The Hunted (27 page)

Miller Road marked the first sign of civilization. Shy studied the few gas stations and fast-food spots off the right side of the freeway. A large cluster of tents filled what had once been a major construction zone.

Just after a sign announcing the town of Goodyear, Shy began seeing groups of people. They were arranged in half-circles, talking, or they were lined up in large parking lots, waiting to receive relief packages from crusaders. Anywhere there was shade, people were packed in together. Families were living in half-finished housing developments, and on commercial rooftops, and in tents erected right up against the freeway. The only thing Shy could compare it to was a series of
National Geographic
photos he'd once seen of Third World slums.

Carmen rested her chin against Shy's back as they moved slowly down the freeway, maneuvering around stalled cars and empty crates and tons of trash. Shy's dad rode slightly behind them, swiveling his head around as he took everything in.

They passed huge grassy fields covered by tents and hordes of people. Many turned to watch the noisy dirt bike sputter by. The closer they got, the more government vehicles they saw parked along the shoulder of the freeway. Cop cars. Ambulances. Fire trucks. All stranded, Shy assumed, when the border went up.

Tingles ran up and down Shy's arms and legs when he saw the first sign for Avondale, Arizona. Soon after, they passed a sign for the Agua Fria River. Shy remembered DJ Dan describing how the border was built on the east side of the river, which meant they were close.

There were hundreds of people packed along the sides of the freeway here. Thousands, even. Shy had to slow to a crawl to get through without hitting anyone. Some people shouted at him. Others grabbed at the handlebars or took swipes at the duffel bag. Shy held the bag closer to him and lurched forward whenever he came to a pocket of open space. He kept looking back at Carmen and his old man, happy they were still with him.

Shy took the next off-ramp and moved through the crowded side streets, following the signs for the river. There were tents set up everywhere. And swarms of people. “Excuse me!” Shy had to keep calling out in order to maneuver past them. He inched the dirt bike forward a few feet at a time, until Carmen smacked him on the shoulder and pointed ahead.

Shy looked up and saw it.

He stopped the bike and planted a foot on the asphalt. Then he cut the engine. Carmen put a foot down, too. His dad coasted up beside them and flipped up his helmet's visor. “Shit, there it is,” he said over the commotion of the crowd.

They were right at the edge of the Agua Fria River, which was twenty, twenty-five yards wide at most. On the other side was the makeshift border Shy had been hearing about since the day they left the island. But it wasn't anything like he'd imagined. Instead of some intimidating wall that reached up into the sky, it was just a crappy-looking little fence that extended as far as he could see in either direction. What kept people from charging the fence was the river standing in front of it. And all the armed military people standing guard.

A two-lane bridge that had once stretched across the river appeared to have been blown up. Only the two jagged sides remained.

Shy turned to his dad and Carmen. “This border looks kind of weak, doesn't it?” The crowd had closed in tighter around them, making Shy feel
claustrophobic.

“They didn't have a whole lot of time,” his dad said, leaning his bike on its kickstand and pulling off his helmet. “What's up with that key around your neck?”

Shy reached up to touch Shoeshine's black key but didn't answer.

“I guess the guys with assault rifles make up for the shitty fence,” Carmen said. She leaned over to stretch her back after the long ride, but some haggard-looking woman backed up a step just then, nearly knocking Carmen over.

Shy watched his dad check out all the people surrounding them. Most were either looking out at the river or staring at Shy and his crew. His dad cleared his throat. “I guess this is a good time to ask what we're doing here.”

“You probably want to get to the other side,” a nearby man said, “but it's impossible.”

A college-aged guy with no shirt on laughed in Shy's face. “We all came to cross the border, dude. But here we still are, stuck in this bullshit.”

“Now that the vaccine failed all the tests,” the first guy said, “nothing's going to change anytime soon.”

“Wait, the vaccine doesn't work?” Shy asked.

A bunch of people shook their heads. “It was announced this morning,” the man said. “They're back to square one.”

Shy and Carmen shared a look, and Shy clutched the duffel a little closer.

Shy's dad leaned toward Shy and Carmen. “So are either of you gonna tell me why we're here?”

Shy stared across the river again, at the guards pacing along a platform just beyond the walls. “We have to get this duffel to the other side,” he said, low enough so that only his dad and Carmen could hear.

“What for?” his dad asked.

“Trust us,” Carmen said. “We just have to.”

Shy's dad nodded, gazing out over the river. “Then we'll make it happen,” he said. “Do you guys have a plan?”

Shy shook his head.

“We haven't really worked that out yet,” Carmen said.

Shy's dad glanced back at his bike and then nudged Shy with an elbow. “ 'Cause I got an idea if you're interested.”

They waited until just after sunset to enact the plan.

Shy and Carmen were crouched at the edge of the river about a hundred yards south of Shy's old man. All they had with them was the duffel bag, and they huddled with it underneath a second blown-up bridge. As far away as they were, though, Shy could still hear the loud roar of the muffler-less dirt bike, especially when his dad revved the engine. And just like the man promised, Shy heard at least a few hundred people hooting and hollering for him, creating a bit of a spectacle.

Shy smiled as he listened to the crowd roar. His dad had always had charisma. Normally he used it on women, even back when he was married to Shy's mom. Tonight he'd found a more admirable use for his charm.

“Your dad was right,” Carmen said, pointing at the guards directly across the river from them. They were all migrating toward the commotion.

Shy shook his head. “Dude, if this actually works…”

“You think he has any chance of actually making it?” Carmen asked.

“Zero.”

Carmen looked back at the closest group to them. But they were all hovering around a bonfire in a metal trash can. “I don't know,” she said. “The way he saved our asses in the desert those couple times?”

Shy shrugged. In reality, he was incredibly nervous. His dad's plan was to rile up as many people as he could with the Evel Knievel–type stunt he was going to attempt. If the guards focused on him, like he promised they would, Shy and Carmen would attempt to swim across the dark river, toward the base of the wall. From that point forward it was on them.

But it was his dad's stunt that worried Shy most. A day ago he wouldn't have given his old man's well-being a second thought. Now Shy was genuinely nervous.

Just then there was a swell in crowd noise. Shy and Carmen craned their necks to try to see as far north as they could. Shy spotted his old man racing the dirt bike through a mass of people that had formed a narrow corridor all the way to the stunted bridge, and all Shy could see over the tops of their heads was his dad's helmet moving down the line, picking up speed.

“They're all running over there.” Carmen pointed at the guards positioned along the border. “We should go now, right?”

“Hang on,” Shy said. He rose from his crouch and watched his dad hit the lip of the mangled bridge and launch himself and the dirt bike into the air, the crowd roaring behind him, the guards sprinting toward that section of the border.

A few shots were fired at Shy's dad, and when he was at the peak of his jump he let go of the handlebars and kicked away from the dirt bike and fell from the sky like a man with a failed parachute, landing in the river face-first, creating a splash almost as high as the dirt bike.

“Come on, Shy!” Carmen yanked Shy toward the water.

Just before they dove in, Shy saw a mass of people storming the edge of the river, cheering wildly. But he wasn't able to make sure his dad surfaced, because he was now underwater himself. He held his breath and closed his eyes as he and Carmen swam through the cold water as far as they could without lifting their heads. When he finally had to come up for air, he began dog-paddling toward the stretch of unguarded border.

They swam in silence, Shy looking up every few seconds to make sure they were still on track. There was another commotion in the distance. Shy lifted his head, saw a motorboat with two military guys racing through the water, toward the spot where his dad had landed, the crowd jeering them from the river's edge.

Shy wanted to stop so he could try to see what was happening with his dad, but he couldn't. He had to keep swimming before the guards made it back to their post.

Soon he locked into a rhythm. He kicked his feet furiously underwater and paddled underwater, too, so he wouldn't splash. And as he made it past the halfway point a thought occurred to him: this was how it had all started. The cruise ship sinking and him thrust into cold water, searching for Carmen. Except she was beside him now. And they weren't in the Pacific, they were in the Arizona desert.

By the time Shy and Carmen made it to the other side, Shy's shoulders were burning. He and Carmen climbed up onto the riverbank and moved to the wall, which was only a few steps from the water. It was slightly taller up close, but Shy managed to boost Carmen high enough for her to grab the top, and she pulled herself over. Then he leaped as high as he could, catching the top with his right hand, and he slowly pulled himself up. He hooked his leg over the side, rolled over the lip and fell to the dirt on the other side.

Two guards started toward them immediately, one shouting through a megaphone, the other aiming an assault rifle. But he didn't shoot.

Shy and Carmen dropped to their knees.

Shy reached down and unzipped the wet duffel and quickly took out all the remaining syringes and the comb-over man's letter and held them over his head and locked a few fingers and looked all around the other side of the border. They were in some sort of park, full of lit-up trailers and parked cars and well-groomed people milling around in a civilized way or sitting around barbecue pits.

“Don't move!” a guard shouted from fifteen yards behind them. He wore a dry suit. A second suited guard emerged from a trailer in front of them. The rest kept their
distance. Carmen
put a hand on Shy's shoulder and then held her hands up, too.

“I said don't move!” the guard shouted.

Shy turned to Carmen and locked eyes with her as they waited for the guards to descend upon them.

Shy slept through most of the next day.

When he finally cracked open his eyes, the sun was already setting. He could see it through the small window of his room inside the medical trailer. He sat up and sucked in a deep breath and studied the intense colors swirling around the sky. They gave him chills. Because he wasn't supposed to still be here.

As he climbed into his dirty jeans, which had been left folded beside his cot, details from the night before came trickling back into his consciousness. He and Carmen had spent several hours in the “disease control” holding cell while scientists tested the contents of the syringes. And when the vaccine came back as legitimate, everyone in camp suddenly wanted a piece of them. Reporters begged for interviews. The police needed official statements. Doctors insisted on thorough physicals complete with blood work.

Shy refused to do any of it until he knew what was going on with his dad.

Minutes later, the deputy director of the FBI led Shy into an unmarked trailer and sat him in a metal folding chair. They were in the middle of a thorough search of the river, the man explained. Every resource would be exhausted. They'd find Shy's dad. And no matter what condition they found him in, they'd bring him directly into camp. At the end of their short conversation, the man stood up and gave Shy a firm handshake, saying: “Thank you for everything you've done, son.”

Shy nodded, thinking how surreal it was that people were now thanking him. As opposed to trying to kill him.

“We'd eventually like you to write out what you've been through. As much as you can remember. Can you do that for us?”

Shy nodded.

There was a long pause then, and Shy noticed that the FBI man's eyes had become glassy. “I have family near LA myself,” he finally said. “My sister and her two daughters. All of us over here…we just want this nightmare to end.”

Shy must have fallen asleep soon after he left the FBI trailer because he didn't remember anything else.

Without the duffel bag, Shy felt naked as he began searching the camp for Carmen and someone who could update him about his dad. Authorities had taken nearly everything from him, including the comb-over man's letter. All he had left was the diamond ring in his pocket and the key around his neck.
Shoeshine's
key. It didn't seem right that the person most responsible for them getting the vaccine into the hands of scientists wasn't here to take credit. Then again, Shy couldn't imagine Shoeshine putting up with all the attention.

Shy slowed near a group of nurses sitting at a picnic table, huddled around a radio. The volume was low, but Shy was still able to recognize DJ Dan's voice. He moved closer and bent down to retie his shoe so he could listen.

When Shy noticed that the nurses had begun whispering and pointing at him, he moved deeper into camp.

He felt incredibly relieved at what he'd just heard. The formula, including the last page from Addie, was in the right hands. And they were taking the comb-over man's letter seriously enough to investigate LasoTech. But that was nothing compared with the relief Shy felt when he spotted his dad. He was standing beside a food truck, eating a taco and chatting up a female reporter.

Shy hurried over and gave his dad a quick, awkward hug before stepping away. “You're alive,” he said excitedly.

“Of course I'm alive,” his dad said. He glanced at the female reporter, then focused on Shy. “See, boy? My plan worked to perfection. I was just telling Sarah here how I came up with it after what, ten minutes of being in Avondale?”

“It's true,” Shy said. He wasn't surprised the reporter was pretty. Even after everything that had happened in California, his dad still couldn't resist dropping game on a good-looking woman.

“You've been through so much,” the reporter said to Shy.

“My son's a hero,” his dad blurted out.

“Do you think we can sit down and talk?” the reporter asked. “I understand you started out on a boat? Tell me what
that
was like.”

“Maybe later,” Shy said coldly. He wasn't trying to be mean, but he'd just spotted Carmen across the yard. She was standing with some
GQ
-looking dude in a blazer who was reaching for her hand.

Shy's stomach began to cramp.

His dad nudged him with an elbow. “Hey, don't sweat that. Like I said, you're a hero now, son. There'll be plenty of women. I promise.”

Shy shrugged. “It's not like we're together or anything.” Secretly, though, he felt kind of stupid for rushing out here to find Carmen. Actually, he felt like a punk.

“She the one you were traveling with?” The reporter had a notebook out and was jotting things down.

“Anyways,” Shy said, backing away from his dad and the reporter. “I'm happy you're good, Pop. How about I find you later. Right now I'm supposed to check in with some FBI guy.”

“Hey, Shy,” his dad said, locking eyes with him. “We did it, boy. We made it.”

“We did,” Shy said. And when he actually stopped to think about it, he got chills again. He felt proud.

Shy's dad pulled him in for another quick hug, and this time when Shy tried to push away, his old man held him for a few long seconds. When they finally separated, Shy's dad turned back to the reporter. “It's my second chance with my boy. I told him way back in Cali, everything's gonna be different now.”

Shy nodded as he slowly backed away. “It really was my pop's plan that got us over here,” he told the reporter.

Before Shy was able to duck out of the courtyard, he heard Carmen calling his name. He pretended not to hear her and kept going, but a few seconds later, she grabbed him by the arm.

“Hey,” she said, spinning him around. “Didn't you hear me calling you?”

“Oh, hey,” Shy said, acting surprised. “Actually I can't hear too good right now. I think my ears got plugged up from all that swimming last night.” He knocked the side of his head a few times, noticing an older man and woman now standing with Mr.
GQ.
The three of them looked related.

“See that guy over there?” Carmen said, pointing.

Shy nodded. “It's your boy Brad, right?”

“Brett.”

“That's what I meant—”

“I know what you meant.” Carmen crossed her arms and let out a little sigh.

“I see it's one big happy family again.”

“Shy,” Carmen started, but then she didn't say anything else.

He took a breath and told himself to chill the hell out. He'd known all along this day might be coming. And after everything they'd been through, it seemed stupid to get hung up on this one little detail. “Look,” he forced himself to say. “I'm happy for you, Carm. For real.”

“Oh yeah?”

He nodded. “But only 'cause I know
you're
happy.”

It was Carmen's turn to nod. She looked back at her man, then focused on the ground in front of her.

“Anyways,” Shy said. “I'm supposed to go talk to this FBI guy—”

“I
am
happy,” Carmen said, cutting him off. “But I also found out he basically left my family behind.”

“He told you that?”

Carmen shrugged. “Right after the earthquakes, I guess, his parents arranged for him to get helicoptered out of San Diego.” Carmen paused to smooth her reckless hair behind her ears. “My mom's place was only two blocks away. He didn't even check on them.”

“Damn,” Shy said. He wanted to sound supportive, though, so he added: “I'm sure shit was pretty messed up at that point, though, right?”

Carmen looked at her fiancé, standing there with his parents. All three of them were now watching Shy and Carmen. “Yeah,” she said, turning back to Shy. “But you know me. Family means everything.”

Shy knew.

“Look,” Carmen said, taking Shy by the wrists. “Brett and his folks have a hotel like twenty minutes away. They're letting me shower there. And I promised I'd get something to eat with them after. But can we meet here later and talk?”

Shy shrugged. He wasn't so sure Carmen would make it back.
He
wouldn't come back if he didn't have to.

Carmen looked at her fiancé again. She held up a finger and mouthed,
One minute
.

“Anyways,” Shy said. “I gotta go.”

Carmen turned back to him. “The FBI guy, right?”

She knew Shy was making stuff up. “Something like that,” he said.

“So are we
not
gonna meet up later, then? To talk?”

Shy gave another shrug. “We'll see if you actually show up.”

“Hey,” Carmen snapped. “Why you acting nasty?”

“How am I acting nasty?”

Carmen rolled her eyes. “You know how you're acting, Shy. I thought you were gonna love me no matter what.”

Shy froze.

Those were the exact words he'd shouted at her on the dirt bike. “You heard me?”

Carmen grinned. “Every single word, Sancho.”

Shy lowered his head, embarrassed.

“Anyways,” Carmen said, chuckling a little. “I'll find you later. I promise.” She turned to leave, but then spun back around, holding out her right hand.

“What?” Shy asked.

“My ring.”

Shy stared at her, confused.

“Maybe if I take my ring with me, you'll believe I'm coming back.”

Shy pulled the ring out of his pocket, butterflies stirring in his stomach. “But you said you'd never take it unless—”

“I know what I said.”

“So does this mean…?”

“Just give me the ring already,” Carmen told him. “The sooner I go, the sooner I can be back here with you. 'Cause maybe…I feel the same way.”

Shy dropped it in her palm, his brain spinning as he watched her turn and start back toward Mr.
GQ
and his parents. He felt hopeful all of a sudden. Not just about Carmen, but about everything. The wall coming down. The vaccine being distributed. The government sending teams of people into California to begin the rebuilding process.

Shy felt his empty pocket. The ring was finally with Carmen, where it belonged. But at the same time, he didn't want to leap to any conclusions before they talked. He pushed all Carmen-related thoughts out of his head and moved back over to his old man, who was still talking to the reporter.

“Hey, Pop,” Shy said. “You think you'd wanna get something to eat with me later?”

His dad glanced down at his half-eaten taco. “Sure,” he said, dropping the taco back onto his Styrofoam plate. “Yeah, that sounds great. Just come get me whenever you're ready.”

Shy turned to the reporter. “Any chance you have an extra notepad I can borrow?”

The woman smiled, pulling her satchel off her shoulder and unzipping the front pouch. “I have about
five
extra notepads, actually.” She pulled a brand-new pad out and handed it to Shy.

“Thanks,” he told her.

The woman nodded and dug back into her bag, saying: “I'm assuming you'll need a pen, too.”