The Extraction List (17 page)

“NO! No, please don’t do this! Please! Bo, put me down! Please!” I didn’t know how Bo was able to hang onto her. Her body contorted in half and back again in his arms. Her curls stuck to her face with sweat.

Tears streamed down my face and I couldn’t see. Jordyn had to guide me and Xander to the truck. Bo didn’t risk putting my mom down to let her walk when we got outside, probably afraid she’d run right back in the house again.

We had just made it to the truck when we heard the sirens.

Mom kept desperately calling for Hannah and Charlie, but Bo held her tight, covering her mouth. Xander tried to shout at them too, but Jordyn placed her hand over his mouth too. Cain sat in the driver’s seat, sank down so only his eyes peeked over the steering wheel. My limbs froze and I prayed that each breath entered my lungs silently and I didn’t reveal us.

From the back of the truck we could see through the window into the entryway. I wanted to turn away, but my limbs still wouldn’t move. I was afraid that any creak of the truck would tip them off and it would all be over. What happened next would add to my collection of nightmares.

Charlie and Hannah stood in front of two Taskforce Officers. It looked like a normal conversation, until one slapped Hannah hard across the face. Charlie looked like he was going to take a swing at the man, but Hannah gently lowered Charlie’s hand with her own. That was when one of the policemen raised his gun.

Cain’s hand was on the door handle of the truck when the gun went off. Twice.

Hannah and Charlie died holding hands.

A
ll our bodies shook with the gun blasts. Bo continued to keep his hand glued to Mom’s mouth, and her tears ran down his hand in little rivers. Watching Hannah and Charlie die made Xander pass out, and he lay quiet in Jordyn’s arms.

We only stirred when we were sure that the police officers had driven off. They could have very easily looked out the back window of the house and seen our truck sitting there, but they hadn’t—a complete miracle. We exhaled.

Jordyn and Cain immediately leaped out of the car and ran inside toward Hannah and Charlie. Bo followed. Mom and I just sat and cried, with Xander lying beside us, letting the sound we had stifled for what seemed like years pierce through the silence.

Shouting shook us back to reality. “We have to GO! What is wrong with you? They’re dead and we’re not and if you want to keep it that way we need to GO!” Bo shouted at Jordyn and Cain as the three of them re-entered the backyard.

Jordyn and Cain had collected their lifeless bodies and gently put them down in the same spot where we had played tag a short time ago. “We are BURYING our friends, you son of a bitch. There’s no way we’re leaving them here to rot.” Cain’s face was inches from Bo’s.

He was about to bring his knives to Bo’s throat, but Jordyn stepped in. “Hey, hey, hey, now. While I agree he is definitely a son of a bitch, YOU have the keys to the truck.”

Cain stepped back.

Jordyn turned her attention to Bo. “And you! If you help us, this would go a lot faster. Now shut up and grab us some shovels.”

Mom wiped the tears from her eyes as she hopped out of the truck. Xander was still out, so she told me to stay with him in case he woke up. None of us wanted him to open his eyes and be alone. She ducked inside the garage and reemerged with several shovels. Jordyn gave her a grateful nod.

• • •

Cain always said not to travel at night, but since we were so behind, he decided to make an exception. As soon as Hannah and Charlie were buried in the backyard of the house they loved so much, with two of my handmade crosses stuck in the earth looking over them, we went back on the road, heading toward the port to meet the boat that would take us to our new home.

The silence was worse than the shouting. All I could hear was the wheels of the truck rolling over the road and the back window rattling against the metal body. I gazed outside, wondering what other people were doing right then. I hoped that most were sitting at home, eating a normal dinner, having normal family conversation. Maybe someone had a nice ham, sitting dead center in the middle of their dining room table, surrounded by mashed potatoes and brown sugar carrots like Mom used to make. Maybe that someone had a dad at the table too who smiled and asked how everyone’s days went. I hoped that those people didn’t have to discuss burying bodies and the best method of not getting killed.

Olivia had been sitting quietly in the back of my mind ever since I found her picture in the file. Well, actually, she was there long before that, but my mind now raced with new questions. I wanted her to be with us. I wanted to tell her what just happened, about how those men shot two people without a second thought, as if they didn’t mean anything. But I couldn’t.

She was in Italy. I had no idea where or how long she’d been there, but I had somewhere to go. And when I could find a way, I would travel there and find her. I tried to think of some pleasant job she could be doing. Picturing a pretty little European sewing shop, I hoped some nice dressmaker had hired her to help make clothes. I pictured Olivia dressing the mannequins and helping the dressmaker pick out just the right fabric. Maybe the dressmaker would always laugh because Olivia always picked a green fabric, her favorite color. Maybe the dressmaker scolded her, shaking her finger and saying, “Olivia, if it were up to you, the entirety of Italy would be dressed in green!” And they would laugh.

What was more likely, though, was that she was sitting in a hot, dark room, sweating on a hard metal stool making shoes or preparing vegetables to be packaged. Someone was probably yelling at her to go faster even though her fingers were already blistered. The supervisor would give her water, but it would never be enough. Then she would go to sleep in some run-down boarding house with other children who were alone and scared and wondering if anyone would ever find them.

I closed my eyes and concentrated, hoping somehow she could hear me.
Liv, hold on, I’m coming for you
.

We were moving just fine along the back roads when suddenly the truck started struggling to go on. The chugging threw the bed up and down with every inch of movement, and we hit the bottom of the truck bed hard with each bump. “What’s going on?” Mom asked.

Cain struggled to keep the truck straight. “I don’t know.” He pushed the wheel of the truck to the right, pulling it over on the side of the road. “I’ll have to take a look. Jordyn, sit on the top of the truck and keep watch.”

“You got it.” Jordyn climbed on top of the truck and sat cross-legged with gun drawn. Mom, Bo, and I got out too. Xander stayed in the truck, struggling to get some sleep.

“Can I help?” I asked. Jordyn smiled and threw her hand to me, pulling me up. I proudly sat down next to her.

Bo stood next to Cain as he prepared to inspect the truck. “I think you better let me take a look. I’ve worked on cars before.”

Cain started sliding under the truck anyway. “I got it.” Cain was halfway under when Bo grabbed him by the shoulders. Cain flipped to his feet and pushed Bo in the chest. “What the hell, man?”

“Look, I just think I’d better—”

“Touch me like that again and I’ll rip your fuckin’ arm off, got it?”

Bo ignored him and crawled under the truck right where Cain had been. Cain glanced up at me and Jordyn with a perplexed look on his face. I guessed that most of the time when he threatened to rip someone’s arm off they usually listened to him.

“Something’s dripping out down here. Hand me some tape? It’ll have to hold ‘til we can fix it properly.”

Cain started lunging for Bo’s feet but Mom grabbed his shoulder. “Let’s just get this done and get back on the road, okay?”

Cain sighed but seemed to agree with Mom’s logic. He let Bo keep going.

Bo slid back out from under the truck after he patched it up. He was about to hop back into the truck when Cain stopped him. “What’s that in your pocket, Bo? You didn’t have anything in your pockets before you went under the truck.”

“Don’t be stupid, of course I did.”

“No. You didn’t.”

Jordyn hopped down from the truck then reached up to help me down afterward. She walked toward them, with me right behind her. “We get paid to notice these things. If he says you didn’t have anything before, then you didn’t have anything before.” She lunged for Bo’s pocket but he backed up. She pointed her gun at him. “Stay.” She reached her hand inside his pocket and pulled out a small silver circular object, wires spewing out of it on one side.

I had no idea what it was, but apparently Cain did. He lunged toward Bo and thrust both knives toward the sides of Bo’s throat. Mom screamed and grabbed his arms. “NO! Cain, NO!”

“You bastard! You put that there! You’re having us TRACKED!”

Even in the low light of the moon and stars, I saw Mom go white. “No…no, I’m sure he just found it under the truck. He might not even know what that is.” She looked at Bo. “Right?”

Bo’s color matched Mom’s. “Yeah. I didn’t know.”

Cain wasn’t convinced. Honestly, neither was I. “Jordyn, search him. Riley, go into the truck and grab his pack.” I looked at Mom for approval, and she didn’t stop me. I crawled into the truck and emerged with the bag that Bo had been responsible for carrying throughout the trip.

“Nothing.” Jordyn stepped away from Bo, but kept her gun on him.

I handed Cain the bag.

He threw everything out of the bag and onto the ground: shirt, pants, socks, food, water bottle…then he found it. A cellphone sat buried at the very bottom.

Jordyn cocked her gun.

“A goddamn CELLPHONE! Who you been calling, Bo, huh?” Cain returned his knives to Bo’s throat, pressing them into his skin ever so slightly. The skin folded around the blade, and if Cain pushed down any harder, blood would have seeped out. “ANSWER ME.”

Mom threw her arms around Cain’s waist, trying desperately to drag him away from Bo. “Cain, please! Please!”

He stepped back and whirled around to face my mom. “Don’t you get it, Claire? Bo knew that Riley was on the list for some time. The reason she was on the list is because HE put her there! So he could learn our route! Learn who helps us! Get us killed!”

Mom took deep, fast breaths, shaking her head, but still gently pushed his blades down with her hand.

“Here she is, Bo. Tell the woman you so obviously love that you’re a traitor. That you set her up from the beginning. That it’s YOUR FAULT Riley is in danger. That it’s YOUR FAULT we had to bury Hannah and Charlie. Go ahead. Tell her.”

I ran to Mom’s side. Hannah and Charlie falling, their lives leaving them, the sound of two bullets being fired kept replaying over and over in my mind, and I braced myself for the possibility that I was about to hate Bo forever.

His voice shook as he spoke. “Claire, I swear to you. Riley was never in any danger. But you were. They were going to kill you, Claire.”

Suddenly, Bo became a stranger. The man that had cooked us dinner and treated me like his own daughter was gone and an unfamiliar man took his place.

“Oh my God, you did do this. You DID do this,” Mom whispered. She ran toward him and started hitting him hard and fast, like her hands were little projectile missiles. “I TRUSTED you! With my DAUGHTER! I’m so stupid!”

“Claire, please! Listen to me, you have to listen to me! They were going to kill you. They thought you were asking too many questions. You were starting to figure out that they were destroying everything we tried to build. The phone calls about Riley’s classmates. They knew it was only a matter of time before you figured it out. All of it. And they knew if you talked, people would listen. They knew you could bring down the whole damn thing if you wanted to. They wanted ME to do it. They wanted me to come into your home and wait ‘til Riley was asleep in her room. They wanted me to slip something into your drink so it would be clean and easy to erase you. To make you just go away. They wanted me to tell your daughter that you disappeared in the middle of the night and left her alone.” Bo’s face reddened and his eyes grew wide. “I refused. Then they told me if I didn’t, they’d find someone who would. So I made a deal. I made a deal with them to get you and Riley out of the country. And keep you alive.”

Mom stopped hitting him. “What kind of deal?” She moved her head back as she asked the question, as if she was sure the answer would sting.

She was right.

Bo pointed at Cain, then Jordyn. “For them. And the rest. All of them.”

“Oh God, Bo, you didn’t.”

Bo sighed. “I told them I would trade the entire safe house system for you and Riley. I would go with you on your journey out of the country, and once you were safely out of the United States I would give them everything. Every single missing piece.” He put his hands on her shoulders but she shook them off. “They took the offer. But I never wanted to go through with it, Claire, I swear I didn’t. I was going to leave with you. But they started demanding ‘shows of favor,’ proof that I was loyal. That’s why they had me pick up a cellphone on the way to the car that first night. They had it hidden at the bar and told me exactly where to find it. I swiped it on our way out. That was why I had to put the tracking device on the car. I figured out how to contact George and told him to warn Cain that they were onto us so that we would be gone by the time they got there. So you wouldn’t have to see it. I didn’t want to give them Hannah and Charlie. I swear I didn’t. I did it for you.”

Mom slapped him across the face.

“Don’t you DARE say that to me! I never asked you to do this. I never asked you to get two people killed. Don’t you put this on me!” Mom fell to the ground.

I hugged her and told her it was going to be okay, but I don’t think she believed me. I didn’t really believe it either, and as I embraced her I glared at Bo over her shoulder so she couldn’t see.

“Claire, please, you have to believe me. I thought I could just lie to them and by the time they figured it out we would be long gone. Then we almost got caught. Only Gray, me, and Taskforce Head Keegan knew about the plan. Nobody wanted to risk you finding out. And they definitely didn’t want us to get captured. But the mercenaries told the police where we were headed.” As Keegan’s name escaped Bo’s lips, I could almost feel Cain’s muscles tense. “I didn’t find out what happened until Cain had already killed those first three policemen. Same thing almost happened that first night. I didn’t expect one of the Taskforce Officers to already be in your living room when I got there.” I pictured the dead man in our entryway. And the blood. “I knew I had to keep them going for as long as possible. But they kept wanting me to give them more and more information. I only gave them enough to throw suspicion off, but they just kept asking for more. Then they demanded one safe house.”