| Chapter 06

I felt all the blood and color drain from my face. I was cold, shivering, leaning back against the window to keep steady. The way my uncle looked back into the kitchen, in our direction, chilled me to the bone. I felt like a kid who'd done a bad bad thing.

I mean, I had. Both of us. David and I broke into the fair. We were there when the ship's alarms went off and pieces of its exterior crashed to the ground. Right there with a Pylon girl, the same one hiding in David's backyard.

They were here to arrest us; I just knew it.

"My son and nephew?" My uncle leaned against the door, not inviting the two officers inside. "What do you need them for?"

"Well..." The officer with the tablet smiled. His blond hair was cut short, combed back. His partner, a woman just about his height, ran her hand through her ponytail before taking the tablet from him. She glanced at the screen, then looked around the house.

"Well, what?" My uncle looked at the two of them.

The first officer smiled and tried to look inside again. "I'm not sure if you've seen the news today, Mister—" He nodded politely. "Sorry, but are you Mr. Mendez?"

"Yeah." My uncle looked back towards the kitchen. He locked eyes with me. I could see his tongue pressed into his cheek as he searched the room, looking for his son. But David hadn't moved from the spot beside the refrigerator. He was as stiff as a board, terrified.

Clearing his throat, my uncle looked back at the two police officers. "Yes, I'm Hector Mendez. What do you need with my son and his cousin?"

The first officer smiled before looking back at his partner. She smiled, too.

"Well, Mr. Mendez, if you've seen the news, then you'd know about the damage done by the Pylon ship," she said. "All seems to be an accident, of course, but considering it was done near the fair, where citizens reside, we must follow up on any potential injury cases or," she shrugged, her smile widening, "illegal trespassing."

My uncle straightened. And I thought I shrunk an inch.

Oh, fucking shit man...

"And it seems the two wristband IDs we identified—" The first officer tapped the tablet his partner carried. "—are assigned and registered here, at this address. One belongs to David Mendez and the other to Gustavo Ramirez."

I watched as David squeezed his eyes shut. His legs bounced. On his right hand, his fingers tapped the wall, one at a time, as though he were counting seconds. If he was mentally planning an escape, I needed to be ready. If he ran, I'd run, too. It'd be just like when we were kids.

He did the crime, but I was always a casualty. Guilty by association.

"Are you implying that they were trespassing?" My uncle was irritated.

"Oh, no," the female officer said. "We're simply checking up on them. If they'd gotten too close during the accident, they could be injured."

I looked down at the bruises that had formed on my arms, the scabs on my palm from the shards having wedged themselves in my skin. Sapphire cream worked wonders, yes, but it wasn't a shot of the direct serum. If you looked at me close enough, you know I'd been through some shit.

Some very illegal shit.

I gulped.

My uncle shook his head and waved his hand. "Yeah, they were there yesterday," he said. "They'd tried to get into the fair, but right when their wristbands were scanned, the event shut down because of that poor woman." Clearing his throat, he changed his tone. "By the way, how is she? Is anyone allowed to know?"

"Oh, she's fine." The fake smile on the officer's face was a lie. That woman had been bleeding out from every cavity. If she had lived, she wouldn't be fine.

"Well, that's good." My uncle smiled at them. "But, as I said, they were there, scanned and everything. That'd make sense if you picked up their signal in the area."

"At night?" The first officer sucked on his teeth. "If they were there last night, then—"

"No, not at night," my uncle said. "They were here, watching movies. Weren't you, Gus?"

The last part was just for me. Spoken louder than the first, just enough for me to hear. When he glanced back at me, the look in his eyes told me to follow his lead.

I struggled. So, I nodded, instead. Quickly.

My uncle took that as confirmation enough.

"See," he said, turning back to the police officers. "We were watching Night Hollow. Have you guys ever seen it? Pretty good. It's got families, money, ungrateful kids." He glanced back at me and forced a laugh before looking back at the officers. "Highly recommend it."

"Ah." The officer pressed his thumbs into the belt loops on his pants. His partner shut off their tablet. "Never seen it," he said. "But I'll be sure to check it out when I'm off duty."

"Do that." My uncle nodded, shaking one finger beside his face. "I swear you won't be disappointed."

"Lovely, we'll take your word for it," the female officer said.

"And surely your word holds weight," the first officer added, but when he said it, he lifted his brows in a disbelieving way.

Yet, suspicion aside, that didn't stop my uncle from nodding and saying, "Well, y'all have a good day now, all right?"

When he shut the door, he locked it. Then, with a slow turn, he looked back towards the kitchen. In a bellowing voice, he shouted, "DAVID!"

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The incoming onslaught wasn't for me. I turned my back towards my uncle, hiding, because the moment he entered, he started yelling. He grabbed David by the collar of his shirt and pulled him up, close to his face. I could hear the spit fall off his lips as he screamed, "The hell was that, huh? What have you been up to? AGAIN!"

"Nothing!" I turned back in time to see David try to push his father off him. His hand was wrapped around my uncle's wrist. "Why do I always gotta be doing something!"

"Because there's always police at my front door!" My uncle let David go, but he didn't move back. "If it ain't one thing with you, it's another. And I'm fucking tired, David. Tired of the shit."

"Yeah, but not as tired as me," David hissed.

I froze. I thought my uncle would have a response, but there was nothing. Just silence. An angry hand over his mouth as he exhaled sharply into his palm.

"Do you know what's worse David?"

As my uncle continued, I turned back towards the window.

"You're an adult. You just turned twenty. You know what that means? Huh, do you?"

I couldn't see the Pylon girl outside. There weren't many bushes in the backyard and only one tree. Lifting the window higher, I stuck my head all the way out. Where'd she go?

"What, dad?" I could hear the irritation in David's voice ring in my ears as I searched the yard still. "What's that mean?"

"It means—"

I saw a shadow move, leaves rustle, in the large, flowery bush near my uncle's garage. She was there, wasn't she?

"—I can't protect you! If they had a warrant, David, I wouldn't be able to stop them! And if you think I'm going to risk it all because you can't grow the fuck up, then, then—"

"Then, what, dad?" David wasn't yelling anymore. His voice dropped. The tone changed. I had to turn away from the window to look at them, nose to nose, forehead to forehead. I saw the sadness in David's eyes.

My uncle didn't have anything to say to it. His face softened for a moment. Then he looked away. At me. I had no choice but to straighten and cover the window as best as I could.

"Gustavo, please tell me you two didn't have anything to do with the ship last night."

David huffed quietly, "Unbelievable."

I wasn't sure what to say. If he meant to ask if David and I had anything to do with the falling pieces of metal, then no, we had nothing to do with it. But if he wanted to know if we were near the ship last night, like the officers had noted, then I had to say yes.

My uncle narrowed his gaze and tilted his head. "And if you didn't have anything to do with it, why do you look like a truck slammed into you, hm?"

Oh shit... I looked down at my arms.

"What did David make you do?" he continued to ask.

My head snapped up. I caught the look in my cousin's eyes. They silently screamed, "Don't." After the police showed up on the front step, I knew I couldn't. But what could I say?

"Um well." I rubbed the sides of my arms as I glanced back at the window, checking for the Pylon. No movement. "You see, what had happened was..."

"Was?" My uncle waited. He straightened and approached me, the height difference had me lifting my head just slightly. Enough to see the dark fire in his eyes, the stern uncle. The very same uncle who'd run and grab a belt when David and I didn't listen.

Guilty by association, right? "David took me out, that's all," I muttered, shaking my head. "Exploring."

My uncle mouthed the word before looking back at David, disapproval on every inch of his face. The look didn't faze my cousin, but it never did. Even when he was a kid, he would stand up to his dad. He'd face the swinging belt with raised arms braced for an attack. Now, he looked like he could take a punch. Or two.

David had his hands balled in fists at his sides.

"David." My uncle rubbed his neck as he sighed. "Boxing was outlawed for a reason, recuerdas? You keep going to these ring matches. Was that it?" My uncle glanced at me. "Was the fight near the fair?"

Fights? David was into boxing? No one boxed anymore. It was illegal, as my uncle said. The Pylon's helped us see that years ago. What good was the violence when it caused long, lasting damage?

"Sure, dad," David said with a hoarse laugh, "but you know I wouldn't admit it, so what's it matter, right?"

The mood changed. My uncle was suddenly so lighthearted and pleased, I was taken aback. I also wasn't prepared for him to turn around and loop his big arm around my shoulders, shaking me as though he were approved.

I hissed because it hurt; he managed to touch every bruise on my back.

"Ha, was that it? You fight now?" My uncle ruffled the hair on top of my head. "And here I thought you'd be little Gus Gus forever. Ain't that something."

Gus Gus. I thought I outgrew that name.

"Country boy got to make a name for himself out here in Chicago," David said. "Put some hair on his chest."

I have hair...

"Ay, there we go!" My uncle slapped a hand on my back, with too much praise, and I bit my tongue to keep from shouting. "You're a man now, you got this," he said. "You know, your dad was a good fighter, too. Strong right hook."

I gulped and looked into my uncle's eyes. No one ever talks about my father anymore.

"This is good, I like good," my uncle said, but looked at David right after. He pointed at him and lowered his voice. "Don't get caught. Again."

"Yeah, yeah." David rubbed the side of his face. "Got it."

"And you?" As my uncle made his way out of the kitchen, he looked back at me, pointing. "Don't tell your mother. She'd fuckin' kill me."

"I won't," I stammered.

He gave both of us a big smile before he turned to head back upstairs. David watched him first, leaning against the kitchen's opening to eye his footsteps. And once they became echoes, he looked at me with a dark, irritating gaze.

"Woah, what—" I waved my hands in front of me in defense.

"I should fuckin' kill you." David only needed to take two long steps to stand in front of me. "But I can't."

I cringed, shrugged, and tried to look apologetic. "Because I'm your favorite cousin...?"

"No." David grabbed me, forcing me to turn around and look out the window. The Pylon girl had come out from the bushes, her hood pulled up to cover parts of her face. When she looked at me, she smiled and waved.

David gave me a shove. "Because she's still here."