Charlie sped home to retrieve the bracelet. He would unwind this. His original sin was the bracelet. He didn’t know if the Game thought it was wrong or right to buy that bracelet with stolen funds, but he knew in his heart that it was wrong to him. He would fix it. Then the Vindicators could all quit, together.
His dad was there, right when he walked in the door. Fuck, he should’ve climbed the trellis. “I’m glad you’re home, Charlie. It’s been a rough day. My loan got denied. Can you believe that? They said I was a credit risk. It’s ridiculous.”
“Dad,” Charlie snapped. “Just for once, can you be the adult?”
His dad stopped midstream and just stared at him.
“I have things in my life,” Charlie said. “It’s not just about you.”
He pushed past him and went up the stairs. He pulled the bracelet from under his mattress and packed it back into the silver box. His phone buzzed the moment he started his car.
He knew what it would be before he looked.
A warning. Because the Game was always a step ahead. It said:
Don’t
He ignored it. So now he knew, the Game wanted him to have the bracelet, or at least not to return it. Fuck the Game. He stepped on the gas and headed for the mall.
The phone buzzed again along the way. He glanced at it.
Turn around now.
He ignored it again.
As he exited the highway, the phone warned:
Last chance.
Charlie didn’t care. He took West Opal to Carrington, then turned left.
The phone said:
100 Blaxx
Then, as he pulled onto Dayton, it said:
500 Blaxx
He turned off McEwen into the mall’s parking lot.
It was dark, most of the postwork shoppers having gone home.
Charlie imagined the awful lady with the arched eyebrows and silk scarf smiling at him victoriously. She’d won round one (Are you sure you’re in the right place, honey? those eyebrows had asked). He’d won round two, no question (Nine hundred dollars, huh? Do you accept … cash?). And she hadn’t even been there to see it. But now round three was going to hurt. He knew it, and it made a bitter taste in the back of his mouth. But that was fine. He’d rather do right and rise or fall on his own merits. The days of cutting corners were over. He was who he was, and he wasn’t going to fake it or cheat anymore. If the lady with the shitty eyebrows thought that made him lower than scum, so be it. Charlie would take the cash refund, give it anonymously to the Salvation Army, and start fresh.
His phone said:
2000 Blaxx.
He hustled through the dark parking lot toward the yellow square of light from the east doors, their sliding glass panels, making his way toward the next pool of lamplight in the dim lot when a figure came from nowhere and brought a hard object down across Charlie’s thigh. The shape moved quickly. Was he a man or a boy or what? The way he appeared out of the shadows with a wool mask over his face, it was too dark to see his eyes. Charlie hit the ground, his leg buckling under him from the blow. He fell before the pain even registered, but when it did, it was a spiderweb of hot wires radiating out from the site of the impact. He broke the fall with his shoulder and felt an explosion of pain there, too.
Charlie rolled onto his back and saw the stars breaking from behind the clouds, moon wide and low in the sky. The figure was on top of Charlie, dropping an object that sounded like a bat and using his free hands to riffle through Charlie’s jacket pockets. Finding nothing, he moved to his jeans, and Charlie gathered his strength and fought back. The form put a knee into Charlie’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him, then hit him once hard on the side of the head. The stars above blurred into twins and refocused. The form went through Charlie’s jeans, finding his wallet and throwing it aside without even looking for cash. The he found the box with the bracelet in Charlie’s front pocket, as Charlie tried to raise his head and felt everything blur again. He let his head set down gently and closed his eyes, trying to gather his strength. The pavement was cold against his head.
He felt the box slide out of his pocket, and suddenly the weight was off him as the figure stood, one leg on either side of Charlie, checking his find.
What gave Charlie strength was the horrible thought that popped into his head. The object that hit his leg, the hollow wooden sound of it dropping to the concrete. A bat. It had to be a bat. Would Alex do this? Who was under that mask? Would Alex take the same bat he used to smash Mr. B.’s car and smash his own friend with it? Had the Game taken Alex that far? Charlie had to know if it was him.
The figure was satisfied and began running off, bat in hand, toward the bend in the parking lot that wrapped around to the far side of the mall, out of sight.
Charlie pulled himself up, propelled by adrenaline, and took off after him.
The man jumped a bed of shrubs and disappeared around the corner. Charlie jumped it, too, and made the turn, toward an inlet of the lot against the high concrete wall of the mall, no doors or windows here, just a dark triangle of cars and spaces. Charlie pushed harder and began to close on him. Charlie’s leg was aching but he stuffed the pain away, and when his gut told him to, he made a final leap and took the person down. They hit the ground together and Charlie rolled over on top of him. He wrestled furiously to get free, thrashing against Charlie’s weight and tearing at his hands and face. Charlie gritted his teeth, pressed his knee deeper into the guy’s chest, then ripped the ski mask upward.
The face under the mask wasn’t Alex’s. It wasn’t anyone Charlie knew. He couldn’t put an exact age on him, but he was somewhere between eighteen and twenty-five, looking like a clerk at Best Buy or an adult-toy shop. He had pale skin and patches of wispy beard on his cheeks.
“Who are you?” Charlie shouted at him.
The guy stared back, looking frightened and angry.
“Are you playing the Game?” Charlie yelled.
“What the fuck, man?” the guy shouted back, and tried to fight free.
Then something burst into Charlie’s stomach, knocking him sidelong. The guy had found his bat and shoved it hard into Charlie’s gut.
Charlie tasted grit in his mouth and rolled onto his hands, lifting himself up, but he was kicked in the side and rolled over again, moaning. The breath went out of him and the sodium lamps over the parking lot phased in and out as if a dimmer switch were on reality. The guy stood over him, waiting to see if Charlie was down for good.
He was. He moaned and let himself lie flat. The figure seemed satisfied he could leave without being followed.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, before running away.