No Easy Way Out (20 page)

“Steal enough for all of us,” Mike said.

Ryan stumbled his way down to the first floor, then to the courtyard. Breakfast was over, so only those on the janitorial crew were around, swabbing the floors or sponging off tables with disinfectant. He was lucky to have gotten a mask at the med center. It was like the token he needed to pass through the common areas of the mall. He wondered if this whole sterilization plan was working. Was the stack of bodies he’d seen in the med center an improvement over what had been there on other days?

Guys were on line for the shower as luck would have it, so Ryan joined the group and got his second shower in as many days. He was almost feeling human by the time he reached the SUV. He gave the special knock. No response.

“Ruthie?” He knocked again.

Nothing.

He tugged the handle and opened the door. No Ruthie. Jack lay on the backseat, his breathing shallow.

Ryan scrambled into the back of the truck. “Jack? Buddy?” He dug around the junk on the floor for water and came up only with empty bottles.

“Ruthie?” Jack moaned.

“Jack!” Ryan could have cried at hearing his voice. “Where’s Ruthie?”

Jack struggled to open his eyes. “Did you find the water?” he mumbled, incoherent.

Ruthie must have gone to get water and gotten snatched. Ryan punched the seatback.

“Ruthie?”

Ryan stroked Jack’s head. He’d really screwed things up now. Ruthie was bagged and taken somewhere. Jack was obviously not doing well. He couldn’t take him to the med center. Not after what he’d seen. He would not let Jack become another body in the pile.

Jack needed water, so Ryan took two empty bottles, shoved them into his waistband, and got back on line for the showers. Lucky for Ryan, the old guy handing out towels was not entirely with it and didn’t notice that he was going in for seconds. Ryan filled the bottles from the shower head—which was a hose with a spray nozzle—and ran back to the car.

“Here, buddy,” he said, handing Jack a bottle. The little guy needed Ryan to help him sit up to drink it.

Ryan doused a shirt he found on the floor with water and sponged Jack’s head. The kid felt like he was burning up.

“Hold this on your head,” he said to Jack, though he doubted Jack was really able to understand a word he said.

He had to get Ruthie back. Jack needed her. Then Ryan would move them somewhere where he could care for them better. It would mean telling Mike about them, but if he was cool throwing parties, he would have to be cool with hiding some freaked-out little kids.

Ryan squeezed Jack’s arm, like that was any comfort, really, then climbed back over the seat and headed out to save Ruthie.

S
hay had done everything short of climbing one of the potted trees in the food court to keep from having to face Kris. Every cell in her body was like RUN AWAY WHY ARE YOU HERE THIS IS HORRIBLE, but Preeti was basically holding her hand every second to ensure Shay did not disappear again, so stay in the food court she must.

Alison had all the kids working together on a giant LEGO project—City of the Future. Preeti and her two friends, without a shred of irony, were building a mall. Shay wondered, if she bent down close enough, would she see a tiny copy of herself staring back out.

“You’re avoiding me.” Kris’s breath tickled her hair against her neck.

Shay did not turn around. “I’m here,” she said. “Just helping Preeti.”

“Our class has started on lunch, you know, if you want to actually do your job instead of lurking behind trash cans to keep away from me.”

She was getting a little sick of boys talking to her like she was an idiot. “What would you like me to say? I’m sorry for trying to kiss you? There, I said it.”

Kris rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to be sorry.” He play punched her arm. “I was worried when you ran off.”

Something in the kind tone of his voice made it hard for Shay to keep up her façade of competence. “I’m having a hard time.”
Why is that so hard to admit?

“With what?”

“Life?”

Kris swept his hands out. “Are you trying to tell me that spending over a week in a mall is getting to you? What’s
wrong
with you? What, do you normally like go outside or something?”

Shay smiled in spite of herself. “Wait, are you saying the food court
isn’t
outside?”

“Crap,” he said. “Now I’ve blown it. Everyone, we’re still in the mall! Sorry to have misled you with the trees.”

“The giant pots did kind of give things away.”

“Well, we were on a budget.” Kris grabbed his plate and sat down outside the circle of their little five-year-olds.

Shay took her plate from the trolley. “We’re down one.”

“Better than yesterday,” he said.

“Focusing on the bright side?”

“Always.” He held his spork up as if toasting the concept.

Shay raised hers and tried, really tried, to pretend that one gone instead of five was a good thing.

• • •

Marco had allowed himself five minutes in a closet to get over Shay. He’d done everything except cry. He would not cry over her. His hand hurt from where he’d punched the wall.

But five minutes was all the time he gave over to feeling. He had a crapload of real estate to search and only eight hours left to do it in. So far, he’d patrolled the service halls and stockrooms of one quarter of the first floor of the mall. He even searched the first-floor stockroom of the med center. No alcohol.

It was not easy, scrambling through all the junk that the cleaning crews had discarded that first day to clear the way for civilization. He expected that the alcohol would be boxed, though if the thieves were any good, they would have hidden it in boxes from the store they were hiding it in, to try to make the stuff blend in.

Sometimes he wondered if he was giving these thieves too much credit. They were probably just alcoholics who couldn’t go fifteen minutes let alone a week without a drink. These were not the master-planning types. Marco suspected that at some point he’d stumble on the two of them passed out with a pile of empties in front of them, red-faced and red-handed. Of course, they could be anywhere in the million and a half square feet of retail space afforded by the Shops at Stonecliff.

As he crouched under a giant shelf structure in the back of the BathWorks, Marco’s stomach gave off an ugly growl. He’d skipped breakfast—something about his conversation with Shay had turned him off food.
Screw it.
If he didn’t eat, he’d pass out, and that wouldn’t help him to find the drunk
cabrons
any faster.

He walked out the front of the BathWorks and joined the line for slop. He glanced around him, trying to calculate how much longer the search would take. His figures were not adding up to anything good. Another day and maybe he could cover every stockroom, but eight hours?

“You the guy with the parties?”

Marco needed this like he needed another foot in his ass. “No.”

The guy grabbed Marco and forcibly turned him around. “Guy over there says you are.”

The dude looked like he was twenty-five and could bench press Marco’s weight ten times over. He was one of those short, muscular guys whose shoulders sort of melded into his skull. And behind him were two gentlemen of a similar build. In other words, Marco had little choice but to talk to the man.

“I’m having a bit of a supply problem,” Marco said. “All parties are off.”

The guy smirked. “Supply problem?”

“Look, I don’t piss beer. I get it from somewhere. And I can’t get it anymore. So no parties.”

“How about this?” The guy glanced at his two compatriots like they offered anything more than ballast to the conversation. “You fix your supply problem or we make life more difficult for you than it has to be.”

“I could scream and security would be on you like—”

“Not if I punch you in the throat and break your larynx.”

Marco swallowed. He enjoyed having use of his throat. “Look, I don’t know what you want me to say. I don’t have any alcohol. I can’t help you.”

“I think you’re going to find life in this place very uncomfortable from here on out if you fail to deliver alcohol to my crew and to the gentlemen over there who introduced us.” He pointed at the
pendejo
who’d spent last night treating Marco like a goddamned valet, then slapped Marco’s arms like they were just good ole pals chatting it up and walked away with his two goons.

“The line moved,” some asswipe behind him whined.

“Screw you,” Marco managed. He shuffled forward in the line and tried to shake off the feeling that everyone in the mall was sizing him up. He felt like he had way back in elementary school, before he’d mastered the art of self-protection through sarcasm, back when every minute was filled with anxiety, waiting for the next punch to fall.

He had to find the alcohol.
How?
He needed access to the security tapes. If the senator had footage of him going into Johnny Rockets, she had to have other footage from the service halls. Anything would help.
Lexi.
Lexi could get her mother to give her the tapes.

And then he remembered that they were supposed to have gotten together last night.

Marco mentally slapped himself in the face. He would fix things between them. Had to. Anyway, Lexi liked him. She’d believe anything he said. And then she would help him. Now, where the hell was she?

• • •

After two hours of searching storefronts and ducking security, Ryan kicked himself for not remembering that all children were at the “school” the senator had set up. Ruthie would not be treated like a criminal—would not be treated the way he and Mike were. A runaway kid was to be pitied, not punished. So as the rest of the mall scurried toward their nice hot lunch and actual tables, Ryan snuck up to the food court and looked for Ruthie.

It was not easy, busting into the backs of the food court kiosks and peering over the counters, scanning for one little girl in a crowd of them. He finally gave up the stealth tactics and just walked around the crowds of kids, weaving between the tables and picnickers on the ground.

“Excuse me,” a woman’s voice barked behind him. “You’re not one of my teachers.”

Ryan turned slowly, gave himself a second to think. “My little sister,” he said. “I just wanted to see my little sister.”

“No unauthorized visits during the day,” she said. “You should know that.”

“Oh.” Ryan scratched at his dirty shorts. Everyone else in the place was wearing clean clothes—mismatched clothes you’d expect to see on a senile old bat, but clean.

“I haven’t seen you before,” she said. “I’ve seen everyone in this mall.”

“I have one of those forgettable faces,” Ryan said. “I guess I’ll see my sister later.” He shrugged and began shuffling away between two rings of kids eating their lunches.

“Stop,” the woman said. “Security! I have an unregistered.”

Ryan did not wait to see if there were any guards around paying attention; he hurdled two kids and bolted down the hallway. Taking the escalator stairs down two at a time, he launched himself into the crowds on the first floor, then slowed to a walk, hunched his shoulders, and tried to blend in. While he was blending in, he figured he may as well get a decent meal, so he joined one of the food lines.

After a few minutes and no sign of pursuit, Ryan allowed himself to relax and look around the line, spotting Marco a few people ahead of him. Three guys were talking to him, then the one in front grabbed Marco’s arms and gave him the kind of pat Ryan had seen Mike execute on guys he was about to bury. What the hell was Marco involved in?

Ryan shuffled through the other people in line—no one seemed to mind his cutting them, like they weren’t that eager to get their meal anyway—and tapped Marco on the shoulder. The guy jumped like Ryan had pushed him.

“Dude, it’s me,” he said, hands up in surrender.

“What do you want?” Marco said, sounding disgusted.

“Nothing,” he said. “I just saw you with those guys and wondered what was up.”

Marco’s face tightened like something was sucking it from the inside against his skull. “Nothing is
up
. And you shouldn’t be here.”

“I’m looking for one of my kids,” Ryan said. “Security took her last night.”

“Why the hell do you bother with them? Call security on them yourself and save yourself the trouble.” Marco seemed overly angry about a situation he had nothing to do with.

“I bother with them because they have no one else,” Ryan said. He was not interested in having Marco crap all over him. “Do you think security would put her in with the other kids? That’s what I was thinking.”

“I honestly don’t care if they pushed her out an airlock and set her free in the world.” Marco kept glancing over his shoulder like he was looking for someone.

“Do you have a date I’m interrupting?”

Marco sneered. “You’d like it if I had someone, wouldn’t you? Make you feel better about stealing Shay?”

So that’s what this is about.
“I didn’t steal Shay,” Ryan said, trying to be diplomatic. “She and I were kind of together before, you know, I was, well, forced to the sidelines.”

“But you knew that she and I had something after you bailed.” Marco glared at him. “You only care about you—what
you
want,
your
problems. Get over yourself.”

No one had ever looked at him the way Marco was at that moment: like he hated him, really hated him. No one hated Ryan Murphy. Ryan was the nice guy. Had he really done something wrong? How could his being with Shay be wrong? She chose
him
.

“Do you need help?” Ryan said finally.

“Not from you,” Marco said. “Now get out of here before someone notices you. You have to be registered to get any food.”

Ryan let the line sweep past him, watched Marco’s head slink away. Was Marco right? What the hell was he doing out here in the open where any second some guard could bag his ass and throw him in jail again?

But he couldn’t bail on Ruthie, not now. He’d promised to protect them, promised Jack he’d bring her back. They needed him. Mike and Drew didn’t need him. If anything, he was a leech on their butts. And Shay was safe in this new mall life with her co-teacher and dorm with clean clothes. Ruthie and Jack were the only people who really needed him, Ryan Murphy, and no one else.

How could he not have thought of it before? Shay—of course! She was a teacher. She could find Ruthie for him and help him sneak her out. He had some time to kill before their meeting time—enough to find some scraps left behind in the stores. God, how he missed real food. A burger—his mouth drooled at the thought. But he had to settle for what was available: some half-eaten plate dumped in the trash? No, he wasn’t there yet. He turned toward the PhreshPharm and prayed no one had cleared it of its crap food.

• • •

“Jerk alert,” Ginger whispered, twitching her head to the right.

Lexi turned and saw Marco coming toward where they stood in the lunch line. “Potential jerk,” she said. “There’s still hope.”

“Aw,
hope,
” Maddie said. “How adorable.”

Marco was holding his plate and soda (
soda today!
). “I am so sorry about last night,” he said. “Can we eat lunch together?”

Lexi nodded, afraid that if she spoke she might start squealing like some girl.

He said, “Great,” and sounded like he meant it, then kind of nodded to Ginger and Maddie. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Marco.”

“Oh, we know.” Maddie gave him the once-over. “So where were you?”

“Huh?” Marco was more flustered than usual.

“Last night?” She popped her hip, upping the ’tude quotient. “You were MIA. I want to know why.”

“I got held up,” he said, flinching like he was being poked. “And then security busted me.”

Maddie looked at Lexi, who smiled to confirm that this was good enough for her, then rolled her eyes. “We’ll catch you back in the scullery,” Maddie said, hoisting her plate.

They had been assigned to a new crew this morning: laundry. On laundry duty, you worked in the parking garage and had to don a full suit of plastic, then duct tape the sleeves to plastic kitchen gloves and the legs to wellies, and finally cover your hair in a shower cap, all so that other people’s clothing didn’t infect you with their germs. Not that they were washing the clothes of the sick. Only the healthy people’s clothes got washed for a second use. But apparently, even a mall the size of Stonecliff had trouble providing fresh clothing for thousands of people for more than four days.

Lexi got her lunch and found Marco at a remote little bistro table hidden behind a giant plant pot. “A little out of the way, but I like it.”

“It’s quieter here,” he said, though with all the echoes, no place in the mall was really quiet.

“Did you get held up by that girl I saw you with?” She couldn’t help but ask. “The alleged girl who is a friend?”