No Safety in Numbers

  The men began to split up.

  Mike pulled out a set of keys. “Let’s move, J. Shrimp.”

  “Shay’s not here yet,” Ryan said.

  Drew smacked the back of Ryan’s head. “Dude, it’s now or never.”

  Mike sighed. “You can wait for her while I get the car,” he said, “but if she’s not here by the time I get back, you’ve got to let her go.” He loped across the pavement toward his car, which beeped as he pressed a button on his key ring. Drew followed, calling shotgun.

  Ryan stared at the pavilion, willing Shay to appear. Please, god, let her come with us. He saw feet on the escalator. His heart leaped. But it was just some old dude. He stepped out and walked to a sedan parked nearby.

  Mike pulled in front of Ryan. “Time to man up, J. Shrimp,” he said through the open window.

  “She’s coming,” Ryan said. Had the kiss been too much? Had he scared her off?

  Drew stepped out of the passenger door and pushed forward his seat. “Get in before I have to drag your ass over here.”

  Ryan checked his watch. It’d been twenty minutes. She might still be coming.

  Drew grabbed his arm and pulled him to the passenger door. “Forget the bitch,” he said, shoving Ryan into the back.

  Ryan glanced one more time at the empty pavilion as Mike’s car revved down the aisle and pulled up behind the Audi. They had to move quickly; Mr. Reynolds was afraid the engine noise would attract attention. Their cars were started; they had to do it or give up. Mr. Reynolds didn’t seem like the kind of man to give up on anything.

  For those brief moments, as the cars grumbled near the wall, Ryan felt the full extent of the insanity of this plan as an urgent need to pee. He had to get out of that car and use a bathroom. He needed to think about this—they were planning on driving at full speed on purpose into a wall!

  But then the Suburban lurched and squealed down the road between the parked cars. Mike floored it and the M3 bolted after the Audi. Ryan’s heart raced; exhilaration at the sheer speed of their attack flooded through him. He remembered, in the last second, that he hadn’t buckled his seat belt and reached for the strap. The seat belt locked just before the Suburban hit the gate.

  Ryan had not been prepared for what happened next: Complete and total failure.

  The Suburban smashed into the gate, but the gate held. It must have been reinforced on the outside by something incredibly strong—the metal-mesh didn’t move an inch.

  The back end of Mr. Reynolds’s truck shot up into the air, then bounced down hard. The Audi squealed out of the way and flipped over, rolling into a parked minivan. Mike managed to veer off course down an aisle and slammed on the brakes. Ryan was thrown forward, but was held against the leather of the seat by his belt. Mike too remained seated. Drew, however, had not put on his belt; he slammed into the windshield, spiderwebbing the glass.

  “Dude!” Mike said, pulling Drew back into his seat.

  Drew put his hand to his head. “It’s cool,” he said. He lifted his hand, removing a splinter of glass from his scalp. Blood trickled down his face.

  Mike punched him in the arm. “I always tell you to put your fucking belt on!” He sounded scared.

  Ryan felt tingly all over, like maybe he’d been tossed from his own body. But he was all right. By some small miracle, they were all okay.

  A cop came running toward them. “Anyone hurt?” he asked, breathing hard. He must have run the whole way down.

  “No, sir,” Mike said. He spoke in a quiet voice Ryan had never heard him use before.

  The cop ran toward the Audi and Suburban without so much as a nod good-bye. An arm hung off the side of the Suburban’s hood—they were not all okay.

  Other people rushed out of the central pavilion. Ryan guessed the noise from the crash had spooked the whole mall.

  Several guards broke out of the crowd. A few stood in front of the onlookers, keeping them from getting any closer. The rest ran past the M3 to the other cars. They dragged Mr. Reynolds out of his Suburban. Some hazmat guys rushed by pushing a gurney.

  The guards knocked together a jail from some fencing material brought down from the HomeMart. Ryan, Mike, Drew, and the Audi guy were tossed into the cages. After being released from the medical ward, Mr. Reynolds joined them. His neck was in a brace. The guy who’d been riding with Mr. Reynolds was in critical condition.

  “It’ll be all right, boys,” Mr. Reynolds said as the guard closed the gate on his cell. “I’ll figure a way to get us out of this. No way I’m taking part in this government-run experiment.”

  “I’ll bust a skull before I let them suck out my DNA,” Mike growled.

  All Ryan could think was that he was lucky to be alive. And even if he was in jail, he was also still in the mall. Maybe Shay would find him, help to get him out. With her, such things felt possible. He leaned against the fence, pulled out her book, and pretended she was there reading with him.

  DAY

  FIVE

  WEDNESDAY

  L

  E

  X

  I

  The glare of Lights On burned through Lexi’s eyelids. She felt as if she were made of mist; she hadn’t gotten much in the way of sleep. From the sound of it, Ginger hadn’t slept much either. The throw pillow pile in JCPenney was more comfortable than the cement floor of the Apple Store, but last night’s CB call had changed something. Suddenly the divide between them and everyone outside seemed insurmountable.

  She’d hidden the portable CB under the bottom shelf against the wall. No one would find it there; even vacuums had forgotten that particular span of floor, judging from the herd of dust bunnies wafting around.

  The mall speakers crackled to life. “Alexandra Ross, please report to the Apple Store.” The Senator’s voice was a barely controlled scream.

  Ginger pushed herself to sitting. She glanced at Lexi and smiled weakly. “I guess we’re not getting breakfast together.”

  The oil slick in Lexi’s gut returned, seeping in under the nauseating lightness.

  “No,” Lexi said. She stood, zipped her hoodie. She felt cold.

  Ginger grabbed her hand. “Thank you,” she said. “For helping me talk to my dad.”

  Lexi let her go. “No problem,” she said.

  Ginger stood beside her. “I guess I should retrieve Maddie.”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ll catch up with you later?”

  “Sure.”

  Ginger picked up her purse, rummaged through it, and pulled out a tiny bottle of scented hand sanitizer. “Going to need more of this,” she said, squeezing the last of the bottle into her palms.

  “You can’t tell anyone what I told you,” Lexi said. “Not even Maddie, okay?” It was like tossing water on the ashes after the house had already burned.

  Ginger slid a pink-painted nail in an X over her heart. “Our secret.”

  Lexi tried to come up with the likely reasons for her mother to scream her name over a loudspeaker at eight in the morning. Had she heard about the shoplifting? The stunt at the bowling alley? Was she angry that Lexi had not returned to the Apple Store last night? She couldn’t have found out about Ginger’s call. Lexi had been with Ginger all night. Unless Ginger’s dad had done something. The oil slick in her gut confirmed it—Ginger’s dad had done something. What?

  She hovered outside the entrance to the Apple Store. Her mother was near the registers in the back talking to Dad. The Senator was whispering loudly, slicing her hands through the air. Dad was nodding, hand on chin.

  Lexi took a deep breath and stepped into the store.

  The Senator’s eyes locked onto her. “The stockroom,” she said, turning.

  Dad was right behind her. Neither waited to see if Lexi followed.

  Lexi felt sweat prick out all over her skin. Even if Ginger’s dad did something, how could they have linked anything back to her?

  Her parents were waiting in the back corner. There was a makeshift lounge back there—a thr
eadbare couch, some chairs, a mini fridge. The Senator and Arthur stood in front of a flimsy table.

  “I trusted you,” her mother growled. “It’s clear now that was my first mistake.”

  Lexi flinched as if smacked.

  “How did you call Darren?” her father asked calmly.

  So that was how they’d found her out.

  “I knew Darren had a CB radio. I called him using that. Ginger was freaking out and was desperate to talk to her dad.”

  “This radio?” The Senator pulled the police scanner from her pocket.

  Lexi didn’t correct her mistake.

  “Why was Ginger freaking out, might I ask?”

  “I told her. Not everything, just that there was a sickness.”

  “And that we were curing it?”

  “I didn’t want her to worry.”

  The Senator snorted a nasty laugh. “Well, I’m glad you calmed her fears. They’ve determined it’s the flu, meaning there is no cure.”

  The flu? That didn’t sound too devastating.

  Dad glared at the Senator, then turned back to Lexi. “Your mother told you about the bomb in secret for a reason,” he said. “She’s trying to keep a lot of already frightened people from panicking. You saw the riot two nights ago. That is exactly the kind of situation we’re trying to avoid repeating.”

  His calm, scolding tone infuriated her.

  “People need to know about the flu,” Lexi said. “Why not just tell people to wear face masks? Wash their hands? No one’s protecting themselves because they don’t know that they should. And if it’s just a flu strain, why not let us all out? People get the flu all the time.”

  The Senator threw her hands up. “Oh, so now you’re in charge of this situation?”

  “At least I’d keep people from playing spin the bottle when they could be spreading disease with every kiss!”

  “You started a riot!” the Senator shouted. “On the outside. Hundreds of people, more every hour, are picketing and screaming at the barriers surrounding the mall. The governor’s called in the National Guard. This is exactly why the Feds shut down the Internet and the phones. They did not want the people outside to worry until we knew what we were dealing with.”

  This is not all my fault. It couldn’t be all her fault.

  Lexi folded her arms across her chest. “You expected people’s families to just sit around and wait for you to spoon-feed them whatever lies you wanted?”

  The Senator slapped Lexi across the face.

  “Dorothy!” Dad shouted.

  “Wake up,” the Senator said, ignoring Arthur. “This is not some battle of wills between you and me. This is a real crisis. I have the president himself inquiring into whether my daughter could be a part of whatever organization put this bomb here in the first place.”

  The icy claws strangled Lexi once again.

  The Senator continued. “Now you’re starting to get it. We turned the news channels off in the mall so people couldn’t see their grandparents, parents, children being driven away from the perimeter by armed soldiers. Darren’s been taken in for questioning. The FBI is doing a background check into all our finances and scouring your computers at home to look for connections to terrorist organizations. This is all really happening.”

  Lexi felt like a balloon whose string had been cut. She felt suddenly free. “So you’re saying my life is trashed?”

  Arthur stepped in front of the Senator. “Lex, your mother is just trying—”

  “Trying to say that my life is trashed.” Lexi stood straighter. “Good. I barely had a life on the outside anyway, right?”

  “Don’t you get mouthy with me,” the Senator snarled.

  “I’ll do what I want,” Lexi said, turning.

  The police scanner flew by her head and exploded against the wall.

  “Don’t you walk away from me!” the Senator screamed.

  Lexi walked faster, ran out of the stockroom, out of the Apple Store, tears streaming down her cheeks. There was only one place to go. She stomped up the stairs and loped toward the Abercrombie. Ginger was coming out of the entrance. She was crying too.

  “She’s sick!” Ginger yelped. “Maddie’s sick, and so are a couple other kids. I was so scared, I just ran out.”

  She’d been right. Those kids had been playing Russian roulette. And Maddie had lost.

  It was clear what Lexi had to do. She had to take care of whomever she could, starting with Maddie and the other kids in the Abercrombie. So she’d have to spill a few more Ross Family Secrets; it’s not like her mother could get any angrier.

  “Come with me,” she said to Ginger.

  Ginger followed, hands clasped in front of her. “Shouldn’t we get help? Get one of those space people?”

  Lexi gritted her jaw. “The government is only interested in covering their ass. The medical teams would probably lock those kids up for observation instead of treating whatever’s wrong with them.”

  Ginger stopped. “So, what? You’re going to save them?”

  Lexi faced her. “It doesn’t look like there’s anyone else to do the job. Come on, we can get supplies.”

  “No.” Ginger seemed to shrink into herself. “I mean, I’ll help you get supplies, but I’m not going back in there.”

  “What do you mean?” Lexi cocked her head. “Maddie’s your best friend.”

  Ginger stepped back. “She’s sick,” she said, stepping farther away. “I’m sorry.”

  Lexi’s heart raced. She was truly alone.

  “Coward,” Lexi said. She left Ginger standing in the hallway.

  She would not abandon those kids. It was just the flu. She could help them. Even if her mother wouldn’t.

  Lexi went into the PhreshPharm and picked up a basket. She knocked bottles of flu medicine, vitamin C, echinacea, Tylenol, and instant cold packs into it. There were some cans of chicken soup in another aisle; she grabbed those and a flimsy-looking can opener. Then she snagged the biggest bottle of hand sanitizer she could and all the face masks they had on the shelves—for woodworking, disease, whatever.

  She dragged everything to the checkout counter. The clerk began unloading the basket and ringing things up.

  “You know something I don’t?” the person said, sliding the huge bottle of hand sanitizer into a bag.

  Lexi handed over a wad of cash—all her money—and grabbed the bags.

  “Wash your hands,” she said.

  M

  A

  R

  C

  O

  Sorry, we don’t have any waffles left,” Marco said, cringing. People were getting pissed. One guy had picked up his fork and threatened to sample Marco’s arm if he didn’t dig a piece of bacon out of some corner somewhere.

  This woman simply sagged in her seat. “Well, then bring me whatever’s left that I can put syrup on.”

  Marco flipped open his order pad—he’d written down all the breakfast items that remained in the freezer. “Toast?”

  “Fine,” the woman said, hugging her purse to her belly. “All I wanted was a new pair of loafers,” she said, apropos of nothing. “Imagine, if only I’d waited until Sunday, none of this would have happened.”

  Marco wasn’t sure what to say. The quarantine still would have happened, just not to her.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, thinking that was the response most likely to get him a tip.

  She didn’t respond. The lady stared at the wall across the aisle, breathing softly.

  The guy this morning who wouldn’t take no bacon for an answer was not the first to threaten Marco with his utensil. And Jerome had to take over as bathroom guard after a guy picked Josh up and tossed him out of the way rather than pay the twenty-five cents to use the john. Jerome was not someone any mall-walker was likely to mess with.

  Marco’s world was now divided between the mall-walkers and the mall-workers. Of course, there were the Outsiders, who were a special class, the overlords of this insane little petri dish, but the re
st were either mall-workers, suffering on, running the stores, cleaning up the mess, or mall-walkers with nothing to do but hang out, flirt, see movies, window-shop, whatever. Marco was beginning to really hate the mall-walkers. All they did was whine and complain. They should try pulling six straight shifts. They should shut the hell up and be grateful anyone’s serving them at all.

  With the rising emotional barometer, Marco began to consider whether there was any possible scenario for survival within the mall. Each new malevolent customer made escape seem the best option. But was it even possible?

  He’d heard some kids talking about the escape attempt through the parking garage. You didn’t need tarot cards to predict the failure of that attempt. If the Outsiders had blocked even the obscure fire escape in its ceiling, surely they would have considered the possibility of someone driving their car through the garage’s security gate. Anyone who’d ever seen an action movie could have called that plan.

  He needed to think of something truly insane, something not even Michael Bay had conceived of doing. Something beyond the thinking of J. J. Abrams.

  “Kid!”

  A guy at table ten was waving an empty coffee mug at Marco. Yeah, buddy, get in line. They were rationing coffee now. Mr. Seveglia sprinkled the new grinds into the machine over the old to give the water some color. Marco imagined the resulting liquid tasted somewhere between burnt dirt and pond scum. He stalked up to the coffeemaker and grabbed the pot, then tromped back to the guy at ten and gave him a half cup.

  “Fill ’er up, kid,” the guy said. “I haven’t slept since Friday.”

  Marco braced himself. “Sorry,” he said. “We’re only allowed to do one half-cup refill per order. If you want a full cup, you have to pay for another.”

  The man looked at the sad, tannish water in the mug. Marco waited for him to chuck it at the wall. But the man simply slurped his ration down.

  “I’ll take another order, then.” He held up the empty cup. He looked like he was ready to cry. A guy who was, like, Marco’s dad’s age. On the verge of tears over coffee.

  Marco had to get out of the mall. He couldn’t take this anymore.