Wild-born (8 page)

C
hapter 4: Night Heights

I didn’t care where I was going. I just had to go as fast and as far as I could. I sprinted down the sidewalk, past little shuttered shops and cheap-looking apartment buildings, and dipped into an alleyway where a squawking murder of crows had to take evasive maneuvers to keep from being trampled on as I darted through them. I came out the other side to another wide road where I saw a group of people, mostly dark-suited businessmen with leather briefcases, filing onto a commuter bus. They stared as I rushed aboard at the last second, barefoot, out of breath and clutching a stitch in my side, but I didn’t care.

I had to pay my fare in coins taken from Ralph’s wallet, but I didn’t want to touch the metal money. This drew even more awkward looks from the passengers because I asked the bus driver to pick out the correct amount directly from the coin pocket. The driver must have thought I was crazy, but he didn’t comment as he took the coins.

I kept looking back as the bus started to move, expecting Ralph to come running after me at any moment, maybe sending a tornado at me. The bus crawled along its morning route altogether oblivious to my impatience. At every stop, I was torn between the need to get farther away from the hotel and a panicked desire to get off the bus and find a place to hide. In the end, I rode the bus to the end of its line, which turned out to be a large city square surrounded by a shopping center, some tall office buildings, and a giant train station.

I first ran into the shopping center, which had just opened its doors for the day. I bought a new pair of shoes, socks, and thin gloves. Then I headed to the train station where I got a ticket to a neighboring city.

At the time, it didn’t matter to me where I went, as long as it was far away. Ralph had said he wasn’t much of a “finder,” but that he could find power. Whose power? Mine or the berserker’s? Ralph had shown up a moment after the berserker. Perhaps Ralph couldn’t find me. Perhaps he had been following the berserker, and that’s how he found me. As my train pulled out of the station, I didn’t quite breathe a sigh of relief, but I felt that, for the moment, I was probably safe.

Nevertheless, when I got off the train a little before noon, I immediately started looking for a way to get even farther away. I was inwardly hoping that a chair to the head would have convinced Ralph that he really didn’t want me in his group, especially since Ralph himself had said that I wasn’t much more than cannon fodder anyway. But I didn’t want to take any chances. I guessed that Ralph’s “gathering” would include many other people with powers that could find me from a great distance away. I had to keep moving.

After a fast-food lunch, I took a two-hour bus ride to yet another city. Even though I was calmer and dressed properly this time, some of the passengers still looked at me curiously. An elderly woman who had the seat next to mine asked me where my parents were, so I told her that I had been visiting my relatives and I was going home before school started. I had always been a little small for my age, and the woman didn’t seem to believe me when I told her that I was twelve years old.

As I got off the bus in the early afternoon, I discovered that Ralph’s wallet was already running on empty. Now I was faced with questions of survival. I’d be thirteen in another month and a half, but that was a long way off from being an adult. I knew I couldn’t find work, and it was only a matter of time before I got picked up by the police. As soon as the new school year started, which I realized was now only two days away, I would look out of place on the streets in the daytime. Even if I had the money, I couldn’t just check into a hotel, either. The world simply wasn’t designed to accommodate children on the run.

For the rest of the day, I wandered the streets alone, resting on park benches from time to time. At night, finding nowhere better to go, I snuck under some bushes in a public park. The night air was chilly, and I hugged myself to keep warm.

My parents had been killed just two days ago, and here I was shivering under a bush with nowhere to turn and, for all I knew, being hunted by people who had powers I couldn’t even begin to imagine. It was a while before I realized that I was crying.

I wondered if perhaps I should just turn myself in to the police and explain, or at least try to explain, what was going on. But I remembered what Ralph had said to me on our first night in the car: “Governments know.” What did that mean? How would they treat me? Somehow, I felt that I didn’t want to find out.

I was still very worried about Cat, but even if I had the money for the return journey, which I didn’t, I was deathly afraid that there might be a trap waiting for me back home. I managed to convince myself that Ralph was probably right about my sister. The police would have found her by now and perhaps sent her to my uncle’s place. I wanted to call my uncle and check, but I didn’t know his phone number or exact street address. I forced myself to push aside my fears about Cat. I had to concentrate on taking care of myself.

The next morning, tired and stiff from my night in the park, I made my way to a nearby supermarket. There were still a handful of coins left to me, and I was hungry. But when that food was gone, I would have to choose my next move. I remembered my PE teacher’s favorite saying: “Either you get up and face your problems, or you wait around until your problems are facing you.” That day, I chose the latter.

At night, after another full day’s aimless wandering, I was once again sitting under the bush in the park. Not having eaten any lunch or dinner, I felt weak and even colder than the night before. There was nothing for it: I would eventually have to steal something, either tonight or the next day when I was even hungrier than I was now. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t all too bothered by the moral side of that. I was merely trying to survive. If someone was going to give me a job, or any “right” way to make it out here, I’d take it. I knew that was true, and so I felt it wasn’t a real crime to steal when there weren’t any other options. The real question was how to do it.

I got up and walked toward the downtown area. It was about 11pm, and many of the shops and office buildings were closed. But there were still plenty of cars on the streets, and people were strolling or just milling about on the sidewalks. As I trudged along, I realized that I had no idea where to start. All I knew was that crime was best committed at night, when it was dark. For adults, anyway.

“Hey, kid, where are you going?” a young woman in a sparkly green dress called out to me from across the street. I ignored her and kept my pace, bringing my head down a notch. A child alone on the streets at this time of night drew too much attention. This wasn’t going to be easy.

I ducked into a narrow alleyway between two buildings. The alley was dimly lit, with only two neon tube lights attached to the sides of the buildings. One of them was buzzing and flickering feebly. This was exactly the kind of place your gut warns you about, saying,
Stay away from there. That’s where bad things happen.
But I had been through a good deal of fear these last few days and I knew that there were much scarier things in the world than dark alleyways.

I looked up at the fire escape on one of the buildings. The rusty iron staircase extended from the top of the building down to the second floor, where it stopped. There was a ladder that could be extended from there down to the ground, but of course it was lifted up so that burglars couldn’t climb it.

No matter. I stood there and calmed myself for a few seconds, gathering my focus before levitating myself up onto the stairs. Once I landed on the staircase, I felt my power drain just a little from being surrounded by all the metal, but it was no big deal. My new shoes kept me from touching the fire escape directly. Though I was wearing my gloves, I didn’t use the railing as I quietly climbed the steps.

The problem was that at each floor, there was a locked steel door, but no windows to look in from. I couldn’t tell what kind of building this was, whether it was an apartment or an office or a hospital or what. I climbed to the top and stood on the flat, asphalt roof. I hadn’t been counting, but I must have been about ten stories up.

I looked at the other buildings around me. Many of them were about the same height. Peering over the edge of the roof, I saw the people far below me walking this way and that, minding their own business. I looked up at the night sky. A thick layer of dark clouds slowly slid over the waning moon, and suddenly, my hunger temporarily forgotten, I was seized with a reckless desire... to fly!

I lifted myself up a few yards and hovered for a moment, and then rose higher, and higher. Once I was sufficiently above the roof of the building, I tried swooping back down toward it. I lost my concentration for an instant and almost crashed into the roof, but I quickly changed course and instead went down over the side. For a second or two, I was in freefall between the building and the one next to it, but I checked myself and rose back up as fast as I could go. I felt the wind whipping past my face as I flew up into the sky. I didn’t know exactly how fast I was going, but it must have been faster than pedaling my bicycle at top speed.

I flew higher. This was amazing! I had never so much as hovered more than a few feet over the ground, but now I was soaring through the sky like an eagle!

And higher!

A sea of lights spread out below me. The cars looked like miniature toys. I cut my ascent and went back into freefall, enjoying the weightlessness for a couple of seconds before kick-stopping in midair. I realized I had complete control over my motion. I was standing on air! My heart pounding, I let out a howl of delight. This was really fantastic!

But I had been flying now for nearly two minutes, and I was really beginning to tire. It felt like I was carrying someone else that weighed as much as me, and I knew I was approaching my limits. I cut down on my power and drifted back down as if on a parachute, landing lightly on a different building roof. I couldn’t find the one I had taken off from. I must have drifted off course with the wind.

My mind and heart were still racing from the experience. I took a few calming breaths and looked over the side of the building. This building was only about five stories tall, and as I looked down at the people walking below, I had an idea. Not one of my best ideas, for sure, but an idea nevertheless.

A lot of people were carrying shoulder bags, especially the women. I noticed that some of them were left open, and though I couldn’t see into them at this distance or lighting, I could pretty much guess what was inside. If I could levitate a purse out of one, either from above or behind, I’d at least have enough cash to eat for a day or two. To do this, however, I would have to get considerably closer.

I levitated from rooftop to rooftop until I found what I was looking for: a single-story 24-hour drive-thru fast-food restaurant with a flat roof. Landing on it, I peered cautiously over the edge. It was getting late, probably past midnight, and fewer people were on the streets.

Excellent,
I thought, and waited.

A few minutes went by. I saw a pair of women exit the restaurant, chatting, and one of them had an open shoulder bag. I could even make out what looked like a purse inside. I stretched my right arm toward it, hoping that it would help my focus. This was still a bit farther than I was used to, and the two women were getting farther away with every step. It was either now or another customer, so I bent my consciousness upon lifting the woman’s purse out of her bag.

Here’s my observation on women’s purses: They are packed with lots of junk, making them almost as complex as a person’s body. They are also filled with coins. As in metal. Heavy. Very, very heavy at this distance. I did manage to lift the purse out of the bag, but promptly dropped it onto the sidewalk. I ducked out of sight as the woman turned around to pick it up.

Like I said, it wasn’t my best idea. I needed to be closer, and hopefully get at the paper stuff. Lacking a better plan, however, I decided to try again.

A few minutes later, I spotted another likely target. A group of two men and two women were coming down the sidewalk toward the restaurant. They all seemed to be very drunk, talking loudly and swaying from side to side. As the foursome came alongside the restaurant, the light from the windows illuminated a small rectangular bulge in one of the men’s right jacket pocket. A billfold! I waited for them to pass so that their backs were to me before I focused on pulling it out.

It was a bit heavier than I had hoped, but I was closer than the last attempt, and the billfold slipped smoothly out of the man’s pocket. The moment it did, however, one of the women swore loudly, and I jumped in surprise, almost losing my concentration completely. I stopped the billfold just a split second before it hit the sidewalk, and breathed my relief when I saw that no one in the group had looked back. I levitated the billfold up toward me and caught it in my right hand. It was only then that I realized how fast my heart was pounding. I might have just flown to the moon.

I found a small pack of bills and a few coins, which I transferred to Ralph’s wallet. There was also a driver’s license and some bank and credit cards. I didn’t need those, so I threw the billfold back over the side. I was hoping someone would find it and deliver it to the man.

After calming myself down, I flew up to the top of a taller building nearby and spent the rest of the night on the roof. It was stingingly chilly, but at least I was safer than in the park.

The early-morning light woke me, and for a brief moment I panicked. How was I going to get down without anyone seeing me? I couldn’t just fly in the daylight. Fortunately, there was a fire escape here too, and I walked down it, jumping off where it ended at the second floor. I only cushioned my landing slightly, just in case someone was watching.

I breakfasted on snacks from a convenience store and then went shopping for clothes at a nearby mall. My shirt and sweatpants were getting really dirty, and besides, I didn’t want to spend another cold night. I picked up a dark green long-sleeve shirt, a pair of jeans, two pairs of socks, and a black denim jacket. The jeans and jacket had metal zippers, but I wouldn’t have to touch them as long as I wore my gloves.