I stiffened.
“Cakewalk,” Odin said. “Five minutes. In and out.”
We put on our wigs and masks and gloves. The black ski masks were way cooler than the red, and I loved my bandits a little for choosing them. I tried to concentrate on that.
We parked at the hooded meter and got out on the sidewalk side. Even Zeus slid over and got out that way. The less time spent out on the sidewalk the better, what with the masks. I pulled the box cutter from my pocket and cut the ropes of the parking meter hood and yanked it off. Just that made me feel weirdly badass. The open sign went dark. The lights inside went off.
I rushed in.
Thor threw me keys and I locked the door behind me.
Inside my guys were moving with military precision and shouting, and when they weren’t shouting, it was all just eerie quiet, broken by the whimpers of one woman. I wished she understood she didn’t have to worry.
Even though my guys all wore the black ski masks and identical outfits, I could tell them apart anywhere. Zeus was already up on the counter with his machine gun in hand, herding the tellers out onto the floor. “We know all! We see everything!” he yelled. “Try something and you die!” He seemed so scary. And the bullet sash really did complete the kilt outfit, I thought vaguely.
The manager was lying in the middle of the floor with a small handful of customers.
Everything broke into mayhem, suddenly. Odin had grabbed a lamp off a desk, and with a roar, like a crazed Scottish barbarian or something, he threw it against the wall. It shattered. Somebody screamed. “Throw your phones out here, now!” Odin yelled. “Hey!” The next thing I knew, Odin had his sidearm out—a gun with a silencer. He shot at a man. The man yelped and jerked his arm toward his side. Something black and small exploded into pieces, skittering across the floor.
I gasped.
“Anyone else want to make a call? You’ll lose the phone and a hand!”
He’d shot the phone. Okay.
Odin turned the gun upward and shot the light, which exploded, showering glass everywhere. You could feel the terror flowing now.
I scanned the street. Calm, I told myself. He only shot a phone and a light.
Odin made the people stretch out on their bellies. Then he strolled confidently back to join Zeus, leaving Thor in charge.
When I looked over at Thor, he nodded. Everything cool. I nodded back, keeping my eyes out front.
That’s when the trouble started. One of the customers, a middle-aged man, couldn’t breathe. He was on his side, gasping.
“I have to help him,” Thor said.
I looked at him with wide eyes. He was supposed to keep the people in order. Zeus and Odin would kill him if he left his role.
“Fuck me, I can’t just stand here.”
“I know, but—”
“I have to help him.” He handed me the machine gun. “Hold the crowd.”
I stiffened. Hold the crowd?
Still in his mask, Thor went to the man and kneeled next to him, loosening the guy’s tie. I heard Thor tell the man he was a doctor. He asked about his symptoms. He was no longer using his bank robber voice.
“Call the paramedics, Ice,” Thor called.
“What?” I said.
“Just do it.”
I pulled out my phone and called 911, reported we needed paramedics at the bank. A breathing thing. When the 911 operator asked more questions I just hung up. Zeus and Odin came out with the manager, loaded down with bags. “What’s going on?”
“Respiratory distress,” Thor said. “Paramedics on the way.”
“What?” Odin barked.
“Okay. We have to leave now,” Zeus said.
But Thor was pumping on the guy’s chest. “I can’t,” he said.
“Situation here,” Zeus said. I was shocked at his calm. “Does anybody else here have medical training?” Zeus asked.
Nobody had any.
“We have to go,” Odin said.
“I can’t leave him,” Thor said. The man was breathing again, but he seemed fucked up. He needed Thor.
“Nobody else? No medical training?” Zeus barked.
One of the tellers raised his hand. “There’s a nurse practitioner at Valu-Marque. There’s a Zip Clinic there.”
“Can a nurse practitioner take over for you, Thor?” Zeus asked. “Would that be acceptable to you?”
“Yup,” Thor said. “A nurse practitioner can do this for him.”
Zeus strolled up to me. Took my machine gun. “Go get the nurse, Ice.”
“I have to go out there? By myself? What if…what if…” Doomsday scenarios began to crowd my mind.
Zeus lowered his voice. “If we have to make a hot exit, you get lost and call us. Your safe word means trouble. That’s our alert.” He looked at me levelly, stood there like a mountain of strength and calm. “Nobody knows we’re here, and we can handle paramedics. You’ll do this and we leave.”
“I just ask the nurse to uh…come over here…”
“You need to go in there with a little bit of Odin in you, got it?” he continued. “A little bit Odin and a little bit you. Hear me?” Zeus’s gravity centered me. I knew he thought I could do it.
I saw him anew just then, as the gifted commander he’d once been.
A little bit Odin. Meaning a little bit scary-bossy. I shoved my gun in my waistband, covered it with my vest and went out, pulling off my mask. I had a blond, long-haired wig and a beauty mark; it would have to be disguise enough. I ran across the street and slowed when I hit the parking lot. Blood racing, I strolled through the doors.
The environment of the supermarket felt eerily everyday-ish. Lights. Music. A voice on the loudspeaker rambled about cinnamon bread on sale. Carts’ wheels squealed. The Zip Clinic was right up front.
I walked over. A younger woman was sitting on a stool at the counter. “I’m next,” she said.
“Medical emergency.” I walked in.
Inside, a fifty-something woman in a white jacket with short, reddish hair and dangly earrings stood up from a chair. “You can’t just come in here.” The nurse. The man in the other chair looked up at me, outraged.
“Medical emergency,” I said.
“This isn’t the ER,” the nurse said.
I felt wild. Desperate. I yanked the man up from the chair. “You have to let me talk to her! You just have to, okay?” He looked bewildered as I pushed him out the door. I think it was my intensity that made him go along with me. Or maybe the crazy wig.
Then I closed the door, took out my gun, and pointed it at her with a shaking hand.
The woman’s jaw dropped.
A little bit Odin, I thought.
“You can have anything,” she said.
“There’s a bank customer in respiratory distress across the street. You come across the street and deal with him.”
“What?” She just stared at the gun. “I can’t just…”
“Get your stuff, or I shoot!” I looked for something to break. But would that make an alarming sound for the people outside? I swiped a folder off the desk and papers slid across the floor. “Now!”
She looked frozen.
“You want to be on the ten o’clock news for being dead or for being a hero? ‘Cause that’s your choice now. Get your shit for respiratory distress.” I grabbed a bag and put it over my gun. “Now!”
She sprung into action, grabbing a large Tupperware box.
“Go. Eyes forward,” I said in the most growly voice I could muster. “And if you signal anyone, I’ll see it. I see all! So act natural.”
I opened the door.
“Be right back,” she chirped to the man and the woman waiting. We ran out as a pair, down the parking lot, across the street. I felt like a total asshole.
The bank was still dark. I flung open the bank door and she quickly went to the man’s side. Thor turned to her and they started talking. She pulled something out of her box. They were working together now.
Siren
s.
Was this it? My heart pounded.
“Thor,” Zeus said.
The sirens grew louder.
“One sec.” Thor ripped open a pack as the nurse took over the pumping. I couldn’t see what they were doing.
“No more time, Thor,” Zeus said.
My heart pounded. Everything seemed to move in slow motion.
Thor stood. We walked out of the bank slowly. The ambulance was down at the end of the street. There were more sirens now.
“Crap. Cops,” Zeus said, pulling off his mask. We all followed suit, pulling off our masks. “Easy, everyone. In calmly.”
We opened the doors and slid in with our bags, Thor and me in the back, Zeus and Odin in front.
“Hurry!” I said.
“It’s okay, we’re not involved,” Zeus said. “Down, everyone.”
Thor and I huddled down. My pulse drummed in my ears.
Zeus started up the engine and pulled out just as the windows lit up red. I couldn’t believe how slowly he was pulling out and driving.
A siren sound came from the other way.
“Fuck,” Zeus said.
“We okay?” Thor asked.
“Not yet,” Zeus said.
“I couldn’t leave him,” Thor grated. He sounded so strong about it. He couldn’t leave the man.
I wondered if he would be in trouble now. He had nearly messed up our escape. He stared at the seatback. He looked determined and also, strong. Resolute.
And strangely, calmer. This was who he was, I realized.
“I know. You had to help him,” Zeus said simply. “I understand.”
Thor nodded.
“Steady,” Odin said. The sirens sounded louder, and the windows seemed a brighter red. I thought about a hot exit, which meant exactly what you might imagine—going out with guns blazing. It was definitely cooler to talk about a hot exit while you were lounging in your hotel suite eating bon-bons than when you were riding in an SUV loaded with guns and money, with cops prowling the streets around you.
I reached out for Thor’s hand and he took it. We huddled down there for a tense five minutes as the vehicle crawled through the streets. It seemed like twenty. We turned, and turned again.
“Unmarked car on our tail,” Zeus growled.
Thor muttered a curse under his breath. I closed my eyes.
“Odin, can you do something with the traffic lights?” he asked.
“Not from here. I’m plotting a route,” Odin said.
The sirens were sounding fainter.
“This guy tailing us, he’s suspicious,” Zeus said. “Getting more so. Really looking at us.”
“Just seeing what we’ll do,” Odin said from his crouched position in the front. “It’s ours to lose.”
“He’s going to pull us over,” Zeus said. “He sees these kilts and we’re done.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Make a U-turn at the next light,” Odin said. “If he follows, we run, and I’ve got a route.”
I felt queasy as the hulking vehicle swung around.
“Is he following?” Odin asked.
“Yup,” Zeus said.
Crap. My blood raced. Was this it?
“Step on it,” Odin said. “You’ll take a sharp left on Oak.”
“Wait,” Zeus said.
“Do it,” Odin barked.
“He put on his signal.”
“Don’t chance it,” Odin warned. “It could be a fake-out. He wants us past Oak.”
I held my breath. The seconds stretched.
“Zeus,” Odin warned.
“He’s turning,” Zeus said.
“You sure?” Odin asked.
“Yes!” Zeus hissed out a breath. “We’re good.”
I heaved out a sigh of relief.
We had to stay down for a long time after, but when Zeus finally gave up the a-okay to sit up, I threw myself at Thor and hugged him. “We’re okay,” I said.
He held me tight, pressed his face onto my shoulder. “We’re okay,” he whispered.
“We can’t take you anywhere, can we, Thor?” Zeus joked from the front. But it was one of those tiny-bit-of-truth jokes.
“He would’ve died,” Thor said.
“I know,” Zeus said. “Thor, we’re all stuck in this thing, and I know you’ve felt restless, like this isn’t the life you set out for yourself.” He eyed Thor in the rearview mirror and lowered his voice like he did when he was talking really seriously. “But you know what? There are no rules to what we have to be. You had to save that guy. It was the most important thing to you right then. So you know what? It was the most important goddamn thing to me, too, then.”
Thor nodded, taking it in.
“The god pack should never be a prison or an authority,” Zeus said. “We’re a creative fire supporting each other to be whatever the fuck.”
Odin grunted in assent. “Yeah, we’re a creative fucking-g foment.”
“Yeah. A creative foment. Okay?” Zeus said.
“I got you,” Thor said.
“And you know what?” Zeus asked. “We’re going to find some more doctoring opportunities for you and that’s final,” Zeus said. “And I don’t mean patching bullet wounds for friends. Real doctor stuff.”
“I don’t see how,” Thor said. “I don’t have privileges anywhere.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Zeus barked. “We’re getting you doctoring again, got it?”
“Thank you,” Thor said. “Thank you,” He seemed…calmer, somehow. Settled. I was stunned. This was what he’d had to do, I realized. To express himself as a doctor.
“It wasn’t fair, I know that,” Thor said.
“It’s not about fair,” Odin said. “It’s about family.”
Shivers rained over me. Not about fair, but about family. Total acceptance. Maybe it was my highly emotional state, but tears stung my eyes. I thought about the reckless joyride Thor took me on during those early days, and wanting to shoot down the dolphin, and getting Zeus riled at the massage place. Pushing against the confines of the group. But now here was Zeus and Odin, letting him know there were no confines.
I looked over at Thor. I don’t know how Zeus thought he could get him doctoring again, but together, these guys could do anything,.
I leaned up and half hugged Zeus—as much as you could from the back seat while a guy was driving, anyway.
He ruffled my hair, like it was all so casual, but the tenderness in his eyes tore a hole in my heart.
I moved to Odin, clutching as much of his chest as I could reach, and then I kissed his shoulder.
“Goddess,” he said, like it was a little bit unnecessary, but he rested his arm over mine and squeezed me back hard, like he needed it as much as I did. We were okay. We were together.
Zeus said, “Ode, tell me every fucking camera in that place was off, or else Ice is everywhere on TV tonight.”
I’d almost forgotten. I had gone into that supermarket with my mask off.
“I took the cameras offline, too,” Odin said. “Unless the supermarket has them. Which they may. Doubt they’re any good.”
“Yikes,” I said.
“So, is the guy gonna be okay?” Odin asked.
“I think so,” Thor said. “He was stabilized. That nurse knew her shit. I know I put us in danger.”
“You needed to help him. We needed you to do that,” Zeus said. “Case closed. And no more jobs in kilts.”
Odin was rooting through one of the bags. He pulled out a bundle of money. “Die packs,” he mumbled, tossing it out the window.
“That was—” I put my hand over my thundering heart. “Oh my god.”
Odin smirked. “Anybody can rob a bank, as long as the robbery runs smoothly. What sets us apart is that we can handle the complications. And if it had come to a hot exit, we would’ve handled that, because we have the tactical advantage in every way.”
I smiled, loving Odin and his bank robbing prowess. They all seemed to be looking at me,
waiting for me to add something. I sat back and crossed my legs. “The Giraffes obviously don’t know shit about us. Nobody’s here’s going down.”
“Hell no,” Zeus said.
I chuckled. “And when they see we knocked over a bank in kilts they are going to shit.”
“So is ZOX,” Odin said. “You wish we were dead, motherfuckers. That goes on the tattoo.”
I groaned.
“Let’s do it,” Zeus said.
“Where to, now?” I asked. I was feeling starved and wired and exhausted, and even a little horny. The adrenaline rush.
“Home, goddess,” Thor said. “Home.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
My bandits’ hideout was a mod glass and stone building nestled into a hill behind a thick cover of trees. In spots between the branches you could some more homes and the ocean beyond. The interior was full of colorful furniture, modern art, and books. White paper lanterns hung from the ceiling and a strip of flame burned behind blue glass. I’d never seen such a fireplace, such a home. It was more whimsical than I’d imagined, too. And comfortable. Odin had done the design, it turned out.
They showed me my room. It was bright and comfortable, and you could see the ocean through the trees. “You go ahead and make it yours however you want,” Zeus said. “That was a rich haul. You’ll see when we split it.”
“It’ll definitely need a Paris Hilton sheep’s wool comforter,” I said.
“We’ll all get one.” Odin looped an arm over my shoulder. “Hungry?”
“Very,” I said.
Two hours later, we were all in our robes, finishing up our breakfast on the porch, which was kind of like eating in a tree house. The porch overlooked a hillside of trees and houses, sloping down to the ocean, which was wild with whitecaps under a dark and threatening sky.
The supermarket didn’t have a camera, as we discovered on the news sites, but there was a sketch of me out there, complete with wig and the beauty mark. Even my sisters wouldn’t recognize me. There were sketches out of Thor, too. Odin had enlarged our sketches and printed them off and colored them in, like Andy Warhol art. Zeus wanted to frame them and hang them in the living room.
Now Odin sketched in a small notebook. He was making plans for an elaborate addition to our tattoo with our new motto, ‘You WISH we were dead, motherfuckers.’ Angels and scrolls would be involved.
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