No Easy Way Out (23 page)

R
yan was still several steps behind on the logic of their plan. “Why are we attacking Reynolds? If you want to hide out, let’s take what we have here and hide out.”

Mike checked his handgun, then tucked it into the waistband at his lower back like some gangster. “We are attacking Reynolds because he took things that belonged to us, to everyone. Plus, you can never have too many supplies.”

“He’s guarded by security, they have Tasers,” Ryan pleaded. “This is like walking into a trap on purpose.”

“Listen,” Mike said, shoving the squawking police radio at Ryan. “Those people Marco owed a party? They’re freaking out, busting windows and basically acting like assholes. Security is a little busy pretending to actually give a crap about the people in this mall. No one is going to be watching Reynolds and his stash.” He hefted a metal bar and thrust it at Ryan. “Now stop being a pussy and get ready.”

Mike collected a few more traditional weapons—a length of chain, a handful of heavy screws in a sock, some more metal bars, which he strapped to his back like ninja swords. Ryan glanced at Marco and Drew, who were conferring while gathering their own arsenal. It was like everyone had been waiting for an invitation to join a guerilla force. This seemed insane to Ryan, but what choice did he have? He grabbed another metal bar and jammed a wrench into his waistband.

Mike clapped his hands, then held one out. “Taco, we need your card.”

Marco slinked back a step. “I’ll let you through.”

“You said the doors to the IMAX were broken, so you don’t need a card. We do.” Mike curled his fingers. “You on the team or not?”

Marco seemed to consider this question for a moment, and then pulled the card from his pocket. “You’ll give it back?”

“I’ll give it back,” Mike said, closing his fingers around the thing like it was treasure. He glanced at Ryan. “Let’s go.”

Ryan hesitated for a moment.

“Do I have to ask
you
if you’re on the team?” Mike raised an eyebrow.

“Of course not.” Ryan followed him out into the service hallway.

They crossed to the other side of the mall through the parking garage, Mike’s thinking being that few guards would be searching down there. Still, they moved along the shadows to the correct fire stairwell. Once on the first floor, they took the nearest door into the service hallway system.

“Taco said there were hidden cameras,” Mike whispered. “Let’s take them out.” He held a hand out to Ryan, then hoisted him onto his shoulders.

Ryan used the light of Mike’s phone as a flashlight and quickly located a lone camera—a bulky thing, not even that stealthily hidden—jammed into a bundle of wiring. He unstuck it from the pipe it was attached to, then passed it down to Mike. He helped Ryan off his back, then laid the camera on the ground, iris side down, and smashed it with his heel.

“Camera is off.”

The service door into the Pancake Palace was unguarded on the hallway side, but Mike figured it would be covered from the inside. To avoid getting hit, they would pull the door open, but stay against the walls, Ryan behind the door, and then wait to see what came at them. After any shots from inside, Mike would fire a round into the doorway to drive off any attacker. “Let’s assume I’m the only one with a gun.”

Ryan’s heart was pumping so hard, he felt like he’d run laps.
Wait to see what came at them?
He slammed his back against the wall and said a silent prayer that this was all just a big joke and no one would be inside, no shots would fire.

Mike nodded, then ran the card. Ryan pulled open the door.

“Goldman?” a voice inside asked.

Mike apparently considered that a shot. He blasted a round through the door, filling the dark hall with a blaze of light, then ran in screaming. Ryan crossed himself and followed.

He flicked on the light switch, thinking he’d like to see his killer, and was instantly sorry. The room was filled with dad-aged guys, some of whom looked like bruisers. They crouched behind stacks of kegs and boxes, leered at Mike and Ryan like they didn’t think much of them as opponents.

“Mr. Richter,” Reynolds said from behind the counter. “I should have expected you’d come knocking.”

“We’ve come to relieve you of your stash,” Mike said, not flinching.

“How many bullets do you have left? Seven? How’s your aim?”

Mike was not a patient person. He leveled the gun at the bottom keg in the stack and fired. Beer spewed from the hole, driving the keg back and toppling the pile. The guys behind it ran, beer raining down over everyone. Mike used the distraction to start swinging his metal poles like a coked-up cheerleader. Ryan dug his poles out and followed suit, whipping them wildly. He knew he hit a couple of things—people?—from the shudder of impact he felt in his hand.

The beer fountain stopped flowing and Mike dove for a table, toppling it in front of himself like a shield. Ryan scrambled to get behind it, dragging another table with him to cover their rears. The old guys were not unprepared for a fight. Three arrows fired from various points in the room and lodged in the tabletops. A pressurized gun like Dad used in construction fired a nail that stuck in the floor mere inches from Ryan’s foot.

Mike was undeterred. “There’s a box over there marked
EVERCLEAR.
I want you next to it, throwing bottles on the ground.”

“We’re trying to literally slip them up?”

Mike looked at him like he was a moron. “Just throw the frickin’ bottles.”

Ryan waited for the next round of projectiles to hit the tabletop, then dove behind a stack of boxes and crawled army-style to the one marked
EVERCLEAR
. He jammed the wrench from his belt into the side of the box, splitting the cardboard, and pulled free a bottle. He lobbed it over the stack and kept going until the box was empty.

Mike skidded out from behind the tables, grabbed a candle that sat on the main counter, and dropped it on the floor. Blue flames flashed across the tiles. Guys ran screaming from their cover and Mike smashed every single one of them flat. One guy grabbed him from behind. Ryan vaulted the boxes he’d hidden behind and hit the guy with the wrench. The attacker dropped like a tackling bag.

The blue flames flickered to nothing. The room was silent. Mike hopped over the counter and found Reynolds cowering on the floor.

“Hey there, old buddy,” Mike said. A trickle of blood snaked from Mike’s hairline down his cheek.

Ryan tried to catch his breath, surveyed the room. He counted eight bodies. Someone whimpered. The pant leg of one was on fire. What had they done?

Reynolds pushed himself to sitting. “Take what you want,” he said.

Mike laughed. “Oh, I’ll take everything.” He pulled out his handgun.

Ryan grabbed Mike’s shoulder. “What the hell are you doing? Let’s take the stuff and go.”

“And let our friend here live to plot his revenge?”

“Mike, let’s get out of here before security decides to bust us.”

“Turn off the lights.”

“Mike. Stop screwing around.”

“Turn. Off. The. Lights.”

“I will not be a part of this.” It was like begging a hurricane not to tear apart his house.

Mike glared at him. His eyes were cracked with red. “You don’t have to be.” He pulled the trigger.

Ryan ran for the nearest door, like he could outrun the sound of the gun firing.

• • •

Shay must have blacked out for some time, because she woke while being half walked, half dragged toward a fully lit store. She was hauled to the changing rooms, shoved into a stall, and the door was slammed behind her. She sat on the stool and tried to calm her breathing. Her heart beat like it was trying to escape her chest.

Voices outside. “Yep, one dead—shot in the head, half outside the building. What the hell were they thinking? There’s like a forty-foot drop to the ground out those windows.”

“Who said they were thinking? Kids are idiots.”

Footsteps. Shay was alone with how many thugs in the changing rooms?

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror—her face was bruised, her arms scratched. This was a bad night. Like that first night in the service hallway. She had to get out of there. She would not be caught again.

Hunching her back, she wriggled her bound wrists under her butt and slid her legs through the circle of her arms. Her wrists bled around the thin plastic of the band holding them.

She needed something to cut the plastic. There was a hook in the wall. Shay hung on the hook until it split from the plaster, revealing a nice, sharp nail. She drove the nail through the plastic, pulled and tugged until the thin band snapped. The nail sliced the skin of her wrist. The pain added flames to the fire within.

The door was locked from the outside somehow, barred by something heavy. She bent to crawl under the door. Whatever was holding it closed blocked too much of the space between the door and the floor. Shay kicked it—whatever held her in was too heavy. And the space between the top of the door and the ceiling was too small.

Ceiling.
It was a drop ceiling. What was above a drop ceiling? Shay climbed onto the stool and jumped, popping one of the tiles loose. Two more jumps and she caught a handhold on the ceiling’s frame. She wriggled and pulled until she had her head, shoulders, torso through the hole, then bent over and rolled to lie flat on the frame’s metal grid, spreading her weight so she wouldn’t fall back through.

As she’d hoped, the walls did not extend all the way to the actual ceiling of the mall. She crawled, sandwiched between the wires and ducts, and the frame of the drop ceiling and the solid ceiling of the mall. She squeezed over the wall of her changing room, then the next, and the next until there were no more walls. She had to be over the sales floor of the store. In the dim light that seeped through the crevices of the ceiling’s grid, she saw that there was a solid wall about fifteen feet ahead of her. That had to be the front of the store.
The exit
.

Shay reached the wall, then slid the nearest tile out of the frame. It was a long way down. She peeked her head through the hole, saw two guards by the changing rooms. When their backs were turned, she slipped her body through and dropped to the floor.

“Hey!” a voice screamed.

Shay didn’t wait to hear more. She raced toward the escalators, ran like the freaking wind. Her heart screamed in her chest. She vaulted down the steps, using her arms to swing herself down five at a time. When her feet hit the tiles of the first-floor courtyard, she was off again, running, flying.

She slammed into another body and immediately began to claw it, she had to get free, she would never stop running.

“Shay?” the person screamed.

It took her a few seconds to register the voice. “Ryan?”

He hugged her.

She pushed free. “We have to run,” she said, tugging his arm. “Security.”

“Parking garage.” He started running for the central fountain.

They scrambled down the broad staircase between the escalators in the central pavilion, then shoved out the glass doors and into the dark of the garage.

“This way,” Ryan said.

Shay matched his strides as they bolted between the cars toward a far wall, a deeper darkness. Voices echoed behind them: Security had followed. Flashlight beams cut through the black.

“We’re trapped,” Shay whispered, fear clawing its way up her limbs, freezing her from the inside out.

“Wait here,” Ryan said. He fled into the dark. Then, far off to her right, a car alarm went off. Then another. A blinking, bleeping trail led back toward the pavilion.

“She’s doubling back!” a voice screamed.

Shay watched the flashlights turn away, back toward the central pavilion, disappear up the stairs. And then Ryan was beside her, heaving breath.

“I can’t believe they fell for it,” he said, panting.

Shay’s legs betrayed her, losing strength and dropping her against the side of a sedan. As she slid down, a lock sprang inside her and the sadness burst through like a flood. Tears choked her. She couldn’t catch her breath.

Ryan didn’t ask any questions. He tucked his one arm under her shoulders, scooped her legs up with the other, and carried her through the dark. Her head flopped on his shoulder. She was unable to control the crying and soaked his shirt.

“I’m so gross,” she sobbed, picking at the fabric.

“If you knew where that shirt’s been, you wouldn’t feel so bad.”

He took her to a room in the garage; she guessed this was where he’d been hiding out. He laid her on a sleeping bag and propped her head with a duffel. He flipped on the light. She asked him to leave it off. He switched them back into darkness and crawled to sit beside her.

Shay had never felt so safe as she did there in the dark, leaning against Ryan, his arms around her. He didn’t say anything, just let her unravel. After a while, there were no more tears, just a rupture inside.

“This must be the least sexy thing that’s ever happened to you with a girl.”

He leaned his head on hers. “No girl’s ever been real with me except you. Real is pretty sexy.”

“Even when real is just ugly crying face?”

“Well, the light’s off, so that helps.” He nudged her.

She nudged him back.

• • •

“I wish Nani had gotten to meet you,” Shay said after a few minutes. “She would have liked you.”

Ryan was quiet, then asked, “What do you think she’d like?”

“She just knew about people.”

Would she see Ryan now or the Ryan of a half hour ago? The Ryan he wanted to be or the thug that he was?

He felt wrong touching her and shuffled slightly away. “Then it’s probably good she didn’t meet me.”

Shay’s hand reached for him, pulled her body back against his. “Why were you in the hall tonight?”

He had a choice: to keep pretending he was some great guy, the all-American, football-playing, everybody’s-favorite hero or to show her the person who had no idea who the hell he was, who was scared and made crap decisions and who’d beaten a bunch of old guys to a pulp in a gutted pancake joint. It wasn’t even a choice. He didn’t want to pretend with Shay.