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But the only image that floats across my mind ishisface. The last thought that flickers in my head before I fall into a deep sleep is,What are the odds…
5
KAI
There isno way I can sleep now. Not till tomorrow. Not tillsheis out of my sight.
I need a stiff drink. A joint. Blow would be better. Loud music would be great. Someone to fuck would be a bonus. But these are reserved for special occasions. They require tokens, and those are rare on this side of Zion.
Nevertheless, this night is special all right.
So I stomp toward the workshop.
It’s my domain.
It’s the place that reminds me of dad’s garage and everything he taught me.
It’s the place where I can’t hear the ocean. In the moments of peace, I like to pretend that we are not in this tropical prison. That our families are not dead. That we can go on with our lives, however fucked up.
“Fucked up” has shades. You learn it after two years of doctors and plastic surgeons and physical therapy and psychologists. You think you went through hell. Only to go to the island to take revenge on the guy who turned your life into hell, because you needed to kill this monster called hate, and find out that hell is the Change.
Yeah, the irony. You thought life was fucked up until the world you knew ended.
“Bro, wait up!” Bo’s voice is behind me, and in a moment, he catches up and walks right beside me. “Wanna tell me what’s up?”
I open the door to the workshop too forcefully and flip the switch of the lamp, wired to the solar panel.
The light illuminates a small room, thirty by thirty feet. Wooden walls are covered with hanging tools. Crates are stacked in all corners and are loaded with materials, ammo, and homemade guns.
Yeah. One year you are a star wrestler, heading to the nationals. The next, you help your dad build cars. And then you make guns from wood, metal barrels, and ball bearings because you live on a fucked-up island and need to protect yourself and hopefully—hopefully, though it’s been only hope for two years now—get out of this fucking place.
“Bro, you are angry. I can tell.” Bo follows me inside and takes a seat in a wicker chair by a desk.
It’s quiet. I like quiet. It turns off dark thoughts. Not many come here except Ty and Bo, who occasionally help me with making weapons. It’s a long process—getting the necessary stuff bit by bit from the town, exchanging it for the pot that we grow and tokens.
I open one of the drawers and pull out a bottle of local rum.
“Whoa. A special night or something?” Bo’s arms cross over his chest, feet crossed at the ankles. “Care to share?”
Ever since I came to this island, Bo, who was the manager of the resort on the Westside, was another person who hated Archer Crone. We have that in common. Bo is good at listening, navigating, mediating, and planning. Hence, once we left the Westside, he was elected the leader.
“Nothing to share.” I pour rum into glasses and pass one to Bo. “I know one of the girls. We used to go to Deene together.”
I don’t feel like talking. And Bo doesn’t ask questions, only stares at me.
His skin is almost coal-black from the sun exposure. We ran out of sunblock a year ago, and now use coconut oil that doesn’t work nearly as well. His thick curly hair is tangled into dozens of dreadlocks and gathered by a tie at the back of his head. His eyes are almost chalk-white against his black skin. And so fucking prying that I want to tell him everything.
Just not tonight.
Bo is nothing like the polo shirt and Movado wearing pristinely dressed luxury resort manager that he was when I got to Zion. It’s like his entire personality switched since the Change and Crone taking over the Westside. He is in his early thirties, built like a Spartan. Two years after the Change, his smooth business-like behavior changed into a Rasta meets Black Panther.
Bo is like a brother to me. He would understand everything. But I want to be alone right now. I want to process what happened and how to keep my cool.
The door whispers, and Ty pokes his blond head in.
“Br-r-ru-u-uh,” he stretches.
I shake my head and blink away. “Don’t. Not now.”
