Double Cross

by Carolyn Crane

  “Okay …” I can’t tell if Rondo means it. I’m wondering if I should pretend to call it off, but really not call it off.

  “No pretending,” Rondo snaps.

  Does he not want the cops there? Does he want the Dorks to think he doesn’t want the cops?

  “Just call it off, plain and simple,” Rondo says angrily.

  “Stop reading her mind.” Deena thrusts a pair of antihighcap glasses at me. “On! Now!”

  I put them on and Deena shoves me at T. “Call Simon. On speaker. Tell him things are under control and you’ll call back later with details.”

  T redials Simon, puts it on speaker, and hands the phone to me, gripping my arm way too hard.

  We wait. Deena frowns at us all from her post next to Otto, bound and bloody in his chair. T stands ready to take the phone back from me. The other Dork, a lanky fellow in a hoodie and antihighcap glasses, aims his gun at the three guys prone on the floor.

  Ring.

  I exchange glances with Francis, who nods, best he can with his face on the floor. The lanky Dork kicks his shoulder.

  Ring.

  I could zing this one, this T who’s holding me now. I start stoking my fear. It still feels like Russian roulette, but Packard wouldn’t have said it was safe if it wasn’t. He was sleepy, not crazy.

  Ring.

  But is fear the right emotion for this situation? Isn’t there some saying that you don’t want a jumpy kidnapper? But I won’t give him jumpy; I’ll give him terror.

  I’m stoking more than I ever have in my life—I feel it roiling up in me, cold-hot. I suck in a ragged breath as I move on, in my mind, to my hospital equipment triggers. It’s so much fear.

  Simon answers. “Justine?”

  I swallow. “Well, it’s a good thing we don’t need the cops after all,” I say as I start using my focus to rip the hole in T’s energy dimension. “Were you making a sandwich or what?”

  “You’re cool there?”

  “Yeah, we’re cool.” I’m feeling shaky. It’s such a risk.

  “What happened? Did you find Sanchez?”

  I say a little prayer and let the fear rush into T. “Nah, it was a false lead. They busted in on a regular family, who is now pissed about their bashed-in door.” I feel it whoosh out—hot jagged energy—so much fear! Every muscle in me tenses for the mind-crushing blowback. When I’ve given him half of the fear I’ve got, I let our connection close.

  The blowback doesn’t come.

  “Too bad,” Simon says.

  “Yeah.” The blowback never came. “You kids have fun.”

  “Later,” Simon says, clicking off.

  T pulls the phone away and clicks off, staring at it, eyes looking glazed behind the antihighcap glasses. “That wasn’t right. That was a code.” He crowds his pale face into mine. “Was that a code? The sandwich?”

  “The sandwich?” I give him my alarmed-nurse trying-not-to-look-alarmed face.

  “Jesus Christ!” T screams.

  “Get a grip, T!” Deena says. “There was no code there.”

  “Yes, there was.” He tightens his grip on me, positively vibrating with fear. My fear. The blowback never came. I can zing anybody anytime. Or nobody.

  “Look at me,” Deena commands. When T looks at her, she bores into his eyes. “There was no code. I heard it same as you.”

  But then T looks back at me; now that my fear is inside him, we’re connected. I give him a new look, another one I use to freak my targets out. He lets my arm go and backs away. “It was a code.”

  The lanky Dork grabs my arm, gun still on the three guys. “T! The guy bought it.”

  Deena glowers at T, who’s wild-eyed, like a cornered animal. The lanky guy and Deena exchange glances. They don’t get why he’s melting down.

  Meanwhile I’ve ripped the energy hole between me and the lanky Dork, and I let go of everything else I have in me—the highest-octane fear on the planet. I know when it hits deep because he clenches my arm twice as hard. I’ll have bruises tomorrow. It’s okay, I think, as total peace and calm rain through me. Glory hour.

  I turn to him. “Nobody’s coming. Everything’s cool.” My unreassuring reassuring voice. There really is no end to my screwed-up specialties. “Nobody’s going to be shooting poison into the windows or dropping on the roof from black helicopters.”

  He stiffens with a jolt that seems to reverberate through his bones.

  T says, “What if there was something she was supposed to say on the phone that she didn’t?”

  “Pull your shit together, T!” Deena barks. “The woman lurched in here like a drunken bear. Carrying a stun gun! She’s not part of the plan.” She tips her head at me. “What’s your name, honey?”

  I give her a frown I don’t feel. “Justine.”

  “Justine, here’s what’s going to happen.” A calming voice—for the benefit of her underlings, I’m thinking. “Mayor Sanchez is going to gather all the highcaps in a stadium for a big announcement. All we want is for the highcap people to come forward and be known. A public announcement—that they exist, and here is their social contract with us.”

  “Gathered for a slaughter,” Otto says.

  “No, just an announcement. Does that sound unreasonable to you, Justine?”

  “It will never happen,” Otto says.

  Audible breathing beside me. Lanky’s respiration has sped up. He’s also swallowing a lot.

  Deena says, “We’d like it to be Mayor Otto Sanchez who gathers the highcaps and makes the announcement, but we don’t need it to be. For every hour he procrastinates putting the event into motion, one of you will die.” She eyes me. “Ending with you. Or maybe starting with you. It’ll be a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

  “Let her go,” Otto says. “She’s no threat. She’s not even a highcap.”

  “So we’re moving ahead with the event?” she asks.

  “It will never happen,” Otto says.

  She stalks over and grabs my hair. Yanks.

  Horror in Otto’s eyes.

  “I’m fine,” I say to Otto. “There’s no problem here.”

  “What does that mean?” T demands. “No problem? She knows something. It’s that call! They’re coming!”

  “Fuck!” The lanky one says. “We’re fucked!”

  “Shut up!” Deena pushes me to the floor. “On your belly. Fingers knit.”

  I comply, stretching out and knitting my fingers behind my head, facedown into the carpet, which smells like citrus chemicals. My stomach wound from the cannibal’s stings—did it just open? Then Deena smashes her boot onto my knuckles, and that hurts, too. This would all concern me a whole lot more if I wasn’t glorying.

  “I want to check the perimeter, just in case,” T says. “This isn’t right.”

  “It’s not,” the lanky one agrees.

  “Get a grip!” Deena pushes her boot harder onto my knuckles. “You’re not going out to check anything.”

  The lanky one works his mouth. He’s tasting my fear, buzzing with its vibration, its pitch. I used to avoid knowing my fear so intimately, but Packard got me to turn toward it and understand it.

  “This is wrong.” The lanky one backs toward the front door, nearly stumbling over the ram. “I say we kill and run.”

  “The fuck we do.” Deena levels her gun at him. “Not one more step.”

  He freezes, eyes wide.

  “Stop it, you two!” T plunges his hands into his hair, even his gun hand. “They’re coming. We’re running out of time!”

  “He’s right.” The lanky one turns to look at the door. “Fuck! We’re fucked! Why did we listen to you?”

  “Away from there!” Deena yells, shoelace tickling my hand. I loop my finger into it. “One more step and I’ll shoot you.”

  “Fuck you.” The lanky one raises his gun at her, backing away. “I’m outta here.”

  “Stand down,” Deena growls.

  “Fuck!” says T. “Fuck!”

  “Stand down!” D
eena shouts.

  “You said we could leave at any time,” T says.

  “Not now, you can’t!”

  “I can’t do this!” The lanky one bolts for the door.

  Gunfire. I curl my finger tightly around the lace. I hear a thud, which I assume is the lanky Dork. T yells. More shots. I stay down, eyes shut, trying to pull into an imaginary little turtle shell as the fighting rages above and on top of me. A shout. Deena’s boot jerks; I hold the lace tight. She stumbles. “Goddammit!” She shoves her boot heel into my jaw. My cheek burns and the inside of my mouth fills with blood, but I don’t let go of her bootlace.

  More shots, and Deena falls heavily onto my back, knocking the breath out of me. A sharp pain in my chest. Was I shot? I gasp for air. I can’t feel my finger. I let go of her bootlace. Hands around my neck. I cough and tear at her fingers.

  There’s another shot and another. I feel Deena jolt, then go still. Heavy. I lie frozen underneath. A sensation of warmth on my back, like warm liquid, spreading over me. It feels kind of good, until I realize it’s either blood or piss. I’m too freaked to move.

  “Justine?” Francis’s voice. The weight lifts off me. I try not to think that it’s her body.

  I close my eyes, trying to collect myself. A hand on my shoulder. “Justine,” Otto whispers.

  “Uh,” I say.

  “Oh, God, thank God,” Otto says.

  “I think I was shot.”

  “Where?” Francis kneels down beside Otto.

  “The chest,” I say weakly.

  Francis says, “You weren’t shot.”

  “Oh.” I turn enough to look up at him, and then Otto. “Am I covered with—”

  “Stay still,” Otto whispers. “Urine is actually very sterile and germ-free.”

  “Uh!” I sit up only to see Deena, lying there dead, eyes open. “Oh, God.” I turn away, covering my mouth. The other Dorks are dead, too. And the mercenary with the shark’s tooth necklace.

  Otto rests a hand on my shoulder. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

  When I look at him, it seems like all the warmth is gone out of his eyes. “Have they been … Are you okay?”

  “I will be,” he says darkly.

  I nod. The mercenary with the braid is on the phone. Francis eyes Otto. “You know we can’t keep you out of it, buddy.” They invent a story about the Dorks luring us here and we all memorize it.

  “What on earth possessed you to bring Justine?” Otto says to Francis.

  “She figured it out,” Rondo says. “We were humoring her. We didn’t think—”

  “I knew it,” I say.

  “You’re lucky we brought live ammo,” Rondo says.

  I spy a sweatshirt hanging over a chair. I get up and Otto helps. “I have to …” I point.

  Otto understands. “Go. Hurry.” Sirens in the distance.

  In the bathroom I try to keep my mind empty of thought as I peel off my blood-and-urine-soaked shirt and drop it on the floor. I eye the shower, then force myself to put on the sweatshirt. My jeans are sodden, too, I realize with horror. But the pain in my chest has lessened.

  I stumble back out to the main room. Otto extends an arm and I go to him, somewhat automatically. It feels good to be snug at his side.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I sustained quite an impact when they took me.” He lowers his voice. “Several. At times I was convinced I had a vein star pin leak behind my eye, though it would’ve manifested by now …” He trails off. Clearly he’s been thinking about this extensively. “I am feeling faint.”

  “You’ve been held captive for days. Have you eaten?”

  “Barely.”

  It’s here I notice that the blood on his neck is actually a wound. “Shit! Is that a big gash?”

  “Yeah, but it stopped bleeding,” he says, quite casually. “And I think my arm is broken. I can’t move it.”

  “Otto!”

  “It’s okay,” he says. “I’m safe. I just need my cap.”

  “We have to find it,” I say.

  He turns to me. “How did you know?”

  “The dream,” I say. “The Goyce dream.” I explain about my gut feeling, and drugging Packard, and the cursive.

  Otto holds me more tightly with his good arm. “When that cretin pulled you in the door …” He looks around. “I still don’t know how this deteriorated so dramatically. The way the Dorks spooked.”

  I concentrate on straightening the sweatshirt, which bears the name of a hotel in Florida. When I look up, he’s regarding me strangely. I touch the sticky side of his face. “If only you could look in a mirror. You are so bloody.” I give him a sly smile. “The cameras will love it.”

  “You figured it out,” he says, gazing into my eyes. “You knew.”

  Time was, Otto looking at me like that would have thrilled me.

  The sound of sirens closing in spurs him into action. Using only his right arm—his left arm hangs immobile—he rips the antihighcap glasses off each of the Dorks and throws them onto the floor, then he grabs two pairs off the counter and tosses them down. Then he gestures at me.

  At first I don’t know what he means, but then I realize.

  “Oh, sure.” I take my glasses off and toss them onto the floor with the others, and Otto stomps them all with his boot, smashes them to smithereens, then kicks the pieces around to blend with the general mess of the house. “Never again,” he says with a ferocity that surprises me. “Never again.”

  Chapter

  Twenty-three

  THE GROUP OF US spend a whirlwind afternoon in the hospital, getting X-rayed, poked, and palpated by doctors, and questioned by cops. Francis reinjured his bullet wound and has to go in for surgery. Otto gets a cast. A doctor examines my cannibal bite, and after that, a volunteer lets me choose clothes from their free bin to replace my bloody, piss-smelling stuff. I select a long printed skirt, a hoodie sweater, and pair of blue Keds high-tops, but all I really want is a five-hour-long bath and my own things around me. And I want to talk to Shelby, but she still isn’t answering. Probably with Avery. I’ve never seen two people take to each other like that.

  Most of all, I want to be alone and think. I can’t think surrounded by all these people. But I have to wait for Otto and Rondo; there are the reporters outside the hospital entrance, and we’re going to make our escape from them together. Apparently, the national and tabloid press got hold of the mayoral hostage situation.

  When the cast is on, Otto goes out and makes a statement to the reporters. They still don’t leave, so Rondo helps Otto and me slip out the back.

  Soon enough, we discover that there are reporters camped out in front of all three of our homes, and one following us. Rondo does some fancy driving and suddenly we’re checking into the Royal Arms, a grand old five-star hotel on the lakefront. One room for Rondo, and one for Otto and me.

  Otto and me. And suddenly we’re heading up in the lavish elevator.

  After all that time I spent feeling sad about having lost him, it feels strange to be with him.

  As soon as we get into the room I wander to the window and look down. Cars stream back and forth; exhaust billows up. Across the street, the lakefront parklands stretch out as far as the eye can see—a trashy tundra of frozen dirt, leafless trees, and boarded-up concession stands. In the distance, you can just make out the line of giant boulders defining the shore like jagged teeth, and beyond, the endless black of the lake.

  “Hungry?” Otto says.

  I spin around. “Famished!”

  Otto’s on the bed, half propped up. His arm is casted almost to his shoulder, he’s bruised everywhere, and the alarmingly deep gash in his neck is heavily bandaged—two more centimeters over and he would’ve bled to death, the doctors said. I have this thought that he’s probably too injured and medicated to have sex, and then I feel guilty for being relieved about that.

  We order half the room service menu, and then Otto calls Sophia. He wants her to sneak over w
ith a beret as soon as she’s finished with what’s probably turning out to be the busiest day of her life as mayor’s assistant and press secretary. I take a long-overdue shower while Otto makes some phone calls.

  The food’s being delivered when I come out in a fluffy hotel bathrobe. It’s only dinnertime, but it seems like midnight.

  I give the room service waiter a nice tip and pull the cart in next to the bed. One by one I lift the silver tops off the plates. Grilled fish sandwiches, fingerling potatoes, gnocchi, warm rosemary bread, a selection of fruits and cheeses, and numerous chocolates. There’s also a Scotch on the rocks for Otto and a decanter of white wine for me.

  “Yum,” I say, unfolding a bed tray for Otto.

  “You don’t have to baby me,” he says.

  “You were tied to a chair for three days, and you have like nineteen injuries. You are going to lounge in bed while you eat. And I’m helping you.”

  He relents and I start fixing him a plate. They’d wanted to keep Otto overnight, but he’d promised to have a private nurse with him. Me.

  Standing there next to his bed while we waited for his discharge papers, I’d reminded him that I’m nowhere near being a nurse and never will be—something he continues to refuse to accept. I also reminded him that the neck is superclose to the brain—it seems like an infection could travel there pretty fast. We debated this: Otto believes proximity doesn’t have anything to do with it, and that an infection could travel anywhere fast. We both really wanted to ask the nurse, but they were already unhappy enough about his leaving.

  I butter a piece of bread for him, eyeing the bandage. It was a big chance to take, leaving the hospital. I show him. “Enough?”

  “You are so good to me,” he says.

  I set the buttered bread on his plate. “Maybe I just don’t want crumbs in the sheets,” I say, trying to keep things light.

  He gets his serious look. “I missed you. The whole time they held me, I imagined something like this. A kind of daydream. Being away with you.”

  “Bet you didn’t have broken bones and a neck gash in it,” I joke.

  “No,” he says, clearly not feeling jokey.