“Is that how you almost got caught?”
“Nope.” I hold out my hands to show him the flecks of paint, and he cringes.
“You’ve got to stop doing that.”
I shove my hands in my pockets. “I did. It’s done. What now?”
He must sense that I’m still riled up, as he reaches out to delicately touch the little green jewel in my nose. “I like it. It’s cute.” His smile is fond and sweet, and I tuck it away in my memory palace. “I don’t know what now. We’ve got a long-ass time to wait and hide, and it’s not like we can get into any stores or anything.”
I look around the mall and see nothing but bored kids with earbuds cleaning up behind half-lowered cages. No one gives us a second glance. A mall cop is headed our way, but he’s still far off and bopping his head to his iPod.
“I forgot the Windex,” I say, loud enough to carry. “Come on.”
I take off in the opposite direction from the cop, back toward the center atrium where the Santa-photo backdrop is located. As we walk, I glance up at the second floor. I don’t see any other janitors or Crane goons; nor do I see my dad. Just to be safe, I stay as far out of sight as possible, walking close to the stores and behind every thick column.
There’s a sixty-foot-tall fake tree in the open center of the mall, giant ornaments dangling from the ceiling, and dozens of creepy elf statues that look like rip-offs of Dr. Seuss. I guess the mall got tired of people just taking whatever pics of Santa they wanted to, as he’s now in a small, cheerfully painted cottage with two bright red doors. You wait in line, they shove you in, Santa does with you what he will, and they shove you out. It’s kind of creepy, actually. Even the windows are painted on. I can’t help imagining some Dr. Ken Belcher type of jerkoff at Valor getting a bonus for making sure the poor kids never even get to see Santa if their parents can’t pay.
We walk around the cottage, and there’s an employee door hidden in the back, painted to blend in with the rest of the house. When I turn the knob, it opens, easy as that. Wyatt grins, and we abandon our broom and garbage to go inside. I expect it to be dark, but the back of the roof is open to let in air and light. There’s a huge, cushy Santa throne, a red carpet, and an extra bench, like maybe they let primping families wait there until it’s their kid’s turn to pee on Santa. Everything is utterly pristine and untouched.
Of course. Because Santa doesn’t show up until after Thanksgiving, does he? Not a single filthy kid has flicked a booger in this fake-ass room.
I walk right up to Santa’s chair and plop down in it, draping my feet over the armrest.
“Is it just me, or has Santa gotten bigger since we were little?” I say. “Too much milk and cookies, I guess.”
Wyatt grins and scoops me up, sitting down in the chair himself and holding me in his lap.
“Ho, ho, ho,” he says softly, right by my ear. “Have you been a good little girl this year?”
I freeze for a second.
No, I have not been good. I have been, in fact, the opposite of that.
But that’s not what he means.
Repress, repress, repress.
“Oh, no, Santa,” I say. “I’ve been very, very naughty.”
He swallows and shivers, and I know it was the right answer. Thus begins possibly the most passionate kiss ever between two jumpsuited murderers while sitting on Santa’s throne. Time stops, as it tends to do when we’re alone and touching each other, and for a while I forget completely who I am and what I’ve done and what I’m waiting here to do. For a while I’m just a seventeen-year-old girl with a slightly painful new nose ring, making out with her super-hot boyfriend with the messed-up tattoo and fancy hair. We don’t talk because we don’t want to talk. We want to kiss, and the kiss says everything we need to say. About passion and desperation and caring and fear and whatever drives humans to bang before battle.
Not that it goes that far. Jumpsuits and the threat of impending explosions are good at keeping such things above the waist.
I lose track of time completely. The phone in my pocket falls to the ground when the top of my jumpsuit slithers down over my shoulders. My tender nose hurts like hell from rubbing up against Wyatt’s skin, and my lips feel puffy and scratched. Doesn’t matter. I need more Wyatt.
And then we hear it—a noise that shouldn’t be there. Hurried shoes slapping on mall floors, low voices, the sound of a squeaking wheel. Wyatt and I pull away, and our eyes meet, and we have to be thinking the same thing: What if they come in here? There’s nowhere to run.
We scramble to zip up our jumpsuits, and I grab my phone from where it’s fallen on the floor. Without many options and with the squeaky wheel getting closer, we hide behind Santa’s massive chair, which is the only real thing in the room. The feet and wheels stop just outside, and a guy with a familiar voice who definitely isn’t Leon says, “These three go under the tree. Hurry up.”
I’m holding my breath, straining to hear the sound of muffled barking or an extra grunt as someone moves a box full of my poor dog. I don’t hear the sound I want to hear, and that makes me angry. Why can’t it ever be easy?
They shove heavy boxes around, and then the guy says, “Next two over there, by the train,” and I keep listening for a sign of Matty and not hearing her.
Wyatt’s hand lands on my arm, his lips brushing across my temple.
“We’ll find her,” he whispers.
We stay like this until we can’t hear their shoes anymore. I open my flip phone, and it’s a little after two in the morning. If they’re done this fast, we should be able to leave and find Matty soon. At least, hiding here, we know she’s not in any of these five boxes.
Of course, I don’t know how many more boxes there are. There could be hundreds.
“Patsy. Stay with me. It’s going to be okay.”
My head jerks around. “What?”
“You looked like you were about to have a panic attack.”
“I was thinking about the odds.”
He gives me a big, dorky grin. “Never tell me the odds.” When I stare at him blankly, he mutters, “Wherever we end up next, I’m going to force-feed you Star Wars until you understand all my jokes.”
Every time he uses the word “we,” every time he expands that “we” out past the next hour, it’s like a tiny Band-Aid on my heart.
“As long as I get plenty of gummy bears and popcorn,” I say.
It’s quiet outside now, so I unfold from behind Santa’s throne and stretch as much as the jumpsuit allows. Wyatt does the same. When my phone buzzes, there’s a text from my dad.
No dog in Frills 2 or food court. No sign of Leon. 7 guys down upstairs. You?
He must have a silencer, then.
I text back, No dog at tree and train.
A number I don’t know buzzes with, not @ carosel or osford, and I grin. So Chance is still with us, then, and his texts are as careless as he is.
Nothing from Bea. Does she even have a phone? She’s probably still in the bookstore. At least Gabriela and Rex are safe. Even if they were awake and functional, they couldn’t get into the mall right now. Unless they figured out where the Cranes were getting in—some random loading dock somewhere, most likely. But surely whatever Chance put in their drinks will last longer than that. I hope.
There are just too many variables.
I need to focus. We need to find our dog.
I open Santa’s door slowly, peeking out to scan the area. No people are visible, and the broom and trash can are where we left them. I give Wyatt a shrug that says, What now?
He points toward the other atrium of the mall, where the stage and toy store and candy kiosks are grouped, close together in a riot of kid insanity. It makes sense—after the Santa area, we should keep checking the places where there’s the most stuff to break. We pass an older woman sweeping in a dirty jumpsuit, but she doesn’t even look up as we pass. Down by the stage, three figures in identical, clean jumpsuits are arguing. Two large boxes sit on a dolly, wrapped in bright paper
with bows on top. Even from this far away, I can tell that one of the guys is Tuck.
“Leon said the gold one goes by the purse store with the glass damn doors. So why’s there a red one by the purse store?”
We hide behind a kiosk to watch.
“I didn’t know it mattered. You guys never tell me anything,” says a skinny Crane goon with a greasy ponytail.
“Well, it matters. Now fix it.”
Tuck heads toward us, and we hide around the other side of the kiosk. The ponytail guy is grumbling and cussing, and an older man in a baseball hat says, “Just pick up the damn box and shut up, kid,” and then I hear the noise I’ve been praying to hear all along: muffled barking.
“What the hell was that?” the older guy says, and Tuck spins and stomps back.
A gun cocks in the silence, and Tuck says, “Don’t you worry about what it is. Just do your damn job.”
Tuck storms off, and the two guys shove the box across the floor with grunts and groans. The box keeps on barking, but they don’t mention it again until Tuck is past our kiosk and walking as fast as he can. I creep closer, always hiding behind a kiosk or cart, with Wyatt right behind me.
“Hey, Richard. You think that dog can breathe in there?” the older guy asks.
“Not my problem,” Ponytail Guy, Richard, says. “I just want to get out of here without another hillbilly asshole pointing a gun at me.”
After a few minutes of heaving, they get the box into place and pick up the red one to carry it back to the cart.
“Whatever’s in the regular boxes ain’t nearly as heavy as the one with the dog,” the older guy observes.
“Just do your job and put the red one somewhere else,” Richard says before storming off in the same direction as Tuck.
As I peek around the kiosk, the older guy walks around the box, probing the sides with his fingers. He looks up and in every direction before pulling out a pocketknife and slitting the gold wrapping paper carefully, right under the wide ribbon on top. Right where the seam would be.
“You okay in there, buddy?” he says.
The barking is louder now, joyous through the slit he’s made in the box. A rhythmic thumping suggests that Matty’s doing her usual happy tail wagging.
“Whoa! No, buddy. No. Stay in there.”
I move from this kiosk to the next one, the closest one. When I stop, Wyatt catches the back of my jumpsuit. I check the halls, listen for more footsteps, but all I hear is wagging and barking and a kindhearted idiot trying to stuff eighty pounds of happy dog back into the box where it belongs, according to Mr. Leon Crane.
“No! No, no. Stop. C’mon! Goddammit!”
Wyatt yanks me back behind the kiosk as the clawing, ripping sound of tearing cardboard is followed by totally unblocked, joyous barking. I hear claws clattering on the marble, the man’s footsteps clumping around ineffectually.
I whistle low and whisper, “Come here, Matty. Come here, girl.”
Because dogs have a really fantastic sense of hearing, right?
Claws skitter frantically, and then she’s racing toward me, faster than I’ve ever heard her move, barking and yipping like crazy. I can’t stand it anymore. My eyes are tearing up, and my heart is beating, and we might all get out of here alive before things even get bad.
I have to step out from behind the kiosk and see my girl.
28.
She barrels into me, jumping up and pawing.
But . . .
But . . .
It’s not Matty.
This is a black Lab, but it is not my black Lab.
This black Lab is younger, floppier, skinnier, and has jangly balls.
“What?” I say, trying to fend off the happy dog’s claws and slobber.
The guy walks up but doesn’t make any attempt to grab whoever this dog is.
“That’s not her,” Wyatt says.
“I’m sorry.” The guy glances around nervously. “This dog just ran up . . . I don’t know what it’s even doing in the mall. You should probably call the police or something.” His face freezes, almost comically, when he realizes what he’s just said. “I mean, never mind. I’ll just take him outside.” He grabs the crazy dog’s collar and tries to drag it away, but it breaks free and takes off for the other end of the mall, slipping and sliding on the polished floor. The guy rubs his crew cut and stares at us.
“Are you guys . . . ?”
“Goddammit,” I say, and I walk away. It’s stupid, but I follow Tuck’s path. Not only because he’s Leon’s goon, but because he appreciates a good dog and might be headed to where Matty is. She must be somewhere else.
My phone buzzes, and I check it.
Not at stage. Decoy dog. WTH? Wyatt’s number, sent to me, my dad, and Chance. I didn’t even notice him texting as he trailed me.
Not at Mr. Goodbuy or Nickel’s. Running out of options, my dad texts back.
not @ plyfround. i dont even know whr iam. From Chance. Of course.
The mall is laid out like a giant cross, a two-storied X with one long arm that I’m currently walking down. My dad checked upstairs. We checked the stage and the Santa setup.
But was my dad checking for Matty upstairs, or just looking for Leon?
“Goddammit!” I take off running for the escalator, which is frozen into stairs.
Laughter rings from overhead, and I look up to find dozens of faces.
“Well, that was a charming scene,” yells Leon Crane.
This is what I get for trusting my dad to take care of business.
As we run, bullets ping off the marble behind us. Clearly, no one is trying to kill us, because we’d be dead. Whatever Leon has up his sleeve, he wants us alive for this next part.
Or at least he wants me alive.
Somewhere, a dog barks, and I don’t know if it’s Matty or the fake dog, but I have to run faster. I don’t think as I sprint past dozens of wrapped packages and up the escalator with Wyatt panting by my side, a trail of lazy bullets in our wake. As we barrel upstairs, a bullet hits the glass wall of the escalator, and it cracks into a spiderweb but doesn’t break. When I reach the solid floor, I see an audience of janitors in jumpsuits just like mine. Some are clearly Crane goons, laughing, with automatic rifles slung across their chests and pistols in hand. Some are nobodies, nameless members of this perverted cell of the Citizens for Freedom, coerced and forced and led into doing whatever Leon Crane wants, whether or not it’s actually helping the fight against Valor. Like the guy with the crew cut downstairs, they look confused, like they’re not sure why they’re here or who they’re rooting for. Among them are the kids from the shooting range who didn’t join our little group, and they look like they just got back from war.
This audience is definitely not rooting for me.
“Well, step right up, Miss Patsy. Let’s have us a little chat.”
Leon Crane sits on a big gold package wearing a jumpsuit identical to mine. A shotgun rests across his knees, and he’s smiling, as my mom would say, like a possum. With this many guns pointed at me, I’ve got nowhere to run, so I throw my shoulders back, stick out my chin, and walk up to him with my hands in my pockets and Wyatt right behind me. My fingers tighten around the grip of my gun, and I give him a smug grin.
“I thought I blew you up,” I say.
He tips his head. “And I look forward to returning the favor. Now, if you’ll stop squeezing that Valor gun in your pocket and gently place it on the ground between us, I’d be most obliged.”
My smile dies. “What gun?”
At least a dozen more guns point at me.
“Guess,” Leon says. He flops his gun toward Wyatt. “His, too.”
Without my gun, I have nothing. But full of holes, I have even less.
I start to pull it out, and Leon whips out his own Glock, saying, “Oh, careful. Trigger fingers can get mighty sweaty. They taught us trigger discipline in the army. You ever learn trigger discipline?”
I show him my gun, my finger nowhere n
ear the trigger. “I’m a little more into trigger anarchy.” Slowly, carefully, I put it on the ground. Every second, I’m one twitch away from shooting him anyway and taking the punishment of dying in a hail of bullets. But if I go, Wyatt goes too. I can’t do that to him. Maybe I deserve it, but he doesn’t.
“Now kick those guns a little closer to me. Gentle as a light breeze, you hear?”
Our two black guns twirl across the tile. When Leon tosses his head, a Crane goon more nimble than Tuck hurries over and collects them. The box under Leon rustles and barks excitedly. What kind of an asshole sits on someone’s dog like this?
“That’s better.” Leon resettles himself on the box. “Now, where were we? Oh, yeah.” He leans forward, eyes burning. “You blew up my family’s house. And several of my aunts.”
Inside, I feel like I’m going to fly apart. Outside, I shrug and say, “. . . sorry?”
He ignores it.
“Now, normally, I could forgive that sort of transgression. I never did like my aunt Kitty. But . . . well, let’s see. Your boy there gave one of my boys a concussion and left him to die on a simple wipe job.” He jabs a finger at Wyatt. “Now, son, don’t you even draw breath to tell me that’s not what happened, because he remembers. Then y’all shot several of my tech boys in a trailer for stealing your Pop-Tarts.” Now he aims his finger at me. “And then you disappeared into the woods with my childhood best friend and the best hacker this side of the Pacific, killing three more of my cousins on the way. I’m guessing you ended up killing Jacky, considering he has such a smart goddamn mouth. And then, after all that, you went . . .” He stands and strides over to poke me in the chest with tattooed fingers. “You went and blew up my goddamn house! And when you add it all together like that, it’s un-fucking-forgivable.” His face is red up to the roots of his hair, and he purses his lips as if he’s thinking about hitting me in the face until I don’t have a nose, but I do not turn away. “Normally, I would just shoot you and be done with it, but I spent too much time torturing hostiles to let you die that easy. And I know how to hurt you most.”
He makes his hands into fists, opens them, and returns to sitting on his box. “But you are an elegant force of destruction, and I can still use you, so I will give you one more chance to do the right thing. Now, I am a simple patriot leading these good people in a righteous fight against the real bad guy here, and that bad guy is a bank that calls itself Valor.” He picks his gun back up, points it at me, and cocks it. “You’re either fighting on my side, or you are against me. So which side do you choose, Patsy? Mine, or Valor’s?”
Strike Page 32