Grace Eleanor Skinner fears death as much as anyone else. She fears pain even more. Once, a long time ago, Argie had made her go up to the high-dive platform while they were on vacation. She had squandered her willpower, mustering the guts for waterslides and such, but once she had made the climb to the ten-meter platform, she found herself weak. The pool below looked small and very far away. Hitting the water would hurt. As she stood on the edge, toes curled on the concrete lip, Argie had heckled her from down below.
“Don’t be a stupid wimp, Gracie,” he yelled for all to hear. “Don’t think about it—just jump.”
Behind her, others were getting impatient.
“Gracie, jump already! You’re making everyone mad!” In the end, Grace had backed away and gone down the ladder in shame.
That’s what this feels like today. Only now the threat is far more real. Argie’s words from that day come back to her. Don’t think about it—just jump. She follows the advice this time.
She pushes open the cellar door and bursts forth into the light of day. This is a game, she tells herself. I win games.
There are sharpshooters in the yard, but they don’t see her at first. Their rifles are trained on the house, and the cellar is at the far back of the yard. They haven’t gone in yet. The force is still positioning.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” she yells, running out into the weedy yard, pulling the sharpshooters’ attention. Immediately all the rifles turn to her. She doesn’t think they’re loaded with tranqs.
“Don’t shoot,” she says again. “It’s this way. He’s over here. Don’t shoot!”
“On the ground!” one of the sharpshooters orders. “On the ground now!”
But no. Rule one—never allow capture unless it gives you an advantage.
“This way! Follow me!” She turns around, hands still flailing in the air as she runs back to the cellar. She half expects to be shot, but the other half wins; they don’t fire. She races down the stairs into the cellar and waits. In a moment, the sharpshooters are there, covering one another, aiming at her and into the dim light of the cellar like soldiers in hostile territory. Although her heart feels like its exploding and she wants to scream, she says calmly, “You don’t need guns. He’s unarmed.”
The marksmen still hold their ground, covering for an officer in a suit who follows them down the stairs.
“I knew it was a bad idea,” Grace tells him. “I told Argie, but he wouldn’t listen.”
The officer sizes Grace up quickly, dismissively, just as everyone does. He guesses she’s low-cortical and pats her shoulder. “You’ve done a good thing, miss.”
More officers come into the cellar, making it crowded.
The figure tied to the pole is limp and semiconscious. The lead officer grabs his hair to lift his head and looks into his face.
“Who the hell is this?”
“My brother, Argent,” Grace says. “I told him not to steal all this stuff from the supermarket. I told him he’d be in big trouble. I knocked him out and tied him up. I had to hurt him, see, so he wouldn’t get shot. He’s not resisting, right? So you’ll go easy on him, won’t you? Won’t you? Tell me you’ll go easy on him!”
The officer is no longer kind to Grace. Instead he glares at her. “Where’s Lassiter?”
“Who?”
“Connor Lassiter!” Then he pulls out the picture of Argent with the Akron AWOL that he must have downloaded off the net.
“Oh, that? Argie made that up on the computer. It was a gag for his friends. Looks real, don’t it?”
The other officers look to one another. The lead man is not pleased in the least. “I’m supposed to believe that?”
Grace shakes her brother’s shoulder. “Argie, tell them.”
Grace waits. Argie might have a lot of faults, but he’s pretty good at self-preservation. Like Conner said, “aiding and debating”—or whatever it’s called—is a serious crime. But only if you get caught.
Argent glares at Grace through his blood-clouded eyes. He radiates a sibling hatred that could kill if it were set free. “It’s the truth,” he growls. “Gag photo. For my friends.”
It’s not what the officer wants to hear. The other men chuckle behind his back.
“All right,” he says, trying to seize what’s left of his authority. “Untie him and get him to a hospital—and go through the house anyway. Find the original file. I want that picture analyzed.”
Then they cut Argie’s ropes and haul him out. He doesn’t complain, doesn’t resist, and he doesn’t look at Grace.
After the others leave, one of the local deputies lingers, looking around at the stockpile of food. “He stole all this huh?”
“You still gonna arrest him?”
The deputy actually laughs. “Not today, Gracie.”
Now she recognizes him as a man she went to school with. She recalls he used to tease her, but he seems to have mellowed—or at least redirected his bad into good.
“Thank you, Joey,” she says, remembering his name, or at least hoping she remembered it right.
Grace thinks he’s going to leave, but he takes a second look around at the stockpiles of emergency supplies. “That’s an awful lot of potatoes.”
Gracie hesitates and shrugs. “So? Potatoes is potatoes.”
“Sometimes they are, and sometimes they’re not.” Then he pulls out his pistol, keeping his eyes trained on the large pile of potato sacks. “Out of the way, Gracie.”