Silver Part 7

2002

A couple of days passed without any of us seeing Silver. Wherever he'd gotten to he was doing a good job of hiding, because Tori, Surge, and I had all looked for him. Erin and Mike were making no secret of the fact that they were relieved he was gone, and were off and on trying to persuade us to just forget about him.

"What would you do if you did find him?" Erin had said at one point. "Do you think he'd want to come back here?"

She was right, of course. Silver had no reason to want to come back to the old church. And it was stupid of me to worry because he could more than take care of himself. But I wanted to find him all the same.

Surge and I had been out most of the morning, keeping an eye out not only for Silver but for somewhere else we could stay. He hadn't had any luck; one big advantage the church had was four walls and a roof that was mostly sound.

"I guess we could go back to that old building," Surge said, leaning back against the tree in the planter where we were sitting.

I shook my head. "That place was condemned for a reason, y'know. Just spending one night there made me nervous."

He sighed. "Yeah, you're right. Too bad we can't go back to the train station. That place was nice."

"Yeah." I leaned my elbows against my knees and looked down at the plastic bag I was holding without really seeing it.

"So what do you think happened to Jake?" Surge asked. "Do you think those lab guys have him? The ones he was working for?"

I shrugged. "They didn't when Mike saw him. Seems like they dumped him after he couldn't do what they wanted." I fell silent again. Part of me hoped to never see Jake again. Part of me wanted to shake him by the collar and demand he tell me exactly what he knew about Silver.

Surge took the bag from me and looked through it. "Think this is enough?" he said, referring to the food that was inside.

"Enough for now."

Surge frowned and yanked on my braid, enough to pull me off balance. "What's with you? You've hardly said two sentences together all day."

I glared and pulled my hair out of his grip. "I'm tired, that's all."

"Uh-huh. And I'm sure that's all it is. Right."

I leaned forward again and rubbed my eyes. "Give me a break, Surge. Let's just get back to the others, okay?"

"Fine, Eddie." He stood and started back to the church without waiting to see if I followed.

What I wasn't telling him was that a few hours ago my left shoulder had started throbbing. The pain only lasted for maybe half an hour, but during that time I couldn't move my arm even half as well as before.

When we got to the church parking lot we found Tori exactly where we'd left her: under the hood of the old car she'd found the week before. Only she was cussing much more.

Surge watched her for a moment with a dubious expression and then turned to Jess, who was sitting on the back porch. "She hasn't been working on that thing the whole time we've been gone, has she?"

"Uh-huh." Jess looked up from the stick she was stripping of bark and nodded. "Well, she took a break for a little while to see if anyone had any more tools, but that's it."

I sat down next to Jess while Surge went to talk to Tori.

"Did you find anything?" she asked me.

I shook my head. "Nothing. We do have some food, though."

"Yay!" Jess abandoned her stick when I handed her the bag Surge had set down.

I smiled. "You weren't hungry now, were you?"

She giggled as she stuffed her mouth full of a cold meat-and-cheese bread pocket.

I looked up as Tori and Surge sat down nearby. Tori was frowning and wiping her hands off on an old rag with short, quick jerks.

"You got it working before, didn't you?" Surge said.

"No, I didn't, if you must know." She threw the rag down and grabbed one of the bread pockets. She tore the package open and took a bite, glaring at nothing in particular.

"You didn't? But you said it wasn't running when you found it, didn't you? And I know it was running a few days ago."

"Yes, it was running, and do you want to know why? Silver started it. Silver got it running. And I don't even know what the fuck the little freaky bastard did because he did it when I wasn't watching, so I don't know how the hell I'm supposed to get it working now, especially without the right tools and with no parts!"

"Okay, okay! Chill. Geez," Surge said as he stood, "sue me for asking."

Jess paused in the middle of chewing to watch him walk inside the church. Tori muttered something and went back to eating. I sighed and leaned against the wall.

Tori finished her food and started carefully straightening out the wrapper. After a moment she said, "I wish Silver hadn't disappeared."

"Why, so he can get the car working again?" It came out more snide than I meant.

"No!" she snapped. "Well . . . yes, but that's not the main reason. I just . . . I've gotten used to him being around."

"I know. I'm sorry. It's been a rough day."

"Yeah." She took the bag of food and stood to go inside. Jess and I followed.

We left the food with Erin and Jimmy (Mike was out) and headed for the room where we'd been sleeping.

"Erin's not feeling well," Tori whispered to me. "It's like she's got a cold or flu something but she keeps saying she's fine."

I resisted the urge to look back at Erin. She had seemed unusually quiet, but she had been moody for days. "How do you mean?"

"I dunno, she just seemed . . . all draggy this morning," Tori said as she sat down next to our small pile of clothes. "And when I came in to ask for tools she was acting like her stomach hurt. She tried to hide it as soon as she saw me. She hasn't been outside since we got here, y'know." She found an outfit and I turned my back so she could change.

"I hadn't thought about that. I guess I just thought she was scared . . . or depressed."

"Yeah, me too, but now I think there must be something else going on. Can you think of anything they might have done to her?"

I shook my head, and without thinking about it started to rub my left shoulder. "No, I told you, I wasn't even awake for most of it."

"And Erin won't talk about anything. She's never talked about anything much anyway, has she?"

"No," I agreed. The little I knew about Erin's past I had learned because she'd been drunk. It was the only time she talked about herself.

"Okay Eddie, I'm decent—do you think we could get Mike to tell us what's wrong?"

"I don't think she's even talking to him," I said as I turned to face her.

"Jimmy said she's not talking to anyone," Jess offered. "He said all she does is snap and bitch and yell."

Tori sighed. Then she gave me a critical look. "So what's wrong with your shoulder, anyway?"

"What?" I self-consciously lowered my hand. "Nothing more than was already wrong. Why?"

She narrowed her eyes and folded her arms. "Anyone ever tell you you're lousy at lying?"

I closed my eyes and sighed. "Many times." I looked at her and tried, "Will you settle for 'I don't know'?"

"No. Shit, you're as bad as Erin sometimes. What happened, Eddie?"

"I really don't know. My shoulder was hurting a few hours ago, that's all. It's fine now."

"Is that why you're hardly moving your left arm?"

"I—what?" I looked down at my arm.

"You've hardly moved it since you and Surge got back! You've been using your right arm for everything. Balance, opening doors, scratching your nose—everything."

"I . . . hadn't realized."

Tori waited for me to continue.

"Maybe I'm just more nervous about it now, okay? It's working as well as it has been." To prove it I raised my left hand and shook it.

"If you say so."

"I'd tell you if there was really something wrong. So quit giving me hell about it."

"Fine."

And I would tell her if I thought something was wrong; she might have to ask me a couple times first, but I'd tell her. At the moment I wouldn't accept that there was anything wrong.

"Anyway, Tori, I don't think you need to worry about the car too much—"

"Is that sirens?"

I heard them, too, and just then Surge ran in.

"Guys, we've got to bail," he said. "Those things are coming here."

"They—what?" Tori said. "Why?"

"Who the hell knows? Just get your asses out of here!"

We grabbed a few extra jackets and ran out to the back fence with everyone else. Surge helped Erin get Jimmy over the fence, and when Tori pulled herself to the top I lifted Jess up to her.

Big mistake; my left shoulder exploded into an intense, burning pain. Thankfully Tori already had hold of Jess, because I grabbed my shoulder and fell against the fence. For a moment it was all I could do to keep on my feet.

"Eddie, come on!" Tori was tugging on the back of my jacket to get my attention. Surge was also straddling the fence now and with their help I was able to make it over.

"Fucking hell!" Surge said as he jumped to the ground. "What's up with that?"

I shook my head. My shoulder was still burning, but it had subsided enough that I could function. "I don't know. It just started hurting."

We heard the sirens come to a stop as we ran out to the street on the other side of the block. We circled around and came back from a safe direction, stopping some distance away. There were three police cars, two hovercars and one with wheels. A couple of the cops were already entering the church.

"Why do you think they're here?" Tori mused.

"Probably somebody was stupid," Surge said.

"Holy shit, that's Mike!" Erin said suddenly.

I focused on the people inside the cars and saw Mike in the back of the wheeled one, glaring out the window at the cops. The guy who'd scored the hovercar a few days ago was in one of the others.

"How the hell. . . ." I leaned against the side of a building and rubbed my shoulder. "This is just fucking great."

"Let's go before the cops see us," Surge said.

We headed down a side street. Erin lingered for a moment, but eventually followed the rest of us.

We stopped at the picnic area of a park. As soon as I sat down Tori grabbed my braid and yanked it.

"Ow! What the hell was that for?" I tried to smack her hand but she dodged.

"I knew there was something wrong with your shoulder." She pulled on my braid again, not as hard as before. "I knew you were keeping something from me."

"I was not," I insisted as I pulled my hair away from her. "I had no idea this would happen. It didn't do this before."

"Where the fuck are we supposed to sleep tonight?" Erin said as she rested her head on the concrete table. "And how the fuck did Mike end up with the cops? He's smarter than that."

"Bad luck could happen to anyone, you know that," I said. I was too upset for it to sound comforting. I also couldn't help but wonder if there wasn't something more to it than simple bad luck.

Jimmy tugged on his mother's arm. "Why can't we go back to The Pit?"

Erin raised her head and looked down at him. "Jimmy, you know why."

"Well—then why don't we go somewhere like it?"

Surge snorted. "Can't just look those places up in the yellow pages, Jim."

I cradled my left arm, finding that my shoulder hurt a lot less when my arm didn't move. "It wouldn't be the first time spending the night outside. For any of us."

"We still have to find a spot," Tori said glumly. "Somewhere the police don't patrol."

We all fell silent for a time. Erin put her head down on her arms.

"Just what did Mike do to piss off the cops, anyway?" Surge said.

"Maybe it was something the other guy did, the ass with the hovercar," Tori suggested.

Erin lifted her head suddenly and looked at me. "Eddie—what did the bosses tell you when they asked for pieces of hair?"

I shrugged as best I could. "They gave me some line about being able to find me in case something happened—oh. Shit."

"You don't . . . you don't think they really can . . . do you?"

"They . . . did have a gene-tracker . . ." Tori said. "But those things aren't really reliable. At least that's what my biology teacher told us last year. He said they can't track really well—I mean, the remote part of the tracker has to be pretty close for it to work. I think he said ten feet, and even then they're pretty vague."

"So okay, that's not that big of a problem," Erin said, "but the lab and those scientists probably have a lot of money, and maybe they have a lot of influence around here—what if they have the cops out looking for us?"

"What would they tell them?" Surge said. "'We want these people so we can perform illegal experiments on them'?"

"I don't know!" Erin snapped. "Maybe if they've got enough power they don't have to tell them why."

He shook his head. "I dunno, I still think that's pushing it."

"You want to bet your life on it, Surge?" I said. "They were considering using you and Tori, remember."

Surge frowned at me but didn't reply.

"Can we go somewhere else?" Tori said, looking around.

"Like where?" Surge said.

Tori shrugged. "I dunno . . . I'd just feel better if we weren't sitting around in plain sight."

We headed for a nearby mall. It was indoors, we reasoned, and usually crowded. I tucked my braid inside my jacket as we left (both to hide it and to keep my friends from pulling it) and then cradled my arm again.

A moment later Jess was tugging on my sleeve. "Is it because of me?"

I gave her a puzzled look. "What?"

"Your shoulder started hurting when you lifted me up, didn't it?"

"Well, yeah . . . but it would have started hurting anyway."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." I was mostly sure, anyway.

She looked at me a moment more, then said, "Okay." She hooked her hand around my elbow and leaned against my arm as we walked.

Tori came up on my other side, focused on my shoulder. "So . . . why did it start hurting?"

"Hell if I know," I said.

We wandered around the mall for several hours, trying to look like normal shoppers. We even bought some dinner with the small amount of money we had. Eventually the mall closed and we had to leave.

"So now what?" Erin asked as we hung around the mouth of a nearby alley. She shifted Jimmy against her shoulder. "Anyone have any bright ideas?"

"Think it'd be safe to go back to the church?" Tori said.

"No."

"What about the park?" Surge offered.

"The cops patrol the park for homeless all the time," I pointed out.

"Um, guys?" Jess said.

"I'd hate to just sleep in a back alley somewhere," Erin said.

"How 'bout the overpass?" Surge said.

Erin wrinkled her nose. "That's just as bad. And noisier."

"We don't have many options, y'know," Tori said.

Jess pulled on Tori's arm. "Hey! Anyone else smell cigarettes?"

We all paused. "Now that you mention it," Tori said.

I looked down the alley and could just see the glow of a cigarette and the vague shape of a boy sitting on some steps. At that moment the boy took a drag and I could clearly see the embers reflecting off his metallic hair.

"No way!" Surge laughed and ran over to the steps. "No fucking way! Where the hell have you been?"

Silver shrugged and stood when Surge tugged his arm. "Around."

"'Around'?" I echoed as Surge pulled Silver over. "You had us worried, you know."

"Why?"

I started to get annoyed but then realized there hadn't been any challenge in his voice. He honestly wanted to know. "Why wouldn't we be?"

Tori rolled her eyes. "That's what friends do, idiot."

Silver looked at Tori as if he'd never seen her before.

I heard Erin scoff and shot her a glare. She raised her eyebrow and gave me a look that said "you expect me to be happy about this?"

Surge grabbed Silver's cap and hit the younger boy's shoulder with it. "Stop acting like it's such a surprise, freak-boy. We've gotten used to you being around."

Silver was staring at Surge now, his expression carefully blank, his cigarette burning unnoticed in his hand. He reflexively took his hat back when Surge shoved it at him, but otherwise didn't move.

Erin shifted Jimmy again. "Yeah, well, this is all wonderful," she said, sounding like she thought it was anything but, "except it still isn't getting us a place to crash tonight."

Silver glanced at her, then flicked the growing ash off his cigarette and took a drag. "I know a place."

Erin rolled her eyes. "Why am I not surprised."

"Erin. . . ." I glared at her again, then turned back to Silver. "Is it nearby?"

He nodded.

"If you don't want to come," Tori said to Erin, "you could always sleep outside."

Erin glared at her, but came with us when we followed Silver.

Silver took us to an old book warehouse behind the local library. He quickly keyed in the alarm and lock codes—I wasn't going to ask how he knew them—and let us in. Inside were rows and rows of shelves, most of them covered by sheets, making them look in the dark like strange white walls. "There's a bathroom in the back, next to the office," he said. "The water hasn't been shut off."

Surge looked around. "Damn! Is this where you've been?"

"Most of the time."

"And nobody's going to find us here?" Tori asked.

Silver shook his head. "No one's been in here for a long time."

We didn't want to risk turning on the lights, so we felt our way around in the dark and settled in. There was enough light from the windows that we could more or less avoid crashing into things. Erin claimed the back office for herself and Jimmy, which was fine with the rest of us. Jess curled up between two rows of shelves and was soon asleep.

"We really were worried about you, you know," I said to Silver. He was sitting on a small table, looking out one of the windows. I leaned against the sill and rubbed my shoulder. The pain had subsided to a dull ache.

Silver looked at me. He seemed thoughtful, and maybe a little sad, although that might have been a trick of the shadows. "I couldn't have stayed there."

"I know, but. . . ." I paused to figure out what I wanted to say. "Did you have to disappear completely?"

He looked at me a moment longer, and then looked at my shoulder. I dropped my hand. He turned back to the window without saying anything. I considered telling him about it, about how it was hurting and how my arm had stopped working right, and there were probably a dozen other things I wanted to talk to him about or ask him, but decided I was too tired to bother.

"Hey, silver-haired kid," Tori said, coming up behind Silver and tugging on the hood of his windbreaker, "we missed you."

Silver looked at her over his shoulder.

"We did. Honest. Planning to stick around for awhile?"

He stared at her, then simply nodded and turned back to the window. Tori looked at me and rolled her eyes, but then smiled. I snorted and shook my head.

"I'm going to sleep," I announced before heading off to the aisle I'd picked earlier.

"Goodnight, Eddie," Silver said as I left.