by Anna Carey
The compartment door is still open a crack and you stand, sliding it shut. “So let’s find the other targets, then. If they’ve remembered anything that we haven’t, it could lead us to who’s at the top of AAE. We could stop all of this.”
Rafe looks at you. “We can start with Connor.”
“We have to be careful.” You don’t know which one of you you’re reminding.
Rafe stares down at the floor, smiles like he’s just remembered something.
“On the island,” he says, “careful wasn’t what kept us alive.”
CHAPTER THREE
THE ROOM SMELLS of moldy bread and bleach. You have your arm under the table in front of you so they can’t see. You drag the tip of the pen across your wrist, drawing long, thin spirals. You move to the spot just below your elbow, making a few black stars. It feels good to be doing something you’re not supposed to.
“Marcus.” You keep going, making a heart, another star. “Marcus, I’m talking to you.” You hear her, but you don’t care. Let her say it again, let her try to get you to look up. Joy is sitting beside you. She nudges you, whispers, “Williams sees you. Don’t be stupid.”
“Marcus, I’m talking to you.” Williams is at your side now. She takes the pen from your hand. “Where did you get this?”
You got it from Catholic Services. Borrowed it to write a prayer card and never gave it back. You don’t say that, though. You don’t say anything.
“Stand up, Marcus. You’re in your room for the night.” You just sit there, in the stupid plastic chair, in the baggy pants that don’t fit you, the laces stolen from your shoes. You roll your sweatshirt down so it covers your arm as a staff member appears on the other side of you. He yanks you to your feet.
When you open your eyes you see the ceiling of the train compartment. The top bunk is narrow and the mattress is too soft to be comfortable. Sunlight fills the tiny room. You laid down at one in the morning, maybe later, and you’re not sure how long you’ve been asleep.
“You up?” Rafe is just a voice below.
“How’d you know?”
“You must’ve turned over twenty times in the last hour. It’s your back, right? From sleeping outside?”
“It’s everything. I was having a dream.”
“A memory?”
“Yeah.”
“Was it about me?” You can hear the smile in his voice.
“Very funny.”
You lean over the side of the bunk. He’s just below you. He’s already folded his bed up, turned it back into two chairs. He’s eating a sandwich out of a plastic container. “I used to dream about you,” he says. “Before my memory came back.”
The statement just hangs there. He waits, and you know he wants to find out if your dreams are like his.
“It was about my life before,” you say. You maneuver off the bunk, stepping onto the seat below. Your dress is wrinkled, your hair matted in the back. “What time is it?”
“Almost two. They already came through with lunch.”
He plucks half the sandwich from the container and offers it to you. You only now realize how hungry you are. You haven’t eaten in almost a day.
When you look up, Rafe’s watching you. He’s taken off his hoodie, and a cotton T-shirt hugs his broad chest. He’s tall enough so that he’s almost at eye level with you on the bunk. Light flickers across his face, catching in his dark lashes, throwing quick, passing patterns on his olive skin.
“I was serious before,” he says. “I’d have these really vivid dreams of us on the island.”
“I know,” you say.
“You have them, too?”
“That’s how I recognized you.”
You sit back in the seat, keeping your eyes on the scenery outside as it passes. There are trees in every direction, houses dotted in the hills behind them. The leaves are a deep burgundy, some gold. The sky is a flat white.
He keeps his head down when he speaks. “Those first days after I woke up, when I didn’t know anything . . . that’s what kept me sane. Thinking about those dreams.”
Outside, in the corridor, you can hear people talking. You eat the rest of the sandwich, savoring each bite. “I couldn’t tell if they were real. I didn’t know.”
“They always felt real to me.”
“It’s still confusing,” you say.
He leans forward onto your top bunk, resting his chin on his knuckles. “Those dreams are the only thing that aren’t confusing.”
His words are low and soft. He reaches out, taking your hand. He holds it there in front of you, turns it over, his thumb grazing the inside of your palm. Your skin is hot beneath his touch. But it’s too much.
“I’m not there yet, Rafe,” you say, slipping your hand from his. “I don’t know you. I want to, but I don’t. Not yet.”
“Right, I know.” He sits down in one of the chairs.
You listen to his breaths. You don’t want to compare, but you do. The way it felt when Ben was with you, his fingers tangled in yours.
That wasn’t real. This is real. But it’s getting harder to tell the difference. You climb off the bed and sit across from him.
“I want to know your story.”
“My story . . .”
You lean your forehead against the window, looking out. “How AAE found you, where you’re from . . . how your memory came back. You haven’t told me anything.”
He rests his elbows on his knees. There’s a bump in the bridge of his nose, the top of it askew, like it was broken at some point. He doesn’t look at you, studying the pattern of the seat fabric instead. “My story is . . . I never got past eleventh grade. My story is . . . I’ve met my dad twice, and my mom started doing meth when I was six. One of my first memories is finding her passed out on the garage floor. My grandmother raised me.”
You bring your knees to your chest, watching him.
“Where’d you grow up?”
“Outside of Fresno.” There’s a hint of irritation in his voice. “You know I’ve already told you all this.”
“Tell me again.”
“It’s still not all there.”
“Try . . .”
“There are pieces that feel like they’re missing. But I know I used to go to this boxing gym. The manager was a friend of my older brother’s and he let me go for free sometimes, when there weren’t a lot of people there. This guy saw me fight. He started asking me all this stuff about my family, like where I was from. I thought they were just bullshit questions. Then he said he’d pay for me to fly to Texas, that he’d set up a match for me there. Like I was that good.”
“I wonder what he was doing for them . . . doesn’t sound like he was a Watcher, or a Stager,” you say.
Rafe’s hand drops away from his face. “What’s that?”
“AAE assigns a Stager to each target, the ones that tip off the hunters so they can find you, then make sure there’s no evidence of the hunt. They set me up so I wouldn’t go to the police—made it look like I’d broken into this office building. Watchers are people who monitor you, make sure you’re staying within a certain radius, and make sure you’re healthy. They keep tabs for AAE. They’re the ones that planted the tracking devices on us—you got rid of yours, right?” Rafe nods, and then you go on. “I found it all out when I tracked my hunter, Goss, to his house. He had paperwork hidden in one of his closets, and there was enough there to put some of it together.”
Rafe rests his head back. “The guy who first approached me . . . I don’t know how he worked for them. Curt. Giant Filipino guy who could talk for hours about boxing and football. Hated the Jets but he loved the 49ers.”
Rafe pauses, waiting for you to say something. “He was probably watching the gym for a while, trying to see who they might be able to recruit,” you offer. “Getting you to trust him.”
“It makes me feel so stupid. Like, it was this big, exciting thing. I told everyone I was going. I would not shut up about this boxing championship I was going to
be in and all the money I was going to make. My grandma was sick by then and I thought I was going to go there and . . .”
He doesn’t finish, just keeps his eyes on the ceiling. His palm comes down over his face, fingers rubbing his temples. “Curt said they had this sponsor, that we’d fly private. I’d never been on a plane before that. We took off out of this small airport and I freaked out when we were up in the air. It was the craziest feeling. And then when I woke up I was on the island.”
“How did it happen?”
“He gave me a drink twenty minutes after takeoff. He must’ve put something in it.”
“And when you woke up on the island, you could still remember everything?”
“Yeah, we remembered everything on the island. I don’t know how long I would’ve lasted there without my memories.”
“What do you mean?”
“Remembering things . . . people . . . it helped, it always helped me fight harder. It gave me a reason to survive. On the island, whenever I started thinking I couldn’t make it I would just picture . . .” He laughs a small, quiet laugh, then turns his head so his face is out of view. “I’d remember these eggs my grandmother would make for me. She’d put hot sauce on them, then scramble them with cheddar cheese. It sounds stupid, but I thought about that so many times, how she’d do that every morning. Just for me. She didn’t even like them. That memory kept me alive.”
Something gives way inside of you. You wipe at the corner of your eyes, wanting him to turn to you, for him to reach for your hand again. When he does, you take it.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHEN YOU GET back from the shower Rafe is gone. It’s past eight, the sky beyond the window dark. The seats are folded back against the wall and there’s a piece of paper sitting on your chair. He’s scribbled it on the formal Amtrak stationery, the complimentary notepad that came with the room.
LAST NIGHT OF FREEDOM. MEET ME AT THE BAR CAR.
You fumble through your knapsack, looking for the fake ID you bought in LA. Then you study yourself in the tiny mirror above the sink. Your hair is still wet, the ends soaking your T-shirt. You move a thick tangle to one side to cover the scar. You pinch color into your cheeks, press your lips together, and smooth back your brows.
You start into the hall, locking the compartment behind you. The bar car is four away, and you keep your head down, your hair covering the side of your face. When you get inside you see Rafe in a booth at the far end.
You slip into the bench across from him. His glass is half filled with a watery caramel-colored liquid. He picks it up and drains the last of it, setting it back down on the table. You lean in, noticing the way his smile keeps appearing and disappearing from his lips, like he’s fighting it back. He can’t seem to keep his gaze in one place.
“You’re drunk,” you say.
“And you’re behind.” He reaches into his pocket and slides something across the table. A tiny plastic bottle of Jack Daniel’s. You twist off the cap, the smell familiar. You take it down in two sips.
When you’re done, you look around, scanning the tables behind you. There are two older couples with white hair, each one with a martini glass in front of them, the drinks barely touched. A twentysomething guy with thick glasses and a beard is scribbling in a notebook.
“Relax,” Rafe says. “If someone got on in Chicago this morning, they would’ve found us already. We’re off the radar . . . at least for now.”
“I was more concerned with someone recognizing me from that video.”
“Lena the big bad burglar.” When Rafe smiles he rubs the side of his jaw, the black stubble that makes him look a few years older than he is. “It’s kind of hot.”
The blood rushes to your face. “You’re the pickpocket,” you say. “Maybe I should be more worried about people recognizing you.”
Rafe spreads his hands out on the table, the tips of his fingers just inches from yours. When he leans in you can smell the whiskey on his breath. “You never have to worry about me,” he says. “Because I never get caught.”
“How’d you learn?”
“This old guy who hung out at the boxing gym. He’d done it for forty years—he did it in New York, mostly on the subways. He taught me.”
You comb your hair out with your fingers, working at a few wet knots. A waiter comes by and brings two more drinks—one for you, one for Rafe. It’s some kind of ginger ale mix, and you sip it, enjoying a little at a time. You look down the aisle, to where a man with red hair and freckles is leaning over a booth, talking to the woman sitting inside. He says something and she laughs, tucking a thick black curl behind her ear.
“Show me.” You nod in their direction.
He cranes his neck, watching them. “That’s easy.”
He’s already getting out of the booth before you can stop him. He’s wearing a gray T-shirt, the cotton hugging his body, and you can see the muscles in his back as he moves, walking through the crowded car. When he gets to the redheaded man he bumps into him, apologizes. It’s not until he gets to the very end of the car, by the bathrooms, that he turns back to you.
He holds out his hand. In it is the man’s brown leather wallet. You’re in on the joke, watching him like you would a magician.
He comes toward you, smiling the whole time. When he passes the man he doesn’t bump him. It’s impossible to even notice his hand as he returns the wallet to the man’s back pocket. But you can see it there, the outline of it at least, when Rafe sits back down across from you.
“Did he notice?” This time, when he smiles, you can see his teeth—square and bright white. The front one is chipped in the corner, but it somehow makes him even more attractive.
“He didn’t notice.” You stare past his shoulder. The man is still talking to the woman. He sits down next to her, showing her something on his phone.
“They never do—not until it’s too late.” Rafe takes down his drink in a few sips and pushes the glass around.
“Show me how to do it,” you say. “I want to learn.”
“Can’t learn in one night.”
“I can try.”
He stands, pulling a roll of bills from his pocket. He drops two twenties on the table, setting a container of sugar on top of it. “Ambitious.” He laughs. “Let’s go. I can’t show you here.”
You follow him back toward the sleeping car, the whiskey warming you from the inside. You close your eyes for a minute and you can see his face above yours, that moment on the island when he kissed you, when he ran his thumb across your lips.
You step into the car and he closes the door behind you. He folds a few bills in half and puts a piece of notepaper around them, trying to make something that resembles a wallet. “It’s not the best,” he says. “But it’ll do. It’s all about creating space in the pocket. You push the top of the pocket out with your thumb and pull the wallet up and out with two fingers.”
He holds up his pointer and middle finger, then curls them in toward his palm. When he turns you around, he puts his hand on your waist, moving your hips toward the wall. You let out a small laugh, feeling the bit of his hand that touches the bare skin by your belt. He slips the wad of money into the back pocket of your jeans. When he takes it out you don’t even feel it.
“Your turn,” he says, dropping it into his back pocket. “You can probably get away with more because you’re a girl. First you wait until they’re distracted. Then you bump into them, squeeze past, that sort of thing. It makes it harder to notice.”
He pretends to just stand there, looking out the window. You bump into him, but it’s hard to get the angle of your hand right. You fumble and he grabs your wrist. It’s so obvious.
“Don’t rush. . . .” When he says it you’re aware of how close his mouth is to yours. He’s staring at your lips. “Try it again.”
You do. You try it six more times, and each time you get closer to getting it out, but not quite. “You make it look easy,” you finally say, collapsing into the seat. “I bet I�
�d be better if I wasn’t drunk.”
“Maybe.” Then he leans down, putting a hand on each of your armrests. “We’ll have time to practice. You’ll get better.”
You let your head rest back against the seat. He’s going to kiss you, you’re certain of it, as he stays there a few breaths. But then he turns away and falls back into the other chair.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHEN CONNOR WALKS into the deli he’s aware of each security camera. One’s at the end of the first aisle, pointing out toward the door. Another is behind the cash register. They’re both rectangular and black, aimed down at him like guns.
He adjusts his hat so the brim is just above his eyes. It hides the Mohawk beneath. His hair is still dyed black, though the color has faded since he ran away.
He goes to the metal rack by the cashier, grabbing a New York Times, a Daily News, and a New York Post. The Post is usually his best bet. That’s how he’s found Salto: There was a police sketch of her at the bottom of the second page. A woman had claimed Salto’d attacked her with a knife. Aggy and Devon, the other targets, were shown robbing two different ATMs in the city. If the kid from Craigslist shows tonight, by the High Line, that’ll make five of them in all. It won’t be long before they’re a unit, working as one—an army of targets fighting against the game.
“Just these,” he says.
“Four fifty.” The cashier is a young guy, not much older than Connor, with a thin polyester shirt and an accent he can’t quite place. Connor keeps his head down as he digs the money from the front pocket of his jeans. He’s taken out all his piercings—the ones in his nose and lip, the three in his eyebrow. But there are still scars where they were, his ears still stretched out from the gauges.
He puts the exact amount of change on the counter and tucks the newspapers under his arm. The High Line entrance is on Twenty-Sixth Street. The kid promised he’d meet him either tonight or tomorrow morning, at a different park uptown. Connor made him send him a picture of his tattoo to verify he was who he said he was. The boy was thirteen, with cracked glasses and the thin, dark beginnings of a mustache. He seemed terrified.
