Author's note: Cue an incredibly long chapter. Yikes, I am sorry about that. There might be a liiiittle bit of a break before I update the story again. Thank you for reading, and for all of the reviews and alerts!
The Highwayman is a lovely poem by Alfred Noyes.
He avoided her for the next week, and life went on. He worked both jobs as per usual, only showing up to drug Dizzy when he was sure the kid would be asleep. Dizzy told him that Shilo's nightmares hadn't gone away. She thought the girl had been raped by Repo Man. He dismissed the idea without serious consideration. Her abuse had been psychological in nature. That was all.
She was still going through Daddy withdrawal. He had to give her space or she'd just come to rely on him.
He left things for her to find in the mornings: a journal and pen, a scarf, a lacy red ribbon. Nothing big, but he wanted to show he hadn't forgotten about her. It would've been tempting to leave these things at the foot of her (Dizzy's!) bed and see the sleeping cutie, to wake her up and give her kisses with his gifts, but he needed to not see her, too. He was getting too close, too fast.
Shilo didn't want to go home. Dizzy was sort of like Dad: precise, methodical, pristine. Dizzy fussed over the girl's medicine, experimenting with the prescription, trying to find a combination that she could live with. She also seemed to understand her on an emotion level as much as a medical one. She left her alone to sort out her thoughts for the most part, what with her long hours of disgusting dissection during the daylight. This left Shilo hours alone to fill with scribbling in journal, catching moths, watching TV, and avoiding the outside world. She wanted to pretend she was in a bubble, and when it popped, things would go back to normal: she'd be home, protected, and ignorant.
Reality was overwhelming, and that week was a welcome respite. She knew it was there, that this was a temporary break only.
It was terrifying to think of reform happening because of her. If the news turned on, she changed the channel. If Dizzy was reading the paper, she looked away.
What if people's lives were changing because of her? What if they weren't? What if Amber had gone back on her word and she'd have to start all over?
She missed her dad.
She missed Graverobber.
He showed up one afternoon in the kitchen, unannounced. His hair was messily tied half back, and there were more colors and textures in his outfit than a toddler's arts and crafts box.
"If it isn't my two favorite females!" He tipped an imaginary hat.
She set down her juice so carelessly that it sloshed onto the newspaper. She jumped up and hugged him tightly. Under the worn leather, he smelled like mud, trash, and several days' worth of mingled sweat. She nestled her head against his chest, feeling like the weirdest person in the world for missing this.
"I missed you," she mumbled, hoping it was soft enough that Dizzy wouldn't hear. "Like, a lot."
"Thanks, Shilo." He smoothed her back in slow, even circles. "You can let go now."
Shilo let go and sat back down, mopping up the spill of orange juice on the printed pages with a napkin.
Dizzy got him a thermos of coffee. "Are you taking her away?"
"I am, as a matter of fact!" He took a few steps forward and put a hand on Shilo's shoulder; she perked up.
"Where're we going?" she asked.
"It's a secret!" He winked.
"Before you go, honeybunch, can I get some blood samples?" Dizzy asked Shilo. She winced but nodded. Dizzy was looking for her cure. It couldn't be impossible, and if anyone could find a way, she would.
A few vials of blood later, Shilo felt oddly mismatched in one of Dizzy's white button-downs, cinched at the waist by the scarf Graverobber had gifted to her, and a black, poofy skirt beneath it. She waited by the door for him to re-emerge from wherever he'd popped off to.
She didn't recognize him at first. His hair was pulled back off his face. The white makeup and dark lipstick had been washed off, but he wasn't plain-faced by any means. He was bronzed, with burgundy so dark it ranged on black lining his cheekbones. His eyes were ringed with a healthy amount of eyeliner, and the eyelids were a metallic copper. His clothes were different, too: black trousers, a grey shirt with a red victorian jacket over it, each pocket sure to hold something interesting. Even with the obvious wear in the buttons and the faded colors, he looked- what was the word?
Debonair.
"What's with your face?" Dizzy asked.
Shilo could only stare.
He grinned. "We're going out in the daylight hours, among the general population, and I am a wanted man."
She couldn't argue with that.
He produced a gas mask and held it out to her. "The air quality's dreadful today."
She placed it over her face and he stepped behind her to help snap it in place. She worried he would press his body against hers or touch her in some way and make her feel sexy in front of Dizzy, but he was a perfect gentleman. He tightened the straps and then stepped back to observe the effect.
"Thanks," she said, her voice distorted through the mask's filter.
"Have fun, you two!" Dizzy waved them out the door.
He didn't even look at her as they walked. She prompted him again as to where they were going, but he pretended not to hear. They didn't take their usual winding route back to the graveyard, but rode a freight elevator up to the streets.
The city looked different in the day. Adverts assaulted her vision, blocking most of the skyspace, and the people walking by were looking up, or at store windows, or anywhere but at the ground, where bugs scurried along the pavement and a bloody pair of legs stuck out of an alley.
He pulled out a pocketwatch and checked it. "We're cutting it close," he said, grabbing her hand and racing up the sidewalk.
"Cutting what close?" But her voice was drowned out in the traffic on the intersection ahead.
Cars: actual size, ancient monsters, bigger than she'd ever thought they would be judging by the dots from her window. A track cut through the middle of the road. Not a minute later, a green trolley headed up the track, forward and onward, gaining speed as it went uphill. The cars were stopped by a changing series of lights, but she didn't have much time to study the system. He dragged her onward and upward, guiding her to the step-up on the back of the streetcar.
"Grab on!"
She reached up and grabbed onto the rail, one foot barely on the steps. She dangled precariously in the air for a terrifying heartbeat, then he was supporting her, shoving her up with a friendly pat on the ass once both her feet were secure. She got up on the platform quickly to evade any further groping.
He didn't need any help up. Figures.
She leaned on the rail, watching the street rush away from them. He stood behind her, hands on the rail.
"How're you doing?"
"It's a lot to take in," she said. "Can we go inside?"
"We could, but likely as not we'd be thrown out. Technically, they expect people to buy tickets. Nothing's free."
"It's cold," she noted.
"I'll keep you warm." He wrapped an arm around her waist to press her close, still holding on to the rail with his right arm.
It wasn't a terrible way to travel, and there was less attention than with the limo.
The bigtop tent was red and gold and enormous, big enough to hold an operahouse. He let her take off the mask once they were inside, in the land of booths and games, confections and sideshows. She was hesitant of the crowds, but his hand was there if some oddity frightened her. Everything frightened her.
She wanted to get her face painted, so he left her in someone else's capable, probably surgically enhanced hands for a while. He bought a pinwheel on a lark and presented it to her. She spun it and watched the colors twist with a smile. Her face was decorated with neon blue patterns, a checkerboard on one cheek and solid stripes covering both eyes, a red barcode on her lower lip. He'd have fun licking that off later.
"This is pretty," she said of the pinwheel, tucking it into her makeshift belt. It added a color and an interest to her outfit that was more like a graverobber's than her own. "You didn't have to do that."
No, he didn't. But her smile said it all. She liked that he had gone out of his way to take her somewhere fun and corpsefree. She liked that he had bought her something. And, judging by the way her jaw had dropped earlier, she liked that he was dressed a bit differently for the occasion.
He had drawn the line at washing with soap.
They proceeded on. She lost a few dollars tossing rings at bottles before he told her it was rigged; she yelled at the heavy proprietor of the crooked operation and demanded her money back. She briefly reminded Graverobber unpleasantly of Amber; he attempted to quash the thought.
Lesson learned. Failing to get a refund, she avoided the rest of the games, even the honest ones. She wanted to look at everything and everyone. She wasn't subtle about it either, gawking and making comments that made him smirk before he could tell her something about etiquette. She pointed at a hunched over, skinny fellow walking with an IV and he pushed her arm down with a quiet laugh.
"What's wrong with him?" she asked.
"I don't know, kid, a blood disease?"
She stopped and glared at him. All notions of her resembling Amber were extinct for good. It was like being on the business end of a watergun... or a machine gun brandished by an adorable bunny rabbit.
"It's not funny."
On the contrary. But he held his tongue, for fear of enraging her to new heights of cute and ineffective anger. "Sorry."
"I was sick. I am sick," she corrected herself.
"Kid, I get that. But the rest of the world isn't the picture of health. The bodies on the streets aren't all the remnants of Repo Men."
She flinched, her eyes glazing over. "Why don't they go to the doctor and get cured?"
"You should know it's never that simple," he chided. "People are sick. You're healthy, compared to some. Alright?"
She nodded.
She saw it, almost couldn't believe it. A tent was ahead, a plain and dingy red. The sign above read, "The Magnificent Marni" in sloping, rounded letters. She let go of his hand absently, and approached the tent. Marni. Marni. Mom. She pushed the flap open and found an odd contraption in the little hay-strewn square of canvas.
A big, unwieldy nickelodeon accepted coins and spat projections onto a covered screen in exchange. She'd have to stand on tiptoe and peer through the eyepiece to see the images, which were of questionable quality. She fumbled in her purse for a nickel and fed it into a slot, then pulled down an indicated lever and pressed a selection at random. The screen was small, but when she put her eyes up to the eyepiece, like opera glasses set into the panel, the rest of the world was blacked out, and the flickering countdown began.
The colorized film featured a beautiful girl, about nineteen or twenty, with dark eyes and curled hair. It was the younger self of the woman in the pictures. Her hand reached out to touch her and felt the box. She looked so real, vibrant. Alive.
Marni was an actress, smiling at the audience, at the daughter she would never meet.
"Mom," Shilo whispered, her voice cracking. "Oh my God, you're amazing."
The story was simple and wrapped up in under three minutes. The girl was kidnapped by a villain on her way to a date with another man, and tied kicking and screaming to train tracks. The bumbling hero declared his intentions to save her. He arrived on the scene just in time to watch her Houdini out of the ropes, whistle for the oncoming train to stop for her, and ride off into the sunset without either man, blowing kisses to the camera.
Shilo was riveted and eagerly paid to view the next clip, an excerpt from a concert. Marni on stage, in front of an adoring audience, in a dress as inky blue as the night sky, her hair and gloves and clothes sparkling with delicate crystals that caught the light. She was joyful, singing in that wonderful, rich voice, the high notes tearing into Shilo's heart with their intensity. It seared.
No wonder everyone loved her. Shilo touched where her necklace was, hidden under her shirt. The clip ended with Rotti joining her on stage to take her hand and praise her. They kissed, and Marni was radiant.
Shilo's stomach twisted. She'd loved him. That's why she was glowing, not just because she was young and dressed like a caught star. At that time, she'd loved him completely, enough to almost marry him.
"Who do I belong to?" she asked the screen.
Nathan or Rotti? Both monsters, both loved by the perfect woman. Shilo was torn between them, always had been, in their minds. She'd been that prize held by Nathan, his inheritance from Marni. That didn't make her his daughter.
She backed away, frustrated. Graverobber sidled up to her, chewing on an apple dripping with caramel. It looked tasty.
"Can I have a bite?"
He graciously indulged her request, handing the stick over. He'd had his tongue in her mouth; why worry about germs at all? She bit and it was tart and sweet and sticky and sooooo good! She worked on gumming a stubbornly chewy bit of caramel.
"Do you know who your dad is?" she asked.
It occurred to her a moment after asking that it had been a really rude question, but she didn't mean it like that. She just wondered if other people didn't know who their real dads were, too.
"Yes," he replied with a smirk. "Why? Did you want to conduct an interview? 'Graverobber: The Early Years.'"
She giggled. "No, it's that, um..." She took another bite and handed it back. "I- I don't really know who my dad is. Um, was."
"Does it matter?"
"I guess it doesn't."
And, since she thought about it, it didn't. She knew Marni was her mother, but whoever her dad had been, he was dead now, buried and forgotten. There was no changing that. And for all her wishing for a semblance of her former life to return, the world wouldn't undo what had happened.
Not that she wanted it to.
She didn't want to go back to being a slave, a pawn in the feuds of broken-hearted and twisted men, both loving her for the woman she resembled, both holding her back for fear of losing Marni twice.
Graverobber offered his arm and she looped hers through it.
"What's next?" she asked.
Next, as it turned out, awaited outside of the bigtop and took the shape of an enormous bicycle wheel covered with ever changing lights spiralling out from the center in designs like fireworks. It sparkled and slowly spun. There were brightly painted cars, oval things with half of it cut away, and each car housed a bench big enough for two. The cut-out portion could have a plastic window zipped down to keep out the smog while leaving the view. People rode in the ovals, going high up, then down the other side.
It looked treacherous.
"That is a ferris wheel!" he told her excitedly. "And we are going to ride it."
"But it goes so high!"
"It'll be fun."
He wheedled her into it. They each bought their own tickets and were shown into a car. The lethargic attendant put a metal bar down and away they went. Graverobber zipped up the plastic, cutting out all outside noise: crowds and machines and traffic.
She fearfully watched them get ever more distance from the ground. She did not like heights. The car bounced and she got as close to him and as far back from the bar as she could. He smiled and put an arm comfortingly around her.
"It's okay," she said to herself shakily.
It was romantic, snuggling in the moving seats with the colored lights gleaming outside. Romantic, huh. It wasn't a word she thought she'd ever, EVER associate with Graverobber, or herself.
"You ever hear of The Highwayman?"
"No, what's that?" She nestled her head against his shoulder, wondering if he'd drugged the apple to make her so sleepy and comfortable with him. She should be on her guard around him, especially considering that he'd disappeared for a week after that... incident.
But at that moment, she couldn't make herself give a damn.
"A robber. You're like the girl in the story: black eyes, black hair, red lips, and you're desperately infatuated with the dangerous criminal."
She started to protest at the last note, but he jumped up; she fell over onto the seat on her side, jarred.
He was too tall, and the jump to his feet made them swing wildly as he recited loudly and dramatically, "'One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night, but I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light; Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day, then look for me by moonlight, watch for me by moonlight, I'll come to thee by moonlight...'"
He drew close, his manic, ferocious grin conspicuously absent. "'... Though hell may bar the way.'"
Why did that get to her? She was shaking, wanting him to go on just as much as she wanted the car to stop moving and terrifying her. It seemed like he was telling her something with his words, it wasn't a random, poetic selection.
He'd leave her, sometimes: for Zydrate, to evade notice, whatever. But nothing would keep him from coming back to her, if she wanted him. And there was a subtle question in his eyes, a hunger for her approval, her agreement.
She touched his cheek, drawing him forward. He paused with his body covering hers, his lips a scant inch away. It wasn't hesitance. It was a dare. You first, kid.
She took the bait and licked his lips, and he crushed her with the heated kiss that followed. If it wasn't completely natural, it was that she wasn't sure and still held back; or, it was that they were way off the ground and she was convinced they could, at any moment, tip forward and fall to their deaths. She loved the feel of his tongue rubbing hers, of her arms around his neck and his body subtly moving on her, no frenzied desperation but a slight tease that made her want to be out of the public view and onto a softer surface.
"Graves, stop," she burst out, and he did, right away.
They arrived at the top and the cart paused in the air, there at the wheel's pinnacle. This was definitely a world view, no comparison.
"Open it," she said, pointing at the plastic.
He did, and she leaned way over the bar to feel the air, emboldened by the kiss and the dizzying height. It rocked forward even with her light weight. He laughed, grabbed her by the hips, and pulled her onto his lap for the descent.
Someone was pointing at her as they got closer to the ground. They nudged the person next to them and she tried to read their lips, anxiety prickling at her. She sprang up off his lap as soon as they touched the ground and the bar came up.
"Let's go," she said urgently, tugging at his arm. He got to his feet lazily for probably the first time in his life. She needed his energy. She needed his bounciness to get them out of there. More people were looking at her. She was illuminated by the lights, and she wasn't wearing that mask-which, now that she thought about it, probably was meant to protect her identity as well as her weak lungs.
Oh God, oh God, these people were going to kill her. She heard murmuring. "That's that girl!" "No shit, really?" "Shilo!" "It's Shilo."
She grabbed Graverobber's hand tightly, trying to move to avoid the people that were venturing close. And then it was a crowd.
She cried, "Don't hurt me!" and hugged Graverobber around the waist, burying her face into his side.
"Let go," he coaxed gently, peeling her arms off. "Remember, they're more scared of you than you are of them."
She drew her arms in close to her chest, crouching slightly and warily watching the crowd.
A woman with stiff red hair and a toxic yellow corset to match her eyes approached. She could have been one of GeneCo's models, exotic and modified from boots to cheekbones to coloring.
"You're Shilo, right?" she said nervously, squeezing her hands together.
"Yes," she replied uncertainly, still flinching and cowering, expecting to be stabbed or shot at any moment.
"Could I get your autograph?" She produced a sketchbook and fountain pen from her bag.
"Are you serious?" the girl asked in stunned amazement.
The people in front of her weren't bad guys. Dad had always said the world was cruel, but their smiling, awed faces reflected adulation. For her. They wanted to see her. They were fans! She felt dazed and gradually let her body relax.
The woman nodded. Shilo giggled and took the sketchbook, signing shakily on the first blank page.
"Could I get a picture?" someone else asked, waving their camera.
"Oh, shit, are any of you folks with the press?" Graverobber exclaimed. He gave her hand a farewell squeeze and dashed away.
She whirled to where he wasn't.
"Come back!" she yelled in frustration.
Coward! She looked back at the throng of people, her fear striking hard now that she had to face it alone.
"You saved my brother," a balding man with a beer gut and a medical mask said. "He's thirteen."
She smiled weakly at him. "Yeah, um." It wasn't much of a response and she knew it, but she couldn't muster a better one. She touched the pinwheel for comfort. Everything was going to be okay, but just to make sure: "S-so you're not going to kill me?"
That got a big laugh, like the tracks of recorded laughter that punctuated comedy shows. She hadn't meant it to be funny, but the sound of it calmed her considerably. It didn't hurt that it made her fan club think well of her. She signed her name for those that asked, politely and stutteringly declining to sign any body parts, prosthetic or otherwise. She even posed for a couple of pictures, one where her smile was innocently vacant, and then in a rock star pose, legs in an almost-split as she jammed on an air guitar.
She was thanked, as if she had done something. There were tears in people's eyes as they said how much she meant to them, that someone like her even existed. She was befuddled. She didn't even know them. They were strangers, and they responded to her so warmly, with love and enthusiasm.
The group dwindled as the novelty of Shilo's presence wore off, until she was left talking to only a handful of people, all nice and chatty where she was tight-lipped and fumbling. She bought a pretzel and licked off the grains of salt as strangers talked to her. She was awkward and shy, but they either didn't notice or didn't give a shit.
The man with the medical mask took her hands (she forced herself not to recoil), and recounted what it had been like to see her at the opera.
"Seeing you there, all choked up and bloodied, it reminded me what being alive is. What it really is. You woke me up that night," he said, and added bitterly, "but too late for me."
It was painful to hear. She didn't want to think about people dying, or feel guilt for making people have any regrets before their expiration date. Not to mention that she'd avoided the subject of the opera for weeks.
"I'm sorry," she said. "Use what you have left. You're... you're outside. Do something."
He acted as if that was very profound. It gave her a headache if she thought about it too hard. She promised a grandmotherly figure in a wheelchair that she would stay safe and, above all, avoid Zydrate, and wandered towards the road.
She wasn't a hundred percent sure of where she was going, but seeing as her guide had fucking abandoned her in an unknown district, she'd have to... um... wander. It wasn't like she had much of a choice. It was dark and shadowy, even in the middle of the day, and she didn't like the looks of these alleys. She was creeped out, not to mention-
"Um," she said, grinding to a halt. Oh, not again. "I'm lost."
"Found you!" Graverobber's voice called out to her.
She craned her neck to look up, but that didn't make sense unless he could fly. She peered into an alley and tiptoed down it.
"Where are you?" she asked, and he rushed at her, slammed her into the crumbling brick wall behind her.
An instant of shock before she recognized him, and all the annoyance she'd felt when he left melted. He had one arm on the wall beside her and was thoroughly looking her over. She put her hands behind her back and braced one foot on the wall, pouting.
"I'm very cross with you," she lied with a frown.
"It's not like I left you. I was lying in wait," he said with a crooked grin.
"Okay." She was quiet. "Ready to step in if anything happened?"
"No, you can handle yourself." He chuckled. "It's hot. Miss Independent. Since when did that happen?"
"I don't get it. It doesn't make sense, I'm just.. a girl." Something he said caught her attention. "Did you say it's hot?"
"I'll say. So much for staying away from Zydrate," he said mockingly. One hand went to her waist, his fingers sliding under the scarf tied there. "You do know what I do for a living, don't you?"
"Steal and rob," she recited obediently, but he shushed her before she could finish it.
"That involves Zydrate, as you well know."
"I know, and you know I'll never use it." That issue would never be contested. Something about having smacked a needle into her mom's skull made the drug absolutely revolting. He nodded.
"Yes, but you are fraternizing with a merchant of Z. What would your fans think?"
"It's what I think that matters, Graverobber," she said. "I happen to find it exciting."
"Exciting, hmm? And what about me? Do you want me?" he asked, plucking the pinwheel out of the fabric and hiding it in an inside pocket of his coat.
She shivered as he untied the scarf and draped it loosely around her neck. "Duh." She couldn't help it if she reacted to him. And she was reacting, her body heating up from him being close, from his hand teasingly touching everything but her skin. "I thought it was obvious."
"It is," he murmured, feeling where the shirt was tucked into her skirt.
"Sh-shoot," she said, biting her lip.
"It shouldn't surprise you that I have an interest in you." He untucked her shirt and reached under the fabric to touch her side, brush her ribs. She was blushing so much she had to be glowing. "Sexually."
"That's all it is?" she wondered.
He fell silent. His rough hand felt incredible on her skin.
"No," he decided. "You are a luscious morsel, but that's not why I'm here."
"Is it because of my, um, 'desperate infatuation?'" she teased. Her eyes closed as his touch ventured briefly to her stomach. Embarrassed curiosity rushed over her as she thought of what it would be like for him to reach higher under her shirt...
"No. You're a sweet girl." His hand moved, smoothed her shirt down. "You're genuine. That quality has value, especially to scoundrels like me."
She realized, "You like me! You don't just want to fuck me, you like me." That was a shocker. But maybe he said this to all the girls. "Are you lying to me?" she asked suspiciously.
"What? No! Yes, I want you, but I'm putting that aside, because," He looked pained, even awkward, as he said, "I do like you. And that's the truth." He breathed out a puff of air. "Shit. This is new territory."
"For me, too."
"Everything's new territory for you, kid."
"That's different. Cooking, cleaning, using a credit card... that's mechanical. I can learn that on my own. But with you, everything's a whole lot more complicated," she said in a jumbled rush.
"How's that?" He stepped away from the wall and they walked down the street together.
"You're the first person I've met who c-cares about me, um, you know, because of me. Because of who I really am. Not because I'm Marni's daughter and I look like her, or because some stranger wanted to make me his heir, or because my dad was a psycho. You like me for me."
They walked in silence, each bemused by the other's confession, and happened by a storefront featuring nearly a dozen TVs. Each screen featured a blonde, silver-eyed Amber Sweet, smirking as she spoke from a podium.
"What's she up to," Graverobber said.
"SHH!" Shilo hissed frantically.
"... and we at GeneCo are immensely proud of Shilo Wallace for her efforts in improving how this business operates. She has conducted herself as an adult, with competence and responsibility, and as such, I think it best to treat her as an equal. No special treatment, which means complete financial independence. Far be it from me to hold her back when she has so much potential." The reporters clapped politely, not loud enough to cover the uneasy muttering.
"You aren't gonna faint, are you?" Graverobber asked warily.
She shook her head. "My dad left me money."
"She can freeze your accounts."
"Well, shit." She bit her lip. "What sort of jobs are there?"
"Is stripping out of the question?" he joked hopefully. She glared at him. "No, I suppose you wouldn't be interested... Hm. Jobs that are legal and allow you to keep your clothes on are few and far between, but don't fret."