Now, here in the back room, he has her at his gentle mercy. All that remains is to extract the information he needs. This will certainly be easier than catching Lassiter at the airplane Graveyard. This will be a cakewalk, and after all he’s been through, heaven knows, he deserves it.
34 • Sonia
This man is no Juvey-cop. He’s not even a proper parts pirate. Sonia knows there is something fundamentally wrong with him. Something internally disfigured far worse than is revealed by his horrible face.
“If the media has it right, the triple threat has come together again,” he says. “Connor Lassiter, Lev Calder, and Risa Ward. I’m hoping you can confirm that for me.”
Sonia catches him eying the groceries stacked around the back room. She curses herself for not bringing them downstairs.
“Clearly, you’re feeding a horde, and this is an ADR safe house. I didn’t know there were any left.”
Sonia says nothing. The trunk is on the rug, and the rug is smoothed out, leaving no hint that either has been moved. Not hint of the trapdoor beneath. He might suspect that she’s harboring AWOLs, but he has no idea where.
When she doesn’t answer him, he sighs and stands up, approaching her. “Don’t assume I’m going to enjoy what I’m about to do,” he says. “I do it only because it’s necessary.” Then he reaches out to her and presses his thumb against her broken left hip, with more force than anyone should be capable of delivering.
Beyond unbearable, the pain is unthinkable. She tries to bite it back, but it comes warbling out as a feeble wail between her gritted teeth. Dark worms squirm across her eyesight, threatening to overtake her, but then they recede to the periphery as he removes his thumb and backs away, assessing her. The pain remains and she feels weaker than she’s ever felt. She wishes she could take the splintered end of her shattered cane and jam it through his stolen eye.
“Once again . . . Connor Lassiter.”
Still Sonia says nothing. Let him kill her, she will still not speak. She thinks he may step forward again and cause her even more pain, but instead he turns to the trunk and, without the slightest hesitation, kicks it to the side, then flips back the rug to reveal the trapdoor beneath.
“Did you think I was stupid? I was a Juvey-Cop long enough to smell a hiding place the second I walk into a room. I wonder how many stinking AWOLs you have down there. Ten? Twenty?”
It’s a far more effective tactic than pain as far as Sonia is concerned, and this bastard knows it. “Leave them alone! You’re not here for them,” Sonia reminds him.
“Indeed not.” Now he sits on the edge of her desk, close to her. On her desk is a bowlful of old-fashioned cigarette lighters she was polishing and preparing to display in the shop. He pulls one out, silver with a red enameled rose, petals like flames.
“I truly pity you,” he says. “You’re the old woman who feeds the pigeons and allows them to propagate and spread disease.” He flicks the lighter and watches the flame as it dances. “You’re the misguided soul who lets rats overrun the city because you think they’re an endangered species.” He waves it before her, dangerously close, taunting, and she can do nothing about it. “You’re certainly old enough to remember what it used to be like. People afraid to leave their homes for fear of feral teenagers, while other people suffered needlessly with everything from heart failure to lung cancer!” He flips the lighter closed, snuffing the flame, but doesn’t put it down. “People like you baffle me. How could you not see the good in unwinding?”
And although Sonia does not want to dignify him with a response, she can’t stop herself. “Those kids are human beings!”
“Were,” he corrects. “Each has been deemed by society, and even by their own parents, to be worthless. What makes you think you know better?”
“Are you done?”
“That depends. Is Connor Lassiter down there with the rest of your pigeons?”
Sonia considers how she might respond, and decides that a half-truth may set them free.
“He’s flown the coop. Here and gone. He won’t stay anywhere for long.”
“Then you won’t mind if I check downstairs, will you?” He pockets the lighter and pulls out his gun—then a second pistol, checking the clips. One must be loaded with tranqs, the other with bullets. By the way in which he had shattered her cane, she knows those bullets are the deadly hollow-tipped kind. Miniature grenades exploding on contact. Her AWOLs won’t stand a chance.
And then Sonia has a desperate idea.
“Connor left . . . but Lev Calder is here. I’ll get him to come up . . . if you leave the rest of my AWOLs alone.”
He smiles. “You see—that wasn’t so hard. I had faith you could be reasoned with.” He goes over to the trapdoor and reaches down toward it. “Be good,” he tells Sonia. “And be convincing. If I leave here with Lev, I promise the rest of your brood will be safe.” Then he pulls the trapdoor open and nods to Sonia.
“Lev!” she calls out. “Lev, can you come up? I need your help up here.”
No response.
“You can do better than that,” whispers the split-faced man.
“Lev! Get your ass up here!” Sonia calls, much louder. “I don’t have all day.” And Sonia closes her eyes, silently praying that those kids down there are smart enough to figure it out, and to do what needs to be done.
35 • Risa
Four minutes before the trapdoor opens, Risa hears a gunshot, and the sound of something—or someone—thudding to the floor. They all hear it, and it freezes them in the middle of whatever they’re doing.
“Shh! Nobody move,” says Beau. Then quieter: “And nobody talk.”
Suddenly it’s as if the floor beneath them—or, more accurately, the floor above them—has turned to ice that could fracture with the slightest shift of weight. The first thing that Risa does is reflexively look for Connor, then an instant later realizes he’s not there. According to Sonia, he went to take care of “unfinished business,” and although Sonia wouldn’t say specifically, Risa knows what that business is. Just like the time he rescued Didi from the doorstep, Connor has impulsively chosen the wrong time to do the right thing. She curses him and prays for him at the same time, because at least he’s away from here.
Everyone looks up, following the sound of something heavy being dragged from the shop and into the back room. Is it Sonia being dragged? Is it Grace? She was out taking care of “unfinished business” as well, wasn’t she? What if one of them was shot? What if one of them is dead?
Beau turns off all the lights except for the single dim dangling one in the middle of the basement, because without it the darkness would be unbearable.
“What do we do?” asks Ellie, a girl who’s always looking to Risa for guidance.
“Listen to Beau,” she whispers. “Stay still, and stay quiet!”
Risa, however, is the first to break their terrified tableau, and looks for something she can use as a weapon. She finds a claw hammer. Other kids, seeing what she’s doing, move quietly to find their own makeshift weapons.
Risa sees Beau eying the one window in the basement. It’s a small thing positioned high up the wall, in a far corner. The glass is smudged with grease that makes it impossible to see out, or in.
“Never open that window,” Sonia always told them. “You never know who will be in the alley out there.” And just to make sure none of them was ever tempted, the window frame has been nailed shut.
Beau grabs the hammer from Risa, giving her a wrench instead. Risa nods her understanding, and Beau makes his way to window, taking the claw end of the hammer to the nails, trying to wrest them free from the wood.
While Beau works the window, Risa quietly makes her way to the stairs. A kid tries to stop her, but she gives him an evil enough eye to make him back away. She climbs the stairs to the dark recesses just beneath the trapdoor. She knows she’ll have warning before that door is pulled open. She’ll hear the sliding of the trunk.
Risa tilts her head, focusin
g all her attention on any sounds coming from upstairs. The violent noises of just a few moments ago have ended. Now there’s just talking. A man in conversation with Sonia. Risa takes a deep breath of relief just to know that the old woman’s still alive. She wants to go up there and help her, but there’s nothing Risa can do; the trapdoor can only be opened from the other side. She looks down the stairs to see the kids all armed with various basement items: pipes, scissors, bricks, and boards.
And then Sonia screams.
It’s muffled, but there’s no denying that it’s a scream of pain. Then the trunk is slid away. Risa feels more than hears it: a vibration in the wood of the stairs that resonates in her bones. She scrambles down to the bottom of the stairs, backing into shadows with everyone else.
Beau steps away from the basement window. He was able to remove only one nail. “This is it,” he tells Risa “This is the end for all of us if we don’t play this right.”
She wants to challenge that fatalistic view—but she can’t, because he’s right. Maybe Connor will come back just in time, she thinks. He’ll see what’s going on upstairs and do something about it. After all, Connor does have a talent for falling smack in the middle of bad situations.
“Whatever it is, we’ll fight,” Beau says.
The trapdoor opens, shedding harsh yellow light from above down the stairs, so much brighter than the single dangling bulb. And then up above, Sonia says the strangest thing.
“Lev!” she calls out. “Lev, can you come up? I need your help up here.”
It takes a moment for Risa to even process what she’s said. Lev? Why would she be calling for Lev? Beau looks at her, shaking his head, not getting it either.
“Lev! Get your ass up here!” Sonia calls, much louder. “I don’t have all day.”
And then it dawns on Risa exactly what Sonia is doing. I’m giving you the advantage, Sonia is saying. Something is horribly wrong, but I’m giving you the advantage. Take it!
Risa searches the group, and zeroes in on Jack, the blond, mousy kid who could pass for Lev for a whole of five seconds. She grabs him, and his eyes go manga-wide in surprise.
“Tell her you’ll be right up!”
“What?”
“Just tell her!”
Jack clears his throat and calls up the stairs. “Coming! I’ll be right up.” Then he looks at Risa, begging with his eyes, pleading, but Risa puts her hands on his shoulders. “You’ll be fine,” she tells him. “I promise. I’ll be right behind you!”
Beau nods to her and signals to all the others to stay hidden in shadows, then he gets behind Risa. “You’ve got his back, and I’ve got yours,” he says.
With Jack in the lead, they go up the stairs to face whatever is in store for them.
36 • Nelson
He has every intention of honoring their bargain. He is, after all, a man of conscience. A man of his word. As the boy he assumes is Lev comes up the stairs, Nelson allows himself a small moment to relish this half victory. He will tranq Lev, then he will take Lev to a place where no one will hear him scream, and he will make him divulge where Lassiter has gone, because he surely knows, even if the old woman doesn’t. Then, once Nelson has the information he needs, he will kill Lev in a most painful way—one he has yet to devise, because vengeance is best when experienced creatively and in the moment.
“You called for me, ma’am?” the boy says—and when he turns to face Nelson, Nelson immediately realizes he’s been duped—just as someone else coming up from below swings a wrench at his legs. Pain explodes in his shin the moment the wrench connects with it, and Nelson immediately realizes his mistake. Of course they would have known it was a ruse! They must have heard the gunshot. His pain is a measure of his miscalculation.
He reaches down to disarm the girl attacking him, but she pulls her arm back and swings again, this time catching the back of his hand. More pain, but Nelson can handle pain, and the damage isn’t enough to impair him. The third time she swings, he succeeds in grabbing the wrench from the girl and hurling it away—but there’s someone else coming up the stairs behind her, and he’s swinging a hammer. Nelson deflects the blow, backs away, and kicks the trunk toward the hammer-wielding AWOL to block him, but the trunk flips open and dumps at least a hundred envelopes on the floor. The kid takes one step forward, and begins slipping on the envelopes like they’re banana peels. It’s just the opening Nelson needs. He thrusts his palm to the imbalanced kid’s chest, and it sends him tumbling down the hole and into the basement. Nelson quickly kicks the trapdoor closed behind him, then tugs on a heavy bookshelf, which comes crashing down over the trapdoor, spilling its load of books. No one’s coming up that way anymore.
Now it’s just him, the girl, the blond kid, and the old woman, who’s telling them to run, but they’re not smart enough to save themselves. The girl scrambles on the floor for the wrench, and the blond kid is parrying toward Nelson with a letter opener he found on the desk. Nelson pulls out one of his guns, taking aim at the blond kid, because he’s closest, and because Nelson is profoundly pissed off at the kid’s lack of Lev-ness.
He meant to pull out the gun loaded with tranqs, but in the commotion, who could blame him for pulling the wrong gun?
He fires, and the kid’s chest shreds into a screaming red Rorschach. Blood splatters everywhere. He’s dead before he hits the floor.
“No!” yells the girl. “You bastard!”
It’s in that moment, with Nelson holding his gun, and her ready to strike with the wrench, that he realizes who she is. In spite of the hair, in spite of the eye color, he recognizes her—and knows he’ll have a new prize today. A very useful one. He wonders how much Risa Ward will be worth to Divan.
Risa comes toward him just as he reaches for his other gun with his free hand. She gets in a swing at his head. It connects with his ear. A solid strike, but survivable, just like all the other blows. He shoves the tranq gun into her gut and pulls the trigger, and she grunts as the tranq embeds deep. He holds her as she slips helplessly from consciousness, the wrench falling from her hand, thudding onto the floor.
Nelson gently eases her to the ground beside the dead boy. Then he turns to the old woman, who sobs from the chair to which she’s chained. “Your fault,” Nelson tells her. “Entirely your fault. That boy’s life is on your head for lying to me!”
The woman can only sob.
Now that the battle is over, he assesses the damage from the wrench. His shin may be fractured. It’s swelling and he can feel his pulse in it. His right ear is hot, and the back of his hand is turning purple and swelling. All in a day’s work. The pain will be good for him. It will release endorphins. Make him more alert.
“Please go . . .” wails the woman. “Just go . . .”
And he will . . . but not until he finishes his business here.
There’s a torn envelope on the desk and a cigarette lighter in his pocket. He notes that everything around the basement, from the felled bookshelf and its pile of books, to the stacks of paperwork on the desk, to the various wooden antiques—everything in this room—everything in this shop, in fact—is highly flammable.
He grabs the envelope, takes out the lighter, and flicks it until it releases its tiny controlled flame.
“Stop!” yells the woman through her tears. “I’ll give you Lassiter! I’ll give him to you if you stop this and let the others go!”
He hesitates. He knows this is just another game, but he’s willing to play, if only to give him a moment to contemplate the severity of what he’s about to do.
“God forgive me,” she says. “God forgive me. . . .”
“At this moment,” Nelson reminds her, “it’s my forgiveness that you need.”
She nods, unable to look at him, and that’s how he knows she’s going to tell him the truth. But will it be truth enough?
“He’s in your hand,” she says. “He’s in your hand, and you don’t even know it.” Then she lowers her head in defeat, and perhaps some self-loathing. r />
Nelson has no idea what she means . . . until he looks at the empty envelope he’s holding and reads the handwritten address:
Claire & Kirk Lassiter
3048 Rosenstock Road
Columbus, Ohio 43017
He looks down to the other envelopes on the ground, and he can tell by the handwriting that they were all written by kids.
“You had your AWOLs write letters to their parents?”
She nods.
“What a pointless thing to do.”
She nods.
“And our friend Connor went to deliver his personally?”
Then she finally looks to him, and the hatred on her face is a thing to see: as powerful as a smoldering volcano. “You have what you need. Now get the hell out of here.”
There have been many times in Jasper Nelson’s life when choice was taken from him. He did not choose to be tranq’d that fateful day two years ago by Connor Lassiter. He did not choose to get hurled out of the Juvenile force in humiliation. He did not choose to lose his ordinary, respectable life. He does have a choice here however, and it’s an awe-inspiring moment—because he knows his choice today will be a defining one.
He could walk away from here and go find Lassiter . . . or he could bring on a little suffering first.
In the end, his sense of social consciousness prevails. Because as a good citizen, isn’t it his responsibility to help rid the world of vermin?
Nelson memorizes the address, sets the envelope on fire, then drops it on the pile of envelopes on the ground.
“No! What have you done! What have you done!” cries the old woman, as the fire takes and the flames begin to rise.
“Only what necessity and my conscience dictate,” he tells her. Then he grabs Risa Ward’s limp, unconscious body, and carries her out the back door without a stitch of remorse.
37 • Sonia