Flying (15 page)

“And why are we here again?” I ask.

“Supplies and intel. Plus, I have to check in—in person—every week while working the field.”

The door slams shut. We watch him amble-hustle, which you wouldn't think would be possible, across the parking lot. He leaves footprints in the snow and opens a marked-up door in the back of the building. The door was white once, I guess, but now it's just dingy. A giant black dirt mark shaped like a crescent moon marks the center of the door.

Lyle unclicks his seat belt and stretches out, groaning. His long, thick-muscled legs don't have quite enough room to stretch.

“God,” he says. “What the hell are we doing here?”

I shiver. The truck is already getting cold. I repeat what China just told us. “Intel. Supplies. Check in?”

I unclick my seat belt and edge away from Lyle so we aren't smooshed together anymore. It feels good to move my body, but not good to be a few more inches away from him. This, I realize, is sort of pathetic.

“You believe this guy?” Lyle asks, picking up his gun from the rubber mat on the floor.

“China? Yes. Sort of. I'm not sure. Why wouldn't they back up names? How long does it actually take to get enough evidence to convince a president? His story doesn't seem right, really, you know?”

“I know.” Lyle opens the glove compartment and starts pulling out papers. “I think he's only giving us half the truth. A chip is so cliché, you know? Like a bad movie plot from uninspired writers. It's got to be more than that. There must be some kind of detail that connects more directly to your mom.”

I wrap my hand around his wrist. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to find some evidence. Factual, indisputable evidence. I believe him partially, but I don't know if I trust him.” Lyle reads the registration for the truck. He sucks in his breath. “This truck belongs to your mom.”

I snatch the yellow paper away. “What?”

“It's right there.”

I read it.

Mom's name.

“I didn't know she had a truck,” I whisper.

“Seems like you kind of didn't know a lot about your mom.”

I let this brilliant statement settle in, and my head starts aching, right in the center, like thoughts about my mother are just pain-inducing right now. So I say, “How pissed is your mom?”

“Beyond pissed.” Lyle sighs. “I'm grounded for eternity and never allowed to see you again.”

“That's going to make cheering a little hard.” I unzip my bag, pull out the pretzel container and get us two to munch on, then shove the container back in. I hug the bag to my chest and munch. It makes me think of my mom, eating these pretzels. For a second, I worry that they will be the last things she ever makes me.

No. I will not think that way. I am going to get her back.

“Thanks,” Lyle says. He bites the pretzel and thinks for a second. “She also wants you to put the baby up for adoption.”

I choke. “What?”

“She wants you to put our baby up for adoption.”

“Lyle. We do not have a baby.”

“I know.” He wiggles his eyebrows pretty lasciviously.

“We haven't had sex,” I insist.

“Believe me, I know that, too.”

Fear overwhelms me. “Wait. Do I seem pregnant?”

“A little bulky right now…” He eyes all my clothes.

I hit him. “Shut up. It's cold.”

His pretzel stick dangles out of his mouth. “I know you're not pregnant, Mana. It's my mom we're talking about here. I'm sorry she's so … so…”

“Nonsensical? Lyle.” I point my pretzel stick at him. “Your mom thinks I am pregnant, and we haven't even kissed, let alone made the funky vertical monkey.”

“Believe me. I know. I'd remember that.” He makes this awkward laugh noise and starts shuffling around, fidgeting, checking everything out. He pulls an M&M's wrapper out of the glove compartment. “Your mom likes M&M's?”

I touch the dangling metal key that could turn the heat back on. “No. It must be China.”

“He's weird.”

“You just don't like him because he's cute for an old guy with bossiness issues.”

“Right, if you think men who grunt are attractive.”

“He does not grunt.”

“Sure, he does. ‘Ugh. Ugh. We go here. You stay in truck. Me no kill you,'” Lyle mocks.

I start cracking up. Lyle keeps doing it and I double over, laughing hard. I snort.

Lyle points. “You snorted.”

This makes him lose it. We're both doubled over, hee-hawing and snorting, until he holds my hand and goes, “It's not that funny.”

The laughter makes the words difficult. “I know.”

We keep laughing. And it isn't. It's not that funny. But it is, you know, because it is funny-bizarre-weird that all of this is happening. It's funny-bizarre-weird that yesterday morning I thought my world and
the
world were all safe and sane and understandable, and now … now? Now, it is so far from that. Now, it's a mess of wonder and fear and heartbeats accelerating into overdrive. Now, it's some bad sci-fi movie/TV show that doesn't have commercial breaks or a script.

So I laugh.

I laugh and I laugh, leaning away from Lyle, leaning into myself, doubled up, because that is the only way that I can deal with this right now.

I laugh.

And while I'm laughing, the truck door flies open and horrible reaches in.

 

CHAPTER 10

Hands lunge into the cab of the truck, yanking at us, and suddenly we're not hyena laughing or pig snorting anymore. In less than a second, my elbow scrapes by the steering wheel. Someone is physically dragging me out into the cold air.

“Mana!” Lyle reaches for me. But this monster-large bald man with a goatee and a lot of metal in his lip hauls Lyle out backwards. Lyle's legs scrabble to find footing.

My legs must do the same, but I'm lighter, so the man who has me just keeps me smooshed back against his smelly leather jacket. It's all dead cow and body odor.

“Let me go,” I order him.

“You're a little wildcat, aren't you?”

“Wildcat?” For God's sake, really? “How freaking sexist are you? Women are not cats. Or dogs. Or animals of any kind. But thank you for at least making me not domesticated.”

My feet kick backwards. They connect with leg. My captor drops me and I land on the balls of my feet, just like after a stunt dismount, then whirl around to face a big—really big—okay, monster-sized man. A mullet haircut only adds to his air of disgusting evil. A giant dragon has been inked around his neck. His eyes narrow.

“Uh-oh,” I mutter. “Hiss? Meow?”

He reaches out to seize me again. I dive away, pivoting, and bomb back into the truck. Throwing the door shut, I flick it locked just as he lunges.

“Lyle!”

I turn the damn truck back on. The engine roars to life.

Beefy-faced mullet man smashes his fist against the window. “What are you doing here?”

His voice is high like a sparrow's. Yes, now
I
just compared
him
to an animal. It almost makes me laugh. Almost.

Lyle is still trying to twist away from Baldy, but the guy has him in a stranglehold. The guy's arm wraps around Lyle's neck as Lyle flails. I swear, the arm is the same circumference as a freaking tree trunk.

Lyle starts choking.

The other guy keeps pounding on my window. I lunge across the seat and point the gun at Baldy.

“Do not tell me I have to save you,” I say to Lyle.

He gasps for breath. His eyes bug out.

I hold the gun up and yell, “Step away from the boy!”

Baldy loosens up his grip, just a little, but doesn't let go. Lyle glares at me. His mouth tightens into a mean, angry line, and it takes me a second to figure out why.

“The man. Step away from the man.” I mouth “Sorry” to Lyle.

Baldy nods toward my gun. He actually laughs. “You wouldn't.”

Beefy Face starts quick-walking around to the front of the truck. I have no time.

“Fine,” I say.

I point the gun down at the feet of the big idiot who is holding Lyle. I hope the safety is off. My fingers squeeze the trigger. The noise is massive, fireworks in my ear. Pain from the reverb shoots up my arm and into my shoulder. My whole body bounces backwards from the force. I don't see where the bullet goes, but Lyle is hurtling into the truck next to me, yanking the passenger's side door shut behind him.

“Go, Mana!” he yells right into my ear, but I can barely hear him. “Go!”

I am basically standing on the accelerator trying to speed away. We lurch forward, finally gaining traction on the snow-covered ground. The truck zooms across the parking lot. Flakes smash against the windshield. Then I realize it: these guys might know something about Mom. I yank the wheel all the way to the right and hold it there.

Lyle braces himself against the dashboard as the truck turns a mighty doughnut in the snow. It squeals and fishtails, just a bit. Nothing huge. I swear.

Poor Lyle is screaming at me as I aim the truck straight for the guys. “What are you doing?”

“They're our only link,” I grunt, trying to keep the big truck under control.

“Link?”

“To my mom.”

He disagrees. “China's our link.”

He doesn't get it. China is just one guy, hopefully on our side, but kind of in the dark about where my mother actually is. These guys are the enemy. The enemy is usually much more knowledgeable about the actual location of kidnapped mothers. It would take too long to explain.

“Whatever. The more links the better.” I slam my foot on the brake. The truck pitches. “I'm going to make them tell me where my mother is.”

I jam the stick into Park, take Lyle's gun, and hop out. The two guys stand. They stare. One guy is balanced on one leg, holding his foot. I must have actually got him. I cannot believe I shot someone. My stomach lurches. I ignore it. I'll be tough.

“You jerks going to tell me where my mom is, or am I going to shoot you?” I ask. Then I wink at the man doing an impersonation of a flamingo, only not so feathered or pink. “Again.”

Beefy Face glares at me and crosses his arms over his chest. “I think you're bluffing.”

“You think wrong,” I say.

Lyle touches my elbow, probably remembering my pacifist tendencies. And yes, my hand trembles, but whatever. “Mana…”

“You want me to prove I'm not bluffing?” I ask, pointing the gun at Baldy and then at Beefy Face, slowly, deliberately. “Because I will prove it. Which one of you guys wants to be the proof?”

I feel like a bad rip-off of some old western, but it works, I think. Nobody moves. The wind blows the snow sideways now. It flashes between us, swirls in the air past our faces, seeming so clean.

Beefy Face says, “Your hand is shaking.”

I point the gun at him. “I'm thinking
you
, because, one, you're criticizing a woman with a gun; two, all your toes are still there; and three, it wouldn't be that fair to shoot Baldy again. A shot to the foot can do a lot of damage. There are bones in there. Or there were, until I blew them out.”

Baldy cringes.

“I'm sorry,” I babble. “I know ‘Baldy' is offensive, but I don't know your names.”

“Pronouns are so impersonal,” Lyle agrees. His body tenses up, and he's pretty focused, like he gets right before a tough stunt or a killer tumbling run.

Baldy and Beefy Face glance at each other.

Baldy says, “I'm Brian.”

Beefy Face says, “Aaron.”

“Their names rhyme,” I mutter.

Lyle lets out a disgruntled sigh. “Figures. Villains are like that.”

“We aren't the bad guys,” Baldy Brian says. A muscle near his eye twitches. “You two are the bad guys.”

Lyle and I glance at each other and burst out laughing.

“
We
are not the aliens,” I say. “
We
don't drag people out of trucks.
We
don't kidnap people.”

Beefy Face Aaron snorts and takes a step closer. “What? We're the aliens? Is that what you're trying to say?”

“Not necessarily—” Lyle starts.

“Yes,” I interrupt.

“But you could be in cahoots with the aliens,” Lyle finishes.

Baldy Brian bounces on his good foot, trying to stay balanced. “Cahoots?”

He lunges as he says it—dives, really, right for me. I twist away, trying to escape, but he tackles me despite my efforts. His shoulder smacks my side, and just like that, I'm down. My knees and hands hit the freezing concrete first. The gun skitters out of my hand and slides across the parking lot. Beefy Face Aaron snatches it up.

“Mana!” Lyle's trying to yank Baldy Brian off of me.

“Enough!” Beefy Face yells. “Everybody up.”

We all haul ourselves back into standing positions. Two wet circles darken the knees of my jeans. Scrapes redden my hands and there's a little blood in the snow. Shaking from fear and pain and adrenaline, I am completely and totally annoyed at myself.

“I cannot believe I dropped the gun.” I cross my arms in front of my stomach, which threatens to explode.

“It's okay,” Lyle says. He puts an arm around my shoulder. “I would've dropped it, too.”

“Really? Are you just saying that to make me feel—”

“Enough,” Baldy Brian says again. He points at Lyle, which is kind of insulting, if you think about it, because I'm the one who had the gun before. You'd think there would be some reciprocal gun pointing going on. Why is Lyle considered more worthy of the gun point? Probably because he's a guy. I hate that.

“Let's bring them in,” Beefy Face Aaron says, pushing me forward toward the back of the store. Old mattresses lean up against the back wall. A couple of ratty tires are propped up next to them. Broken glass litters the parking lot, half hidden beneath the new layer of snow. I bet rodents love it here.