Chapter 15: Last Stand

Fresco stepped out into a dark hall. His socked feet felt carpet. He looked down at the stained and threadbare runner running the length of the long hallway. There were many doors just like his, all closed. The murmur of voices remained, and he tried to figure out where they were coming from.

As he turned to walk down the corridor, he heard a door slam and the sound of running feet. Flinching back against the wall, Fresco watched two kids about twelve and thirteen run laughing past him, one chasing the other. The one in the lead, a boy, grinned at Fresco while the girl close on his heels threw him a wave and a 'hi' on the way by. Fresco held himself still, waiting for his heart to slow as he watched them race to the end of the hall and disappear down a flight of stairs.

He was troubled by his reflexive instincts. He was too long away from people, too long under the influence of the blue joy. He lost his innate trust of others and wondered if he would ever get it back.

"Weird, isn't it?"

Fresco spun, heart leaping again, this time to face the beautiful girl. She smiled at him, hands in the back pockets of her denims, belly button peeking out between her belt and the lip of her white T-shirt. Her glossy lips drew his eyes and he found himself staring at them. He pulled his gaze away, caught in the shine of her heavy black hair, curls tumbling forward past the restraint of her headband. Her golden eyes glittered in the dim light of the hall.

"Sorry?" Fresco was stunned to be seeing her again, and a little embarrassed as the wheels in his head started to turn. Who took care of him? He felt a blush rise as he remembered finding himself in only his underwear.

"Coming out of the fire," she said. "Being reborn. It's weird."

He nodded. He agreed with the image. He felt new. "Yeah. Kind of. But better."

Her smile lit her whole face, perfect white teeth shining against her darkly polished skin. "You'll be fine," she said, and he got the impression she wasn't just talking to him.

She came closer, offering her hand. He saw she changed her nail color to light yellow. "I'm Parker. Nice to finally meet you for real. When you can remember me, that is."

"Fresco. Fresco Conte." He shook her warm hand, feeling an electric thrill at the touch, not telling her he hadn't been able to forget her, actually. In her presence, the voice fell silent and he welcomed it.

Meanwhile, Parker shook her head. "No last names," she said. "Not any more. Our folks don't own us. They never did."

He wondered what she meant, a flash of memory waking, of his father standing at the back of a dark van, staring at him with something much like hatred. He held the memory down and the whispers of the voice telling him he got what he deserved, that his parents never loved him, while Parker smiled at him with understanding in her eyes. Not sympathy. He had the feeling she didn't feel sorry for anyone. But understanding, yes. Definitely, yes.

"I'm happy to see you up," she said in her husky voice. "We like to give our newbies a chance to come out on their own."

"How long?" He paused, licked dry lips. "Since..."

"Since the bridge? You gave us quite a scare. We almost lost you, you know. It took forever for me to track you down, then I find you full of Wasteland. I'm sorry it went so far. I should have gotten to you sooner."

Her regret was almost physical. It came off her in waves. As it rolled over him, the longing intensified so much he needed to clench himself for a full minute and wait for it to pass.

Parker said nothing while he got himself under control. When Fresco sagged as the attack eased, she went on as if nothing happened.

"We managed to get you back here, but we had to let the blue joy work its way out on its own. Lucky for you, they kept you under for most of it. It was touch and go for a while, but you made it."

"How long?" His world spun as he repeated the question, needing to know and not wanting to at the same time.

"Since you've been here?" Her eyes said she knew what he was asking, but needed to be sure he really wanted the answer.

He hesitated, not sure he did after all. The voice waffled back and forth between demanding he find out and telling him he was too weak to take the truth. Fresco shook his head at last. He wanted to know after all. Parker sighed a soft breath, shoving her hands back into her denims, her golden eyes locked on his.

"Nineteen days," she said. "Since I was forced to leave you on the park bench. Thirteen days in the arms of the blue joy. And six days before you stepped through that door to freedom."

He held down his own regret and nodded, unable to speak. Almost three weeks of his life gone.

Could have been worse, he thought. Could have been forever.

Should have been, Justin said.

Fresco looked up and saw Parker's smile. Amazing. She understood. The voice faded to silence.

"You too?"

She nodded. "All of us, Fres. All of us. I was tricking for a sugarpop just to get lost in the blue ocean. It didn't hit me as hard as you, though." She seemed thoughtful, studying him. "We've been wondering about that. How hard you fell, how fast. It usually takes months to build up to the kind of need that drove you from the first day."

"How do you know?" Fresco's desire for answers woke up again to the sullen quiet of his guilt.

"We followed your trail." She shrugged. "You acted like an ancient, not a newborn."

Fresco remembered those terms and the boy who shared his Wasteland, flinching away from the memory of killing him. Murderer.

"From the first dose," he said in a whisper. "I was...different. All that mattered was Wasteland." His insides twisted with the urge. He pushed it down as Parker spoke.

"Well, we'll want to figure out why," she said, pulling her hands free and starting down the hall toward the stairs. She paused when he didn't follow. Fresco hesitated, paralyzed by indecision. He wasn't sure he wanted to face people after all.

Her golden eyes shone at him as she held out her yellow-tipped hand. "We're all the same here, Fres. You're home."

He heaved a deep sigh, relaxing him and freeing him from the fear. He felt the presence of his false friend fade to the background and hover at the edge of his mind. Justin wouldn't be dislodged so easily, but for now he left Fresco in peace.

Fresco reached for her hand, sensing yet again the slight shock of electricity when his fingers slid over hers. Warmth filled him, a content he never knew before. He actually smiled at her.

Together, they went downstairs.

As they walked, Parker spoke, Fresco just enjoying the sound of her voice.

"This place is a haven for us," she said. "The only place I know of where our kind can find shelter. It's tough, though," she tossed back her glossy black curls as they bounced around the edges of the headband. "Every so often one of us slips back and we have to choose."

"Choose?" He prompted as her face clouded.

"If they are a repeat offender, sometimes we have to decide if it's worth it," she admitted. "There comes a time for all of us when we don't want to live, Fres."

He knew the feeling. She continued.

"Plus, we spend so much time looking for newborns, we don't always have the people to search for the fallen." She stepped aside, pulling Fresco with her as the same two kids from earlier ran squealing past, back up the stairs. She smiled at them before moving on.

"How many?" Fresco wondered if he'd ever feel like laughing again.

She shrugged, reaching the ground floor, pulling him to a stop. "No one knows. But there are a lot, and more every day. If we don't get to them, the Garbagemen do."

"Garbagemen?" Fresco's heart skipped a beat, the image of a man in a diamond embroidered ball cap and navy blue coveralls bending over him filling him with fear.

"That's what we call them," Parker said. "Remember the night you broke out? The ones who came for you in the coveralls? That's the Garbagemen. They get us hooked and supply the sugarpops with Wasteland to keep us at it. And they are there in the end to clean up the mess when one of us finally falls. They're like scroungers, cannibals, scooping up our dead in their vans and taking them away." Parker faced Fresco. "We're going into the kitchen," she told him, changing the subject so quickly it took him a moment to register. "There are a bunch of people in there. Don't freak out, okay? I'm right here."

He nodded. Parker was obviously satisfied by his response because she turned away and pushed open a door.

Fresco's senses flooded over with noise and smells and bright, bright light. His fear surged. Getting control back was a gigantic effort, but he did it. Numbing to the overwhelm, Fresco walked into the room next to Parker. It only took a few heartbeats for him to become accustomed to the light, but the chatter of voices and the curious stares made him shake.

The room was quite large, almost a cafeteria. The walls had been painted a horrible yellow-green color reminding Fresco of a hospital. Paint chipped away in places, water stains running across the far wall from ceiling to floor. The air vibrated, full of chatter, humming with the cumulative energy of a dozen kids. He tried not to meet anyone's eyes, his own gaze skimming over them as he followed his guide. They were all dressed more or less like him in worn jeans and T-shirts, the odd hoody or jacket in evidence. The sea of faces had one more thing in common. They were all marked by the drug they were addicted to. Not in an obvious way like a scar or a tattoo. But Fresco could identify one of his own by sight alone anywhere, anytime. Wasters had a look about them, a feeling beyond the pale skin and sunken eyes, cheeks. They shivered with it, set fire to the air with it. The feeling of Wasteland was everywhere.

Parker took a tray from a small table and went to the stainless steel counter of the large, industrial kitchen. A young Latino man stood behind it, a white apron wrapped around his waist. He nodded to Fresco, a tiny diamond in his left ear winking. He started loading up the tray.

"You can come get food anytime you like," Parker told him. "Martin is usually here and, if not, help yourself to the fridge."

Martin flashed a smile. "You look like you need to come here often, bro," he joked to Fresco. "You got that concentration camp look happening."

Parker laughed with Martin and Fresco finally joined in.

"It's all the rage this year," Fresco said. Parker smiled at his effort at normal.

"I like my guys with more meat on their bones," she said, before walking away with the full tray. Martin winked at Fresco and whistled low. He ducked his burning face, unable to stop grinning.

He joined Parker at a long table, sliding over the bench across from her. The smell of the food seemed quite suddenly marvelous and he helped himself to his bowl of hearty stew and a chunk of bread to dip in it.

As he ate, the other kids eased their way over. Now that the initial shock had worn off, he was amused by their careful approach. He sat back from inhaling his food to find a small girl perched on the bench beside him. His heart clenched as he glanced down into her wide, sea green eyes. She couldn't have been more than nine years old.

"Hi," she whispered in a tiny voice.

"Hi," he whispered back.

"I'm Apple," she said, tilting her head to the side, her thin, blonde hair falling over her cheek.

"Fresco," he answered.

"You're cute." She giggled, pressing her fingers to her mouth. Her nails were the same bright yellow as Parker's.

Fresco laughed and found he could, after all. Even enjoyed the feeling of it. He carefully broke his chocolate chip cookie in half, offering her one of the soft pieces. She accepted it gravely and settled down, her little body pressed to his side, nibbling on the edges with her small, white teeth. He slid his glass of milk toward her, catching Parker watching as he did. Her golden eyes brimmed with tears. She quickly looked away.

"You're new," a young man said, his brown hair buzzed as close as Fresco used to keep his.

"What was your first clue?" Fresco winked.

They all laughed.

"You made a lot of noise," Apple told him seriously.

"I did?"

"When you first came."

"Sorry," he said.

She shrugged, popping the last of her cookie in her mouth. "No worries." She hugged him very hard and unexpectedly, her little arms tight around his waist, face pressed into his arm. At last she let him go, and her smile was the light of the sun coming up.

"See ya," she said. She slipped off the bench and took the boy's hand firmly in hers, leading him away. He grinned over his shoulder at Fresco as they left the kitchen.

Fresco never did well with little kids in his old life. In fact, he had no time for the annoying monsters. But after all he went through, the simple hug of a child was enough to choke him up.

He wondered when he started compartmentalizing his life as old and new, but let it go. Hadn't Parker called it being reborn?

"You have no idea," Parker said to him. "Apple doesn't talk to strangers, Fresco. Peter's her best friend, so she's latched onto him most of the time, but he's it. She barely talks to me. And yet, she trusted you from the first time she saw you."

He shrugged. "Guess I'm that loveable," he quipped.

She grinned at him with a gleam in her golden eyes making him blush again.

"Guess you are," she said.

"How does a kid that young get hooked?" Anger rose for the first time.

Parker shrugged, eyes reflecting her own burning emotion, something she visibly held inside. "She was lucky," Parker told him in a careful voice. "According to them, they knew each other in their other lives. Apple went first, but must have triggered Peter because their breakouts happened at the same time. They had each other when they were dumped on the street. We found them before they took their first dose from a sugarpop."

Fresco shuddered, trying not to picture what would have happened to the happy, innocent pair if Parker hadn't rescued them.

"How many kids are here?" He took another sip of his milk. He never tasted better and wondered if it was the drink or the fact his body was starved.

"Depends." She shrugged. "We have room for fifty or so, but it fluctuates between twenty and forty."

Fresco loved how she talked. She used none of the slang of his generation. Her husky voice flowed smoothly, her words almost formal, more like she was telling a story than having a conversation. He found himself getting lost in the cadence of it.

"Where are you from?"

"Why?"

"You just seem... different. Than other girls, I mean."

"Wasteland will do that to you." Her amber eyes emptied, reflecting the light in the room, but giving away nothing else.

It wasn't an answer, but he got the feeling it was all he was going to get.

"Now," she brushed the crumbs of lunch from her hands, "if you're feeling up to it, there is someone you need to meet. In fact, I know he is very anxious to meet you."

Fresco stood up when Parker did, following her to the door where she dealt efficiently with the dirty dishes from lunch before leading him out. He waved at Martin who waved and winked back. Feeling stronger and now full of food, with a firm grip on the other hunger within him and the guilt leaving him alone for the moment, Fresco went out into the hall behind Parker.

"Who's the guy you want me to meet?" Fresco asked.

"The man who saved me," she told him. "He started this house, rescued the first of us and has been doing his best for our kind since the beginning." She stopped at a door. "He'll ask you a lot of questions," she said. "Try to answer as completely as you can. We're working on ending this thing, and anything you can tell him will help." She knocked.

Fresco heard a soft male voice call, "Come."

Parker stepped away from the door. He looked first at it, then at her, feeling panic rise, knowing it was from his days with the drug and the remains of his fear of being rejected for his actions.

"You're not coming in?"

She shook her head. "You'll be all right," she said. "I'll see you after."

Parker turned and walked away. He watched her go, heart speeding.

I am not afraid, he told himself. It's the drug's effects. I am not afraid.

Sure you're not, Justin whispered. Fresco ignored him.

He settled into the calm facade of his old life, repeating the encouragement to himself like a mantra, and walked into the room.

***