The Walls of Jericho

Followed

Partly because I’m me, and partly because I secretly nurse an enormous idiotic crush on Channing Stark, I can’t stop thinking about what happened this morning.

My instincts tell me it isn’t good.

During the mid-afternoon slump between lunch and dinner, I clean up the dining room and get it ready for the dinner crowd. The work’s never been hard—I mean really, it’s a diner—and it passes sort of mindlessly as the shadows mark the time and move across the diner’s checkerboard tile floor.

One of my ‘benefits’ working at Esteban’s diner is that all my meals are free. If you can call that a benefit, especially with his cooking. There’s a few things that don’t entirely disgust me to eat. He actually makes a really tasty cherry and cream cheese turnover and— now that I think about it, I can’t think of anything else.

I fix myself a salad with some saltines for lunch after I’m done prepping the dining room. As I go to ring up the sale on the tablet register, I pause. I curl my fingers around the back of the tablet and close my eyes.

Five years makes a big difference in technology.

At sixteen, I could flip the tumblers in locks. Or turn appliances on and off. Or put my hand against an electric outlet—or even something plugged into one—and sense through my foster parents’ house where everyone was.

With the job I got at Esteban’s, I saved a few dollars from each paycheck and bought my first Smartphone.

That was when things really started opening up.

The dreams of the blonde woman came less frequently. She was replaced in my head by electronic signals that are the interconnected nerves spanning our globe. I still know what she knew, but in our technologically enhanced lives, I know so much more too.

I’m not strong enough to connect to the entire planet, but I’m strong enough now to sense and use those connections up to a block away.

And I’m still growing.

Every college class that I take gives me a greater understanding. They give me more background.

They broaden my range.

Through the tablet, my connection zips along the diner’s electric wiring. It finds Esteban’s cheap-ass closed circuit television system. It picks up the signals from the cameras inside, including the one behind the register.

Go east, I tell it, backwards in time. When I open my eyes the grainy ten-pixel images wind backwards like an old VHS tape showing on the tablet. Stop! I command when I see them—Channing and Damien and Ferdi at the register with me.

I know what I did then. What I entered incorrectly that my connection to the technology fixed.

What I’ve never seen before is someone detect it. Yet in that instant of replay I’m watching, even through that coarse video, Damien flinches, then his mousey-brown eyes flick up to my face.

He saw it—saw me and my ability.

What’s more intriguing is that he knows what he saw.

It’s also alarming.

There are many gangs active in the south side of Crossroads. The Jade Vipers. The Jackal Tears. The Ivory Skulls. Those are just the names I remember. The ones that do bad enough things that they make the daily newspapers.

I know the name of another, though no one speaks it out loud. It’s whispered between people when the worst of gang violence happens. When the massive explosions rock the Crossroads’ south side.

Avernus.

I’ve thought for a long time Damien, Ferdi and Channing are members of the Avernus gang. They’re too big and too strong to be anything else. They prowl the streets, both alone and together. I’ve never heard where they work but they always have money.

A knot of anxiety coils in my belly. I release my hold on the technology around me. Ringing up my sale, I zero the balance.

This is what followed me. Or the me who lived in the blonde woman’s body. From the east to the west. Where death and the hungry ocean wait patiently for us. For me. And Avernus, now that they know.

Stave them off. Lie if you must, the blonde woman says in my thoughts. Just a few more months, then you’ll escape to the north side. Then keep going north until you’ve left them behind. Stick to your plan.

Releasing a soft sigh, I get myself a Coke. I walk around the counter, then take a seat before my uneaten salad. Picking up my fork, I swallow the tasteless bite.

**

“G’Night, Esteban,” I call across the empty diner’s darkened lobby. I don’t wait for his answer. I don’t care to hear his latest reprimand or unhelpful advice anyway. The annoying little bell jingles as I exit, locking the door behind me with my key. I have to jump to catch hold of the security grate at the top of the building. My weigh helps pull it down into place so I can lock it too.

Shrugging my shoulders, I tug the collar and draw my favorite red hoodie up along the back of my neck against the chill. Setting off at a brisk pace, I glance down all the darkened alleyways before crossing.  I eye shadowy doorways warily and give a wide berth to cars parked too close to the sidewalk.

In a weird turn of luck, the same day I got the job at Esteban’s, I landed a place to stay too. I live now as an overnight care-giver to an old man with dementia. I take care of his house. I take care of him. In exchange, I live for free in one of the spare rooms.

I’ve forgotten the name of the program that funds it, but it’s been a good gig for me. It’s six blocks from Esteban’s, so I walk to and from work. It’s a good house and Mr. Adriani’s not too crazy. It’s four blocks from the nearest market and on my way between home and work.

“Evening Mrs. Yun,” I call as I enter the market. Snatching a small convenience cart, I bolt down the freezer aisle. This late, if she catches you, the grouchy Mrs. Yun won’t let you shop.

“Five minutes we close!” she shouts after me in a high-pitched squeaky voice. It still drips with an accent even after thirty years here. I kind of envy her for it. She speaks another language.

Then again, if talking to technology counts, then so do I.

“Yes ma’am!”

Jerking a plastic bag of pre-made frozen meatballs off the shelf, I shiver from the cold. I toss them into the cart and dash along the back wall for a few more items. I feel like I’m a contestant in one of those supermarket shopping races. Fortunately, the cranky Mrs. Yun is nothing if not organized. It’s a fast shot up one aisle for pasta, sauce and prepackaged grated cheese. I’m at the register with two minutes to spare.

With both hands, I shove items on the counter. I get the cart back in the rack beside the door just as Mrs. Yun hits ‘total’ on the register.

“Twenty-three fifty-seven.”

I stare at the number, fishing in my apron pocket for the thirty dollars Channing left me as a tip. “Huh. weird.” It’s the same amount as their total. The knot in my belly twists, reminding me this is bad.

Pocketing my change, I go without resisting as Mrs. Yun hurries me to the door. As she shoves me out onto the street, I sigh. “G’Night, Mrs. Yun.” The clicking of the lock is her reply.

My breath frosts as I hit the night streets with quick steps. I'll speed-walk the remaining four blocks to Mr. Adriani’s narrow three-story house.  When he’d bought the vaguely gingerbread-y looking place forty years ago, it was probably one of the more lavish residential neighborhoods. Now it’s stuck between two newer multi-story condos. And as politics changed, the older areas like his were abandoned to languish in disrepair.

Now no one gets out.

Except me, I think cockily. I have a plan.

It starts with taking my last final. Finishing my master’s thesis. Then it's on to KDS for an entry-level position as a database architect and administrator.

That's my plan, sweet and simple.

My ticket out of the Crossroads and into a way better life.

The hair on the back of my neck rises and instinctively I stop dead still, scanning my environment around me. I don’t know what the trigger was—the erratic flickering of the streetlamp over the opposite sidewalk?  Or some far off shout or screech? Or gunshot. I swallow hard.

There’s a soft patter of footfalls behind me.

Whirling, I leap back. My hands are up between me and whoever is following me. It’s a fighting stance, but I admit I’m a coward. I’m more likely to run. Instead of someone scary, I find myself looking into the grinning face and gorgeous blue eyes of Channing Stark.

“Damn, Jinks. Those are some cat-like reflexes you got for such a little girl.” He pushes his sleeves up his corded forearms.  He crosses them over his wide chest and I realize they’re about as big as my calves. Somehow that stance makes his shoulders look broader and his waist narrower. Like a man to be reckoned with.

God, it’s painful how beautiful he is.

“What do you want, Channing?” I demand, relaxing a little. He’s harmless enough to me since I’m poorer than dirt. I’m also nowhere near as interesting as the bubble-headed dolls he likes to sport with.

Still working the million-dollar smile, he shrugs. “You’re out here by yourself. I thought I’d walk you home.”

Pivoting smartly, I start off again. “I don’t need an escort, but thanks,” I toss over one shoulder. I gasp as he slips his hand into the plastic loops of my grocery bag on my opposite side. My senses rattle as his hand brushes mine.

I jump back, jerking my hand away like it’s burned. “I said I’ve got it. Give me back my groceries.”

A few steps ahead of me, Channing stops and stares back at me. His eyes skim the darkness around us like he’s annoyed. “Come on, Jericho,” he says mildly. “You’re out here by yourself. Let me see you safe home.”

“Just give me back my stuff. I’m fine on my own. Don’t you have a movie star or homecoming queen to be strolling around with anyway?”

He hits me with another of those high roller grins and shakes his head. “Nope. You’re the only one dumb enough to be out here alone. Take a look around you, Jericho.”

It’s something in his tone that makes my hair stand on end again. My eyes strain against the darkness around me. “There’s no one.” Even as I say it, I know it’s a lie.

“You’re wrong.” Channing isn’t smiling anymore. “There are three guys tailing you in the shadows. Across the street. They’re all wearing dark clothes, so you wouldn’t see them. One of them is wearing a Nike baseball cap. They’ve been gaining on you for two blocks but they backed off when I stepped out where they could see me. You’re not as safe as you think you are, Jericho. You need to let me walk you home.”

With narrowed eyes, I peer into the darkness, looking for proof what he says is true. It’s as I’m opening my mouth to call bullshit that I see a shadow detach from the darkness. It slinks forward a few paces, then disappears again in a recessed doorway. My teeth clack together as my jaw slams shut.

“Now will you let me walk you home?”

“How do I know they aren’t with you?”

“Why would they have stopped if they were?” His voice drops to a low intimate timbre that makes me shiver. “I’m pretty sure I can take you on my own.”

I curse myself and him mentally. “Let’s go, beefcake.”

With his longer legs, Channing catches up beside me in a few strides. When he tries to take my hand, I brush him off. Just to be spiteful, I tuck them in my hoodie’s front pocket.

“Cut me some slack, will you, Jericho? Take my hand.”

“I don’t want to take your hand, Channing. If somebody sees us, they’ll think things.”

He huffs in frustration. “Somebody does see us, and that’s exactly what I want them to think.”

He’d turned his head as if he was talking to me. By the angle of his chin, I know he wasn’t. He’s monitoring the trio behind us. I can tell by the set of his shoulders, he’s worried about them too.

“Why the hell do you think I walk so many girls home?” he asks me.

It takes another two strides for me to process that question. To understand what he really means. I stumble as it hits me and when I recover, without further argument, I put my hand in his.

A whole new problem starts the minute his hand closes around mine. Butterflies go crazy in my stomach. There’s a wild electric sensation that screws with my head.

“Your fingers are cold.”

“No, your hand’s just really warm. They’re still following us, aren’t they?”

“Yep.” He lifts my hand to his face and hides behind it, then exhales warm breath over my fingers. “I promise I’ll get you home safely.”

The stupid butterflies in my stomach are staging a riot. He’s never been anything but nice to me, but this is the sweetest thing he’s ever said. Maybe the sweetest thing I’ve heard since before my parents died.

We’re almost to the end of the block when Channing curses softly. The electric sparks leaping between us through our clasped hands surge. He jerks me into the darkness of the alley as we reach it. Keeping hold of my hand, he drags me into a run. Tripping and stumbling behind him, I crash into him with a soft cry when he stops suddenly. He looks up and my eyes follow. Above us is a rusted rickety fire escape from the building’s second floor.

“Trust me,” he whispers urgently, shoving my grocery bag into my hand. “Put your arms around my neck and hold on tight.”

I can hear the three guys chasing us. Their footsteps ring loud and fall fast. I squeeze my eyes shut and cling tighter to Channing’s neck. Against me, the muscles of his shoulders and chest bunch, then I feel him leap upward.

My eyes fly open at the soft clang as he catches hold of the ladder opening. He did it! Holy s**t! He actually made that jump! Near my ear he gives a whispered curse, and a pleasant quiver ripples through me.

The footfalls are getting closer as Channing hangs, swaying beneath the fire escape. The muscles against me go taut as he shifts his grip. About the time I hear the rival gang members voices, Channing pulls us through the opening at the second floor.

Elation at our narrow escape bubbles up inside me. I’m so impressed and a little aroused by what he’s just done. Then he closes one arm around my middle from behind, his other hand covering my mouth. The fear that I felt when I first heard him following me comes back in full force.

Drawing me with him, he backs into the darkest corner of the fire escape. His hand over my mouth smells strongly of the metal. He’s not restraining me, just ensuring I stay quiet.

Channing’s head moves with mine, watching the rival gang members searching the alleyway below. There’s a glint of light off steel. I catch my breath. One of the men searching for us is wearing a Nike baseball cap. He’s also carrying a gun.

With both hands, I clutch Channing’s arm about my waist and quake against his larger body.

“Shhhh,” he whispers in a soft breath across my ear.

“Down here!” one pursuer shouts.

“What the hell? There’s no one!” This man kicks a garbage can over and a foul stench rises as it spills.

“They’re here! We saw them!”

“I told you we should have just shot him when we saw him.”

Oh God. They know who Channing is. They’re out to get him. There’s no doubt now that this is a gang. The next words chill my blood.

“The hell with the girl. She was just fun anyway.” It’s the Nike baseball cap guy and I can’t stop my shivering. My imagination is all too vivid. I doubt I’d enjoy their kind of fun.

I also doubt I’d survive it.

Long minutes pass as the trio continues to search up and down the alley. They kick violently at heaps of trash, at discarded boxes in their growing frustration. They tip more reeking trash bins, hoping to flush us out. Finally, they give up and slink back the way they came.

On the fire escape, Channing releases my mouth and drops his hand to my shoulder. It might be the most reassuring hug I’ve ever had. He lets an eternity pass before he decides we’re safe enough to return to the ground the same way we came. Then he takes my hand and leads me a back way out of the alleyway.

He navigates our path through the twisting alleys unerringly. Even when it’s so black I’m blind in the darkness, he doesn’t miss a single step. The shocks up my arm from our linked hands have returned. I don’t know why but they remind me of a shorting circuit. Flashes and pops as the electric current tries to move between us but doesn’t quite know how.

When he finally brings us into the light again, we’re only a block from where I live. Even though no one’s following us anymore, he still holds my hand all the way to the fence around Mr. Adriani’s property.

Channing is tall enough to reach over the fence and open the latch. He holds it open for me and hands over my groceries.

I owe him. Big time. There's no doubt in my mind he saved my life tonight. There’s no way to repay that, but I try anyway. “Um. Channing—.”

His lips curl up and that dimple cuts a deep groove in one cheek. Even in the dim light he’s really handsome. “If you want to thank me, you could feed me dinner.”

I glance over my shoulder at the house. I can’t imagine why he’d want to come in. “You know Mr. Adriani’s not all there in the head anymore, right?”

“Is he more dangerous than you?”

I blush at the sexy tone of his voice and look away. It shoots an electric jolt through me and I grin in embarrassment. “Would you stop that?”

His smile gets wider. “Stop what?” he asks innocently.

“I’m just warning you if you’re going to come inside. He might be wearing his underwear on his head. You never know.”

Channing shrugs, still giving me the silly hopeful grin that’s making my legs wobbly. “You’ll protect me, won’t you?”

Is he for real? I’d drink his bath water if he asked me like that. I make a face, as if I’m considering it. Then shake my head ‘no’. “Only safe place is probably the kitchen.”

He laughs, then counters like lightning. “Or your bedroom.”

I blush furiously and I’m grateful it’s dark and he can’t see it. I tilt my head to one side and stare at him through narrowed eyes.

He shrugs. “What? I’m harmless.”

God, he’s pulling out all the stops. “I don’t believe that for one second.”

I knew he’d laugh, and he did. That big warm sound that bounces off the walls of the buildings and fills up a part of me I didn’t know was empty.

“Stop staring me down." Channing shoos me towards the front porch. "Let’s fix something to eat.”

**

“You weren’t kidding when you said you never know what you’ll get with Mr. Adriani.”

“Told you so.” Thankfully, Mr. Adriani isn’t wearing his underwear on his head. I’m sure to Channing it’s not much less weird watching him high-step around the living room in swim fins and purple rubber kitchen gloves. He’s doing a Sweatin’ to the Oldies workout with Richard Simmons on the television.

“I’m home, Mr. Adriani,” I shout over Soul Man blaring from the television.

“Okay, Mom!” he shouts back in the gravelly voice of an old man. “I finished my homework.”

I lead the way to the kitchen through an arched entry and Channing follows me. As he’s looking around, I dump my apron and the bag of groceries on the pine drop-leaf table. “Make yourself comfortable.”

As he takes a seat at the table, he thumbs towards the living room. “You didn’t even bat an eye.”

“I’ve come home to weirder,” I assure him, stepping on the backs of my hot pink All-Stars and easing my feet out of them. I’m still looking at him as I sigh in pleasure and nearly jump out of my skin when his eyes dilate as I make that sound.

As if he realizes it, he looks down at the table. Rapping his knuckles on it he laughs. “This looks like a throw-back to 1980s country living style.”

Slipping out of my socks, I drop them on top of my shoes. “It probably is.”

“Cute toes.”

I look down. My toenails are painted crimson with little yellow polka-dots. I shrug. “I liked them.”

“So do I.” Channing hits me with another of those smiles. “You’ve got a style all your own, Jericho.”

The butterfly mayhem restarts in my stomach. “You need something to drink?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

I pad barefoot to the refrigerator, open it and stare in. “I have lemonade. Fat-free milk—,” I pause, reaching in and hauling out the half-gallon jug. Opening the cap, I sniff tentatively. Embarrassed, I set the jug beside the sink. “Scratch that. No milk.”

I make a mental note to add it to tomorrow’s shopping list, then check the pantry closet. “Final options are lemonade. Pink lemonade from powder. Water. Or I can make some tea.”

“I’m good with whatever you’re having.”

“Pink lemonade it is.” In a matter of minutes, I’m shoving an iced glass across the pine table to Channing. I fill another with ice water, then zip into the living room.

It’s only me and Mr. Adriani now, so I glance at the TV. Volume down, I tell it and the sound drops to a reasonable level. “Mr. Adriani, sit down now and watch.”

“I’m doing reach-backs and claps,” he tells me.

Well, it’s not any weirder than anything else he says. “I know, but you need to sit down. Here, I brought you some water. Aren’t you thirsty after all those—um—reach-backs and claps?”

“No.”

I let my breath out through pursed lips. “If you don’t sit down and drink this, the TV goes off.”

“No it doesn’t.”

I shoot a command at the television. Immediately it powers off.

Mr. Adriani’s face falls. “Oh.”

“Do you want to keep watching?”

He’s pouting, but he nods.

“Are you going to sit down and drink this?” I’d expect to see the expression I’m getting from a four-year old, not a man who’s sixty years older than me. Finally, he sits down, reaching for the glass. “I’ll have your dinner in a minute.”

With another silent command, the television comes back on and Mr. Adriani’s face lights up. If only everything else was so easy.

When I get back to the kitchen, Channing is rooting in my shopping bag.

“Spaghetti noodles. Frozen meatballs. Jarred marinara. And—,” he reads the ingredient label on the parmesan cheese with a grimace. “Grated mostly-cellulose-not-parmesan cheese to top it with.”

I take the cheese from him and smack his hand. “You’re the one who wanted dinner. Esteban’s the short-order cook, not me. If you don’t like it, you can find your way to the door.” I snatch the bag off the table and set it on the counter near the stove.

“Nope. I love spaghetti.” He flashes me another of those damn smiles that make me want to pounce on him and rubs his belly.

I lean my weight on one hip, prop a fist on the other and give him a bland stare.

“I do!”

“Sure you do.”

“Okay, so maybe not that kind, but I do want to be here. Isn’t that worth something?”

“Yeah, about that. Don’t you have a lingerie model to be hanging around this evening?”

“Mmmm.” It comes out as a low growl and Channing’s deep blue eyes dilate again. They drop to my chest. “I’m ready for the show when you are, babydoll.”

Shit. I forgot how quickly he turns that stuff. Blushing as red as my hoodie, I gather my hair over one shoulder and get a saucepan out of the cabinet.

“I’m pretty handy in the kitchen, you know.” He takes a step closer expectantly.

I dump a bunch of the frozen meatballs in the pan. Clipping the bag closed, I toss it in the freezer. “So I’ve noticed.” I stop what I’m doing to lean on the counter and eyeball Channing. “How did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Spare me the innocent kid routine. How did you jump high enough to catch hold of a second story fire escape and pull us both up?”

He actually looks stumped, then he mimes bench pressing weights. “I work out.”

As he’s going through the motions, I catch sight of his palm and gasp. There’s dried blood across it, down his arm and staining the sleeve of his hoodie. “Oh my God! You’re bleeding!”