No Easy Way Out (7 page)

Back at the cots, Maddie was flipping through a magazine.

“They came by with books and stuff,” she said. “I got us a
Cosmo
and
Us Weekly
.” She waved two magazines. “Can I take
Us Weekly
?” It was the one she had in her hands. Lexi nodded.

Maddie went back to reading. “It’s a week old,” she groaned. “I already knew about this breakup.”

Lexi had never even flipped through a
Cosmo
before. There were lots of skinny white girls in clothes that looked less comfortable than the sweater from hell Lexi had spent the day trapped inside. These were not her people.

“I’m going to walk around.”

“Let me know if you find a copy of
Lucky
.”

What in the name of jeebus was
Lucky
? “Roger that,” Lexi mumbled, and made for the stockroom.

A
t ten, the lights went black. All of them. The men around Marco grunted—“Hey!” “What the hell?”—and the shrieks of women could be heard from the JCPenney down the hall. The mall speakers bleeped and the not-quite-reassuring voice of the senator apologized and ordered that some lights be left on for safety’s sake. Within five minutes, a fluorescent light buzzed to life somewhere behind Marco’s head.

Marco had preferred the black. He had covert ops to run. Light just made everything that much more difficult.

After storing The Douche Corps in the parking garage, Marco had signed in to the Lord & Taylor, which was where all the unaccompanied men were supposed to live together peacefully. Whoever devised this plan had clearly never been to an all-boys camp. Some total dick had pissed all over the seat of the john Marco had gotten stuck with, and in the time he’d taken to do the round-trip tour through the facilities, some asshole had stolen his pillow. At least no one had crapped in his cot.

Marco had gone to camp. Once. His parents had signed him up for a community day camp one week, at the end of which all the campers went on an overnight to Bear Mountain State Park. Marco was supposed to share a tent with one of the other kids, but some false claims were made about Marco’s sexual orientation, which prompted the boy to abandon Marco after lights-out to bunk with his friends in another tent. Marco’s solo enclosure was excreted upon at random intervals throughout the night. He listened to the sound of piss spattering on his tent and prayed that the walls truly were waterproof. After each golden shower, there was an explosion of laughter from the other tent signaling the piddler’s return to his partners in pee.

He’d cried. Not like anyone was there to call him a pussy over it. In the morning he packed the tent in its bag, then washed his hands over and over, never really feeling clean. When the bus dropped him off, he informed his parents that he hated camp and didn’t ever want to go again. Money always being an issue anyway, the funds were never again wasted on summer programs.

At least this time, it didn’t matter. He would not be at the mercy of these assholes. He had the key to the entire mall. And he was out of here the second that security guard cleared the area.

• • •

Shay was beginning to regret her plan. Here she was, in some back hallway behind the JCPenney, and there were no lights except the tiny LED on her key and the glowing red of a distant exit sign. Voices echoed down the hall, from where, Shay was not sure, but they scared her. She did not like being alone in this hallway, and definitely did not like the idea of
not
being alone in the hallway.

Stumbling forward, Shay kept one hand on the wall, the other waving the small light back and forth across the ground in front of her. Knobs on pipes winked at her. Her hand dropped into a doorway and she staggered, falling against the metal door. She fumbled her key ring, which clattered into the black below.

Shay knelt on trembling legs and patted the cement. The echoes were closer now. Or were they simply coming from the other direction?

Her hand hit something soft, not keys. Shay dared to let her fingers explore the softness. It felt like jeans. Something groaned. Then claws clasped her wrist.

Shay screamed, punched and kicked the softness, which groaned again and let go.

“Help,” it may have said.

Once freed, she thrust herself away, hit the opposite wall, then clambered to her feet. Running blind through the dark, Shay took whatever turns the hall presented; she just needed to be away from whatever had groaned.Visions of Nani’s blackened, gaunt, dead face, eyes glistening, flashed in the darkness. She ran from the visions, had to escape these ghosts.
Exit
. She needed an exit.

Red signs were her only guide.
EXIT. EXIT.
Her hands slammed into a dead end. From the cold and the corrugation, Shay guessed it was a sealed-over freight delivery door.

Shay banged on the metal.
Let me out!
she screamed in her mind, afraid if she spoke in real life, the echoes would materialize into people. That the ghosts would be real.

The freight door didn’t give when she struck it. All the doors from the mall to the world must have been sealed over with concrete, permanently shut. She would die in this place. All of them were being left to die in this place.

• • •

Marco rolled off his cot and crawled down the narrow aisle to the far wall. He traveled light, just his card key, wallet, and iPod—no way he was getting rid of it, even though without Internet or a charger cord, once the battery died, it would be dead weight. He’d never changed into the boxers and shirt he’d been given to sleep in—like he was going to go nighty-night amidst that pack of wolves?
Hells to the no.

He made it to the nearest stockroom door and slipped through it unnoticed. There were no lights on. The place smelled weird. Then Marco saw a lighter flash in a far corner.
So this is where the party’s starting.
Marco had wondered how people would take going from complete freedom to incarceration. Apparently, incarceration had won out for a few hours and now the natives were restless. He was glad to be getting out while the getting was good.

The door to the service hallways was thankfully closer to him than to the lighter flame, so he escaped without incident. Alas, the halls were dark, which made everything suck that much more. Marco groped along the passage, hoping to find an exit before something found him.

No such luck. Footsteps slapped toward him. Then arms slammed into his back.

“Out of the way, loser!” a voice cackled, tearing past Marco.

Okay, maybe this was worse than the Lord & Taylor. At least there were a few security guards in the Lord & Taylor.

As Marco weighed the pros and cons of returning to the at least semi-policed chaos of the men’s Home Store, a familiar voice echoed down the passage to his right.

“Help,” Shay whispered. “Someone? Help.”

Marco ran through the black toward her voice. What the hell was she doing here? Shouldn’t she be in the med center? She had a serious head injury!

He turned a corner and heard a door rattle. Marco dashed toward the noise and ran smack into Shay. She screamed and Marco jumped back.

“Shay, it’s me! It’s Marco!”

She burst into tears and threw her arms around him.

He stroked her hair. “You’re okay,” he whispered. “I’m here. You’re safe.” He was not sure why he said this. Like he could protect her from anything.

Her body went limp, as if her bones had evaporated. “I’m so scared,” she whispered.

“Let’s get you back to the med center.”

“Kicked me out,” Shay mumbled.

“Then the JCPenney,” Marco said, assuming she had been thrown in with the rest of the
chicas
.

Shay nodded against his chest.

Marco used his iPod as a light, flashing it for brief moments to find landmarks—a name on a door, a corner—and managed to wind his way through stockrooms and passages to a door marked
JCPENNEY
. Shay clung to him like she couldn’t take a step without support.

“Why did they kick you out?” he asked, trying to take her mind off whatever had happened to her in the tunnel before he found her. He prayed it was just the dark. If it was something worse, he would find whoever hurt her and kill the bastard.

“No room,” she said, her voice barely hissing beyond her teeth. “I’m all alone in there.”

Marco slid his card through the reader and opened the door. “It’s safer in here,” he said, leading her into the stockroom. “Just stay the night, and tomorrow, I’ll find us someplace to hide.”

She nuzzled closer to him. Warmth flared over his skin.

“And Preeti?” she managed. “We have to protect her.”

Marco stopped in front of the door leading to the sales floor. “And Preeti. I am going to take care of you both.” He liked saying the words. It was as if by saying them, they could be true. A dream blinked into his brain, him and Shay and Preeti hiding out in a stockroom, all the food they needed, no one bothering them, safe until whenever this nightmare ended. Him and Shay. Together.

Shay leaned her head against the door frame. “’Til tomorrow, then,” she said.

Marco, unable to control his lips, leaned forward and pressed them to her forehead.

Shay stiffened. “Please,” she said, pushing him away. “I can’t.”

And a part of Marco seethed.
She can’t with me
. But the better part won out.

“Okay,” he said, pulling back. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Shay said, smiling.

“I’ll find you after Lights On.”

Shay nodded and slipped back into the neat, quiet rows of sleepers.

Marco tracked back to the service door only to hear voices on the opposite side. Not wanting to risk another encounter in the black, he padded to the opposite side of the stockroom. There were several different large rooms back here, all of them stuffed with the original contents of the sales floors. Sequins sparkled in his dim light, and his pants caught on errant hangers and poles from the haphazardly disposed-of racks.

• • •

Lexi sat on a desk in an office of some sort. She’d wandered after leaving Maddie and found her way into the stockrooms. When Lights Out was announced, she’d stumbled into this office, closed the door, and flipped on the light. Searching the room, she came upon two significant prizes: (1) an old CD player with a cache of not-too-terrible CDs, and (2) a bag of peanut M&M’S. Satisfied this was the best the place had to offer, she’d turned the lights off and enjoyed her feast with a Beatles accompaniment playing softly. She was halfway through
Revolver
and had two M&M’S left when someone slammed into the other side of the wall against which she was leaning.

Unable to leave well enough alone, Lexi slid off the desk and tiptoed to the door. Peeking outside, under the dim light of the one bulb left burning in the stockroom, she saw a boy wrestling with a display rack.

And not just any boy. A lanky, nerdy-looking guy. And judging from the amount of space he’d covered before becoming ensnared in the racks, at home enough in the dark that he probably spent too much time indoors, perhaps playing video games; this was his element. This was also Lexi’s element. This boy was her people.

She suddenly wished she was back in Maddie’s outfit. She wanted to look hot for this guy, even if it meant breaking out in a sweater-induced mega-rash.

What would Maddie do?
Say something flirty, be confident.

“I think you won,” Lexi said.

The guy gave his cargo pants one final jerk and freed himself from the wretched rack. Looking up, he squinted at her, then smiled—he wasn’t wearing a mask.
Does that smile mean he likes what he sees?

“I would hope I’d have the advantage over a clothes hanger,” he said.

Lexi liked his face. It wasn’t model-nice, but wasn’t bad, either. “Don’t get cocky,” she said. “I had my money on the rack for a few seconds.”

“The thing did rip my cargo pants,” he said. “I guess we’ll call it a draw.”

Lexi didn’t get a slick vibe from him. He wasn’t giving her a line. Sarcasm was his normal mode. It was also Lexi’s. She kind of didn’t want him to go. “So what brings you to the JCPenney after Lights Out? Did a girlfriend let you in?” She might as well find that out now.

He considered his answer a moment longer than Lexi would have liked.

“A friend who is a girl let me in,” he said. “We have been helping each other out and she asked me to check on her. She was scared to be separated.”

Lexi did not buy this excuse. How did they know when to meet? It was a long time after Lights Out. And how did he find his way through the service hallways to get from the Lord & Taylor to here? And why lie to her?

“That smells like a load of crap, but whatever. I don’t really care. Go on with your operation.” She let him hang on that line, turned and went back into her office.

He followed her. “Is this your room?” he asked, flipping on the light.

Lexi couldn’t help but smile that he’d followed. “It is now,” she said, hopping onto her desk. She held out the last two M&M’S. “Want one?”

“Thanks,” he said, and popped it into his mouth. He chewed slowly, luxuriously.

Lexi slid the yellow M&M between her lips. If neither of them could speak, then he couldn’t leave. The candy was gone all too quickly. “You going to tell me the truth now?” she said, trying to keep up her confident front. “Like what you’re really doing in the back of the JCPenney after eleven on a Saturday. I mean, the place closes at nine according to the sign on the door.”

He laughed. “You got me. I’m into women’s clothing and needed to stock up on evening wear for the Halloween drag ball.”

Lexi had completely forgotten about Halloween. How sad was that? Not that she dressed up. She and Darren hadn’t dressed up in years. No, they liked to hide in the bushes outside his house and scare the crap out of the little trick-or-treaters (obviously the Senator allowed no pranks to be played on her government-funded lawn).

“I’m just kidding,” he added.

Lexi came back into the present. “Sorry,” she said. “Very funny. I just had forgotten about Halloween. Weird how it feels like time should have stopped, like the world should be on pause until we’re out of here.”

“Yeah,” he said.

Had she said something wrong? He had withdrawn into himself, shrunken like a raisin. “I’m Lexi,” she said, wanting to bring him back.

“Marco,” he said, then seemed to regret it.

There was a knock at the door. They looked at each other. Lexi kicked out the desk chair and Marco dove into the darkness under the desk. Lexi dragged the chair back with her feet as the door opened.

“What are you doing back here?” the guard said. He glanced around, suspicious.

Lexi weighed playing dumb against pulling the mom card. She decided on the mom card. “I’m the Senator’s daughter.”

“Oh,” the guard said. He seemed to weigh options himself. “You can’t be back here after Lights Out.”

Lexi slid off the desk. “Oh, okay,” she said. “My mom had said I could take a break back here if I needed to.”