“Hey, nice jacket.” Maxwell comes up behind me and gives me a shove.
I shove him back. “Is that hairspray I smell?” I say.
He pats his hair. “I love that it’s not raining. Wearing a hood just flattens it.” Maxwell looks around. “Am I right in guessing you aren’t standing out here waiting for me?”
“If you’re asking if I’m waiting for Cyn, then no, I’m not. I haven’t even seen her in days.”
“So you’re just waiting outside because you like standing around freezing?”
I can’t help but look in the direction of the parking lot. I can’t help but hope that she’ll show. If she walked out of the darkness right now, just walked up
to me and said she’s done with Dove, and we went on to live the most boring existence on earth, then I’d be happy.
Mila runs over from the line and encircles Maxwell’s waist with her arms. She’s wearing a little strapless dress I know my sister would love. She’s carrying a single red rose. Her hair is loose except for two tiny braids on each side. It looks good that way. Maxwell wraps her in his jacket. I’m sure my eyebrows shoot up, because Maxwell grins over her shoulder at me. “People win the lottery,” he says.
I say, “You guys should go in. I’ll find you in there.”
“No way.” He turns to Mila. “We’re going to Meridian Park. Mr. Responsible here wants to see if Cyn is coming to the dance.”
I am mortified that he can read me so well. I say, “Cyn won’t be there. And even if she is, it’s not like we’re together.”
Mila falls into step between Maxwell and me. “You should be. She really likes you.”
We use our phones to light the way across the field. The frozen grass crunches under our feet. Mila is tiptoeing in her heels, so Maxwell swings her up onto his back. She squeals, “I’m going to fall out of my dress!”
We make it to the bench, empty in its pool of light. Cyn isn’t there, of course. I knew she wouldn’t be. She made her choice. Still, my voice shakes when I say, “She’s not coming. Let’s just go back to the school.”
Then Mila says, “Wait, that’s her!”
I turn to see a gray sedan pulling into the lot.
“Where?” I say.
Mila points to the gray car. “That’s her mom’s car.”
It is Cyn. She gets out of the car. She’s wearing a dress with a sparkly top
and a short, full skirt. Her hair is loose and swings around her shoulders. Cyn sees me in the light of the bench, and her face breaks into a smile. She waves.
“She looks amazing,” Mila sighs.
She does. She looks like nothing is wrong. I can see she’s wearing her new heels. Maxwell, Mila and I move out of the light and start walking toward her.
Another vehicle is driving into the parking lot. It is an ice-blue Navigator
SUV
. Cyn looks over her shoulder and then to us. Fear traces her face.
“No.” I blink, hoping I’m imagining it. But the
SUV
veers straight toward Cyn. Shots pop.
Maxwell says, “What the…?”
Cyn has started to run. The Navigator’s engine revs, and its tires spin. I hear footsteps running up behind me, and my heart jumps into my throat. Someone shoulders me onto the ground. It’s the cop. “Stay down!” he growls.
I have to get to Cyn. There’s more gunfire, and I can’t find my footing on the frozen ground. I feel the cop grab at my legs. Cyn is running, her eyes wide. I think she’s calling something, but the cop is yelling into his radio and I can’t hear. The
SUV
is skidding sideways. I see the back window is open and the flash as the gun fires.
I kick myself free and scramble to my feet. The cop curses. I start to run. “Cyn!”
Another shot, and she’s hit. She spirals with the impact. She turns toward me, holding her shoulder. I know she’s looking for me. I flash my phone. A bullet explodes in the ground beside me, and dirt peppers my face. I can hear the cop screaming at me. “GET DOWN!” I hear gunfire behind me, and a window on the
SUV
shatters.
I’m close enough now to see that Cyn is crying. She’s clutching her shoulder,
running. Somewhere, sirens howl. The
SUV
spins. A gun fires. Cyn lifts off the ground, her hair a dark sunburst around her head. Her eyes seem to find mine as she falls.
The
SUV
peels out of the parking lot into a sea of red and blue flashing lights. Maybe the tires on the
SUV
blow, I don’t know. It rolls onto its side, a comet of sparks arcing off the pavement. I’m on my knees beside Cyn. I’m cradling her face in my hands, and I’m calling her name, again and again. Her eyes are closed, and I’m begging her to open them, to look at me, to say she’s okay.
But she doesn’t.
The cop falls to his knees beside me. Sweat beads his forehead. He immediately checks Cyn’s neck for a pulse. I watch him, willing him to feel something. It takes so long. His hands are shaking. He positions his hands to do
CPR
. Blood darkens his hands, his sleeves.
He does one compression and then stops. His hands have fallen into Cyn’s chest. It’s like her heart has been blown away.
“Try. Please try,” I say.
But he just kneels there, his hands trembling.
Cyn’s blood is a river under my knees. Someone sets a shoe down beside Cyn, the strap broken and crystals strewn. Paramedics arrive and pull the cop aside. Someone says I have to move, so I do. A camera flashes again and again on her fallen form.
Did she do the last run? Did she refuse? Was killing her some kind of message to Dove?
I feel Maxwell beside me. I say, “She couldn’t run in those shoes. She couldn’t get away.” My voice shudders. “She got caught in the crossfire, that’s all.”
Maxwell looks like he’s deciding whether to believe Cyn is really an
innocent bystander. Even to me, my words sound hollow. He says, “This much I know, my friend. She was dressed to go dancing.”
Livy hands me a stack of books and climbs up onto my knee. Her hair, still damp from her bath, curls around her face. At the edge of the room next to the heat vents, her snowsuit, hat and mittens are laid out to dry. Outside our window, the streetlight catches the snow, falling like silver feathers. Snow is piled along the street where plows have pushed it
into mountains. Livy sighs happily as she settles into my lap.
Megan’s apartment is small, like ours. Our old place was bigger, but Mom is happy to live closer to work. Maxwell and Mila crash on the couch when they visit. Livy loves her new daycare. Megan likes her job.
Mom and Megan thought we had to move. When I told Mom and Megan about what had been going on, they freaked, of course. They thought I’d be a target. I don’t think so. I only know what Cyn told me, and she didn’t tell me much. I don’t know enough even to testify.
Someone is testifying though. In the news, the informant is referred to as Person X. All I know is that Dove’s restaurant is closed and he’s vanished. Whether Person X identifies Cyn as the target, I don’t know. Maybe being his girlfriend was her only crime. Maybe Cyn’s
parents can hang on to their daughter as they knew her. Maybe I can too.
Sometimes, when I dream, Cyn is laughing at something. Her hair is loose like it was that night, like a dark sea on her shoulders. She never looks at me in my dream, but I wake up glad that she looked happy.
Livy pats my cheek. “Uncle Daniel, read!” She puts a book into my hands.
I look at the book. “Livy, we’ve read this one about nineteen times.”
She jabs her finger at the cover. “Cinderella is my favorite.”
Livy has stopped asking about Cyn. I told her that Cyn moved away too, and that’s why we wouldn’t see her again. She accepted my story, and why wouldn’t she? Or maybe she knew I was lying and let me have the fantasy. Either way, she believes in me, and I take a lot of strength from that.
I open the book to the first page. “Okay, but I just have to say, the princess should have worn shoes that stayed on her feet.”
“Shhh,” she says. “Don’t tell me what happens.”
I am grateful for the leg up from Shelley Hrdlitschka and Kim Denman, the best writing group ever, and to Andrew and the Orca team.
Diane Tullson has written a number of novels about difficult topics, including
Lockdown
and
Riley Park
. She lives in Delta, British Columbia. For more information, visit
www.dianetullson.com
.
o
rca s
o
undings
For more information on all the books in the Orca Soundings series, please visit
www.orcabook.com
.