Page 18 of Darling

Wendy: WHAT ARE THEY

Eleanor: you could just get back on the train and go home.

Wendy: train door’s blocked by cops next option

Eleanor: you could call an Uber. Or hell, I’ll call you an Uber.

Wendy: the cops are blocking off the whole street and are questioning ppl who try to leave next option

Eleanor: you’re not gonna like this BUT you could walk up to an officer and be like … pls take me home

Wendy: would they even do that?

Eleanor: probably not, but most city people don’t just t a l k to cops. If you do that, then you’re clearly not from around here, not scared of whatever’s happening and not likely to be a suspect lmao. Just babble about being from the suburbs and being lost.

Wendy: I don’t want to talk to cops Eleanor! I’m too Black to just saunter up like “hello officers”

Eleanor: lmao STOP. I know I know. I’m just focused on my best friend making it home safe and sound to her family who loves her so we can have a nice and reasonable parent supervised first meetup. Maybe you’ll get lucky??? Or something???? Please just get this situation sorted

Wendy: FINE fine yeah, I’ll do it.

Eleanor: you had Better

Wendy put her phone back in her pocket and took a deep breath. Then she stood up and looked around for a cop who didn’t look intimidating. There was one across the street that seemed kind of mom-ish. Late fifties, short, and kind of pudgy. She seemed like a good bet. Gambling with the police state, here we come.

Wendy swung her leg out to start in that direction when a hand covered her mouth and several others pulled her backward. She tried to turn around to figure out who was grabbing her, but before she could, they wrapped a T-shirt over her head and shoved its fabric in her mouth.

Wendy screamed, but the cloth muffled it. The deafening noise of the police and the crowd drowned out everything else, anyway. The hands held her upper arms in a firm grip, dragging her down the alley and up too many stairs for her to count. Her assailants were silent and seemed organized. She could tell there were more than three of them, and they didn’t seem to need to communicate to get things done. After a disorienting ride in what felt like an elevator and a few stomach-churning jaunts down and up flights of stairs, making sure she couldn’t identify which direction she’d come from, Wendy was pushed down into a hard metal seat. Her arms and legs were tied to the chair firmly before her assailants ripped the T-shirt off her head and pushed it back into her mouth.

CHAPTER 6

The first thing Wendy noticed was the incredible mess. Or maybe clutter was the right word … Either way, she was in a kitchen. There was art tacked up all over the walls to the point where none of the original surface was in sight. The art was a mix of finger paintings, crayon drawings, and surprisingly high-quality pencil sketches, all together like a giant mural. A massive sculptural arrangement of glass bottles of many colors hung from the ceiling, twisting from the entryway into the kitchen and back out of the room. The bottles were tinkling lightly, and the street light coming in from the window was throwing specks of brightness off their glass. It was stunning, and Wendy wished she could look more closely, but only the bottoms of the bottles were visible from where she was sitting. There was a stack of dishes by the sink and crates of plants stacked in the corners. On one side of the room was a massive pile of cans sorted by type into jagged towers, like stalagmites. On the other side was a large table that looked handmade out of two doors stuck together, with at least ten chairs around it. There was so much stuff crowding the space, but all of it was neatly arranged. Not exactly organized, but delicately placed, almost like an art project, for the pleasure of the viewer.

The second thing Wendy noticed was the children. Or teenagers, to be specific.

There were seven of them, ranging in age from ten to about seventeen, if she guessed correctly. The younger four children sat by her arms and legs, looking ready to grab her if she began to struggle. The three oldest were standing in front of her, having the strangest screaming match that Wendy had ever had the displeasure to witness.

“The boys were in the streets?” the first boy said angrily. “At this time of night and with the pirates swarming?” He looked like he might be the youngest of the three, but clearly too old for “grab her” duty. He was African American, with smooth dark skin and slender eyes. Unlike the others in the room, who were in varying levels of disarray, he was dressed in an expensive-looking black turtleneck and black jeans. He also had an apron on and a plastic soup ladle in his hand. His voice was soft and rich, but he was clearly just as angry as the other two.

The boy directly next to him reared back, scandalized. “Fuck you, Slightly, you didn’t have to make that decision. What Peter says—” This boy, the loudest of the three, was much taller than both Slightly and the redheaded boy on the other side of him, and skinny. His pants were too small for him, and he’d tried to obscure that fact by rolling the legs up into partial capris. His skin was very pale, and he had curly dark hair that he’d braided into two long pigtails. In spite of the warm weather, he was wearing a sweater that had clearly been darned by a novice.

“Curly—” Slightly began plaintively, but the silent redheaded boy next to him shook his head sharply. This one was definitely the oldest. He stood placidly with his arms crossed. He had bright red hair, was wearing a hearing aid, and was a little short for his age. His arms were incredibly muscular and bulged intimidatingly. He’d clearly torn the sleeves off his shirt to show them off. He hadn’t yet spoken, but every so often he would gesture crisply or shake his head in a particular way, which set the boy in front of him into hysterics. The darker the look on the redhead’s face got, the louder Curly screamed.

“I can’t just not listen when I’m given a direct order, Nibs!” Curly yelled, throwing his arms out dramatically. “I’m a fucking lieutenant! Not a captain, like you! I can’t just waltz up to him all, ‘Hey, Peter, I decided not to get the girl you wanted because it felt weird.’ He would bash my head against the sidewalk!”

Slightly scoffed. “You could have gotten her on your own. You don’t know what’s out there tonight! We could have lost someone!”

“She’s not a fucking baby, and I’m not a brute like Nibs,” Curly remarked. “I’m not strong enough to drag someone around over hill and dale, like we’re supposed to when we bring people here, all by myself.”

Nibs grinned. “You could be,” he said. His voice was startlingly deep, and hoarse to the point of softness. “If you cared to try.”

“STOP CRITICIZING MY WORKOUT ROUTINE!” Curly howled.

Nibs ignored Curly’s outburst very intentionally and instead nodded over at Wendy. The smallest boy near Wendy’s left ankle tightened his grip and growled at her. “Either way, we took some liberties.”

“Peter didn’t say that he wanted her tied?” Slightly gasped. “Curly, then why did you—”

“IT WAS NIBS’S IDEA! GOD! Every deviation from Peter’s rules isn’t always me, Slightly.” Curly spat Slightly’s name, like saying it tasted horrible in his mouth.