Strike

  We crest the hill, and the most beautiful and haunting scene spreads out before me. The house is a black skeleton of grand beams and crumbling fireplaces. It must’ve been huge, a mansion. Tiny shots of white still struggle up where the flames somehow didn’t reach. The fire’s wrath seems fickle—half the staircase survived on one side, but the other side is entirely gone. One side of the grand porch is still gleaming white while the other is black and powdery.

  “It looks like the aftermath of Gone with the Wind,” I murmur.

  My dad nods. “It was a great house to grow up in, except for the fact that my dad was in charge of it.”

  “What about your mom?”

  “She died when I was little. We had maids and aunts around, but mostly we just ran loose. My bedroom was up there, above the kitchen.” He points to the top right, where black trees jab the coming dawn. That entire side of the house is gone. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to see it before now. We lost all the family records, the photo albums. They said my dad got up in the middle of the night, turned on a teakettle, and just . . . forgot. He didn’t trust anyone in his later years, and he lived alone. The maid slept straight through it in the carriage house. That’s where we’re going.”

  The air smells of doomed majesty, char, and ice, and I tiptoe through the frosty grass, silent. Around the other side of what’s left of the house, there’s a garden gone wild and dead for the winter, a huge stack of fire wood, an empty chicken coop, garden sheds, a dry fountain, and a two-story building that looks like the newest thing for miles. The bottom half is old brick, the top half freshly painted white with French doors and a balcony. My dad turns on the flashlight and hunts around under flowerpots until he finds a key. I watch and worry. The night is disturbingly silent; even the birds are asleep. When he opens the door, the smell of rot makes me gag, even in the chill air. Narrow steps and new carpet lead up to a small apartment. His flashlight lands on a kitchen table, where a bowl of black, wet fruit sits beside a vase of dead flowers and a sprinkling of mouse turds.

  “Don’t know what happened to the maid,” my dad says. “I lived here for a while, when you were a baby. It smelled a lot better back then.”

  Everything in the apartment appears to have been abandoned by someone leaving in an unexpected hurry, including several pairs of small orthopedic shoes lined up by the door and a black-and-white maid’s uniform of the frumpy, not saucy, variety hanging from a chair. The bed is still made, and my dad unlocks the French doors and throws them open, giving us a beautiful view of the sweeping valley below.

  “I bet it’s beautiful when the leaves turn in October,” I say.

  “You should see it in spring.”

  He checks his watch, and I check my phone. I want to call Wyatt, but I can’t. Not until it’s time. I pull up the list of contacts and let my finger rub over the button. But I don’t press it. Not yet.

  “Five fifty,” he says, looking at his flip phone. “Ten minutes to go.”

  So close.

  “Where is it?” I ask.

  He points to a random section of land in the valley below. Last night’s hike felt like it lasted forever, but it was really just a mile, maybe less. I can see flashes of roof through the barren trees, and I try to identify the different buildings of the Crane compound. I think I see the big house, but it’s hard to tell.

  My phone buzzes, and I fumble to check the text.

  It’s from Wyatt: We’re in place.

  “Five fifty-three,” my dad says. He looks as nervous as I am, checking his phone repeatedly and tapping his fingers on the banister.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” I mutter. “Are you sure the time is right?”

  He gives a sly chuckle. “Yes, actually, I am. I’m the one who programmed it, remember?”

  I look at him, curious. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why’d you rig bombs to blow up a bunch of strip malls?”

  He looks down at his work boots, scuffs them on the ground. “Long story. It’s easy for a little rebellion to suddenly get big. It started out with the Wipers, shutting down credit cards, rerouting new cards in the mail, and hacking into the system to program gift cards. It was fun, finally messing with Valor after all the times they’d messed with me. And we did try to do the dye pack thing, but it’s a lot harder than it sounds. When Leon suggested bombs to go off when the buildings were empty, it seemed like a fun challenge. It’s not like you’re hurting actual people, you know? Blow up overpriced clothes, businesses that can’t pay their rent. Things people don’t actually own, things owned by the bank. He never said he was using kids to plant them, you know? Once you’re headed down a path, once you start saying yes, it’s hard to decide when to start saying no. And Leon is . . . especially hard to say no to.” He flips the phone around. “Five fifty-six.”

  “Did you know about what Valor was doing? To kids, I mean?”

  He shakes his head. “If that kind of information got out in advance, it would never have happened. Do you know what they did to the police, speaking of which? And the armed forces?”

  “Leon said . . . it was bad.”

  He takes off his beanie and rubs a hand through his hair. “It’s kind of brilliant but really evil. They started high up. Invited the highest-ranking people to a special meeting. Either they signed on with Valor or went to another room to be ‘debriefed.’ ”

  “Which means dead?”

  He points a finger gun at me and says, “Correct. They used a nerve gas so they could claim it was some disease, not something quickly identified as a weapon. Remember that Ebola scare? So then they made sure they only had true believers in positions of leadership, guys on the Valor payroll, and they kept going down the line, each leader on Valor’s side bringing in their subordinates and weeding out the rebels and the Dudley Do-Gooders. Right before they activated the assassins, they took down the regular Internet and all the functionaries who might oppose Valor. More than half the police force and armed forces, gone. By the time the assassins went out, nine-one-one was sent to voice mail, the Internet and media were all run by Valor, and the police who were still around had Valor bank accounts and weren’t working in the public’s best interest. Five fifty-eight.”

  I shiver. “Jesus.”

  He puts an arm around me and rubs my shoulder, and I gratefully lean against him, glad for his warmth. “An elegantly silent takeover. And lots of the victims on the Valor lists were people they wanted gone. Members of the bank boards who knew too much, double agents, people who’d been stirring up too much trouble on the old net. Just . . . bang. And then silence.”

  “One of the guys on my list was a double agent.”

  He looks up sharply. “Al and his laptops. What happened to him exactly?”

  I pull away and look down. “Wyatt thought he was going to hurt me, so he shot him. It wasn’t me that time. I swear. I burned his trailer. And my mail truck.”

  My dad is . . . glowing with pride?

  “Well done. That’s really fantastic. I can’t imagine what would’ve happened if Valor had gotten access to all his intel. Just . . . well done.”

  I shiver, my teeth chattering. “Dad, I killed a bunch of people. It wasn’t well done. It was . . . horrible.”

  His arms go up like he wants to hug me and doesn’t quite know how, and I want him to but can’t take the extra steps to get there. He finally settles for clearing his throat and saying, “I’m so sorry that happened to you. If I had known, I would’ve done everything in my power to stop it. I would’ve gotten you and your mom out. I swear.”

  “I know.”

  “This is going to work, Patsy.”

  “I know, Dad.”

  The silence stretches out for a moment, and I want to cry but can’t.

  “Five fifty-nine. Get ready, honey.” His hand lands on my back. As if I needed him to protect me.

  I nod and flip open my phone. My finger hovers over the call button, and then an explosion rocks the valley. I do
n’t feel the heat like I did when it was my house, but I hear screams as fire and smoke rise above the trees. I press call.

  The phone picks up immediately. “Who the sweet hell is this?”

  “Hi, Leon.”

  He takes a long breath, and the chaos in the background is insane, screams and bangs and crunching. I guess he wasn’t in the house, then.

  “Miss Patsy. I should’ve guessed. Do you know how many innocent people were inside when the bombs you planted went off in my family home? Because it was you, wasn’t it?”

  That strikes hard, just like it was meant to. But I refuse to show him any softness. It’s just something else for me to cry about later, another nightmare to wake me, screaming, at night. At least I don’t have to see the aftermath this time.

  “It was mostly women, though. Me and most of my men were still in the barn torturing your suit, thankfully.”

  I know he’s trying to find a soft spot to hurt, but I ignore the prodding. “What’s funny is that I was told those nut cans were harmless little machines that would make dye packs explode. Nobody ever said anything about bombs. I can’t believe you would lie to me. I thought we were on the same side.”

  A gabble of shouts calls for Leon, and his voice is muffled as he says, “I don’t care how you do it. You get in there and save what you can. Rafe’s a volunteer firefighter. Get him a damn ax and follow him in. Now go!” He sighs heavily and asks me, “What the hell are you doing with Jacky boy, anyway? Are you two lovebirds? Is this a Lolita thing?”

  I let the dead air speak for me, then say slowly, “Whom?”

  He cusses under his breath, and I imagine him running a hand through his rooster-spiky hair. “You are causing me a damn sight of trouble, little girl. And when I find you, I’m going to kill you slowly. Your boyfriend and dog too. And your mom, and your friends, and that little boy you shot. Do you know what it feels like to be tortured, Patsy? Like that man you delivered to me yesterday? To have your fingernails pulled out one by one? You ever seen a dog with no tongue try to drink water? It ain’t pretty.”

  “Ooh, Leon. I’m sooooo scared,” I say. “You’re sooooo scary.”

  “I’m not a man you want to anger,” he says, slow and deadly. “And you’ve already made me angrier than most. Now my life is dedicated to enrolling more soldiers to take down Valor, and God help me, I will use them to take you down too.”

  My fingers curl around the banister as I watch the smoke rise, white and curling, from Crane Hollow. “The thing is, Leon . . . I’m not your soldier. You lied to me from the start, and I think at this point you’re basically just getting kicked in the ass by karma. Or bombed in the ass by karma.” I giggle, mainly because I think it will piss him off.

  “Do you know what a soldier is, Patsy Klein? A soldier is someone too dumb to be in charge. So you go on and pretend you’re dangerous, and I’ll keep commanding people smarter than you.”

  My dad’s phone buzzes with a text, and he touches my sleeve and nods.

  “Well, it’s just been lovely talking to you, Leon, but I’m afraid I’ve got to go.”

  “I’m not done talking to you!” he shouts. “I’m gonna—”

  I flip the phone shut.

  “I bet you are,” I say. It rings, and Leon’s number flashes up. I hold it out to my dad. “Can he track us with this phone?”

  “Not if there was a nut bomb in the war room. I hate that we lost Al’s laptops, but . . .” He sighs. “I need to buy a new laptop and a few new SD cards, and then I can tap back in and see what Leon’s next step will be.”

  That makes me frown. “Why do you care? I thought we were leaving.”

  My dad looks from the smoke spiraling against the dawn sky to me. “Because Operation Red Thursday was a big deal, and I can’t imagine Leon’s going to let a little explosion at home stop him.”

  “What’s Operation Red Thursday?”

  He puts a heavy hand on my shoulder. “I’ll tell you later, if it’s still on. For now, we’ve got people who need us, and they’ll be waiting.”

  We walk around the burned house and down a long dirt and gravel road that swoops through the woods. Trees meet overhead, the birds singing at one another excitedly as the sun thinks about rising. It’s oddly tranquil out here, especially compared to the bustle of the Crane land and the madness I heard happening in the background behind Leon.

  God, I would’ve loved this place when I was little. Our shitty little fenced-in yard and rusted-out metal swing set back home can’t compare.

  “Did you guys ever have, like, family reunions?” I ask.

  My dad looks at me in surprise. “Well, sure. I mean, we got together with the cousins for Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter, that sort of thing. Dad had a cabin on Lake Lanier. Sometimes I’d go along with the Cranes to their family parties—we were close enough cousins that nobody blinked. Why?”

  My sneaker toes kick the gravel a little harder than necessary. “Guess I grew up figuring I had cousins somewhere having parties without me.”

  His hand lands on my back. “It was for your own good, honey. Devil Johnny used everybody he got his hands on. He’s the reason Leon went into the army in the first place—because Devil Johnny wanted the smartest Crane out of the way. I wanted you to have a chance of growing up without your granddad’s ambition hanging over your shoulder, pushing you toward whatever end suited him.”

  “You could’ve sent cards. Or money.”

  He stops and stares at me, incredulous. “I did. I sent birthday cards every year. To both of you, from all over the world so no one could find me. You never got them?”

  I shake my head slowly. “Nope. Mom refused to talk about you. Ever. But why would she hide that from me? And why didn’t you send her money?”

  “I sent some. Clearly not enough. I didn’t think to hack into her finances, you know? She was always responsible, frugal. I just assumed everything was okay.”

  I turn a sniffle into a cough. “Yeah. No, everything was great. I mean, well done. Thanks for checking my grades but not her debt. That was thoughtful.”

  We have to step around a fallen branch, and he says nothing, just keeps walking. I wipe my nose on my sleeves and try to sound like I’m not crying.

  Somewhere in my now-exploded house was a box of cards from my dad. Maybe he told me he loved me. Maybe he sent ten bucks. And I never knew. And now I don’t know who makes me more furious: the father who left me and failed to provide for us or the mother who hid his random and insufficient love from me for her own reasons.

  Why can’t I just have two good parents to love without reservation?

  “I can’t imagine how you’re feeling right now, and I don’t expect you to understand or to forgive me, Patsy. But I want you to know that everything I did, I did for you. I’ve been miserable and heartbroken all this time. Finding you again has been a gift. And from this moment on, I’m never going to leave you. We’re in this together now. I promise.”

  Up ahead, there’s a break in the trees, and I see a flash of burgundy and speed up. I don’t hug my dad. I don’t forgive him. I don’t tell him it’s okay.

  I don’t know if I believe him.

  The burgundy sedan is idling in a small dirt turnaround hidden from the road above. I wave, and Wyatt jumps out of the driver’s seat. We run at each other, arms outstretched like two idiots in a movie. I’m scanning his face and chest for wounds, but he looks totally fine. Not until I’m crushed against his body, wrapped in his arms, do I look at the scene unfolding by the car.

  “Patsy, I—”

  “Hold that thought.”

  I break away from him and run the last few steps to the car, where my mom is getting out of the passenger seat. She looks the same as she did last week, bloated and tired and worn down. But when she sees me, she lights right up, and I can finally relax.

  I can’t believe she’s here. I can’t believe she’s still alive.

  “Patsy!” she says, a little weakly, and then we’re hugging
and crying. I pull back and notice the deep hollows under her eyes.

  “How do you feel, Mom?”

  She laughs sadly. “Like crap. That Heather’s a tight-fisted little thing with the Vicodin.”

  I glance over her shoulder and am surprised to see Heather sitting in the back of the car beside Kevin. They look like they’re arguing, but not a warden-prisoner argument. More like a big sister–little brother argument.

  “Why is she here?” I ask.

  My mom looks back at the car, then at Wyatt’s gold Lexus just behind it. Chance and Gabriela are staring at us from the front seat, while Rex and Bea are tuned out in the backseat, him on his iPod and her staring out the window. Her eyes, as always, give the impression that no one is home.

  “Heather wouldn’t leave me,” my mom says, sounding fond. “When everything exploded, she grabbed my meds and dragged me out of the trailer. When your friends found us, she just came along.”

  “And you let her?” I ask Wyatt.

  He fidgets and frowns. “She’s actually pretty nice, now that she’s away from the Cranes.” He leans close and whispers, “And she knows how to help your mom and the kid. She’s a registered nurse.”

  “But what if she’s loyal to Leon? What if she tells him how to find us?”

  My mom shakes her head and tucks my hair behind my ear. “Nobody likes working for Leon, honey. He’s not a nice man. Heather’s on our side, I promise.”

  “Is that true, Dad?” I turn to him, and he’s looking at me and my mom with tears running down his face.

  He just shakes his head and says, “Karen.”

  My mom swallows hard and shakes her head in disbelief. “Jack?”

  He nods. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Why did . . . ? You were . . . this whole time?”

  He shrugs and gives a weak smile. “Only to keep my girls safe.” When he steps toward her, hands out like he wants to touch her, I watch for a second but can’t handle how my mom’s mouth is shaking at the corners. Instead, I tip my head at Wyatt, and we head to the car.