by Sam Sisavath
But she didn’t, because the woman took out a phone. It was a curiously old model, made of cheap soft black plastic with a black and white screen, the kind you’d have to go out of your way to buy these days because they weren’t readily available anymore.
“Excuse me while I make a call,” the woman said.
“Sure,” Quinn said. “Do what you gotta do.”
“I always do.”
Quinn turned away from the woman and looked out the window, but it wasn’t the empty sidewalks that she kept her eyes on. Instead, she watched the woman’s reflection in the dirty glass as she pressed buttons on the candy bar-shaped phone, then looked forward, one hand on the headrest of the seat in front of them while she waited for the call to connect.
After a few seconds, the woman said into the phone, “Hey, it’s me.” A brief pause, then, “Who else would it be?”
Quinn glanced around the bus at the other occupants—two teenagers in a seat three rows down, an old man with a bag of groceries in the middle, and a mother and son sitting directly behind the driver. People desperate to get home and avoiding eye contact or conversations with those around them. Quinn knew exactly how they felt.
The only sounds came from the bus’s wheels grinding against the road and the woman sitting next to her talking idly into her phone. It was just as lifeless outside her window—blank sidewalks and dark apartment windows. Stores were already closing up, leaving just the occasional businesses and corner stores to light up the darkness with their neon signs.
“Oh yeah?” the woman was saying into the phone. “How many?” She listened for a moment, then, “Well, that’s not good.” Another beat. “All right, see you in a bit, then. Save me some, unlike last time. Yeah, yeah.”
The woman turned the phone off and put it away.
“Bad news?” Quinn asked.
“Depends on how you look at it,” the woman said. She turned around and smiled at Quinn, and Quinn thought, Jesus, if I were a guy… “You don’t recognize me, do you?”
Quinn stared at the woman. “Recognize you? I’ve never seen you before.”
“I meant my voice.”
“Your voice?”
The woman sighed. “Okay, now you’re hurting my feelings.”
“I don’t know you, lady.”
The woman looked down at Quinn’s waist, as if she could see the gun in Quinn’s hand behind the jacket. “You’re not going to shoot me, are you?”
Quinn risked a quick glance at the rest of the bus a second time—the couple in front of them, the old man on the other side of the aisle, and the mother and son. The couple had their faces buried in their phones, as did the boy and his mom, and the old man stared forward at an ad featuring a half-naked model plastered over the opposite wall of the bus as if hypnotized by her curves.
She returned her full attention to the woman, who was still watching her.
“You know who I am,” Quinn said, lowering her voice noticeably, even as her grip tightened even further around the Glock and her forefinger slipped into the trigger guard.
“You look better as a blonde,” the woman said.
“That seems to be the consensus.”
“Who chopped off your locks? That’s a crime against humanity.”
“Me and a pair of cheap plastic scissors in a gas station bathroom.”
“Yikes.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m called Xiao.”
“What’s it mean?”
“What?”
“Xiao?”
“It’s my name.”
“You said you were called Xiao.”
“Ah. The first slip-up. And I was doing so well too, blending into my environment. That’s usually my strong suit, you know. You might even call it a super power. Drop me on Mars and watch me become a Martian.”
Quinn squinted at her. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a Euro thing. People are ‘called’ their names over there, whereas they’re ‘named’ here.”
“What do you want?”
“I’ve just been informed that there’s a caravan of law-enforcement personnel up ahead in about ten blocks—well, nine now. Local authority and those of the federal persuasion.”
Quinn snapped a quick look out the bus’s front windshield but didn’t see anything that even looked remotely close to being a checkpoint or red and blue police lights.
“Eight blocks and counting,” the woman named Xiao said. “You’re running out of blocks, Quinn. May I call you Quinn?”
“No,” Quinn said, and took the gun out and placed it in her lap with the muzzle pointed at the woman seated next to her.
Too close. She’s sitting way too close.
Xiao looked down at the weapon, then back up at her. “You know, I’m still a little hurt you don’t recognize me.”
Quinn narrowed her eyes, but it didn’t matter how long she stared; she didn’t know the face. She had never seen it before, because she would have remembered. You didn’t forget a face like that.
“I don’t know you,” Quinn said.
Xiao sighed. “Hurt feelings aside, you’re down to seven blocks, Quinn. You really want to shoot your way through a barricade of local cops and federal agents just doing their jobs? I’m pretty sure none of them know you’re innocent.”
“What makes you think I’m innocent?”
“Because I know the truth. I know you didn’t kill those three agents at the hospital. Oh, you probably killed the other two, but we both know you didn’t have a choice. And I know for a fact you didn’t go to your mentor’s apartment just to murder him last night.”
Quinn didn’t say anything and instead peered out of the windows around her again, searching for signs that all of this was a trap, that there was a SWAT or HRT unit waiting to storm the bus as soon as it stopped.
But there was nothing out there, just closed businesses and the occasional bright lights from a gas station or late-night store.
She looked back at the woman and flexed her fingers around the gun. Suddenly the foot or so of extra space between them seemed much closer, but Quinn was still satisfied she could pull the trigger long before the woman could reach down and grab the pistol.
Unless she’s like Ringo.
God, he was fast. How did he move so fast?
“Go on,” Quinn said.
“Go on?” Xiao said.
“You seem to know a lot. So keep going.”
“All right. We both know you’re innocent, but everyone and their momma thinks you’re guilty. Because that’s what they do. They manufacture a story and provide the evidence to back it up, and before you know it you’re climbing on and off buses and riding rings around the city until it’s pitch dark outside.”
“You’ve been watching me,” Quinn said. It wasn’t a question.
“Watching? No. Not really. You’re very good at hiding, I’ll give you that. But keeping track of? Definitely.”
“Why?”
“You’re interesting. What can I say? Plus, we were bored. Do you have any idea how boring waiting is? I hate waiting.”
Quinn faced forward again but still couldn’t see anything that even looked remotely like a trap or a police action waiting to spring. If they were out there, then they were doing a hell of a good job hiding. Of course, it didn’t make any sense at all to send Xiao in here to chat openly with her first.
This has to be a trap. What else could it be?
“You’ll want to get off this lurching ancient deathtrap well before we hit the roadblock up ahead,” Xiao was saying. “Of course, that’s what I would do, but what do I know?”
Quinn looked back at her. “Who are you?”
“Would you believe a friend?”
“No. I have precious few of those these days.”
Good one, she thought. “Precious few?” Try none.
“True enough,” Xiao said. “But if I can’t convince you, maybe someone else can,” she said, and began reaching into her jac
ket pocket.
Quinn lifted the Glock off her lap, forefinger tightening around the trigger.
Xiao stopped mid reach. “Relax.”
“Don’t tell me to relax.”
“Okay, don’t relax. But I’m just getting my phone. I’m going to call that friend I just mentioned.”
“The one that told you about the roadblock.”
“Another one.”
“How many friends do you have?”
“Not as many as I’d like. Sorta the same problem as you.”
Quinn turned her body almost completely around until she was facing Xiao, then scooted backward until her back was pressed against the cool glass of the window behind her. “Slowly.”
Xiao finished bringing the same phone out. “You’re going to have to trust someone if you want to survive this, Quinn.”
Quinn thought of Ben Foster, lying dead in his apartment hallway, and gritted her teeth. “Make your call.”
“Five blocks,” Xiao said. She pressed some numbers, then held the phone against her ear and said into it, “Is he there?” A beat, then, “Who else would I be talking about?” She rolled her eyes at Quinn, and cupping the phone with her other hand, said, “He’s such a pain in the ass.”
“Who?” Quinn asked.
“You’ll meet him later. Hopefully.” Then, back to the phone, “You’re on the pitch, big boy.”
Xiao handed the phone across the seat to Quinn.
Quinn stared at it, then at Xiao, but didn’t move to take the device.
“Oh, come on, it’s just a phone,” Xiao said. “It’s not like it’s going to blow up once you take it. Oops, did I just say that last part out loud?”
Xiao grinned, but Quinn didn’t.
The other woman put the phone back against her ear. “She won’t take it.” She listened for a moment, then held the phone out again, but this time turned it with the screen facing Quinn. “Say hi.”
Quinn stared at the black and white display, not quite sure if her mind was playing tricks on her eyes. Despite the heavy pixelation and lack of color, there was no denying the face that looked out of the phone back at her.
“You,” she whispered.
Chapter 17
“I’d appreciate it if you don’t shoot Xiao,” the man who had ruined her life said. “I told her not to get involved with you in the first place, but that’s like telling the ocean to stop being so wet. If I didn’t need her so much, I’d probably shoot her myself.”
John Porter.
John fucking Porter.
She couldn’t tell where he was talking to her from, and the phone’s screen was so devoid of any clarity that the background could have been white wallpaper or gray concrete walls. He was standing inside a room of some kind, and if he wasn’t alone, then she couldn’t hear or see anyone else around him.
“How do you know I have a gun on her?” Quinn asked.
“Are we going to play that game?” Porter said. “Let’s just say I know what it’s like to be hunted. I’ve been where you are now, only a hundred times worse.”
I bet you have, asshole.
“So convince me why I shouldn’t shoot her right now, then come after you?” Quinn said.
If her threat had any effect on Xiao, the woman hid it well as she leaned against the seat in front of them, long fingers tapping nonchalantly against the headrest. She looked bored more than anything.
“Because she saved your life back at the hospital,” Porter said. “She was your guardian angel.”
Quinn glanced up from the phone in her hand and at Xiao, who winked back at her and said, “I thought you’d at least recognize my voice.”
“That was you,” Quinn said. “The sniper.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Why didn’t you just say that before?”
“What would be the fun in that?”
Quinn ground her teeth. “I almost shot you.”
“It’s been an unspectacular night anyway.”
“Ladies,” Porter said through the phone. “I believe you’re about to hit the police roadblock. You might want to get off the bus pretty soon.”
“Five more blocks,” Xiao said. “Or is that four? No, I’m pretty sure it’s five. Possibly.”
Quinn turned back to Porter. “What do you want with me?”
“Me? Nothing,” Porter said. “This is Xiao’s play, not mine. I did what I could for you at Gary’s place.”
“By warning me?”
“That, and the desk.”
“What desk?”
He might have smirked at her through the small screen. “What, you thought a piece of furniture that weighed five of you just landed at the perfect spot to shield you from the blast by accident?”
“You?”
“It was my good deed for the day. You’re welcome.”
“You were underneath a desk when we dug you out,” Ringo had said to her, back when she still thought he was a friend. “We thought you’d somehow managed to roll under it before Porter triggered the explosion.”
Quinn looked back at Xiao for confirmation.
The other woman shrugged. “Porter is one of those enigmatic types. At least when he’s not being a pain in the ass. Don’t try to figure him out, kid, it’s Koreatown.”
“Chinatown.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Eh, I was on the right continent.”
Quinn refocused on Porter’s heavily pixelated face on the phone. “Who’s trying to frame me? Who’s pulling the strings?”
“I know you have a lot of questions—” Porter began.
“You’re damn right I have a lot of questions.”
“You’re not in any position to make demands of me, Quinn. I’m doing this as a courtesy to Xiao, because once that woman gets it into her head to do something, it’s impossible to make her change her mind.”
“Guilty as charged, again.” Xiao smiled, then, “And oh, four blocks. I think.”
“Four blocks,” Porter repeated on the phone. “I think you two should get off the line before unlucky number three, don’t you think?”
“And then what?” Quinn asked.
“Xiao wants to bring you in.”
“In where?”
“Into our merry little band of outlaws, where else?”
“What makes you think I want to be anywhere near you?”
Porter smirked. Or she thought he did, but it was just a small screen and the details were so lacking.
Who was she kidding? The bastard really had smirked at her.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Porter said, “you’re still under the assumption that you have a choice, aren’t you? It’s either us or them, Quinn.”
“‘Them?’ Who is them?”
“That’s not a topic that should be discussed over an open phone line. Even one that can’t be traced or eavesdropped on. You never know…”
“How did you know about the hospital? What room I was staying in? What was happening to me after our run-in at Gary’s nightclub?”
“Xiao took it upon herself to keep tabs on you. I told her not to, but like I said, she rarely listens to what I want.”
“I’m not very good at waiting,” Xiao said. “You were a nice distraction.”
“Waiting for what?” Quinn asked.
“So many questions,” Xiao said, and looked forward without answering.
Quinn glanced back down at Porter’s face on the small screen.
“Stay close to Xiao,” Porter said. “She’ll bring you to us.”
“Then you’ll answer my questions,” Quinn said.
“Sure,” Porter said.
“Wait, what—”
But Porter cut the connection first before she could finish.
Sonofabitch.
She didn’t know what was more aggravating, that Porter was under the (justifiably smug) impression he was going out of his way to help her or that he…was probably right.
God help her, the man held al
l the cards. Who else was she going to turn to? She had no friends. No colleagues. She didn’t even have Ben anymore, and that hurt the most.
“Charming, isn’t he?” Xiao asked.
“Not quite the adjective I’d use,” Quinn said as she pocketed the phone.
“Hey, that’s mine.”
“I’m going to keep it.”
“Well, you’re the one with the gun…”
“What are you, his partner?”
“I guess you can say that.”
“Are you, or aren’t you?”
“I tried to kill him once,” Xiao said, as if she were telling Quinn about her favorite color.
The statement took Quinn by surprise, and she spent a few seconds digesting it before asking, “Why?”
“Someone told me to.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Obviously.”
Quinn narrowed her eyes at the woman. “Who are you people?”
“The only ones you can trust right now,” Xiao said. It was, Quinn thought, the most serious-sounding sentence Xiao had said since they met.
“I don’t know what that word means anymore,” Quinn said. “Trust.”
“In my world, trust means someone who isn’t constantly trying to kill you. What’s it mean in yours?”
Quinn didn’t answer, because trust got people killed in her world.
Like Ben…
“Two blocks,” Xiao said. “What’ll it be?”
Quinn looked out the front windshield, and this time she could just make out red and blue lights flashing farther up the road. Still far off enough that she couldn’t tell how many there were, but they were definitely out there, waiting…
“So, are we friends now or what?” Xiao asked.
Quinn glanced down at the gun, then at Xiao.
Xiao rolled her eyes back at her. “Oh come on, I already saved your life once. What’s a girl gotta do to get a little faith?”
Quinn sighed and put the Glock away. “Don’t make me regret this.”
A mischievous grin flashed across Xiao’s face. “That depends on your definition of regret.”
Xiao hadn’t finished saying the word regret when red and blue lights appeared in the street in front of them, their sirens growing louder as they neared. The bus driver reacted by quickly pulling over to the curb before slamming on the brakes, nearly throwing the mother and son off their bench. The old man toppled sideways and his bag of groceries spilled across the floor, while the couple grabbed onto one other.