JMJ

Chapter Seven

Conflicting Loyalties

"I love you."

I smiled and maybe just a little bit sadly.

Mom kissed me before she left. She worked like a normal person, duh, but it was not her leaving that got me. It was the fact that I couldn't bring myself to hug her back.

I waved nicely enough, but I couldn't get myself to say, "I love you too." I didn't know why. It's not like it wasn't true.

Or wasn't it?

If I said I loved her, would it be a lie? If Ace was still gang leader, I wouldn't be here for her to say "I love you" to. I agreed to be good, to do my schoolwork, to clean my room, to watch the apartment, not to eat up the ice cream bars, and even to not answer the door to strangers even if I had to roll my eyes at the last one. I said a perfect "Yes, Mom," to each one without sighing, without sarcasm. Clean and simple, but "I love you too"?

I could sure tell she was bursting at the seams whenever she said it to me, and she had probably said it a million times by now. I swelled with those words. You could call it the swell of love. I didn't know. Or just the swell of emotions. Guilt was on the top of the list.

She deserved too much and went through too much to have her own son say a lie like he loved her. No woman was as tortured as she was, I felt. My heart even went out to her, and that was why I couldn't say it. It didn't feel right. Well, honestly, none of this really felt right. It was some kind of limbo or half-dream that I would wake from and not know whether it was a dream I liked or disliked, but it was worth a moment to think about before moving on.

I had been home there about two weeks now. I had to admit I sure missed having a room to myself. Food always there for me. A mom who really did care about me. Why was it I resented all those things? Sure we weren't the richest or the most confident or anything like that, but I had this. It was still weird facing this fact that I liked it here. But if I liked it, why was I unhappy?

I felt… empty once the door shut like the house had suddenly become as empty as I was.

Well, I guess I wasn't thrilled about schoolwork. But hey, my mom was awesome enough to let me do online school to catch up rather than sending me three grades behind my age group. I don't know if Ace lied about never going to school in his life. I had always kind of doubted it even at the weirdest of times, but I knew I sure lied about it. I'd been to school even if I did play hooky on and off chasing after tougher people than myself before running into Ace. I'd always been like that. Trying to prove I wasn't weak. Trying to be cool.

Though I was trying to think about algebraic baby steps and happy I wasn't in a classroom for a whole class to watch me clumsily bumble along, my mind wandered too quickly with all this nostalgic atmosphere around me day after day.

My comics. My posters. I'd had wanted to play basketball once. That happened. Not. Not enough money or time to get me to the practices and games. I played in the alleys with other kids like me. Got bored of that, especially since the best player for some reason just was annoyed by my existence. Could he have sensed my inner snake? Either way it made playing not fun. Started wandering.

#

"Hey, you're pretty good aim, kid!" said Ace.

Even then I knew he had to be the same age as me. Eleven. Twelve.

I jumped, not realizing that someone had been watching me breaking bottles on the fence with an old dog-chewed tennis ball. It wasn't my fence, you see. The bottles were from someone's recycling bin. The ball belonged to Atlas, the neighbor's dog.

Blinking at this confident, lazy, sneering figure leaning against a flowerbed parapet thing, I felt myself shrink self-consciously. I had seen him before. I had watched him and his friends climb along fences to put dead bugs into people's laundry pockets drying and popping kids' bike tires while they were actually riding them and putting boxes casually in front of old ladies pushing carts of groceries to their home. I shivered at how wrong it all was. I envied them.

"You think…?" I asked.

"Yeah, sure!" shrugged the figure. "I seen you around here. We could use an aim like yours up at the abandoned Murphy Warehouse. You know the one."

"The one that… sssssssssmells like old glue?"

"Yeah, that one. You don't have any plans, right?"

I blinked stupidly. "Uh… nope."

Hook, line, and sinker.

Besides, Mom was working late. She usually was anyway. The neighbors sure wouldn't notice. The only one who might miss me might be the neighbor's dog, but he could live one evening without his treat.

"Then what're you waiting for, c'mon!" said Ace.

I came with a grin the size of the Eerie Canal.

"Bring the ball, Snaky," said Ace.

"Uh. Well. Actually, it'sss-SSSSan—"

"What're you hissing about, Snake?"

I stopped.

No. I liked it.

"Nothing," I said beaming again. "I'm jussssssssst sssssssurprissssed you knew my name'ssss all. SSSSnake. That'ssss what they'ssss alwayssss callsssssssss me!"

"Yeah, well, I have a knack for these things."

Ace shoved his hands in his pockets. He had an old ripped plaid jacket with buckles in odd places then. Jeans ripped in both knees, wild unkempt brownish hair and a sneer like a proud pie stealer with one tooth not fully grown in yet so that the one next to it stuck out strangely. Yet somehow he pulled it off. His sneakers were brand new and bluish but he had colored them black in permanent marker.

"What's your name then?" I asked; a name for such a beast seemed unfathomable.

"Oh, thought you knew it already. I'm Ace. I own these streets. Seen my name around?"

I looked around like an idiot.

"Uh… yessss!" I fibbed. "Yesss. Accce!"

Ace only laughed.

#

Breaking windows, smashing antiques. It was all good stuff, and it never ended. Just like that. It was weird. Had he picked me out by chance? Maybe he had only found someone easy to manipulate, but once I was with him and the others, he never chased me off. In fact, he actually showed he liked my presence. He even sometimes liked my opinions!

I felt like a lieutenant at times! Never officially. I had to share with Arturo when Ace felt like switching off with his subtle whims, but I still could stand there like I was his second, and when I did I felt like I was strong. I was a part of something. I wasn't weak and miserable. I felt no fear.

#

"We should do the next warehouse too!" I cried.

Smack!

I blinked stupidly.

I guess I deserve it? I thought.

"Stupid. Don't you know that one's not abandoned, and that old guy trains his dumb mutts to eat people alive? Not even with an army of basketballs would we smack them down."

Yeah, I guess so.

He did just save me from being eaten alive, after all.

#

When he'd had the green, he must have smacked me harder as neither of us felt the effects of nature in the same way after that. I shuddered even in the safety of my bedroom at the idea of getting smacked by Buttercup or any other Powerpuff now.

Leaning back, I looked through the crooked dusty blinds of my window next to the computer as it was too slow to handle a page-change for the math I was doing. I just wanted a break from mind numbing numbers that I wasn't paying attention to anyway.

A van trundled by noisily and let off some smog. I couldn't help but smirk at the thought of stuffing something into the tailpipe, but whatever. Someone crossed the street with a limp or something. Put something in the street and have him trip to have a limp in the other leg?

I sighed.

The page loaded.

I have to tell you, that that stone clanking against my window gave me such a chill, I felt the scream from the back of the neck to the tailbone like a banshee on a playground slide. I spun around so hard I tripped on a wire and fell out of my chair flat on my face. It was always my face with these sorts of accidents!

But I was up in a second even if rubbing my jaw as I ran for the window. I lifted the blinds and looked out.

"Ace!"

The banshee scream sailed up from tailbone to the top of my skull this time like petting a cat backwards to an out of tune guitar twang.

It was instinct, not thought, that had me throw open the window. Ace was already climbing up, and with excellent skill right up the drainpipe to the third story window. My room was an attic, really, with a slanted ceiling on one side and the most acute to the weather sounds above it. Otherwise I'd still be sleeping in that closet of a room downstairs like when I was five. But here Ace slipped like a monkey in the zoo with no trouble at all into this third story room.

I was so occupied with the stunt echoing strait back to the green when we had finally learned how to use our abilities with the training of Sedusa. Had she known we had the green? Whatever. I didn't notice anything else about Ace until he was level with my head and sitting on the sill.

"Hiya, Snake!" he said like he'd planned on finding me here— like he had stationed me here himself in fact.

I had to think for a second to make sure that was not the case as I slouched just an inch lower.

"I knew that was you I saw up here," he told my blank, gaping face.

I stepped back. He didn't need an invitation to come right in. Though, I noticed with some nervous tension that he shut the window back up and closed the blinds pretty quickly.

I rubbed my hands together as he looked around. Despite the situation, I felt very self-conscious as he took everything in— scanning, judging, inwardly laughing. I closed my eyes in shame and folded my hands in the form of penance to my leader who acted like he had never been sick at all. He was immortal once again. If he had died he had joined the netherworld and was a ghost in my room.

But I opened my eyes with a twitch as he glanced through the shades again.

I couldn't ask about anything just yet, but it helped me get back on the floor again and out of the Twilight Zone.

"So this is the Snake den you slithered out of to join my gang, huh?" Ace chirped as free as a bird.

It felt so incongruous.

He crossed his arms, that grin plastered there like the grin of a guy dying with the Joker's laughing gas. He dropped into the cheap old swivel chair with the back duct taped on, and it almost broke off again with his force as he threw his arms behind his head.

"Not bad," he commented.

He glanced at the computer and started fiddling around. "Eh, math games. Tch! Shame, shame, shame, Snake. I expected better of you. Haven't even been gone a month and they have you strapped to the society goody-two-shoes bit already."

He was a lot yellower and something else I couldn't quite place since the last time I saw him, but at this angle I could see around his sunglasses enough to see those eyes yellow and dilated like any guy on the run— well, except for being yellow— as golden as a owl's but with deep dark brownish bags under them and strange-colored veins rippling through his eyeballs and clashing into his irises. Those were still somewhat green like in the old days, but now tinted yellow. But more than the physical changes, I felt a chill to see that he was sincerely afraid. Never a good thing.

At last I gained confidence enough to speak.

"Wh-wh-wh-wh-what happened to you, Boss?" I stammered with straining effort that trembled through my crumpled body. "Wh-wh-wh-where'd you— where'd you goeththssss? Wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-why did you—h-h-h-how did you—y-y-you found my houssse!"

"Mph! Bad internet connection," Ace muttered as he tried to load some music on some website.

I gulped hard on my tongue like it was a weird growth that had suddenly spawned in my mouth.

"Nyeah," Ace went on turning back to me lazily. "I happened to be in the neighborhood. I mean, since you guys weren't at the base…"

Here his cheerfulness fell away in an instant and he glared at me. I could feel that piercing glare right through his black shades digging into my spineless soul. I felt more like a worm than a snake.

"We thought you were dead!" I defiantly choked wringing my hands in agony.

His smile returned.

"I had no choicccee!" I protested on. "What was I supposssed to do?! They all left! I tried to stay! We tried to look for you! Billy'sss got caught by the policce and I don't knowss where Grubber and Arturo went! They left without me! I tried, Acccce! I really tried, but the gang'sss nothing without you!"

By the time I finished I was surprised that Ace had let me go on like that. He was calm like a real crime lord, hands folded together and elbows leaning on the weak arms of the swivel chair.

"Truer words never spoken," agreed Ace. "But it's all good, really."

Here he threw his legs over the table between the monitor and the screen, and he used a muddy boot-tip to move the headphone to one side before crossing the free leg over the other.

"It… isss?" I blinked.

"Well, except it's a shame about Big Billy, but yeah, they woulda found me back at the base, anyway."

"The policcce are after yous?" I cringed.

I felt weird because the first thing that I thought of as this was coming out of my mouth was my mother. She was going to be… really unhappy. She was a suffering woman as it was. She didn't need the police coming to take away her only son right after he came home.

I cringed harder and shook the thought from my head as though Ace could read my thoughts. The way he was looking at me made me almost think he could, but maybe he was just thinking something of his own.

"Not the police," he said.

"Then who?" I gasped. "It can't be the Powerpuff Girlss!"

"It's worse than the Powerpuff Girls," said Ace.

I gulped. I wanted to ask if he was still sick, but it was then suddenly that the back of the swivel chair snapped.

"Whoa!" cried Ace.

I could only watch stupefied as my masterful leader lost all dignity falling backwards on my chair, legs flying in the air and head colliding heavily into the floor enough to shake the boards. Not a hard thing to do in this room, actually. But I felt like dead meat already.

"Rgh!" Ace growled, but he was not as hurt I feared.

I watched just as still as ever as he pulled himself to his feet. I tried to make amends quickly then as I scooped down to get his sunglasses for him. He snatched them away. I half expected another smack, but the timing was off for one of those.

"Are you okay, Ace?" I scurried to his side, always a faithful flunky; Ace was really the same height especially if Ace hadn't been wearing his boots and I wasn't barefoot, but I slunk so low now I was almost half his height. "You're not hurt or anything? I shoulda warned you about that chair. It'sss alwaysss been like that! I—"

"Knock it off!" Ace snapped.

I slunk back. He slipped his shades back on and he seemed to feel comfortable again.

"What've you got to eat around here?" he then sniffed.

"Uh…"

I was thinking of my mom again. She didn't deserve to come home to her fridge raided either.

"I'm starving so hard my gut's gunna implode! I don't think I ate anything solid for weeks!"

"Yesss!" I grinned, nodding hastily. "Sure, Accce! We have lotsss of food."

I made to lead the way, but Ace took that position as usual. I slunk behind him with as much uncertainty as though this was his place and I'd never been here before today. He showed himself to the kitchen and the fridge.

He smelled awful, but not like trash and alley grime. He smiled like something metallic. Something medical or chemical. In fact with the smells combined with a little BO, he smelled kind of like a veterinary office, and he really didn't look well. Just before he opened the fridge some kind of spasm went through him.

It freaked me out, but I dared not mention it. A violent shiver like an electric pulse came and went, and Ace obviously felt its effects afterwards as he used the fridge for support with a moan. After some horrid moments of silence, he noticed me again.

"Well, what are you looking at!?"

"Nothing!" I insisted, giving him space, and I looked away as he rummaged.

"Oh, c'mon!" he complained. "No soda? And what's this? Goat cheese? Really? You're family must be some kind of whack jobs. There's hardly even any meat in here."

"Yeah, well, my mom'sss…" I started as though entranced by a vampire to answer something even if I wasn't sure where I was going with it.

"Oh, well, here! Looks like roast beef. Mayonnaise made with lemon?! Seriously? Well, can't be so bad, I guess."

Hunger was getting the better of him. Besides, Ace isn't really that picky about food even if it was fun to complain about it. I had a feeling what he had said before about starving had been no exaggeration either way.

Before I knew it he had a triple-decker sandwich with all the roast beef on it and half the goat cheese, some mustard and that mayonnaise made with lemon he was talking about, and a huge glass of orange juice with five ice cubes. He also quickly ransacked the cupboards for chips and I just watched with zero appetite as he ate it all, though not because his appetite surprised me any. He had a candy bar even to end top it all off, but half way through it he stopped, looked kind of sick for a second, and then shivered weirdly again.

I gulped, still not much budged from the kitchen doorway even if I was now leaning against the wall above the furnace grate.

He dropped the candy bar on his plate. He clenched his teeth and stared. His brow above his sunglasses revealed of the horrible expression he was making enough to make me ill enough to puke. But I dared not ask. I dared not! Then he noticed me as though I just somehow ended up there, but he was not so upset this time. It was more like a realization of a dog going by or something.

Then he got up. "C'mon. When's your parents coming home?"

"It's just me and my mom," I said before I could take it back.

Why did I want to take it back so awfully?

I sighed.

"Oh," was all Ace said before going on to what he wanted to say. "Come on, we got stuff to do."

I followed him bewildered as he led me to my own small living room which was really more like a den with a TV hanging on the wall and one couch next to a table and a shelf of messy books, CD's, VHS's DVD's, and old knickknacks. My mom was a bit of a packrat. She even had her old cassettes in a painted wooden box. She was a bit into crafts too, especially with paint.

Ace sat down on the couch, picked up a catalogue on the little table under the dusty lampshade. Only a second's glance did he give it before tossing it carelessly onto the floor.

I stared it at a moment. Then I sat down, wringing my hands anxiously and sitting as far away from Ace as I could without appearing to be doing so.

"You can't exactly hide from the police in my mom's house, Ace," I said somewhat sullenly.

"It's not the police," said Ace darkly.

"Then what iss after you?!" I wailed.

Ace groaned. "Okay, look!" he said holding up his hands. "Just relax, would ya!? And let me think a sec!"

"But you said—"

Ace glared me into silence. I sunk into the couch miserably and stared at the catalogue again. It was an art catalogue, actually, and the guy calmly painting on the front in a sunny window overlooking a lake sure looked a lot better off than I was.

"Help me pack," said Ace.

I jumped. "Pack?!"