UnSouled (Unwind Dystology 3)

The first yards have no fences. Nothing dividing one property from another except for the state of the grass—well tended in one yard, neglected in the next. In a moment, he’s tearing across an adjacent street to the second set of yards. There’s a picket fence in the front yard of the next house, but it’s a low one, and he’s quickly able to get over it, onto artificial turf of a weird aquamarine shade.

“Hey, whad’ya think you’re doing?” a man shouts from the porch, his toupee as artificial as his lawn. “This here’s private property!”

Lev ignores him and runs down the side yard to the back, coming to his only major obstacle: a wooden fence six feet high that divides one backyard from another. On the other side of that fence a dog begins barking as Lev climbs. He can tell it’s no small dog either.

Can’t think about that now. He reaches the top and drops down so close to a huge German shepherd mix, the dog is taken aback. It barks its head off, but its brief hesitation gives Lev the advantage. He bolts down the side yard, through an easy latched gate, and to a front yard, where the owner opted for low-maintenance river stones instead of grass. This is Cypress Street, where more traffic flows than would usually be the case when the main drag isn’t closed for construction. Lev can see the police car accelerating down the street toward him. The only thing between him and the street is a dense hedge, just high enough to be a problem, and he thinks how stupid if, after everything, he’s screwed because of some lousy bush. He hurdles the hedge, but all that adrenaline-pumped momentum takes him too far, and there are no sidewalks on these streets. He lands on the asphalt of Cypress Street, right in the path of the approaching police car.

10 • Connor

“Of all the freaking days to have roadwork!” Connor had been certain that they were going to be made. That one of the other drivers caught in the construction traffic was going to look into the car and see that he’s not deputy Joey at all.

“It’s not just today,” Grace tells him. “They been diggin’ up that sewer pipe for weeks. Stinks to high heaven too.”

Connor had been careful to avoid the traffic cones and any eye contact with the utility workers. Having followed the detour arrows, he now floors the accelerator down Cypress Street, speed limit be damned. Who’s gonna pull over a cop car for speeding?

Then suddenly some kid leaps into the road in front of him, and he immediately flashes back to the damnable ostrich—but if there’s roadkill today, it will be a lot worse than a dead bird. Connor slams on the brakes. He and Grace lurch forward. He hears the thud as the reckless kid connects with the front bumper. The car finally stops, and mercifully there is no telltale lurch of the car climbing over the kid’s body. He was hit, but not run over. He had been hit pretty solidly, though.

“Ooh, this is bad, Argie!” Grace says, probably not even realizing she just called Connor Argie.

Connor considers just speeding off and leaving the scene—but he considers it for only a fraction of a second before dismissing it. That’s not him. Not anymore. Some things have grown larger in him than primal self-preservation. Instead he gets out of the car to assess how bad this is and makes a pact with his survival instinct. If the kid is dead, then Connor will speed off and add hit-and-run to his list of offenses. Staying at the scene will not help a dead kid. But if he’s alive, Connor will stay and do what must be done until help arrives. And if it means capture, then that will be that.

The figure lying sprawled on the road is groaning. Connor is relieved that he’s alive but gripped with the fear of what will happen now. Then those feelings are slapped out of his head by shock and absolute disbelief when he sees who it is.

Lev’s face is a grimace of pain. “It is you,” Lev says. “I knew it.”

Speechless doesn’t even begin to describe Connor’s state.

“Is he dead?” Grace asks, stepping out of the car and covering her eyes. “I don’t wanna look—is he dead?”

“No, but . . .” Instead of saying anything more, he lifts Lev up, and Lev releases a helpless wail. Only now does Connor notice that Lev’s shoulder is bulging forward in a very unnatural way. Connor knows he can’t allow himself to think about that now.

“It’s him?” says Grace, having uncovered her eyes. “What’s he doing here? Did you plan this? It wasn’t a very good plan, if you did.”

On porches around them, people have come out to observe the little drama. Connor can’t think about that now either. He gingerly puts Lev into the backseat and has Grace sit with him. Then he gets back in himself, feigning calm, and drives off.

“Hospital’s up on Baxter,” Grace says.

“Can’t,” Connor tells her. “Not here.” Although he knows he means not anywhere. Medical attention brings other attention, too. If they bring Lev to a hospital, they’ll know who he is within minutes. Not only did Lev break house arrest; he ran from the people protecting him from the Juvenile Authority. Which means there’s no place safe to take him between here and Sonia’s.

Grace leans closer to Lev, looking at his shoulder. “Dislocated,” she says. “Happened to Argent once. Playing Ping-Pong. Rammed his shoulder into a wall. Blamed me for it, a’ course, since I sent him chasing the ball. Won the point too.” She puts both her hands on Lev’s shoulder. “This is gonna hurt like a son of a bitch.” Then she shoves with the full force of her weight.

Lev releases a siren wail of pain that makes Connor swerve out of his lane. Then Lev sucks in a breath and screams again. The third one is more of a whimper. When Connor looks back, he sees that Lev’s shoulder has popped into place.

“Like diving into a cold pool,” Grace says. “Gotta do it quick before you start thinkin’ on it.”

Even in his pain, Lev has the presence of mind to actually thank her for fixing his shoulder, but there must be more going on inside that they can’t see, because Lev grimaces in pain every time he shifts position.

Following Grace’s plan, they pull into the supermarket parking lot and leave the squad car there, along with the keys and the deputy’s gun—because a missing gun will beg too many questions. Leave the man his car and his gun, and he might just keep quiet to save himself from humiliation.

Connor hot-wires a blue Honda, out in the open, caution be damned, and in two minutes they’ve switched vehicles and are on the road again, heading for the interstate. It’s not a pleasant vehicle. The entire car smells of ass sweat and stale potato chips. The steering wheel shimmies, betraying poor alignment. But as long as it gets them the hell out of Heartsdale, it’s a magic coach as far as Connor is concerned. The town itself, however, seems to have taken umbrage against them. They hit every vindictive pothole and every pointless red light Heartsdale has to offer. Lev groans, grimaces, and hisses at every jolt.

“It’ll get worse before it gets better,” Grace says, stating the obvious, and Connor must suppress an urge to yell at her the way Argent might. Unlike Argent, Connor knows that it’s not Grace he’s frustrated with; it’s the entire situation.

At the last stop light before the interstate, Connor turns to look at Lev and asks him to lift his shirt.

“Why do you want him to do that?” asks Grace.

“Because there’s something I need to see.”