Джеймс Паттерсон: Hawk

When she was gone, I grinned a little and rubbed Ridley’s head. The Ope had been wearing a Max T-shirt—filthy and full of holes, but still. I loved Maximum Ride, though I didn’t really know who or what she was. Maybe a comic book character? Maybe a movie star or something, I don’t know. Just every now and then I saw her picture on a T-shirt or a book cover or a billboard, and I liked the way she looked: god-awful fierce and determined as hell. No one to mess with. I’d named my bird after her: Ridley is like Ride, with an ly .

And it was 6:00. I was out.

CHAPTER 3

“Attention, citizens!” The familiar, oily voice boomed all around me. The huge vidscreens designed to reach every last corner of this city glowed with the image of the governor, McCallum. If he had a first name, I’d never heard it. All I knew was that he’d been yelling his word salad at us for as long as I could remember. The Voxvoce had been his idea, I was sure of it.

“Citizens!” he shouted again, his wide, fleshy face forming the words as if a puppeteer were controlling him. Hell, maybe one was. I’d believe anything about McCallum. “Remember that here you are free!!! Free to get jobs, free to take care of your own stuff, free to quit sponging off the government! Act like the adults you pretend to be! And, Opes—there’s nothing wrong with you! You’re just seeing the world a different way! But you gotta support yourselves, you know? Everyone has to mind their own garden, their own weeds! You don’t want crabgrass in your garden, do you?”

Several Opes pawing through garbage across the street looked up, then hunched their shoulders again, pushing trash aside.

God. McCallum was such a fecking shit-heel. Who in this city has a damn garden? I mean, I can’t stand the Opes—nobody can. But he didn’t have to yell at them like that in public. I mean, he yelled at everybody. But he seemed to single out the Opes.

“He’s such a dick,” I told Ridley, and she shook out her feathers, obvs totally agreeing with me. I smiled as I remembered the Ope wearing a Max T-shirt. I had three of them myself, swiped from someone’s street table. Sure, the seller had yelled at me, said she’d sic her brothers on me, that she had a gun and would take me out the next time she saw me.

Really, lady? You’re gonna get upset about losing a couple shirts that you got off the back of a truck? Yeah? C’mon. And you got a gun? Hell, I figured. Babies around here come out of their moms dragging a pistol after them.

I used to have a gun myself, a Barracuda. I’d gotten it years ago, and in my fifteen years I’d only ever killed one person. At that thought, I stuck my tongue hard against the tooth Tony had knocked loose, letting the pain distract me. I didn’t need to think about that person now, and I didn’t want to carry a gun anymore. I had bigger concerns.

Now I needed to get home to my kids.

CHAPTER 4

I take different routes home through the City of the Dead. They call it that because, a couple years before I was dumped here like trash, everyone who lived within like a mile all got sick and died. A couple of the Oldies told me about it—it was horrible, and to this day no one knows what happened. But they all just up and died. Over the years, other people moved into the empty apartments, like a free move-in day. All you’ve got to do is carry out the dead, and it’s yours.

So everyone here is from somewhere else, and the City of the Dead has filled up with Opes, Oldies, Rebs, Freaks, and Tourists. I like the Rebs. They’ve never messed with me. They plastered colorful posters around, advertising their particular gangs: Smothered, SlavesNoMore, Freedom… there were a couple others. Of course it was pointless, rebelling against McCallum

. I didn’t know how they’d managed to string two thoughts together to make these posters, what with the Voxvoce and the Proclamations and the Emergencies. But they had, and I liked looking at the posters stuck to the walls of burned-out buildings. A little bit of color never hurt anybody, and sometimes I tore them down, took them home to help teach my kids how to read.

It was the Tourists who were the worst. There weren’t many—fewer every year. They came here from non–Cities of the Dead and looked at us like we were slime molds. Like, Look, honey, there’s an Ope getting beat up! Take a picture! Once I saw Smiley actually posing for someone, showing off her empty gums in exchange for a handful of coins. It pissed me off—not at her—a girl’s gotta do what she’s got to do. But if I ever saw that Tourist again, I’d show them what a mouth with teeth in it is for.

Sometimes if I’m standing at my corner they’ll offer me money, like I was begging. I’d love to make them swallow it. Instead I grit my teeth and take it, shoving it deep in my pocket. Because money is money. Money means food, medicine, favors. I couldn’t afford to throw it back at them.

A couple years ago this shiny clean Tourist came up to me and I waited for him to hold out some onesie coins. He didn’t.

“You’re what they call an Ope, aren’t you?” he’d whispered, pulling a baggie of blue powder out of his jacket pocket. “Tell you what—we go into this alley over here and you let me do anything I want, and I’ll give you… half this bag. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Half a bag of dope? Just for you?” He smiled encouragingly, trying to screw a thirteen-year-old kid.

I’d broken his jaw.

While he was writhing on the ground, some Opes had run up and mugged him, taking everything, including his car keys. I’d almost laughed myself sick.

Maybe Tourists shouldn’t come here. Or maybe I should leave. But I can’t. I promised.

CHAPTER 5

“Hawk!”

Night was falling. In the City of the Dead it was more like heavy, greasy clouds looming down from the sky, wiping out the stars, dulling the moon. I was tired and wanted to go home, but I knew that voice.

“Pietro,” I said as he came up to me.

Ridley gave a huff and took off into the night. I’m pretty much the only person she likes.

“How ya been?” He looked like he really cared. Some people asked just because they wanted you to ask back, and are too busy answering with a long sob story that they never notice you didn’t actually ask.

“I’m always fine, Pietro,” I said. We’d been pals when we were like seven, eight years old, but then his father had forbidden him to play with the riffraff and told him to stick to his own kind. His own kind being from the Six.

In our city, only that barking, false-fronted rager McCallum was more important than the Six. The Six were the gangs who ran this city, and not in a kindly, thoughtful way, either. They’d carved out their territories and set up their own leaders. Pietro was a prince; his father was Giacomo Pater. Their gang was One of Six, and I lived in their territory.

Two of Six were the McLeods. Three of Six were the Harrises. Four of Six were the Stolks, Five of Six were the Diazes, and Six of Six were the Chungs. They made life fun around here, and by fun I meant violent and scary.

“What brings you down to the dirt, Pietro?” I asked.

His handsome face suddenly hardened, and he gestured behind me with one hand.

“That piece of trash over there,” he said. I turned to see another prince, tall and pale with thick, shiny, red-brown hair and a face that was all angles. He came out of an alley like he’d been waiting on somebody. I could only hope it was Pietro he was looking for, and not me.

“Chung?” I guessed.

“Yep,” he bit out and spit on the sidewalk.

“Okay, what about him?” I asked.

Pietro frowned. “They tried to open a business two blocks into our territory. The Chungs are trying to muscle in, and my father wants to send a clear message. So he called for a duel.”