Strike (20 page)

“It'll be better tomorrow,” he whispers in my ear. “It's always better tomorrow.”

“That's a lie.”

“Shh. Today is better than yesterday was. Yesterday was better than the day before it. Whatever life was like before last week, now we have to take what we can get when we can get it. And today I'm just grateful that we both lived through that mission and now we have this trailer. I swear, this is the first time in a week that I've been able to lie down without my feet brushing something or stand up without knocking my head.”

I chuckle. My old mail van—he barely fit in it, standing or horizontal. Matty waggles to my side and tries to lick me, and I rub her head and tell her she's a good girl. I didn't have her last week, either.

“You're trembling,” he says.

“We should sleep.”

His hand leaves my hip like it's sorry to go, and he walks across the room to turn off the light and edge the door closed just enough so that we're in darkness but there's a slice of illumination from the
hall outside. It's funny—I can't go to sleep with the lights on, but I hate being fully in the dark now. I like to know no one can sneak up on me.

Gently, so gently, Wyatt pulls the covers down and back up over my legs to cover me, then slides in behind me, matching his body to mine and pulling me close. I slowly soften, melting like butter, until my eyes flutter closed.

My dreams are dark, twisted, dangerous things. But they always are now.

When I wake up, the roof of the trailer is clattering with rain. Wyatt is still curled around me, but he's awake and tense.

“What's wrong?” I whisper, anticipating the worst.

“I have to pee but didn't want you to wake up alone.”

I giggle and plant a kiss on his hand. “Go on, then. I'll survive.” But I'm touched.

With him gone, the bed is colder, and I spread out and stretch like a starfish. Matty licks my hand and whines, and then I'm puttering around the kitchen, looking for coffee. All they have is soda. But I'm not supposed to go to the big house, and I doubt a Crane could get my Starbucks order right. I settle for a Pop-Tart and a glass of water, setting out the same for Wyatt on a chipped plate from the cabinet. For, like, five seconds, I pretend I'm a wife or whatever.

It's strange how many little things I notice in the kitchen. There's
a vaping kit on the counter, an open box of blood sugar testing strips, a pair of slippers with holes in the bottom. I'm suddenly very aware that I killed people last night, and not because I had to, not because there was a gun to my mom's chest or a clock counting down. Because they hurt Matty and shot at me. That's all. Leon seemed to think it was fair, but is that the kind of fair I can live with? The whole point of joining the CFF was to go back to not killing people, but it's become a habit. All this time, I was trying to hold on to myself, to Patsy. The change was subtle, I suppose. But I've become a girl who will kill strangers out of anger. And when I go through last night in my head, I don't see how I could've done anything differently. I put the Pop-Tart gently on the plate before I lose my breakfast like I lost my salad after killing Wyatt's dad.

Before Wyatt is done eating, the knock I've been dreading comes. Matty barks like she's actually threatening, and Wyatt and I lock eyes. In pajamas, neither of us has a gun, and he has to be thinking the same thing I am: The guys we shot last night weren't ready when they answered the door, and that's why we're here right now instead of outside in a tent in the rain.

We tiptoe to the bedroom and fetch our guns, but we're both in elasticized pajama pants, so there's no place to hide one. I turn my back to him and slide into yesterday's dirty jeans, and after a moment of what I can only assume to be sneaking a peek at my undies, he does the same. The knocking grows more insistent, and Leon Crane himself hollers, “Open up or we'll open it up for you!”

Wyatt is shirtless and I'm still in my pajama shirt as we approach the door. I kick the coffee table aside while he holds Matty back by her collar. Standing to the side of the door, I open it enough to stick my face out.

“If I wanted to shoot you, honey, you'd be dead,” Leon says, sweet as syrup and soaked with rain even though he's holding an umbrella. As punctuation, he sticks a finger through a bullet hole in the side of the trailer. Two Crane goons with black umbrellas flank him, younger guys like the ones we killed yesterday. They're smirking, but their hands are on their guns, like they'd love a reason to shoot me. Maybe Leon wasn't lying about how going up to the big house would be a bad idea.

I open the door and wait, arms crossed, gun in hand. Wyatt is a solid wall behind me, holding back Matty, who'd love to go slobber all over Leon and anybody else. She's not smart, my dog. If she were, she wouldn't have followed me in the first place.

“Got a job for you,” Crane says.

“What else is new?”

“We've been through this, sugar. You took our money, you killed our boys, and now you've got temporary possession of our trailer. You're members of the CFF now, and you have a duty in our war.”

I yawn and don't bother to cover it.

“What are we doing today? Depositing nanny cams?” Wyatt asks.

I can't help smirking. Because the thing is? I would've been
terrified of Leon Crane last week. But now I know that showing weakness to a man like him is just asking to die.

Also, he looks kind of ridiculous when he's holding an umbrella.

“Thanks to those Wipers, soon there won't be a working credit card in this county,” Leon drawls, one thumb in his vest like a politician. Wyatt and I look at each other and shrug, unimpressed. “But we're going one further. You know how they put those little ink packets on expensive shit at the department store? We're going to make them all explode.”

“So evil,” I murmur.

Fast as a blink, Leon slaps me across the face, hard. I stumble back, a hand to my wet cheek. Wyatt's got his gun pointed at Leon, and Leon's goons have guns pointed at us, and my face stings, red rage filling me.

“Don't you ever forget that you're nothing but a pawn in this war,” Leon says.

I spit in the dirt at his feet and see blood in it. “You can't play chess without pawns, asshole.”

“Well, I just so happen to have your queen, little pawn, so you'd best get dressed and ready to roll. Now, normally I'd send you out with a driver, but we're down two of them since your little escapade last night, and Alex has a concussion.” He stares hard at Wyatt. “The kid's a prick, I'll give you that, but did you have to bang him up and abandon him in a parking lot? Little shit
wandered off into traffic like a lost bunny. She's rubbing off on you, boy.”

Wyatt flinches, and Leon concentrates on me. “So here's what I want you to do. Take your boyfriend's car out to the new outlet mall off the freeway. There's two bags full of little cans waiting on the front porch for you. Now, they ain't like the Wipers—there's no sticky tape, no button to push. This time, all of that business will be handled remotely. All you got to do is plant one in every store on the provided list. In a shoe box, in the pocket of a raincoat, in a bag, behind a trash can. I don't care. But I want every one of those cans planted in a store by suppertime. You got that?”

“Who else is doing it?”

Leon gives a crocodile's smile. “Everybody here's got a job.”

“Even the old people in the tents?”

Leon chuckles. “Even them. Now, get on.”

As he turns to walk away, I yelp, “So if we do this, can I see my mom?”

Leon turns around slowly, his grin lazy, like he knows I'm trapped. “I got one more big job for you after this. After that, you can have your mama. She's being well taken care of, so don't you worry a bit. Valor would've killed her. But me? I'm just keeping her comfortable. Making sure she gets her medicine.”

He's about to head for the house when I blurt, “How do we know these cans are what you say they are?”

Leon chuckles and rubs a hand through his hair. “Now, how did I know you were going to ask me that? You Valor kids have a reason to be suspicious, I guess, but you're more irksome than most.” He reaches into his coat and pulls out a can of peanuts, putting it in my hand. When our skin touches, he's cold as a snake, and I inspect the can like it holds a viper. “Go on. You can open it.”

I throw it back at him. “No. You open it.”

He steps close, too close, and shoves his umbrella at me, forcing me to hold it. The rain makes a curtain around us as he pries up the flexible plastic top. I flinch away as soon as the inside of the can is exposed, but nothing explodes. When I look again, he's pulling out a packet of wires and cells. I'm not sure what a bomb looks like, but I'm pretty sure this isn't one.

“You ever seen one of these? No? Well, our tech boy's a genius. So this is a radio transmitter just like the ones they put in those machines you have to walk through to leave a store. But this one is more powerful, so when we remotely activate it, all those little dye packs just splatter everything. It's gonna be beautiful. Satisfied?”

I nod. He nods back.

“You can keep that, Patsy. Do it by dinnertime.”

He grabs his umbrella and leaves. Matty barks at his back as he walks away. I deflate, and Wyatt tosses the can out into the rain, gently moves me out of the doorway, and shuts it before drawing
me into a hug. “At least we're not killing anybody,” he murmurs, and I beat my forehead against his bare shoulder.

“Do one more thing, then one more thing, then just one more thing. I can't believe we went to that stupid meeting.”

“Shh. We have food. We have a place to live. We have Matty and friends, and neither of us is injured. It could be a lot worse. It'll be over soon.”

I pull back and look up at him. “Will it?”

He kisses my forehead. “It has to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“He said there was one more big job. So either you finish it and get your mom back, or you finish it and he gives you another hoop to jump through, at which point you know he's lying about your mom and we hit the road.”

“But . . .”

“We'll go back to your house today. Look around. Talk to the neighbors. They might know if she was picked up by a Valor car or a Crane tow truck, right?”

I breathe deeply and nod. It makes sense. But I'm terrified to see my house. It's like Rex said—my mom is like Schrödinger's cat right now. Until I know if she's alive or dead, she's both alive and dead, and I'm in this freaky limbo, trying to get her back. The rosary around my neck could mean nothing or everything. But it all starts with getting dressed and getting the hell out of this
trailer. I lost my dad, and then I lost the locket he gave me. All I wanted was to see him again. Now it's the same thing with my mom and her rosary.

“Right,” I say, not that it sounds convincing.

Wyatt heads for the shower, and I head for my backpack and pull out my bra, a new shirt, and new jeans. Nothing fits quite right, but at least I don't smell. When Wyatt ambles out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, I hurry in, wipe off the mirror, and put on bright red lipstick and deodorant. Do I look like a girl who might shop at the boutiques in the outlet mall? Sure, in this economy, because credit cards mean anyone can have anything at any time. Or they did. Until Valor. Until those Wipers take effect.

Before we go, I refill my clip, grab a box of ammo, and stop in front of the closet. I pick up a can of bright green spray paint, and my fingers itch to use it. Considering I've never spray-painted anything before, I read the directions on back and shake the can, listening to it rattle. I put the can of green and the can of red from the dresser in my backpack with the ammo and slide on my shoes. Matty gets locked in the bedroom with food and water, and we step out the door to find the rain down to a drizzle with a peek of sunshine. Rex is reading in his open tent and Gabriela and Chance are gone. Bea's rain-streaked tent is zipped up, but there's a shadow inside, so I have to assume she's awake. I'm just glad she didn't slit anyone's throat in the night.

“Where are you guys going?” Rex asks.

“To do more Crane bullshit,” Wyatt rumbles.

“You need a hand?”

Wyatt and I look at each other. “I think we're expected to do it alone,” I say. “But I wish we didn't have to. Maybe you could keep Matty company in the trailer? We don't have a key, and we can't lock it, so I guess anybody could go in there, if they wanted to.”

He grins. “Are there Pop-Tarts?”

“Knock yourself out.”

Rex bounds into the trailer, calling, “Good luck with your bullshit!”

Bea's tent unzips, and she gives us her dead-fish stare but says nothing.