By Sun Page 6

  Suddenly, he was there beside her, wheezing, half hunched over. His blue eyes blinked at her, in between the big swipes of his hands as he tried to clear the sweat from his red face. He looked terrible, but smelled of fresh sweat and summer, and Lucy liked it.

  Dammit again.

  “Hey, Lucy.”

  They both just stood there. Him panting, struggling to get his breathing under control. Her? Holding coffee and sandwiches and staring. Like an idiot.

  Lucy cleared her throat and shouldered the truck door closed.

  “I need to check in with Suco, if you want to shower before our lunch meeting.”

  Good, she had said something, and it even made some sort of sense.

  Her head still swirled with those images of fire and pain. And the image of Tonantzin, surrounded by her halo of light. The mother of all, turned avenger.

  Jack still stared at her. Then he moved suddenly, taking half a step backward as if he had just woken up from a reverie.

  “Sure,” he said, “sounds good…. There’s something I need to talk to you about, too.”

  “About the job?”

  He shook his head, then ran a hand through his damp hair.

  Lucy waited for him to say more, but instead he just grabbed the cardboard carton of coffee from her hand.

  “Good you brought this. I forgot to put the pot on before my run.”

  He walked gingerly across the street, seemingly in pain. Lucy watched him go, brow furrowed in confusion. What else would he want to talk with her about? But she wasn’t so confused that she couldn’t admire his legs and his ass in his running shorts. Even the fact that his legs were a blinding, pasty white didn’t mar the view.

  “Well, that was weird.” She wasn’t sure she was talking about her response to him, or the fact that he’d avoided explaining what it was he wanted to talk about. All of her witch’s intuition stood at attention. Something was happening with Jack, and it felt as if it was connected, or at least might be, to her damned visions. And with the tingling in her hands…

  She thumbed her key fob, locking the truck. Then she strode across the street herself. As she thumped up onto the porch, she heard Suco’s music playing inside the house. Ozzy Osbourne. “War Pigs.”

  Lucy smiled, and shook her head. She pushed the heavy Craftsman door open.

  “I have lunch,” she called over the grinding guitars.

  Her co-worker turned the music down and smiled.

  “Thanks, boss.”

  Standing in the mostly painted living room, Lucy was filled with a sudden desire to pray for an ordinary day. A day of listening to old metal and painting. A day of talking about ordinary things, like color design.

  But she also knew that praying for things that were not possible was a futile activity. So she shut the door and handed Suco a sandwich, then went to walk the job, to see what else needed to be done. Whatever Jack wanted to talk about, she’d deal with soon enough.

  12

  Jack

  As soon as he saw Lucy step down from her truck, Jack knew what he wanted. Everything he’d held on to for the past few years—the longing, the fear, the desire, and the wish to run away—all came into focus. And somehow he had to ride whatever this wave of courage was and talk to her before it ebbed again.

  He’d showered as quickly as possible, downed some ibuprofen, and found Lucy in his kitchen, sitting at the table in the built in breakfast nook that looked out onto the backyard, sandwiches on plates and paper cups of coffee at the ready.

  The sun through the window burnished her dark hair. Jack had to keep himself from running his hand across the silky-looking strands. He had no right to touch her. Not now.

  That had been fifteen minutes ago. He’d sat. They’d gotten started on their sandwiches, and Lucy had made a few comments about the job, and then finally asked him what he wanted to talk to her about.

  He had taken a breath to steady the shaking that started up in his knees, and then let the words tumble forth.

  “It’s probably too little, too late, but I owe you an apology. I’m sorry if I made you feel like you weren’t worth my time. I’m sorry I was a jackass, and drifted away like that. The truth is, Lucy, you’re amazing. You’re actually probably too good for me, and…I wonder if I can have a do-over. Try again.”

  Lucy looked gobsmacked. She set her sandwich down and leaned as far away from him as she could get. Then she picked up her coffee, turned her head back to the window, and spoke.

  “I’m so not having this conversation with you,” Lucy said.

  Jack set his own sandwich back down with a little regret. It was a delicious combination of ham and cheese and peppers and crunchy bread, but frankly his stomach was cramping up from the nerves. Nerves, and strange figures showing up in visions, and the aftereffects of that damn run…

  “Why?” he asked, wiping his mouth with a paper towel and picking up his cup. Coffee he could always drink, no matter how crappy he felt.

  He could practically feel the waves of agitation radiating off of Lucy’s small frame. Her dark eyes snapped his way, then darted around his kitchen, raking across the stainless steel appliances, the black marble countertops, and the white cabinets. He knew she had a lot of ideas about painting the walls in here, but they were still in negotiation. He liked to keep things clean.

  Clean lines. Clean colors. Clean, locked-away emotions. And the last was biting him the ass, wasn’t it?

  “Lucy?” he prompted. “Sorry if my timing sucks. That’s nothing new, I know. But I can tell something’s wrong. First of all, you’re never late to work, and next, you’re acting really strange today. Like you’re not yourself.”

  She slammed her coffee cup down the table. “Seriously? That’s how you’re playing this? You ask if I’ll give you a second chance and then you try to act as if you’re not the one acting strange? What the hell, Jack?”

  “I deserve that,” he said quietly. And he did. It brought back the conversations they’d had before she broke it off with him, or really, before he ghosted on her. At the time, he had tried to deflect responsibility. And look at him, he was still doing it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that. I know what I said came out of the blue. But I also know something else is going on with you, and I’m trying, in my own stupid way, to offer to be a friend, if nothing else. I can listen if you want me to, to whatever’s bugging you.”

  Lucy snorted. “Besides you, you mean?”

  “I deserve that. I totally do.” Damn it. No matter what he did or said, he was still a jerk around women. An awkward, nervous jerk. Go, Jack.

  She looked away, staring back out the window into his untidy mess of backyard. That yard was another project he never seem to get to, so he just avoided going out there, which was dumb. It could be a nice space someday.

  He leaned across the narrow table and willed her to look at him. Her gaze remained fixed on the window.

  “Look, Lucy,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was such an idiot all those years ago. I’m sorry I ran away. If I had the chance to do it over again…”

  Her head snapped towards his, dark eyes boring into him. He fought to not squirm.

  “If I had the chance to do it over again, I would do better.” He swallowed. Fuck. His knee began to jounce and jitter under the table again. “I’d tell you I was scared to love you. I’d tell you you’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met. I’d tell you how gorgeous you are.”

  He felt her grow still at his words, like an animal waiting, trying to sense danger. Barely breathing. Her eyes remained steady though; no matter the circumstance, she was always courageous, that Lucy. Unflinching, even.

  “I so cannot talk about this right now,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me what else has been happening with you? You think I’m acting weird? I know shit’s going on with you, too. No way you just decided to run yourself sick this morning for no reason.”

  A truce then. He would take it.


  He leaned back in his chair, took another sip of coffee. It was his turn to look out the window now. The Japanese maples and the single persimmon tree were still green. And that pattern? He sought it everywhere now, including in the sugar grains that spilled across the table when he’d doctored his coffee. He hadn’t bothered to wipe them up yet. His eyes moved from clump of grains to the single, tiny crystals of white that spread in a small array across the wood.

  “There’s a pattern, but it’s just beyond my reach. It’s code. It’s art. It’s…something I can’t even describe to you yet. But it feels big. Bigger than me, that’s for sure. And this pattern, it feels as if it’s trying to form a wedge or a spear. As though it wants to strike. And a hacker friend of mine, well…”

  This time it was Lucy who leaned across the table. Placing a hand on his arm, she drew his gaze back towards her.

  “This hacker friend of yours wants to what?”

  She leaned forward so far across the slab of wood their heads were only about six inches apart, creating a small bubble of safety, a cone of silence. But just in case…

  “Power down your phone,” he said.

  “What?” Her face creased with confusion.

  “Please. Just power down your phone.” He fished his phone from his pocket and began the process of shutting it down.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  Lucy shrugged and did what he asked, as he rose and got a metal bowl from a kitchen cabinet. He set both the phones on the counter and turned the metal bowl upside down on top of them. As good a Faraday cage as any.

  Scooting back into the built-in nook, he sat, wincing slightly at his screaming muscles. How soon until he could take more ibuprofen? He took another drink of his rapidly cooling coffee and leaned forward again, not only to be able to speak softly, but because he just liked being so close to her.

  “My friend…wants me to help hack into Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

  Lucy sat back with a whoosh, as though all the air had been pressed from her chest.

  “Holy shit! You’ve got to be kidding. ICE?”

  Their sandwiches sat barely touched on the white plates in front of them. He began to pick at the crust of his ham and cheese.

  “You think it’s crazy?” he asked.

  “No. I don’t.” She paused for the space of three breaths. He just waited.

  She looked at him again, and spoke, then turned her hands palms up. “My hands, particularly my right hand, have been itching for days. They led me out to ICE yesterday.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “And this morning, the main Goddess I work with gave me the charge to help the children. To help all those children that are being tortured right now.”

  “Holy shit,” he said. “What are we going to do?”

  13

  Lucy

  Lucy stared at the hulking backside of the ugly tan ICE building. She stood near the rail tracks, just past the bustling luxury car showroom. This was such a strange neighborhood. Once a derelict place near the river, now getting built up with condos and top-of-the-line bourgeois electric cars, like everywhere else in Portland.

  She couldn’t think about Jack’s proposal that she give him—and them—a second chance. There was too much else going on right now. Plus, she wasn’t sure she trusted the sudden about-face on his part. Oh, it was clear something big was going on with him, but that didn’t mean she had to fall swooning into his nerdy arms.

  Lucy smiled at herself. She actually liked that he was such a nerd. It was kind of refreshing. And his eyes were truly beautiful, even when he pissed her off. Or disappointed her.

  Lucy breathed in the dry, dusty summer air. There was just a hint of smoke today. The winds kept shifting, and she was sure the firefighters prayed for rain. She stood at the edges of what had once been the vital, bustling encampment. It felt like a ghost town now.

  Glancing at the wall of the building to her back, Lucy smiled. Despite the rest of the camp being cleared, its marks remained. Five-foot-high letters made of painter’s tape were still stuck to the building that faced ICE’s Portland headquarters. “What Would Mom Say?” they read.

  What would La Madre say, indeed? Lucy waited. Watched. She needed to make sure no guards were coming by, patrolling the perimeter of the building. At least no one was stationed on the low roof that shaded the entrance today.

  When the camp was still active, there was always a sentinel on that rooftop, face covered with a balaclava, AR-15 or a shotgun filled with less-than-lethals slung loosely in their hands. The DHS cops also used to blare floodlights onto the sleeping campers, and blast music at them all night, expensive condos nearby be damned.

  But today? The building felt quiet. Almost too quiet. The land felt quiet, too, though some bicyclists headed down the slope toward her, dressed in red, black, and yellow spandex. The bike path was a main thoroughfare through this part of town, tracing the path of the metro.

  Lucy shouldn’t be there, and she knew it. But just as clearly, she knew she couldn’t stay away. Her hands itched and burned with the need to touch the building. Her gut had tugged her here, even while her head told her she was a stone cold idiot.

  She’d also needed to get away from Jack. There were too many conflicting emotions at play there, between his revelation that he carried a torch for her and the fact that he seemed to be God-touched or something, and in a way that dovetailed with her own current calling.

  Lucy’s workers were grumbling, though. Summer was not the time to be gallivanting around town, tilting at windmills. It was the time to work long hours and make the bulk of her money for the year. Of course she knew that. And it didn’t matter, did it?

  Lucy fished in her front pocket for a rubber band and slicked her heavy hair back into a ponytail, tight at the base of her skull. Better.

  To her right, a small flash of red and blue caught her eye. She walked down the narrow, paved bicycle path in the direction of whatever the sun had captured and thrown her way.

  Crouching down near a dried-out clump of vegetation, she laughed. It was an Our Lady of Guadalupe jar candle. Tonantzin. Right, this was the exact spot where the second altar tent was erected after the cops had smashed the smaller altar at the front gates.

  “Okay, Mother, here we both are. Anything you want to say to me?”

  Lucy deepened her attention, dropping into her core and slowing her breathing down. A slight breeze carried the scents of warm tarmac, dried grass, and a hint of copal, but no words. There was a sense of waiting, like the final moments before the performers took to the stage, or as the warriors—weapons gathered and armor donned—waited for battle.

  Another shift in the wind’s direction brought that faint waft of smoke from the fires again. She gave a slight cough and sent out a quick prayer that the forests, animals, and humans would all gain relief soon.

  Still no direct message from Tonantzin. She couldn’t stall anymore.

  “Okay,” she said again to the summer air. “Guess it’s just time to get to it.”

  Lucy wiped her hands on her painter’s pants, stood, and did another scan for cops. Then, boots on the dry dirt and grass, she scrabbled up the slope that led to the backside of the fortress in front of her. The other sides all had the tall, black lattice fences and guards. If she was going to touch the building, this was her only chance.

  Leaning one shoulder against the rough tan concrete, she looked left, then right.

  Still no one coming, which felt kind of unbelievable.

  Lucy rubbed her hands together. They were slick with sweat again, but rubbing them on her pants barely helped. Taking a deep breath, she made sure she was anchored to the earth beneath her, and then breathed across her damp palms. They tingled, but some of the itching resided, as if her hands knew she was finally on board. Taking in another breath, Lucy closed her eyes and placed both palms on the building.

  Images flooded into her so quickly she bit her tongue, tasting spit and c
opper before even that was whisked away, replaced with the stink of sweat and fear. The sound of men shouting. The screams and cries of children. A woman’s voice, sobbing. The sharp crack of a round being chambered. The thud of a weapon on soft flesh. Sound upon sound, image upon image, taste and smell and emotion, all of it pulsed through her. She felt adrenaline, the need to run or punch or kick or bite.

  Then that was gone, too, replaced with images of burning homes. Visions of women being seized and pinned to the ground. Images of children, faces weary, walking for miles. The scent of water.

  And then she was there. Lucy’s Goddess. La Madre. Tonantzin.

  She was resplendent, glowing, her black hair spread out like flames, her skin burnished like rich mahogany. And around her were rays so bright it was as if Lucy stared directly into the sun. She felt warm sweat run down her body. Tasted blood again. She pressed her palms more deeply into the building, as if she could burrow her way in. The shrieks and screams were joined by the sound of someone riffling through files and the clicking of computer keys, the clank of metal upon metal, and the heavy, final sound of a stamp smacking onto paper.

  ::See this, my child.:: The voice was thunder in her head. ::You must fight. You must show others the way toward freedom.::

  “Hey!” A voice penetrated her consciousness. “Get away from the building! Ma’am? Raise your hands where we can see them!”

  Breath shoved its way into Lucy’s lungs. Her spirit slammed back into her body so hard, she almost passed out. An ice pick of a headache spiked her skull, and her stomach lurched. Releasing her hands from the building, she turned her head and spat upon the ground. The taste of bile filled her mouth.

  Squinting, she saw three figures running towards her, heard the sound of their boots on the bike path, getting closer.

  “Shit,” she said.

  What were her choices, here? Her body knew. Shoving herself upright, she felt her hands scrape on rock—more pain—but she was on her feet again. Hands in the air, praying they wouldn’t shoot her in the back, Lucy ran as she had never run before.