The idea sounds so simple, and yet yarn bombing makes me so happy. That’s what appeals to me—the concept of taking something boring, something everyday and dull, and making it beautiful for no real reason. I am a deeply practical person in all respects except for this one. I don’t have any great talents—I can’t draw or write or sing or win science fairs. But I can make the world better with little touches of color here and there. It certainly can’t cancel out the harm I’m doing this week, but if I can keep yarn bombing, it’s one more way to keep being myself.
And now that I know that the flag is meaningless, this small act means even more.
Maybe one day I’ll sell PDFs of cross-stitch patterns that say KEEP CALM AND DON’T RELY ON VALOR or DEBT SWEET DEBT. If Valor doesn’t arrest or kill people for that sort of rebellion, of course.
As I knit, the GPS gives Wyatt directions in a stuffy British voice. He even talks back to it a few times, which makes me giggle. “Taking the motorway,” he says, mimicking the clipped accent. “Turning right at my earliest possible convenience.”
The truck rolls to a halt, and I finish my row of stitches before looking up. Wyatt squeezes into the back of the mail truck and squats across from me. He reaches into my knitting bag and pulls out several balls of bright acrylic yarn. They look tiny in his huge hands.
“Do you juggle?” he says.
I slide the row of stitches down on the needle and grin.
“Nope. I yarn bomb.”
He drops the balls of yarn back in my bag and holds his hands up like I’ve got a gun pointed at him, which actually hasn’t happened in a while—which is kind of nice.
“Are you saying these are bombs?” he says with mock horror. “Because I don’t know whether to cut the red wire or the blue wire or the neon-green wire.”
I snort.
“You’re ridiculous. And you seriously don’t know what yarn bombing is? I mean, have you heard of the Internet?”
“That’s where the cats and porn are, right?” he shoots back.
“Boys,” I say to myself, rolling my eyes. “Yarn bombing is this thing they do in bigger cities, where people crochet or knit stuff and then put it in public places. Like over subway seats or tree branches or those big metal rings by docks. Just to make things more interesting. More pretty.”
“The yarn bombing assassin,” he says, reaching out to touch the flagpole sheath I’ve been working on. “I like it.”
Matty shoves into him, and he puts a hand on my shoulder to keep from totally falling over on me. His touch melts down into my skin through two T-shirts and my tank top, and I blush red and scoot away.
“Sorry,” he says, almost as red as I feel myself.
“I think Matty’s got a crush on you.” I hide my face in her neck. “Don’t you, honey? Are you a good girl? Are you?” Her tail beats the crap out of him, and he retreats to the other side of the truck, which still isn’t very far away.
“So that was awkward,” he says.
“Um, are we at Kelsey’s house?” I ask, because I don’t really want to make things more awkward by talking about how awkward they are.
“I stopped a few houses down.” He points to the left. “She lives right in front of her neighborhood’s playground.”
“There are kids on it, aren’t there?” I say with a sigh.
“Really cute ones,” he agrees. “With sharp eyesight.”
“Shit.”
The sun has burned off enough of the rain to make the playground a total mess. The laughter of little kids carries, along with sharp screeches from their annoyed moms. The kids probably have soggy butts from the puddles on the slides. If only we could turn around and go somewhere, anywhere. But there’s no good excuse other than cowardice. Those kids will be there the next time I come, too. I have to do it now. I want one more name crossed off my list, want to be one step closer to being back in my own bed, worrying about grades and my work schedule, or whatever normal, debt-free people will worry about in the new United States of Valor.
I peek out the windshield, and all the kids on the playground are tiny, smiling and shouting as their moms push them on swings or chase them around. A girl from my freshman health class is there with a baby on her hip and a phone in her hand, and I rack my brain, trying to remember if she got a new brother or missed the vital info on contraceptives and dropped out. And that’s one more reason to hurry up: I don’t want to miss anything important in class. The only way I’m ever going to get out of Candlewood is to get into college, if there’s still college when all this crap is over and life settles back down. I’m not going to let anything else get in my way.
Wyatt is trying not to look at me, but I can tell he totally is. I wonder what he sees—a regular girl, a victim, a weirdo, or a cold-blooded killer. I get these little hints that he might have a crush on me, too, but he has to know it’s impossible. If I don’t kill his brother or turn him into a murderer, my mom dies. So why is it like we’re trapped in a moment, paused together while the rest of the world goes on? All we have is the back of this mail truck and a fragile truce. And yet there’s something in his eyes that tells me he sees something else entirely.
“Keep it in drive, okay?” I say. “Let’s run on this one. No matter what.”
He nods and settles back in the driver’s seat. I give Matty some more food to distract her, then shrug into my mail shirt and grab Kelsey’s card and the envelope, holding it firmly over my top button. I’m halfway up the sidewalk before I remember that I need my gun. Wyatt grins at me as I hurry back and nudges me with his shoulder as I crawl between the seats with one hand over the shirt’s top button. As I slip the gun into the waistband of my jeans, I’m extra aware of Wyatt watching me, and I can’t forget that this gun spends a good deal of time next to my sweaty ass.
As I slither past Wyatt, he nudges me and whispers, “Break a leg, tiger.”
I march up the street and slow when I hit her front walk, trying to force my feelings to behave. I’m a little giddy from being nudged by Wyatt, but the cold calm of killing is settling into my bones, step by step. It’s so stupid, how my brain, heart, and body can all panic over different things at the same time.
This house, Kelsey’s house, isn’t rich or poor. It’s right in the middle, respectable, the kind of house I would love to have one day. It’s not ridiculously huge, but the kids probably wouldn’t have to share rooms. The roses in front are a little wild, but the pansies are planted in beds that probably held marigolds just a few months ago, when it was still hot. Kelsey, it seems, still cares.
Holding the envelope like it’s something important, I will my hand to stop shaking, kiss my locket, hop up the steps, and ring the doorbell. I have to admit it’s a lot easier to carry an envelope than it was to tote that gigantic basket. But I do feel more exposed, with nothing to hide behind. Inside, a girl calls, “Coming!” and footsteps bound down the stairs.
The door opens to a breathless girl, about college age. She’s so pretty and all-American and happy that she should be in movies or on billboards maybe. God, I hope she’s not Kelsey. Shooting her would be like chopping down a fruit tree at full blossom in springtime, when it’s so pretty and pink that it hurts your heart. I would love to be this girl one day, to be this happy in such a pretty house.
“Oh my gosh, is that for me?” she says. “I’ve been waiting for my scholarship check all week. Yay!”
“Um, are you Kelsey Mackey?” I ask, my voice raspy. I have to clear my throat.
“Yeah,” she says. “Do I need to sign or something?”
I realize I’ve forgotten the signature machine; I didn’t put it back in my pocket after forging Ashley’s name. Wyatt’s got me all discombobulated. I’m totally losing it.
“Oh, one second. Sorry.” I jog back to the truck with the envelope under my arm and my hand around the button, half wishing I could just jump in and gun i
t. My butt sweats against the gun, and it slides around in my waistband.
Wyatt gives me a quizzical, concerned look, but I can’t talk about it right now, so I just shake my head and wrench up the back door and grab the signature machine, petting Matty on the head for luck and whispering, “Stay, good girl,” as I close it.
Back at the door, Kelsey waits with rosy cheeks and bunny slippers. She thinks I’ve got a scholarship check, that I’ve brought the money she needs to continue getting her education. She probably wants to be a teacher or a nurse, something that would genuinely help make the world a better place. Something that I myself would like to be.
I hand her the machine, and she signs her name with a hurried flourish.
“Kelsey Mackey, you owe Valor Savings the sum of $49,876.02,” I say, reading off the card. “Can you pay this sum in full, immediately?”
“Um, no.” She pauses, waits for me to say something else. “Is this some kind of joke?”
I feel sick to my stomach, and the Coke burns its way back up my throat. The rest of it comes out so fast that by the end, I have to gulp for air. “By Valor Congressional Order number 7B, your account is past due and hereby declared in default. Due to your failure to remit all owed monies and per your signature just witnessed and accepted, you are given two choices. You may either sign your loyalty over to Valor Savings as an indentured collections agent for a period of five days or forfeit your life. Please choose.”
“I don’t understand,” she says, hands on her hips. “It’s a student loan. They said I would have thirty years to pay it back. I’m not even out of school yet. And I barely carry a balance on my credit card. My dad said it would help raise my credit score so I could buy a house after college. Is this for real?” She’s babbling now, and I can tell she’s not the sort of person who’s usually yakkity.
“Can you pay this sum?” I say again, voice breaking.
“I could write a check for five hundred right now,” she asks. “Is that enough? Do I make it out to Valor, or . . . ?”
They didn’t tell me what to say if this happened. I wrap sweaty fingers around my top button.
“I don’t think it works that way,” I say, voice low. “It has to be paid in full, in cash. Which is impossible. But you can do what I’m doing. Work off your debt. And then you’ll be free again in, like, five days. Maybe less.”
“What do I have to do to work it off?” she asks. “I’m already working two jobs. And I plan on paying the loan off once I’m out of school. I’m not a mooch, seriously. I’m almost done with my master’s.”
“I know,” I say. “I know. If you want to work it off, you have to kill the people who can’t pay their debts. It’s kind of like being a bounty hunter. Like that Dog guy. Or Boba Fett from Star Wars.”
She giggles, a high and strangled sound. “Are you joking? Is there, like, a camera somewhere? You can’t seriously expect me to believe that a bank is just going to have me killed.”
“I’m serious.” I glance around the street to make sure no one else is looking, then pull the gun out of my jeans and show it to her. She runs one finger along the stamped words VALOR SAVINGS. I hand her the card, and she reads it, turns it over, reads it again as I put the gun back in my jeans, under my shirt.
She looks over my shoulder, out to the mail truck. Then she looks at the playground, where little kids are climbing on the monkey bars and zooming down a bumpy slide. She leans heavily against the door frame, and I see a shiny diamond ring winking on her left ring finger.
“Fine,” she says, almost a whisper. “I’ll do it. Whatever I have to do, I’ll do it.”
“Really?” I ask. Because I never dreamed, when I accepted this job, that anyone else would ever take this path, that they would even believe it was a real option. I thought I was the only one.
“I didn’t work this hard just to get shot for no reason.” Kelsey’s voice is steady, but she’s shaking, her skin gone white as skim milk. “My dad told me student loans were a rip-off, but I thought I knew exactly what I was doing.”
“Nobody reads the fine print.” I shrug. “My mom didn’t.”
“So what now?” she asks. “Do I get in your mail truck and go with you? Or what?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “They never told me what would happen if someone agreed to it.” Just for good measure, I aim the top button of my shirt at her face. “Say it again. I want to make sure they know.”
Kelsey snorts and shakes her head. She leans forward, staring into the button.
“I’ll do it,” she says. One tear slips down her red cheek. “Just don’t kill me.”
I nod and smile at her, then turn to go.
“That isn’t even my scholarship check, is it?” she asks, nodding at the envelope I never handed over.
“I’m sorry. It was supposed to be a basket of fake fruit, but I lost it. I didn’t want to do this.”
“I know,” she says. “I don’t either.”
As I walk away, my hand around the bugged button, she calls, “Is it horrible?”
“Yeah,” I yell back over my shoulder. “But it’s better than the alternative.”
I’ve got the mail shirt over my head and wadded up before I reach the truck. I stuff it under the passenger seat and climb in with a heavy sigh.
“What happened?” Wyatt asks.
“She took the deal.” I sigh. “She’s going to be . . . one of me. Or whatever.”
“Then why do you look so sad?”
I watch Kelsey as we drive away. She sits on the front step, her eyes far away as she spins the ring around and around her finger. She and I have more in common than I would like. I pity her, and I also admire her. I hope she doesn’t regret her decision later. I hope I don’t have cause to regret mine, either.
“Because it hurts almost as bad as if I had shot her,” I finally say to Wyatt. “I might not have killed her, but I definitely killed something inside of her. Now we both have to live with it.”
His hand finds mine as he drives. We both watch the road, ignoring the fact that we’re holding hands. His touch, his warmth, is the only thing that keeps me from crying.
“Sometimes good things come from horrible situations,” he says. “Sometimes, when the worst thing happens, the only way to go is up. At least now she has a chance. Things could be a lot worse. Let’s go get some McNuggets.”
As we stop to turn out of her neighborhood, an all-black SUV glides down the curve of the road toward us.
“Duck!” I shove Wyatt down, but it doesn’t feel like enough. Since the driver’s side is really the passenger side, I stand up and hope my huge sweater blocks him. I wait for the SUV to stop, for a window to roll down, for blinking lights or a machine gun or, hell, I don’t know—a giant grappling hook to sprout out of its sunroof and punish me for all the rules I’ve broken. But there’s no sign of life beyond the tinted windshield, and it turns smoothly into Kelsey’s neighborhood with no outward indication that the mail truck exists. With no sign that I exist.
I fall back into my seat and start breathing again. I don’t even feel like a person. I’m just a cog in a machine, a tiny animal doing my part in a grand orchestra whose symphony is too complex for me to grasp.
“Goddamn McNuggets,” is all I can mutter as the red clock resets.
5.
Ken Belcher
Wyatt asks me something, but he sounds like he’s underwater, and it’s like I’ve forgotten how to feel things and what words mean, and I can’t answer. It makes no sense that the first person I didn’t kill is the one that really messes me up. I give his shoulder a squeeze and reluctantly let go, sucking my tummy in so I won’t touch him as I move between the seats. Numb and shaking, I curl up in my bed in the back of the truck, huddling deep in my quilt. Matty pads to my side, her toenails clacking on the metal floor and her legs splayed wide to keep her balance. She puts
her face up next to mine, cheek to cheek, and gives me one little sideways lick. I rub her head and sigh. I guess she knows what it’s like to lose something too.
I can’t help wondering what will happen to Kelsey Mackey, what’s happening to her right now. Is it the same robotic Black Suit in the SUV, or a slightly different model, like the one at the gas station? Will she have the same gun with the same gold-stamped Valor logo? Will her jobs be complete strangers, or will she, like me, start to wonder how so many coincidences can crowd one short list?
I don’t think I know Kelsey, and I’ve never heard her name before. But maybe she’s a cousin I never knew, or maybe she babysat for me once when I was too little to remember. Maybe some sicko at Valor just wanted me to see what happens to nice girls who work hard to make their dreams come true, who think a little loan is a reasonable sacrifice for a brighter future. Maybe they wanted me to think I was doomed. And maybe her surprising choice backfired on them, when I didn’t have to shoot her after all. Despite the ball of dread in my stomach, Kelsey Mackey gave me a little hope.
Wyatt stops the mail truck, and I don’t even look up. I don’t want to know where we are. I just want some time to myself, curled up in bed. He leaves the truck running, and the whole thing wobbles when he jumps out. For just a second, I think he might be running away, gone forever. But deep down, I no longer think that’s going to be a problem. A thousand years, or maybe two minutes pass, and then he’s back in the truck. He swings a backpack onto the floor behind the front seat and drives away faster than seems necessary.
“McNuggets?” he asks.
“Please,” I whisper.
In no time at all, he’s parking the mail truck. I blink again, and he’s shouldering between the seats with bags of hot, greasy food. I don’t remember him asking me for money or ordering from a drive-through. I think I might have fallen asleep, just for a few seconds. And he’s wearing jeans, boots, a lacrosse hat, and a fresh band shirt—another one I like too. And it’s dark out.
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