No Easy Way Out

  “I’m just going in to get some barrier things,” Lexi yelled back. “You need to do something to make this place look official.”

  The guy came strutting toward her. “The Senator said not to allow anyone in until they registered.”

  “The Senator’s my mom and she told me to help her.” It was sort of true.

  The guard took a few moments to process Lexi’s information. “Okay, but what’s your name? I have to write down everyone’s name.”

  It was like talking to a 16-bit NPC. “Alexandra Ross. As in the Senator Ross.”

  The guy wrote something on his hand. That’s professional . . . “What barrier things?” he asked, sounding less like a jerk.

  Lexi scanned the sales floor and saw one. “That,” she said, pointing.

  The guy nodded. “I like it,” he said. He switched on his walkie-talkie and told whoever was on the other end of it to collect the tension barriers from the checkout lines and set them up for crowd control outside the Home Stores. “This whole thing is kind of a clusterf—I mean, confusing.”

  Lexi smirked. “Sounds like my mom’s doing.” She instantly regretted talking badly about her mom to this guy who was supposedly the Senator’s underling.

  He didn’t seem to notice. “The chief told us to just write people’s names down until we got some computer system, but so far there’s just been these two old ladies and you. I’m not even sure where to tell people to go. The whole store is still, like, full of stuff.”

  The sales floor looked like it always did, though there were toppled racks and tables—evidence of the riot. Most of the store, however, had escaped harm.

  “Are there people in here?”

  “Security did a sweep,” the guy said. “Most bolted into the service hallways. A team is searching them for stragglers.”

  “Are there bodies?” Lexi was not sure if she really wanted to hear the answer.

  The guy stiffened. “I’m not allowed to say anything about bodies.”

  Okay, that’s not weird or anything. Why the clamming up over bodies?

  His walkie-talkie bleeped. “Nice idea with the barriers,” the voice barked. “Get the registrants to begin clearing the sales floors for the cots.”

  The security guy pulled the radio from his belt. “Roger,” he said. “Where should we put stuff?”

  “Stockrooms for now.”

  Lexi told the guard she had a friend outside who could help. As she exited, she saw that the four guards who’d been lounging on the planter were setting up the barriers in front of the store. The place looked a lot more official. People were bound to come out to register now.

  Lexi hoped the guard would tell the Senator that this had all been her idea. She may have bailed on the data entry assignment, but security had totally needed her help with the Home Stores. She was being even more useful out here. Now who’s going to feel bad about throwing a radio at my head?

  Maddie was suspiciously willing to accept Lexi’s invitation to clear the sales floor, and the reason for this became immediately apparent. For every rack she rolled into the stockroom, she removed an item from it and draped it over her neck. Lexi tried to ignore the shameless shoplifting, but then she caught Maddie actually changing into an entirely new outfit.

  “We’re supposed to be storing the stuff from the sales floor, not stealing it.”

  Maddie slapped a hand to her chest in mock offense. “Stealing! Why, I’d never.” She pulled a hat onto her head. “I see this as just compensation for my labor.” She glanced at herself in the mirror. “Is the hat too much? Yeah, I agree.” She took it off and Frisbeed it into the depths of the stock area.

  Lexi checked to see if anyone else was around. No, they were alone. So what if Maddie was taking clothes instead of waiting for the guards to give her a new outfit? That was okay. It was one outfit. No one would even know it was gone.

  “You should get something,” Maddie said, her face lighting up. “Something sexy instead of this depressing hoodie situation you seem to always have going on.”

  “No,” Lexi said. “I mean, I like this hoodie. Picked it out from the Abercrombie myself.”

  “Girl, that thing had a dead body lying on it all night.” Maddie grabbed Lexi’s sleeve and pulled her arm free of it. “This hoodie must be trashed.”

  Maddie made a good point. Okay. One outfit for each of them. No one would know. It would be totally fine. And Lexi had just revolutionized the whole Home Store check-in process. She deserved an outfit. The Senator would totally agree.

  Maddie pulled an expensive-looking sweater from a pile and a pair of skinny jeans off a rack. “You’re what, a size ten?”

  Lexi had no idea. Sizes were not her thing. She usually bought men’s jeans. They hid her curves better. “Sure?” she said.

  Maddie tossed the pants at her. “You’re a ten.” She looked at Lexi like something should be happening. “Well? Go on. Before those old bags roll in another rack.”

  Lexi did as she was told. She dropped her jeans and stuffed herself into the pants Maddie had thrown at her. They were pretty much a nightmare, hugging every inch of skin like the things were glued on.

  “Ooh la la, the girl has legs,” Maddie cooed. The sweater beaned Lexi in the forehead. “Now the pièce d’rèsistance.”

  Obediently, Lexi dragged off her safe, comfortable T-shirt and tugged on the sweater. It felt like delicate fur. Judging from the wispy hairs, it was made of delicate fur. This too stuck to her skin, but in a nice way, like a hug. The only downside being that the thing revealed that Lexi had boobs like nobody’s business.

  Maddie looked pleased with her work. “Now see if the boys don’t start eating each other for a piece of you.”

  “You have just described my worst nightmare.”

  Maddie raised an eyebrow. “You just haven’t met the right boys.”

  “What are you two doing?” a male voice barked.

  It was a security guard, another guy with a stun baton. He did not look pleased.

  Maddie put on a sad face. “Don’t yell at us, officer! We were just moving this big heavy rack and it nearly fell on my friend and I was comforting her.”

  Lexi froze for a moment, then realized she should be in some sort of pain. “Yes,” she said through gritted teeth. She grabbed her upper arm. “Very painful.”

  The guard gave them the once-over. “You change clothes?”

  “No way,” said Maddie. “That would be against the rules.”

  The guard nodded toward the table behind them. “Then why is your friend wearing that sweater?”

  “She bought it, back before all hell broke loose.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Maddie slapped a hand on her hip. “If she hadn’t been trampled and lost her bag with the receipt in it, she could prove it, but I guess if you hadn’t let this whole mall go to the crazies, she wouldn’t have lost her bag, so it’s just a nasty little cycle we find ourselves in.”

  Maddie was so totally out of line, Lexi had no idea what to do except shut up and try not to freak out. The guard shifted his hold on his stun stick. Maddie stared at him like she dared him to use it. Did she actually think the man wouldn’t?

  Then, miracle of miracles, the guard turned. “Just get back to clearing racks.” He left them in the stockroom.

  Maddie burst out laughing.

  “What the hell?” Lexi cried.

  “Come on, like that loser was going to really do anything?”

  “He had a freaking Taser! You think after everything that’s happened that he’s afraid to use it?”

  Maddie pretended to faint. “Oh, big scary man with a big scary Taser!” Then she shoved Lexi. “Grow a pair, dearest. Life’s too short to give a crap about little things like electrocution.”

  As Maddie
sashayed out of the stockroom, Lexi tried to comprehend the last few minutes. For all her bitching at and about her mom, she had never so much as jaywalked before meeting Maddie. And what had following Maddie gotten her? Mortified in front of a group of guys Lexi didn’t even find remotely attractive, floor-burn from sliding down a bowling lane, and nearly infected with a deadly virus during a game of Dare or Dare. But without Maddie, she was alone.

  “Wait up!” she yelped, and raced after Maddie’s shadow.

  • • •

  The mall speaker was barely audible in the kitchen of the Grill’n’Shake. Marco, however, gleaned from what made it to his ears that the senator was serious about people checking in at the Home Stores. He heard “assumed dead” and “calculation of rations.” Now was the time for him to make the call: Do I stay or do I go?

  “We should try to check in,” Ryan said, swallowing his defrosted chicken.

  “Dude, we’re outlaws,” Drew mumbled through a mouthful of reconstituted fries.

  “Forget outlaws,” Mike said. “I am not like these other drones. I will not be a part of this goddamn experiment.”

  Marco was floored. “Experiment? Are you suggesting that our current situation is the result of a government test gone wrong?”

  “You really think that some terrorist would bother to attack a freaking mall?” Mike pulled another thawed chicken strip from the bag. “This has government cover-up written all over it.”

  Riiiiiight . . .

  “We’re safer if we just try to fit in,” Ryan chimed in.

  If the three of them joined the plebes in the Home Stores, they would have no need for Marco’s card key access services. This idea of Ryan’s had to be shot down.

  “No,” stated Marco. “Bad idea. They put you in jail once, they will find another jail for you.”

  “We could use fake names,” Ryan offered.

  The kid would not give up. “They have a list of everyone in the mall from the first day. You think a couple of strangers appearing on the roster wouldn’t attract attention?” Marco put on his most dismissive glare.

  “So, what then?” Ryan winged the remainder of his chicken at the trash and glared back. “We live in the freaking freezer of the Grill’n’Shake?”

  “We could find Reynolds, try his escape plan?” Drew said.

  “The mall is surrounded,” Marco said. “If they had helicopters scanning the roof, you think they don’t have people watching the grounds?”

  Mike stood. “You all are missing the point.” He sat on the stainless-steel countertop. “This mall is a death trap. Our only goal is to survive until whatever the hell is going on ends. If we really are dealing with the flu, then the key is to keep ourselves isolated. We find a hole and stay in it.”

  Drew kicked a plastic bucket. “This sucks.”

  “It’s better than being dead.”

  No one argued with Mike.

  “Okay,” Marco said. “So we find a suitable hole and put you in it.”

  “What about you?” Ryan asked, eyebrows knit in a scowl. “Aren’t you hiding out with us?”

  “I’m your eyes and ears,” Marco said. “Someone’s got to keep his head aboveground to watch for security and stay on top of the situation.” This was working out better than he expected. The three would be entirely dependent on him for everything: food, water, intel. If any problem should arise for him and Shay, he could convince Mike to sneak out of his hidey-hole to resolve it based on whatever lie Marco thought would best motivate him, and the douche would never be the wiser. Better yet, Shay would never know that Ryan was even in the mall.

  “I better go check in,” Marco said, pushing himself up from where he’d been scrunched on the floor between two large, empty containers.

  “Cut off for check-in’s not for another half hour,” Mike said, glancing over his hunched shoulder.

  “I have to check on someone in the med ward.” Marco brushed off his jeans. “I’ll be back in an hour. Then we can move down to the hiding place I have in mind.”

  Mike nodded. “We’ll gather supplies from the freezer.”

  The coast was clear outside the fridge. Marco crossed the kitchen, pushed through the service door, and started down the dim hallway.

  “I thought you were alone in the mall,” Ryan said.

  Marco nearly jumped out of his skin. The kid was near silent in his climbing slippers. “I told you to wait here until I come back.”

  “I told Mike I’d collect supplies from the med ward in case any of us got sick again.”

  “Again?” Marco couldn’t help the gooseflesh that prickled out on his arms at the idea that one of the douches was contagious.

  “I had the flu,” Ryan said, a touch of pride in his voice.

  Marco took larger steps, tried to put a bit more real estate between him and the potentially infectious douche. “It’s not a bad idea,” Marco said.

  “So who’s in the med ward?” Ryan sped up to keep pace with Marco.

  “My girlfriend,” Marco said, wondering how hard to twist the knife and deciding the harder the better. “I think you know her. Shaila Dixit?” That took the jock down a few pegs. He stopped following for a moment, then jogged a few steps to catch up.

  “Is she hurt?” Ryan asked.

  Not the response Marco had expected, but he figured why not tell. “She passed out when she learned that her grandmother had died, at least that’s what the doctor told me.”

  “I have to see her,” Ryan said.

  “You have to stay hidden.” Marco kept walking. “People are looking for The Flying Kid.”

  Ryan grabbed Marco’s arm. “I have to see her.”

  Marco glowered back at him, not sure if Ryan could see in the dim light the amount of pissed-off-ness he felt. Ryan didn’t back down.

  “It’s your funeral,” Marco said, and continued to walk.

  Ryan stumbled slightly, trying to keep up—aftereffects of the flu? “So Shay’s your girlfriend?” he asked, panting as if walking was too much for him.

  Marco tried to sound casual. “It started when she asked me to help her—you were in jail, I believe—but then her sister and grandmother got sick, and now I’m kind of all she’s got.” He watched Ryan’s face change. Watched the realization sink in.

  “Does she know I was in jail?”

  The douche looked like he was about to cry. Marco threw him a bone. “I didn’t tell her.”

  Ryan nodded. “Thanks.”

  Like I did it for you . . .

  The med ward was now in Harry’s department store, according to the senator’s last announcement. Marco maneuvered through the service halls and between the empty stores with ease. Ryan followed silent as a shadow. They only communicated when Marco stopped in front of a door marked HARRY’S, LEVEL 1, and then Marco merely held his finger to his lips and cracked the door open.

  The space before them seemed empty. It looked like some back area—shelves of shoe boxes lined narrow corridors.

  “We’re clear,” Marco said. Ryan nodded and they both slipped into the stockroom.

  They followed a path between the stacks of shoes to a swinging door, which opened onto the main level. What had been the shoe department was now lined with cots and walled off from the rest of the showroom floor by a curtain wall. A young guy with his arm in a sling dozed in a corner; otherwise, the room was empty.

  “Must have been where they treated the riot victims,” Marco said, weaving toward the only space in the curtain wall.

  “Why do you think that?” Ryan followed a step behind.

  “No bodies.”

  “I had the flu,” Ryan said. “I survived.”

  Marco glanced back at him. “You’re lucky.”

  Beyond the curtain wall was a makeshift hallway. The en
tire sales floor had apparently been divided into “rooms” using curtains salvaged from the PaperClips.

  “Which way?” Ryan asked.

  “Does it matter?” Marco said, feeling defeated. He turned onto the hall leading away from the front of the store, hoping security was stationed there and nowhere else.

  They’d checked five rooms when voices reached them from another part of the curtain complex: “An unauthorized entry was logged through a door off the service halls. We’re looking for a fugitive.”

  Ryan grabbed Marco and dragged him into the nearest room. Through some wonderful twist of fate, the room contained Shay and her sister, both asleep on hospital beds.

  Ryan’s face fell. “Is she sick?” he whispered.

  Marco walked to her side. “No,” he said quietly, willing it to be true. “At least, she wasn’t when I left her a few hours ago.”

  Ryan stood on the other side of her bed. “She asked you to help her,” he said, staring down at her face. “Help her do what?”

  “Escape.” Marco took her hand. If there was going to be some battle between them for her, he wanted to claim ground early on.

  Ryan’s arms dangled at his side. “Did she say anything about me?”

  “She never mentioned you.” Marco was being honest. Though of course he knew about them, had seen them all lovey-dovey outside the Grill’n’Shake. And he worried, or at least a very small part of him he was trying desperately to ignore worried, that if she opened her eyes right now and saw them both, she would choose Ryan.

  • • •

  Ryan was caught between kicking Marco’s ass for touching his girlfriend and concern that the dweeb had actually, through some horrible cosmic joke, won her from him. “You obviously didn’t help her escape,” he said. “What did you do?”

  Marco raised his head slowly. “I was there for her when she needed someone. While you were off skydiving from the rafters, I saved her from being crushed in the riot.”

  Ryan did not consider himself a particularly competitive person off the football field, but seeing Marco’s grip on Shay’s fingers filled him with a primal instinct. He had an inkling of the brain-space Mike lived in every day, a place where everyone was a threat or a target, where every move you made had better put you closer to your goal. Judging by Marco’s hold on Shay’s hand, Ryan sensed that there was little Marco wouldn’t do to keep her. Ryan decided that he had better play it conservative; after all, his survival and that of Mike and Drew depended on the weasel.