She barrels into me, jumping up and pawing.
But . . .
But . . .
It’s not Matty.
This is a black Lab, but it is not my black Lab.
This black Lab is younger, floppier, skinnier, and has jangly balls.
“What?” I say, trying to fend off the happy dog’s claws and slobber.
The guy walks up but doesn’t make any attempt to grab whoever this dog is.
“That’s not her,” Wyatt says.
“I’m sorry.” The guy glances around nervously. “This dog just ran up . . . I don’t know what it’s even doing in the mall. You should probably call the police or something.” His face freezes, almost comically, when he realizes what he’s just said. “I mean, never mind. I’ll just take him outside.” He grabs the crazy dog’s collar and tries to drag it away, but it breaks free and takes off for the other end of the mall, slipping and sliding on the polished floor. The guy rubs his crew cut and stares at us.
“Are you guys . . . ?”
“Goddammit,” I say, and I walk away. It’s stupid, but I follow Tuck’s path. Not only because he’s Leon’s goon, but because he appreciates a good dog and might be headed to where Matty is. She must be somewhere else.
My phone buzzes, and I check it.
Not at stage. Decoy dog. WTH? Wyatt’s number, sent to me, my dad, and Chance. I didn’t even notice him texting as he trailed me.
Not at Mr. Goodbuy or Nickel’s. Running out of options, my dad texts back.
not @ plyfround. i dont even know whr iam. From Chance. Of course.
The mall is laid out like a giant cross, a two-storied X with one long arm that I’m currently walking down. My dad checked upstairs. We checked the stage and the Santa setup.
But was my dad checking for Matty upstairs, or just looking for Leon?
“Goddammit!” I take off running for the escalator, which is frozen into stairs.
Laughter rings from overhead, and I look up to find dozens of faces.
“Well, that was a charming scene,” yells Leon Crane.
This is what I get for trusting my dad to take care of business.
As we run, bullets ping off the marble behind us. Clearly, no one is trying to kill us, because we’d be dead. Whatever Leon has up his sleeve, he wants us alive for this next part.
Or at least he wants me alive.
Somewhere, a dog barks, and I don’t know if it’s Matty or the fake dog, but I have to run faster. I don’t think as I sprint past dozens of wrapped packages and up the escalator with Wyatt panting by my side, a trail of lazy bullets in our wake. As we barrel upstairs, a bullet hits the glass wall of the escalator, and it cracks into a spiderweb but doesn’t break. When I reach the solid floor, I see an audience of janitors in jumpsuits just like mine. Some are clearly Crane goons, laughing, with automatic rifles slung across their chests and pistols in hand. Some are nobodies, nameless members of this perverted cell of the Citizens for Freedom, coerced and forced and led into doing whatever Leon Crane wants, whether or not it’s actually helping the fight against Valor. Like the guy with the crew cut downstairs, they look confused, like they’re not sure why they’re here or who they’re rooting for. Among them are the kids from the shooting range who didn’t join our little group, and they look like they just got back from war.
This audience is definitely not rooting for me.
“Well, step right up, Miss Patsy. Let’s have us a little chat.”
Leon Crane sits on a big gold package wearing a jumpsuit identical to mine. A shotgun rests across his knees, and he’s smiling, as my mom would say, like a possum. With this many guns pointed at me, I’ve got nowhere to run, so I throw my shoulders back, stick out my chin, and walk up to him with my hands in my pockets and Wyatt right behind me. My fingers tighten around the grip of my gun, and I give him a smug grin.
“I thought I blew you up,” I say.
He tips his head. “And I look forward to returning the favor. Now, if you’ll stop squeezing that Valor gun in your pocket and gently place it on the ground between us, I’d be most obliged.”
My smile dies. “What gun?”
At least a dozen more guns point at me.
“Guess,” Leon says. He flops his gun toward Wyatt. “His, too.”
Without my gun, I have nothing. But full of holes, I have even less.
I start to pull it out, and Leon whips out his own Glock, saying, “Oh, careful. Trigger fingers can get mighty sweaty. They taught us trigger discipline in the army. You ever learn trigger discipline?”
I show him my gun, my finger nowhere near the trigger. “I’m a little more into trigger anarchy.” Slowly, carefully, I put it on the ground. Every second, I’m one twitch away from shooting him anyway and taking the punishment of dying in a hail of bullets. But if I go, Wyatt goes too. I can’t do that to him. Maybe I deserve it, but he doesn’t.
“Now kick those guns a little closer to me. Gentle as a light breeze, you hear?”
Our two black guns twirl across the tile. When Leon tosses his head, a Crane goon more nimble than Tuck hurries over and collects them. The box under Leon rustles and barks excitedly. What kind of an asshole sits on someone’s dog like this?
“That’s better.” Leon resettles himself on the box. “Now, where were we? Oh, yeah.” He leans forward, eyes burning. “You blew up my family’s house. And several of my aunts.”
Inside, I feel like I’m going to fly apart. Outside, I shrug and say, “. . . sorry?”
He ignores it.
“Now, normally, I could forgive that sort of transgression. I never did like my aunt Kitty. But . . . well, let’s see. Your boy there gave one of my boys a concussion and left him to die on a simple wipe job.” He jabs a finger at Wyatt. “Now, son, don’t you even draw breath to tell me that’s not what happened, because he remembers. Then y’all shot several of my tech boys in a trailer for stealing your Pop-Tarts.” Now he aims his finger at me. “And then you disappeared into the woods with my childhood best friend and the best hacker this side of the Pacific, killing three more of my cousins on the way. I’m guessing you ended up killing Jacky, considering he has such a smart goddamn mouth. And then, after all that, you went . . .” He stands and strides over to poke me in the chest with tattooed fingers. “You went and blew up my goddamn house! And when you add it all together like that, it’s un-fucking-forgivable.” His face is red up to the roots of his hair, and he purses his lips as if he’s thinking about hitting me in the face until I don’t have a nose, but I do not turn away. “Normally, I would just shoot you and be done with it, but I spent too much time torturing hostiles to let you die that easy. And I know how to hurt you most.”
He makes his hands into fists, opens them, and returns to sitting on his box. “But you are an elegant force of destruction, and I can still use you, so I will give you one more chance to do the right thing. Now, I am a simple patriot leading these good people in a righteous fight against the real bad guy here, and that bad guy is a bank that calls itself Valor.” He picks his gun back up, points it at me, and cocks it. “You’re either fighting on my side, or you are against me. So which side do you choose, Patsy? Mine, or Valor’s?”
“She’s on my side,” my dad says, stepping around the corner.
He shoots Leon Crane in the chest.