by Debra Driza
Maybe even fire.
I upped our speed, and we reached the row’s end just as the door creaked open. I pulled Lucas by the wrist until his back was against the far end of the shelves. We stood there, barely daring to breathe. Something snapped, and then a glow from above the shelves near the entrance.
“Hello? Anyone here? This is security,” a deep voice said.
The light moved in time with a heavy set of footsteps, slapping concrete. I cringed. From the way the beam swung, the guard was walking along the wall and peering down aisles.
His current trajectory would lead him directly to us.
My sensors broadcast information as my heart pounded, plying me with information that was preparing me for a fight.
Target statistics:
Gender: Male.
Height: 6 ft., 1 in.
Weight: 205 lbs.
Heart rate: 95 bpm, slightly accelerated.
Footsteps: Slower than average based on weight/height. Indicates caution.
Weapon: Loaded.
I listened as the measured, even footsteps closed in. Then the beam of light shot out from the far end of our aisle, just to the left of our heads. I waited, searching for any pause in the guard’s gait, any rustle of clothing to hint that he was reaching for a walkie-talkie or weapon. He kept on walking. The beam of light popped out on our right next, then the footsteps continued, away from us, as he peered into each row.
My fingers tightened around Lucas’s wrist. In another thirty-three feet, the guard would come to a dead end. That was the moment of truth. My fervent hope was that he would turn around, retrace his steps until he repeated the process on the far side, and retreat back into the office when nothing turned up.
Android sensors counted down the approximate remaining distance, but with only one foot remaining from where my sensors had detected the corner, the footsteps paused.
Silently, I urged the guard to turn and head back toward the door.
One second passed. Then three. The next footstep finally fell, but didn’t retreat in the direction the guard had come from. My gaze tracked left, down to the end of the final aisle. To the open area that would reveal us.
The beam of light grew brighter. He was coming.
I brought my mouth near Lucas’s ear. “Move.”
He grabbed my hand and allowed me to guide him around the corner of the shelves we’d backed up against, one tiptoed step at a time. Praying the guard’s footsteps would mask our own.
We took another quiet step, and another. Trapped in a treacherous game of hide-and-seek, one with potentially fatal consequences. All the while, the footsteps behind us grew louder. Raspy breaths caught in my throat. If we were too noisy, we’d be discovered. But if we weren’t fast enough, we’d be caught anyway.
I increased my pace, Lucas following, his fingers entwined with mine. Halfway to the exit, then a little past halfway. Hope swelled within me. We were going make it, just barely.
Without warning, Lucas missed a step, his hand yanking my arm downward. I twisted and reached back to steady him, but it was too late. His free arm swung wildly and caught the edge of the shelves.
The thud that rang out sounded deafening. The footsteps on the far end froze. “Hello? Who’s there?”
Then the room echoed with the slap of shoes hitting the concrete floor at a run.
Without saying a word, Lucas and I broke into a sprint and raced for the end of the aisle. The flashlight beam hit us way too soon—we still had another fifteen feet to go.
Any second now, the guard would reach for his radio and call for backup. At that point, we’d be seriously screwed. I pushed Lucas ahead of me, urging him to continue running.
When he was two steps ahead, I whirled. I launched myself in the guard’s direction. The gun pressed a cold, metallic reminder against my back, and I issued a silent plea to the universe.
Please don’t make me use it.
Sure enough, the guard had reached for the radio strapped to his belt. His eyes widened when he spotted me hurtling at him. He fumbled and dropped the device, his hand diving for the pistol holstered around his waist instead.
“Don’t move,” he said, fingers grabbing the handle and ripping the barrel free.
Target: Located.
Indecision froze me in place. I should draw my weapon. Now, when I could still shoot him in the shoulder, incapacitate him without killing. But shame crashed through me like a tidal wave. An image of Hunter’s faded blue eyes flashed in my memory, begging me to hold back. Hunter, who was alive and maybe even on his way somewhere to start the new life he deserved. Without Peyton.
So I ignored the cold pressure in my waistband. Instead my hand whipped out, catching the guard’s gun just as he put his finger on the safety. No time for anything else, I utilized my momentum and ducked my head. My skull struck his throat while his gun-free hand dropped the flashlight and snagged my shirt. We flew backward together.
His back hit the concrete floor and I slammed into his chest. The oomph of air forced from his lungs gave me the advantage. I grabbed his gun hand and smashed his wrist hard against the floor. His grip slackened; the gun fell. I slid the gun behind me and out of his range. With a quick punch, his radio was rendered useless.
The guard remained motionless for a moment, clearly dazed. Then he started to struggle. With one hand, I pinned him by the throat.
“Stop fighting me,” I snarled, altering my voice until it was deeper than Lucas’s.
At the sound, he went completely still, but his heart rate accelerated.
110 bpm, 120 bpm.
Probably terrified I was going to shoot him with his own gun. With my free hand, I dug into my pocket and foraged until my fingers closed around a few thin plastic strips.
Maybe some girls were taught to always carry an emergency lipstick or hair band, but me? Mom taught me never to leave home without zip ties.
The security guard glanced at the ties. His eyes widened, and his right arm swung. His clenched fist struck my jaw. My head whipped left from the force, and I lost my grip on his throat. As I scrambled to regain my balance, Lucas’s shoes appeared to my right. He stooped and retrieved the discarded gun, letting the barrel point in the vicinity of the floor near the guard’s shoulder.
“Stay down,” he said. “Or I’ll make you wish you had.”
Vocal analysis: Faster speech rate, slight increase in pitch. Probable indicator of fear.
As if to corroborate my sensors, Lucas swiped his damp palm against his thigh. But his gun hand remained steady, giving no hint of the chaos that was surely erupting inside him. Now, if only the guard would cooperate.
After a few seconds that felt like a millennium, the guard slowly raised his hand. “Okay. Take it easy.”
I made short work of incapacitating him with the zip ties, binding both his hands and ankles as Lucas kept the gun steady. Once I finished, I didn’t waste time. I motioned for Lucas to follow and together, we jogged toward the door.
“Did you get the speakers?” I said when we were only ten feet away. Plenty loud for the guard to hear.
Lucas’s forehead furrowed until he picked up my intention. “Not yet—he interrupted me.”
At the end of the aisle, Lucas shoved the gun in his waistband and pulled two speakers off the shelves, handing me one. “These will have to do. They’re the best and we don’t have time for the others now.”
Hoping that red herring would be enough to throw the police off our tracks when they investigated, we hurried out the door, through the office, and into the parking lot. The security guard’s car sat unattended a few feet away. A quick slash of the tires, and then we hustled on foot to where the Caprice was hidden, speakers still in tow.
We drove through the gate and exited onto the street, careful not to exceed the speed limit. Once outside the complex, the masks and gloves came off. Instead of driving toward our motel, I wove through the streets in the opposite direction. Lucas didn’t question me, just peered blin
dly into the night with his hands raking through his hair.
“That was a close call,” I said.
Silence.
I glanced over and frowned at the ghostlike pallor of his cheeks. “Lucas? Are you all right?”
“I—I’m not sure,” he said. He closed his eyes and inhaled a sharp breath through clenched teeth. His Adam’s apple bobbed repeatedly. Suddenly, he bolted upright. “Could you pull over? Fast?”
I swerved into an alley located near a liquor store. The moment I put the car in park, his door flew open. He barely had time to lean over before he threw up on the street. My hands clenched the steering wheel and I stared straight ahead, focusing brutally on the acrid taste in my own mouth. Lucas wasn’t used to this kind of danger. Yes, he’d saved my mother and me back at SMART Ops, but putting his life on the line like this was different. I thought of his obvious spike in stress when he’d aimed the gun at the guard, and my gut clenched reflexively. That was when he realized he was putting other people’s lives at risk, along with his own.
He had to be exhausted. For almost three days, we’d been on the move with almost zero rest. While I could keep going at this pace, Lucas couldn’t. Maybe the fact that I could be so open with him had fooled me into thinking that he and I were the same.
Ridiculous, flawed logic on my part. No matter how much he understood me, Lucas was human, through and through. I needed to get him back to the hotel so he could sleep. Everything else would have to wait.
Once he composed himself, Lucas shut the door, using the mask to wipe his mouth.
“Sorry,” he said.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve seen worse.”
I’d hoped to make him laugh, but his mouth didn’t even hint at a smile. “I’m sure you have.”
“Thanks for being here,” I said as I studied his rigid jaw. If he only knew how much I admired him. He didn’t have to put himself in harm’s way like that. He didn’t even have to be here at all.
That was when his expression finally altered. He shot me a startled look. “Of course. We’re a team, remember?”
His posture relaxed, and I felt the tension drain from my neck. A knot in my stomach disappeared. For a crazy moment there, I’d thought that he might call it quits.
“Do you think they’ll link the break-in back to Sarah?” I said, trying to steer things back to normal.
“My bet is they’ll be going after petty thieves,” Lucas said. “That was smart thinking back there. About the speakers.”
“Speaking of which.” Up ahead, I saw a row of unlocked Dumpsters. No video cameras around. “Should we ditch them here?”
Lucas nodded and we put our gloves back on, tossing the speakers into the Dumpster after we unloaded them from the car. We off-loaded the ski masks about a mile away, in a different set of Dumpsters. The gloves went into an outdoor trash can about a half mile from the last location.
When we got back to the car, Lucas handed me the gun. “This is what I really want to lose. But I don’t want to risk someone finding it while digging through the trash.” He swallowed, and I thought he might throw up again. “That man, the security guard. He was just doing his job. I’m behind you one hundred percent—more—but we both know I could never shoot.”
I took the gun and shoved it under the seat. “I understand.” And I did. I knew exactly what taking an innocent life felt like, and the permanent scars it left on you. I didn’t want that for Lucas.
Or for me. Not again.
We were quiet on our journey back to the hotel. So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours, I doubted either of us could think straight. I started sifting through the facts in my mind, filing words and images and evidence into compartments in my internal database, but a tap on my shoulder interrupted me. Lucas held up the burner phone he’d bought at the convenience store.
“We have a voice mail,” he said, with a lilt in his voice.
My throat tightened. For a fleeting, heart-lifting instant, I thought of Hunter. But I knew there was only one person it could be.
Chloe. Sarah’s best friend.
Before we’d visited Sonja, we’d finally gotten in touch with Chloe’s mother, Daphne. She had agreed to give our number to her daughter, but there’d been no guarantees she’d call. Now we had another lead to chase. Maybe the final pieces of the Sarah puzzle would finally fall into place.
“Let’s give it a listen,” I said.
TEN
The next morning called for coffee and pancakes. At least, that’s what Chloe had in mind. The message she left was friendly, inviting me out to breakfast at her favorite café, located in a strip mall not too far from where she lived.
While Lucas slept last night, I’d listened to her message several times. The familiar cadence and timbre triggered more than just a feeling of pseudonostalgia. When I closed my eyes, I was actually able to relive happy moments from the past she shared with Sarah: flashes of laughter and play and whispers.
A part of me longed to remain in that state forever. But then the sun came up and it was time to see Chloe face-to-face. She knew Sarah better than anybody. Maybe she had some idea why someone—like Holland—might want to have her killed. But I knew there was a serious danger, that I was preprogrammed to kill Chloe, too. As I approached the café, I swallowed my fear before it consumed me.
A bell chimed as I walked through the door. I froze in the archway, but continued inside when no answering signal stirred the quiet yet deadly device inside me. A bakery display lined the wall on the right, near the cash register. Behind the counter, a machine hissed while a red-shirted worker put the finishing touches on a latte. The aromatic smell of fresh-roasted coffee permeated the entire room. Three college-aged kids sat at a long table in the back, textbooks open next to laptops. Of the ten other tables, only three were taken—the first by a couple, and the second by two women, one with a stroller next to her seat. Normal people on a normal morning. A place I could never fit in.
The third table, squished in a tight corner between the napkin station and the counter, only had space for two chairs. One of them held a young girl. She sat on the edge of the seat and glanced up from her book as soon as I entered.
Her long brown hair was shorter now, cut in a shiny, shoulder-length bob. But her heart-shaped face with the wide-set brown eyes, delicately arched eyebrows, and full lips: that face was the same one from my memory. From Sarah’s memory. Today she wore a V-neck coral sweater with skinny jeans and a pair of fleece boots.
She took a sip from a wide coffee cup, slopping a little over the side. As she grabbed for the napkin in her lap, the restaurant seemed to fade away, replaced with a cozy eat-in kitchen.
“I swear, Chloe, you may as well get a lip piercing, because you have a permanent hole in your lip.” We sat at the white tiled counter in my house. I reached into the cabinet and tossed her a dish towel.
She dabbed at the brown spot on her yellow sweatshirt before rolling up the dish towel and snapping it at me. “Yeah? Well, you trip a lot. Doesn’t mean you need a toe piercing.”
“Ewww.” We looked at each other before dissolving into giggles.
In real time, present-day Chloe blotted at the spot, gave up, and snuck another peek at me. Hopefully she could see the “family resemblance” Lucas had manufactured for me.
I stepped forward and then hesitated, wondering if I’d made a mistake in asking Lucas to let me do this alone. We had become such a good team and he was quick on his feet during these awkward probing conversations. But Chloe was a little shy around boys, from what I—actually, Sarah—remembered of her. I had been worried that his presence might cause her to clam up.
Lucas wasn’t far away if I needed him. But as I drew closer to Chloe, my feelings of doubt and apprehension began to vanish. Instead I was full of longing, like I couldn’t wait to reconnect with a long-lost friend.
A wary smile appeared on Chloe’s face when she realized I was coming toward her table. She rose from her chair, an
d gave me a polite wave.
“Mara?”
“Yes, hi. You must be Chloe?”
“That’s me,” she said, shaking my hand, yet looking me over with curiosity. “You look a little bit like her. Sarah. I was trying to figure out where . . . it’s the eye and face shape, I think.”
“We always looked a little alike,” I said.
I averted my eyes, not wanting her to notice my discomfort. I glanced down at her napkin and saw a quick pen sketch, in blue. A picture of a shaggy dog.
Ink and paper, bold lines depicting me and Chloe, laughing like banshees.
As we sank into our chairs, I remembered that she was a budding artist, someone who saw beauty in all the details that most people never noticed. All of a sudden, the questions I had for her diminished in importance. Now all I wanted to know was how Chloe was doing. Had she displayed any of her artwork at the local gallery? Was she applying to any fine-art programs, like she’d always wanted to? Gone on that museum expedition to Italy and France? Sarah’s memories built up so quickly, I was at a loss for words.
Thankfully Chloe spoke first. “I was surprised to get your message from my mom. I don’t think Sarah ever mentioned you. Or maybe I’m just not remembering.”
“My parents were estranged from Sarah’s for quite a while, so it makes sense that you hadn’t heard of me,” I explained.
“Family drama, I get it,” she said. “My parents are separating. Not a friendly breakup either.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s one of the reasons I like to get out of the house these days, so thanks for meeting me for breakfast.”
“No problem,” I replied.
Behind me, the door opened and the bell chimed again. I gave the new patron a surreptitious glance and scanned for weapons.
No threat detected.
Pancakes and weapon scans. Quite the combo.
So. What would a normal teenager say right now? “How is school this year?” I started, awkwardly.