Gone Series: Plague Part 20

"Yes, Choo. They are for that girl."

"You should stay away from her. She's a very scary girl."

"Hot, though, don't you think?"

Virtue stared at him. "Don't you know there's a quarantine? Where have you been? No one is supposed to go out."

"A what?"

"A quarantine. That flu going around. Everyone is supposed to stay inside."

"I've had flu before, big deal," Sanjit said dismissively.

"Look, if they put on a quarantine they have good reasons. You don't know these people, I think most of them are crazy. You don't know what they might do if they catch you out."

"I'll be back," Sanjit said with a jaunty wink. "Unless I get really lucky."

"Or she shoots you with that big gun of hers."

"That's also a possibility," Sanjit said cheerfully.

He patted Bowie on the head and checked on the others. Then he headed out into the sunlight.

The streets of Perdido Beach had never exactly been busy. It wasn't New York or Bangkok. But they were particularly quiet now. Not a soul in sight.

Maybe Virtue was telling the truth about a quarantine after all. But hey, who better to be with than Lana, the Healer?

He reached Clifftop without seeing anyone.

He pushed through the lobby doors. He knew that Lana had the best room on the highest floor, a room with a balcony that looked down at the cliff and the beach and out at the ocean.

He was confronted with a confusing hallway full of doors, some closed, many showing signs of having been kicked open or battered down so kids could raid the minibars.

He found what he thought was the right door. He straightened his clothes and his flowers and knocked. From inside Patrick erupted in loud barking.

He saw the peephole go dark as someone looked out.

He smiled and waved.

Soft cursing from inside. Then, "It's okay, Patrick, it's just some idiot."

The door opened. Lana had a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth. She had her pistol in her hand.

"What?" she snapped at Sanjit.

"Flowers," Sanjit said, and held them out to her.

Lana stared at the flowers. "Are you kidding me?"

"I would have brought candy, but I couldn't find any."

"Are you r.e.t.a.r.ded? There's a quarantine on. No one is supposed to be outside."

He had hoped for a little smile. He detected no smile. Instead he smelled alcohol on her breath. Although she didn't seem drunk, her words weren't slurred, and her eyes focused the full intensity of her incredulity quite effectively.

"May I come in?" Sanjit asked.

"In?" Lana echoed. "Here?"

"Yes. May I come in?"

Lana blinked.

"Okay," she said, and her eyebrows shot up like she was amazed the word had come out of her mouth. She stepped back and Sanjit stepped through.

The room had once been a sterile, anonymous hotel room.

It still was. Lana had hung no pictures, collected no precious possessions. No stuffed animals lay on the bed. The room was filthy, of course, but so was just about every room in Perdido Beach.

It smelled of cigarette b.u.t.ts, whiskey, and dog. A huge shotgun leaned against one wall. Patrick seemed almost as agitated as his owner. Neither Lana nor Patrick was used to receiving guests.

There was a small Sammy sun in the closet so that when the closet door was left open there would be light, and when closed less light.

Sanjit crossed to the gla.s.s door. "Great view."

"What do you want?"

"I want to get to know you," Sanjit said.

"Why?"

"You're interesting."

"Yeah," Lana said. "But not in any way you're going to like."

Sanjit sat down on the desk chair. He laid the flowers on the hutch next to the TV set. He noticed a scratch from a thorn. It was bleeding a little, no big deal.

"No," Lana said, "I'm not going to heal your scratch."

"Good," Sanjit said.

"Good? Why good?"

"Because when you hold my hand, I don't want it to be work for you."

"Hand holding?" Lana barked out a laugh. "That's what you want? Hand holding?"

"Well, we would work up to that. If we like each other."

"We don't."

Sanjit smiled. "You seem awfully sure of that."

"I know me, and I've met you," Lana said. She sighed. "Okay, look, I get it. You're one of those people who thinks they have to help screwed-up people. Or maybe you're attracted to dangerous, unbalanced people. But listen up: I'm not Edward and you're not Bella."

"I don't understand what that means," Sanjit said.

"You're not going to get some kind of contact cool off me, okay? You're a normal kid, I'm a crazy freak, it's not really the basis for true love."

"Oh. You think I'm normal."

"Your mom and dad are movie stars."

"My mom was a teenage prost.i.tute who died of pneumonia after a bout of hepat.i.tis. My father was any one of maybe a thousand guys. If you know what I'm saying." Sanjit made a fake perky smile. "Up until I was adopted half of everything I ever ate was stolen, and the other half came from some charity." He let this sink in for a moment. "Oh, and see this?" He opened his mouth and pointed to a gap where two molars should have been. "Got beaten up really bad by a pimp who wanted to sell me to some old dude from Germany."

Lana glared at him. Sanjit met her gaze and refused to look away.

Finally, she said, "Okay. You want to talk, okay. I'll talk, then you get it through your head and you leave." Lana lit a new cigarette, puffed it, and looked at him through the smoke. "I went up there to kill it. The gaiaphage. I drove a tank of propane up there, let it flow into the mine shaft, and all I had to do was light a match. The coyotes came after me. I shot them. I still could have set off the explosion, but I didn't. Is that the story you want?"

"Is that the story you want to tell?"

"It was inside my head. I couldn't kill it. Instead it made me crawl to it. Hands and knees. Like a worm. I gave myself to it. I became part of it."

Sanjit nodded because he felt like he should.

"It made me shoot Edilio. Bang." She pantomimed it.

"He survived."

"Sam and Caine knocked the gaiaphage pretty hard. I was freed."

"And you saved Edilio. But you don't want to talk about that, right?"

"You know, it's not a big wonderful thing when you save someone you just shot."

"You didn't shoot him, this monster did. You cured him. That was you."

Lana's eyes were so penetrating he almost couldn't meet her gaze. But he held steady. She was looking for weakness in him. Or maybe she expected disgust.

"You went up there on your own to kill it," Sanjit said.

"And failed."

"But tried. If you were a guy, I'd say you had a big bra.s.s pair."

Lana laughed, caught herself, laughed again. Then she kept laughing, stopping, trying not to laugh again, and failing.

"I don't know why I'm laughing," she said, almost apologizing and definitely puzzled.

Sanjit smiled.

"I don't know why I'm laughing," Lana said again.

"You're probably a little stressed," Sanjit said dryly.

"You think?"

Lana laughed again and Sanjit realized he was really enjoying her laugh. It wasn't silly or hysterical. It was, like everything about this strange girl, wise, sardonic. Profound. Mesmerizing.

"Oh, dude," she said, sobering. "Is that what you're here for? Laughter is the best medicine? Is that it? Am I your act of charity or whatever? Heal the Healer with the power of laughter?"

The full force of her cynicism was back on display.

"I don't think I want to heal you," Sanjit said.

"Why not?" she snapped. "I mean, let's not lie, huh? I'm about as screwed up as a girl can be. I am a monument to screwed up. Why don't you want to heal me? I'm a freaking mess!"

Sanjit shrugged. "I don't know."

"You think I'm so messed up, it will be easy to get into my pants, is that it? I'm an easy target?"

"Lana," Sanjit said, "you carry a pistol and look like you'll use it. You have a dog. You tried to kill a monster all on your own. Trust me when I say, no one. No. One. No one looks at you and thinks, 'She'll be easy.'"

Lana sighed wearily, but Sanjit didn't believe the sigh or the weariness. No. She wasn't tired of him.

He said, "I saw you. I heard your voice. I connected. It's not very complicated. I just had a feeling... ."

"Feeling?"

Sanjit shrugged. "Yeah. A feeling. Like the whole point of my life, from the alleys in Bangkok, to the yachts and private island, to coming here like a crazy person trying to fly a helicopter, like all of it, from birth to here, point A to point Z, was all some big cosmic trick to get me to meet you."

"Whatever," she said dismissively.

He waited.

"The other day you said I was the second bravest girl you ever met. Who was number one?"

Sanjit's smile disappeared. In the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat he was back there, in that filthy alley smelling of rotten fish, curry, and urine.

"The pimp who knocked my teeth out? He was going to finish me off," Sanjit said. "You know? To send the message that you couldn't refuse him. He had a knife. And man, I was already half dead. I couldn't even move. And this girl was there. No idea where she came from. I never saw her before. She, uh ..."

Suddenly, to his own amazement, he couldn't talk. Lana waited until he found his voice again. "She came up to the guy and just said, 'Don't hurt him anymore.'"

"So he let you go? Just like that?"

"Not quite. Not quite. She was a pretty girl, maybe eleven, twelve years old. So, you know, a nice-looking young boy is worth some cash to a pimp. But a pretty young girl, well, she was worth more."

"He took her?"