The Wolves Within

by David Lucin

  “That’ll be brutal. I’m pretty sure the most consecutive time I can spend around Sophie is like ten minutes. I couldn’t imagine living with her.”

  “But I’ve done work with her for years.” Val locked her door and made for her bike, which leaned against a deciduous tree in the front yard, most of its leaves dead or dying from lack of watering. “I’m used to her by now.”

  “That’s the problem,” Jenn said. “She’ll think you’re always on the clock. Someone’ll have to shovel that huge driveway, and if you aren’t careful, it’ll be you.”

  “No, because Ed has a . . .” She paused, then brought her hands up as if she were pushing a cart and made a shoom-shoom sound. “What is this?”

  “A lawn mower?”

  “But for snow.”

  “Oh, you mean a snowblower.”

  “Yes, snowblower. He has one of them, and before you ask me, it is electric with a battery and still works if he charges it.”

  “Might be a hard sell. Sophie might not want to spare the solar power. Hope you have a nice shovel.”

  Walking her bike onto the road, Val said, “I’d rather be shoveling than living with Sam’s family.”

  Jenn froze and gawked at her. Of their three households—Gary and Maria, Sam and Jenn, and finally Kevin, Barbara, and Nicole—only Gary had a proper wood stove, so he’d suggested that everyone move into his place for the winter, which meant being bottled up with Barbara for four or five straight months. The thought made Jenn quiver. “Low blow,” she teased. “Why’d you have to go there? I was having such a good day.”

  “You started it.” Val checked her watch. “Now enough for jokes. We’re going to be late.”

  They headed down I-40. The sky in front of them was a deep violet. Behind, it burned red. Jenn’s knuckles nearly froze in the brisk evening air. Riding a bike on the interstate was still a strange experience. Regularly, she shot glances over her shoulder, expecting to be honked at for going too slow. It didn’t help that they were cruising east down the westbound lanes.

  The ride only took fifteen minutes, and they arrived at five to eight. This Go Market was smaller than the one by the university. Similar to its larger brethren, however, the front third of the parking lot was surrounded by tall fencing reinforced on the inside with dozens of cars, trucks, and vans. At a rolling gate, a cop in a Flagstaff PD uniform was speaking with Bryce, who wore his signature black beanie.

  As Jenn and Val approached him, he made a fist and held it out to Jenn. She groaned at him. “Really, Bryce? You’re in your forties. Why are you still asking me to bump it? Even saying ‘bump it’ makes me cringe.”

  “Someone’s cranky,” Bryce said and offered his fist to Val instead. “Come on, Val. Give me some love.”

  She blinked at him.

  He shook his hand for emphasis. “Don’t leave me hanging.”

  As though it caused her physical pain, Val reluctantly tapped her fist to Bryce’s.

  “Stop encouraging him,” Jenn scolded. “He’s like a dog. We can’t reward bad behavior.”

  The cop at the gate, a man Jenn didn’t recognize, laughed and said, “Bryce, you gonna let her walk all over you?”

  “This?” Bryce started. “Bah, this is nothing. Jansen might have the biggest mouth at the farm, but she’s still an amateur compared to the boys I worked with at the station.” He reached over and drove his knuckles into her scalp, giving her a noogie. “Isn’t that right, Jenny?”

  The first time Bryce called her “Jenny,” she was tempted to kick him in the groin. That was her brothers’ name for her, and Bryce’s use of it, especially when she didn’t know him that well, was an insult to their memory. Initially, anyway. After a while, she stopped minding. Now she almost liked it.

  Almost.

  She ducked and swatted Bryce’s hand away, pretending to take offense. “All right, all right,” she said. “We came here to do a job.” Then, to the cop, “We’re ready to go when you are.”

  “Perfect, because as soon as you start, I’m done and headed home.” He let them through and secured the gate behind him. “I’ll walk you inside. Liam’ll give you all the details.”

  Jenn’s stomach leaped in excitement. “Liam’s here?”

  “Sure is. Was supposed to have the night off but volunteered to run you guys through your first shift.”

  She couldn’t help but wonder if Gary, who’d spent the day working with Liam, had something to do with this. Maybe he’d asked Liam to keep an eye on her. Or maybe it was a coincidence. Either way, she wouldn’t complain. The opposite, actually. Jenn respected how Liam had overcome his amputation and became a cop in the first place, and his borderline stoic demeanor in the face of all that happened since the bombs made him, in her mind, a somewhat larger-than-life figure.

  The Go Market’s automatic sliding doors were covered in plywood. Nearby were dozens of black posts—stanchion that was used to form a line. Unlike the Go Market by the university, this one didn’t have the same tall glass windows. Good, Jenn thought. That would make it less vulnerable to gunfire.

  The cop led them inside. Without lights, Jenn could barely see the rows of half-empty shelves in the darkness. To her right, an orb of white from a battery-powered lantern lit up tables, chairs, and an ordering counter with dead LED screens. It used to be a café, or so Jenn had heard, but she’d never seen it open; the place had closed long before she started attending NAU. A lone officer sat at the table nearest to the entrance.

  “There they are,” Liam said and rose from his seat. Similar to Bryce, he was clean-shaven. Where did these guys keep finding razor blades? Jenn ran out what felt like a lifetime ago.

  Bryce offered his hand—not his fist, thank God—and introduced himself. Liam reciprocated, then shook Val’s hand. “Valeria, I’m guessing,” he said to her.

  She grunted out what was probably a yes. Val was always cold around new people, but to Jenn, her grunt sounded uncharacteristically cordial. Liam must have made a good first impression.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Liam continued. “From Gary. Says you watched Jenn’s back down in Phoenix.”

  Jenn gave Val a wink. “I think you’ve got it backwards.”

  Val opened her mouth, likely to argue the point, but the clomp of boots from the entryway drew her attention.

  “I’m here,” huffed a baby-faced man in his late twenties or early thirties. He, too, wore a Flagstaff PD uniform and had a backpack hanging over one shoulder. Thin, patchy stubble coated his cheeks and chin. His wavy brown hair was unkempt, and his shirt was partially untucked. The buttons, Jenn noticed, weren’t even aligned properly. He was familiar, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on why. “Sorry, I was running a bit behind.”

  It was only 8:02. If he started at eight, two minutes should be well within the grace period, shouldn’t it? Then again, when Jenn worked at the showroom in Peoria, she was expected to be there a half-hour before the start of her shift—time she wasn’t paid for, of course. Maybe the police had a similar policy.

  “Everyone,” Liam said, “meet Mikey. Mikey, this is Bryce, Valeria, and Jenn.”

  Mikey shook their hands, starting with Bryce. When it was Jenn’s turn, he paused and tilted his head. “Gary Ruiz’s billet?” he asked her.

  An image of Mikey on Liam’s couch, a bowl of chips on his lap and a cheap Canadian beer in hand, flashed in her mind. “That’s right. We met at Liam’s World Series party last year.”

  “Yeah! I thought you looked familiar.”

  “Me too. Hey, were you there for Game 6?” Jenn asked. “When the Yankees were down 7–0 in the eighth and—”

  Liam politely cleared his throat. Jenn’s cheeks went hot when she noticed him, Val, and Bryce all staring at her. “Sorry,” she said. “Baseball. I get excited.”

  “Happens to the best of us,” Liam said, then flicked the collar of Mikey’s shirt and gave it a quick tug. “Fix yourself up, bud. I’m just about to run through the basics with these guys.
”

  Mikey undid one of his top buttons, apparently only now realizing they were lopsided. “Sure, thanks. I’ll put my stuff away and meet you back here.”

  As he scurried off, Jenn and the others crowded around a table with a row of AR-15 rifles beside a stack of loaded magazines and . . . bulletproof vests? The thought of donning one excited her more than it probably should, but she tried to play it cool and not drool over them.

  “So,” Liam started, “pretty straightforward stuff. There’re five of us. Three inside and two outside on patrol, one out front and one around back. Both’ll have radios. Job’s simple: you see something suspicious, radio it in and get in here. We’re sitting in what essentially amounts to a bunker, and the only way in is through the main doors or the loading bay. Backup’s never more than a few minutes away, so on the off chance there’s any trouble, we hunker down in here, make the call, and that’s that. Anyone tries to bust in, we take care of it, but that probably won’t happen. To truly sack this place would require a small army and a whole lot of time.”

  Jenn thought about the Major and his people. There were no indications that they’d left Metro Phoenix, and with the National Guard patrolling the interstate, she doubted any gangs from the valley could make it to Flagstaff in force.

  “No heroics,” Liam added. “Which I assume you guys are comfortable with.”

  “It’s pretty much the same deal at the farm,” Jenn said.

  Bryce felt the need to say, “And importantly, don’t ask Jansen to cover for you when you go for a bathroom break, ’cause she’ll get lucky and catch some lady sneaking around while you’re gone.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Liam said. “She was greatly apologetic, so we’re keeping her for a week and then letting her off with a stern warning.”

  Jenn was relieved to hear that, and she hoped the woman had learned her lesson. Maybe she would even spread the word that stealing from the farm wasn’t worth the risk. Or maybe a slap on the wrist would only encourage others to try.

  Liam handed Bryce a bulletproof vest. “We’ll rotate who’s on patrol outside and who’s in here. Couple hours in, couple hours out. Keep you guys fresh.” The next vest went to Val. Finally, Liam passed one to Jenn. “We got vests for you, and the standard arsenal you use at the farm.”

  Despite her best efforts, a childlike grin broke out on her face as she unfastened the Velcro joining the vest’s two halves together.

  “You a little excited there, Jansen?” Bryce asked.

  “No,” she blurted. “Maybe. Kind of.”

  Val helped slip the vest over Jenn’s head. It was lighter than she expected.

  “Don’t get too pumped,” Liam said. “It’s only level IIIa, so good against small arms fire.”

  “What about ARs?” Jenn asked as Val attached the Velcro and secured the vest to her torso.

  “If a shooter can score a hit on you with a .233 or 5.56, it’ll probably have enough punch to penetrate it.”

  That wasn’t comforting, but they were at least protected against handguns. She wondered if Dylan or Sophie could track down a few sets for the guards at the farm.

  Bryce had already put on his own vest. “What do you want us to do while we’re in here?”

  “Stay awake,” Liam said flatly. Jenn laughed as if it were a joke, but Liam wasn’t smiling, so she clamped her mouth shut. “Usually we play cards. Mikey brought a puzzle last week.”

  Val’s brow knitted together. “Puzzle?”

  Liam rubbed his eye with a finger. “As I was saying, it’s pretty straightforward. Low key. There hasn’t been a whiff of trouble since that first day when we almost lost control. The fence helps, and it’s not like the farm where you guys literally have food out in an open field. You have to break in here to steal anything, which just isn’t going to be worth people’s effort. As bad as it is, it’s a lot easier to rob someone’s house.” He grimaced and handed Jenn an AR. “So in all honesty, this gig is mostly deterrence. Stay sharp, communicate, be smart. You know how this works. That’s why we brought you in.”

  Jenn liked Liam’s leadership style. It reminded her of her softball coach in senior year. Neither tried to whip up enthusiasm with speeches or pep talks. Instead, they were blunt and honest. Most of all, Liam seemed to trust them and their skill set.

  Mikey, his shirt now tucked in and properly buttoned up, his hair combed, returned from wherever he’d gone to stow his bag. He held up a box with an undersea scene on the lid. “I brought a new puzzle. Two thousand pieces, so this should keep us busy for a while.”

  “Good stuff,” Liam said. “We’ll get started on it while you take first patrol. Consider it punishment for showing up two minutes late and looking like you just rolled out of bed.”

  After tossing the puzzle on a table, Mikey said, “Figured as much. Who’s coming with me?”

  Jenn slapped a magazine into her rifle. “As riveting as a puzzle sounds, I think I’d rather do some actual work. I’ll go.”

  * * *

  “Trip jacks,” Jenn said with a snicker and laid her cards on the table.

  Bryce and Liam groaned as she greedily raked in her chips. The puzzle had kept them busy until about midnight. Then Jenn, her eyelids growing heavy, suggested a game of Texas hold ’em. It was more engaging, she’d argued, and more likely to keep them awake. The men agreed, so out came the cards. So far, this was feeling more like a night hanging out with Sam and his buddies than a guard shift protecting critical food supplies. Jenn had no complaints about that. A beer would be nice, but she was at work, after all. And she was technically still underage.

  Leaning back in his chair, Bryce chucked his hand toward the deck. “I swear to God you’re good at everything you do, Jansen.”

  She stacked her chips. Already she had three times as many as Bryce and twice as many as Liam. “I’m only good at poker because my brothers made me play with them all the time when I was like fourteen.”

  “Not just that. Are you one of those freaks? The kind of person that tries something once and picks it up right away?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she countered, playing dumb. In the early days of her relationship with Sam, he’d made a similar remark after she bested him repeatedly in eight ball at the musty old billiards hall downtown. When he’d asked how many times she’d played before then, she was honest and said a few. Apparently he’d grown up with a pool table in Arcadia and used to play nearly every day. “Maybe you’re bad at everything. You ever think about that? I could just look good by comparison.”

  He deflected her jab: “Name one thing you tried and weren’t instantly amazing at.”

  “Connect Four. Val whooped me seven times in a row yesterday.” In her defense, she wasn’t paying much attention.

  “What else?”

  She chewed the inside of her cheek and considered the question. “Skating.”

  Liam was dealing the cards. Bryce took his first, peeked at it, and said, “That sounds a bit more interesting than Connect Four. Let’s hear the story.”

  Jenn’s first card was a two of hearts. Not a good start. “Last winter, Sam rented me skates and dragged me to some outdoor rink. I fell so many times I think my butt was numb for a week. I couldn’t stand up without holding onto him.” A ten of spades came next. “Check.”

  “Skating, huh?” Bryce grumbled and inspected his hand.

  Before he could check or bet, one of the two radios on the table crackled to life. “Valeria to Liam.” Her voice was low, almost a whisper. Jenn’s insides coiled in on themselves, and she sat up straight in her chair. Something wasn’t wrong, was it? No, it couldn’t be. Probably a routine check-in and Val was only keeping quiet to be cautious.

  “Go for Liam.”

  A short pause before Val said, “Movement outside the fence in the parking lot. Two people. I’m coming now to—”

  The sharp crack of gunfire erupted through the radio, then cut off abruptly; Val must have let her finger off the talk b
utton. Jenn was reaching for a rifle before her brain caught up with her reflexes. A second shot, muffled by the Go Market’s thick walls, rang out. Naively, Jenn wondered if she’d wrongly assumed that they were gunshots. Sometimes, like on Halloween in Peoria, she would mistake firecrackers for weapons fire. But who would be lighting off firecrackers right now and why?

  Mikey came through the radio next. “Shots fired! I have no visual!”

  The words erased any doubt: they were under attack, but by whom? The Major? Had he and his forces made their way north to pray on Flagstaff?

  Liam reached for the second radio and said calmly, “Backup to Go Market east. I say again: backup to Go Market east. We have shots fired. Two hostiles confirmed.”

  Bryce was speaking into the first radio: “Val! Bryce for Val! Come in!”

  A fresh flurry of gunfire made Jenn flinch. She was bouncing on her toes. If Val was hurt, they had to help. Protocol was to stay inside and protect the Go Market while waiting for backup, but Jenn wouldn’t leave Val outside. Not a chance.

  “We have to get her,” she said. There was hardly enough air in her lungs to force out the sentence.

  “Val!” Bryce cried again while Liam received confirmation that two squad cars were on their way. Five minutes, Jenn heard. That might as well be a lifetime for Val. Why wasn’t she answering? Was she too busy returning fire? Or was she dead? Thoughts of Val, a bullet in her side and bleeding out on the pavement, swirled in her head, bringing on a rush of vertigo that almost knocked her off balance. Only the fear that Val was hurt and needed help kept her upright and standing.

  Liam snatched the radio from Bryce. “Mikey, you all clear at the back?”

  “Affirmative. On my way inside now.”

  “Wait at the loading bay,” Liam said, grabbing a rifle with precision movements. For the first time, Jenn saw him as a soldier instead of a cop. “We’ll meet you there, then swing around the side of the building, lay down covering fire while Jenn runs out to get Valeria.” He clipped one radio to his belt, tossed the other to Jenn, and, without another word, moved toward the back of the store with Bryce.