by John Dixon
Now he was waving some crazy pamphlet, ranting about the “Day of Reckoning.”
Scarlett split and rode out to the mall.
Younger kids roamed in packs, showing off, making the same old jokes. One pack catcalled her from a distance, then laughed and dashed. Worse were the older guys, losers a year or two out of high school, trying to act cool, like it wasn’t lame, hanging with high school kids.
One of them, this guy Willie Fay, leaned outside the arcade, puffing an e-cigarette and holding court over half a dozen boys in black T-shirts and a girl with purple streaks in her hair. His shirt read, I hate being bipolar. It’s awesome!
“Hey, Scarlett,” Fay called. “How’s it going?”
The kids turned to appraise her. The eagerness in their eyes—all of them waiting around for someone to idolize—made her feel like she was covered in ticks.
She kept walking. To hell with Fay, his e-cig, stupid T-shirt, and ten-cent groupies.
Dad thinks I’m going to become the female Fay. No way. I’ll show him.
But even that declaration lacked power now. She was at low tide.
She paused near the fountain. People walked past, talking about nothing, swinging bags of stuff they didn’t need.
Maybe I should just call it quits. Head home, apologize, make Mom feel better.
She liked the idea. Lure Mom out of her room. Give her a big hug, work on her until she started smiling again. Spend a quiet night in, watch one of Mom’s favorites, like The Sound of Music or The Breakfast Club. Patch things up. Do it right, pick up a card and flowers.
But Dad was drinking again, and Dan would be sitting there, cracking his knuckles.
So home wouldn’t work. Not yet. Not tonight. What, then?
Ginny was at her mom’s in Tahoe. She didn’t know where Nick was and didn’t care. She didn’t feel like getting high or getting laid, and that was all he was good for, honestly. Everybody else was at Savannah’s big graduation party, and Scarlett definitely wasn’t welcome there, not since the trouble in the Poconos, after which Sav’s father, Senator Ditko, had declared their friendship officially dead.
She stared into the dirty water of the gurgling fountain. The pennies on the bottom stared back up at her like coins covering the eyes of dead dreams.
Scarlett Winter, she thought, the world’s lamest poet.
She felt weird. Listless yet restless, too.
She pictured Dan, all pissed off, coming at her, hitting her. She felt sad and angry and completely disillusioned. So much of her life was up in the air. Now she couldn’t even trust her brother, couldn’t even trust her vision of the past. She’d thought that that was all long behind them, that he’d only ever lashed out at her because Dad had hurt him so much. But now she knew that wasn’t true. Where did that leave them?
She remembered Dan tumbling through the air as if he’d been hit by a truck. It made no sense, but truth be told, it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened, was it?
An invisible feather tickled over her scars.
One night last summer, when she and Savannah were still friends, they’d almost gotten themselves killed, snooping around a field of pot plants they’d discovered not far from Sav’s cabin in the Poconos. A dog started barking. Then people were shouting, coming for them. Scarlett hopped on the Yamaha, Sav rode pillion, and they screamed away down the dirt road through the darkness. A truck roared after them. Scarlett heard the flat crack of a rifle and hunched low and buried the throttle. The Yamaha pulled away. Farther downhill, she fishtailed to a stop. She could still hear the truck roaring toward them. She went down an embankment into a field and killed the lights. They plowed through weeds and bumped over ruts, squinting against the grit and pollen and night bugs until at last they picked up another dirt road and headed downhill through a tunnel of pines. They paused on a darkened logging trail, giving the truck time to disappear, and Scarlett shook off her fear with a bark of nervous laughter. Sav was still in a panic, of course. If her father, the senator, knew about this…
They started downhill again. When they came out of the woods, the road leveled out. They rounded a corner, and suddenly it was daylight—or so it seemed.
The car burned so brightly.
Nearby, the horn of the overturned vehicle blared steadily. Dead men lay in the grass. Bits of shattered windshield caught the firelight and sparkled like rhinestones on their bloody faces.
My baby! The woman had cried from the burning wreckage of the sedan. Save my baby!
Scarlett remembered the woman’s pleading eyes and Sav trying to stop her, telling her, No, the fire is too hot, and the tremendous heat and pain she’d felt, plunging into the flames.
That night, her surge of strength had come out of nowhere. Tonight, with Dan, had been different.
Her head throbbed. Occasional spasms twitched through her aching muscles like the aftershocks of an earthquake.
This afternoon had kicked her mojo square in the teeth, made her start second-guessing herself, made her think about heading home with her tail tucked.
Whole legions of people—teachers, cops, parents—were always waiting for you to mess up so they could offer a way out, a second chance. All you had to do was confess, cry, and sign on the dotted line. You’d been a fool. They’d been right all along. You were so sorry. Yes, it was over. Now, sir or ma’am, could you please point me in the right direction? I need you to tell me how to live my life.
Not Scarlett. She wouldn’t let fear turn her into a perfect little penitent.
She would fight back twice as hard.
Scarlett straightened, surging with enthusiasm. To generate real mojo, though, she needed help. As they said in physics class, you can’t create or destroy energy, only transform it.
She needed to hook into something fun, get her engines running again. She needed people, action. Needed to shake stuff up, do something crazy.
Sav’s party.
No one would expect Scarlett. Their astonishment would fill her like rocket fuel.
Besides, she wanted to congratulate Sav on making valedictorian. Sav had worked hard and had struggled to keep it together after her sister had disappeared.
If Scarlett got caught crashing the party, the senator would have her arrested, but that risk only spurred her on.
She went into Hallmark and bought a blank card with horses on the front—Savannah loved horses—and asked to borrow a pen and wrote a nice note inside.
The party was black-tie formal. To fit in, she would need a gown, heels, and, most of all, a shower.
She laughed. She’d buy a cute top and show up in cut-offs and sandals, smelling of sweat and smoke and sex.
Ten minutes later, she pulled out of the mall, wearing a fabulous new shirt over her bikini top and feeling better. Way better. She twisted the throttle and weaved the Enduro in and out of cars on the highway, her long hair whipping in the wind, and shouted laughter at the beeping horns of the angry drivers she blew past.
SCARLETT PARKED ON A SLEEPY side street lined with luxury cars and started walking toward what sounded like live elevator music. A stone wall surrounded the sprawling estate, most of which was shrouded in darkness.
Near the Ditko mansion, the grounds glowed in candle flame and canopy lighting. Around the shimmering blue rectangle of the pool, hundreds of well-dressed attendees burbled politely. An army of tuxedoed caterers weaved from group to group with trays of hors d’oeuvres and tall skinny glasses that meant champagne for the senator and his well-scrubbed supporters and spritzers for the newly minted grads, most of whom would already be high, half in the bag, or deeply messed up on pills anyway. Everyone knew that wealthy suburban kids got loaded but looked the other way as long as they kept up appearances. Great training for the adulthoods awaiting them in the land of milk and cubicles.
A black suit was checking invit
ations at the gate, so Scarlett backtracked to the end of the block and hopped the fence. She would cross the parklike main lawn and sneak into the party. Easy as—
She ducked behind a towering sycamore, curses rattling like machine-gun fire in her mind. A pair of patrolling security guards…
Had they seen her? She didn’t dare to peek around the trunk.
Her legs wanted to bolt, but her gut told her to stay put, so she held her breath, digging her fingers into the stiff bark of the sycamore, and sighed when the guards passed, murmuring softly, and disappeared into the shadows.
She grinned. That had been close.
Then she strolled toward the lights, taking her time, loving the feel of the cool night air, and leaned her head back, digging the bright sliver of moon overhead and the sprinkling of stars twinkling against the hard darkness between rags of silver cloud. A beautiful night to—
Oh, great. She’d forgotten to stash her weed. A trespassing charge would suck. But possession charges, with her record, now that she was eighteen, would mean jail time.
She had to hide the bag. But where? Then, glancing across the yard, she smiled.
The guest house was dark save for the twinkling of electric window candles. She’d stash her weed in the basement, where she had first given in to Sav’s persistent curiosity and shared a bowl with the future valedictorian.
Above the guest house door hung a familiar flag: yellow lightning bolts crossed over a field of blue, with the motto of the 2nd Infantry Battalion—Ride the Lightning—in white letters. Her father had one just like it in the den. During the first Gulf War, Master Sergeant Charles Winter, then Corporal Charles Winter, had served under Sav’s father not only in the same battalion but the same platoon. What a lighthearted outfit that must’ve been.
The door was ajar. She listened, heard nothing, and slipped inside the kitchen. She crossed the creaking floorboards, opened the basement door, started down the steps, and closed the door behind her in case the security guards came by. Halfway down the stairs, the good smell of apples struck her, ushering in memories. Good times, getting lit, Sav finally chilling out, laughing.
Scarlett tucked the bag between two apple bins and drew her lungs full of the sweet aroma. She remembered this one time when they’d gotten baked and Sav had made up this hilarious song about—
Eeee…
The floorboards creaked overhead. Scarlett heard scuffling feet and muffled voices. A loud thump rattled the cellar door. Dust shook down from the floor joists over her head.
The guards? Or some couple pulling at each other’s clothes?
She tiptoed up the cellar stairs. Her heart hammered with adrenaline, but she had to smile. She loved the edge.
Then a woman’s voice said, “Set it for a minute forty-five.”
Caterers? Was someone using the microwave?
“Cutting it a little close,” a man’s voice said.
“Want someone to see us, come in here, and cut the wires, deactivate it?”
Deactivate?
A third voice, male, chuckled. “You just want a front row seat when this thing blows up.”
Blows up?
The tremor started in Scarlett’s feet, rolled up through her legs, rumbled through her core, and rattled out her shoulders. She clacked her teeth shut to trap the scream inside. She hunched in panic and dug her fingers into the wooden handrail. Leaning forward, she peered through the keyhole and went cold.
Like the security guards, this trio wore black. Not suits but jumpsuits. Ski masks covered their faces. One man crouched before the keyhole, fiddling with something.
A bomb, Scarlett thought. That’s what he’s fiddling with. Right there, inches away.
The woman held a stubby machine gun. “No front row seat,” the woman said. “Even from here the blast could knock over the van.”
The man standing beside her gripped a blocky pistol. In his other hand, he held—and this was so strange that Scarlett did a double take—a tiny baseball glove.
“All set,” the crouching man said. His pupils were huge. “Tell me when to punch it.”
The woman’s smile was very bright against the black ski mask. “No gods…”
“No masters,” the men replied in unison.
Something beeped, and the three of them hurried from the room.
Scarlett gripped the doorknob but forced herself to wait. If she sprinted out now, they would gun her down. She could barely breathe. Her fingers felt like ice on the doorknob.
Finally, unable to wait another second, she twisted the handle, pushed the door, and rushed forward. Then she was falling, tumbling backward down the stairs.
She lashed out, grabbed a rail post, and jarred to a stop before hitting the cellar floor.
The knob had turned, but the door hadn’t opened, so she’d bounced off it—Stupid-stupid-stupid!—and fallen down the stairs.
She raced back upstairs, twisted the handle hard, and pushed again.
“No!” The door was jammed.
The terrorists—her mind cringed at the word, but what else could you call them?—had worried about making it to their van and driving to safety in a minute and forty-five seconds. How much time was left now? A minute? Less?
She pushed again, and the door barely budged. It was the bomb. The bomb was against the door, blocking her escape.
Wild with fear, she ran downstairs—and instantly realized her mistake. Even if she survived the blast down here, the house would collapse on her. She ran back up, screaming.
She slammed against the door. It gave the tiniest bit. In a mad panic, she threw her weight against the door, cursing, knowing it was too late, knowing that in mere seconds the bomb would explode. Each attempt filled her with desperate strength and pushed the door open a bit farther. With a burst of strength, she drove the door forward and squeezed through the gap.
The device, a large cube within a skeletal frame, looked very much like the generator her father had wired into their electric box to power the fridge and computers whenever they lost power, but of course a generator didn’t display red numbers counting down.
19, 18, 17…
No time to run.
She had to stop it, needed to—what had they said? Cut the wires and deactivate it—but she saw no wires and had no wire cutters and…
She launched herself at the bomb. She jabbed buttons, but the countdown continued—15, 14, 13…—and she almost leaped away in panic but forced herself instead to reach inside the skeletal framework, patting madly, searching for wires.
11, 10, 9…
Her fingers closed on a wire, but she couldn’t get a grip, couldn’t pull it loose.
6, 5…
Then she did panic, leaping away—No-no-no!—and immediately jerked around again, understanding her mistake—The wires are your only chance!—but the counter slid from 2 to 1 to—
Standing five feet away, Scarlett screamed as the bomb exploded.
WITH HIS GRAY HAIR AND marathoner’s build, team leader Brady Webster might not have looked like a bona fide supertrooper, especially next to the heavily muscled members of his security detail, but he’d done a dozen combat tours before switching over to private security, first with Blackwater, then in South America, and finally here, guarding Senator Ditko and his family.
He was searching the orchard when something flashed brightly inside the guest house. With it came the all-too-familiar whump of high explosives—or rather a whu, because the sound cut off abruptly.
Like someone jumped on a grenade, he thought.
He called to Taylor and Fuchs, and together they ran toward the guest house, which was dark and silent again.
“Fan out,” he told the men. They took up flanking positions, pistols drawn.
Faint light flickered indistinctly within the guest house, but he saw no flames or s
moke, no sign that the place was afire. Had someone detonated a dud in there?
Whatever the case, something weird was going down, so he reminded himself to go slow and keep his guys in check. Weird got people killed.
The guest house door swung open, and a girl stumbled outside. Instantaneously, his brain registered the facts: a Caucasian female, late teens or early twenties, approximately five feet, six inches tall, perhaps 120 pounds with a dancer’s build, no discernible weapon, barefoot, dressed in raggedy shorts, a pink bikini top, and the charred and smoking remains of what had been a blouse. She staggered, obviously disoriented, into the yard.
She certainly didn’t look dangerous, but then Webster remembered the rumors about what had happened down in Atlanta—talk about not looking dangerous—and shouted, “On the ground!” Taylor and Fuchs closed, echoing his command, weapons held out before them, ready to fire.
The kid turned toward them, a look of bewilderment on her pretty face.
“On the ground, miss,” Webster repeated. Then to Taylor, “All call.”
Taylor nodded and lifted his lapel mic.
“Fuchs,” Webster said, “keep a sharp eye. The house, the orchard, everywhere.”
But Fuchs only continued to stare at the girl.
“Get away!” the girl shouted.
Then Webster saw it. The girl was glowing, radiating a faint, flickering light. She shuddered like a dog coming out of a river, only that wasn’t water coming off her.
Webster stood firm despite every fiber of his being wanting to retreat. “Drop and roll,” he said. “You’re on fire.”
The girl looked down at herself in terror. Flames were coming off her bare skin in small bursts, arching and huffing like geysers on the surface of the sun. Then she looked up again, locking eyes with Webster. “Run,” she pleaded. “I can’t hold it much longer.”
Time for talking was over, Webster knew. The girl was out of her mind and in big, big trouble. Webster holstered his pistol and pulled his Taser. “On the ground, miss. Last chance.”