Nora & Kettle (15 page)

28. ESCAPE

NORA

At five o’clock, the door slams loudly. I grab my bag, tell Frankie to grab hers, and we creep out the door like burglars. Frankie enjoys the theater of it, and it works for me to have her play along. As long as she’s quiet, it’s fine. I have to keep telling
myself
that it’s going to be fine. Whatever that means. If it’s something other than being here, then that’s all I want.

Fine. Fine. Fine.

The bag is not meant to carry this much weight, and it digs into my shoulder. I get to the front door and pause, thinking I should feel a pull to turn around. That this place should mean something more to me, and giving it one last look to say goodbye is what I should do, but my head won’t turn. I’m happy to say farewell to this place. Within these walls, I’ve felt nothing except tied down, restricted, and terrified. As I open the door and step outside, it’s like every binding just snaps. Pulling the door closed, hearing it lock. That sound. It should be scary but it’s triumphant. It’s locking him in there. All of it
in
there, away from Frankie and me.

There are no nosy neighbors with their letters fluttering between their fingers as they casually try to assess where I’m going. I stride to the glass doors, the breakable bubble that separates me from the real world, and shove it open. The sounds of the city envelope me, call to me, and I smile.

I hold out my hand and Frankie takes it, her skin sticky in my palm, her hair clumped in ribbons of autumn colors. I strike the match and walk away.

“Where are we going?” Frankie asks as we ease down the steps. Her voice sounds buffered, like she’s speaking through wads of cotton wool.

I glance down at her eager face. “Subway station.”

I open the purse slung across my shoulders. I have enough for train fare, and a cheap hotel room. Tomorrow, I’ll sell what I have and go from there.

I hit the last step and trip a little on the sidewalk. Frankie steadies me. “Thanks, sis,” I manage, as I stare down the street that seems to lengthen the longer I look.

We walk slowly to the corner, me gripping fences and steadying myself on walls as we go. The ground is a ship deck and we’re in a storm. To outsiders, I probably look drunk, wobbling around, taking small, determined steps so I don’t trip over again. I keep my hat pulled down, but I know it does little to hide the swelling of my jaw and the bruises under my eyes.

Frankie sounds smaller and further away when she asks, “Which way?”

I point to the subway station two blocks away and across the street. I take a too-big step and fall forward, crashing down to the pavement like a blown-up building. A man rushes to my side and helps me up. When he sees my face, his brow furrows and he grips me harder. “Thank you, sir,” I mutter.

“Do you need me to call your husband, Madam, or… your father?” he asks quietly.

I shake free of his grip, the world spinning, spinning, spinning. Part of me wants to say
yes
. I’m scared I won’t be able to do this. The other part tells me I can’t go home. That I’m too close to getting away. That I won’t last two more years of this. He’ll kill me. He might hurt Frankie next time. I can’t. I just can’t.

“No, thank you. I’m on my way home right now,” I say. Reluctantly, he steps away. Thankfully dark is closing in, the light fading in like at the end of a movie. And like the end of a movie, little splotches of black appear in my vision. I keep my head down, my hand tight around Frankie’s, and stumble forward.

It becomes easier to hide as more people pour into the streets, clocking off from work. Frankie and I slide into the crowd and follow them to the station. Every now and then, she sneaks a look at me, her expression plastered with concern. I’m making her anxious and I make more of an effort to look normal as the darkness grows in the street and over my eyes. Streetlights blink on one by one, seeming to buzz like fireflies in a bottle. I keep my eyes focused on the one marking the entrance to the subway and doggedly continue.

People gallop down the stairs. I press close to the wall of the tunnel and move sluggishly. I pay for my ticket, the man speaks to me, but all I can hear is the blood rushing through my ears and the sound of the subway tunnels seeming to flood with water. Frankie anchors me and almost leads me through the turnstiles. “Where do you want to go?” she asks, pointing at the various destinations and platform numbers.

I put my hand to my head, trying to think, people bump me, twist me around, and I feel like I’m sinking. “Nora?”

I don’t know what I’m doing so I just pick a platform, and Frankie pulls me forward. Everyone’s moving faster than me, or I’m in slow motion. I hear Frankie jabbering but it’s just noise, not words. I pick out the individual bricks of the tunnel and count them as I run my hand over each one.

The incline down to the platform seems steeper than a high slide and I dig my nails into the wall, inching down carefully, all the while hearing the thump, thump, thumping in my ears as if someone were pounding my brain with a rubber mallet.

When I reach the platform, cool air blasts through the tunnel and sends my hair flying around my face.

The doors slide open and we step onto the train, pushed along by other commuters. As the train starts to move, I feel my stomach protesting. I watch the stations zoom by, light hitting my eyes like new punches. If people stare, I can’t see them. I’m focused on the closing circle of light in my vision.

As I grip the underside of the chair, nausea rolls through me. I push up and out of my chair. “I need to get out,” I whisper, touching the back of my hand to my mouth. The doors open at the next station and I stumble out desperately, my sister’s trembling hand in mine.

I pull up as the doors close and the train moves on, feeling like I’m trapped between two plates of glass. I can’t move for fear of being ill. I can’t think. Everything is dim, dark. Frankie tugs on my arm, her little lips moving, her eyes tearing up with worry. I wonder if I’ve made the right decision and how much I’ve scared her.

The tunnel lights flicker, or my eyelids flutter, and the bulbs in the lamps all black out. Fabric tears, my shoes slip out from under me, and I fall. I don’t feel the landing.

My last thought is a bad one.
He’s going to find us
.

29. THE KING

KETTLE

“Kin. Kin. Kin. Kin…” His name loses its meaning as it turns into a mantra, a prayer. I stroke the side of his face, his sweaty sideburns, and his greenish skin. He looks wrong. Too peaceful. His face should be angry, contorted with the fight I hope is still in him. His chest rises and falls, but his body is so slack it’s like his nerves are gone.

I look up to see the paramedics carrying a woman from the platform on a stretcher. I can only see little cuts of the view through the splits in the fabric of curious onlookers. One pale, limp hand swings back and forth as it hangs over the stretcher. It’s clad in silk buttoned to the wrist. A smaller, paler hand reaches out and grabs it, squashing the fingers together in what would be uncomfortable if the woman was awake or alive. I’m not sure. I don’t care.

The paramedic talks into his radio, “Incoming. Female appears to have lost consciousness on the platform. We’re bringing her in now.”

I yell out again, too scared to be careful. “Hey! What about my brother? Are you going to help him?”

People swing around and finally notice me now that the rich woman has been helped. The paramedics stop for a moment, and one of them has the decency to look upset. “We’ll be right back. We have to get Miss Deere to the hospital, and then…” His words are swallowed by the crowd as things return to normal. Men and women hop off the train and others hop on. They give me sad looks, but no one offers to help. Someone throws a dollar bill at me. I want to gnash my teeth and launch at him like the animal they think I am, but I daren’t move.

They said they’d come back. They’ll come back. They have to come back.

The nighttime rush settles down, and the platform empties. I cradle Kin’s head like it does some good.
I don’t know what to do, and I’m doing it wrong.

I glance at my watch. It’s been an hour. He breathes, but shallowly. There’s a weight on his chest I can’t move.

I smooth his hair and speak to him. “Remember when we first met? I woke up face to face with this wise-ass boy who smirked at me and tried to act like he was tough despite the fact that he was curled up next to his mama on an army bed. You made faces at me until your mother woke up and scolded you.” I sigh. “I was so scared. I’m sure you were too, but you always made the best of it. Even when she got sick, you did. Kin, you saved me. Your mother too. Without your family, I would have died out there in the desert and there would be no one to mourn me.” I’m trying really hard not to cry, but one tear hits his face.

He blinks and opens his eyes. They roll around for a while, and then he coughs. “Take me home, Kettle,” he manages. He lifts his arm up to me. When I don’t move, he says, “Please. I want to go home.”

“But the paramedics will be here soon… We need to wait, Kin,” I say desperately.

“No one’s going to help me,” he says without bitterness or an edge to his voice. It’s just simple fact in his mind.

“But…”

He gives me a tired look, and I don’t finish.

I help him up, but his legs are like jelly. Worse, only one seems to be working and it’s incredibly hard to move him at all. Luckily, it’s not far to get home and the platform is deserted.

I drag him inside and close the door.

***

By the time I reach the second door, Kin’s unconscious again. I bang on it and hear the scurrying. They’re waiting for the secret knock, but I can only thump the wood with my elbow. “Let me in. It’s me, Kettle.”

The door slides open, and I’m greeted with hungry eyes and shocked faces. “What’s wrong with Kin?” Krow asks.

“He’s hurt,” I splutter. “Help me lift him onto his bed.”

The boys help me lie him down. We cover his unresponsive body with a blanket and just stare at him for several minutes. I pull the curtain around his bed and tell the boys to clean up the room, walking over to my area and throwing my bag down.

The slinky I bought tumbles out and lands at my feet. I never got the chance to give it to him. Picking it up, I pull it out of the box and let it hang from my fingers. I watch it, detached, as it bounces up and down until it stills. Each time it plunges down, my heart strangles itself a little more. I feel cramped, caged in for the first time since I left
that
place.
The place where we were expected to look after ourselves or die.
But at least there were adults there. I feel so out of my depth that I’m sitting on the ocean floor. Just sitting there, looking up at the black sky and wondering how the hell I’m going to get out of this. How will I manage on my own?

I gather up the slinky, tangling it together until it looks more like a ball of barbed wire than a toy. I try to untangle it but make it worse, until my frustration, my helplessness, reaches its peak and I scream, hurling the toy at the wall.

Burying my head in my hands, I allow myself one moment of panic and tears. One. That’s all I get.

The boys are all frozen, staring at me with frightened eyes. I gather myself up, take a few deep breaths, and face them.

***

The boys sleep restlessly. They’re worried. I am too. Whatever is wrong with Kin is not going to mend itself. He needs medical attention. I find Krow and shake him awake, whispering in his ear, “I need you to help me.”

He nods, sits up, and pushes back his sleeves. He’s only fourteen but he understands.

“I’m going back outside. I’m going to make a phone call, and then I need you to help me carry Kin to ground level as quick as you can. Okay?”

He grimaces. “Okay… but he’s pretty heavy.”

I pat him on the back. “You’re my second. I need your help.”

He nods seriously.

I sneak out, ignoring the loud splats and splashes my feet make as I run through the tunnel. The nearest phone box is located near the ticket station before the tunnels branch out. I think about what I’m going to do and it makes me sick, but it’s the only way. I think about the rich, white arm hanging off the stretcher, her perfect clothes, peachy and unblemished, and hatred blooms in my chest. Kin might die because the priority went to Miss Deere, some woman who fainted.

I gulp. He might die. Slamming into the phone box, I dial 911, panting as the phone rings and rings.

“Hello, please state your emergency.”

I swallow dryly. I have to do this right or they won’t come. “Hello. Yes. I need to report a mugging.”

The nasal voice on the other end of the phone says, “Connecting you to the police department…”

“Wait! No! The man they mugged is badly injured. They took his cash but left his wallet. His name is James Washington-Kellar. Wait… isn’t that Senator Washington-Kellar’s son?” I spew out in one breath.

There’s a click on the other end and the woman’s voice, which had sounded bored up until now, suddenly kicks up an octave. “I’m connecting with the paramedics. Where are you?”

I give the station details.

“Is he conscious?”

I stall for a second, pretending I’m checking the man’s condition. “No. He’s unconscious and beat up pretty bad.”

“The ambulance is on its way,” she assures me. “The police will be there soon.”

I drop the receiver and run back to get Kin. The man in the ticket office leans back in his chair, snoring loudly, his arms slack at his sides, his chin on his chest. The sick feeling creeps closer to my mouth. There are so many things that could go wrong. My hope is once they get down here, even though they’ll know it’s not the senator’s son, they’ll treat him anyway.
They have to, don’t they?

I bite my lip as I run. I don’t want to do this.

The platform is dead quiet, and I easily slip into the tunnel without anyone seeing me. When I get to our door, I stop. I breathe. Try to anyway.

This is goodbye. Goodnight. A tear slides down my cheek, and I wipe it away. There’s no time.

***

I take Kin’s arms and Krow takes his legs. We pick our way over the sleeping bodies. Kelpie stirs and sits up, glancing around in confusion.

“Kelpie, can you open the door for us?” I whisper.

He nods and pads over to the heavy wooden door, holding it open for us to pass through. “Bye Kin,” he says, waving one hand. He says it casually, like he’ll see him again one day.

Damn it! I’m losing a battle with my emotions as I awkwardly stagger back toward the second door. Krow’s ruddy face turns to mine for a moment, but he has the decency to ignore my sniffling. When we reach the platform, I speed up, hoping I can reach the ticket office before the paramedics. We walk as fast as we can, our legs and arms burning under Kin’s weight. His face, paler than I would have thought possible, bumps up and down with our less-than-delicate movements.

Kin, I’m sorry.

The reflection of red, flashing lights bounces off the glass and metal, coloring the walls of the subway station. Krow’s getting anxious, dancing from foot to foot. “Where?” he asks, swinging Kin’s legs out like he’s going to dump him and run.

I jerk my head to the phone, and we quickly lay him down. I get less than a second to look at him, to understand that I have no choice, before I hear footsteps and have to run away from Kin’s resting body. Doubt blares in my ears like the sirens that have started to wail outside. Krow and I press ourselves to the wall around the corner and listen.

“Pulse?”

“Steady. Pupils unresponsive.”

“Wait, this isn’t…?”

“Let’s worry about that when we get back to Mount View.”

There’s a small heave, the men grunt, and when I chance a look around the corner, they’re carrying Kin away on a stretcher.

Relief and fear collide in my crowded head, fighting each other with fists dipped in doubt. If he lives, he’ll never forgive me.

Kin is seventeen. I may have just given him a chance to survive, but I’ve also sentenced him to months in a home and several chances of being abused until he turns eighteen.

***

The train rattles loosely, the cars shaking over the tracks like they’re just as scared as the rest of us. Packed into three carriages, separated from the rest, families sit shoulder to shoulder.

Possessions are balled up in sheets, women grasping them in their laps. Giant cloth balloons filled with memories most of us would like to forget.

I look down at my own small bag and pat the $25 in my pocket. It’s harder for most of them. They had a home they are not allowed to go back to. I don’t have that. I’m heading toward something, not away.

He slings an arm over my shoulder and pulls me close, whispering in my ear. “Let’s run away. You and me, brother.”

I don’t answer. My small legs swing from the train seat. I miss her. I miss the four walls and blankets strung between bedrooms. Is it wrong that I miss the camp?

I frown. It is. She is gone, and now he is the closest thing I have to family. I think of the bloodstained handkerchief, her dainty cough, and blood-splattered dress.

“I don’t know,” I reply doubtfully.

He grips my shoulder tighter. He is only a few months older than I am, but he thinks he’s much more. “We’re both orphans now,” he says, staring at the ground. The woman opposite us looks up for a moment, her dark brows pulled together in sadness. The emotion sits over the whole train, pushing on and upwards to an unknown destination. “They’re gonna put us in a home. They might put you back where they got you.” He shakes his head, and I believe him. “With fifty dollars between us, we can live like kings. I say at the next station, we make a break for it.”

“Okay,” I say, shuddering at the thought of going back to the Home.

He grins. “And a new start means new names.” He holds out his hand and says, “I’m Kin.”

I quirk an eyebrow at him. “Kin?”

He shrugs. “What about you?”

I gaze down at my hands, nervously clasping and unclasping. Waiting for something to come. The memory of steam curling from the small stove, the hot tea that seemed to soothe her coughing, wafts in front of my eyes. It was always my job to boil the water, to pour the tea. I would offer it to her wilting hands and receive the rare smile and nod. Her face like a heart framed in black. The deep sadness I felt at her illness was eased by that simple gesture. I knew it was not going to cure her, but it made me feel useful in a hopeless situation.

“Kettle,” I mutter.

He doesn’t make fun of me. He just says, “Okay, Kettle it is.”

“Kin is perfect,” I barely whisper.

Kin is loyal, accepting. Kin is my brother.