But I tried to think if somehow he could have known different and kept it secret. What if the picture was older than I was? My whole life I’d been running to keep up with that man, and he and I had never seen a sky like that one — the air clear of dust, everything sparkling it was so damn clean. But Pop looked old in the picture. Streaks of white in his hair, silver making his stubble glint. So the picture had been snapped since Pop had been taken. This was my dad after he’d been stolen away.
I searched the photograph for a weapon or a stranger. I studied Pop’s body for wounds. But there was nothing else. Just the beautiful trees and my father chained against one like a man who’d been caught in a trap.
My head ached like I’d tried shoving too much inside it. I turned the picture over. The GenTech logo in purple ink, faint and scratchy. And that just got me more confused, because what the hell did they have to do with anything? And how did the skinny chick have the damn picture anyway? I thought about her, stuck in her house with her chubby little friend. Frost scratching for crystal and groping the momma’s tattoo.
I stood up. Stared at the house as its lights blinked on in the dirty twilight. Had the girl taken the photo herself? She was the one with the picture box, after all. So had she been there with the leaves and branches? Had she seen my father chained up and bound?
I stuffed the picture in my back pocket.
And then I started toward the house.
Before I had the chance to hammer at the steel door, it came flying open at me. I was on the back porch already and the fat kid could see I was all kinds of pissed.
“What are you doing?” he squeaked, and I was about ready to thump him for no reason except for how mad I was. I stared past him into the house.
“Where’s your sister?” I whispered.
“She ain’t my sister, tree boy.” The kid cracked himself up and I pushed him aside, ready to just sneak in the back door and see what happened. But then Zee came rushing out, cutting me off. Her eyes stretched wide with fear.
“Not here,” she said. “He’s back.” Her voice was hushed as she wrestled me across the porch. But when we reached the top of the steps, I quit shuffling. Stood my ground.
“Sal,” she hissed at the fat kid. “Go inside.” The kid’s mouth hung and quivered like he was about to start crying. “Please,” Zee added, softening her tone. “You got to keep your daddy in there.”
“You’re going to run away again,” he said, glaring at her. “Without me.”
“But we look out for each other now. Remember?”
The kid ducked away, still bugging out by the look of things, but he closed the door and left us alone.
Zee stared at the house. She watched the windows. “You can’t be here,” she whispered. “Frost won’t like it.”
“I don’t give a damn,” I shot back, though it wasn’t really true. The sun had sunk like a stone and with it my resolve had faded.
Stay away from the house, Frost had told me. The rich get spooked if you go spying on their shit.
Still, I pulled the picture from my back pocket and held it up. “Where the hell did you get this?”
“We can’t talk here.” She shook her head at me, her hands trembling on my chest.
“I ain’t leaving till you tell me what this is.”
A door slammed in the house behind us, and Zee jumped at the sound.
“It’s trees,” she spat, her head bent around at the house again, her hands trying to shove me off the porch. “Real trees. I thought you’d like them.”
“Like them? You know who this is?” My voice had gotten louder now. I jabbed at the photograph.
She stared at me, confused. “Some guy in trouble.”
“Some guy, huh?” I shoved her hands off my chest, leaned in close. There was another thud in the house, then the sound of someone shouting. “Where’d you get this?” I said.
“Zee?” the voice moaned inside the house. Frost’s voice.
She pleaded at me with her eyes, begging for me to do the right thing. “It came with the camera,” she whispered, frantic now. Steps inside the house. Frost yelling. Closer. “From Crow,” Zee said. Then the steel door began opening behind her. I could hear it, see the light splitting out from inside.
“The ocean.” Zee fixed me with a look. “Take me and I’ll show you every picture I’ve got.”
I went to speak, but my feet were yanked from under me. I was dragged down off the porch.
“What the hell are you doing?” Frost yelled as he stomped out of the house. I heard Zee scream as he came toward her. But the old bastard hadn’t seen me in the darkness.
“I told you,” Frost bellowed. “You don’t go outside the house.” There was a struggle and Zee screamed again. I felt awful for it. I should have shouted something. Done something. But I was too busy now. Too busy being dragged off toward my wagon with Crow’s hands around my neck.
Crow thumped me once in the gut then left me on the rubber floor of the forest. I didn’t dare get up. I just waited as the watcher spun the wheels on my flowers, stepping carefully about the understory and flicking a switch to set the LEDs blinking. One of the wheels was squeaky as it spun and Crow shook his head. “Needs oil,” he said, as if he was talking to himself. “But you do good work.”
Crow had his dreads wound inside a hat that looked about a hundred years old, and I spotted the scar burned on the back of his neck — a red lion. The mark of a Soljah. Me and Pop had built for those Rastas, up in Niagara. It’s as good a spot as any and prettier than most. And I had no idea how you’d go from being a warrior in Waterfall City to being a watcher for a bastard like Frost.
“You heard of Zion, little man?” Crow said, and he spun at the wheels again.
I just nodded, but he wasn’t looking at me so I went ahead and tried speaking. “Yeah,” I muttered. “Of course.”
“You reckon the trees there are made of metal? The flowers got squeaky wheels?” Crow squatted next to me.
“Doubt it,” I said, wondering if he’d hit me again.
“Me too.” The watcher smiled. “So you believe what they say? Build a boat big enough and you’ll see Zion?”
“A boat?” I hadn’t figured Crow for the religious type, and it pissed me off for some reason, him questioning me like that. Either he could beat me or turn me in, or he could just go right on to hell. “I seen the Surge,” I said. “Ain’t no boat big enough.”
“No boat big enough. But that don’t mean the place don’t exist.”
I tried sitting up and my ribs ached.
“So where’d you get the picture?”
Crow laughed that deep rumble of his. “Miss Zee likes you, I think. She likes you.”
“The photograph. Where’d you get it?”
“What she show you? Trees?” Crow smiled when I stayed silent. “Course she did. Look familiar?” He drew a shape across his torso. “Like the tattoo, no? Spooky. Right?”
I didn’t know what to say. The son of a bitch was just toying with me and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
“Look,” he said, standing tall. “You’re cool, little man. Crazy cool. But mess with Frost or Miss Zee or any of mine, I gotta break you. Understand? Just keep to building. Or I’ll break your ass in two.”
I understood, all right. But for good measure, Crow kicked me so hard in the balls that I howled my guts out and smashed at the dirt. Then he just left me there, sniveling on the ground as the LEDs twinkled. And in the house, I could hear Zee wailing as that mean junky bastard went grunting and shouting and slapping his fists.