“Lexi will be okay?”
“None of us will be okay,” Maddie said. “But she’ll live. Or not. With or without our help. Might as well wait until we’re at least not being actively chased by the cops to begin our needle-in-a-haystack search.”
Ginger nodded. Maddie was back in charge. That was a good thing. Ginger was not good at being in charge. Not in crisis situations. She snuggled against Maddie and felt her arm hug her closer. At least they had each other.
• • •
Marco sat against the back wall of the pinsetters’ catwalk counting and recounting his army. What had originally numbered somewhere near thirty was down to ten. Only his teams had returned. Mike’s were lost somewhere in the mall. Captured? Probably.
Scanning the police radio for information, Marco got nothing but vague chatter. Everything was coded—numbers were rarely given, names never, locations not at all. Goldman must suspect that he and Mike had a radio. Marco switched the thing off and chucked it against the wall.
They had hauled in a ridiculous amount of food. The recruits were busy tallying the stash so that Marco could work out rations. Heath and Leon—all that was left from Tarrytown, from the football contingent entirely—were in charge of considering what remained of their weapons store.
They could survive with what they had now, that much was obvious. But Marco was concerned that without Mike, the troops would disband with their share of the stash rather than stay together. And then where would Marco be? Alone, defending his pile of food like some rat in a hole?
So be it. If that was how it had to be, then that was freaking fine with him. He’d been alone all his life. He could be alone again.
Heath approached with a smirk on his face. “We lost a crap ton of weaponry, dude.”
“We’ll survive.” Marco didn’t need Heath or weapons. Didn’t need Mike or any of them.
“Dude,” Heath said, slapping Marco’s shoulder, “I have zero doubts about your ability to survive. The way you went nuts on that guy with the hockey stick? That was completely off the hook.”
Marco tried not to flinch from Heath’s touch. Was this the olive branch of friendship? “I’m a big hockey fan,” Marco ventured.
“Dude.” Heath held up a fist. “That was some beyond fan stuff.”
Marco bumped the fist. Heath left him alone like solitude was his due. Like he was their leader.
Could it be? Marco scanned the faces of his remaining army. When they looked at him, they smiled. The hairspray girls waved their lighters at him.
As insane as it seemed, as impossible, as unlikely, as completely illogical, Marco sensed that it was true. He was their leader.
A sense of calm washed over him. His shoulders melted from where they’d crept up against his neck. These people would protect him. Looked to him to protect them. These people—dared he think it?—respected him. Of all the wonderful accidents . . .
Marco flipped back on the police radio. He would break the codes. He would figure everything out. He would bring the stragglers of his army back from the brinks of capture or rescue them from whatever jails Goldman had devised for them. He would conquer this new flu weapon. He would conquer all.
• • •
Ryan felt odd, bringing Mike to Ruthie’s SUV, but in the fog of escaping the chaos of the raid on the food convoy, he’d had to make a quick decision and it was the only thing that popped into his brain.
“You own a car I don’t know about?” Mike asked when Ryan opened the door.
“It’s a friend’s” was all Ryan said about it. Mike’s Beamer had been “impounded” after their escape attempt—keys taken, wheels booted in place.
They’d spent the afternoon running through the service halls and stockrooms, hiding where they could and creeping through the shadows when they couldn’t. Security was on the hunt: Every guard was in full riot gear, Tasers and stun batons ready to jolt any unaccounted-for teenager into submission. At one point, Ryan even swore he saw some gas hiss into the air around them.
Mike must have expected something like this. The broken service doors did more than lead to the IMAX, they allowed anyone to move from one end of the mall to the other, and then down into the parking garage. But more than that, Mike repeatedly proved his chops as a protector, shoving Ryan out of the line of sight, or forcing back any advancing guards with a random gunshot.
They hid in the truck’s belly for several hours, silent, the only noise their breathing. No footsteps echoed around them, no flashlights penetrated the shadows. Security had failed to sniff them out.
Mike apparently felt comfortable enough to take apart his handgun. He snapped the bullets out one by one and stood them like soldiers in a row.
Ryan shifted against the wall of the backseat. “You can stop this,” he said.
Mike snapped another bullet from the cartridge. “Didn’t start it.”
“But you can end it,” Ryan said. “If you call off your guys, maybe we could get security to back down. Everything could go back to normal.”
Mike looked at Ryan, eyebrows raised like he was barely containing a laugh. “When was anything in here normal?”
The magazine empty, Mike pulled out a small plastic box full of minute tools. He began to clean his gun. “Guns take a lot of care to maintain,” he said. “It’s almost like having a pet.”
Mike sounded nuts, but still, Ryan attempted to reason with him. “The people running this mall aren’t evil, Mike. Maybe if we try to talk to that senator lady, tell her about the security chief—maybe we could all just chill out until this whole stupid quarantine thing is over.”
Mike exhaled, shook his head. “You really think they’re letting any of us out of here alive?” He flashed a look at Ryan. “Just because you don’t see the disease doesn’t mean you’re cured. Your friend the senator has done something to the virus, changed it so the only people it kills are our people.” He snapped the barrel of the gun. “Look at what it did to Drew.”
So Mike was still convinced of his conspiracy theory. “Mike, Drew died of the flu.”
“No,” Mike said, slapping the empty magazine back into the handgun. “Marco heard on the radio last night that the doc running the med center had developed a new strain of the flu that only affects teenagers.” He took aim at the wall. “Apparently, we’ve become a bit of a nuisance and they’re taking us out to save themselves. How’s that for the senator not being evil?” Snap. Whatever Mike had in his sights was dead.
Ryan’s fingers dug deep into the seat cushion. Mike had to be wrong. There was no way the senator would do that. Why would they sabotage their own society?
“I don’t believe that,” Ryan whispered.
“Believe whatever you want.” Mike began jamming the bullets back into the magazine, counting each out loud like a prayer.
“When was the last time you slept?” Ryan asked when Mike had finished.
Mike leaned back, ran his hands over his face and through his hair. Then he laughed. “I have no clue.” He yawned as if at that instant all that not sleeping had caught up with him.
Ryan placed his hand on the gun. Mike glared at him, a guard dog instinct in his eyes, but then released it.
“I’ll take first watch,” Ryan said, placing the gun between them on the seat.
Mike stared at the gun a moment longer, then nodded and curled against the door. It seemed like the second he closed his eyes, he was asleep.
Ryan did not touch the gun again. He merely leaned his head against the window glass and prayed that Shay did not return to the car in the night.
• • •
It had gotten worse over the last hours. Shay was cold, but not like she needed a sweater, rather like her organs were freezing over. She had a headache, though that was at this point a constant bother. Both of these could have been writte
n off, but just now, when she’d coughed, there’d been blood in her spit. That confirmed the diagnosis. How long before she was choking on the bloody, liquefied remains of her lungs?
Had she gotten the flu from these girls? Did it matter? She now had the flu, which meant that if she didn’t find some way to get Preeti out of the JCPenney, the girl would have to watch her sister and her two closest friends die.
Shay dipped the cooling cloths in the clean bowl of water she’d placed on the floor beside the two girls, then laid them back across the girls’ foreheads. The lockdown had to end soon. They had to feed people, right? She would wait for the announcement, then convince Preeti to leave.
Preeti returned with two mugs of water. “I could only find two,” she said, sitting beside Shay. “I think I heard someone, but they didn’t see me.” She looked at her friends like she expected them to wake up at any moment, like this was all just a bad dream.
“I came looking for you to apologize,” Shay said, sipping the water. She suddenly felt desperately thirsty.
Preeti laid her head in Shay’s lap. “I’m glad you found me.”
“I’m sorry I ever left.”
“Me too.”
Just touching her sister’s head, knowing that at least she would survive, was all the forgiveness Shay needed.
DAY
FOURTEEN
S
H
A
Y
A cough wracked Shay’s ribs. She leaned over the clothing rack to avoid hacking lung all over Preeti. A cardboard box caught the spatter; it must have been mostly blood, because Preeti’s face crumpled.
“You have the flu?” she asked. “You said it was a cold.”
They’d been awake for a little under an hour, Shay guessed, though it was hard to tell. The lights had stayed on all night in the mall, though in the stockroom there was only the one or two usual dim lights glowing, so she had no idea what time it was. Not that it mattered. Whatever the time, Shay had to get Preeti out of the JCPenney.
“I wanted it to be a cold,” Shay lied. “But I guess this proves me wrong.”
Preeti hugged herself. “You’re going to leave me? Again?”
Shay pulled a cooling cloth, now warm, from one of the girls’ foreheads and used it to wipe her mouth. “I don’t have much of a choice,” she said. “So how about this? I’ll make you a deal. You go to the HomeMart and stay with the healthy people, and I will stay here and take care of your friends.”
Preeti began to chew on her hoodie string. “I don’t want to be alone,” she said. “Don’t make me leave.”
“Here,” Shay said, pulling the Tagore book from her bag. “He’s always kept me company.”
Preeti glanced up from the book’s cover. “Nana’s book? You’re giving it to me?” She looked even more miserable.
Shay held Preeti’s shoulders and put on her best Scary Parent face, the one Ba always used. “I will only stay and help them”—she glanced at the prone girls—“if you go now. The people in the HomeMart will make sure you’re safe. You have to stay healthy, okay? One of us has to make it out of this for Ba and Bapuji.”
Preeti flung herself into Shay’s arms. “I don’t want you to die,” she whispered.
The room was spinning. Shay wasn’t sure how much longer she had before she would pass out. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled into Preeti’s hair.
“I love you,” Preeti said, still clinging to Shay’s neck.
Shay felt tears in her eyes. She ran her hand across her lids. She couldn’t cry. Crying would only scare her little sister. She needed to put on a good show of health or Preeti would never leave.
“Stop being dramatic,” Shay said. “You lived through the flu, right? So will your friends.”
“And you?”
“Why not,” Shay said, swallowing back the blood of her lungs. “Now go,” she commanded. “If a security guard stops you, play dumb and ask directions.”
The bitchy-big-sister voice worked like a charm.
“Stop being such a boss,” Preeti said, snagging her bag from where she’d left it and shoving Nana’s book into it. “I’ve been doing perfectly well without you telling me what to do.”
Shay gave her a playful shove. “So keep on with that.”
Preeti gave one last mournful look back, then exited the door. Shay collapsed against a shelf.
She slid to the floor and crawled to the two girls, who were curled like pencil shavings on the floor. Shay shoved the rear end of first one, then the other. “Wake up!” she droned as loudly as possible.
Both girls stirred. Two pairs of red eyes blinked at her.
“Get up and follow me,” Shay said. “We are going to the med center.”
“But that’s where my mom went and she never came back,” one of the girls whispered.
“If you stay here, you will die,” Shay said in as serious a voice as she could muster. “In the med center, you have a chance.” She summoned what strength remained in her and stood. “Now get up!”
The girls, perhaps out of fear that Shay might physically drag them to their feet—an impossibility, though they couldn’t know that—pushed themselves to standing.
She held her hands out; they each took one. Then together they stumbled down the escalator and out into the eerie silence of the main hallway.
R
Y
A
N
Ryan had dozed off; Mike’s fist in his shoulder knocked him to waking. Light streaked by the SUV’s blackened windows. It was a flashlight beam. Security must have come to flush them out.
Mike pushed one door open slowly, silently, then dropped to his knees on the pavement. He signaled for Ryan to stay, then crept around the side of the SUV.
Ryan crawled forward between the front seats of the truck and peered over the dash. Voices echoed throughout the cement maze of the garage. It was hard to tell where the people were, as opposed to the ghost of a voice.
He could hit the horn, give them away. Get security to take Mike in, stop him from his and Marco’s bizarre war. But something kept him from moving: They were teammates. Mike had saved him from the flu, from the cops again and again. How could Ryan throw him to the wolves after all that?
Mike crawled up into the back of the SUV before Ryan could answer the question.
“They’ve cut us off from the broken door,” Mike whispered. He flipped off the gun’s safety. “I’ll take out two of the closest, then you make a run for the pavilion.”
“No,” Ryan said, noticing the keys dangling in the ignition. “No more killing.”
“Don’t be naïve,” Mike said. “You think their Tasers are set to tickle?”
“There’s another way,” Ryan said. He pointed to the keys. “You want to drive?”
Mike’s mouth curled into a smirk. “Hell yeah, J. Shrimp.”
They got settled into the front seats and buckled their belts before starting the SUV. They had one shot at this—they would drive to the pavilion and make a run for it from there. Mike nodded and turned over the engine.
He slammed the car into gear and hit the gas. The truck squealed out of the space and rammed the car in front of it. Security guys screamed; the nearest guards charged them. Mike dropped the car into reverse, spun the wheel, threw it into first, and drove straight at them. Ryan waved his arms for them to get out of the way. The guards dove for cover. Mike blew past them down the pavement. Ryan gripped the overhead handle as Mike took the turn without braking, nearly flipping the truck.
On the straightaway, Mike floored it for the central pavilion. Guards scattered out of the way, while others rushed to catch up with them from behind. Ryan wondered if they’d actually be able to beat security into the pavilion. Then he saw feet coming down the stairs and escalators. They would be caught between two different grou
ps. It was over.
How he underestimated Mike.
Mike must have seen the guys on the stairs, because instead of turning and trying some new plan, he sped up.
“You’re going to hit the pavilion!” Ryan screamed.
“That’s the idea,” Mike growled.
The SUV jumped the curb and blew through the glass wall. Shards flashed and flew out; people screamed; security bolted backward up the steps. Mike kept his foot on the pedal. The truck bumped up the wide stairwell between the up and down escalators, the door panels scraping and squealing against the metal walls on either side.
“What the hell are you doing?” Ryan screamed as his head hit the ceiling.
“Escaping,” Mike mumbled, sounding far too calm.
The SUV bounced and rumbled up the stairs, then launched out onto the first floor. Mike tried to avoid what tables he could, but he wasn’t too careful. The tires must have blown, because the truck shimmied all over the tile and carpet.
Ryan gripped the door frame. “Security’s coming up behind us,” he shouted, glancing in the fragments of the side-view mirror that remained. “And the car’s smoking.” Black clouds billowed behind them.
“Then let’s get off the road.”
Mike turned into the BathWorks, then jerked the wheel and pulled the e-brake, ramming the side of the SUV into a massive wall of shelving. The wood whined, then beams split and the wall fell like a giant domino against its neighbor.
“Ride’s over,” Mike said, unclipping his seat belt and busting out of the door.
Ryan’s hands were shaking and his door was blocked. He undid his belt, kicked what remained of the windshield out of the way, and slid off the hood. Mike bolted toward the back of the store, slammed through the stockroom doors, and raced for the service door. Behind them, Ryan heard sounds of destruction—breaking glass, booming. The walls of shelving must have been toppling, hopefully cutting off any pursuit. Mike had saved his ass once again.
No Easy Way Out Page 34