Strike (44 page)

I grin. “Promise.”

I almost chicken out when she loads up the bedazzled gun, but it's not the scariest thing I've seen this week. It barely hurts, and then I've got a stud in my nose and some off-the-record healing recommendations.

“You're supposed to have this done in a tattoo parlor with a needle,” she says. “But I did mine here, and it's fine, so whatever.” I leave with a bottle of saline solution that I'll probably never get to use, but I feel pretty badass. And maybe she'll use her tip to help pay off a Valor credit card.

Without a ton of time left, I buy a slushie and pour an energy drink into it, slurping slowly as I walk back toward Frills 2. At first I figure I'll skip it and just use the public restroom, but then I have an idea.

I hurry around the silk scarves and straight into the ladies' room, which is absurdly posh, with couches and ottomans and flower arrangements. I check under the stalls, but no one is here, and I don't see a camera anywhere, either. With an evil laugh, I lock the door out into the mall, get out my spray paint, and do my biggest and most beautiful
VALOR $UCKS
across their huge, well-lit mirror. And then I spray dollar signs on all their fancy chairs and a giant red anarchy symbol on the painting over the fake fireplace. When I look at myself in the mirror, I barely recognize the miscreant I see grinning back with short red hair, a pierced nose, and fingers splattered with red and green.

And that's when I hear someone yank on the door I've locked.

“Hello?” a woman calls, jiggling the door with increasing force. “Why is this locked?”

My heart goes crazy, because I've just done something totally
stupid. I was supposed to be invisible, and instead I've committed a major act of vandalism and locked myself in with the evidence. I don't want to hurt this woman, and even if I did, gunshots would bring people running, including those armed mall police. I passed several on my way to and from the jewelry store, and they looked a lot tougher than the frail old man who tried to take down Wyatt at the strip mall.

The only thing left to do is run.

I wet a paper towel and wipe my fingerprints off the spray cans as the woman's yells get louder. The cans go in the under-counter trash can, and I shoulder my bag and step behind the rattling door.

“Whoever is in there had better open this door right now!” she shouts.

I scrunch into the corner, take a big breath, and turn the bolt.

The door flies open, and a woman rushes in, and I slip out behind her and run.

“Hey!” she yells. “Stop right there!”

But I'm fast and full of fear and caffeine and high on vandalism, so I keep going. It's exhilarating, running away from someone who doesn't have a gun. I'm out of the store before I hear her shout again, and I turn the next corner and head for the public restroom by the tea shop. I pick a stall and lock the door to change into my mall jumpsuit. The filmy tunic gets wadded up and stuffed into the tampon box, but I keep the tank and leggings on, because I plan to
take off this jumpsuit at some point and don't want to be naked when that happens.

The whole time I'm changing, I'm shivering with nerves, waiting for the door to bang open and another basic saleswoman to start hollering. But no one shows up. When I leave the stall, I put the flats in my bag and slip on the thick socks Wyatt recommended I buy for the work boots. He said I'd get horrible blisters with my usual argyles. The boots feel huge and clompy and stiff, and I zip up the jumpsuit and straighten to glare at the stranger in the mirror. I look totally bizarre, like a bird in a bear suit, so I wipe off the lipstick with a wet paper towel and shove on a baseball cap.

Putting my bag on the counter, I dig through it for the things I can't live without. The photo I took from Uncle Ash's house, my mom's printed Valor card with that damning number printed on it in green, the two halves of Amber's same card. I have the rosary around my neck where my lucky locket used to be, the cross hanging low under my jumpsuit. My burner phone goes in my jumpsuit's chest pocket. I'm not sure what to do with my gun, as it would be pretty useless in my waistband when the jumpsuit is zipped, so I stick it in the extra-large front pocket. The hideous gray sack is pretty big on me, even though it's an extra-small, so there's plenty of room.

Everything else in my bag can be replaced, so I stuff it down the trash can and walk out the door with empty hands. I turn down the
hallway marked
EMPLOYEES ONLY
and grab the first rolling trash can I see. Feeling obvious as hell, I push the garbage through the empty mall, toward Wyatt and the popcorn stand.

If I look silly, so does he. Wyatt's jumpsuit fits well, but his haircut and general handsomeness don't go with the drab gray aesthetic. He's leaning against a push broom, fully focused on me like a daydreaming lumberjack.

“Everything smooth?” he asks.

“Nope. I almost got caught.”

“Wait. Is that a nose ring?”

I turn my head to show it off. “Yep.”

“Is that how you almost got caught?”

“Nope.” I hold out my hands to show him the flecks of paint, and he cringes.

“You've got to stop doing that.”

I shove my hands in my pockets. “I did. It's done. What now?”

He must sense that I'm still riled up, as he reaches out to delicately touch the little green jewel in my nose. “I like it. It's cute.” His smile is fond and sweet, and I tuck it away in my memory palace. “I don't know what now. We've got a long-ass time to wait and hide, and it's not like we can get into any stores or anything.”

I look around the mall and see nothing but bored kids with earbuds cleaning up behind half-lowered cages. No one gives us a
second glance. A mall cop is headed our way, but he's still far off and bopping his head to his iPod.

“I forgot the Windex,” I say, loud enough to carry. “Come on.”

I take off in the opposite direction from the cop, back toward the center atrium where the Santa-photo backdrop is located. As we walk, I glance up at the second floor. I don't see any other janitors or Crane goons; nor do I see my dad. Just to be safe, I stay as far out of sight as possible, walking close to the stores and behind every thick column.

There's a sixty-foot-tall fake tree in the open center of the mall, giant ornaments dangling from the ceiling, and dozens of creepy elf statues that look like rip-offs of Dr. Seuss. I guess the mall got tired of people just taking whatever pics of Santa they wanted to, as he's now in a small, cheerfully painted cottage with two bright red doors. You wait in line, they shove you in, Santa does with you what he will, and they shove you out. It's kind of creepy, actually. Even the windows are painted on. I can't help imagining some Dr. Ken Belcher type of jerkoff at Valor getting a bonus for making sure the poor kids never even get to see Santa if their parents can't pay.

We walk around the cottage, and there's an employee door hidden in the back, painted to blend in with the rest of the house. When I turn the knob, it opens, easy as that. Wyatt grins, and we abandon our broom and garbage to go inside. I expect it to be dark, but the back of the roof is open to let in air and light. There's a huge,
cushy Santa throne, a red carpet, and an extra bench, like maybe they let primping families wait there until it's their kid's turn to pee on Santa. Everything is utterly pristine and untouched.

Of course. Because Santa doesn't show up until after Thanksgiving, does he? Not a single filthy kid has flicked a booger in this fake-ass room.

I walk right up to Santa's chair and plop down in it, draping my feet over the armrest.

“Is it just me, or has Santa gotten bigger since we were little?” I say. “Too much milk and cookies, I guess.”

Wyatt grins and scoops me up, sitting down in the chair himself and holding me in his lap.

“Ho, ho, ho,” he says softly, right by my ear. “Have you been a good little girl this year?”

I freeze for a second.

No, I have not been good. I have been, in fact, the opposite of that.

But that's not what he means.

Repress, repress, repress.

“Oh, no, Santa,” I say. “I've been very, very naughty.”

He swallows and shivers, and I know it was the right answer. Thus begins possibly the most passionate kiss ever between two jumpsuited murderers while sitting on Santa's throne. Time stops, as it tends to do when we're alone and touching each other, and for a while I forget completely who I am and what I've done and what
I'm waiting here to do. For a while I'm just a seventeen-year-old girl with a slightly painful new nose ring, making out with her super-hot boyfriend with the messed-up tattoo and fancy hair. We don't talk because we don't want to talk. We want to kiss, and the kiss says everything we need to say. About passion and desperation and caring and fear and whatever drives humans to bang before battle.

Not that it goes that far. Jumpsuits and the threat of impending explosions are good at keeping such things above the waist.

I lose track of time completely. The phone in my pocket falls to the ground when the top of my jumpsuit slithers down over my shoulders. My tender nose hurts like hell from rubbing up against Wyatt's skin, and my lips feel puffy and scratched. Doesn't matter. I need more Wyatt.

And then we hear it—a noise that shouldn't be there. Hurried shoes slapping on mall floors, low voices, the sound of a squeaking wheel. Wyatt and I pull away, and our eyes meet, and we have to be thinking the same thing:
What if they come in here? There's nowhere to run.

We scramble to zip up our jumpsuits, and I grab my phone from where it's fallen on the floor. Without many options and with the squeaky wheel getting closer, we hide behind Santa's massive chair, which is the only real thing in the room. The feet and wheels stop just outside, and a guy with a familiar voice who definitely isn't Leon says, “These three go under the tree. Hurry up.”

I'm holding my breath, straining to hear the sound of muffled barking or an extra grunt as someone moves a box full of my poor dog. I don't hear the sound I want to hear, and that makes me angry. Why can't it ever be easy?

They shove heavy boxes around, and then the guy says, “Next two over there, by the train,” and I keep listening for a sign of Matty and not hearing her.

Wyatt's hand lands on my arm, his lips brushing across my temple.

“We'll find her,” he whispers.

We stay like this until we can't hear their shoes anymore. I open my flip phone, and it's a little after two in the morning. If they're done this fast, we should be able to leave and find Matty soon. At least, hiding here, we know she's not in any of these five boxes.

Of course, I don't know how many more boxes there are. There could be hundreds.

“Patsy. Stay with me. It's going to be okay.”

My head jerks around. “What?”

“You looked like you were about to have a panic attack.”

“I was thinking about the odds.”

He gives me a big, dorky grin. “Never tell me the odds.” When I stare at him blankly, he mutters, “Wherever we end up next, I'm going to force-feed you
Star Wars
until you understand all my jokes.”

Every time he uses the word “
we
,” every time he expands that “
we”
out past the next hour, it's like a tiny Band-Aid on my heart.

“As long as I get plenty of gummy bears and popcorn,” I say.

It's quiet outside now, so I unfold from behind Santa's throne and stretch as much as the jumpsuit allows. Wyatt does the same. When my phone buzzes, there's a text from my dad.

No dog in Frills 2 or food court. No sign of Leon. 7 guys down upstairs. You?

He must have a silencer, then.

I text back,
No dog at tree and train.

A number I don't know buzzes with,
not @ carosel or osford
, and I grin. So Chance is still with us, then, and his texts are as careless as he is.

Nothing from Bea. Does she even have a phone? She's probably still in the bookstore. At least Gabriela and Rex are safe. Even if they were awake and functional, they couldn't get into the mall right now. Unless they figured out where the Cranes were getting in—some random loading dock somewhere, most likely. But surely whatever Chance put in their drinks will last longer than that. I hope.

There are just too many variables.

I need to focus. We need to find our dog.

I open Santa's door slowly, peeking out to scan the area. No people are visible, and the broom and trash can are where we left them. I give Wyatt a shrug that says,
What now?

He points toward the other atrium of the mall, where the stage and toy store and candy kiosks are grouped, close together in a riot
of kid insanity. It makes sense—after the Santa area, we should keep checking the places where there's the most stuff to break. We pass an older woman sweeping in a dirty jumpsuit, but she doesn't even look up as we pass. Down by the stage, three figures in identical, clean jumpsuits are arguing. Two large boxes sit on a dolly, wrapped in bright paper with bows on top. Even from this far away, I can tell that one of the guys is Tuck.