Strike

  “Turn right here.”

  Wyatt flinches, just a little bit, like he’s still somehow allergic to poverty. My neighborhood may be on the same street as his, only a mile away, but you could fit four copies of my house into his old house. Of course, his dad’s debt was six times worse than my mom’s debt, but that doesn’t show on the surface. I’m the only person who has held both of their Valor-issued cards, who has read the six-figure numbers and been forced to do something about it.

  “Another right,” I say.

  Wyatt crams fries in his mouth and says nothing as he turns onto my street. I scan the houses for blood and smoke and find neither. Everything here is normal too. We pass Mr. Cole walking his dachshund, and seeing me, he frowns and waves. Wyatt slows to a crawl over the speed bumps, and I don’t have to tell him that the spray paint and bullet holes in the SLOW CHILDREN sign have always been there. Much like crippling debt, we poor people do it to ourselves, shit on our own neighborhoods. Or that’s what he thinks, probably. The rich kid who taught me how to use spray paint.

  As we round the corner, I hold my breath. Then we’re here, and I can see my mailbox now, my house. They didn’t burn it. It’s standing. I’ve been holding my breath, and I let it out in a long, low sigh. The last time I saw my house, it looked just like this, except that there was a mail truck parked out front, just for me. I thought I would drive home five days later and go back to normal. That the mail truck would disappear in the same way it appeared: secretly, quietly, easily, in the night.

  God, I was so naive.

  There are no outward signs to indicate what’s happened here in the last week. The garage is closed, which means that my mom’s crap car could be inside while she scans the job classifieds in her robe, or she could be at the hospital having chemo for the lump in her breast, or she could be slumped at the kitchen table with a bullet hole in her forehead. Dead or alive. There’s no way to know. At least the house is still standing. It’s eerily calm.

  “Should I park outside, or in the driveway, or . . . ?” Wyatt won’t quite look at me.

  “Turn around in the cul-de-sac, I guess, and park at the curb. If you don’t mind.” Because this is how I think now: always with an exit strategy.

  Thing is, my gut is telling me what it’s been telling me every moment of the past week: Something isn’t right.

  He does as I’ve asked. The only Lexus in the neighborhood rolls up and sits on the curb, idling expensively despite its bleached gold paint. “Do you want me to stay here?”

  I stare at my house, and it does that tunnel vision thing, both close up and far away. I’ve lived here for all of my life. My mom and dad brought me home from the hospital to live here, and every happy memory of my dad happened on this dingy plot of land. It’s soaked with sorrow and small joys and struggle, but it’s my home, and I am terrified of what I’ll find inside.

  Do I want him with me? Yes. Am I willing to risk him?

  No.

  “Just stay here and be ready to run. Okay?”

  He swallows hard and puts his hand over mine where it clutches the edge of my seat. “Okay. Be careful.” All I can do is nod.

  I open the door and stand outside, feet on the crumbling sidewalk. My hands tremble as I slide my Valor Glock from the holster and into the big kangaroo pocket of my hoodie, just in case. For one short moment, I put my forehead against the roof of Wyatt’s car, willing my heart to stop floundering. But it can’t, and it won’t, so I turn and step into my yard, the dead grass crunching under my shoes. The walk to Wyatt’s door to kill his dad, my very first mission, was a lot longer, because his yard is four times bigger than mine. But it feels plenty long as step after step takes me up the cracked concrete to my front door.

  A rustle in the bushes makes me jump, and a ragged calico cat erupts, meowing desperately.

  “Get out of here,” I say, but the rangy thing rubs up against my leg. We’ve called animal control on our neighbor ten times this year at least, but old Mrs. Hester keeps collecting diseased stray cats anyway, and they keep begging at our house because she can’t afford enough food for them all. I’m not surprised when two more scrawny cats run across the lawn to meow at my feet. “Jesus. Guys. Go home.” I nudge one gently away from the door as I realize I don’t have my keys. I try the knob, but it’s locked. Of course. “Crap.” I almost knock, but something about that feels too loud.

  I give Wyatt an exaggerated shrug and walk around my house trailing starving cats, my hand gripping my gun in my hoodie pocket. If my mom is alive and awake and at home, wouldn’t she have noticed the car out front, watched me walk up? If so, she would’ve opened the door, crying, and hugged me; that much I know. So either she’s here and can’t reach the door, or she’s not here. Or she could be sleeping off the Vicodin.

  Our backyard has a falling-down wood fence on one side and a measly chain-link fence separating us from Mrs. Hester, as much as we always wish it were the other way around. The cats can jump the waist-high wire as easily as I can and do. The backyard looks sad and bare as usual, and the sliding glass doors are closed, bolted, and covered with vertical blinds, which means I can’t see inside the house. Grabbing the spare key from inside the dead spigot, I hurry back around to the front door.

  “Is that you, Patricia?”

  Mrs. Hester waves to me as I jump the fence, and I stop and feign innocence as I look up. Standing on her porch, surrounded by whining cats, she’s an object lesson in a life gone sour: Goodwill sweatshirt, too-short polyester slacks, threadbare slippers, gray hair that hasn’t seen a Fantastic Sams in half a year. She frowns and picks up a random cat, glancing up and down the street as she rubs it hard enough to make it yowl.

  “Yes, ma’am. Forgot my key.”

  “Where’ve you been? With that boy?”

  I lick my lips, feeling jittery. She’s never spoken so much to me; usually she just shouts about leaving her cats alone. Before last week, I might’ve been more polite, but now . . .

  “Have you seen my mom?”

  She glances nervously at her front door. “She’s not home right now, but she left something for you.” She holds up a finger and disappears inside her house.

  My heart kicks up. She left something for me with Mrs. Hester? So maybe she got a job—maybe Valor helped her get a job. Or maybe she’s getting chemo. The cats writhe around my legs, and I give Wyatt the same “wait one minute” finger that Mrs. Hester gave me. Before I can turn back, a gunshot cracks the air, and one of the cats yowls.

  “Keith!” Mrs. Hester screams, and I look up, and she’s dropping a black gun and trundling toward me as fast as she can. A black-and-white cat is on the ground at my feet, panting and bleeding. I draw my gun and step in front of the cat; there’s nothing that could save him, even if Mrs. Hester could afford the vet bill. She stops a few feet from me, one hand out like Keith is going to reach out and grab it for comfort.

  “Where’s my mom, really?” I ask, the anger taking over.

  She shakes her head, frantic. “Honey, I don’t know. I don’t know! Now let me help Keith!”

  I glance down. Keith is gone. Mrs. Hester takes another step, and I block her.

  “Where is my mom, and why did you just try to shoot me?”

  She lets out a catlike yowl. “Just let me help my baby first.” I step aside, and she kneels, pressing the still body with age-spotted hands. “Keith? Keith! Come on, honey. It’s going to be okay.”

  I get the feeling that if I were dead on the ground, she wouldn’t care nearly as much.

  “Mrs. Hester. Last chance. Tell me where my mom is and why you tried to shoot me. Or I’ll shoot another cat.”

  I won’t. I won’t. I won’t. I won’t. But she can’t know that. She can’t know that I’ve done worse. I aim at the calico, hating myself down to my guts.

  She looks up, staring at me like I’m the Antichrist. “I don’t know where she is. She was just gone one day, last week. But some men from Valor Savings Bank came to my door and showed me
a card, said I owed a lot of money. They said that if I would just watch for you and kill you, they’d forgive it, let me keep the house and the cats. I didn’t want to shoot you. I don’t want to hurt nobody. I don’t want . . . Oh, God. Keith. Keith!” She picks him up, rocking him against her chest.

  “Did they say what would happen if you didn’t shoot me?”

  She looks up, like I’ve just slapped her. The way we’re arranged—me, wearing a large black hoodie, standing with gun drawn and pointed, and her on the ground on her knees—it looks like an execution. It was supposed to be an execution. But whether she was supposed to kill me or I was supposed to kill her, that’s not what’s happening today.

  “They said that if I shot you, my debts would be forgiven. And if I didn’t . . .” She scans the ground, patting it with her free hand. “Where’s my gun, honey?”

  Like we’re playing Ping-Pong. Like she dropped her paddle. No wonder Valor only tapped teens. Dementia makes for a poor assassin.

  “Mrs. Hester, what are you supposed to do if you couldn’t shoot me?”

  She looks up, her chin quivering. “I’m supposed to go in your house and get something on the table.”

  I look down, swallow hard. “Look, Mrs. Hester. Don’t go in my house. Just . . . do you have any relatives out of state? Don’t you have a daughter in Kentucky? Just get in your car and go visit her for a while. Okay?”

  She gives a sad laugh, like I’m dumb as bricks. “Honey, I can’t leave my cats. They need me. They’re going to be so upset over poor Keith. We’ll bury him in the backyard with Noodles. . . .”

  With a grunt, she struggles to her feet, clutching Keith to her chest like a teddy bear. “I do need that gun, though. Do you see it anywhere?”

  “You dropped it on your porch.”

  “I need that gun. It’s dangerous out here. Dangerous times. Gangbangers and terrorists taking over America. I saw it on the news. You wait here, honey. We’ll go inside and sort all this out.” She waddles toward her house, muttering to Keith, and the other cats trail in her wake, wailing.

  I look up at my house, knowing that it’s empty. If my mom were there, nothing could stop her from running outside if she saw me. And even if she somehow missed my arrival, the gunshot would’ve brought her to the porch, Vicodin haze or not. The house has to be empty. And whatever they left on the table for Mrs. Hester? I don’t want to know what it is.

  The jog to Wyatt’s car feels longer than it should be, my heart pounding in my ears.

  “You okay?” he calls through the open window.

  “Get ready to run,” I call.

  Another gunshot is followed by the sound of a divot of lawn pinging away.

  “Patricia Klein, you stop right now! We got to talk!” Mrs. Hester calls, like I’m one of her cats.

  I dive into the car’s backseat, and Wyatt hits the gas. Soon I’m on my knees, staring out the back window as Mrs. Hester jogs after us, giving up after ten steps.

  “Slow down a sec,” I say. It’s not like she could catch us, even if we were doing five miles per hour. Wyatt obliges, and I watch as Mrs. Hester doubles over, hands on her knees, catching her breath, gun in hand. She shoots again, and it goes nowhere. Finally, shaking her head, she waddles up to my front door. They must’ve given her a key, because my mom would never have trusted her in our house alone. I hold my breath as she opens the door.

  And the house—my house—explodes.

  14.

  My mouth drops open. Even from the end of the street, I feel the suck of air, the heat punching back out, almost like it lifted up my guts and dropped them into boiling water. The flames roll majestically, and black smoke races toward the sky. At first I think there’s nothing left of Mrs. Hester, but then I see a scrap of pink sweatshirt and have to turn away.

  “What do I do?” Wyatt asks.

  “Just drive,” I say, fists to my eyes. “Just drive.”

  I lie down in the backseat, the leather cold and hard and lumpy. I wish I had Matty, or my quilt, or anything that felt safe. All I have is this cheap, oversized hoodie, so I flip the hood up over my head and turn to face the seats. Breathing deep, I try to force my heart back down. Try to remind myself that it’s just a house. Just a cheap, crappy house that was filled with disappointment and longing. A house that felt too empty after my dad left. It was always too warm in summer, always too cold in winter. Things broke and weren’t replaced. It was almost like a train station, like my mom and I were both waiting forever for my dad to come back so our real life could start. It was a house where we either stared at the door or the TV screen because there was nothing inside worth looking at.

  Another piece of me lost: If my dad came back, we wouldn’t be there for him to find.

  Nothing would.

  And now it’s just another black cage of burned wood, empty in the middle. Another rotten tooth in a neighborhood with nowhere to go but downhill. The neighbors will gather around and take pictures to put on Facebook. They’ll find pieces of Mrs. Hester and her cats and call 911 and cluck their frustration at how the government isn’t doing its job when the fire trucks don’t show up. They’ll say prayers for me and my mom, probably assuming that we’re part of the blackened wreckage within. I am, for most purposes, dead. Twice. Little pieces of me fall away all the time. I’m surprised there’s anything left at all.

  I find the strength to roll over and sit up and buckle myself in like a good girl. Because there’s one thing I know for sure now: My mom was not in the house.

  Which means there’s a chance that Leon wasn’t lying, that she’s somewhere on the Crane compound, or at least somewhere safe. Safer.

  My house got blown up, and the demented old lady who was supposed to kill me is dead. And that means that Valor might not know what happened to me. Maybe they really think I’m dead too. I should’ve planted my sweatshirt behind, dammit, but it’s too late to turn back. People will be creeping outside their houses to investigate now. They would notice.

  Which means that my current problem, my real problem, is getting in good with the Cranes. According to their rules, Wyatt and I failed our last assignment. There are still three of those nut cans in my bag. Then again, do the Cranes have to know? It’s not like I’m wearing a camera, like I did with Valor, not like there’s a Crane following us around with a clipboard, checking off boxes. Surely they have no way of knowing that we planted only seventeen cans?

  “What are you thinking?” Wyatt asks, and I exhale slowly.

  He’s seen me upset, plenty, but not like this. Before I was guilty, sad, filled with self-loathing. Now I’m angry. Valor tried to kill me. They used a sick, sad old woman, leveraging her debts against her. They killed her brutally. At least this time, as we drive away, I know that I’m not the one who killed Mrs. Hester. That was Valor, one hundred percent.

  And I wish there were a better way to get back at them than being just another Crane goon saying “How high?” every time Leon tells me to jump. So what’s the one thing I haven’t had since that black SUV rolled up outside my door?

  “What I’m thinking about is leverage,” I say.

  “Leverage,” Wyatt repeats. His dark eyes flash at me in the rearview mirror.

  I nod and stare out the window as cars zoom by on the six-lane road we call a highway. It’s funny how attuned I am to shiny black now. I never paid attention to cars before, but now I’m suddenly on the lookout for anything Valor, for anyone who looks too carefully or follows too closely. Suits, especially, catch my attention. If I can live long enough to get married, I’ll have to find a guy who will promise never to wear a black suit, not even a tuxedo to the altar.

  A shiny black sedan zooms around us, and I consider the license plate. I’m looking for government or Valor markings, but what I see is a limo plate. Is that how Valor does it—they pretend to be limos? Or is it an actual limo? There’s no way to tell. The windows are tinted the same opaque black. Inside that car, there could be a movie star filming in Atlanta, a wealth
y old woman, a state representative, or just another set of Valor suits, as stamped and rote as all the others. Hell, maybe the car is on its way to Château Tuscano.

  Which gives me an idea. I know how to get leverage.

  “Your gun is only missing one bullet, right?” I ask Wyatt.

  His hand goes reflexively from the steering wheel to his hip. “Yeah. So I guess that’s fourteen? Jesus. I can’t even remember. This shit messes with your mind.”

  “And I’m fully loaded. What other weapons do we have?”

  “Uh. That knife. The one I . . . used on you.” He takes an uncomfortable pause as we both think back to the rain on the roof of my mail van, to his knees pinning me down as he put a steak knife to my neck, on the cusp of killing me like I’d been on the edge of killing him. “In the glove box. I guess there’s a tire iron or whatever in the trunk, whatever cars come with. And my lacrosse stick.”

  I stifle a giggle, badly. “You brought your lacrosse stick to the apocalypse?”

  He exhales and coughs on a laugh. “Yeah. You’ll thank me when I catch a grenade in it and lob it back into a Valor tank.”

  “My hero.”

  “Why do you ask? Haven’t you . . . ? I mean, has today not been violent enough for you?”

  I can’t help flinching at that.

  “Look, the last week has totally worn me out on violence for the rest of my life. I probably won’t even like spy movies after this. But I think I know how to get us in good with the Cranes and maybe find out where my mom is.”

  Wyatt sighs and rubs his eyes. “Can’t we just go home to our trailer and play with our dog?”

  I have to hide the little thrill I feel at hearing him say “we” and “our” again. Shooting that security guy hit Wyatt in a tender place, and I wasn’t sure if he blamed me for it. But if we are still “we” and Matty is still “our” dog, then we’re still us, and that means I can still be me.