Strike (45 page)

“Leon said the gold one goes by the purse store with the glass damn doors. So why's there a red one by the purse store?”

We hide behind a kiosk to watch.

“I didn't know it mattered. You guys never tell me anything,” says a skinny Crane goon with a greasy ponytail.

“Well, it matters. Now fix it.”

Tuck heads toward us, and we hide around the other side of the kiosk. The ponytail guy is grumbling and cussing, and an older man in a baseball hat says, “Just pick up the damn box and shut up, kid,” and then I hear the noise I've been praying to hear all along: muffled barking.

“What the hell was that?” the older guy says, and Tuck spins and stomps back.

A gun cocks in the silence, and Tuck says, “Don't you worry about what it is. Just do your damn job.”

Tuck storms off, and the two guys shove the box across the floor with grunts and groans. The box keeps on barking, but they don't
mention it again until Tuck is past our kiosk and walking as fast as he can. I creep closer, always hiding behind a kiosk or cart, with Wyatt right behind me.

“Hey, Richard. You think that dog can breathe in there?” the older guy asks.

“Not my problem,” Ponytail Guy, Richard, says. “I just want to get out of here without another hillbilly asshole pointing a gun at me.”

After a few minutes of heaving, they get the box into place and pick up the red one to carry it back to the cart.

“Whatever's in the regular boxes ain't nearly as heavy as the one with the dog,” the older guy observes.

“Just do your job and put the red one somewhere else,” Richard says before storming off in the same direction as Tuck.

As I peek around the kiosk, the older guy walks around the box, probing the sides with his fingers. He looks up and in every direction before pulling out a pocketknife and slitting the gold wrapping paper carefully, right under the wide ribbon on top. Right where the seam would be.

“You okay in there, buddy?” he says.

The barking is louder now, joyous through the slit he's made in the box. A rhythmic thumping suggests that Matty's doing her usual happy tail wagging.

“Whoa! No, buddy. No. Stay in there.”

I move from this kiosk to the next one, the closest one. When I stop, Wyatt catches the back of my jumpsuit. I check the halls, listen for more footsteps, but all I hear is wagging and barking and a kindhearted idiot trying to stuff eighty pounds of happy dog back into the box where it belongs, according to Mr. Leon Crane.

“No! No, no. Stop. C'mon! Goddammit!”

Wyatt yanks me back behind the kiosk as the clawing, ripping sound of tearing cardboard is followed by totally unblocked, joyous barking. I hear claws clattering on the marble, the man's footsteps clumping around ineffectually.

I whistle low and whisper, “Come here, Matty. Come here, girl.”

Because dogs have a really fantastic sense of hearing, right?

Claws skitter frantically, and then she's racing toward me, faster than I've ever heard her move, barking and yipping like crazy. I can't stand it anymore. My eyes are tearing up, and my heart is beating, and we might all get out of here alive before things even get bad.

I have to step out from behind the kiosk and see my girl.

She barrels into me, jumping up and pawing.

But . . .

But . . .

It's not Matty.

This is a black Lab, but it is not
my
black Lab.

This black Lab is younger, floppier, skinnier, and has jangly balls.

“What?” I say, trying to fend off the happy dog's claws and slobber.

The guy walks up but doesn't make any attempt to grab whoever this dog is.

“That's not her,” Wyatt says.

“I'm sorry.” The guy glances around nervously. “This dog just ran up . . . I don't know what it's even doing in the mall. You should
probably call the police or something.” His face freezes, almost comically, when he realizes what he's just said. “I mean, never mind. I'll just take him outside.” He grabs the crazy dog's collar and tries to drag it away, but it breaks free and takes off for the other end of the mall, slipping and sliding on the polished floor. The guy rubs his crew cut and stares at us.

“Are you guys . . . ?”

“Goddammit,” I say, and I walk away. It's stupid, but I follow Tuck's path. Not only because he's Leon's goon, but because he appreciates a good dog and might be headed to where Matty is. She must be somewhere else.

My phone buzzes, and I check it.

Not at stage. Decoy dog. WTH?
Wyatt's number, sent to me, my dad, and Chance. I didn't even notice him texting as he trailed me.

Not at Mr. Goodbuy or Nickel's. Running out of options
, my dad texts back.

not @ plyfround. i dont even know whr iam.
From Chance. Of course.

The mall is laid out like a giant cross, a two-storied X with one long arm that I'm currently walking down. My dad checked upstairs. We checked the stage and the Santa setup.

But was my dad checking for Matty upstairs, or just looking for Leon?

“Goddammit!” I take off running for the escalator, which is frozen into stairs.

Laughter rings from overhead, and I look up to find dozens of faces.

“Well, that was a charming scene,” yells Leon Crane.

This is what I get for trusting my dad to take care of business.

As we run, bullets
ping
off the marble behind us. Clearly, no one is trying to kill us, because we'd be dead. Whatever Leon has up his sleeve, he wants us alive for this next part.

Or at least he wants
me
alive.

Somewhere, a dog barks, and I don't know if it's Matty or the fake dog, but I have to run faster. I don't think as I sprint past dozens of wrapped packages and up the escalator with Wyatt panting by my side, a trail of lazy bullets in our wake. As we barrel upstairs, a bullet hits the glass wall of the escalator, and it cracks into a spiderweb but doesn't break. When I reach the solid floor, I see an audience of janitors in jumpsuits just like mine. Some are clearly Crane goons, laughing, with automatic rifles slung across their chests and pistols in hand. Some are nobodies, nameless members of this perverted cell of the Citizens for Freedom, coerced and forced and led into doing whatever Leon Crane wants, whether or not it's actually helping the fight against Valor. Like the guy with the crew cut downstairs, they look confused, like they're not sure why they're here or who they're rooting for. Among them are the kids from the shooting
range who didn't join our little group, and they look like they just got back from war.

This audience is definitely not rooting for me.

“Well, step right up, Miss Patsy. Let's have us a little chat.”

Leon Crane sits on a big gold package wearing a jumpsuit identical to mine. A shotgun rests across his knees, and he's smiling, as my mom would say, like a possum. With this many guns pointed at me, I've got nowhere to run, so I throw my shoulders back, stick out my chin, and walk up to him with my hands in my pockets and Wyatt right behind me. My fingers tighten around the grip of my gun, and I give him a smug grin.

“I thought I blew you up,” I say.

He tips his head. “And I look forward to returning the favor. Now, if you'll stop squeezing that Valor gun in your pocket and gently place it on the ground between us, I'd be most obliged.”

My smile dies. “What gun?”

At least a dozen more guns point at me.

“Guess,” Leon says. He flops his gun toward Wyatt. “His, too.”

Without my gun, I have nothing. But full of holes, I have even less.

I start to pull it out, and Leon whips out his own Glock, saying, “Oh, careful. Trigger fingers can get mighty sweaty. They taught us trigger discipline in the army. You ever learn trigger discipline?”

I show him my gun, my finger nowhere near the trigger. “I'm
a little more into trigger anarchy.” Slowly, carefully, I put it on the ground. Every second, I'm one twitch away from shooting him anyway and taking the punishment of dying in a hail of bullets. But if I go, Wyatt goes too. I can't do that to him. Maybe I deserve it, but he doesn't.

“Now kick those guns a little closer to me. Gentle as a light breeze, you hear?”

Our two black guns twirl across the tile. When Leon tosses his head, a Crane goon more nimble than Tuck hurries over and collects them. The box under Leon rustles and barks excitedly. What kind of an asshole sits on someone's dog like this?

“That's better.” Leon resettles himself on the box. “Now, where were we? Oh, yeah.” He leans forward, eyes burning. “You blew up my family's house. And several of my aunts.”

Inside, I feel like I'm going to fly apart. Outside, I shrug and say, “. . . sorry?”

He ignores it.

“Now, normally, I could forgive that sort of transgression. I never did like my aunt Kitty. But . . . well, let's see. Your boy there gave one of my boys a concussion and left him to die on a simple wipe job.” He jabs a finger at Wyatt. “Now, son, don't you even draw breath to tell me that's not what happened, because he remembers. Then y'all shot several of my tech boys in a trailer for stealing your Pop-Tarts.” Now he aims his finger at me. “And then you
disappeared into the woods with my childhood best friend and the best hacker this side of the Pacific, killing three more of my cousins on the way. I'm guessing you ended up killing Jacky, considering he has such a smart goddamn mouth. And then, after all that, you went . . .” He stands and strides over to poke me in the chest with tattooed fingers. “You went and blew up my goddamn house! And when you add it all together like that, it's un-fucking-forgivable.” His face is red up to the roots of his hair, and he purses his lips as if he's thinking about hitting me in the face until I don't have a nose, but I do not turn away. “Normally, I would just shoot you and be done with it, but I spent too much time torturing hostiles to let you die that easy. And I know how to hurt you most.”

He makes his hands into fists, opens them, and returns to sitting on his box. “But you are an elegant force of destruction, and I can still use you, so I will give you one more chance to do the right thing. Now, I am a simple patriot leading these good people in a righteous fight against the real bad guy here, and that bad guy is a bank that calls itself Valor.” He picks his gun back up, points it at me, and cocks it. “You're either fighting on my side, or you are against me. So which side do you choose, Patsy? Mine, or Valor's?”

“She's on my side,” my dad says, stepping around the corner.

He shoots Leon Crane in the chest.

I turn my face away, pretty sure that I'm about to go down in a blaze of glory, but a rolling trash can zooms in front of me, careening into the front row of guys with guns.

“Come on, morons!” Chance shouts, and Wyatt and I dive for the corner where my dad came from.

Bullets
ping
off the marble wall and shatter the glass of a cooking store, but we're behind a thick stone column, safe and sound. And behind my dad, who's ducked back with us. He shoves an open duffel bag at us with his boot, and I reach in and pull out guns. Not our guns and not the guns we took from Hartness the other night. One says
SECOND UNION
, and one says
VALOR
, and now I'm guessing my dad must've figured out where the Cranes were unloading their
boxes. I slide out my clip to check it, then shove it home and get ready. Funny how someone else's gun can feel the same as yours when you really need it.

“How much longer are they going to shoot the wall?” Chance asks.

“They're Cranes. They'll shoot it until it's dead,” my dad says.

All of a sudden, the shots stop, and the mall goes quiet.

A throat clears, and a voice I didn't expect to hear again calls, “Nice try, Jacky. And yet you constantly say I'm the dumb one.”

My dad puts a fist against his forehead, looking defeated.

“Bulletproof vest, huh?” he calls. “Or just too stubborn to die?”

A single bullet
pings
off the stone. “A little trick I learned from your daddy.”

“God rest his soul.”

“How'd she win you over, Jacky? You two walked away into the night, left three dead bodies and kept going. The fella who survived didn't even see y'all together before he ran away from your hail of gunfire. Is this a Lolita thing? Were you guys getting hot in that deer stand when Cousin Hartness found you?”

My dad shakes his head at me. Wyatt looks pissed.

“I bet it was sweet. I bet that tall blond bastard got her all loosened up for you, and you just swooped in and—”

“She's my daughter, Leon. So shut your goddamn mouth for once.”

Leon laughs in surprise and delight, and it fills the mall, echoing off the columns.

“Oh, crap, Jacky! You got a kid? How'd you manage that? Where you been hiding her all these years? You do recognize, old friend, that I would've sent a silver rattle if I'd known.”

“You were in prison when she was born, asshole.”

In that moment, I realize that my dad is just as dumb and prideful as everyone else. Just as easily riled up as his dad. Because he couldn't let Leon assume the worst. And now Leon knows everything.

Leon chuckles as if he's realizing it too. “Oh, well, yes, I did spend some time behind bars, didn't I? No thanks to you and your son-of-a-bitching daddy. He was the most evil human being I've ever met. My only regret is not going for a head shot when I had the chance. I learned how to nurse a grudge in those long prison years. I learned that children can suffer on behalf of their parents, and that can be just as satisfying to a man who craves revenge. And as much as I used to love you, Jacky, I hate your dark-hearted daddy and bad-luck daughter even more.”