In all the chaos, I hadn’t even noticed Jordyn. She had squeezed herself tightly in a corner of the bed, and her hair hung tangled in her face, stuck to her cheeks with sweat. A white shirt that she hadn’t been wearing earlier lay in pieces on her shoulders. The biggest piece swept around her torso to barely cover her middle. I couldn’t tell if the blood on her feet was hers or someone else’s. She covered her face with her hands. I wanted to go over and hug her, to take her away from that place, but I froze.
When Mom finally saw me, she grabbed my arm tightly and rushed me out of the trailer. Something freezing cold fell over my eyes and I realized it was her hand. It seemed a little too late to try to shield me at that point, but I didn’t argue. We ran past the other members of the camp. I could only guess what they were thinking. She guided me toward the van, apologizing the whole way.
• • •
When my dad was around, my mom’s favorite two words were “I’m sorry.” She threw them around like sugar, like sprinkling them on any situation would make it go away, even if something wasn’t her fault.
But lately, those words seemed to drift out of her vocabulary—sometimes a good thing, sometimes not. The last time I heard my mom apologize for something that wasn’t her fault was when my dad left. He had told me once that she did the same thing when my brother died, but she’d stopped apologizing the day she wrote the bill.
Something to know about my mother: The old saying that moms have eyes on the back of their heads doesn’t apply to her. I could move silently around the house undetected, no problem. I had been able to sit comfortably around corners, in hallways, and behind doors to eavesdrop pretty much since I was old enough to figure out how useful it was. Of course, there were some conversations I wished I hadn’t heard.
She begged Dad not to go. “Please! You can’t leave us! I’m sorry! But I have to do this for Aidan!”
Dad threw his hands in the air. “You don’t have to do anything! Aidan’s gone! And there’s nothing you can do about it. But you’d rather run around giving speeches and pissing around in politics than stay here and take care of your family that’s still alive! Your and Gray’s bill got passed. It’s supposed to be over now!”
Mom’s eyes widened in exasperation. “Nathan, he asked ME to stay on. The President. The man that got the bill named after your son passed into law wants me to stay on his staff. How the hell am I supposed to say no?”
Dad slammed his fist into the wall and the framed paintings shook against it. “Come on, Claire, be serious! You’re a glorified mascot now!” He scoffed at her, disgust in his voice. “You don’t have any more power than those guys in the bear and duck costumes. You might as well start doing cartwheels and demonstrating the wave!”
“That’s not true! I have to see this through. For Aidan.”
“Aidan is dead. He’s in the ground. And now you’re going to go be a figurehead that Gray can point to when he needs to and go, ‘Look, I care about middle America and family values. Look at the pretty blonde woman with a dead kid.’” He brought his face up close to hers, and I imagined she could feel the spit from his words against her face. “You’re not going to be in charge of anything. I mean, you aren’t even a writer anymore. They tell you what you can and can’t say! And if you think you’re going to have any influence on what happens with your precious bill from here on out, you’re deluding yourself.”
Mom stepped back. “How can you be so cold?”
Dad opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He just stared at her. After the longest seconds of my life passed by, he finally spoke. “You’re the one who did this. You’re the one who’s making me leave. Just know that.” The door slammed behind him.
Mom collapsed in a heap on the floor. At the risk of getting in trouble for listening, I ran down the stairs and cried with her. At that moment, her tears turned off. She looked at me and told me we were going to get through it. And instead of crying for herself, she held me instead.
• • •
Dad being a jerk wasn’t exactly a revelation for either of us. This one time, Mom, Dad, and I were sitting in the kitchen. I had a spoonful of cheerios in my hand, and Mom was on her way out the door. Dad sat across from me. She leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. I smiled and assured her my homework would be done by the time she got back. She leaned over to give Dad a kiss too, but he moved out of the way. “Where are you going now?”
Her cheeks flushed, and the woman who stood so proud ten seconds earlier slouched over and her eyes met the floor. “It’s a fundraiser. I’m giving a speech at the Military Appreciation Night.”
Dad smiled menacingly, like he hoped what he was about to say would hurt more if he sucked her in with a smile first. “Well, I’m certainly glad that our son’s death has given you such a vast opportunity to make new friends and play dress-up. Oh, and of course to spend time with that Bo. Tell me, Claire, have you slept with him yet?”
Mom’s eyes welled up. My hand took on a life of its own and I threw a spoonful of cheerios at my dad, a stream of milk flailing wildly across the table. “Don’t talk to her like that! Stop it!”
Dad threw himself out of his chair and flew over to me, hovering over me with frozen eyes and a raised hand. I shut my own eyes tight and braced myself.
When nothing came, I opened them. He still hovered over me. “Go to your room. Now.” I slowly got up, glancing over at my mom. The color was gone from her cheeks and she stood silently. As I started walking upstairs, she followed.
She missed that fundraiser.
• • •
Months after the divorce, I saw something that I had never seen before—a man treating my mother with respect. I started walking into the kitchen one afternoon but turned right back around before they saw me. On my way to the fridge to grab some grape juice, I accidentally walked right into seeing my mom pull away from Bo’s kiss. I ducked around the corner and listened.
Nothing.
After a couple minutes, I peeked around the corner to see what the hold-up was. They were just staring at each other.
Finally Mom spoke. “You know, you’re wasting your time with me.”
Bo smiled, gently playing with a curl of my mom’s hair. “I’d waste my time with you any day.” He grabbed her hand and guided her to the kitchen table, where they both sat down.
Tears streamed down her face. I would never get used to the sight of my mother crying, no matter how many times I had seen it since my dad left. Seeing someone you love cry isn’t something you’re supposed to get used to anyway.
“I’m serious, Bo. You don’t want to deal with me. I’m chock full of issues. Big issues. Not allergies or phobias or insecurity kinds of issues. Real damage.”
He laughed. “Don’t you think I know that?” He leaned forward. “I want you exactly as you are. Damage and all. Even allergies.”
Then Mom started laughing too, but crying at the same time.
“I just don’t think I’ll ever be whole again.” She turned away, staring out the window at the garden she and Dad planted together. She looked down at her hand, as if a part of her still expected to see her wedding ring resting on her finger. “You know, forever is supposed to mean forever. Not forever until the hard stuff eats away at you. Not forever until you just can’t be bothered anymore. Forever. ‘Til death do us part and all that.” She paused. “I guess Nathan missed that part.”
Bo got up from his chair and knelt in front of her. “I want to show you something.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He opened it up and handed something to my mom, then set the wallet on the table. It was only when she held up what he had handed her at just the right angle that I saw it was a photo.
“Who is this?”
“My wife.”
Mom leaned back in surprise. I was pretty shocked myself. Before that day, Bo had never mentioned ever being married.
“She died, many years ago. We were inseparable. Some people get married just because they think it’s
the next step to take, but not us. We truly never wanted to be away from each other. She was the only person that ever really mattered to me. Got hit by a drunk driver.” He took the picture and tucked it safely back in his wallet. “So you see? I know something about loss. I’ve got my own damage. See this?” He held up a small gold cross that hung around his neck. The design struck me as slightly feminine. I always noticed it was there but had never asked about it. “This was hers. I wear it with me every minute of every day. Kind of a double-edged sword because it always reminds me that she’s with me, but not in the way that I want. Sometimes knowing she’s always here in the figurative sense isn’t good enough.” He pulled Mom into a hug. “It never goes away. The hurt. I know that. But somehow, you learn to make room for it. I’ll help you figure it out. You just have to let me.”
I smiled to myself, gave Bo a silent thumbs up, and tiptoed back up to my room.
When I came back downstairs, Mom’s tears had dried. She sat at the table looking at a magazine while Bo cooked something in a red sauce on the stove. It bubbled steadily and I practically stuck my nose in the meal while trying to inhale the rich aroma. Seeing someone comfort Mom for a change made me wrap my arms around Bo and hug him tight. “Thank you.”
Bo smiled. “I thought you were skipping dinner tonight. Not a big fan of noodles.”
“I know.”
• • •
We climbed in the back of the van, and I hugged my knees to my chest and buried my face against them, hoping that the darkness would erase the image of three dead men and Jordyn’s shaking body. I closed my eyes, but I still saw the shine of Cain’s knife.
Mom played with my hair. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you had followed us. You should not have seen that.”
“Mom, is Jordyn okay?”
Mom smiled. “You never fail to impress me, Riley. You just saw something terrible, and you’re asking how someone else is doing.” She kissed me on the forehead. “We’ll check on her in a little while, okay? Let’s just stay right here for now.”
I nodded and leaned against my mother. Her perfume flooded my nose and the familiar vanilla-and-roses scent gave me comfort. She had been wearing it since I was very little, back when my brother was alive and the most dramatic part of my day was learning how to share my dolls with my friends. I inhaled it over and over again as we sat silently, listening to the muffled voices from the camp outside.
In a few minutes, Bo knocked on the van door. A part of me wanted to tell him to just leave us alone, in our little cocoon away from the world. We could have just stayed there forever, away from the blood and the sex and the death.
But instead we opened the door. Even though everyone from the camp was occupied with discussing the scene in Carl’s trailer, he spoke in a whisper. “We don’t have time to argue about this. No one says a word about what just happened. We keep our eyes on each other. Cain is the only way out of the country. Only talk to him when we need to. Got it?”
Mom nodded.
“Is Jordyn okay?” I asked.
He nodded, but looked at Mom instead of me.
We rounded the corner and saw Cain talking to the man I had asked about the food earlier in the evening. Jordyn was by his side. They were flanked by a sea of other people from the camp. Everyone was quiet except for Cain and the man. Bo kept me and Mom behind him.
“We are very sorry that this happened to your girl, Cain. Please take the new vehicle as promised… Just be on your way.”
Cain nodded. As he calmly walked toward us, all the others moved instantly out of his way. No one said goodbye.
When he reached us, he kept his arm around Jordyn and threw the other around my mom. She stiffened. “We have to move. Now.” He kept his face still, but his pace quickened. Bo moved behind us.
The new vehicle was waiting at the other end of the camp. A good thing because it put more distance between us and the mercenaries. It sat low to the ground and had one coat of black primer covering it. We opened the door and realized it had the same amount of seats as a mini-van, except it could go much faster. I hoped we would never have to use the extra speed.
I sat in the back with Jordyn, as far away from Cain as I could get. It wasn’t that I wanted to distance myself because I was afraid. I wasn’t. I didn’t just see him as the guy who killed people right in front of my eyes. I also saw the person who was risking his life to save us, the person who told me the truth no matter how much I didn’t want to know, and the person who somehow understood when I needed a teddy bear more than anything in the world.
But I should have been scared…to pieces. And the fact that I was more fascinated with him than afraid was something I wasn’t prepared to deal with. Not yet. Not until I could talk to him without Mom hovering over my shoulder.
Mom protested when I didn’t sit closer to her, but I said it was okay and she’d be right in front of me.
Jordyn just stared out the window, leaning against the side of the car. She hadn’t even had time to change out of the torn shirt. The blood on it had dried, but the crusty brown remnants still clung to the fabric. I took off my jacket and set it in her lap. Her lips curled into a smile ever so slightly and she swung the jacket around her shoulders. Her face winced at the effort so I helped her stick her arms through. “Thank you.”
I thought distracting her with conversation might help her forget about how much pain she was in. “So, I never heard how you and Cain met.”
Jordyn sat up as straight as her weak body could. I winced in sympathy as she slowly peeled herself off the side of the car and sat upright. “I looked a lot like I do today the day he found me. I had barely been in the life for a week. I thought I had every single thing figured out…dialed in. Just when I started to think I was really hot shit, a client followed me outside a motel for a second round that he didn’t plan on paying for. I fought him off as best I could, but when I felt my skull knock against the motel wall, I figured it was all over. My world turned black, but right as I closed my eyes, I saw the blurry shadow of a second man.
“When I opened my eyes, I looked down and saw myself covered in white sheets, and next to me sat the tiniest little table with a glass of water and a sandwich sitting on top of it. I still remember what kind it was. Best turkey ever. I reached up to feel my head and found a soft bandage covering half of my forehead. In the far corner of the room, there he was, guarding me.” She managed to giggle. “There was a Bible in his hands of all things. We’ve been inseparable since that day. He taught me how to use a gun, though after I learned the basics, I figured out I was better at it than him.” A pained smile swept across her face. “Even he would tell you that.”
I glanced at Cain in the rearview mirror. He nodded proudly back at me.
“And together we figured out the way to get people out of here. To help people keep their kids.”
Jordyn’s eyes were barely open by the time she finished the story. I could see the trunks of the trees as we drove but no leaves. The road seemed smoother now that we were out of the rickety old van. Jordyn quickly fell asleep next to me. Or maybe she had just passed out. Either way, after what she just went through, I wouldn’t want to be conscious either.
• • •
“I need to use the bathroom,” Bo whispered. None of us were thrilled with the idea of pulling off the road, but we were a good ten miles from the camp, so we did anyway.
“Make it fast,” Cain said, taking guard outside. Mom told me to stay in the car and lock the door, keeping a barrier between me and Cain while she followed Bo to the bathroom. I nodded and sealed myself in. I waited ‘til she was a safe enough distance away where she couldn’t see me and I emerged from the car.
I stared at him. “You killed them.”
“Yes.” He opened the trunk and took a quick glance through our supplies, as casually as if I had accused him of going to the grocery store.
“Yes? Just like that? You aren’t going to say anything else?”
His eyes w
ere still.
“Riley, I’m sorry you saw that. You weren’t supposed to see that.” He shut the trunk. “You want to know how I’m able to do it? To kill? Without hesitation?”
I glared at him, but not in a mean way, more like in a you-better-not-pick-now-to-start-lying-to-me kind of way. “Yeah.”
He bent down so he could look me square in the eyes. “I call it going back to basics.” He sank to the ground and picked up a small twig, twirling it between his fingers. I squatted down next to him, watching the patterns of wood grain spin. “You can’t undo the decisions you make in this life. So you have to have a set of rules that you live by and make the right call every time. Hesitation is death in this world, for you or someone else.” He still made eye contact with me, but somehow I could tell he was somewhere else, like he was looking straight through me and out to the other side. “Jordyn is my family. Pure and simple. We are one and the same. If you were to cut me open, you would find her inside, and same goes for her. When one of your own is in danger, you do what needs to be done. If I have to make the choice between Jordyn being harmed and someone else, I’ll pick the stranger every time.” He put the twig down. “Tonight I was making sure it was someone else. Back to basics.”
I didn’t breathe for a moment. He made it sound so easy. And listening to his words, I could almost agree with him. Then I pictured the blood. “What happened to her?”
“She did her job. With Carl. Then two other men entered through a side door to the trailer that I didn’t even know was there. Stupid mistake. Sloppy on my part. They wanted to…”
I shuddered and turned away from him. “Stop. Okay, I get it. You don’t have to say anymore.” My hands felt sweaty, and I realized I was squeezing them together so hard that the ends of my fingers had turned white…the same way Olivia’s did the last time I saw her. As much as I didn’t want to hear any more, I had one more question. “Cain? Have you ever hesitated?”
He smiled, only slightly. “Just once.”
“What happened?”
“It turned into the first and last time I got caught.”
The Extraction List Page 5