Read Online Blood Zero Sky by J. Gates - Free Book Online Page A

chopper.”
    “Why are you helping me?” she asks suddenly.
    Maybe it’s because I believed her when she said she had nothing to do with the bombing. Maybe it’s because she’s pretty. Maybe it was just an excuse to get out of the office for the day. I don’t know what to say, so I ignore the question.
    “Just jump, there’s no time!” I shout, glancing out the window. The squad choppers are close. Any closer and they’ll see us fall. Wind from the open door tugs at my ponytail, stirs wisps of loose hair to lash against my face, but I can still manage to see the river below, entombed in its cement-walled channel. Ahead, perhaps five hundred yards, it changes course. This is our only chance to jump. If we time it late, we’ll wind up a couple of red punctuation marks on the pavement of the far bank.
    The rush of wind is cold, biting, exhilarating. We pass through a plume of smoke, in it the scent of life and death, creation and destruction. I look back at Clair. She’s half risen, but still grasps her seatback with graceful, desperately clinging hands.
    “One,” I say.
    “You’re crazy,” she says, standing.
    “Two.”
    “No wonder Ethan wanted to recruit you!”
    Both our hands are on the door handle now. Our eyes lock. Her smile reflects mine.
    Together, we say: “Three!”
    And we throw ourselves into the wind.
    ~~~
    “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word.”
    Late at night, after her parents and sister have gone to bed, before my father comes and picks me up, Kali sings me lullabies: Your Kali’s gonna buy you a mocking bird . . . ”
    I lie on the couch, my head laid in her lap, as she runs her fingers through my hair. I run my fingers up her leg.
    “And if that mocking bird don’t sing . . . ”
    It never fails; when she does this, tears always come to my eyes. No matter how I fight it, thoughts I never normally allow to surface crowd into my head: like, where is my mother now? Heaven? Hell? Nowhere? How could she die and leave me alone?
    I sigh. The imager chatters away quietly, trying to sell us things. With one arm around her waist, I cling to Kali, already understanding instinctively—despite my youth—how fragile this moment is, how fleeting this perfection.
    The smell of tuna casserole still lingers in Kali’s family’s cramped apartment, but if I turn my head, I can smell the skin of her smooth tanned legs instead. It’s the smell of summer sun and chlorine, sweet lotion, and above all her , the essence of her, the essence of love and want and being fifteen.
    “Kali’s gonna buy you a diamond ring” she sings. “And if that diamond ring don’t shine . . . ”
    There’s a sound in the hall and Kali sits bolt upright, shoving my head off her lap. She edges to the other side of the couch, away from me, and looks over her shoulder at the door. A toilet flushes, a door shuts. Just one of her parents taking a pee.
    “Why’d you push me?” I ask, outraged. When you’re fifteen, everything stings.
    “I’m sorry,” she whispers, still looking over her shoulder. “I just don’t want my dad to catch us. I don’t think he could take it. I’m really worried about him right now. ”
    She looks down at her lap, finished with the conversation, but I press on.
    “Why?”
    She sighs, hesitating. “There’s something going on at his work, I think. He’s been acting really weird. I’m afraid of what he would do if he found out about us.”
    “So you’re ashamed of me?”
    My arms are crossed. I look at my bare feet, propped on her parents’ coffee table.
    “No!” Kali says. “I mean . . . I’m sorry, May. Okay?”
    I refuse to look at her.
    “If that diamond ring don’t shine,” she sings into my ear softly, “Kali’s gonna kiss you a million times,” and she presses her lips to mine. The smell of her, the taste of her is so delicious that my anger instantly melts and I pull her toward me. This is love, real love; nothing in the universe is more real. I defy anyone to