Vagabonds

Chapter Twenty-Two: Spotlights

"There he is!"

"And here I was hoping they wouldn't need us," Joe said as Eliza whipped out her phone and dialed Aquila.

"We found him, we found him.... Yeah, he's in front of Howl. I'll go and —"

But before she could finish, Daisy stepped forward, vanishing into the churning crowd.

"Oh shit," Joe said.

"He went inside. Damnit, we'll have to go in after him. Yeah, ok." Eliza hung up. "They're coming down."

"Wait, wait, wait, don't you think someone will notice the guy with wings?"

"Aquila will stay outside."

Kicking open her door, she leapt out of the truck and began scanning the sky.

"Why the hell would he even want to go in there?" Joe asked, coming around to stand beside her.

Eliza lifted her eyebrows. "Besides the obvious?" She shrugged. "He's deaf. Maybe he's drawn to the lights."

"Or maybe he wants a bit of bumping and grinding." Eliza rolled her eyes as Joe let out a strained laugh. "What? Isn't that what the kids do these days."

"You don't."

"Obviously. But hey, if you've been cooped up your whole life in a weird old dude's mansion..."

Eliza chuckled, tapping her fist against Joe's arm in a show of comfort. She could feel the immense effort it was taking for him to avoid freaking out. It touched her how hard he was trying.

Aquila settled down beside the truck with a whomp of shifting air. His face contorted with worry as Moose exploded out of his arms, darting from them to the front of the truck and back again.

"He went in there?" Moose said, words coming so fast Eliza almost didn't understand them. "Is he crazy? He's not me, if anyone sees him there will be like riot-level pandemonium, like a zombie movie but with just one zombie who doesn't like brains or fighting back or talking much. He's dreaming if he thinks —"

"We'll go in with you," Eliza said, putting a hand on Moose's vibrating shoulder to stop him. "Maybe together we can lure him out." She turned to Aquila. "Don't worry, it'll be fine."

Aquila hunched his shoulders and the pain in his eyes made Eliza's heart tighten.

"It's my fault. I always assumed he'd just..." He shrugged. "I should have been paying more attention."

"Brothers, amirite?" Joe said.

Everyone ignored him.

Eliza reached up and cupped Aquila's jaw with the hand not holding Moose steady.

"We'll bring him back," she said, weighting each word with her conviction. "Nothing is going to happen. You'll go home and talk to him there and we'll find a way to keep everyone safe."

"Careful making promises you can't keep," Aquila said with a miserable flinch of a smile.

"Try me." Releasing Aquila, Eliza glanced between a quivering Moose and a grim-looking Joe. "Let's go."

Even on a Wednesday night, Howl radiated life and noise and the raw pulse of reckless youth. As the three of them drifted into the open warehouse, walking right past the disinterested bouncers, Eliza was shocked to see how many familiar faces she saw in the crowd. There was Yuri and Marta in glittering minidresses, jumping up and down with Hector. A group of jocks that she'd often seen throwing peas at each other in the cafeteria knocked into one another in a churning circle, scattered wide on the thinly populated dance floor. Two blonde girls from homeroom teetered in impossibly high heels as they sipped from unmarked Solo cups.

And, everywhere Eliza looked, buzzed army recruits with deep voices and sharp eyes.

How long until someone sees Daisy?

She prickled with unease, surrounded by the laughing, shouting men and women from Fitzgerald base. These people might be perfectly nice, normal even, but they followed orders. Orders given by that horrible black-haired woman. And they were trained to keep the peace.

If anyone saw one of the Vagabonds here, it would be anything but peaceful.

Swallowing her fear, Eliza plunged deeper into the melee, Joe and Moose trailing behind her like an entourage. The closer they got to the dance floor, the brighter and more insistent the lights became. They flashed over everything, making the world inside the warehouse technicolor and strange. A DJ pumped his fist in one corner, turning the music up so high it was almost painful.

"Eliza!"

Joe swung her around just in time to see Moose drifting off in the opposite direction, moving almost... slow.

"Shit!"

Eliza lunged after him, grabbing Moose by the arm.

"This way," she said, tugging him back. But Moose didn't turn away from a huge spotlight roving over the crowd, blinding them as it passed. "Moose, come on."

"It's so pretty," he murmured, tilting his head.

"What's going on?" Joe shouted over the bone-deep hum of the bass.

"I don't know," Eliza said, casting about frantically. She couldn't lose Moose and Daisy; Aquila would have a heart attack. Thinking about him hovering by Old Betty, unable to come inside, she leaned hard on Moose, shoving him away from the light. "Help me!"

Between them, Eliza and Joe were able to wrestle Moose away and guide him to the other side of the dance floor. When they were finally in the corner, shadowed by a pillar, Moose shook his head.

"Woo boy, that was a head rush. Did you guys see that? It was like looking at the stars, but all kalidescopy and weird. I can see why people like these places so much. Maybe I can come back when Daisy's home, would you guys come with me?"

Joe's eyes were huge, filled with unspoken things, but she wasn't looking. She was glaring at a hunched shape in the alcove next to theirs, staring out at the dance floor with longing, soulful brown eyes.

"Daisy!"

She made to surge out after him, but hesitated when Moose didn't follow. A girl was teetering toward them on stiletto heels, grinning at the tall kid in goggles.

"Those are pretty rad. Can I try?"

Eliza's breath caught in her throat as the girl reached up, as if to stroke the skinny boy's face. Moose grinned, shrugging off Eliza's grip, straightening his shirt.

"Hi there hey there, nice to see a —"

But Moose, who hadn't grown up with girls tugging his hair and stealing his lunchbox, didn't realize until too late what she was doing. Drunk, flirtatious, her hormonal curiosity mingling poorly with the alcohol, the girl was making a move. Under the guise of curling her fingers around the back of Moose's head, she slipped them under the dark green band corralling his wild brown hair.

"No!" Eliza screamed.

The goggles whipped off. For a moment, everything was as still as the woods outside Scottstown. The girl's grin froze on her face. The spotlight roved over them.

And Eliza saw, for the first time, what made Moose a Vagabond.

Beneath the orange-tinted goggles, Moose's eyes were baseball huge, lidless, and glittering, infinitely faceted like the world's most complex diamonds. They were the same iridescent blue as Aquila's wings, but horrifyingly alien embedded in the oversized eye sockets.

Of course.

Numb with shock, Eliza thought about his quick movements, his frenetic energy, his hypnotic draw to the bright spotlight.

And understood.

Housefly.

Moose, predictably, was the first to move. His hand flashed out, snatching the goggles as they arced through the air. But the damage had been done. The girl's lips opened once, twice, like a fish flopping on land. Eliza made to grab her, clap a hand over her mouth. Too late. Drunk feet stumbled away, the clicking heels barely audible over the pumping dance music.

But everyone heard her scream.