Strike

by Delilah S. Dawson

  My mom just calls out, “Honey?”

  “I’ll be fine, Mom.”

  The last thing I hear from them when we’re upstairs is my dad muttering, “I just don’t get her at all.”

  And Wyatt, a little louder, a little angrier, saying, “Yeah, and how could you?”

  I find the master bedroom and close the door behind us. It doesn’t have a doorknob—none of the doors do. Gabriela turns on the lantern in the corner so that we’re each carrying one, both our faces eerily lit from below. It’s so weird to be this far from light, from streetlights or fluorescents, surrounded by a dark forest and endless nothing. I feel so far from home, from humanity. I want to be the child of one of those happy idiots sitting in the restaurant drive-through tonight, oblivious to anything but a loving daddy who brings treats.

  “Will you wash my hair?” I say. “I don’t know if it’s dirt or blood in there.” Realizing what I’ve just said, I add, “Or I can wash it and you can just help pour the water, because that sounds gross.”

  She smiles, a gruesome monster face, distorted by the lantern. “No, it’s fine. I used to work for a vet’s groomer and had to wash the nastiest, angriest dogs. Not to say that you’re a dog—just that I don’t mind.”

  We set out the supplies in the bathroom, and there’s a painter’s bucket of cistern water and a rough towel by the sink. My dad says that the polite thing to do in a safe house is to leave it like you found it while adding value somehow. I guess whoever was here before us thought towels would help us feel like humans again, and I wonder what we’ll leave behind. I don’t have anything extra, anything that would bring comfort to anyone else. Maybe we’ll leave this shampoo and conditioner so someone else can enjoy the fleeting feeling of cleanliness to go with their rainwater.

  I hop on the long granite counter and lie back with my hair in the sink, and Gabriela opens the gallon of water from the drugstore.

  “You ready?” she asks. I nod.

  The water is colder than I expected, possibly because we’re in an unheated house in November. I hiss and try to turn my head to help the water soak in. I guess I never thought about how much water it takes for a simple task like washing blood out of your hair. At this point, I can’t even remember how it got there. From rifling Hartness, maybe? I don’t think there’s enough water in the world to make me feel clean again, even if I just walked into the ocean and lived there. Soon Gabriela is massaging shampoo into my scalp and scrubbing me clean.

  “You have nicer hair than most of the dogs I bathe, if that makes you feel any better,” she says.

  “Can I ask you a question?” She nods. “Are you glad you went with Chance?”

  She snorts. “I wasn’t, at first. It was horrible. I felt like some superhero’s sidekick, but my superhero turned out to be a villain. And then we went back home, when he was all done, and our house was gone. Just . . . a black crust. And then I was real glad. I can only pray that our parents and the other kids weren’t there when it happened.”

  “Your . . . ?”

  “Yeah, I guess we never explained that. Our parents were this older couple who took in troubled teens who were getting hassled in the foster care system. Good people, not like the ones you hear about on the news. Chance and I, we got there about the same time, when we were both thirteen, and made a good team. Some kid at school made fun of my hair, and he just about ruined that kid’s life.”

  “So he didn’t ask you to help him?”

  A laugh. “Oh, hell no. He begged me not to. But our parents would never have forgiven either of us if he hadn’t come home. They turned him from a junkie into a good kid. Really cared about him. About us both.”

  “What about that bag of drugs?”

  “It’s not what it looks like. He was a dealer, a few years ago. But he wasn’t lying about what he does now. Medical marijuana, pain meds, prescriptions. These days most of his customers are old folks with no insurance.” She pours water over my hair and says, “You asking all this because you’re curious, or because you’re worried about Wyatt?”

  “Both,” I admit. “I’m just trying to . . .” I choke down a sob. “Does Chance have a hard time living with himself?”

  “Talking about feelings is not his jam. But it bothers him more than he shows.”

  I sit up to towel off my hair. “Has it changed him, what he had to do?”

  She turns away, looking out the picture window into what can only be more darkness.

  “Of course it did. It changed us all.”

  “You think we’ll ever be okay?”

  She takes the towel from me and starts rubbing my head roughly but efficiently, like I’m a rogue poodle. “I’ve lived with seven different families and never met my folks. Been on the street, in the system. I’ve never been okay. But at least this way, anybody who tries to hurt me gets killed. That’s more than America ever gave me.”

  “You next?” I ask, pointing at the sink.

  But steps are echoing up the hallway, and we both stop and wait.

  “Patsy?” my dad calls.

  I roll my eyes, even if no one can see it.

  “What?” I yell back.

  “We need to go back to the bunker. We need the guns we took off Hartness.”

  “Why?”

  He pushes the door open, and the lantern makes him look like an angry ghoul.

  “So we can get your dog back on Red Thursday.”

  Finally he has my attention.

  “I thought you said Leon was just playing me. That it was a trick.”

  “I still think that. But I also know that he wouldn’t miss out on an explosion that big, which means he’ll be there personally. And I’m more interested in putting down the rabid dog than in saving the good one. So I’ll leave that part up to you.”

  “Fine. Let’s go,” I say.

  Not because I want to. Not because I want to have the conversations that I’m sure he wants to have when we’re alone and away from my mom. I agree because I owe it to Matty. And because I don’t want to be a coward.

  My dad is quiet while he drives, like he’s still trying to figure out exactly what he needs to say. He takes back roads, diving down narrow dirt lanes and cutting through sleepy subdivisions. I lean against the window, my eyes heavy. I’m about to fall asleep when he pulls down a dirt road and stops the car.

  “Where are we?”

  “Nowhere important. We need to talk.”

  I yawn, my jaw cracking. “So talk.”

  In the darkness under the trees, he’s just a disembodied voice, and I wonder what he sounded like when I was tiny and called out for him in the night. “We’re going into that mall, but we’re walking into a trap. I know Leon Crane, and there’s no way that this trip is going to be simple or easy. He may talk like a preacher, but underneath that is a hardened criminal who was murdering people before murder was legal.”

  I shrug. This is not news.

  “I don’t know how to make you understand. Look, when we were kids, Leon came up with this plan to steal booze from my dad’s liquor cabinet. He wanted to replace the clear ones with water and the brown ones with tea, then sell sippy cups of booze to the other kids. My dad caught us doing it, sent Leon home, and beat the shit out of me. Broke my arm and gave me a black eye. I told him it was Leon’s idea, that it wasn’t my fault, and he said, “That’s why I’m punishing you. You should know better than to do anything Leon says. I don’t trust that sticky son of a bitch. And now you’ll never forget it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Just okay? That’s all you have to say?”

  I shrug. “A broken arm can’t really compare to everything that’s happened this week.”

  “When we were older, Devil Johnny found out that Leon was breaking into his dad’s own businesses to get back at his brother, Larry, trying to make Larry look incompetent so he could weasel his way in as Crane consigliere. Instead of telling Lawrence Crane or calling the police or even confronting Leon, my dad had him enrolled in the a
rmy and shipped out. We still don’t know how Devil Johnny pulled that one off, but Leon got pulled as AWOL and ended up doing two tours overseas.”

  “If you don’t know how he pulled it off, how do you know your dad did it?”

  “Because the day Leon got back, he shot Devil Johnny. Right in the kitchen of Cannon House while I was eating my cereal. Shouted, ‘That’s for sending me to Iraq, you bastard’ and everything. My dad was wearing a bulletproof vest at the time, always wore one, and he had Leon arrested and put away. As the witness, I had no choice but to take the stand. So, technically, I was the one who sent Leon back to jail. And even though he was glad to use me for the CFF, happy to welcome me home and forgive me and hug me like a brother, it’s been an uneasy truce. So you can maybe understand why Leon would just love to have me back under his thumb and you in his service. Or either of us dead.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “My point, honey, is that Devil Johnny and Leon Crane are the two craftiest, meanest bastards I ever met. And all this happened before Dad was on the Valor board and Leon was in charge of an antigovernment anarchy cell. After all the heartache and trouble I’ve known keeping you away from my father, I’d hate to lose you to Leon, especially when I know that this is another one of his bait-and-switch games.”

  “So we’re not sneaking into the mall?”

  He sighs. “No, we’re going in. But we’re going in knowing it’s a trap. We’re not going in to save some dog that probably won’t even be there. We’re going in to kill Leon. Are you with me?”

  I swallow and tamp down my rage at the thought that he would just let Matty die. “Sure. Whatever. Let’s just get the guns and go home so I can sleep.”

  “Patsy.”

  I exhale slowly through my nose. “What, Dad?”

  “Just promise me you won’t fall for Leon’s bullshit again.”

  Even though he can’t see it, I smile sweetly. “I try to avoid as much bullshit as possible these days.”

  He turns the car on and backs up into the road. I let my head fall against the door, and my eyes close, heavy as lead. When I open them again, the headlights flash down the long lane to Cannon house we walked up together just . . . Was it yesterday? It’s so hard to keep track of time. I’ve slept for only five minutes, but it feels like hours. My entire body aches, and I’ve drooled on the arm of my hoodie.

  We slow down as we start up the last hill, and my dad turns the car around laboriously on the narrow drive, almost hitting a tree.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “Someone’s in the carriage house,” my dad whispers, as if they could hear us from this far away. “There’s a light on. And two cars by the porch. I’m going to go up there on foot. You stay here.”

  I shake my head and stretch. “No way. I’m not sitting in this creepy car alone. They could be Cranes.”

  “That’s exactly why you need to stay here. Get in the driver’s seat. If you hear gunshots, drive away, fast.”

  I stare at him, then up at the house. It looks sinister, lit by the moon. Hard to believe that I was saying a rosary to that same moon a short while ago, the last time I heard Matty.

  “Okay,” I say with a smile.

  My dad smiles. “Thanks, honey. I’ll be back soon.”

  He gets out and shuts his door softly. As he stalks up the dirt road, he pulls a Glock from his waistband, from the same place where I carry mine, flat against my spine. He holds it like someone in an FBI movie, cupping the bottom and pointing it ahead with both hands. It’s actually kind of funny. When he’s halfway up the drive, I pocket the car keys, get out, and follow him.

  It’s so crisp and cold and dark that it feels like swimming at night, and my lungs burn as I take the hill. My dad spins around, gun pointed right at me, and shakes a fist at me. He’s too smart and scared to say anything. I just smile and nod at the house, and he mouths something that I can’t read that probably describes how much trouble I’m in now for disobeying him.

  Whoop-de-do, Dad.

  What are you going to do—break my arm?

  Side by side, we creep up the driveway, making as little noise as possible. The lights move in the carriage house—lanterns or maybe candles. There are two cars parked just outside it, and they appear to be empty. One is a big ol’ country-boy truck, tricked out and sky-high with truck nuts, and the other is a sleek sedan, like the kind rich guys use as limos. A Valor car. I don’t get what my dad thinks we’re doing—are we going to kill these guys, or hold them hostage? Is he just doing that country-style “trespassers will be shot” thing because they’re on his dad’s land?

  A lantern bobs out of the carriage house and moves toward the big truck. The truck door opens, the dome light clicks on, and the breath catches in my throat when I see the bearded figure standing there.

  It’s the guy from the photo in Uncle Ash’s house.

  It’s my dead grandfather. Devil Johnny.

  24.

  My dad hisses through his teeth, shakes his head, and points back to where our car waits. When he runs for it, I follow. We’re not jogging now—we’re running full speed. My lungs and calves burn, and my heart pounds, but I know one thing for certain: My grandfather is part of Valor, and I don’t want him to know I’m still alive.

  My dad must feel the same way.

  Back at the car, he opens his door and holds a finger up to his lips. When I get in, I shut the door extra gently. He cranks the engine and leaves the lights off as he rolls down the hill, not fast enough to spray gravel. It feels painfully slow, and I expect to hear them screech after us, but I understand what he’s doing. I grit my teeth and lean forward, wishing I could move the car with sheer will.

  Come on, come on, come on.

  When we turn onto the road, he flicks on his lights and goes back to driving at a normal speed. He takes a different path back to the safe house, as if he thinks he’s being followed. We both glance back constantly, waiting for headlights and gunshots. It feels like I don’t exhale until we’re on the highway—the same one where we lost Tuck earlier. This highway connects everything in my life—before Valor and after Valor, the CFF and the safe house and every mission, every trip for a milk shake. I want to move away and never see its cracked, patched asphalt again.

  “So I guess Grandpa’s not really dead,” I finally say.

  My dad shakes his head, looking more spooked than I’ve seen him yet, which is saying a lot. “That was him, yeah. And he didn’t look dead.”

  He turns into a busy parking lot and parks the car amid hundreds of others. It’s a movie theater right next to a pizza place and a big box store, and the marquee lights make me ache for simpler times. Will I ever get to see movies again? I’m pretty sure that if I sat in a theater right now, I’d spend the entire movie checking the seats behind me for suits with guns.

  My dad puts the car in park and turns to me. “I think we know now why Valor’s after you.”

  “He doesn’t even know me. He’s my grandfather. Why would he want to hurt me?”

  “To get back at me.”

  I cross my arms and snort. “Is that how family is supposed to work? Not that I would know anything about family.”

  “It’s like the mob, honey. The Cranes and the Cannons. Valor. Everybody wants power and revenge, and they don’t care who they hurt to get it. That’s why I opted out.”

  “Okay, so then why would Devil Johnny fake his own death?”

  My dad’s smile is sad and pitying. “For the same reason you did. So that no one can anticipate what you’ll do next.”

  I don’t know what to say to that, and he seems lost in his own thoughts, so I grab my backpack and hop out of the car. Behind the open passenger door, I squat and paint my mark. Every instance of VALOR $UCKS feels like another middle finger at the people who ruined my life. It’s not healing, it doesn’t help anything, but it makes my heart feel a little lighter, and I need that feeling like it’s a drug.

  My dad doesn’t stop me, but h
e doesn’t look pleased when I get back in the car, either. I lean over to tuck the cans back in my bag, and he puts the car in reverse and backs out of the space.

  “You should stop doing that,” he snaps.

  “You should stop acting like you have any right to tell me what to do.”

  “I’m your father.”

  “Funny—my birth certificate doesn’t actually mention that.”

  We pull onto the highway in a fuming silence that tells me he knows he has no case. I lean back and put my feet up on the dashboard.

  “So my dad and my grandfather are still alive. All my dreams are coming true. Yay.”

  “Yeah, keep being sarcastic about it, Patsy. That’s going to help.”

  I cross my arms and tuck my chin. “I was trying to help. I love being helpful. I’ve had a super-helpful week. And thanks, by the way, for how your entire generation screwed over my generation. Credit card debt is a fantastic inheritance.”

  He snorts and shifts lanes to pass a slow car. “You know how much debt I have? None. How many credit cards I hold? None. So that’s at least one thing you can’t blame me for.”

  I nod slowly, the rage building. “Well, that makes sense. Considering you contributed absolutely zero dollars to your abandoned girlfriend and baby daughter, you’d have ample opportunity to live debt-free. But you know what? Mom and I didn’t have that option.”

  I dig around in my bag, way down into the bottom, and pull out two things. One’s the photo of my dad, his brother, Ash, and their dad, which I stole from Ash’s mantel. And the other . . .

  “One hundred and sixty-seven thousand, eight hundred and ninety-two dollars and thirty-three cents,” I say, flapping the printed card from Valor, the first one I ever saw, the night the suit pointed the gun at my mom’s chest. “That’s how much my mom owes Valor.”

  “I sent her money.”

  “Not enough!”

  “You don’t know that. You can’t blame me for your mother’s bad decisions.”

  “No, I totally can. You got her pregnant and left. Everything that happened after that is your fault. That’s the definition of the word ‘fault.’ ”