Strike

  I remember those red numbers on the dash and shiver.

  If I’d waited a few seconds longer to knock on Wyatt’s door . . . kaboom.

  “It’s a flawed system. You see your neighbor get shot when he opens his door, you either stop opening your door or you buy a bigger gun,” Wyatt says.

  My dad nods in approval. “If I had to guess, I’d bet that Valor has planned their big announcement for after Black Friday. Everyone would’ve already signed their credit slips from Thursday and Friday morning and would be at home, inside, with their families, watching TV.”

  “But no one shops on Thursday, do they?” I ask.

  “They will now. Valor-owned stores are offering even crazier deals on Thanksgiving than they do on Black Friday. Game consoles for ten bucks for the first ten people in the store, buy-one-get-one-free phones.” He points to a billboard offering one-dollar plasma-screen televisions if you sign up for a year of E-finity satellite TV. “Valor owns E-finity. It’s just more signatures. They’re trying everything they can to get people out and shopping or signing their terms of service agreements. All Valor devices will force a new terms of service agreement on Thursday morning. Either join or lose your ability to text.”

  “And what about Cyber Monday?” Wyatt adds. “They wouldn’t want to miss all the home shoppers and everyone who’s too scared to leave the house.”

  My dad sighs. “Guys, if I knew everything Valor was doing, I wouldn’t be here. I would be somewhere else, planting bigger bombs.”

  We go quiet, and my dad hunts through his bag, pulling out a burner phone and flipping it open. He must not see what he wants, as he shakes his head and tosses it back in. I get lost in a thought spiral, trying to figure out how Valor can even function as a government. What about Congress? What about wars? If you already have all the money and everything is motivated by money, why could you possibly want more money? Doesn’t money stop meaning anything at some point? Then again, what my history teachers called either a democracy or a republic never made sense to me in the first place. If your vote doesn’t count, what’s the point of a vote? It all ends up in the hands of greedy old men anyway.

  Soon Wyatt is turning in at a hotel so close to the mall that I can see the glass dome over the carousel from the hotel parking lot. My dad goes in without us and comes back out with a stack of key cards. I’m about to say something about the expense, but that doesn’t matter anymore, does it? He just pulls more dollars out of Valor’s back pocket whenever he wants to.

  “Patsy, you’re with the girls.” He points to Bea and Gabriela. “Wyatt, you’re with the boys.” He points to Chance and Rex. “Karen . . .” His voice cracks, and he coughs and settles for giving the card to Heather. “Y’all bunk together with the kid. And I’m alone.”

  “Why do you get your own room?” I ask.

  His smile is grim. “Because I’m the one with the laptop, and if they come for me, I want to be alone on a different floor when it happens. Go on up, and do whatever you want to. Eat, sleep. If you’re going to the mall, we’re going to meet in the hotel lobby at nine tonight in regular clothes. Bring your stuff in your backpack. Everybody got that? Nine.”

  Everyone nods. My dad turns and walks away.

  Heather looks down. “We’re in 247. See you!” As she helps Kevin limp through the door, I slip the sappy greeting card into my mom’s hand and hug her as hard as I think she can handle.

  “I love you, Mom,” I say fiercely.

  She hugs me back. “I love you too. And I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t be.” I reach under the neck of my shirt and pull out her rosary. When she sees it, she gasps. I hold it out. “This helped me when I needed it most. I wanted you to know. I think Mother Mary is on our side.”

  But she won’t take it from me. She just folds my fingers over it and says, “Keep it. Keep Mary with you. Keep me with you. I don’t understand why you’re doing what you’re doing, but I want you to come back. When I came home that morning and you were gone . . . I never thought I’d see you again. I kept praying it was some sort of nightmare, that you were just at school, like normal. I called your phone again and again. Nothing. I thought you were dead.”

  I nod, tears in my eyes. “I thought you were, too.”

  She reaches in to hug me, and I’m flooded with comfort and love. Everyone else leaves, going to their separate rooms.

  “We’re in 315,” Gabriela says. “See you later.”

  We’re alone now in the lobby, and I have one more question, so I hook my arm through my mom’s and pull her to sit on one of the hard leather sofas. “Mom, did Dad ever send you any money?”

  She pats her pockets, blushes, and acts all flustered. I frown.

  “A little,” she allows. “He sent a fifty in your birthday cards.”

  “What else?”

  My mom’s eyes wobble with tears. “I didn’t touch it, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Rage starts to build in my chest. Of all her failings, I never thought my mom would lie to me. Or steal from me. “Mom. Come on. Tell me the truth.”

  She steels herself, exhales, and sits up, her chin just as stubborn as mine. “I saved it. Every penny. It’s in a college fund for you. They used to match it, when I worked for Haverford and Sons.” I stare, hard, in shock. “There’s around forty thousand in there right now,” she adds weakly.

  I’m back in her arms in an instant. “God, Mom. You idiot. You unselfish moron. You could’ve used it. To pay off Valor. For your meds. Or whatever. Why didn’t you?”

  She relaxes against me, back shaking with sobs under my hands. “You deserved so much better than you got. So much better than what I could give you. I didn’t want Jack’s money, but I wanted you to have a future. It was the most important thing. I didn’t know Valor would do this. Who could know? It was the best I could do. I’m so sorry, honey.”

  I shake my head against her, my tears falling on her sweater. “Forty thousand still wouldn’t have been enough, Mom. Not even half of enough.”

  “I love you, honey. I would give everything I ever had to make this okay. I made so many mistakes—”

  I pull away, dash away my tears, and smile. “Mom, no. It’s just . . . All this time, I thought he didn’t care and wasn’t helping you. And then I thought you had just used up all the money. Turns out you were both trying to help all along. Valor is the bad guy here. Not you.” I look toward the elevators. “And not him, either.”

  “He was a good dad,” she says, as if it pains her. “Right up until the day he walked out.”

  “He was trying to be a good dad then, too,” I say.

  After some more tears and hugs, she looks exhausted, like the crying cost her. I urge her upstairs to rest. She’ll get chemo soon, but I’ve got to keep her functional until then.

  I scan the restaurants around the hotel and text Wyatt.

  Patsy: Sushi buffet. 7?

  Wyatt: Sounds good.

  Patsy: Tell all the kids.

  Wyatt: Cool.

  Then, as I step into the elevator, my phone buzzes again.

  Wyatt: We’re going to get her back, Patsy. I promise.

  Patsy: Don’t promise me things. Except sushi.

  Our hotel room is soft and brightly lit, the puffy white comforters defiled by our purchases. Gabriela is in the bathroom, the sound of her clippers buzzing through the closed door. I’m next, and I’m not excited. I don’t really trust a junior dog groomer to give me a good haircut, but how bad can it be? I cut my own hair, after all, and my grown-out bangs and ragged, asymmetrical bob aren’t going to be hard to improve on. She told me to wait with the bleach until after she was done, and I’m not looking forward to that, either.

  Bea is in the uncomfortably square chair by the window, reading a paperback romance with a half-naked cowboy on the cover and drinking a green smoothie with a dancing head of lettuce on the front. She’s not smiling, and I wonder if she’s getting anything out of the crappy-looking book, but I’m not ab
out to ask. Our conversation earlier was unsettling. I long for my knitting, but I know my stitches would be tight as hell right now. Maybe I’ll find something good to spray-paint on my way to the mall later. It’s the only way I have to scratch this itch.

  The bathroom door opens, and Gabriela steps out, shouting, “Ta-da!”

  Her hair is cropped close to her head, revealing beautiful, fierce lines and making her cheekbones pop.

  “You look fantastic,” I say.

  “Thanks. It’ll do. Catch!” She throws something at me, and I dodge and fall off the edge of the bed. When I pick it up, it’s a big ball of her purple Afro, fluffy and light as a puff of cotton candy.

  “Your turn.” She holds out a hand to the open bathroom door, and I step inside.

  “What do you want?” she asks.

  I start to shrug, then lift my chin. “Short. Whatever you think best. Just make me look like someone else.”

  She has me take off my hoodie before she wraps a crunchy hotel towel around my shoulders. I’ve never had my hair professionally cut, so it’s not like I know what I’m missing. When she turns on the clippers and does the first swipe, I want to cry. She must notice.

  “Turn around,” she says, confident and tough, two things I don’t currently feel.

  I turn my back to the mirror and close my eyes as strip after strip of thick black hair falls to the ground. The buzz of the clippers grates on my nerves and tickles my neck, and it seems to go on forever before she turns it off, snips me with scissors for an eternity, takes my shoulders, and turns me around.

  When I open my eyes, I have a rough pixie cut. And I feel twenty pounds lighter. Before I can really enjoy it, though, she’s pulling packets out of the box of bleach I bought and mixing up a white paste that burns my nose. Soon I’m spackled in grit, my scalp burning.

  “How long?” I ask.

  The set of her mouth is grim. “As long as it takes.”

  While we wait, she calls Bea in.

  “What do you want?” Gabriela asks.

  “I don’t care. Hair is just another disguise,” Bea says placidly.

  Gabriela reaches for the girl’s long, white-blond hair, her hand hovering in the air. “May I?” she asks carefully.

  She doesn’t actually touch it until Bea says, “Yes.”

  “Did you buy any hair dye?” Bea nods, leaves the room, and comes back with the most boring brown I’ve ever seen. “This and a long bob, and no one will ever notice you.”

  Bea smiles, a real smile. Almost. “Good.”

  A few hours later, and we emerge. Bea is mousy and invisible. I have red hair in a pixie cut, and bubblegum-pink lips. I can’t stop smiling. Not because I feel pretty or hope Wyatt will like it. Because I look nothing like myself, which means I might get to shoot Leon Crane before he even notices me. But I don’t tell anyone that. It’s my own little secret.

  26.

  And then we wait. We take turns showering, steaming up the bathroom and trying not to get our freshly dyed hair on the towels. Gabriela and I do our makeup, aiming to look as normal and boring as possible. Bea reads her book, looking even less like a human and more like a robot. I’m pretty sure she bought her striped leggings and flowered shirt in the little girls’ section. For a sixteen-year-old, she’s tiny. But what do you expect if you only eat green foods? She’s by far the strangest person I’ve ever met.

  Time drags slowly. I sweep everything off one of the beds and lie down, but you can only stare at a white ceiling for so long before you start to go insane. Gabriela’s charging her iPod, and my phone is plugged in, and when it buzzes, I just about leap across the room. We have to conserve our phone use, since we don’t know how much data or time is on them.

  It’s Wyatt’s number. Meet me ten minutes early?

  I answer, On my way.

  I stop for one last mirror check, and it doesn’t even register as me. I’m in leggings and a flowy gray tunic, mostly as an ironic nod to all the YA dystopias I used to read, in which everyone wore gray tunics all the time for no good reason. Maybe I should kiss Chance and start a love triangle, too. I think the bleach is messing with my mind. On the way out, I grab my new flowered denim backpack.

  “Lobby in ten,” I remind my cellmates.

  And then I’m hurrying to the elevators and toward Wyatt. His back is to me when I step off in the lobby—he’s reading the breakfast menu, not that we’ll be here to try it. When he turns around, we just stare at each other, mouths agape.

  “Holy shit,” he says. “You make a cute redhead.”

  “You look like a lumberjack,” I say. He’s got that hipster haircut, with the sides shaved and the top long and messy. With his stubble growing out and the plaid shirt he’s wearing, I worry that he’s going to be too eye-catching for what we’ve got to do tonight. Because I would notice him, wherever he was.

  The gawking gets so awkward that I just go in for a hug so we can stop standing here, staring like two idiots in a rom com.

  I pull away and rock back on my heels. “So . . . what’s up?”

  He looks sheepish, like the old Wyatt. “Uh, I just needed to see you. The wait’s been killing me. We all went and got haircuts, and then it was like the clock stopped moving. Chance is asleep, and Rex is watching some movie with a ton of explosions, and if tonight goes crazytown, I wanted some time alone with you first. Even if you’re still a little mad at me.”

  He holds out his hand, and I lace my fingers through his. We walk out the front door and follow the sidewalk around as I struggle for the right words. “I’m not mad at you. I’m just mad. Like, at everything. In general.”

  “Me too.”

  “Now that we have a plan, I’m a little better. At least we’re doing something.”

  “We’re going to get her back, Patsy.”

  “I know. But keep telling me that.”

  He sits on a bench and pulls me into his lap, wrapping his arms around me.

  “Your hair smells weird,” he murmurs into my ear.

  “There isn’t a normal anymore,” I say. “Will you just hold me?”

  “For as long as I can.”

  We kiss wildly, madly, passionately, desperately, as if trying to devour each other. And then we just sit like that, plastered together, not talking, looking like strangers, forgetting the world, until our friends come down for dinner.

  It feels a lot like the Last Supper, but with Styrofoam cups of soda instead of wine. The six of us sit around the sticky wood table at the sushi buffet, alternately stuffing our faces and staring down at the planks of fish and rolls of bright orange eggs as if realizing that eating is pretty dumb if you’re just going to explode in a couple of hours. Because isn’t that the crux of it? Whether we fail or succeed, if we’re not out of that building on time, we’ll be burnt crispier than a salmon-skin roll.

  We don’t talk much, because what’s the point? We can talk tomorrow—whoever is left to talk. There’s another table of kids nearby, and they’re all seniors talking about the colleges they’ve applied to for next year and early acceptance and frats and which bars serve warm beer without checking IDs, and I want to jab all their eyes out with my chopsticks. College just means more debt, which means Valor wins. Again. Do they seriously not know what’s going on?

  “You guys want to-go cups?” Chance asks, and everyone shrugs noncommittally. “Coke Zero?” he asks Gabriela, and she just shrugs again, her eyes far away.

  When Chance goes to the hostess to charm her into more drinks, Gabriela stares at his back like she’s trying to change his mind telepathically. He shaved his head, and he doesn’t even look like the same guy. He looks haunted, like a war refugee. Maybe she’s right about his death wish.

  The waitress brings our check and another round of sodas, and I slide my Happy Birthday gift card over, because who cares which of us pays with stolen Valor money? Everyone but me and Chance heads for the bathroom, and as soon as Gabriela’s out of view, he pops the top off her to-go cup.

 
“What are you doing?” I ask.

  “I’m putting roofies in her drink,” he says, like it’s the most normal thing ever.

  “You know I’m not okay with that. I’m going to tell her.”

  He shakes his head, and I can see the cracks in his cool-guy facade as he stirs her drink with his chopstick. “Look, I don’t want her to go into the mall today. I might be dumb and invincible, and I might deserve to die for all the bad shit I’ve done, but she’s too good for this kind of thing. She couldn’t pull the trigger, even if she had a gun. So she’s going to be asleep in the hotel while it goes down.” He puts the top back on and meets my eyes, fierce and angry. “And you’re not going to tell her because you know I’m right.”

  “Do you have any more?” I ask.

  “A whole Baggie full.”

  I lean over and check the route to the restroom.

  “Put some in Rex’s drink too.”

  “What about Wyatt and Bea?”

  “Wyatt needs to do this, or he’ll feel guilty forever.” It’s selfish as hell, but I don’t care. I need him there.

  “And Bea?” He holds a tiny pill over her drink, waiting.

  “Bea can handle the risk.”

  And the world might be better off without her, I think but don’t say.

  The pills go into Rex’s drink, and Chance recaps it, right as the bathroom door opens.

  “I would be really pissed at you for selling roofies,” I mutter, “but right now we need roofies.”

  “I don’t sell them,” he whispers back. “I found them on the kitchen table of one of my marks and figured they’d be safer with me than with whoever broke into his house after I left. But you’re welcome.”