“I don’t understand. Valor Savings is still a bank, right?”
“It’s the government now. And they can do anything they want to.” My eyes shoot meaningfully to Jilly outside, and I lay my gun on the table between us, but I don’t let go of the grip. He covers his face with his hands.
“It was a house loan,” he says, confused and pleading. “To build the cabin. I’ve got twenty-eight more years to pay it, and I know I missed a couple of payments, but it’s my ex-wife. She’s draining me. She won’t pay alimony. I do freelance, but it’s not enough. And I can’t pull Jilly out of preschool.” He runs a hand over his beard, and I realize that under all the facial hair, he’s pretty young. He can’t be more than twenty-five. He walks over to the counter and comes back with a checkbook. “Look, I’ll make up all those missed payments now, at least. We’ll find the money somewhere.”
“It doesn’t work that way.” My voice is soft. Like I’m afraid Jilly might hear me. “You’ve only got three choices. Two, really. Valor is calling in your debt. You either pay now, in cash, or you agree to be a bounty collector, like me. Or I have to shoot you, and I really, really don’t want to do that.”
I hand him the card, and he scans it. The color drains out of his face, and he turns to watch his daughter swinging in the afternoon sunshine, the gold threads in her pink gown glinting as bright as her smile.
“I just wanted her to be happy,” he whispers.
“So take the deal. Ten people, and then you’re free. It’s not so bad. It’s better than losing your daughter. Better than letting her lose you.”
“Is that what happened to you?” he asks, looking me up and down. “You’re young. You can’t have any debt. Are you doing this for money? Or what?”
“My mom lost a lot of money.” My voice catches. I rub a hand over the camera button, holding it there, covering it. “She’s sick. She needs hospital care. It was my only choice.”
His eyes go from the card to his daughter to me. He stares at my face, my shirt, my gun, and I try to imagine what he’s seeing. My wild dark hair, like his daughter’s. Cloudy blue eyes just like hers, looking older and more exhausted than they should. Painted, chewed fingernails and mismatched socks at odds with the seriousness of my errand.
She’ll look just like me one day, and he knows it.
“How many people have you killed?” he asks, voice low.
“You’re number seven on my list. Five wouldn’t take the deal.”
“Five people,” he says to himself. “You killed five people.”
I don’t mention the guy I shot in the stomach or the thugs on the stairs.
In the silence, a bird sings, a mockingbird. It must live right outside the house, because it’s imitating the doorbell. Hearing it, the little girl laughs and leaves the swing to climb up on the slide. She stands on her tiptoes in the galoshes and reaches toward a branch that’s stark and leafless against the sky.
“Here, birdie,” she calls. “Come here!”
“It’s going to be worth it,” I say. “She’s worth it. Whatever you have to do.”
“I . . .”
His voice chokes off, and I shiver over with goose bumps as I realize that if he doesn’t take the deal, I either leave a helpless child alone in the woods or take her with me on my killing spree. I flash on a vision of a small figure in a princess dress curled up on my cot, crying, covered in blood, a too-big gun under her tiny hand.
“She needs me.” He flips the card over and over in his hands. “I can’t leave my little girl alone. I’ll do it.”
I let out the breath I was holding and flip the button back toward him. “Say it again, Tom.”
“I’ll do it,” he says. Then, more quietly, “I’ll do anything for her.”
Feeling a thousand years older, I stand up and push my chair back.
“Thank you,” I say, voice shaking. I slip the gun back into my waistband.
“Go to hell.” It comes out soft, his leaking eyes never leaving his daughter as she strains toward a bird she’ll never catch.
I let myself out and plod to the truck. I don’t look back. I can’t. My arms are numb, and it’s all I can do to wrap my fingers around the top button of the mail shirt and wish to God that I could suffocate it, that it was a living thing I could choke to death in a fair match instead of a cold piece of tattling technology.
“No gunshots?” Wyatt asks.
“No.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
I’m silent.
“Are you okay? What happened in there?”
“Please take me somewhere quiet and safe,” I whisper.
I crawl into the back of the truck and climb into my bed, clutching the button with cold fingers. There’s an empty space where Matty should be, a horrible silence where her tail should be thumping against the metal. My only kindness is that Wyatt is turning the truck around and driving me away from this place, from the tranquillity that I’ve ruined forever.
I had some level of sorrow for everyone on my list so far. Not so much for Robert Beard or Dr. Ken Belcher, maybe, but everyone was a victim of one kind or another, even if they were just victims of their own failures or addictions or dreams. But this guy—he was trying to do the right thing. He wanted to be there for his daughter, be a good daddy, the perfect daddy.
He was doing the exact opposite of what my own daddy did.
Tom Morrison didn’t run away from his kid, from responsibility, from life. He made sacrifices for her, used his money to create a paradise for her. And, yes, some of that was money he didn’t have. But it seems to me like a thirty-year mortgage on a small fifty-thousand-dollar house is a lot different from credit card debt to buy crap you don’t need or a million dollars for a stupid mansion. I didn’t have a lot of sympathy for some of the names on my list. But this guy is killing me.
Worst of all, though, is thinking about that little girl. Will she go away with an aunt for a week while her father rushes around town, killing people to get home in time for a bedtime story read with dried blood under his fingernails? Will he tell her he has to take a work trip? Will he bring her back a stuffed unicorn and tell her that he’d been on an airplane? Will she sleep on the cot in the back of a mail truck and eat Happy Meals while wearing pink earmuffs to block out the gunshots and screams? And what if someone shoots him? Where will Jilly Bean go if he’s gone?
She has everything I ever wanted, and now it might be taken away from her too.
My heart fills with anger at Valor Savings, at the world, at people and their stupid goddamn choices. Why are all these assholes spending money they don’t have for crap they don’t need? If Tom Morrison had just rented an apartment and walked his kid to a park instead of trying to build her a Disney set on borrowed money, maybe he wouldn’t be in there waiting for his Junior Assassin package from Valor to show up behind a black suit and a crocodile smile. What kind of messed-up system is strangling my country, where people expect to buy things when they don’t even have a job? And why does it cost more to die from cancer than to become a goddamn doctor in the first place?
The truck crunches over dirt and rocks and rolls to a stop. I can tell from the silence outside that we’re in that quiet place in Wyatt’s neighborhood. In his private wilderness. I tear my face off the pillow and try to wipe some of the tears and snot away on my blanket. I’ve cried more this week than in the rest of my life combined, probably, including the year my dad left. Wyatt turns in his seat, looking at me, trying to figure out how to handle me. I guess he’s seen me at my worst now—sad, hopeless, vicious, screaming in a kid’s face as I shoot him dead. How do you handle a girl who’s going through some totally messed-up shit? How do you hold an unwilling assassin in your arms and tell her everything’s going to be fine when you both know it’s not?
“You can come back here.” I sniff. “I think I got it all out
.”
“You needed a good cry worse than anyone on earth,” he says. “But, for the record, I wasn’t listening, and you didn’t make any weird snerk noises.”
I laugh, but it comes out as another weird snerk noise. He lumbers into the back of the truck and sits on the edge of the bed, putting one hand on my shoulder. It feels good, being touched. I had almost forgotten that skin was warm. He rubs my back, just one hand moving up and down lightly, and I close my eyes and relax a little.
“I guess you get a bonus when they take the deal,” he says. “The clock reset with enough time to get you through noon tomorrow. You hungry?”
I snort into my pillow. Wyatt is more food driven than anyone I’ve ever met. Instead of answering, I turn over onto my back, praying that my face doesn’t look horrible after everything I’ve been through today.
“What do you want to do?” I ask. “I feel like I’m just dragging you all over the place. Like you’re my chauffeur.”
“And your cook,” he says. “And your master of hounds.”
“Is that what you rich guys have for fox hunts in the Preserve?”
His face goes dark, and he starts to stand up. Another sore point. I reach out to grab his shirt and tug him back down with the hand not holding the button.
“Stay,” I say. “Please.”
He sits, just barely hovering on the edge of the bed. I wish for that playful moment yesterday when he all but smothered me to death. Things were weird then, sure. But they’re weirder now. I tug on his shirt again, then grab his belt and tug him toward me. A smile threatens at the corner of his mouth as he slides back and turns to me, his hip against mine.
I look up at him and smile, trying to put what I feel into my eyes. Trying to make them say, “Look, I’m messed up, and this situation is messed up, but I like you.”
“Don’t do that,” he says. “Just don’t.”
“Is there something wrong with me?” I ask, my hand dropping from his belt to my belly. “Because sometimes you look at me one way, and sometimes you look at me another way, and this isn’t who I am. I mean, I’m just . . . just a girl.”
“You’re not the problem,” he says, his voice gruff.
“Oh, so you’re the problem?”
“Maybe.”
“Liar. What’s really wrong?”
“It’s me. It’s just . . .” He stops and looks down, his face bleak. “I don’t know. I have my reasons for being here, but I don’t want you to use me just because you need comfort and I’m the only one around. You calling me your chauffeur. I mean, I charged into a fucking gunfight for you today. I deserve better than being used like that.”
I bolt upright, my face going red.
“You think I just, what? Want you for your body? Like you’re some disposable comfort fuck on my exciting adventure? Oh my God. Could that be any more insulting? And isn’t it usually the other way around?”
“It’s just, yesterday you said . . .”
“Forget yesterday. I’m here right now. And I’m not using you. I’ve never even . . . I mean . . .” I blush deeper, and the arm attached to the hand around the camera button is suddenly struggling to cover my chest in shyness. His mouth quirks up at the corner like he knows what I’m trying to say and thinks it’s cute. “When you kissed me, that was the first time for me. I wouldn’t even know how to use your body, okay? So sue me for liking you and wanting to be close to you and not knowing how to show it.”
“I’m not really the suing type.”
He turns toward me, and the hardness is gone from his eyes. He actually looks relieved. It’s kind of sweet. Out of the entire world, I get stuck with Wyatt, with this hot guy, and he’s afraid I’m trying to use him for sex. As if there were any reason in the world not to like him. Kind, funny, cute, brave. Strong enough to realize he’d screwed up and smart enough to start turning his life around.
“Knock, knock,” I say.
Wyatt looks at me sideways, like I’m crazy. “Who’s there?”
“Lilac.”
He grins.
“Lilac who?”
“Lilac you.”
It’s as close as I can come to telling him that I have feelings for him the day after meeting him and killing his father. But it seems to do the trick. He moves closer to me, his hip against mine, his hand on my other side, pressing into the bed. I kind of wish I were still lying down on my back, because sitting up this way, I can barely keep myself from crashing into him. After all my chasing around, it would be nice if something just came to me easy.
My breathing speeds up as he cups my face with one hand. I close my eyes and lean in to his touch, and I realize that I’m shaking. Not like I have so recently with fear and adrenaline. With hope, with anticipation. Can it be possible that he likes me too? Is it just the apocalypse talking, the fear in each of us reaching out like magnets for safety and comfort? Were my teachers right, and we’re really just animals driven to rut before a battle in a last, desperate bid to keep the species going?
Wyatt’s lips brush over mine, just barely, and I open my eyes as he pulls away.
It’s none of that. It’s too sweet to be that simple.
“Lilac you, too,” he says gently.
And hearing those words gives me the guts to do the scariest thing I’ve done today: I rip the button off my shirt and throw it under the bed and lean forward and kiss him for real, one hand in his shaggy hair. His lips are warm and dry, and they curl up in a smile as he presses closer. I want more, and I twine my other hand behind his head and pull him down with me until I’m on my back. His forearms line up on either side of my head as the kiss gets deeper, and I moan and slide my fingers down his neck.
What I’m doing, what I’m feeling—I have no blueprint for this. I never saw my parents kiss, never saw my grandparents so much as touch when passing in the hall. My mom never had any boyfriends, and neither did I. The kids I hang out with at school and at work pair up, and some stay together and some break apart, but I think of the way they make out as a show, like they’re doing it more to shock or impress other people than to please themselves. Half of what they do is on the phone, anyway, which is the least sexy sex I can think of. I’ve always wondered what two people who like each other do when they’re alone. How they learn the way of things. I guess I’m finding out now, and it’s a welcome oblivion.
The kiss is deep and long, and by the time he pulls away, I feel like I’ve been underwater for an hour, like air is some foreign substance that doesn’t taste as sweet as it used to. He hovers over me, and I’m amazed by the details of his existence, by his eyelashes and the gold sparks in his eyes and the stubble on his throat. I reach out to run a finger along the golden bristles, and he closes his eyes and sighs.
“If I asked you to kiss me again, would you?” I ask.
“Gladly,” he says. “I didn’t want to rush things.”
“I did,” I say. “Just come here.”
With a sultry smile that makes me all tingly, his body lines up with mine, and he murmurs, “Yes, ma’am,” as our lips meet, and it’s the happiest I’ve felt in years, another umbrella against a rainstorm of suck.
It’s full dark before we pull away from each other. We don’t go all the way, not even close. But I’ve thrown my caution and fear out the window and given myself the freedom to experience things, and I’ll be damned if they didn’t feel freaking awesome.
Wyatt shifts uncomfortably and sits up. His hair is messed and his face is red, but part of that is probably due to the red numbers on the dashboard clock. These extra hours with Wyatt make for one hell of a decent bonus. I feel overheated myself, like I’m a size bigger all over than I was before I pulled Wyatt down on top of me, my lips puffy and my back permanently arched from pressing against him, into him. I feel loose and relaxed, almost brazen. If I knew how to swagger, I might swagger. I’m not even sure yet if
I can stand.
I feel around on the bed and find my wadded-up Postal Service shirt. Without the button, it’s deceptively light, and I drag a hand around under the bed, fumbling with stuffed turtles and pillows until I find the damn thing. For the millionth time, I pray that it’s unbroken and doesn’t have sound.
Wyatt starts to say something, but I make a fist around the button and shush him. He motions that he’s going outside, and I nod my head. I have to pee too, but peeing outside is so awful that I’ve been ignoring the urge.
And then it strikes me that I may have had at least an audio audience for my first hard-core make-out session. I’ve been trying to keep Wyatt hidden from the damn button, but if that thing records or broadcasts sound, it probably caught some moans and grunts. But what was I supposed to do—stop macking to get up and stuff it in the fridge? There’s so much on my mind that it’s hard to stay on top of everything. I guess if he was a major problem, they would do something about him. He’d be dead already, right? It’s odd, basically having a giant corporation as a boss but never receiving any sort of feedback about what you’d done well or badly. Aside from time bonuses for Kelsey and Tom, there’s no report card until the end. If then.
I’ve broken pretty much every rule they’ve given me. I’ve messed up my speeches, I’ve told the debtors things I wasn’t supposed to, I signed for Ashley Cannon, and I spent a few hours luxuriating in Dr. Ken Belcher’s mansion and eating his food. I feel like I should be in trouble, but I’m not being punished. No surprise packages in the passenger seat or dropped out of a helicopter. I wonder if maybe they tried to call me, but my phone ran out of juice a long time ago. Forgetting the power cord was a convenient sort of almost-accident. I didn’t want any calls from Valor, checking up on me. And I didn’t want to be tempted to call my mom.
It’s actually the longest I’ve ever gone without any kind of media. No phone, no Internet, no TV to drown out my constant anxiety. No outside communication of any kind. It’s been utter radio silence while I complete my assignment. Except for Wyatt, of course. But I never dreamed I would end up with a partner in crime, much less a partner who could kiss like that.
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