by Lucin, David
Something Sam said yesterday returned to her: It can’t be every man for himself. So far, it had been. She’d acted that way at the Go Market. Yes, the security guard tried to steal her food, but he was desperate, just as she and Sam were. There were still good people like Tara and Derek out here. There were good people in Flagstaff, too, like Liam and his family. Maybe Sam was right: they weren’t monsters; they were better than that. Jenn could help this person.
“Sam,” she said. “Throw him the water.”
“What?”
She adjusted her grip on the gun but remained at the ready. “It’s okay. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
Nicole, not Sam, grabbed the jug and stormed past Jenn.
“Stop,” Jenn said. Nicole, about ten or fifteen feet from Yankees Hat, looked over her shoulder. “That’s far enough. Just toss it to him.”
After a second of hesitation, Nicole rolled it at Yankees Hat, and it came to a rest halfway between them.
“Thank you,” he wheezed and dragged himself forward. At the jug, he fell to his knees and removed the cap with desperate fingers. Water ran down his chin and onto his white shirt as he drank. Jenn’s arms relaxed as they lowered the gun to her side.
Nicole smiled a little. “See? Not everyone—” Her jaw dropped and her hands covered her mouth. Then she screamed. The sound snaked down Jenn’s spine.
She spun around. Someone in a black T-shirt and dirty jeans had locked Sam’s arms behind him. A knife was pointed at his ribs.
Nicole screamed again. Gun up, Jenn glimpsed a third man. This one wore a hooded sweatshirt and baggy shorts. He grabbed hold of Nicole and thrust her to the pavement.
On shaky legs, Jenn backed away to bring both the man holding Sam and the man atop Nicole into her field of vision. It didn’t work. The thug with the knife jerked Sam sideways and stayed to Jenn’s flank.
With a yelp, Nicole flailed and struggled on the ground.
“Shut it, bitch!” Her assailant gripped her by the hair and forced her face into the blacktop.
A sickening cough came from the left. Yankees Hat strode toward Jenn. His limp had vanished. He took another sip of water and tossed the half-empty jug aside. “Easy now.” He scratched his neck. The skin beneath the ash on his face was red and sunburnt. “We don’t want any trouble.”
Arms weak, Jenn trained the gun on him and lined up the sights with his chest. “Let them go,” she said. Her voice cracked and wavered.
“Be happy to,” Yankees Hat said. “So long as you gimme the keys to that car.”
Jenn had tucked them into her front pocket. He couldn’t know that she had them, could he? “What keys?” she lied. “The hell are you talking about?”
Yankees Hat smiled at her. Several teeth were missing. “Check that one,” he said and pointed to Sam.
The man with the knife forced Sam to his knees and frisked him. “Nothing. What about her?” he asked.
Nicole thrashed again, but the man in the sweatshirt, now straddling her, thrust her down. He patted the pockets of her pants. Hand on her right buttocks, he squeezed, and Nicole bucked violently. An elbow between the shoulders silenced her.
“Leave her alone!” Sam shouted, which earned him a kick to the lower ribs. He stumbled forward and threw out his hands to break his fall.
“This one’s got nothin’ on her,” the man atop Nicole said. His elbow still on her spine, he leaned close to her hair and breathed deep.
A fire ignited in Jenn’s chest.
“The keys,” Yankees Hat said to Jenn. “We know you got ’em. Just give ’em over, and we’ll be on our way.” Another spat of coughing punctuated his sentence.
The gun weighed on her arms, threatening to pull them to the ground. Everything tingled. She couldn’t smell or taste the smoke anymore. Her eyes didn’t burn, either. The world beyond these three men, Sam, and Nicole had ceased to exist.
“Jenn,” Sam said from his stomach. “It’s okay. Give them the keys.”
Her answer was automatic: “No.”
“No?” Yankees Hat echoed. He smiled again and ran his tongue along the gaps in his teeth. “You want us to take ’em from you instead? Maybe we cut your little friend here up first. Then we’ll see.”
“Screw that,” Jenn said. The fire spread. “Let us go.”
“And what you gonna do about it, huh?” Yankees Hat said. He took a step in her direction, and Jenn found herself taking a longer step back. That sickening grin spread across his face. His remaining teeth were browned and blackened. “Look at you. You ever fired that thing before? You sure you know how to use it, little girl?”
“Jenn,” Sam pleaded. “Please. Give them the keys.”
Nicole squealed some more as the man’s fingers caressed her face and hair.
Reluctantly, Jenn pulled the keys from her pocket. “Fine.” Careful to keep the gun pointed at Yankees Hat, she tossed them onto the pavement.
He bent down to retrieve them. “Not so hard, was it?” His thumb pressed a button on the fob, and the car’s alarm blared for a second before he shut it off. “All charged. Thanks for that, by the way.”
Jenn brought her left hand up to support the gun. “Now let them go.”
Yankees Hat made a sucking sound with his mouth. “What you think, Timmy?” he asked the man on Nicole. “You seem to be takin’ a liking to that one. You want to take her with us?”
Nicole squirmed and swore at them.
“I think he does,” Yankees Hat said. “Get her to the car.”
The man with the hooded sweatshirt—Timmy—took Nicole by the wrists and lifted her up. She cried out and begged him to stop. Stones had lodged themselves into her cheek, and tears filled her eyes, which burned red.
The index finger on Jenn’s right hand twitched, threatening to take control of the situation. “You promised you’d let them go,” she said.
“I didn’t promise you anything.” Yankees Hat spat in her direction, then moved to walk away.
The one holding Nicole spun her around and pushed her toward the SUV. “Please,” she cried. “Let me go! You have the car. Just let me go!”
“Bastards!” Sam shouted. The man with the knife landed a foot on Sam’s ankle, and he howled in pain.
“Stop,” Jenn said to Yankees Hat. “Let them go or I’ll shoot.”
“You sure you’ll hit me?” He cocked his head to the side. Jenn smelled alcohol on him. “You can’t even hold that thing straight.”
He closed the distance between them. She held her ground this time, which made him bark a laugh. It resonated in Jenn’s stomach and fed the fire burning there.
“Getting tough, huh? How ’bout you just hand that over before you hurt yourself?”
“Let her go—right now.”
He tucked the keys into his pocket. At his sides, his hands balled into fists. “I don’t think so.”
Nicole cried out again. Sam, a foot on his back and a knife hovering by his face, looked on, helpless to save his sister.
Jenn had sworn to defend these people. Her brothers were gone. So were her parents. She loved Sam. Though she’d only met Nicole yesterday, she loved her, too. She couldn’t lose them. Not like this.
“I’ll give you once more chance,” Yankees Hat said. “Hand it over.”
Jenn’s teeth clenched. “No. Let them go.”
“Fine. You win.” He dropped his shoulders, and his chin fell to his chest as he sighed.
For half a breath, Jenn believed him. Then he planted his feet and lunged at her.
She pulled the trigger.
21
Jenn’s ears were ringing. Her body moved in reaction to stimuli, but she felt like a spectator trapped in her own skin, watching as the primitive, feral parts of her brain assumed total control of her motor functions.
On the ground in front of her, Yankees Hat clutched his chest. Crimson spread across his white tank top and lathered his fingers. Grasping at the asphalt, he tried to crawl away from her. Then he convulsed and coughe
d. A line of red seeped from his mouth, and a grotesque bubble of blood and saliva formed on his lips as he fought to breathe.
Somehow, Nicole had broken free. The man in the hooded sweatshirt, the one who had hit and groped her, lifted his hands above his head. He spoke but the ringing in Jenn’s ears drowned it out. To her right, Sam struggled with his attacker. Sunlight glistened off a shard of metal lying a few feet away from them. The knife had come loose.
“Get off of him!” Jenn shouted. The words sounded muffled in her ears like she was screaming while under water.
The man in the hooded sweatshirt stumbled backward and fell. The gun aimed at his chest, Jenn rested her finger on the trigger.
Sam was on the bottom now, his attacker on top.
Jenn lifted the Glock and fired it into the air. The sound of the shot assaulted her eardrums and made them sting.
Curled up in the fetal position, Nicole screamed.
“Get off him!” Jenn yelled again.
Sam gripped his attacker’s shirt and shoved him aside.
She wanted to shoot both of these men, to make them feel pain and to watch them suffer. Yet the fear in their eyes doused the flames in her chest. The thug in the sweatshirt was crying and pleading for his life. The other, the one who’d had the knife, had taken to his hands and knees and crawled away like an infant.
Jenn lowered the gun and waved a hand at them. “Go!” she shouted.
Without hesitation, they sprinted across the parking lot, then through a line of shrubbery and onto the golf course.
Yankees Hat lay still, his tank top soaked through with blood. His empty eyes stared at the smoke-filled sky. A dark pool spread out from his back and painted the pavement purple. Jenn reached into his pocket to retrieve the BMW keys.
She holstered the gun. The ringing in her ears subsided, replaced by the sound of Nicole crying into her hands.
The body. Jenn needed to move it. She gripped the ankles and pulled, but he was too heavy. “Help me move him,” she asked anyone listening. When she pulled a second time, the corpse slid with a wet scrape. A trail of blood stained the pavement. Intuitively, she understood what she was doing, but she felt nothing.
Sam appeared beside her.
“There you are,” she said. “Grab him by the arms. We’ll roll him into those bushes over there.” With a wave of her hand, she indicated a line of shrubs lining the nearest edge of the parking lot.
“Jenn,” he uttered. “He’s . . . He’s dead.”
She yanked the body again. Atop a limp neck, the head rolled over. Another yank and the hat came loose, exposing strands of wiry, thinning hair.
“Grab his arms,” Jenn commanded. “We need to move him.”
Reluctantly, Sam complied, and together, they lifted the corpse, which sagged between them. It fell into the shrubs with a sickening thud. Sam stood, stone still and speechless, his gaze fixed on the body, as Jenn fetched the ball cap and threw it into the bushes as well.
She marched toward Nicole, who averted her eyes. Sam hadn’t moved. Jenn retrieved the keys from her pocket and shouted, “Get in the car!” In the driver’s seat, she pressed the ignition. The engine buzzed on. According to the touchscreen, the autodrive had activated. Sam sat in the front beside Jenn, Nicole behind her. She tapped his arm. “Turn it off. The autodrive.”
Sam did, and Jenn whirled around, mindful to avoid the patch of blood on the pavement. The tires screeched beneath them as the vehicle tore forward, through the smoke and away from the clubhouse.
By the time the winding golf course road had reached the highway, the air inside the BMW had turned to ice. She switched on her seat warmer. Her head swirled, and waves of dizziness crashed into her. “Nicole,” she said, blinking hard and avoiding the stalled semi they passed earlier. “Where do I go?”
No answer.
Jenn looked into the rearview mirror. In the back seat, Nicole hugged herself as if she was cold, too. Mascara ran down her cheeks. It made her look like a raccoon. A cut on her right cheek had begun to bleed.
“I’ll show you,” Sam said, his eyes on the road and one hand on the glove compartment to brace himself.
Nicole made a sniffling sound.
“Are you cold?” Jenn asked. “I can turn the heat up.”
Nicole didn’t answer. Jenn turned the heat up a little anyway, just in case.
Sam pointed to a set of traffic lights. “Go left here.”
Jenn braked hard and jerked the wheel. Her body shifted as she peeled around the corner. An open stretch of road appeared before her—the same stretch she and Sam traversed on their way to the cabin. She hit the gas and the engine whined as her speed topped fifty miles per hour.
Outside the house, Jenn parked the SUV in front of the garage. “Come on,” she said to Sam. “We need to leave.”
Sam sat still for a moment, then said, “Right.” He climbed out of the car, though Nicole remained in her seat. That was fine. They didn’t have much to pack and would only be a few minutes.
Jenn ran upstairs, bounding the steps two at a time. At the top, Barbara appeared in the door of the master bedroom. She wore a white housecoat, and an eye mask rested on her head. “What on Earth is going on?” she said and thrust her hands onto her hips. “And take your shoes off in this house, young lady!”
“Get dressed,” Jenn said.
Barbara gasped. “Excuse me? You can’t talk to me like—”
“I said get dressed. We’re leaving in ten minutes.”
Barbara opened her mouth to retort, but Sam cut her off. “Listen to Jenn, Mom. We’re going to Flagstaff, like we talked about last night. But we need to hurry.”
“She can’t talk to me like that!” Barbara complained, but Jenn had stopped listening. In the spare room, she stuffed her dirty clothes from yesterday into her backpack. Then, downstairs in the kitchen, she collected the bottles of boiled water on the island.
Food. Kevin had stowed some soy protein bars, the ones left over from their stay in the garage, on a shelf in the pantry. Jenn tucked all five into her bag.
Her watch said 8:22 a.m. Barbara had until 8:30.
Jenn brought a load of water to the BMW and laid it in the trunk space. Nicole didn’t acknowledge her. Instead, she sat with her head resting against the window. Inside, Kevin stood at the island, two bottles in hand. “In the car?” he asked Jenn.
She nodded. “Thanks. Barbara?”
“Coming,” Kevin said. His glasses were sliding down his nose. “I’ll make sure of it.”
The sound of Barbara shouting at Sam came from upstairs. Four minutes left.
Had Jenn packed everything they needed? Food? Check. Water? Yes. Her clothes? Got them. Nicole was waiting in the car, and Kevin had already come down and was loading their supplies. He and Sam would bring Barbara down. If they didn’t, Jenn would drag her down herself.
Kevin, his hands empty, entered the kitchen. “I’ll grab our things from the bedroom,” he said. “Anything else we need?”
“I don’t think so. Thanks for your help.”
He went upstairs.
One hand on the island, Jenn leaned and tried to breathe—slow and steady, in through the nose and out through the mouth. Jason had taught her that as a way of relaxing before an at-bat. Usually, it worked, but now, it made the room spin. Things moved slowly at first, then picked up speed until the cupboards, the oven, the sink, and the microwave all blended together. The floor bucked and wobbled and threw her off balance. Without warning, it disappeared beneath her, and everything went black. Once her vision returned, her cheek rested on the cool tile, fear flooding every cell in her body.
What had she done?
* * *
For the first thirty minutes, Barbara, squeezed between Sam and Nicole in the back seat, screamed and cried and flailed. Kevin sat beside Jenn, who drove the SUV on manual.
Eventually, Barbara merely whimpered between long bouts of silence or heavy breathing. Sam had wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and
she buried her face in his chest. Nicole stared out the window and watched the Ponderosas fly by as Jenn sped down the highway. She took an alternate route to avoid the roadblock they encountered on the way to Payson. Kevin directed her.
As they drove east and then north along a two-lane road, the landscape shifted from woodlands to desert more reminiscent of Phoenix. In a town the BMW’s map identified as Holbrook, Jenn hooked up with I-40 and tore west, toward Flagstaff, pushing the car to eighty, sometimes faster. She only slowed down to dodge stalled vehicles. Poor visibility in the smoke kept her from exceeding ninety or a hundred on the straight stretches. Kevin sat, his spine and legs stiff, and held onto a handle above the glove compartment with both hands, but he didn’t complain. Neither did Sam. Barbara would have, had Kevin not given her a pill that nearly knocked her out. Nicole remained still, her stare distant, vacant, and unyielding.
Soon, bushy trees dotted the side of the freeway. They were close. By the time a sign demarcating Flagstaff’s city limits came into view, the clock read 10:55. The trip took two and a half hours; the map had said it should have taken more than three.
The number of idle vehicles on the interstate increased as the highway bypassed town, forcing Jenn to drive more slowly. At the exit to Milton Road, she let out a shaky breath.
They’d made it.
She pulled into Gary and Maria’s driveway. Kevin rushed around the car to help Sam with a catatonic Barbara. Zombie-like, Nicole dragged herself out.
The front door to the Ruiz house opened inward. Ajax came through first, then Gary. His hand hovered above his hip. When he saw Sam, he darted forward. Maria appeared next. One hand covered her mouth and the other pulled her oxygen compressor as she followed Gary, who waved her off and said something about the smoke. She ignored him. Jenn’s lip quivered and her eyes teared up. She wanted to jump out and be with Maria, but her seat belt eluded her.
Gary smiled at Jenn through the windshield, then introduced himself to Kevin and tried to do the same with Barbara. Sam, though, his mother on his arm, pushed past, but not without a friendly slap on the shoulder from Gary.
Maria blazed through them all, waving everyone aside as she made for the driver’s side door. She pulled it open and reached for Jenn.
