Violet Grenade(7)

Dizzy stops throwing his weight into the door as the pig rounds the corner. The cop looks like a shar-pei, all wrinkles and blond fuzz. His hand is on his gun, and he's got that stance that says he's ready to follow if we run.

"Put your hands where I can see them." He says this like we're children.

Dizzy starts to raise his hands.

He stops when the door beside us swings open.

"What do you want?" someone inside growls.

Dizzy drops his hands and dashes in. I dash, too, and decide then and there that Dizzy is magic, that he can make himself disappear just like he can a bottle of Yoo-hoo.

Inside the building, we're running blind. I slam into a table and it scrapes across the floor. I hear Dizzy crashing, too. We reach the opposite side of the room as the person who opened the door yells for us to get out.

Dizzy and I find another door at the same time. He reaches for the handle and we explode through it.

The cop is right there.

Right. There.

He grabs Dizzy from behind and twists his arm in a way that makes Dizzy scream. I can't stand the sound of hearing him that way. I can't stand it. I throw myself on the police officer to get his hands off my person.

Dizzy groans from the ground.

How did he get on the ground?

"Run," Dizzy tells me. "Go!"

The cop spins around, and I have to let go before I fall. He looks at me like he's trying to figure out how to get us both. His hand reaches for his gun. I don't think he'll use it. It's just to scare me. But nothing scares me more than losing Dizzy. I grab his arm and bite down. He roars, but doesn't let go of Diz.

"Domino, dammit," Dizzy says. "Leave!"

I'm not going to. I don't think Dizzy would leave me, and so I won't leave him. I'm set to plunge my teeth into the cop's arm again when flashing lights stop me. There's a second cop car pulling to the curb.

The three of us pause. I imagine we all think something different in this moment.

The cop: Thank God.

Dizzy: That's it, then.

Me: Run.





Chapter Five

Visible

An hour after Dizzy is taken into custody, I return to my wall. I'm terrified the social worker will show up, but I don't know what else to do. It doesn't seem right to go to the house without him.

I press my back against the brick and slide down. Another pig could drive by any moment and arrest me for the same crime I just ran from. Maybe that's what I want. Maybe I want to go where Dizzy is even if it means being locked up with my own head.

With Wilson.

I don't know how long I sit there before I hear soft footsteps. They aren't the cold, hard ones of police heels. These are gentle, like a cautious hand stretched toward a stray mutt.



       
         
       
        

My head rises.

A woman is watching me.

"Go away," I say. I know her type. The bored housewife who's looking for purpose, who believes she can find it in rescuing people like me.

"Did you do that?" she asks.

I follow her gaze to my wall. "What if I did?"

"It's beautiful." The woman holds her shoulders and head high. She has blushing cheekbones and pearls that dip into her cleavage. Her eyes are gray-blue and hooded, and her smile is a nice one, close-lipped without assumptions. She looks old Hollywood. Even her voice has a slow, regal tone.

"It takes talent to do that." She states it as a fact. "And courage."

I shake my head and roll my eyes, but the warmth of her words seep in anyway.

"You don't believe me?" she asks.

I don't respond.

She gestures to my wall. "Most people spend their entire lives quietly. Never saying what's on their mind. Sheep." She says the last word with a hint of disgust.

The woman takes a step closer. I glance up, knowing I should have scrammed before she ever said a word. But I remain where I am, still as death.

"Not you, though," she continues. "You don't just say what's on your mind. You scream it."

I've never thought of my art that way. I want her to keep talking, and I hate her for that.

She moves toward me until we're only an arm's length away. "I'm going to ask you something directly. I don't like a lot of small talk."

Her eyes seem kind and her skin looks nice and I like the way she talks to me, like I'm a human being, but not one she feels sorry for.

"I run an establishment for girls."

"I don't need charity," I say.

"I don't provide charity." She touches a hand to her blond, graying hair. "I run an establishment for girls with artistic abilities. Abilities like yours. It's a wonderful, almost magical place people go to forget their worries."

I laugh. "Artistic abilities? I spray walls, lady."