فصل 28

chapter-28 The bad banana.

Maybe Vegas was kind of like a last meal before being executed, but I wasn’t about to complain. We arrived a little after noon and checked in at the Bellagio hotel. I had never stayed anyplace so luxurious before. The closest I’d come was that hotel in Taiwan. Of course the Gadsden, that place in Douglas, Arizona, used to be nice. But now it was just haunted.

Zeus, Nichelle, and Tessa had stayed at the Bellagio before, but in a suite roughly the size of Idaho, so they weren’t as impressed as the rest of us, but they were also still glad for the break.

Gervaso gave us a thousand dollars each and sent us off with a stern warning not to talk to strangers.

Ostin, McKenna, Taylor, Ian, and I went to the David Copperfield magic show, something Ostin had always wanted to do. I didn’t sit next to Taylor. It felt strange to not touch her or hold her hand. It was as strange to have lost that privilege as it had been to initially have it granted.

Ian kind of ruined the show for us because he kept telling us how the tricks were done. We had to leave the show early because someone noticed us glowing and pointed at us. Everyone thought that we were part of the show. David Copperfield even took a bow for it.

Afterward, we ran into Gervaso in the casino, and Ostin gave him five hundred dollars and got him to play cards for him. They kept playing until Gervaso had won more than five thousand dollars and quit because he was drawing too much attention.

Ostin took his winnings and bought a gold bracelet for McKenna, and still had enough left to stop in M&M’s World and load up on a couple of hundred dollars of chocolate for the ride to Taiwan.

Still, Taylor stayed close to McKenna. I caught her looking at me several times. I knew she wanted to talk, but I wasn’t ready. Frankly, my emotions had shifted. I was less sad than mad. I know it sounds weird, but people are wired that way. It’s like when a parent loses their kid. They get all frantic and upset, afraid that something has happened to them, but after the kid finally turns up, the parent wants to beat them. I guess that’s how I was feeling. Like my mom said, “Who says love is supposed to make sense?” * * *

Jack told us that before the marines went to war, the guys would go to town and get tattoos—mostly ones they hoped that they would live to regret. Jack wanted to get tattoos on his arms that looked like my lightning scars, if it was okay by me, which it was, but I had to go with him so the tattoo artist could copy them.

McKenna and Taylor wanted to hang out by the pool before it got too late, so Ostin came with us. As we were leaving the hotel, we ran into Nichelle. When she found out we were going to a tattoo parlor, she wanted to come even though she already had like twenty of them. Actually, it probably was because she had twenty of them.

“I should get one that says ‘Death to Hatch,’” she said. “With a lightning bolt through a skull.” “Maybe after he’s dead,” I said. “Otherwise he might not take kindly to it.” “You’re right,” she said. “Are you going to Sin City Tattoo? It’s famous. It even has its own reality TV show. I got this one there.” She lifted her shirt just above her belly button to show the words in black, Gothic letters: Not all who wander are lost

Nichelle actually had a pretty great stomach, something you’d never notice with the loose clothes she always wore.

Jack looked up. “No, I’m taking this guy’s recommendation. He had killer ink.” “What guy?” she asked.

“One of the hotel’s security guards. I ran into him in the gym. He looked like he eats nails for breakfast.” Ostin’s brows fell. “You mean he had no teeth?”

Jack just shook his head.

We took a taxi about four miles from the hotel to the tattoo parlor that was down a side street, then down an alley the car couldn’t fit through. The place was called the Bad Banana, which I thought was a stupid name, but once I met the owner, it kind of made sense. He looked wrinkly and overly tanned like an old banana. He also looked like he hadn’t bathed since Bush was president, and he had like seven teeth.

He noticed Nichelle first and commenced to hit on her.

“What do you need, babe? I’ve got a special for the ladies as long as it’s on lady parts.” “Save it,” she said. “We’re here for the marine wannabe.” “I want my arms to look like his,” Jack said, pointing to my arms. “Can you do that?” The dude stared at my arms. “Those are some nasty tats. Where’d you get that ink?” “Mexico,” I said.

“Mexico,” he repeated. “The only thing I get from Mexico is the runs.” Nichelle slowly shook her head. “Wow, you’ve got class written all over you.” “In ink,” the man replied, mistaking what she said as a compliment.

“Well?” Jack said. “Can you?”

“Yeah, I can do it.”

The guy was creepy, but I had to admit that he was pretty good at what he did. It took about two hours, but after it was done, Jack’s arms looked exactly like mine, though with a lot bigger muscles.

The tattoo parlor was in a pretty dodgy part of town, and as we walked out of the shop, a man wearing a hoodie approached us and pulled out a gun. A revolver. It looked ancient compared to what the Elgen were carrying these days.

“Give me your money,” he said. “All of it.”

Jack just looked at him. “Man, did you ever pick the wrong guys to stick up.” “What kind of a gun is that?” I asked.

“A .38 Special,” Ostin said. “Practically a dinosaur. Smith and Wesson started making them more than a hundred years ago. I mean, they were using those things in World War I. I wouldn’t use one if I was mugging someone. I mean, pretty good chance someone like Jack is going to survive it and beat you senseless. Of course, Michael would survive anything, but with this gun, even I’ve got a chance.” The mugger looked at us with a bewildered expression. “Just give me your money.” I looked at our would-be mugger. “Okay, Mr. .38 Special. You clearly don’t know much about guns. Do you know anything about electricity?” He just blinked. “What?”

“Electricity. Did you go to school?”

“Do I look like I went to school?”

“A school for losers,” Ostin said.

“He looks like he crawled out from under a rock,” Nichelle said.

The man’s face turned red. “You’re dissing a man holding a gun at you, and you think I’m dumb? I’m about to blow a hole through one of you. Then we’ll see how smart you are.” “That doesn’t even make sense,” Ostin said.

“That’s not going to happen,” I said. “Normally I’d give you the chance to walk away, but then you’ll probably just do the same thing to someone else, so you can either give me the gun or I’m going to have to take it from you.” He looked at me incredulously. “You guys high?”

“On life,” Ostin said.

Nichelle rolled her eyes. “That was really lame, dude.” “Just give me the gun,” I said again.

“Take it,” he said, his finger moving a little on the trigger.

I shrugged. “If you say so.”

I blasted him up against the wall of the building behind him. His gun went off from the pressure of my pulse, but the strength of my pulse stopped the bullet in midair. The man fell to the ground.

After everything had settled, Ostin reached over and picked the bullet up off the ground. “He wasn’t as dumb as we thought. Hollow points. That could have done some damage.” “Still dumb,” Nichelle said.

Jack squatted down and checked the guy’s pulse. “He’s still breathing.” I picked up his gun. I held it by its barrel and focused my energy to the palm of my hand. The barrel bent like rubber. “That’s not going to work again.” I tossed it back down onto the ground next to the mugger, who was still unconscious.

“You just melted it,” Jack said.

“Holy crap,” Ostin said. “That’s a high alloy chromium-molybdenum steel. You melted it like ice cream. I didn’t know you could do that.” “Neither did I.”

“You know what that means?”

I turned and looked at him. “Yeah. It means I’m still getting more electric.”