Page 27

Malcolm

The sun rose and set for three whole days before the door opened again. I was hungry, thirsty, and filthy. Most of all, I felt broken.

“Jesus fucking Christ. Get him hosed down and clean this room. And feed him! There’s flies in here for fuck’s sake. Are you telling me I can’t leave you two in charge when I go off to handle fucking business?” The suited man in the sunglasses was back. Declan and the other guard listened to his tirade with their heads lowered to the floor.

I didn’t understand what he meant by leaving them in charge, but then I remembered the helipad I’d seen when we first got on the ship, and the sound of a helicopter in the sky a little while ago. I thought I was hearing things that weren’t there. I felt delirious enough for it to be true.

“A-Asher,” I croaked from my dirty corner. My eyes were crusty and dry. I’d cried all the tears my body contained.

“Who?” the suited man said to me as the guards worked on clearing the dried food that had spilled days ago. I swallowed, trying to moisten my throat so I could answer him, but then he circled the room, looking around.

“Where’s the boy?” he shouted, his rage making me curl in on myself. “I said, where’s the fucking boy?!”

The two guards looked at each other, and my heart pounded so hard I thought it might burst through my chest. I held my hand there just in case.

“You’ve already cost us two packages,” the suited man said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “If you tell me we’ve lost another one, I will kill you both right here and now.”

“It wasn’t our fault,” Declan said, the cut on his cheek still healing. “They were sick. You know there’s something going around on the ship.”

The suited man stepped in close to Declan, grabbing him by the throat and asking in a low, scary voice, “Where. Is. He?”

It was the other guard who spoke up. “He’s in the room that the lost packages were in.”

I tried to stand, tried to beg them to take me to him, but I fell on my butt again.

“Why is he in there?”

“Because this one attacked me,” Declan sneered, jabbing a finger at me.

“You were attacked by a scrawny kid?” He poked the cut on Declan’s cheek, making him hiss, then shoved him away. “Get him a new room. This one needs to be sealed off.” He pressed the back of his hand to his nose.

“The o-only other available room is yours,” Declan said.

The man turned back to him, the room suddenly going cold. “Give him yours then. You seem to forget the main objective is to get them from point A to point B alive . I won’t protect you from the repercussions of your actions. That goes for the both of you. Someone will have to answer for this, and mark my words, it won’t be me.”

Once the scary man left, they grabbed me by the arms and hauled me on deck to hose me off. The force of the cold water was too strong for my weak body, and the direct sunlight too bright for my eyes. I ended up naked and curled onto my side with my hands shielding my face while I spluttered and shivered.

Afterward, I was handed a towel and taken below deck again. My new room had a small bathroom and a bed twice the size of my twin bed at home. A tray with something steaming in a bowl waited on a small table under the porthole. I began to panic when I looked around and didn’t see Asher.

“Where is he?” I asked just as the door closed and locked. I jerked the handle, but it was pointless.

It took four attempts to get dressed in the clothes they’d left on the bed. Everything felt too heavy for me to lift, even my limbs.

I sat at the table, bouncing my knee, trying to sip at the hot soup. My body wanted the food, but my heart and my mind were too broken to cooperate.

“No,” I whispered when a voice in my head told me to go to sleep and never wake up. Instead, I dragged myself to a corner, slid to the floor and rested my head on my knees.

The door opened a while later and the man in the suit ushered Asher in.

“Asher!” I cried out, stumbling to my feet. His skin looked gray, his eyes sunken in.

“M-Malcolm?” he stammered, like he didn’t trust his sight or hearing. He tried to run to me, but ended up tripping over his feet. I caught him, both of us sinking to the floor. “They said you were gone,” he cried hysterically, climbing onto my lap. “They said you were gone.”

“I’m here,” I hugged him back. “I’m here.”

He’d been small from the start, but he was nothing but bones now. Asher sobbed my name into my neck, bunching my shirt into his tiny fists as I rocked him. He was hot enough to melt my skin away, and something in his chest rattled when he coughed.

The man in the suit watched us from the door, a curious expression on his face.

“He’s sick,” I said to him, peeling Asher off me so I could see his face. He made it near impossible, gripping my shirt tighter. “He needs a doctor.”

The man said nothing, and I had to hold Asher’s head up to keep it from drooping.

“Why are you doing this?! What do you want from us? Please. Help him. I won’t try anything again. I promise. Just please , do something.” I felt feral and scared and helpless.

The man snapped his fingers at someone in the hall, someone I couldn’t see from where we sat. A moment later Declan strolled in holding a second tray of food with a bottle of water and medicine on it. He’d been standing there waiting for the signal to come in, and suddenly I knew that the man in the suit was the more dangerous one. He’d wanted to see my reaction to Asher first.

The man crouched down in front of us, and I angled Asher away from him as best I could. That made him smile a little. Asher had gone silent, breathing heavily into my neck.

“You’ve got at least thirteen more days on this ship,” the man said, removing his sunglasses for the first time. His eyes were ice-blue, and he had a slash over his right eyelid. The scar tissue prevented him from opening it all the way. “I’ve warned my men not to harm you while I’m gone, but they aren’t as civilized as me.”

Somehow I didn’t believe he was civilized at all, he just seemed better at pretending.

“What happens to him depends on you,” he continued, gesturing to Asher. “No more bright ideas.” He slipped his glasses on and stood.

“I brought a doctor back to look at him and the others.” He jerked his chin toward the table. “Give him a dose of that after every meal, and make sure he stays hydrated.” Without another word he left, the door slamming behind him, sealing me and Asher inside.

The “nice lady’s” words in that basement made sense now, especially after hearing the suited man’s warning.

“Children are difficult,” one of the men looking Asher and I over had said.

“Not when they have an incentive to behave,” she’d said.

They’d kept us together hoping we’d start to care for each other. And now they would use our bond to keep us obedient in fear of what would happen to the other if we weren’t. It worked. From that day on, I never asked another question, never demanded we be let go again, and I made no more escape plans.

“Open up, Asher,” I begged, patting his cheek. “Just a little more so you can take some medicine.” I held the spoonful of broth near his mouth, tipping it into the small opening he’d made. “Okay, two more, then some water and medicine.”

“I’m tired,” he complained, his eyes fluttering open then closing again.

“I know, but the medicine’s going to fix that.” I looked at the bottle of pink liquid on the table. The man in the suit made it sound important that we stay alive, so I decided to trust it wasn’t poison. I had no other choice.

We were still on the floor. Asher wasn’t able to get up on his own, and the days I’d spent not eating made me too weak to carry him. Plus I had a bad headache, and my throat was starting to hurt when I swallowed.

I dropped the spoon into the bowl of soup to catch him when he slid sideways. “How about just one more spoonful then? Can you do one more?”

He licked his dry lips. “Water,” he rasped. I uncapped the bottle so fast some of it spilled over my hands. I held it to his mouth, tipping it up as he sipped more than I thought he would. I went to the table for the medicine next, filling the little cup to the line inside, then pouring it into his mouth. He coughed some of it up, but kept most of it down.

“Can you make it onto the bed?” I asked, but he just groaned. Sighing, I pulled the pillows and blanket to the floor, laying us on our sides, my front to his back. Asher had another coughing fit, and I slid my arm around him when it was over, holding him close. His hair was damp against my forehead, but he didn’t smell bad so I guessed it wasn’t sweat. They must have hosed him down too before bringing him here.

He reached back to grab a chunk of my short hair, something he did in his sleep, like I was his security blanket. If it wasn’t my hair it was my hand. Maybe he just needed to know I was still there while he slept. That I hadn’t been taken again, leaving him alone.

I didn’t mind. I liked knowing he was still there too. Having him snatched from our room and not knowing if he was dead or alive changed something in me, and my mind didn’t feel as strong as it did before.

I couldn’t sleep, not until I knew the medicine was working. I was scared I’d wake up and he’d be gone in a different way. Gone in a way he couldn’t come back from. So I talked to him while he snored, hoping my voice reached him, hoping it made him want to hang on.

“My mom doesn’t like me riding my bike in the neighborhood park,” I whispered into the back of his head. “The older kids sell drugs there, and last summer a stray bullet hit a little boy while he was coming down the slide. We used to live across the street from there, but my mom got a job paying more money than the diner she used to work at, so we moved into a bigger, tiny place. My grandpa moved in too. His veteran’s disability check helps pay some of the bills. Now we live a few blocks from the park, right on the border of the neighborhood.” I scooted in closer to him when he shivered.

“My mom moved us a little further away from the violence, but we still live along the edges of it. She says we’re going to own a brownstone one day. One of the fancy ones in Carroll Gardens. That’s where she works now, and on her lunch breaks she likes to walk around the area imagining all the things we’ll do once we live there.”

Asher’s hand twitched in my hair, and he coughed a few times before his snores started up again.

“Sometimes, when her boss is away, she takes me into the office with her, and we go on those walks together. She says my new bedroom will be big enough to fit a whole orchestra.” I chuckled weakly at the thought before turning sad again. “Her boss was away the day I was taken. I was riding my bike in the park near her job when I saw the nice lady. It was early, so the park was pretty empty.” I wondered if my mom still wanted to live there. There may not have been drug dealers in that park, but there were people hanging around there who stole kids. My grandpa always said the grass isn’t greener on the other side. I got what he meant now.

“My grandpa’s sick,” I bit down on my bottom lip when it started shaking. “He coughs a lot like you do, but he does it into a rag, and there’s always blood there after. He has cancer, but some days he seems like his old self. I bet he’s looking for me too. I know he is. I-I need to get back to see him. I haven’t gotten a chance to play the song I’ve been working on for him.” I squeezed my eyes shut when they began to burn, holding Asher tighter.

“None of my friends will miss me, because I don’t have any. I’m not like the other boys in my school. My mom said that’s okay. But I have you now, though, and we’re alike. We don’t have fathers, we both play instruments, and we’ve both been stolen away. We’ll always understand each other.”

My sore throat began to feel worse from all the talking, so I pried Asher’s fingers from my hair, patting his back to calm him when he began reaching and panting in his sleep. I quickly ate a little bit of the cold soup, then drank a full bottle of water while eyeing Asher’s medicine. I was getting sick, and what good would that do us? If something happened to me, who would look out for him?

I took half the amount I’d given to him, because I wasn’t as sick, and because I didn’t want him to not have enough.

“Malcolm?” Asher whined, reaching his hand back again. I settled in behind him, guiding his fingers to my hair.

I started talking again, sharing the titles of my favorite books, the composers of my favorite songs, and my dreams of earning a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music. Then I ran down the list of famous Black maestros, promising I’d be added to the list one day.

I didn’t stop talking. Not even as the days passed and he coughed less. Not even when he woke up long enough to eat more, or when he regained enough energy to shower. I’d talk because I realized the bad voices in my head were quiet when I did. The voices sounded like me, but they said things I’d never say.

The only time I went silent was when Declan showed up with more trays of food. He’d stare at me like he wanted to hurt me, like he hadn’t forgotten what I’d done to him. I’m sure it didn’t help that we’d been given his room. Was he forced to sleep in ours? Was he now using the bucket as a bathroom?

I didn’t ask him if we were almost at our destination, never asked if Asher and I would be safe there, or ever get to go home. I simply curled over Asher’s sleeping body protectively, not taking a real breath until we were alone again.

Five days passed before Asher seemed more like himself. “You talk too much, Malcolm,” he complained, letting go of my hair to sit up and rub at his eyes. “I can’t sleep when you’re talking.” He’d slept just fine while I talked for the last five days.

“I thought you liked talking to me,” I sat up too, brushing his hair back.

“Not when you talk all the time, and not when I’m sleeping.” He stretched his arms over his head then smiled.

“You woke up in a good mood. Or are you happy because I finally shut up?”

Asher laughed, surprising me, and I wanted to check to see if his fever had come back. “We’re gonna be okay,” he said. “We’re gonna get out of here.”

“We are?” I gave into the urge to feel around his face for warmth.

“Yeah,” he pushed my hands aside. “Gargantuan is gonna save us.”

“Gargantuan?”

“He came to me in my dreams,” he said excitedly. “He’s gonna get us out of here. It’s his job.” Asher untangled himself from the covers, nearly tipping over the edge of the bed in his rush to get off it. He ran over to the small table.

“Hey,” I said, “Slow down, you’re not all the way better yet. And who’s Gargantuan?”

He turned to me with a gasp. “You don’t know who Gargantuan is? He’s a Freedom Fighter. The library has all their books. I like libraries,” he said, getting off track. “Gargantuans’ job is to rescue the Small Bones.” Asher climbed onto the chair, and I jumped from the bed to catch him when it tilted to the side.

“Okay, please slow down and tell me what’s going on?” Adrenaline raced through me so fast I thought I might throw up. Asher went from being too tired to use the bathroom on his own, to bouncing around and talking a mile a minute about being rescued by some person in charge of bones.

“Gargantuan is a Freedom Fighter,” he started, now standing on the floor again. “They’re superheroes, and they each have a job to do. Gargantuans’ in charge of saving the Small Bones. He told me he would save us.” He turned back to the chair.

“What does that have to do with you standing on a chair?”

“Because I have to keep an eye on the sky. He’ll come through a portal, then I’ll wave so he can see me.”

Superheroes weren’t my thing, but I’d at least heard of most of them. I didn’t know who the Freedom Fighters were, but I was sure they weren’t going to leap from the pages of their books to save us. Sometimes I forgot how old Asher was, and how much younger than six he could sometimes seem.

“So who are the Small Bones?” I sat on the chair he wanted to stand on again.

Asher blew out a breath, sending his curls fluttering. “They’re kids, like you and me. All kids are Small Bones in Galasia, because our bones are small.”

I assumed Galasia was the world the stories were set in.

“Bad things happen in Galasia. Kids are taken for their raw powers. Gargantuan finds them and brings them home. He’s strong and powerful.”

“Okay,” I said, following along now. “So what happens if a kid’s bones aren’t small?”

“Uh, I don’t know. If you’re a kid, you’re a Small Bone. It doesn’t matter.”

“Asher—”

“Are you scared that you aren’t a Small Bone?” he asked, stepping in to squeeze my biceps. “Because you are.”

“Hey, I was in the middle of a growth spurt before I got here. I had some muscles.” My mom always said I’d grow to be as big as my dad. I had a couple pictures of him.

“Well, they’re gone now,” he said, brows furrowed. “You’re coming with me.” Asher yanked on my hands until I stood. I helped him onto the chair this time, then held the wobbly table still while he stepped on it. He stared into the sunshine wearing the biggest smile I’d ever seen, and I decided then not to steal his hope. Maybe this was the only way his mind could handle everything going on. Now I just needed to find a way for my mind to stop feeling like it was being ripped apart. Maybe pretending to believe in Gargantuan would help, the way pretending to be unafraid and strong for Asher had helped for a while.

“What about the girls that came here with us?” I asked, settling onto the edge of the bed closest to the shaky table. “Will Gargantuan save them too?”

“No,” Asher said sadly. “They’re too old. He only saves the Small Bones. But maybe Ferian will help them.” He brightened up at the idea. “She takes care of the grown-ups. The Big Bones.” His voice went low. “Ferian can’t wake the sleeping Bones, though. Only Gargantuan can.”

“Wake them?”

“Yeah. If Gargantuan can’t get to the Small Bones in time, he has the power to wake them. Children of Galasia are innocent, and the innocent get to come back. They just won’t have their powers when they do.” He shrugged. “But who cares about powers when you get to come back?” He turned to the porthole again.

I swallowed. “This sounds pretty morbid for a children’s book.”

“What’s morbid mean?”

“It means something disturbing, or spooky. Like Coraline ,” I said when his confused expression didn’t change.

He shivered. “That movie is scary. The Other Mother is mean. Gargantuan isn’t scary or mean.”

My throat no longer hurt and my headache had vanished days ago, but I couldn’t shake the heaviness in my body, or the strange thoughts bouncing around my head. I felt empty on top of feeling sad, and my stomach kept flip flopping around. I took the half dose of medicine I’d been taking, because maybe after enough days it would fix all the other things still wrong with me.

I listened to Asher hum for a little while, then I curled around a pillow and started listening to the voices in my head.