The Hunted

by Matt De La Peña

  “Dad!” Addie shouted. “What are you doing here? Everything’s fine.”

  Mr. Miller gave Shy a subtle grin as he pulled a handgun from the back of his waistband. “Why don’t you drop the rifle, son, and we’ll all take a walk outside and have a civilized conversation.”

  Shy stared into the barrel of the gun. Who was this guy calling “son”? It made Shy want to throw up. But he couldn’t do anything about it with a gun pointed at Carmen’s head. He let his rifle fall to the ground and glanced at Addie. She’d lied about her dad not being here. But she’d also warned him to leave.

  So which one was it?

  Mr. Miller led Shy and Carmen out of the tent and into a small clearing. “This will do just fine.”

  “We should go, Dad,” Addie said, tugging on his arm. “There are people waiting for us on the bus.”

  “Hang on a minute, honey.” Mr. Miller pulled free of Addie’s grip and pointed his gun at the duffel hanging off Shy’s shoulder. “What’s in the bag?”

  Carmen spit in Mr. Miller’s direction. “None of your business, asshole!” She fought to get out of the LasoTech guy’s grasp, but he had her in a headlock from behind. When she continued struggling, he cracked her in the back of the head with his gun.

  “Get off her!” Shy shouted. He then turned to Mr. Miller and told him: “You know exactly what’s in here.”

  Shy was surprised at how calm he felt in Mr. Miller’s presence. He hated that Carmen had a gun to her head, but as long as he focused on Mr. Miller’s beady eyes, he was okay. All the death he’d experienced over the past month made the threat of it now seem less intimidating. “Tell your guy to let Carmen go and I’ll show you.”

  Mr. Miller shook his head. “I’m not sure you’re in a position to be making demands.”

  “Dad, come on,” Addie pleaded.

  “They’re gonna fry your ass!” Carmen shouted at Mr. Miller. “And I’m gonna sit right up front watching that shit with fucking popcorn!”

  Mr. Miller grinned at her. “I’ve made some mistakes,” he said. “I’ll be the first to admit it. And as soon as this is over, I’m happy to have everything sorted out in the courts. But right now…people need me.” He turned to Shy. “Hand me the bag, son.”

  “Better watch it with that ‘son’ shit,” Shy said, holding the man’s gaze.

  “Give him the bag!” the LasoTech guy shouted.

  Shy wished he hadn’t torn open Shoeshine’s extra pocket. Now the syringes were right there for anyone to see. Not that it mattered anymore. LasoTech had its new vaccine. The letter was all that he should be worried about. His proof.

  “Hurry up!” the LasoTech guy shouted.

  Shy pulled the bag off his shoulder and reluctantly handed it over.

  “What are you doing?” Addie said to her dad. “You promised to focus on the clinics.”

  “That’s what I’m doing, sweetheart.” Mr. Miller unzipped the duffel and reached inside. He pulled out two of the four remaining syringes and looked at them. “You know, Shy,” he said. “You and I are actually quite alike. We’re both survivors. Just when people think they can count us out, we find a way to reappear.”

  “We’re not anything alike,” Shy fired back. He glanced at Carmen, who was so angry she was shaking.

  “Dad!” Addie pleaded again.

  Mr. Miller finally turned to look at his daughter and held up one of the syringes. “I need Chris and Gary to reproduce this immediately, Addison. Go find them in the lab, tell them to stop production on the A4 and fly back to Avondale.”

  Addie took the duffel bag and stood there for a few seconds, looking back and forth between Shy and her dad. Then she hurried off in the direction they’d come.

  Shy watched her go, feeling helpless. He and Carmen had nothing else left. And the odds of these two men letting them go weren’t good, either. He tried to imagine what Shoeshine would do. But Shoeshine was gone.

  Mr. Miller waited until Addie was out of sight before saying: “It won’t be long now, friends. As soon as my second helicopter team is ready, I have a little treat for you. We’re going to tie you both up and push you out in the middle of the desert somewhere.”

  “Fuck you!” Carmen shouted.

  The LasoTech guy cracked the butt of his gun against the side of her head again.

  Shy saw a little bit of blood trickling down Carmen’s cheek, and he lost it. “Why don’t you come over here and try that shit on me!” he shouted at the guy. “Watch what happens!”

  “Take it easy,” Mr. Miller told Shy with a sly grin.

  Shy opened his mouth to talk more shit when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned and saw Addie running from behind the tent, gripping one of the rifles. She raised it up over her head and slammed it into the LasoTech guy’s back while shouting through tears: “They didn’t do anything!”

  The man dropped to his knees and his gun went flying. He reached for his back.

  When Mr. Miller spun around to see what was happening, Shy instinctively kicked the gun out of his hand and shoved him out of the way.

  Addie picked up her dad’s gun and pointed it at him, then pointed it at Shy. She was so hysterical Shy couldn’t make out what she was screaming.

  “Addie, honey,” her dad said from the ground, reaching out to her. “Please. You have to trust me.”

  She wiped her face with the back of her free hand, whimpering: “They didn’t do anything.”

  “Of course they didn’t,” Mr. Miller said in a calm voice. “But we need to take certain precautions. I’m doing this for you, honey. For us.”

  Shy saw Carmen furiously tinkering with the rifle, which must have jammed. And he saw the LasoTech guy crawling toward the handgun he’d dropped.

  Shy sprinted past Addie and dove on the guy, tackling him onto the hot dirt. The two of them rolled over, throwing wild haymakers. Shy ended up on his back and caught a fist in the mouth, and another in the ear. He summoned all the strength he had left to flip the guy over and pin his arms to the ground. He reared back and landed three consecutive jabs to the left side of the guy’s face, until the man appeared dazed.

  When Shy looked up again, he saw Carmen stalking toward Mr. Miller, the rifle raised in front of her. “Let’s get out of here, Carm!” he shouted. He turned to Addie. “Where’s the duffel?”

  She was pointing the gun right at him. “Get her to stop!” she screamed.

  “Carmen!” Shy was struggling to keep the LasoTech guy pinned down. “Let’s go! Now!”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Carmen said with a snarl. She had the rifle aimed at Mr. Miller’s face.

  Shy pulled in short, quick breaths, taking in the scene. It was all happening so fast. No time to think. Carmen had her rifle pointed at Mr. Miller, and Addie now had her gun pointed at Carmen, and Shy had a man pinned to the dirt.

  The other handgun lay just a few feet away.

  Shy now spotted the duffel bag, shoved up against the tent behind him.

  When the LasoTech guy pushed out from under Shy, he reared back and blasted him in the side of the head. Shy lunged for the gun and scooped it up, while at the same time taking a crushing blow on the back of the head. He spun around, disoriented, and saw the man was about to kick him a second time. Shy rolled away just in time and aimed the gun at him, shouting: “Don’t fucking move!”

  The man froze, sucking in breaths and glaring.

  Shy struggled to his feet and hurried over to retrieve the duffel bag, never taking his gun off the man. He noticed a small crowd of onlookers, half hidden behind another tent.

  Carmen cocked her rifle and told Mr. Miller: “You killed my dad.”

  Mr. Miller shook his head. “It was all a mistake. I’d give anything to go back and change things. You have to believe me.”

  “I don’t have to believe shit,” Carmen said.

  “Tell her to drop the rifle, Shy!” Addie shouted.

  “Drop it, Carm!” Shy called out. “I got the duffel! Let
’s just get outta here!”

  Carmen shook her head and took another step toward Mr. Miller. “You killed my dad,” she repeated.

  “Get her away from him!” Addie screamed.

  The LasoTech guy took a step toward Carmen, but Shy turned his gun on him, shouting: “Don’t move!”

  “Please, put the gun down,” Mr. Miller told Carmen.

  Addie shouted: “Get away from him!”

  Shy swung his gun toward Addie, then back to the LasoTech guy, fragments of thoughts flooding his brain. Shoeshine’s journal and the bubbling river and his grandma’s funeral and the look on Marcus’s face before Shoeshine snapped his neck. And then Shy remembered his mom’s face the last time he’d seen her. Before he left for the cruise ship. This last image hit him so hard his knees nearly buckled. He’d never see her again.

  “That’s it,” Mr. Miller was now saying. “Just put the gun down.”

  “Shy?” Carmen called out to him. She was still staring at Mr. Miller, but she seemed to be having second thoughts. The anger had mostly vanished from her eyes.

  “I got you!” Shy called to her.

  “That’s it,” Mr. Miller said, holding his hands up. “Two wrongs don’t make a right, do they?”

  Addie crouched down, looking exhausted, her gun still aimed at Carmen’s back.

  “It’s not in your nature,” Mr. Miller told Carmen, looking relieved. But Shy thought he detected something else on the man’s face, too. The beginnings of a sly grin. “You’ve never killed anyone, sweetheart.”

  “But I have,” Shy blurted out, and he swung his gun toward Mr. Miller and fired two shots directly into the man’s chest.

  The crowd of onlookers gasped.

  Addie screamed at the top of her lungs and turned her gun on Shy but didn’t shoot.

  Mr. Miller’s face went ghost white as he reached up toward his blood-splattered, white-collared shirt. He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out.

  Shy stood there not even breathing hard. His gun still pointed at the man, watching him die.

  61

  Shy’s Path

  Carmen picked up her rifle and took the duffel from Shy and grabbed his wrist and started pulling him away.

  When the LasoTech guy started after them, Shy turned and aimed his gun at the man’s chest. When the guy didn’t stop, Shy lowered the barrel slightly and shot him in both legs instead, watched him collapse to the ground writhing in pain.

  “Let’s go, let’s go!” Carmen shouted, yanking Shy’s arm again.

  He turned to Addie, who was still aiming her gun at him. When he saw she was trembling, with tears streaming down her face, his heart broke for her. She dropped the gun and moved toward her dad, kneeling down and trying to lift his body into her arms.

  As much as it hurt Shy to hurt Addie, he didn’t feel an ounce of emotion about anything else as he and Carmen sprinted back through the tents, toward the remaining bus. There was no sense of revenge, like he’d once imagined. And no remorse. No fear. He felt nothing at all. He’d simply found himself on this path, like Shoeshine once told him, and he intended to see it through.

  When they neared the bus, Shy spotted another LasoTech guy sprinting down the road toward them. The man stopped and fired at Shy and Carmen, the bullet sparking off the cement to the right of them.

  A small crowd that had gathered around the bus quickly dispersed in a great commotion.

  Shy pulled Carmen behind the tent where the doctors had been administering shots. He peeked his head out, and the guy fired a second time, shooting wide.

  “I’ll cover you!” Shy shouted at Carmen. “Run to one of those motor homes, and I’ll catch up!”

  Carmen stared at him.

  “Go!” he said.

  The second she took off running, Shy ducked out from behind the tent and fired three consecutive shots in the LasoTech guy’s direction. The man dove into an SUV. Shy pulled the trigger again, but the gun clicked like it was out of bullets, so he dropped it and took off after Carmen.

  As Shy caught up with her, the SUV suddenly screeched out onto the freeway. Shy turned and saw it bearing down on them. Two men inside. Even if he and Carmen went off the freeway and booked it toward the closest motor home, they’d never make it. They were too far away.

  He looked at her and they both slowed down.

  Then, without a word, they stopped and turned to face the oncoming vehicle together, Carmen raising her rifle, Shy gripping the duffel and swallowing.

  They’d almost made it, he told himself.

  There were no regrets.

  As the SUV bore down on them, Shy spotted something coming up behind it.

  A motorcycle.

  Metallic gray.

  Just as the passenger in the SUV leaned out his window, aiming a gun at Shy and Carmen, the guy on the bike fired several rounds at the truck, puncturing its two back tires and shattering the rear windshield.

  The SUV swerved out of control and skidded to a stop in front of an abandoned Volkswagen van. The two LasoTech guys hopped out and started firing at the guy on the motorcycle, who lost control and fell off his bike. Both the man and his motorcycle went skidding across the freeway.

  Carmen grabbed Shy by the arm and they took off again.

  As they raced down the freeway, Shy looked over his shoulder. He saw the guy scrambling over to his bike for cover, saw him take aim and begin firing at the LasoTech guys again.

  Shy spun back around, sucking in breaths as he continued running alongside Carmen, toward the scattered motor homes.

  62

  Final Days in the Desert

  Shy and Carmen sat next to each other on a cushionless couch, still catching their breath, eyeing an older white woman with a buzz cut as she limped around a pile of dusty books and shoe boxes carrying two glasses of ice water. As soon as Shy got ahold of his he put the rim to his lips and started guzzling so fast he had a serious case of brain freeze. It didn’t slow him down. He emptied his glass in seconds, then set it down and studied the inside of the motor home.

  The place was trashed. Random papers and magazines everywhere, rolled-up rugs, dirty dishes and pizza boxes stacked to the ceiling. A couple cats were asleep against each other on a dusty treadmill. Three other cats were curled up on a partially folded beige blanket that was caked with cat hair.

  The old woman was one of those hoarder people.

  Not that he was judging.

  She’d saved his and Carmen’s asses after the shoot-out. They had tried knocking on six or seven motor home doors before hers. No one answered, even though Shy saw a few people peering out at them through their blinds. But this old lady didn’t even wait for a knock. She saw them coming and flung open her door and waved them inside. Not five minutes later, while the woman was tending to the gash on the side of Carmen’s face, Shy peeked through her old-people curtains and spotted the man on the gray motorcycle coasting down the street, his helmet swiveling back and forth as he looked for them.

  Carmen finally finished her water, too, and set her empty glass on the newspaper-covered table, next to Shy’s.

  “Refill?” the woman asked.

  Shy shook his head. “No, thanks, ma’am.”

  “We appreciate what you just did for us,” Carmen said, touching the skin around her newly applied bandage.

  The old woman waved her off, like it was nothing. “So what exactly happened back there? I heard all the commotion. And the gunshots. Did it have anything to do with those weirdos running the buses?”

  Shy started to answer, but the woman held up a hand to cut him off. “You know what? It’s none of my business. I’m just an old widow living out my last few days in the desert. The less I know, the better.”

  Shy glanced up at the old-style framed pictures hanging on the wall by the door. In one, the woman was standing beside a heavyset old man in a cowboy hat. He pointed at it. “Was that your husband?” he asked, figuring it was best to take his mind off things for now.

/>   “Yep. Two weeks after that picture was taken, he kicked the bucket.”

  “Oh,” Shy said, taken aback. He glanced at Carmen. “Sorry for your loss, ma’am.”

  “Don’t be,” the woman said matter-of-factly. “He lived a long, long life. Too long, if you ask some people.”

  Shy heard a helicopter passing over the motor home. LasoTech was already out looking for them. He was sure of it. He had the urge to peek through the window again, but something told him to stay put this time, to be patient.

  “Here’s a better question,” the old woman said. “Where are you two going from here? I mean, you’re welcome to stay awhile, if that’s what you need, but something tells me you’re on the move.”

  “We’re heading east,” Carmen said.

  “Lemme guess,” the woman said. “The Avondale border?”

  Shy and Carmen both nodded.

  The old woman sucked her teeth. “It’s a long walk, I’m afraid. About another hundred or so miles.”

  Carmen looked at Shy. To his surprise, her eyes were droopy, like she was fighting sleep. But extreme stress could do that to you, he was learning. Push you off to la-la land only seconds after a gunfight.

  “Follow me,” the woman said, standing up. “I want to show you something.” She limped around the empty birdcage sitting on the floor and headed toward the hall.

  Shy nudged Carmen. “What are the chances she’s got a wood chipper in there?”

  “Shut up, Sancho. She’s nice.” Carmen got up from the cushionless couch and followed the woman. Shy glanced at the curtains again. Then he got up, too.

  A few seconds later, all three of them were standing in front of a pristine dirt bike. Shy was beyond confused. The motor home was in complete disarray, yet the motorcycle was spotless.

  “Either of you know how to ride a dirt bike?” the woman asked.

  “I do,” Shy said.

  “You do?” Carmen asked.

  Shy nodded. At least, he thought he remembered the CliffsNotes tutorial his old man had given him at the Sony lots.

  “Well, I want you to take this with you to Avondale,” the woman said. “Put it to good use.”