by Lucin, David
“I’m Officer Liam Kipling,” Liam said, his hands out and above his head. “Of the Flagstaff Police Department.”
Jenn could hardly hear him from this distance and over the thundering of her pulse. She caught herself breathing heavily again. Three seconds in, hold, three seconds out.
After coughing into his hand, the person in the business suit spoke, but Jenn couldn’t hear him. Liam retrieved a water bottle from his belt and held it out for the man, who accepted the offer and took a long sip. The two exchanged words. Jenn caught a few: a comment about the hospital, a question about if the refugees had any weapons, and a curse word followed by Mayor Andrews’ name. Liam had said that last one.
The person beside Jenn peered through a scope on his assault rifle. Beads of sweat rolled down his cheeks, despite the cool temperature, and his finger hovered above the trigger. He pulled off his cap and laid it on the hood of the van. The woman next to him mumbled under her breath and bounced on her toes. Every second or two, her neck twitched.
The horde had come to a standstill, but the coughing continued. The low grumble of voices carried down the road. Somewhere, a baby cried.
“Think Liam’s getting through to him?” Jenn asked Gary.
Liam spun around to face the roadblock. With both hands, he pressed the air, gesturing for everyone to lower their weapons.
Gary stood up straight. “Looks like it.”
“Good.” Jenn nudged him with an elbow and tilted her head to the man and woman beside her. “Because I think this guy’s starting to lose—”
A violent crack cut her off. A second followed. Sharp bolts of pain shot through her ears.
Most of the horde took to the ground. Some turned and ran, crashing into others and stampeding those on the pavement. Many opened their mouths to scream, but Jenn only heard a high-pitched ringing. Liam lay atop the man in the business suit to shield him.
“Stop!” he screamed. “I said stop!”
More gunfire erupted, this time from the refugees. A hand gripped Jenn’s shirt and pulled her behind the car. Gary squatted and lowered his mask, which hung around his neck. His mouth moved, but no words came out.
Another gun barked. She couldn’t tell who fired it.
Gary didn’t flinch. He was telling her to move, but move where?
She tried doing as he asked, but her body betrayed her. Her back against the squad car’s fender, she slipped to the pavement, wrapped both arms around her knees, and pulled them close to her chest. With each breath, she fought to suck in enough air through the mask, so she tore it off and inhaled a lungful of smoke. It made her dizzy.
“Gary,” she said, her voice hardly audible. It was like speaking with earplugs in.
Next, she heard herself calling for Maria, then her mother. Black spots danced across her vision. She tried following Gary again, but her arms clutched her legs and kept them from moving.
A fresh flurry of gunfire caused Yankees Hat to appear in front of her. Blood soaked the chest of his shirt. Nicole’s shrill screams overtook the high-pitched wail in her ears. Jenn willed the man to leave her alone, but he refused. Whenever she looked at him, his lifeless eyes stared back.
She wanted to go home, to Phoenix, and hike in the mountains with her parents and brothers. She wanted to bury herself in Maria’s embrace and never come out. She wanted to lie in bed with Sam, take nighttime drives, and fool around in the Tesla. She wanted to read about physics and solve math problems and watch the Diamondbacks beat the Rockies.
Anything but this.
Time passed. She didn’t know how long. It could have been days or seconds. But the gunfire had quieted, replaced by a woman yelling. Jenn opened her eyes in search of Gary. She found him with Officer Carrera. Together they’d pinned a man wearing a white T-shirt face-first to the ground.
“Hold your fire!” he cried louder than Jenn had ever heard him speak. “Hold your fire!”
3
Alone, Jenn sat in the front seat of Liam’s patrol car. The man in the white shirt, she’d learned, had shot at the refugees, who returned fire. Fortunately, nobody was hit. Gary took the shooter down, and Officer Carrera cuffed him.
Red in the face, a woman, the one with the hunting rifle, was arguing with Carrera, who trained her rifle down the road. Gary was beside her. He held his Glock now, not the shotgun. He kept it pointed at the ground but at the ready, probably in case the angry woman decided to do something stupid.
Jenn’s hands shook as she fiddled with the watch on her wrist. She swore everyone was laughing and judging her for being so afraid when the shooting began. More than anything, she wanted to run into the woods, where no one could find her. But fear kept her in place, so she slid lower in her seat to try and hide behind the dash.
She stayed there until Liam finished his conversation with the man wearing the tattered suit. Both walked toward their respective groups; apparently they’d come to some sort of agreement.
A few minutes later, the driver’s side door popped open, and she jumped. Gary pulled the mask off his face. “How’re you doing?”
Jenn tried to look up at him but couldn’t. “Fine,” she said for the hundredth time today. “What’s the word out there?”
“It’s all right.” Gary tucked the Glock into its holster. “Liam’s struck some sort of deal. I’ll go find out the details.” He went to move away but paused. “You’ll be okay for another few minutes?”
“Yes,” she hissed. “I’m fine.” Her motto.
Gary stared at her stone-faced, then said, “Hang tight. I’ll be back in a sec.”
Mercifully, he left Jenn alone again. She hugged herself and leaned against the door.
Outside, Gary approached Liam. The two exchanged a few words before Liam dug his hand into his pocket and handed Gary his keys. Gary slapped him on the shoulder and made his way to the car.
“Buckle up,” he said to Jenn as he lowered himself behind the wheel. “I’ll take you home.”
A sharp pain bit at her ribs. “It’s okay,” she protested. “I’m fi—I’m good to go.”
Gary started the engine. “It’s not a problem.”
Jenn’s seat was suddenly uncomfortable. “Don’t they need you here?” she asked. Outside, the man in plaid was looking at her—and smirking. “You shouldn’t leave. I’ll stay here with you.”
“Everything’s under control for the time being, and backup’s on the way.”
The red-faced woman was smirking at Jenn now, too. They all were. Even Liam, she thought. The urge to flee trampled her desire to save face. “Okay.”
Her hands trembled as she reached for the seat belt. She angled her body so Gary wouldn’t see. When she finally had a good grip, she aimed the tongue for the buckle but missed. She tried again with the same result.
Gary took her wrist and guided it in for her. She turned to hide the tears welling in her eyes.
He pulled away from the roadblock and drove east down the westbound lanes. “Liam promised to talk to Mayor Andrews on behalf of the refugees,” he said. “He told them they can come in. She’s not going to like it, but we did the right thing.”
The Ponderosas on the median zipped past. Jenn wondered how her brothers acted during their first time under fire. Did they freeze up and hide? Did they turtle in fear? Or did they stand their ground and fight? She wanted to believe that they were brave, but a small piece of her, a selfish one, hoped they were as scared as her.
“I’m going to head back after dropping you off,” Gary continued. “Liam’ll give me a ride home later.”
“Okay,” she said, leaning her elbow against the door. How would Camila have handled a firefight? From what Gary and Maria had mentioned, she was quiet and mostly kept to herself. According to Maria, Ajax was Camila’s closest friend. If she of all people was strong enough to enlist and fight in the war, what did that say about Jenn?
She could feel Gary scrutinizing her. “It’s okay to be afraid,” he said.
The air in the pol
ice car tasted stuffy. Jenn searched the dashboard touchscreen for a way to start the air-conditioning.
Gary breathed out and ran one hand over his scalp. “I’ve seen it a hundred times before. What you’re going through.”
She gave up trying to turn the heat down and rested her head against the window. “I’m fine.”
“So you’ve said.” He eased the car around a corner and sped up. “I know the symptoms.”
Jenn swallowed, then swallowed again and again. She couldn’t stop. “I just got spooked. That’s all.”
“It’s my fault,” Gary said. “I should’ve told you to head home. It’s too soon for you.”
She sat up straight. “No, you’re right. I need to do something. I can’t just sit around and dwell on it all day. Anything to get my mind off things.”
Gary picked at a worn patch on the steering wheel. “Maybe not. I needed some time after my first.”
Jenn almost asked, Your first what? But then she understood and searched for a way to change the subject. “Think Liam can convince the mayor to let the refugees stay?” she tried in desperation. “What if she says no? Will they just send them away?”
“I was twenty-five,” Gary said as if Jenn hadn’t spoken. “Maybe twenty-four. I can’t remember. This was before the depression and the modular housing boom. Heck, it was probably ten or fifteen years before you were even born. Anyway, I’m on patrol down in Phoenix—well, Mesa then, I guess. This was before the whole valley was a single municipality.”
Jenn must have sighed, because Gary said, “Sorry, I’m babbling. Basically, me and my partner walked in on a robbery in progress at a jewelry store. Just one perp, so we told him to drop the weapon and get on his knees. He shot at us. I hit the ground and fired. I didn’t even realize what was happening until my partner started shaking me, telling me the guy was dead.”
“Dead?” Jenn assumed Gary had killed before, but not once had he talked about it. All the stories from his time as a cop were so tame, so family-friendly: a back-alley chase where he was bitten by a dog, a criminal accidentally trying to steal his unmarked police car, he and his partner breaking up a domestic argument about whose turn it was to clean the microwave. Stuff like that. For every one of those incidents, how many involved murder, drugs, or rape? Jenn didn’t want to find out.
“Hit him square in the chest,” Gary said. His tone was almost apologetic. For Jenn or the man he killed? “I had to take a few days off after that, see a shrink. I couldn’t sleep for weeks. I was irritable and testy and fought with Maria pretty much every day. One night, before we were married, she was cooking in the kitchen and dropped a pot on the floor by accident. She found me curled up in the fetal position in the living room. It triggered me somehow, and I lost it.”
Jenn’s eyes went dry. When did she last blink? Her mouth hung open, too. She needed to say something, but the words eluded her.
“I guess what I’m saying is,” Gary started, “I’m sorry for pulling you into this so soon. You shouldn’t feel embarrassed.” He made a right onto Woody Mountain Road. “Camila struggled, too. She couldn’t tell us about her first, obviously, because of censors, but I knew.”
Jenn scratched her ear. Had Gary actually mentioned Camila? He never spoke about her. Whenever the topic came up, he changed the subject.
On the left side of the street, the pine trees gave way to two-story houses behind a chest-high stone wall. Spray-painted graffiti defaced large swathes of it, and trash littered the gravel nature strip.
“You miss her, don’t you?” Jenn asked.
Gary steered the car around a pothole. “I do.”
Ahead and on the right, a man and a woman walked hand in hand along the sidewalk. “I miss my parents,” Jenn said.
“I know.” Gary sped up to pass the couple. “I wish I could say that it’ll get easier, but I can’t. I miss Camila as much today as I did when I dropped her off at the airport. More, even.”
For the last few blocks to the Ruiz house, they drove in silence. Gary pulled in behind Kevin’s SUV in the driveway but left the engine running. “Thanks for the ride,” Jenn said. “How long are you gonna be out?”
“Can’t say. Hopefully not too late. Tell Maria not to worry.”
“She will anyway.”
Gary shifted the car into reverse. “Good point.” Jenn climbed out, but Gary held up a hand and said, “Wait.”
She leaned inside. “What’s up?”
He fiddled with the top button of his polo shirt. “Don’t let Maria know what happened. About the shootout. Just . . . Just say that—”
“I got it, Gary. We’ve been doing this for almost two years, remember?”
He gave her a wink. “I always forget it’s been that long.”
“See you in a bit,” Jenn said and closed her door.
Gary backed out and drove off. From the driveway, she eyed the Ruiz house. Maria, Kevin, Sam, Nicole, and Barbara were in there.
Barbara. Could Jenn handle her right now? Could she handle any of them? Sam would be here, and he might sense something was wrong and press her to talk about it. That would lead to him asking about Payson.
She had to forget, not remember. Then everything would go back to normal.
Yankees Hat snickered at her, and she could smell his breath as she opened the front door and went inside.
* * *
The next morning, Jenn, in a bra and exercise shorts, stood at the bathroom sink and wiped her armpit with a cool, damp cloth. The dry shampoo had pulled some of the stickiness from her hair, but it still felt slick and smelled like campfire. Damn, she missed hot showers.
Each time she blinked, her eyes stung. Was it the smoke or the thirty minutes of sleep she had last night? Probably both. Either way, she cursed herself for not stealing eye drops from the Go Market.
An hour ago, Sam, Barbara, and Nicole went to their new house. With Gary and Kevin waiting for water rations at the police station and Maria down for her late-morning nap, Jenn finally had some time to herself. As a teenager, she shared a bedroom with two older brothers, but since they left for war, she’d grown used to her independence. Now Sam was hovering over her, scrutinizing her every move to make sure she wasn’t hurting or in pain. It drove her insane. She understood that he was worried, but she didn’t need his help. Things would be okay if everyone just gave her some space. Being alone, if only for a little while, was a good start.
She wrung the cloth out into the plastic bowl in the sink and laid it aside, then reached for her razor. The world as she knew it might have ended, but that wouldn’t stop her from shaving her armpits; she’d cling to that last shred of civility for as long as possible. Lifting her arm, she realized she needed more tampons. She should have stolen some more of those, too.
Someone knocked on the front door.
Jenn’s heart skipped a beat. She wasn’t expecting anyone. Maybe Liam had stopped by, looking for Gary. Or maybe Kate from down the street had come to ask about news.
Another knock. A third might wake up Maria.
Jenn set the razor down and put on her shirt as she ran into the hallway.
A fourth knock.
“God, settle down,” Jenn growled and pulled open the door.
Outside stood a woman in a yellow plaid button-up and dirty blue jeans. She was in her mid-forties, and her brown hair, streaked in places with gray, was tied into a loose ponytail. Striking cheekbones accented her lean face, and wrinkles crept toward her thin lips from all directions. Everything about her was utilitarian—sensible work boots, short-cut nails, and a floppy mesh cap to keep the sun off her skin. She stunk of real cigarettes.
Sophie from Minute Tire.
Jenn gripped the door and went to slam it shut.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Sophie stepped through the doorway. “Take it easy.”
Pushing against Sophie’s shoulder, Jenn said, “That’s what you told me before you threatened to tie me up.”
Sophie stood her ground, then shoved and th
rew Jenn off balance. She forced her way inside and held her hands up, palms open. “Can you relax?” she asked, her voice raspy. “I’m just here to talk.”
Jenn’s hand fell to her waist in search of the Glock. It wasn’t there; Gary had taken it with him.
A knife.
She spun on her heel to face the kitchen, but Sophie grabbed her wrist.
“Settle down!” Sophie shouted. Her fingers dug into Jenn’s skin.
Jenn pulled her arm free, and Sophie’s hands went up again.
“Jenn!” Maria called from her bedroom. “Jenn, are you okay? What’s going on out there?”
Sophie’s eyes darted to the hall. As they did, Jenn considered stomping on her foot or kicking her crotch—anything that would give her enough time to find a knife. But Sophie could have a gun. Maybe Jenn could disarm her. She might have to.
“Jenn?” Maria asked again. “Is everything all right?”
Sophie gestured to the hallway with a flick of her chin. “You want to tell her, or should I? Probably better if it came from you.”
Jenn’s hands balled themselves into fists. “I’m fine!” she shouted. “Just stubbed my toe on the table again.”
“Nice,” Sophie said. “Original.”
“You sure you’re okay? I can help.”
Jenn groaned, and Sophie smirked at her. “It’s fine,” Jenn assured her. “Go back to sleep.”
No answer from Maria.
Sophie, her arms still above her head, blew a strand of hair from her mouth. “You mind if I put these down now? Fingers are going kind of numb here.”
“Fine,” Jenn spat, then pointed to the door.
She slipped on her shoes and went outside, where she coughed into a fist. Although the air was clear enough that she could nearly see the end of the street again, every breath still set her lungs on fire.
“How did you find me?” she asked from the driveway.
At the top of the steps, Sophie pulled a crumpled package of cigarettes from her jeans.
“You’re going to smoke?” Jenn said. “Seriously? You’ve seen the weather, haven’t you?”