No Safety in Numbers (18 page)

“I’m Shaila Dixit,” she said, holding out her free hand.

Mike shook it. “A little formal,” he said. He looked at Ryan, smiled, and let go of her hand. “But any friend of Ryan’s is a pal of mine.”

“Dude,” Drew said, “tell him. We have ten minutes.”

Mike gave Shay the once-over again, then pulled them both into a corner. “We caught up with some boosters who saw the game Sunday,” he said. “They’re planning an escape through the garage. You in?”

Ryan’s first thought was,
Yes, of course
. But then he remembered that escaping would mean leaving Shay, maybe forever. He hadn’t even known her full name until she’d said it moments before. How would he ever find her again?

“Come with us,” Ryan said, taking her other hand.

“I can’t leave without my grandmother and sister.”
Shay seemed suddenly more nervous, like she’d just remembered that she had a grandmother and sister.

“Fine,” Mike said. “Bring the old lady and the sister. If she’s cute she can ride in my car.”

“She’s ten,” Shay said, frowning.

Ryan squeezed Shay’s hands. He didn’t want her to frown. “Meet me in the parking garage,” he said. “Promise?”

Shay smiled again and Ryan had to press his lips to hers, drink her in before she was gone. It was like kissing a star: He felt her light inside him.

She pulled away, slowly. “I’ll be there as soon as I find them.” She squeezed his hands and ran down the hall toward the escalator.

“Let’s move,” Mike said, pushing Ryan toward the elevator.

There was a little TV screen in the elevator, which someone had tuned to the local news station. As the three rode to the parking garage level, the news lady yakked about nothing.

“We have former police chief Patrick MacNeil in the studio. Is it true, Chief MacNeil, that given the length of the confinement and blackout of communication from inside the mall that this is not a hostage situation, but more likely a dirty bomb, and, if so, is there any danger for the surrounding community?”

The feed cut out.

“What the…?” Drew said, banging on the screen.

The elevator reached the parking level. The doors opened and the screen switched to say “Have a Nice Day!”

“Must have just been that channel,” Ryan said.

“First the phones, now the news,” Mike said. “You see a pattern?”

“Shit,” Drew said. “A fucking bomb.”

“It won’t matter once we get out of here,” Mike said, stepping into the gloom of the parking garage.

Three older guys, some who looked older than Ryan’s dad, stood under a fluorescent light near a red Suburban. Mike walked up to one and shook his hand.

“Mr. Reynolds,” Mike said, “this is Ryan Murphy, the kid I was telling you about.”

Mr. Reynolds had slick silver hair and a tanned face. “Saw you play Sunday,” he said. “Fierce like your brother, eh?”

“Yes, sir,” Ryan said.

Something about Mr. Reynolds’s smile and the way he said
fierce,
as if anything less than fierce was wussy, made Ryan nervous.

“What’s the play?” Drew asked, smacking his fist into his hand, which was Drew’s “ready” pose.

Mr. Reynolds patted the side of the Suburban. “This here is the play.”

The plan was to get as far from the main exit ramp as possible, then gun the Suburban’s engine and fly into the metal-mesh security gate that had been pulled over the parking garage’s opening. The mesh was covered over on the outside by what looked like a giant garbage bag. Mr. Reynolds figured that the gate couldn’t stand up to a beating from his truck. He expected to blow through it and drive his way to freedom.

Ryan glanced at the central pavilion, where the escalators to the first floor were. How long would it take Shay?

“Are we all riding in the Suburban?” one of the other men asked. He glanced at a nice Audi coupe parked two aisles over. “I’d hate to leave her here.”

“No, we caravan,” Mr. Reynolds said. “I checked out all the windows I could find to gather intel on what we’d face beyond the doors. There are only a couple of police cars on the mall grounds, aside from the big tent where those medical guys in the suits are working. But it’s the wall they’ve built around the grounds that I’m worried about. They’ve got a perimeter established to keep the press back.

“If we’re in a couple of cars going through the gate, though, we can split up on the outside. With more targets, they’ll have a harder time stopping any one of us. I think that’s our best shot at getting out.”

The plan sounded solid—excitement buzzed through Ryan. He checked the pavilion. Still empty.

The men began to split up.

Mike pulled out a set of keys. “Let’s move, J. Shrimp.”

“Shay’s not here yet,” Ryan said.

Drew smacked the back of Ryan’s head. “Dude, it’s now or never.”

Mike sighed. “You can wait for her while I get the car,” he said, “but if she’s not here by the time I get back, you’ve got to let her go.” He loped across the pavement toward his car, which beeped as he pressed a button on his key ring. Drew followed, calling shotgun.

Ryan stared at the pavilion, willing Shay to appear.
Please, god, let her come with us.
He saw feet on the escalator. His heart leaped. But it was just some old dude. He stepped out and walked to a sedan parked nearby.

Mike pulled in front of Ryan. “Time to man up, J. Shrimp,” he said through the open window.

“She’s coming,” Ryan said. Had the kiss been too much? Had he scared her off?

Drew stepped out of the passenger door and pushed forward his seat. “Get in before I have to drag your ass over here.”

Ryan checked his watch. It’d been twenty minutes. She might still be coming.

Drew grabbed his arm and pulled him to the passenger door. “Forget the bitch,” he said, shoving Ryan into the back.

Ryan glanced one more time at the empty pavilion as Mike’s car revved down the aisle and pulled up behind the Audi. They had to move quickly; Mr. Reynolds was afraid the engine noise would attract attention. Their cars were started; they had to do it or give up. Mr. Reynolds didn’t seem like the kind of man to give up on anything.

For those brief moments, as the cars grumbled near the wall, Ryan felt the full extent of the insanity of this plan as an urgent need to pee. He had to get out of that car and use a bathroom. He needed to think about this—they were planning on driving at full speed
on purpose
into a wall!

But then the Suburban lurched and squealed down the road between the parked cars. Mike floored it and the M3 bolted after the Audi. Ryan’s heart raced; exhilaration at the sheer speed of their attack flooded through him. He remembered, in the last second, that he hadn’t buckled his seat belt and reached for the strap. The seat belt locked just before the Suburban hit the gate.

Ryan had not been prepared for what happened next: Complete and total failure.

The Suburban smashed into the gate, but the gate held. It must have been reinforced on the outside by something incredibly strong—the metal-mesh didn’t move an inch.

The back end of Mr. Reynolds’s truck shot up into the air, then bounced down hard. The Audi squealed out of the way and flipped over, rolling into a parked minivan. Mike managed to veer off course down an aisle and slammed on the brakes. Ryan was thrown forward, but was held against the leather of the seat by his belt. Mike too remained seated. Drew, however, had not put on his belt; he slammed into the windshield, spiderwebbing the glass.

“Dude!” Mike said, pulling Drew back into his seat.

Drew put his hand to his head. “It’s cool,” he said. He lifted his hand, removing a splinter of glass from his scalp. Blood trickled down his face.

Mike punched him in the arm. “I always tell you to put your fucking belt on!” He sounded scared.

Ryan felt tingly all over, like maybe he’d been tossed from his own body. But he was all right. By some small miracle, they were all okay.

A cop came running toward them. “Anyone hurt?” he asked, breathing hard. He must have run the whole way down.

“No, sir,” Mike said. He spoke in a quiet voice Ryan had never heard him use before.

The cop ran toward the Audi and Suburban without so much as a nod good-bye. An arm hung off the side of the Suburban’s hood—they were not all okay.

Other people rushed out of the central pavilion. Ryan guessed the noise from the crash had spooked the whole mall.

Several guards broke out of the crowd. A few stood in front of the onlookers, keeping them from getting any closer. The rest ran past the M3 to the other cars. They dragged Mr. Reynolds out of his Suburban. Some hazmat guys rushed by pushing a gurney.

The guards knocked together a jail from some fencing material brought down from the HomeMart. Ryan, Mike, Drew, and the Audi guy were tossed into the cages. After being released from the medical ward, Mr. Reynolds joined them. His neck was in a brace. The guy who’d been riding with Mr. Reynolds was in critical condition.

“It’ll be all right, boys,” Mr. Reynolds said as the guard closed the gate on his cell. “I’ll figure a way to get us out of this. No way I’m taking part in this government-run experiment.”

“I’ll bust a skull before I let them suck out my DNA,” Mike growled.

All Ryan could think was that he was lucky to be alive. And even if he was in jail, he was also still in the mall. Maybe Shay would find him, help to get him out. With her, such things felt possible. He leaned against the fence, pulled out her book, and pretended she was there reading with him.

WEDNESDAY

T
he glare of Lights On burned through Lexi’s eyelids. She felt as if she were made of mist; she hadn’t gotten much in the way of sleep. From the sound of it, Ginger hadn’t slept much either. The throw pillow pile in JCPenney was more comfortable than the cement floor of the Apple Store, but last night’s CB call had changed something. Suddenly the divide between them and everyone outside seemed insurmountable.

She’d hidden the portable CB under the bottom shelf against the wall. No one would find it there; even vacuums had forgotten that particular span of floor, judging from the herd of dust bunnies wafting around.