Hit

  He goes straight for the hot biscuits and coffee. I make a beeline for the random collection of housewares and find a sewing kit. When we meet at the counter, I realize that I’ve forgotten to bring cash. I was too busy navigating my feelings for Wyatt and pondering Alistair Meade and remembering the night Jeremy and Roy and I came here and had a Slushie-drinking contest and purple ice came out of my nose. My head hurts so much I feel like I’m about to have a nosebleed.

  “I’ll be right back,” I whisper, and Wyatt has to notice me blushing, my hands in my empty pockets.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got it.” He dumps his stuff on the counter, just a corner of the Valor card flashing as he pays. Does he not want me to see it? He signs his receipt, grabs his plastic bag, and we’re out the door. He shoves a hot biscuit into my hands, and I waffle on whether or not to bring up how extremely stupid it is to owe Valor any money right now. But I’m so happy in the moment that I don’t want to ruin the morning. Not until it has to be ruined, which will be sooner than I’d prefer. The problem with repressing things, with sticking your head in the sand and ignoring them, is that they’re eventually going to bite your butt when you least expect it. Which is pretty much why America is owned by a bank now.

  So instead of saying something scathing, I just smile and take a bite of my biscuit.

  We can’t drive back to our usual hideout because Jeremy—oh God, Jeremy!—so Wyatt takes the truck down a long dirt road with huge pipes piled up at the end amid the bonfire-singed remains of industrial drums. I give him a look, one eyebrow up.

  “I know every dead end in this county, darlin’.” He’s smirking now, and I roll my eyes.

  We eat in the back of the truck in companionable silence. The door is rolled up, and our view of the field and forest is the sort of thing rich people pay mad cash to enjoy on the other side of their breakfast nooks. It occurs to me that I haven’t had breakfast with anyone except my mom in years, and that I miss the way she blows on her oatmeal between bites, even when it’s cooled off. She never talks much at breakfast—she prefers to read the romance novels she checks out of the library and stacks on her bedside table in impossibly tall towers. I tried one once, but it was embarrassingly hokey. I’m just too practical to believe in all that magic and vampires and fairies and true love. But I’m glad my mom still has dreams, locked somewhere inside her. I need to think about her having hope.

  I glance at the clock. Ten thirty. An hour and a half to kill a guy or ruin his life, and then it’s time to pick up Matty, and I want to be there the second they’ll let us take her home. Home to the mail truck, I guess. We’ll have to dump it after this Alistair guy, in case they’re sending more Jeremys after me. That doesn’t matter. I know where the last two people live, although I’ll miss having a bed. I wish I had the time and money to get Matty a really nice dog bed too, something fluffy that she would like. But I already owe Wyatt enough, and I don’t want to run up his card any more for something as silly as a dog bed. Maybe I can knit her a blanket when all this is over.

  I toss my rest of my biscuit in the trash and wipe the buttery crumbs off my hands and jeans before pulling out my knitting bag. The black stripe I was working on last time is totally wonky, so I frog it and grab some rainbow yarn that feels scratchy but looks cheerful. When I’m done with Valor, I’ll get some nice, soft yarn for Matty from the actual yarn store—mohair, maybe, not my usual Goodwill trash yarn. I’ve never knit a blanket before, but it can’t be that hard. A few rows in, and I exhale, enjoying the familiar, reassuring click of the needles. I look over when I hear Wyatt crumple up his third biscuit wrapper, and it turns out he bought a small crossword puzzle book in the gas station and has it open to the first page as he chews on a cheap pen.

  “Oh my God. What are you, sixty?” I say with a giggle.

  He scowls at me. “Oh, yeah. Because knitting is a hobby of the young and nubile.”

  “But I’m knitting for anarchy.” I hold up the almost-done flagpole cozy, a few rows of rainbow stitches followed by neon green, sunshine yellow, and bubblegum pink.

  “And I’m doing crossword puzzles to up my vocab on the SATs.”

  “Hey, did your school do that career aptitude test thing?” I ask as I start knitting.

  I had almost forgotten about how scared I was as I filled out each oval bubble with my sharp pencil, terrified that my answers would doom me to a life as a janitor or a plumber. I nibbled my pencil just like he’s nibbling his pen. The resulting career options that showed up in an envelope a month later were bland and boring and nothing at all that I could see for myself and my future. And it really bothered me.

  Accounting. Telemarketing. Project management. Words that meant nothing, jobs that seemed to create nothing and do no good in the world. The person whose future held those options—that wasn’t me. I was so angry and embarrassed afterward. Like the test looked into my heart and saw that I didn’t have the smarts to be a veterinarian or the passion to be an artist or the guts to be a policeman or a fireman. I don’t know what I want to do with my life; I just know I want more than my mother ever had. I know I want to kick ass.

  “Yeah, I took it. I think everyone in the state had to do it.” He nibbles his lip before penciling in another word.

  “What’d you get as your future career options?”

  Wyatt looks up, his anger a good match for my own. “Sales. Stocks. Executive. Basic heartless desk-monkey crap, like my dad.”

  “Yours were better than mine. I guess I’m qualified to be the girl who brings you coffee one day when you’re a heartless executive.”

  Just like my mom and your dad, I think. But I don’t say it.

  He puts down his crossword and joins me in the back of the truck and lays a hand on my arm, and I realize that during my last couple of rows, I was knitting superfast again, pulling the stitches too tight. I wiggle my shoulders, trying to relax. He rubs my arm a little, and the hairs stand up at his touch.

  “It’s just a test, Patsy Klein. A stupid test. It doesn’t mean anything. You can be whatever you want to be. That’s the whole point of America, right? Freedom?”

  I snort.

  “Maybe that was the point of America, but something tells me the Valor Nation is going to be about something different.”

  For a charming and too-short half hour, we sit there in the open back of the truck, just a few feet apart, surrounded by the warm and comforting smell of cheap biscuits and cooling coffee. The silence is companionable, like we’re old people happy just to exist. Like we don’t need to say anything because nothing needs to be said. I knit, forcing myself to slow down and stay loose. He works through a crossword puzzle, carefully crossing out each clue as he solves it.

  “Did you ever wear glasses?” I ask. Doing the puzzle, he looks like he should have some hipster glasses perched at the end of his nose.

  “I got Lasik,” he says without looking up. “My eyes are better than perfect now.”

  I finish out my skein of rainbow yarn just as he’s marking through the last clue on his second puzzle. After tying on a ball of lavender, I start the next row, then stow my bag back under the bed with the stuffed turtles. I didn’t get that much done, but every little row helps. I get through knitting the same way I’m getting through my list: one step at a time.

  “Oh.” Wyatt looks pained, and I follow his line of sight to the dashboard. The red numbers have started blinking. “Ready to take care of Alistair Meade and convince him not to die and then take the rest of the day off with Matty?” he asks. He pulls me to my feet, and I nod grudgingly.

  “I guess.”

  “Then let’s get it over with and pick up our dog.”

  A little thrill goes through me whenever he says “we.” The thought that not only do I have a dog, but that we have a dog, makes me feel like there are all these avenues in the world that I never considered. I never bothered to dream that I wou
ld have the freedom of “we.”

  Wyatt drives, and I take out the sewing kit and sew the button back onto my mail shirt. I should have done it sooner, but it’s not like I could sew it back on with Wyatt leaning over his crossword right in front of me, his eyebrows drawn down and the back of his shirt riding up adorably. I swear to God, I jump every time I hear a noise, expecting them to finally punish me for keeping him around. For keeping him alive. A secret that sweet and good is just asking for trouble. Every time the truck slows down at a stop sign, every time a car waits beside us at a light, I expect a kid in camo to pop up, waving a gun and making accusations with bullets. If Jeremy was the B squad, who’s batting cleanup?

  Getting the button back on my shirt feels like an act of atonement. The needle is pathetic, like it’s made out of plastic, and the thread is almost too thick to fit through the hole, especially with the mail truck bouncing around like crazy. I may be poor, but if there’s one thing I know about crafting—real crafting—it’s that you need quality materials to produce anything worthwhile. I might use crap yarn for bombing, but that sweater I made for my mom last year was superfine angora, and I only use the nicest thread for embroidery. It’s almost an insult, this gas station needle. I finally get the damn button back on, and it doesn’t look that nice, but how nice did that government-issued mail shirt ever look? I take a second to trace the little eagle patch stitched on the front. Aren’t eagles supposed to stand for honor or something? I guess they used to.

  The GPS announces that we’ve almost reached our destination, so I feel around under the pillow for my gun. I’m never going into another situation without a full clip. But when I open up my backpack for the box of bullets, there’s another gun there.

  “Is this your gun, Wyatt?”

  He waits a moment before answering. “No. It’s from last night.”

  The gun goes heavy and cold in my hands, and I turn it over to trace the VALOR SAVINGS logo stamped on the side in gold.

  Except it doesn’t say VALOR SAVINGS.

  The letters are in a slightly different font and read SECOND UNION.

  My hearing goes wonky as my hands go numb, and I almost drop the gun because that means Valor didn’t send Jeremy after me.

  Because this is not a Valor gun.

  So what the fuck is Second Union?

  “You took this off Jeremy?” I ask, trying to make the words sound normal and not like I’m freaking the hell out.

  “Yeah. I figured we might need all the guns we can get. The other kid dropped his shotgun, too, so I shoved it behind all your turtles. Only has one shell in it, though.” After another uncomfortable pause and a few big bumps in the road, he mutters, “I hope you don’t mind. I know they were your friends.”

  I shove Jeremy’s gun back into my backpack, deep, under the dirty clothes. My head is spinning like clothes in a dryer, hot and thick, but still it doesn’t add up. So Jeremy didn’t work for Valor, wasn’t punishing me for anything I’d done wrong. That means there’s another group out there, a rival, another bank or government or faction or whatever. Hell, maybe it’s even a rebellion. Whatever Second Union is, it’s big and important and powerful enough to stamp a gun and put it in a kid’s hands and trick him into murdering his friend.

  That doesn’t tell me what’s happening in the world, but it does tell me that maybe, just maybe, Valor isn’t as badass as they seem to think they are. That this conflict is about more than just innocent people against one big, corporate villain. All I know for sure is that I’m collecting weapons and kills like a video game hero. But I feel nothing like a hero. And whoever Second Union is, their methods are just as cruel as Valor and depend on pitting kids with guns against one another by threatening their families.

  So which is worse: us versus them, or them versus them with us as collateral damage?

  “Almost there,” Wyatt says.

  Not even close, I think.

  I put on the shirt and cap and tuck the gun into my jeans. I’m starting to get used to it, the feeling of cold metal warming against my spine, sticking to my skin a little at first and then slithering around in sweat. I wonder if I’ll have this gun forever, or if a robotic man in black will find me someday to collect it. If maybe it will ­disappear one night from under my pillow while I’m asleep. There’s no telling where this deadly tool will end up: Maybe in Kelsey ­Mackey’s hand. Maybe in Tom Morrison’s. Maybe in Max Beard’s.

  The mail truck rolls to a halt, and Wyatt motions with his hand for me to cover the button.

  “I don’t feel so good about you going in alone,” he whispers. “This place is creepsville.”

  Still covering the button, I edge into the front seat. Disaster ­settles in my tummy on top of the biscuit. I would feel naked without my lucky locket no matter where I was, but Wyatt’s right—total creepsville, like something out of a horror movie.

  We’re out in the boonies, and I realize that all the bumps I felt earlier must have been the truck tackling an overgrown dirt road. Just ahead of us on the other side of a mimosa tree is a single-wide trailer that’s definitely seen better days, if not better decades. It’s rusted in places, with shredded towels over the windows and an old-fashioned TV antenna sticking out the top. I don’t even think those things work anymore, but I’m guessing Alistair Meade is too lazy or drunk or ancient to take the damn thing down.

  The trailer is surrounded by an old orchard, the eerily lined up trees long past bearing fruit and the grass grown to waist height. There’s a slight path up to the trailer, and I hope it’s too cold for snakes. A blue truck with a camper top sits out front, pointed toward the road, not quite as decrepit as the trailer. I hope to God Alistair Meade is home, because this place deeply unsettles me in more ways than usual.

  I shake my head and swallow down the biscuit and bile. “Just have your gun ready and leave the truck running,” I whisper back.

  I grab the card and signing machine and check my gun one more time. I haven’t fired it since before Tom Morrison, thankfully, took the deal. Who knows? Maybe this guy will too. I don’t know what would have happened last night if it had come down to me shooting my friend or dying, but I’m damn glad I didn’t have to pull the trigger. I want to thank Wyatt for what he did, but I also hate him for it. And I’m glad I never have to find out if Jeremy would have shot me first.

  Walking up to the door slowly, trying to look harmless, I hold the signing machine and card out in front of me like a shield. Nobody shoots the mail carrier, right? The sunny clearing is eerily quiet, like the birds know I’m not supposed to be here and have dark intentions. A blue jay’s scolding pierces the silence, making me jump about five feet and trip over an ancient garden hose.

  Standing in front of the trailer, I can barely breathe. Neighborhoods are familiar, with the safety of society protecting even the most annoying doorbell ringers, but I wouldn’t come out here under any other circumstance I can imagine. No one lives this badly, this far out, for any legal reason. But I don’t see the usual trash I know surrounds every meth house. It looks abandoned, which is almost worse. I don’t bother stepping onto the concrete blocks that serve as front steps; I want to have as much balance as possible, whatever happens. I knock, and the dented metal door shakes under my knuckles like it’s a paper mask about to fall off a skull.

  I don’t hear the footsteps so much as see the trailer vibrate. One of the towels over the window twitches, but I can’t see what’s behind it. I knock again, but there’s no answer, and the door remains shut.

  “Hello? Y’all home?” I call, putting as much friendly Waffle House waitress accent into my words as I can. “I got a delivery for Alistair Meade here. I think it’s a check. Mr. Meade, is that you?” I hold up the signature machine and give my dumbest smile.

  The towel twitches aside, revealing a ripped piece of yellow legal paper. Heavy black marker reads TAKE OFF THE SHIRT AND WE’LL TALK.


  “Excuse me?” I shout, cocking my hip and itching for the gun.

  The paper disappears, and a finger appears, stabbing the air in a “wait a minute” gesture.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter. I look back over my shoulder at Wyatt in the truck and give him an exaggerated shrug. He’s spread out in the front seat, gun in hand, taking up space with his Angry Alpha Male face on. He raises one eyebrow as if to say, “Yeah, I’m sure this is legit.”

  A new piece of paper appears. GET RID OF THE CAMERA.

  My mouth goes dry. This guy . . . knows. And if he knows about the camera, then he knows about the gun, and he knows what’s going to happen if he signs the machine, which means he’ll never fucking sign it.

  And, of course, if I get rid of the camera, that means that whatever happens here isn’t recorded and doesn’t count toward my goal.

  I sigh deeply and unbutton the postal shirt, letting the collar flop to the side and obscure the button. The hand appears again, angry and violent in a “cut it off” motion. Jesus, this guy’s annoying. But I’m not taking off this shirt to show the white tank below it. I feel exposed enough as it is.

  So I compromise. I shove the signature machine in the shirt pocket, wrap my hand around the button, pull my gun, and press the muzzle right up to the glass.

  “That good enough for you, dick?”

  Painful seconds pass. A new piece of paper appears, the words scrawled even more hastily. TELL YOUR BOYFRIEND TO DROP THE GUN. YOU TOO. DO AS I SAY, OR YOU BOTH DIE.

  A thump tells me Wyatt’s hopped down from the truck. I check over my shoulder and shake my head at him. I’m cold and shaking like a Chihuahua, my jaw so tense that I can hear my teeth rubbing together. “Put down the gun,” I whisper. “Get back in the truck. Let me handle it.”