Strike

  A guy who thinks like that doesn’t deserve to die, but I don’t know how to tell him that.

  Gabriela picks up her drink and takes a deep sip, and I smile at her.

  Chance is right. It’s better this way.

  As we walk back to the hotel, Gabriela and Rex get noticeably clumsy. We’re lucky it’s only a block from the restaurant, because by the time we’re in the elevator, Chance is pretty much carrying her, and Wyatt’s got an arm around Rex, half holding him up.

  “Thought caffeine was s’posed to make you wake up,” Rex slurs.

  “S’not working,” Gabriela adds.

  I’ve already tossed the remains of both their drinks.

  Wyatt gives me a look that says he knows damn well something is up, and I give him an exaggerated wink and murmur, “The eagle waits at midnight.”

  Bea seems totally unconcerned and continues to nurse her Mountain Dew as if this is totally normal.

  When we get in the elevator, I push the button for my floor and say, “Just bring him, too.”

  I lead the way to our room and clear all our crap off the beds. Wyatt helps Rex crawl into one, although the kid won’t get under the covers until he’s managed to slip off his shoes. Chance tucks Gabriela into the other one, leaning down to kiss her forehead.

  “Don’t wake up, Sis,” he says, more sweetly than I imagined him capable of.

  It’s only eight, which means we’ve got another hour before it’s time to meet downstairs, but I want out of this room. It still smells of bleach and hair dye, and every second I spend here makes me want to pace back and forth like an animal trapped in a zoo. I grab my backpack and nod to the remaining three people on my team.

  “Let’s go be rebellious.”

  Wyatt and Chance grin, and Bea tries to.

  This hotel is perfectly situated for anarchy. We start at the closed-down seafood place next door, and I leave my mark on one brick wall, my biggest one yet. I buy some big markers in the hobby store, and we head to the mostly empty bookstore, where we sneak into corners with the bestsellers and scribble VALOR $UCKS and FUCK YOUR VALOR and READ THE FINE PRINT and PAY OR DIE inside. When one of the bookstore employees starts watching me in the big mirror, I grab the others and run.

  We hit a busy coffee shop next, and with the guys standing at the table like they’re trying to pick me up, I scrawl VALOR $UCKS across the fake plastic wood. In the bathroom, I get out my paint cans and write, VALOR IS YOUR NEW GOD on the wall.

  We run away laughing, and the sound is wild and mad, like dogs on the hunt for meat.

  When I check my phone, we’ve got ten minutes left, and we hurry back to the hotel lobby. I realize that we lost Bea somewhere along the way. She’s probably still in the bookstore, looking for a new cowboy erotic romance. One by one, people are dropping off. And that feels right. The fewer people who walk into that mall tonight, the fewer people who can get in my way. And the fewer people who can die fighting my fight.

  We’re a minute late, and my dad is furious.

  “Where are the others? Aren’t there six of you?”

  “Not anymore,” I say, and he doesn’t ask why. It’s just Chance and Wyatt, now.

  My dad leads us out to the burgundy sedan and pulls a big duffel bag from the trunk. Inside are crisply folded jumpsuits, gray and creased. He hands one to each of us, and we stuff them in our backpacks on top of the identical tan work boots we bought at Mark’s today. When my dad gets in the driver’s seat, Wyatt and I get in the back, and Chance sits in the front.

  “It’s almost an hour until the mall closes. I’m going to drop each of you off in a different department store. There are four of them anchoring the mall, so we’ll go to one each. I’m parking the car closest to Nickel’s, which is by the hotel. I don’t care what you do until nine fifty, and then I want you in your department store’s bathroom, putting on your jumpsuit and boots. Dump your bag and find something to do that a janitor would do. Push a garbage can, carry a mop, squeegee a window. It doesn’t matter. You have to be out of your store and in the mall at ten, or else you get stuck behind the cage and can’t help. Got it?”

  We all nod. We’re outside the yawning mouth of the Mr. Goodbuy store, and Chance grips the handle of the passenger door, but my dad stops him with a hand on his sleeve. “I’m not done. As soon as you’re out in the mall, find a place to hide. A bathroom, whatever. We have to give the CFF time to bring in the boxes. Stay on the lower level. Leave the upper level to me. I’m going to take out all the guards. And do not let them see you.” He reaches into his bag and hands Chance a beat-up burner phone. “You’re the only one without a phone, right? Only use this for emergencies. I have all your numbers. Once the Crane guards are gone, I’ll text each of you, and then we’ve got to find the dog and get out before five a.m. Don’t stay late. Don’t do anything stupid. Just wait, get the dog, and get out. You guys need to check the boxes in each atrium and near the Santa-photo setup. Got it?”

  And I watch him, realizing that everything he’s just said contradicts what he told me in private about this entire mission being a trap. But I don’t say anything, because I’m going in anyway.

  Chance nods and gets out. Turning back, he says, “Break a leg, nerds.”

  Walking into the department store, he looks like any other eighteen-year-old boy. Tall, gawky, trying to walk with swagger that he doesn’t quite possess. My dad drives around to the next store, Oxford’s.

  “You’re up, kid,” he says to Wyatt.

  Wyatt takes a deep breath and opens his arms, and I want to hug him forever. If everything goes wrong, this could be our last hug. Or my last hug. Or his. I don’t want it to end, but my dad gives a pissy little sigh, so I tilt my head up and kiss Wyatt on the lips. Not like our earlier kiss, not half crazed and desperate and hard. Just a soft, long peck, a sigh into his mouth. Wyatt goes still, probably mortified that my dad is watching us kiss, but I’m not done with him. I put a hand on his cheek and say, “Be careful.”

  He goes to kiss me on the cheek and whispers, “Fuck that plan. Meet me by the popcorn shack at ten.”

  And then he’s out and walking toward the store where the rich girls buy their prom dresses, looking like a dapper kid on the hunt for some plaid.

  “Last one.” My dad’s voice is strained, whether from the stress of going into a soon-to-explode mall or the pain of watching his daughter kiss a boy.

  He pulls up in front of Frills 2, and I wince. In my old clothes, I would’ve looked so out of place here, where they import all the high-fashion crap that didn’t sell at the fancier mall downtown. But now, with my red pixie and pink lips and flowing tunic, I belong. I put my hand on the door, and my dad says, “Patsy, wait.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

  He takes his foot off the brake and parks nearby. When he turns the car off—that’s when my alarm bells start ringing. What is he going to say to me that he didn’t say to anyone else?

  “Dad, what?”

  He purses his lips, thinking. “We never talked about what would happen after this.”

  “We get Matty and drive away into the sunset. Or sunrise, I guess.”

  His grin is boyish and sweet. “Even after all this, you still think you’re gonna get a happy ending, huh?”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  “If you get out of here, with or without the dog, with or without anybody else, you keep this card.” He hands me another gift card from a stack of cards with a rubber band around them. “It’s got . . . well, a lot of money on it. I’m leaving my real bag and the laptop in the trunk. You don’t wait for me. You drive away, you hear? And keep these.” He hands me three drivers’ licenses, one from Georgia, one from Texas, and one from Canada. Each one has a different name, and the faces on them look enough like me to work. “You’re going to need those to rent an apartment or get a hotel room. And for driving. Here’s an extra key to this car.” He hands me that, too. My palms are starting to feel heavy, weighed down. “The tank
is full.”

  “Seems like you were pretty busy this afternoon,” I say.

  He snorts. “Yeah, well, we can’t all spend our time defacing private property.”

  I clear my throat and try to rub some green paint off my hand.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he says. “Point is, we’re not vigilantes anymore. We’ve got your mom and the others to look after. I don’t know what Valor’s next move is, but I know that things are going to be hard for a while, and the best thing anyone can do is find some mountain house where you can grow vegetables and dig a well and just stay off the goddamn grid until the government sorts out its shit. I know you don’t know how the darknet works, but when you open the laptop, there’s a tab for a Canadian pharmaceuticals company that will mail you any meds your mother needs. Chemo drugs, needles, Zofran, medical marijuana.” I blush. “Whatever she needs,” he repeats gruffly. “The password is ‘Patsy’ and your birthday. No spaces.”

  “But I don’t need to know all that, because you’re going to be fine, Dad.”

  “We can’t count on that, honey.”

  And damn if he doesn’t look like he thinks we’re going to fail. I want to tell him everything—from the past fourteen years and from right now. But what comes out is what I need him to know.

  “Mom got the money. Put it in a college fund for me. She had it all along.”

  His smile is fond as he shakes his head. “Oh, Karen. Of course she did.”

  “And I forgive you. I’m sorry for everything I said.”

  The car suddenly feels too small and warm, and I lean in to him, wrapping my arms around his neck. This is the dumbest good-bye, awkward and sideways with a parking brake in my hip. We’ve barely had any time together, and it’s all been borrowed. He never got to know the real Patsy, the one who collects stuffed turtles and does yarn bombing and dresses in the nasty dinosaur costume for little-kid birthday parties at the pizza place. The only Patsy he’s ever known is a killer who couldn’t quite smile, and I’ve picked a fight with him every chance I got. I guess, at least, our relationship is pretty typical. Dad doesn’t understand daughter; daughter rebels to get dad’s attention. Except that, on a lot of levels, he does understand me. We both know how to shoot people if it means our loved ones get to keep going.

  “I love you,” I say for the first time, my words muffled against his shoulder.

  “I love you too. And don’t ever forget that everything I ever did since you were born was meant to keep you safe. I might’ve failed, but goddammit, I tried. Now let’s go get your dog.”

  “I thought you didn’t care about the dog.”

  “I care about you.”

  He kisses the top of my head, a benediction, and I get out of the car and look back.

  When I motion for him to open the window, I say, “See you tomorrow morning.”

  “See you, honey.”

  It’s a quick walk to the mall, stuffing the four cards and the car key into my padded bra. I don’t want to use them, don’t want to think about what it means that he’s given them to me. Is my dad planning something even more stupid than what I’ve already planned? I should’ve had Chance sneak pills into his drink. At least then I’d know he was safe. At least I’d know he wasn’t going to mess up.

  27.

  The moment I push open the front door of Frills 2, I start to feel queasy. I don’t know if it’s the cloud of perfume, the overheated air, the effects of bargain sushi, or the fact that I’m walking toward a big pile of bombs, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose my dinner. I guess that’s at least one sign that the old Patsy is still around—I’m scared shitless, shaking, and close to puking.

  “Can I help you?”

  The perfume lady blocking my path holds a glittering jar of pink liquid in my face like a threat, and I hold up a hand.

  “No thanks. Just browsing.”

  I keep walking, and she follows me. She’s like the Disney version of my mom, thin and overdone with teeth so white they’re almost blue.

  “And what are we browsing for today?”

  “A faster way out of this store.”

  She stops following me after that, but I don’t feel any better. It was ridiculous, to think I could ever fit in on the marble floors of Frills 2. I should go hide out in the Jerky Haus. At least it smells better.

  I’ve got thirty minutes left to kill and two cards loaded with cash, so I decide to do something I never had the guts to do before. I head for the jewelry store, march up to the counter, and ask to have my nose pierced.

  I’m the only one in the store, and the mall’s pretty quiet, despite the posters promising extra mall police armed to protect the safety of “our valued guests.” The girl looks around nervously. She’s got multiple earrings in each ear, a nose ring, and a lip ring.

  “I’m not supposed to do that,” she says.

  “I’ll tip you twenty bucks.” She nibbles her pierced lip. “Fine. I’ll tip you fifty bucks.”

  She grins. “Damn. Can’t pass that up. Promise you won’t tell anybody?”

  I grin. “Promise.”

  I almost chicken out when she loads up the bedazzled gun, but it’s not the scariest thing I’ve seen this week. It barely hurts, and then I’ve got a stud in my nose and some off-the-record healing recommendations.

  “You’re supposed to have this done in a tattoo parlor with a needle,” she says. “But I did mine here, and it’s fine, so whatever.” I leave with a bottle of saline solution that I’ll probably never get to use, but I feel pretty badass. And maybe she’ll use her tip to help pay off a Valor credit card.

  Without a ton of time left, I buy a slushie and pour an energy drink into it, slurping slowly as I walk back toward Frills 2. At first I figure I’ll skip it and just use the public restroom, but then I have an idea.

  I hurry around the silk scarves and straight into the ladies’ room, which is absurdly posh, with couches and ottomans and flower arrangements. I check under the stalls, but no one is here, and I don’t see a camera anywhere, either. With an evil laugh, I lock the door out into the mall, get out my spray paint, and do my biggest and most beautiful VALOR $UCKS across their huge, well-lit mirror. And then I spray dollar signs on all their fancy chairs and a giant red anarchy symbol on the painting over the fake fireplace. When I look at myself in the mirror, I barely recognize the miscreant I see grinning back with short red hair, a pierced nose, and fingers splattered with red and green.

  And that’s when I hear someone yank on the door I’ve locked.

  “Hello?” a woman calls, jiggling the door with increasing force. “Why is this locked?”

  My heart goes crazy, because I’ve just done something totally stupid. I was supposed to be invisible, and instead I’ve committed a major act of vandalism and locked myself in with the evidence. I don’t want to hurt this woman, and even if I did, gunshots would bring people running, including those armed mall police. I passed several on my way to and from the jewelry store, and they looked a lot tougher than the frail old man who tried to take down Wyatt at the strip mall.

  The only thing left to do is run.

  I wet a paper towel and wipe my fingerprints off the spray cans as the woman’s yells get louder. The cans go in the under-counter trash can, and I shoulder my bag and step behind the rattling door.

  “Whoever is in there had better open this door right now!” she shouts.

  I scrunch into the corner, take a big breath, and turn the bolt.

  The door flies open, and a woman rushes in, and I slip out behind her and run.

  “Hey!” she yells. “Stop right there!”

  But I’m fast and full of fear and caffeine and high on vandalism, so I keep going. It’s exhilarating, running away from someone who doesn’t have a gun. I’m out of the store before I hear her shout again, and I turn the next corner and head for the public restroom by the tea shop. I pick a stall and lock the door to change into my mall jumpsuit. The filmy tunic gets wadded up and stuffed into the tampon bo
x, but I keep the tank and leggings on, because I plan to take off this jumpsuit at some point and don’t want to be naked when that happens.

  The whole time I’m changing, I’m shivering with nerves, waiting for the door to bang open and another basic saleswoman to start hollering. But no one shows up. When I leave the stall, I put the flats in my bag and slip on the thick socks Wyatt recommended I buy for the work boots. He said I’d get horrible blisters with my usual argyles. The boots feel huge and clompy and stiff, and I zip up the jumpsuit and straighten to glare at the stranger in the mirror. I look totally bizarre, like a bird in a bear suit, so I wipe off the lipstick with a wet paper towel and shove on a baseball cap.

  Putting my bag on the counter, I dig through it for the things I can’t live without. The photo I took from Uncle Ash’s house, my mom’s printed Valor card with that damning number printed on it in green, the two halves of Amber’s same card. I have the rosary around my neck where my lucky locket used to be, the cross hanging low under my jumpsuit. My burner phone goes in my jumpsuit’s chest pocket. I’m not sure what to do with my gun, as it would be pretty useless in my waistband when the jumpsuit is zipped, so I stick it in the extra-large front pocket. The hideous gray sack is pretty big on me, even though it’s an extra-small, so there’s plenty of room.

  Everything else in my bag can be replaced, so I stuff it down the trash can and walk out the door with empty hands. I turn down the hallway marked EMPLOYEES ONLY and grab the first rolling trash can I see. Feeling obvious as hell, I push the garbage through the empty mall, toward Wyatt and the popcorn stand.

  If I look silly, so does he. Wyatt’s jumpsuit fits well, but his haircut and general handsomeness don’t go with the drab gray aesthetic. He’s leaning against a push broom, fully focused on me like a daydreaming lumberjack.

  “Everything smooth?” he asks.

  “Nope. I almost got caught.”

  “Wait. Is that a nose ring?”

  I turn my head to show it off. “Yep.”