Strike (15 page)

Finally, I give up. She's not going away. I push my cart up the main aisle and pick an older cashier with thick glasses who looks kind of frazzled. He's wearing an old bulletproof vest over his red Mark's shirt like it's totally normal. The cop moseys over to the scanners by the exit and starts texting again, but I can feel her watching me in between whatever the hell she's doing on her phone.

“Is it nice outside?” the cashier asks, and it takes me a moment to remember. It feels like I've been in this stupid store for weeks, endlessly shopping.

“Yeah, it's pretty for November.”

He scans the items more slowly than I'd like, but I get the idea that someone younger would definitely pick up on the fact that this
hair is fake, the glasses are trash, and no one my age would be caught dead with this bag. At least the old guy just hums to himself as he tries and fails to stuff the oversized containers into normal-sized bags. I'm pretty sure I end up with forty bags for twenty items.

“Your total is ninety-eight dollars and sixty cents. Will you be using your Mark's card to save five percent?”

I fumble in my pocket. “Uh, no. Cash.”

“Would you like to apply for a Mark's card? It only takes a few minutes, and you'll save five dollars.”

I count out a hundred dollars and put it on the conveyor belt. “Nope. Cash.”

“Are you sure? It doesn't even ding your credit, and it's backed by Valor Savings Bank.”

I swallow down an insane laugh. “No, thank you.”

He has to go through my bills one by one, counting them out, then putting the bills flat in the till and counting out my change. I had ten dollars to spare. My jaw is so tight that I can hear my teeth grinding, and I can't stop tapping my foot and scanning the area for somewhere, anywhere, to stick the last Wiper. All I see are shoppers who look like they're navigating a mine field. I'm out of shelves. The cop is waiting. Fuck.

“Have a nice day, and thank you for shopping at Mark's,” the cashier says, and I'm finally free to go.

I think about leaving the Wiper in the bathroom, maybe in a
tampon receptacle, but the cop will notice if it's not in my bag when I leave, which will make me look bad, which means I have to take it out of the store instead of planting it like they told me to. So I walk toward the waiting, smirking cop, smiling behind my cartful of food I bought to feed the antigovernment rebels holding my dog hostage.

“Find everything you need, miss?” she says, arms crossed.

I nod and say, “Yes, ma'am.”

“How about I check that bag one more time before you go?”

Which is the dumbest thing ever, because honestly, who's going to shoplift after the cop has identified them as a suspect? I pull one strap down my arm and let her look inside. Nothing but a box.

“Let me see that receipt.”

I have it ready and put it in her hand. She frowns and reads it.

“You feeding a crowd?”

I smile, or try to. “I have brothers.”

You can only read a receipt so long before admitting that it's normal food and not the ingredients for meth, so she hands the receipt back over and narrows her eyes at me.

“You might want to be more careful,” she finally says. “Send your brothers for groceries. It's not safe for young girls to be out. Lots of desperate people. Cops like me are going to expect the worst. If you look suspicious, you're going to get treated like a perp these days.”

“I'll be more careful,” I promise. And she lets me leave.

The afternoon is deceptively lovely and warm, or maybe I'm just constantly overheated because my heart is permanently jacked up because nothing ever, ever feels safe. The Crane car is in the same parking spot, idling, and when I get close, the trunk pops open, but the driver doesn't get out to help me. I load up the groceries without checking the mysterious duffel bags lined up in the trunk and contemplate using the tire iron to brain the driver, but that's all just foolish daydreams.

Once the groceries are all in the car, I shut the trunk and push the cart to the cart return. The cop is watching me from just outside the doors, arms crossed. She sees me watching her and slowly shakes her head. I'm guessing the black-and-white cop car parked on the other side of the cart return is hers, which gives me an idea. I push the cart into place and whip the box out of my bag. The sticky tape has already been exposed, so I kneel and stick the damn thing under her car, where it nestles like it genuinely wants to be there.

Take that, ma'am.

I keep my head low as I hurry between the cars and back to the waiting hatchback.

As soon as I'm in my seat with the door closed, the guy says, “Did you get all ten of the Wipers installed?”

“Yep.”

“And you pressed all the buttons to activate them?”

“Yep.”

“And you got everything on your list?”

“Yep.”

He gives me a sadistic grin. “Then let's go home and see who else passed the test.”

I toss the empty purse into the backseat. I never want to smell mint gum again.

We don't speak during the drive back. I stare out the window, and the guy fiddles with the radio and ultimately gives up. At times like this, I fiercely miss my phone, miss having the ability to check e-mails and social media and just blank out in a way that means I'm not turning down human interaction so much as choosing it on my terms. I have nothing to say to the Crane goon, and he has nothing to say to me. A funny cat video would not go amiss. Say what you will about technology, but it's great for when you want to purposefully ignore an asshole.

We pass through a series of strip malls, and I see further evidence of the Crane family's influence. Crane Tires and Crane BBQ and a parking lot of vehicles just as disreputable as the one I'm in, Crane Used Cars. Crane businesses seem to be unimaginative but functional. After Thanksgiving, the dirt lot behind the cars will become Crane Christmas Trees, and when the Fourth of July rolls around, it'll be Crane Fireworks. Maybe that's where Leon learned to love blowing shit up.

Oh, sweet Jesus.

I put the Wipers around the store and under the cop's car, and I'm ninety-nine percent sure they're not dangerous . . . but what if they are? What if the one Leon opened for us was a plant, and the rest do something horrible? What if they're bombs? I didn't like the cop, but I know that even if she was a bitch, she was just doing her job. She doesn't deserve to die just because I was frustrated and vengeful. That little boy who hates oatmeal definitely doesn't deserve to die. Goddammit.

I look over at my driver. He's not going to be any help. Even if he turned around, it's not like I could run back into Mark's and collect and dispose of a series of stuck-down boxes that might or might not explode. So I have no choice but to do what I've been doing all along: repress these feelings. Shove them down under food and kisses and knitting. Hope for the best, hope that things will be better someday.

Wait for the sound of fireworks that aren't fireworks.

Filled with dread and self-loathing, I watch every store we pass until it disappears in the rearview mirror.

Finally we turn into the Crane compound, waved ahead by a nameless good old boy with a machine gun. The sun is going down, and people are moving around the tents carrying lanterns and plates of food. The scene is utterly normal. I scan the area but don't see anyone I know, much less Wyatt and Matty, waiting for me. My
driver parks the car with all the others on the far side of the field, opens his door, and says, “Take your stuff to the kitchen and find Heather or Leon.” And then he's gone.

I manage to load myself up with all the bags and tromp toward the house. Another car is coming down the drive, and I slow down to see who it is. I didn't see my friends get into their cars, but I can tell by the height of the person on the passenger side that it isn't Wyatt. Still, I wait. Could be Gabriela or Chance.

The car stops and Rex gets out, laughing with his driver, a chubby kid who looks more nerd than Crane. They share the burden of the groceries, and Rex gives me a relieved smile.

“Did that suck as much as I think it did?” he asks.

He keeps walking, and I join him. A girl can stand around a field like an idiot for only so long before someone notices.

“Yeah. Did you almost get caught?”

He shakes his head. “No. I was at Jim's Club, and everyone was too busy buying huge boxes of prepper shit to notice some kid with a backpack loading up his cart. Where'd they take you?”

“Mark's. A cop tried to pick me up for shoplifting because I had to carry this big-ass bag.”

Rex looks me up and down, fighting a grin. “And they gave you a dumb costume, too. Leon must really hate you. It's almost like they want you to fail.”

I had forgotten that I'm wearing a wig and glasses, and I rip
them off and shove them into the bag with the oatmeal. I hadn't thought about it that way, but . . .

“They didn't make you . . . dress up or anything?”

He shakes his head. “Nope. Just me with a backpack. Totally normal.”

We tromp up the porch steps, and I feel like more of a fool than ever. Maybe talking back to the Cranes isn't my best move. Maybe I'm forgetting the value of self-preservation. Maybe they really do want me to fail.

Chance is in the kitchen, drinking a beer and laughing by a stack of pizza boxes, but I can tell he's worried as hell by the way he glances at the door every few seconds, probably waiting for Gabriela. A fleet of Crane women are putting up the groceries, silent and grim. I drop my bags on the cracked linoleum and rub feeling back into my hands where the plastic handles bit in.

“Do you know where my dog is?” I ask the nearest woman, who is graying and built like a mountain behind her apron. She shrugs and picks up a bag.

Rex nudges me. “Hey, come on.” I give him a suspicious glare, and he leans close. “I'm gay, and you're taken, so just come on. Get your buddy, too.”

I catch Chance's eye, toss my chin toward the door, and pull the box of dog biscuits from what's left of my groceries. Rex grabs a box of pizza from the counter and hurries out into the hall, then to the
front porch. When he sits down on the steps, Chance and I sit down too. The pizza box opens, and I salivate and grab a slice of pepperoni.

“How did yours go?” Rex asks Chance.

Chance holds up a finger and chugs the last of his beer, then burps loud enough to startle a nearby chicken. “Easy-peasy livin' greasy. Much better than working for Valor. You?”

“Mine was fine. But she almost got caught.”

I shake my head and swallow back down the pizza that's trying to fight its way out. “Correction: I
did
get caught. But I guess since there was nothing in my bag, the cop couldn't legally pick me up. It sucked.”

“Ed went in with me and stood watch.”

I stare at Rex like he's grown a second head. “Seriously? Ed? You're on a first-name basis with your goon?”

Chance shrugs. “My dude offered to help, but I didn't want to look suspicious, so he stayed in the car.”

I toss my pizza at a chicken, which is sick of our shit and flaps onto the roof in a huff. “Why does every goddamn person in this city want me dead?”

“Because you don't take anyone's shit, and that makes you a liability,” Rex says.

I knock my head against the porch column. “It's just such a cliché. Girl speaks her mind; guys in power try to punish her.”

Rex raises a sharp eyebrow. “Uh, you're talking to a gay half-Asian kid who likes guyliner and lives in rural Georgia. Don't get
me started on the dumbass clichés that have chased us all into the apocalypse. At least America gave us some rights.”

“Whiners,” Chance grumbles.

“So you're from around here?” I ask Rex. Because he's insinuating himself into our little family, and even though my gut instinct says he's cool, I don't trust anyone anymore.

He nods. “Yeah. I went to private school, though.”

“Bullied?” Chance asks.

Rex chuckles. “No. You saw what I did to that prep kid earlier. Twelve years of jiu-jitsu and three of Wing Chun means bullying isn't a problem. My parents wanted the best for me, and none of the local public schools were up to snuff. Hence, debt. Twenty thousand a year in exchange for flawless test scores and a future doctor seemed like a good deal.”

“So Valor tapped you?”

He nods. “I take my truck and list, or they shoot my parents and little sister. Didn't even have to think about it. You learn to be pretty cutthroat at Bridgeton Academy.”

The silence slips on, punctuated by the clucking of sleepy chickens. Finally, Chance asks, softly, “Did you go back?”

With a sigh, Rex flops onto his back and stares up at the porch ceiling. “Nope. Right now, it's Schrödinger's family. They could be alive, or they could be dead. I don't want them to know about what I've done. And I don't want to know what was done to them, either.”
He cocks his head like he's trying not to cry. “Uh, why is the ceiling painted blue?”