Nothing to Lose (16 page)

But I was already hurt. My head throbbed. Something warm and wet trickled into my right eye.
Blood
, I thought. I peered around and saw movement in the gloom. It was the smaller of the two thieves, the one who had my backpack. He came back to where we were, took the gun—it sure looked real—from the guy who was holding me, and pointed it at Morgan. For once in her life, Morgan seemed to have her sarcasm under control. The guy with the gun said something in Chinese to the guy whose hand was pressed over my mouth.

“If you cry out, they'll find us,” the bigger of the two said. “If they find us, they will kill us. All of us.”

They?
Who were they?

My eyes were slowly getting used to the darkness, which was tempered somewhat by the light filtering through a small, grimy window set high in the wall. There was Morgan to my right. And then there were our two assailants. The first one, small and slight, was wearing my sweater and clutching the gun. My backpack was on the floor at his feet. The second one, much taller and, judging from his grip on me, much stronger, was the Chinese guy who had pushed us through the opening. The little guy whispered something to the big guy. The big guy kept his hand firmly over my mouth—there was going to be a bruise—as he jerked me away from the window.

“If you cry out, you will die,” he whispered. “Do you understand?”

I nodded with an exaggerated movement so that he wouldn't mistake my answer. Slowly, carefully, he removed his hand.

“Move back there with your friend,” he said. “No talking.”

I went to Morgan, who was standing with her back against a brick wall. Her eyes were focused on the gun, which the little guy passed to the big guy. The little guy whispered something. That's when I caught it. I don't know why I hadn't made the connection before. The smaller one's voice was soft, almost musical, like a girl's voice.
Exactly
like a girl's voice. I took another look at him. The scarf had fallen away from his face, which I could now see was a delicate oval shape. The little guy wasn't a guy at all. She gestured to the window. From the inside, it seemed high. But from outside, it was at ground level. When I turned to look, I saw feet go by. A moment later, they were back. Four of them. Then a larger shadow fell across the window. The two of them—the girl and the guy—shrank back against the wall next to Morgan and me. The guy jammed the barrel of the gun into my ribs.

“Over here,” he said.

Here
was. . . a furnace, maybe, or a water heater, something big and metallic. He half-dragged me behind it. Morgan followed, pushed along by the girl. From where I was I could see one corner of the window. I hoped—okay,
prayed
—that those were police officers out there, that they'd seen what had happened, and that they were coming to the rescue. But why would the police be out there? I hadn't yelled “Stop, thief!” or “Help, police!” or anything like that. I had just shouted a lame sort of “Hey, stop!” and had taken off after the little guy, er, girl.

Something rattled. It took me a few seconds to identify the sound—someone was testing the window to see if it was locked. Then I heard a
chonk
—they were trying to lift the metal slab. It didn't give. A face appeared and pressed itself up against the window. Whoever it was cupped both hands around his face, trying to see inside. I felt warm breath on my cheek. It was the girl. Like me, she had peeked out from our hiding place. The guy tugged her back. He said something softly to her. None of us moved.

As quickly as the face had appeared, it vanished. More shadows played across the window, moving down the alley toward the dead end. A few moments later, they crossed the window again, going in the other direction. I heard voices. Whoever was out there was talking in Chinese. I had a feeling that even if I hadn't had a gun pressed into my ribs, it would not have been a good idea to call out for help. A few moments later, the voices faded and the only thing I could hear in that dark basement was the sound of the four of us breathing. Oh, and the sound of my heart, jackhammering in my chest. The guy relaxed his grip on the gun and let out a sigh of relief.

“Empty your pockets,” he said.

“What?”

“Both of you, empty your pockets.”

Morgan started to protest, but stopped when he turned the gun on her. We turned out our pockets. The girl scooped up our cell phones and threw them into a corner.

“Hey!” Morgan said, momentarily enraged.

The guy turned to me.

“Who are you?” he said. “Why did you chase us?”

“I chased
her
,” I said, gesturing at the girl. “She's wearing my sweater.”

“Robyn,” Morgan hissed, turning my name into a yellow warning light. I knew what she was thinking: whoever has the gun calls the shots. In other words, be quiet. She probably thought that was the smartest thing to do under the circumstances. But I was remembering a story my father had told me.

Once, when he was still a police officer, he had responded to a call. A disturbance at a house. When he got there, the neighbors said they had heard fighting. They also told him that a young couple used to live in the house, but that now only the woman lived there. They said the couple had recently separated and the husband wasn't happy about it. They said he had always seemed so nice, so quiet. Nobody had ever seen the guy with a gun—my father had specifically asked. No one had ever heard either of the couple even mention a gun. The guy was some kind of junior accountant, they said. He didn't seem to be the gun type.

Still, my father was cautious. He said that being a cop was all about caution. He knocked at the door. After a few moments, a young woman answered. She told him that everything was fine, but he said that he could see by the look on her face that it wasn't. So he asked her if he could come into the house. Afterward, she told another officer that she had said no. My father said that he must have misunderstood. He said that he thought she had said yes, so he pushed open the door and went inside. The husband was in the front hall and, “
Of course
,” my father said, “he had a gun.” He told my father he shouldn't have come inside. He told him, “Now I'm going to have to shoot you as well.”

The guy was upset, my father said. So he started to talk to him. At first that made the guy angry. He kept telling my father to shut up. But my dad just kept talking. He told the man that he had also just separated. He told him that he didn't want to get divorced, but what are you going to do? He told him about me and about how hard it was being a weekend dad. Pretty soon the man started talking. My father said, “Some guys, you get them talking, it doesn't make any difference, they're going to do what they're going to do. But other guys, they're basically decent people who are scared or who feel they've been backed into a corner. If you talk to those guys, if you make yourself a real person or, even better, a guy just like them, you can get somewhere.”

In the end, the guy surrendered his gun. Nobody was hurt.

I looked at the two thieves. They were about my age—kids, not hardened criminals (I hoped). Sure, they had a gun. But the guy had said “please” when he wanted us to be quiet. He had begged me to understand. And, as far as I could tell, he had pushed us into this basement not because he wanted to hold us hostage, but because someone was looking for him—I was pretty sure it wasn't the police—and he didn't want us to tell whoever it was where he and the girl were. Maybe if I talked to them, if I reassured them that I wouldn't go to the police—although I wasn't sure that I wouldn't—Morgan and I could get out of this dark basement.

“I was downtown yesterday,” I said.“At five o'clock in the morning. We both were.” I nodded toward Morgan. “We were rescuing birds.” I let that sink in. Maybe the guy was like Billy. Maybe he cared about animals. Anything was possible. “It's migration season,” I said. I explained how birds are attracted by light, that they sometimes collide with office buildings. He didn't stop me, which I took to be a good sign. “That's when someone stole my backpack,” I said. “With my sweater in it.” I nodded to the girl. “
That
sweater.”

The guy looked at the sweater. “That's
yours?
”

I nodded. “And that's my backpack.”

The guy said something in Chinese to the girl. She said something in response and the next thing I knew they were arguing. At least, it sounded like an argument. The girl stood up, yanked off her thin jacket, tugged my sweater up over her head, and threw it at me.

“She says she's sorry,” the guy said.

“She doesn't sound sorry,” I said.

“Robyn, he's got a
gun
,” Morgan said, sounding horrified.

The girl wasn't acting like she was sorry, either. She put on her jacket again and stood there in the dark, her arms wrapped tightly around her scrawny body, glaring at me. She said something else to the boy. Something angry.

“What did she say?” I said.

He hesitated. She spat more angry words at him.

“She said you must be crazy because there were dead animals in your backpack.”

I'd forgotten about them. “Birds,” I said.

“She said your food was stale and bad-tasting and that she wouldn't have fed it to a pig.”

My food? It took a moment before I realized that she was talking about Billy's vegan snacks. There had been an assortment of them in my backpack. Which reminded me.

“Could I have my backpack, too?”

He sighed and said something else to the girl. This time she didn't argue. She picked up the backpack and chucked it at me. I unzipped the backpack and inventoried the contents. All of the DARC stuff was still there. So was my wallet. I pulled it out and thumbed through it. As far as I could tell, all of my identification was present and accounted for, but my money was missing in action. So were Billy's snacks and the dead birds. Well, I couldn't blame her for that.

“She wouldn't feed my food to a pig, huh?” I said. “Looks like she gobbled up everything I had.”

“Robyn, please,” Morgan said.

“We both did,” the guy said. He sounded apologetic. “We were hungry.” “And my money?” I said. “It's not what you think,” he said. “We're not criminals.”

I looked him directly in the eye. “I found your girlfriend wearing my sweater and carrying my backpack. All the money has vanished from my wallet. You ate all of my food. You're obviously running from someone. And you've got a gun.” Okay, so maybe it wasn't smart to mention the gun. He hadn't been pointing it at me. He had relaxed as soon as whoever he was dodging had gone away and had laid the gun in his lap. But once again he wrapped his hand tightly around its grip. “Maybe you're not criminals,” I said, “but you're not one hundred percent legit either.”

“Robyn,
please
,” Morgan said again. She was starting to sound like a tape loop.

“Look, we don't care what you're up to, do we, Morgan?” I said, standing up. The guy jumped to his feet.

Morgan stared blankly at me. I had to nudge her with my knee before she finally nodded.

“We don't care what you've been up to. As far as we're concerned, we never even saw you. We just want to get out of here, okay? My parents will worry about me if I don't get home soon. The same goes for my friend. They'll call the police.” Morgan nodded vigorously on cue. “So how about it? You two can leave first. We'll wait fifteen minutes before we go. We won't even know which direction you went.”

The guy seemed to be considering it. Then the girl said something. She stood up, still speaking urgently in Chinese. I looked at the guy, waiting for him to translate.

“She doesn't want you to go,” he said. He was still holding the gun, but at least he wasn't pointing it at me.

“Why not? I told you, we won't go to the police. I promise.”

I reached for Morgan, who still seemed dazed. I had to yank her hand hard before she understood that I wanted her to stand.

The girl clamped a hand on my arm. She was small, but she had an iron grip. When I tried to pull free, she tightened her grip. I glanced at the guy.

“Tell your girlfriend to back off,” I said.

He didn't. Instead, he pressed closer to me. When he got right in my face, I saw how big he was. He forced me back a few inches at a time until my back was pressed against the wall.

“She says, what if they see you when you leave? Or what if you're lying? What if you go to the police? It's her life,” he said, nodding at the girl, “so it's her decision.”

“What if
who
sees us?”

The girl spoke again.

“Look, I don't know what your problem is,” I said, “but it has nothing to do with us. I've got my stuff back. That's all I care about. But I'll tell you something. If you try to stop us from leaving, you're going to be sorry. Because we
will
go to the police.”

He pressed closer. So did the girl. He raised the gun again. I felt the girl's breath on my cheek. My knees started to shake. I heard sniffling. Morgan. I couldn't blame her. We were in a dark basement with armed and unhappy people who obviously regarded us as some kind of threat. I still wasn't clear exactly why, except that it had to do with more than my sweater.

“Okay,” I said. I tried to sound calm, but my voice was shaking. “Okay, we promise we won't call the cops. Just leave us here and take off. I don't know what's going on, but I do know that you're not going to make things any better by hurting us.”

Without taking his eyes off me, the guy said something to the girl. She was shaking her head before he finished talking. I don't know what he was saying, but it must have been important to him because he didn't give up, no matter how much the girl disagreed. He kept talking. Her voice got louder. He spoke sharply to her. She crossed her arms over her chest again, a tiny statue of defiance. He turned his attention back to me.