by David Lucin
Alone in the café, Jenn chewed on Liam’s plan as more sporadic shooting came from outside. He was the ex-soldier here, and she trusted his judgment. It made sense, too: if they all charged through the front door, they’d be easy targets. Better to create a distraction first.
Minutes seemed to elapse, though only seconds had ticked by. Jenn’s vision had become fuzzy, her head light and airy. It felt like she’d swallowed a hundred live snakes and they were all trying to escape.
Val’s okay, she told herself over and over and over. By far she was the toughest woman in Flagstaff. Maybe Arizona. If the might of the Second Empire couldn’t take her down, neither could the Major or whoever was cowardly enough to shoot at her tonight. She was invincible.
Into the radio, she practically shouted, “Val . . . Val, it’s Jenn. Are you there?”
The silence made her want to throw up. Panic was beginning to settle in her chest, compressing her ribcage and lungs.
“If you can hear me, I’m coming to get you. I’ll be there soon, okay? Hang on.”
As she lifted her thumb from the talk button, she heard more shooting. This was louder, closer, and clearly belonged to AR-15s. “Jenn!” Liam ordered through the radio. “Go, go, go!”
She rushed to the door and slid it open. Immediately, the crack of weapons fire became sharper, more distinct. After a quick scan of the parking lot, she found Val behind a red pickup on the fence line. She was lying on her back.
Without a second thought, Jenn broke into a sprint, keeping as low as she could but prioritizing speed. Val was less than a hundred yards away, but those hundred yards felt like a hundred light-years. No matter how many steps she took, she swore they brought her no closer to her friend.
The sound of shooting rose to a crescendo, the pop, pop, pop echoing off the Go Market’s concrete walls. Jenn saw muzzle flashes at the far end of the parking lot. There was hardly any cover past the fence line, only a stretch of blacktop broken up by a few trees, so the shooters must be lying prone. She half-expected to feel a sharp pain bite her chest or stomach, but after an agonizingly long few seconds, she made it to the truck unharmed and ducked behind it as the firefight continued around her.
Val’s rifle rested on the asphalt. Her hand was pressed against her side. She was shaking like she was cold, and all the color had left her face.
“Val!”
The report of gunfire faded and went quiet in Jenn’s ears. Chatter might have been coming through the radio, but it was muffled and indistinct. All she heard was the thump of her pulse. Her world had contracted to her and Val.
With frantic hands, she dropped her weapon and undid the Velcro on Val’s vest so she had direct access to the wound, then pressed her palms tight to the source of the blood to stymie its flow. Val moaned in pain and sucked air between her teeth, but Jenn refused to relent.
“You’re going to be okay,” she said, wanting to believe herself, but there was so much blood. Too much. Already it coated her hands up to the wrist. She could feel every beat of Val’s heart. The rhythm was erratic, frantic. Yet there was no fear in her expression. Confusion, maybe. But that was all.
The whine of sirens pierced through the gunfire, growing louder and louder.
“They’re falling back!” Liam said through the radio on Jenn’s belt. “I say again: hostiles are falling back!”
Jenn pressed harder against the wound, smelling iron, but Val hardly reacted.
Boots clomped on the blacktop. “Where’s she hit?” Bryce asked.
Jenn opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Val’s shaking was growing worse. With every blink, her eyelids fluttered and threatened to remain shut. Was she going into shock?
Bryce’s hands dove toward the wound. Another set followed. Mikey’s. As a former firefighter and a police officer, they would be trained in first aid, so she let them shoulder her out of the way. Mikey, down to his white undershirt, pressed the black overshirt of his uniform against Val’s side. Nearby, Liam paced, speaking into a radio. He mentioned an ambulance. The sirens were loud now. Close.
Jenn moved to cradle Val from behind. It was all she could think to do. With Val’s head on her chest, tears streaming down her cheeks, she said, “Hang on. You’re going to be okay. Help’s on the way. You’ll be all right.”
Mikey and Bryce were shouting at each other, but it wasn’t an argument; they sounded frustrated. One of them used the word “liver,” but Jenn couldn’t tell who.
Val reached up with a blood-soaked hand and placed it atop Jenn’s. The skin was so cold, like ice. Jenn hugged her tighter, as if it would make the wound heal and save her friend’s life.
Her neck went limp, and her head bobbed to the side, so Jenn patted her cheek. “Stay with me,” she said. “No falling asleep, okay? If you do, I’ll tell Dylan you were sleeping on shift.”
One corner of Val’s mouth lifted.
A terrible sickness flooded Jenn’s stomach. First her brothers, then her parents. Now Val. She’d give anything to trade places with her. The pain of losing someone else so soon would be too much to bear.
Once more, Val’s head drooped. To keep her awake and focused, Jenn shook her lightly and said, “Hey, you remember when we met?” She tried in vain to project confidence and sound fearless. “In the shop? You grumbled at me and I couldn’t understand it. I was so scared of you. Then we stayed in that crappy motel. The one in Prescott. You had less than two beers and were already drunk. When you were trying to get dressed, you kept banging into furniture and swearing. That’s when I knew I liked you.”
Val’s eyes rolled backward to meet Jenn’s. They glistened, reflecting flashing red and blue lights approaching on the road.
Jenn sniffed, her vision blurry through tears. The panic in her chest had clawed its way up her throat and finally broke free. When she spoke next, her voice was shaky and thick with dread. “And you kept screwing up English phrases. Like, you said ‘escape goat’ instead of ‘scapegoat’ and ‘flat side of a barn.’ I always thought you were serious, but you were just messing with me. It was how you joked around, and that’s when I knew you liked me.”
Val remained quiet. Jenn desperately wanted her to respond, to let her know that everything would be okay. Jenn, I’ll be fine or You’re overreacting too much. But only a faint smile crossed her lips. It looked like she was saying goodbye. Then her hand slipped from Jenn’s and landed at her side. Her shaking slowed and then stopped completely. Finally, her eyelids eased themselves shut. This time, they didn’t open again.
6
“Val . . . Val!”
There was no anguish on Val’s face, no fear and no pain. Her expression was peaceful. Jenn expected her to wake up at any moment.
Maybe she would. This had to be some terrible dream. It couldn’t be real. Jenn could have fallen asleep while working on that stupid puzzle.
Yes, this is a dream. There was no other explanation. Soon, Liam would shake her awake and scold her for napping on the job. She shut her eyes and counted to five. When she opened them, Val was still there, resting peacefully in her arms. Her chest should be moving up and down, but it wasn’t. The lights from the squad cars brightened with every wail of the sirens.
“Val, wake up.” Jenn shook her lightly. Val’s head lolled to the side, but her eyelids remained closed. “Val,” she said again. “Come on. Wake up.”
“Jenn,” Mikey said, followed by a soft touch to her shoulder.
She shrugged him off and shook Val some more.
“Jenn,” he repeated. “She’s gone.”
“No,” Jenn snapped, hoping that saying the word out loud would make it true. “No, she only passed out. She’s in shock. Keep putting pressure on the wound.” Next to Val, Bryce had sat back, elbows resting on his knees and his hands coated in crimson. “What are you doing?” she yelled at him. “We need to stop the bleeding!” Gently, she laid Val’s head on the asphalt, then dove her hands beneath the vest and toward the source of the blood. Val didn’t
flinch. It was like touching a mannequin. “Somebody help me! Don’t just sit there!”
Her lungs shrank in her chest. Each breath was shallower and more painful than the last. Wake up, wake up, wake up! She wasn’t sure who she was speaking to anymore, herself or Val. All she wanted was for this nightmare to end.
“Val,” she said again. “Val, you need to—”
Arms wrapped around her and pulled her away. She threw an elbow. An “oof” followed, and the arms released, so she leaped forward and pressed her palms hard against Val’s stomach.
Then a firm pair of hands took her by the forearm. No, there were two pairs, one on each side. She squirmed and kicked and screamed, tears clouding her vision and making it difficult to see. A flurry of curse words and threats came next, and then, after a final buck to break free had failed, she went limp and lay there, motionless.
Wake up . . .
The sirens assaulted her ears. Squealing tires followed as two police cars turned into the parking lot. With another squeal, they lurched to a stop. Doors opened and shut. People were speaking. One of them, a woman in a Flagstaff PD uniform, rushed over and knelt next to Val. She put her ear to Val’s face, listening, possibly for the sound of breathing, before checking for a pulse. A few seconds later, she looked up at Bryce and Mikey and shook her head.
Bile crept into Jenn’s throat. She gagged, tasting stomach acid, then leaned to the side and vomited.
“It’s okay,” someone was saying to her. Bryce, maybe. The whole world was spinning. Sounds came through distorted as if they were playing at half-speed from a mile away. “Get it all out.”
There was nothing left to throw up, so Jenn curled into a ball on the ground. For a while, she lay there on her side, wishing that this moment would never end and that she didn’t have to tell Dylan, Sophie, Carter, and Ed that Val was gone. That future was a terrible place, and she wanted to avoid it for as long as possible. Forever, if she could.
Bryce sat her upright and cradled her the way she’d cradled Val. His thick arms were wrapped around her stomach and chest. She didn’t know Bryce as well as she knew Val or Dylan or even Carter, but the warmth emanating from him brought her world into focus. The outline of Val’s body sharpened. Two cops were draping a gray tarp over her. Flashing red and blue, the lights illuminated a group of three officers patrolling the fence line. Liam, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head, spoke to yet another.
She should be doing something—like helping track down whoever shot Val—but she couldn’t bring herself to move. Instead, she melted into Bryce’s embrace. He didn’t say anything, only held her.
Wake up, she told herself. Please wake up . . .
* * *
Jenn stayed with Val and waited for the ambulance, which Liam said would take her away. She knew that “away” meant the morgue, but she tried picturing her friend in a hospital bed instead, not on some slab with a tag on her toe. Another squad car arrived as well, bringing the total to three, and now more than eight police officers, visible only by the beams of white they cast with their flashlights, were combing the area in search of the monsters who did this.
Bryce brought her some water and a towel so she could wash the blood off her hands. There was still some on her shirt and pants. More was under her fingernails. She scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed but it wouldn’t come out. Eventually, she gave up. Her time was better spent with Val, anyway. They didn’t have much left together.
The ambulance, its emergency lights off, turned into the parking lot and stopped not far from them. Two EMTs came out, neither in a rush. One, a woman with long red hair like Allison’s, removed the tarp atop Val and checked her vitals, confirming that she was dead. The other was a man who couldn’t have been much older than Sam. He opened the ambulance’s rear doors and pulled out a collapsible stretcher. Together, they laid Val on top and covered her with a white sheet, then loaded her into the vehicle. Instinctively, Jenn followed. When she was halfway inside, someone took her wrist. Without seeing who it was, she jerked her arm free.
“Jansen,” Bryce said. “Come on down. They can handle this.”
She answered before thinking: “No, I’m going with her. I don’t want her to be alone.”
He pulled off his beanie and ran a hand across his smooth scalp.
“It’s okay, honey,” the red-haired EMT said. She wore a smile, but there was sadness in it. “We’ll take good care of her. I promise.”
Jenn’s throat was so thick she struggled to swallow. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. As soon as I have all the details, I’ll radio Officer Kipling and tell him when you can see her again, okay?”
Reluctantly, Jenn let them close the ambulance, sealing Val inside, and with Bryce, she watched the vehicle drive off. Before it was out of sight, Liam approached, holding a flashlight that lit up dark stubble on his cheeks and chin. “I sent a car to head up to the farm, tell them what happened. I’ve asked that Dylan come down, if he’s there tonight.”
“He is,” Bryce said. “All night.”
The breath caught in Jenn’s chest. “You told them? About Val?”
“I didn’t speak to anyone there directly,” Liam said, misunderstanding what Jenn meant by her question. “But the officer who heads up there will, yeah.”
Her heart sank. She should be the one to tell Dylan and Sophie and Ed, not some stranger who didn’t know Val. Giving them the news felt like her responsibility.
“What do you want us doing?” Bryce asked him.
On Liam’s belt, a radio squawked. He unclipped it but answered Bryce first. “We’re all covered out here for now. Head inside. I’ll send Dylan in to grab you guys when he’s here.”
“Let me help,” Jenn said. “I can canvass the neighborhood and look for those guys who did this. They couldn’t have gone far. Or finding evidence. I don’t know much about that stuff, but—”
Liam waved her off. “It’s okay. We’ll keep you in the loop, all right?”
Everything was slipping from her control. If she didn’t take some back, she might break completely. “No, I want to help. Just tell me what to do.”
“Jenn,” he said patiently. “We’ve got this. Valeria’s in good hands.” His chin flicked toward Bryce, who put his hand between Jenn’s shoulder blades and began guiding her away. She nearly objected and squirmed free, but she wouldn’t win this argument, not with Liam. Admittedly, she didn’t have the energy to try.
Inside, they sat at the table where they’d played poker, the LED lantern bathing the café in cool white. The place was exactly how they left it when the radio call came in. If Jenn tried hard enough, she could imagine that the attack hadn’t happened and that Val was alive. She and Bryce were still playing Texas hold ’em and joking about how she couldn’t skate.
They didn’t speak much as they waited for Dylan. Bryce shuffled the cards repeatedly while Jenn fiddled with a pair of chips. One was a fraction of a millimeter wider than the other. Her head was heavy. So were her shoulders, like she was wearing a thousand-pound suit of armor.
Over an hour later, she heard someone come through the front door. As soon as she recognized Dylan’s orange beard and Cardinals cap, she was rushing toward him. Without hesitation, he took her into his arms. He didn’t speak and didn’t need to. Holding her was enough.
They stayed like that for a while, and when she finally pulled herself away, his shirt was wet with tears. “Come on,” he said to them. “I’ll give you guys a ride home.”
She and Bryce fetched their bags and bikes. Outside, Dylan nodded to Liam, who paused his conversation with Mikey and gave them a short wave. Dylan had brought the Nissan. After tossing his and Jenn’s bags into the bed, Bryce climbed in the front, so Jenn took her usual spot behind him in the rear.
“I got the rundown from Liam,” Dylan said as a cop opened the gate in the fence and let the truck out.
“They find anything?” Bryce asked.
“Shell casings, mostly.�
� Dylan turned left, heading west. Jenn rested her head on her window, watching as flashlights danced around the parking lot. “Bunch of .22. Few .30-06. Even some 9mm.”
Jenn knew a little about ammunition types, but not much. Her Glock was chambered in 9mm. The ARs at the farm shot .233 or 5.56. “What’s that mean?”
Bryce answered as an abandoned self-storage facility, a heavy-duty lock on its front gate, passed by on their right. “At that kind of range, using 9mm and .22 doesn’t make a lick of sense. Not nearly enough velocity. Pretty sure Sophie’s old Browning’s .30-06. It’s a popular hunting round.”
Val must have been hit with a .30-06, then, because Liam had said their vests would stop handguns. Once again, Jenn considered the Major’s army in Phoenix. The man she shot had a pistol, but Ian, whom they captured and interrogated, carried an AR. So did many of the guards at the hospital. One of the women Rusty killed had a hunting rifle, sure, but those people still knew what they were doing. She doubted the Major would hire anyone who didn’t know better than to blast away with 9mm rounds from a distance of over a hundred yards.
“It wasn’t the Major,” she said, mostly to herself.
“The Major?” Bryce asked. “That the lunatic you guys went up against in Phoenix?”
They passed what was once a restaurant, followed by a two-story motel, the windows of the main office boarded up, along with many of the doors to the rooms.
“Not him directly,” Dylan said. “But yeah, he’s the guy. And I agree with Jansen. It’s definitely not him. Those guys weren’t pros, but they weren’t morons, either. Whoever did this, they were amateurs.”
“That’s why they didn’t attack the gates,” Bryce added. It was a statement of fact, not a question.
Dylan eased the truck right, away from the interstate and toward Bryce’s house. “Probably. Doesn’t look like they had much of a plan.”
“Who, then?” Jenn asked. “Who would do this?”
“I don’t know,” Dylan said. “Vagrants from out of town, maybe. Locals who aren’t happy with the rationing system. Could be anyone.”
