was strangely familiar—kids gathered on a school playground. Bullies everywhere. In Governor’s Hill he was used to shouted threats, intimidation, ridicule, maybe a few hard shoves. But a part of him exulted. He was bigger than any of them, but the numbers weren’t fair. Out of the corner of his eye he admired the vaguely bored look on Monica’s face.
The kid in front had long, dirty dreadlocks. His face and neck were tattooed with cobwebs and spiders. Four metal loops were sunk through one of his nostrils, and a safety pin had been plunged through the inflamed flesh at the bridge of his nose.
“Wanderin’ around as if she owns the place.”
“Don’t you have anything better to do than piss me off, Sked?” Monica replied.
“Well, this is interesting.” Sked turned his dark gaze on Paul. “A City boy.”
“Move it,” said Monica. “This is boring.”
“Does your City friend here know you’re a health hazard, Toxic Freak?”
Paul felt a nervous tremor working its way through his body. “Get out of the way,” he said.
Sked slammed a thick hand onto his arm. Paul found himself staring at the kid’s knuckles, the flesh torn away in ragged patches.
“Seen your brother lately?”
Paul wrenched his arm free, fury gathering like a white-hot burn in the center of his chest. “What do you know about my brother?” he said, choking on his words. If these bastards had Sam…
“We’re just asking if you’ve seen him lately.”
“Where is he?” Paul shouted. His ears roared with white noise. He was watching them all at once. They were moving in tighter.
“You know where he is, City boy. So just tell us. Save yourself a beating.”
“Go to hell.”
“Look at all this money they gave you, Sked,” said Monica, waving a wad of bills. “How much did those two goons pay you to find his brother? Half now, half later, was that the arrangement?” She hurled the crumpled bills contemptuously in the air.
It took Sked a second to realize it was his money fluttering down around him. “You stinking freak!” he spat, and his hand came up, palm flat, aimed at Monica’s face.
“Hey!” Paul shouted.
But Monica had slipped to one side, her arm darting out so quickly that Paul heard the impact of her fist before he realized she’d struck. Sked’s head snapped back, an almost