5:07 P.M.
Miranda’s headache has gotten worse as her body falls deeper into withdrawal. It’s like she’s in a cartoon, like her skull’s pulsing with every beat of her heart. Javier is lying with his arm over his eyes. In the corner, Cole and Grace are talking quietly. Even if they are trading their favorite conspiracy theories, Miranda’s just glad Grace has stopped crying. Amina is hunched over her phone, her thumbs flickering.
So is Miranda. She’s answered messages from her friends. And from her mom, who’s freaking out. Miranda’s been angry at her for so long, but now that’s melted away. For the last half hour, they’ve been texting variations of “I love you” back and forth. Miranda figures if those end up being her last words, they’re pretty good ones.
She’s also been messaging with Parker. What happened a few weeks ago was both their fault. Each of them thinking they were using the other to get what they wanted. Leaving both of them with less than when they started. Afterward, Miranda tried to tell herself it had been worth it. And when she swallowed that next yellow pill, it even felt kind of true. Still, until today she has hated both herself and Parker for what happened.
Coming so close to death has helped her to let go. To forgive. To be thankful that, at least as of right now, she and the others hiding are all still alive.
And SWAT will come soon. She holds tight to the thought.
Can’t wait to get out of here, she texts Parker.
His reply comes a second later. So you can forget?
No. So I can remember.
“Who are you texting?” Javier asks. He’s taken off his apron and rolled it up and is now using it as a pillow.
“My friend Parker.” She points in the direction she thinks he is. “He’s in the Van Duyn workroom with his sister. The killers bike-locked the doors shut. He says they pulled some kind of metal gate across the open end of the hall and trapped everyone.”
Amina blows air through pursed lips. “I saw some guy in a hard hat installing that folding gate last week. I didn’t even wonder why.”
“You can do pretty much anything if you look official,” Cole says. “If you wear a lanyard and carry a clipboard, no one asks too many questions.”
A text from Matthew pops up. In her mind’s eye, Miranda sees him: sleepy blue eyes, long dark hair caught up in a man bun, a trace of stubble on his jaw. When he holds her in his muscled arms, he’s tall enough that she can tuck her head under his chin. She loves that feeling.
Where r u babe?
She was supposed to be at his apartment about a half hour ago.
Hiding in Fairgate. OK so far.
???
Haven’t you heard the news? But Matthew’s not exactly a news kind of guy. The only current events he keeps up on are the street prices for various drugs.
No.
Bunch of people shot at mall. I’m OK. 5 of us hiding in Culpeppers. SWAT coming.
r u joking?
Sadly, no.
His next text is a four-letter word, and then nothing more. Miranda waits for a declaration of love, or at least an expression of anxiety, but there is none. Maybe Matthew just can’t get in touch with his feelings.
Or maybe they don’t go much past vague annoyance at this disruption to his routine.
Despite how much her head hurts, Miranda realizes she’s seeing things more clearly than she has in months. Matthew knew the basics of what happened with Parker, but he never protested. He simply took the money Parker gave her and handed Miranda pills in return. Matthew isn’t her boyfriend, the way she’s tried to tell herself. He’s not even really a friend.
He’s her dealer. That’s the plain truth of it.
Stiffening her spine, Miranda makes herself spell everything out, literally and figuratively. If I get out of this alive, then I’m done. I don’t want to see you.
After she hits the send key, she feels lighter. Even her head feels better. As she deletes Matthew from her contacts and blocks him on everything, she tunes into Cole’s whispers to Grace.
“Who knows what’s really in immunizations? Look at all those kids with autism. That can’t be a coincidence.”
Javier lifts his arm from his face and pushes himself up on his elbows. “Do you really believe that? In Mexico, babies die because they didn’t get no immunizations.”
“You think Americans are really any better off?” Cole retorts. “It’s just not as obvious how bad things are here. Corporations like Pfizer and Monsanto are the ones actually running this country. Politicians take their millions and look the other way while they poison everything: our food, our air, our water.” His stormy gray gaze goes from one person to the next. “People need to wake up and open their eyes.”
“And what would they see?” Miranda asks.
“That people are dying.” A muscle flickers in Cole’s jaw. “Six months ago, my dad died because he ate a hamburger.”
Amina had started fiddling with the computer. Now she looks over, her eyes wide. “A hamburger? Did he choke or something?”
“No. The meat was contaminated with E. coli. None of the antibiotics worked, because the government lets factory farms use them to fatten up animals, and all the bacteria have gotten resistant. My dad died just so chickens and cows can grow a little bit faster.”
Grace gives Cole’s hand a squeeze, but he doesn’t seem to register it.
“My brothers were deployed when both my parents died, but after they got discharged they helped me see the truth. Which is that the people in charge don’t want us to know what’s really going on. But pretty soon, the government will dissolve, and FEMA’s going to start running things. And if you don’t like that idea, they’ve already got over eight hundred camps ready to send you to. They’ve even got boxcars for moving people, just like the Nazis did.”
“Okay,” Miranda says slowly. “So there’s this massive conspiracy. And no one knows about it or talks about it.”
“Right.” Cole nods. “That’s how conspiracies work.”
“So how do you know about it?”
“My brothers told me. But you can see videos of FEMA camps on YouTube.”
Cole clearly believes what he’s saying, but Miranda sees the flaw in his argument. “How come if the government’s so evil and clever, it hasn’t managed to pull the videos from YouTube?”
He raises his chin. “Maybe they would rather leave them up so that they can monitor who watches them. So they can build cases against us to say that we’re crazy and paranoid.”
Or maybe he really is crazy and paranoid. But Cole has lost both his parents. No wonder he’s angry. No wonder he sees conspiracies.
“You think this government is corrupt?” Javier takes his feet off the desk drawer and sits up. “You should try living in Mexico. If you pay enough in bribes, no one can touch you.”
Cole doesn’t appear to be listening. Instead he points at Javier’s back. Miranda follows his finger. Javier’s shirt has ridden up. Tucked into the back of his pants is a—
“You’ve got a gun!” Miranda exclaims.
Javier shakes his head. “I don’t.”
“Don’t lie!” Cole says.
Pulling it out of his waistband, Javier holds it loosely, pointing down at the floor. “It’s not a gun, dude. It’s a toy. I took off the orange tip. It only shoots BBs. Not bullets.”
“Let me see it.” Cole holds out his hand and Javier gives it to him. He hefts it, then holds it in front of him and closes one eye as he aims past them.
Even though she knows it’s fake, to Miranda the gun still looks real, heavy, and serious. “What’s the point of having a gun that isn’t real?” Miranda asks. Everyone has heard about kids gunned down by cops because they were waving around fake guns.
“Protection.”
“From what?”
“Where I live, a lot of Mexican guys my age are in a gang. You can get killed for being in the wrong gang. Three months ago, my friend got shot just because he was an Eighteenth Streeter and he ran into some Paso Robles Boyz. And this is what happened last time I said I didn’t belong to no gang.” Javier uses his hands to part his thick black hair, revealing a two-inch-long scar. “So if things go bad again”—he takes the gun back from Cole and returns it to his waistband—“this could help change their mind.”
“Or it might just make them shoot you with their own, real gun,” Cole says.
“Why don’t you go to the police?” Miranda asks.
“The police?” Javier seems genuinely puzzled. “What are they gonna do?”
“Protect you?”
“The police are there for other people. People like you. White people. People who were born here.” Amina looks up from the computer and the two of them exchange glances. “People like me? Beaners who aren’t legal? About all they want to do to people like me is deport us.”
“Look—we’re on TV.” Amina points at the computer’s screen. “At least, the mall is.”
Miranda moves closer, eager for a window into the outside world.