Strikers (2 page)

I hope with everything I’ve got that his brother isn’t in that group.
Please, please
, I think,
he can’t take more loss.

A lot of Strikers turn to smuggling, so getting caught during their initial escape from Texas isn’t the only risk they run. They know the territory inside the border and they can make a good living being hired out for smuggling runs if they manage to avoid getting caught. But they
are
caught often enough for it to be foolish in my eyes. I don’t think any potential profit would be enough to make me try my luck at smuggling if worse comes to worst and I have to escape as a Striker.

The soldier and his car pass us by. He’s young and I know his face. From a good family without a strike between them, he wouldn’t have associated with me or my ilk, but I remember him well enough. He graduated last year and, like most members of the better families in the Bailar territory, joined the Texas Army for his short—and safe—stint of service.

The car jerks to a stop just past us and the soldier pops out and waves at someone in the crowd with a grin. I turn to see who it is and feel my face flush immediately. Not twenty feet from me, just the distance of the dozen people crammed together between us, stands Jovan Foley.

Almost a head taller than anyone else around him, he waves a hand at the soldier and returns the teased greeting, assuring him that it will be him doing the capturing of Strikers next year. His smile is genuine and wide, his perfect teeth flashing from between equally perfect lips. He’s so obscenely perfect I can’t even keep looking at him.

I look away and try to focus on Connor because he’ll need my support if his brother is in this group. As tense as he is, with his shoulders bunched up, he’ll need the support of a friend even if his brother
isn’t
in that line.

I reach down and clasp his hand in mine. It’s cold and sweaty, which is a surprisingly unpleasant combination, but I don’t let go. I see Cassi has his other hand folded between both of hers at his other side. He gives my hand a quick return squeeze and flashes a look of gratitude my way. It makes me glad that he can take comfort from us being here with him. I’m not sure it would comfort me if our positions were reversed. If it were me, I’d probably want to be alone and seethe in frustration with no one to interrupt me.

As the dust settles back to the ground, vague shapes come into view, visible enough so that I can see the prisoners are in a single column. At about the point they come even with the square, perhaps a block away in terms of distance, the figures become clear enough that I can start to make out details.

The line of people walks toward us in jerky forward movements, the chains that bind them neck to neck making it difficult for them to stay in step. It’s always like this, but at least there’s only a single line of prisoners today. When there are a lot captured, they string them along in multiple lines and they fall all over each other. Fewer prisoners means less chance that Connor’s brother is among them, too.

There are an even dozen, eleven men and a person I think might be a woman trapped in the center of the line. I scan the faces but Connor’s small gasp next to me makes me follow his gaze. And there he is.

Maddix Blake is fourth in the line and his face bears the marks of his capture. I’m surprised I even recognize him. Both his eyes are blackened and the nose between them is swollen to twice its normal size. Dried brown blood cakes his nose, chin and shirt. The only clear spot on his face is around his lips, where he’s clearly been licking them in the dry air. He’s searching faces in the crowd, no doubt looking for his family, but he has yet to see Connor.

Connor seems frozen where he stands and just stares at Maddix, even after I give him a shake. His lips are parted and his brows are drawn together. It’s his way. He shuts down when he’s hurt. He’s not like me. My anger boils up so high that I can’t feel the hurt anymore. If this were a brother of mine, I’d be screaming my head off and doing something stupid. Instead, it’s like he’s waiting for a blow to fall, going inside himself so the part of him that has to live each day misses all the pain.

I lean in and whisper into his ear, “He only has three strikes. Escape will give him a fourth but he’s over eighteen now. He can get a job in the fields away from your parents and start earning them off. He’ll come through this.”

For a moment I don’t think Connor has heard a word I said because his eyes don’t shift, or even blink. Then he turns to me and says, “Escape is a fourth strike, but he should have been long gone by now. He must have been caught smuggling.” He looks at me and his eyes are so sad I want to cry. Then he says what I’ve just figured out: “That will be a fifth strike. Habitual.”

There’s nothing we can do and we both know it. Like everyone else, we’ll just have to wait and see what’s decided. It’s a helpless feeling. Maddix is still searching the crowd. It’s drawing the ire of the others in the line as his movements jerk the chain they all must contend with. I can’t do much, but I can ease his mind.

I raise my arm and wave to draw Maddix’s attention until he finally sees us. I point at Connor and see the conflicting emotions spread across Maddix’s battered face. There’s sadness and fear but also something very close to relief at seeing his brother safe.

The bulky coat obscures any view of Connor’s neck and I can see Maddix doing his best to look, no doubt checking to see if Connor has earned another strike. I hold up two fingers and Maddix gives me a nod and a smile. It’s grotesque on his battered face and the movement has caused blood to flow from his nose again.

He loses his footing as a jerk ripples through the chain from some misstep behind him. He struggles to stay upright as the metal collar around his neck digs in and pulls. When he gets his feet back under him, his eyes meet mine again. His gaze is steady and he points with his chin toward the front of the line.

I don’t see what he’s looking at. I don’t know the three ahead of him so I give him a shrug. He jerks his chin again and mouths the word “first” at me.

I scan the first man in line again. They’re all caked in so much dust from walking however many miles behind the car I can’t even tell what color their clothes might be. Only small glimpses of black or blue interrupt the nearly uniform coating of brown. Even their faces and hair are an almost even tan color.

The first man in line is just another brown and dusty figure, though he looks older somehow to my eyes. Dark creases in the dust on his face near his eyes show where crow’s feet have spread. He’s looking around at the crowd with the same intensity Maddix had, studying faces and then jerking his head on to the next.

A glance back at Maddix earns me a quick, imperative nod so I figure there must be something here I should know. I raise an arm to draw the man’s attention. It’s apparently too tentative a gesture to stand out in this crowd so I buck up some nerve and shout, “Hey!”

He sees me, gives me a once-over and then studies my face for a moment. The way he’s looking at me makes me feel strange. I start to back up a step to hide in the crowd again.

Suddenly, he smiles at me and shouts, “Karas!”

The soldier walking along the line hurries forward and hits the man in the back with his stick so hard that he staggers. He looks away from me long enough to shuffle awkwardly and regain his precarious balance. The blow he takes makes me flinch for him. I know how it must have hurt. But it also stops me from moving backward and into the safety of the anonymous crowd. How does he know my name?

The joy in his face when he saw me was impossible to miss. He looked at me like I was the most important sight in his world. It was familiar and strange all at once. I try to see past the dust and dirt, but it has dulled his features and made him seem just like all the others in the line. Just another body headed for justice and then gone forever. I have no clue who he might be.

He seems to understand that I don’t recognize him. He leans to the side a little and strains his neck above the metal collar to reveal something underneath. After a few tries, I can see it’s a word, boldly tattooed in big letters on the side of his neck:
Free
.

I can feel myself stumbling back and I grab the arm of a stranger to keep from stepping on the street and getting a fine. It’s the shock of that particular word tattooed in that particular style that does it. It can’t be who I think it is.

He’s moving past me now, further down the long square, but I search his face once more, trying to match it with the few tattered photos I’ve managed to save over the years. He’s much older than in the photos so there’s really no way to tell. If it really is him, he’s the last person in the world I expected to see today and I forget about Maddix and Connor and everything else.

I have to see him again, so I push through the crowd and leave Connor and Cassi behind. I know it’s rude, but I shove my way through the tightly packed people, not really hearing the muttered curses or shouts that follow me. My hand contacts something that doesn’t move away. It’s hard yet yielding at the same time. Then that something grabs my arm. I look up to see Jovan, his face intent on mine and his long fingers completely encircling my arm.

“What’s wrong, Karas?” he asks. His gaze is solemn and concerned. I think it is the first time he’s spoken to me in almost two years except for the standard “Hey” when we meet in the hall at school.

“That man. I…I…it’s important,” I stumble for words but there just aren’t any. Everything wants to come out in a jumble. Instead, I try to pull my arm from his and move away. I know I look frantic, panicked even, but I just need to go. I yank my arm again.

Jovan doesn’t let go. He looks at the line of prisoners and then back at me. He gives me one quick nod as if my incredibly incomplete answer made perfect sense and settles the matter.

His grip on my arm doesn’t loosen as he half drags, half leads me through the crush of people. I feel like I’m about four years old but at least I’m making progress. People move aside for him and when they don’t, he makes a path by saying, “Coming through. Make a hole!”

His tone couldn’t possibly be mistaken for a request and people melt away in front of him. It’s just another way in which being a Foley pays off.

During a parade no one is supposed to be on the street itself anywhere along the path of the parade. A child might get away with letting a foot fall next to the sidewalk, but nothing more. It’s a firm rule meant to ensure that no one tries to make contact with the prisoners by darting out into the street.

At some point he gets impatient and I feel his arm circle my back and lift me entirely from the ground. It’s uncomfortable, his arm squeezing my ribs and my feet dangling above the pavement. Even my hair is trapped between his arm and my back, but it gets us moving faster so I tuck my chin in and suffer the ride.

Jovan manages to maneuver me to the front row of people at the end of the town square, well ahead of the line of prisoners. He jerks me up and out of the street when we’re shoved forward by the disgruntled mass of people behind us. He takes a stance behind me, one hand firmly on each of my shoulders, and seems to plant himself like a tree, shielding me from any further pushes.

My toes are pressed right to the edge of the sidewalk and I wave at the man, who has tried to follow my progress but lost me in the crowd. When he sees me, we smile at each other and I glance back at Jovan. I know I should explain and thank him, to somehow let him know how much this means to me, but all I can think of right now is the man at the front of the line.

He risks getting tangled in the chains or receiving another blow from the soldier, but he turns a little and exposes the front and other side of his neck. He wants to be sure I know who he is. The full line of text is there and it’s something I’ve seen in every picture of him except the one of him as a small boy. The words
Free is Free
run in an almost unbroken circle around his neck. The only gap is where three strike marks have been tattooed into the skin.

Yes, I know him even though I have absolutely no memory of him. Even in those hazy memories of early childhood that never make sense, he isn’t present. I’ve tried to have them, studied pictures of him and tried, but there’s nothing. This man disappeared as a Striker when I was barely a year old, so it’s no surprise I don’t remember. But I still know who he is. He is my father, Jordan Quick.

Just like that, he’s gone. The Courthouse stands on the opposite corner of the town square and I watch as they prod the line of prisoners into a side door for processing. Even if they do decide to administer a “final adjudication,” as they euphemistically call it when they put a criminal to death, they won’t do it right now.

I have a little time to sort out what I should do, both about my father and Maddix. There must be something that can be done, though it may only be to see him and speak with him. While justice is implacable and has no mercy, nor does it allow exceptions, it is also very thorough. They won’t kill anyone until their identity is confirmed and their charge count is double-checked.

The hands on my shoulder are warm and heavy, so I know I’m going to need to do some explaining when I turn around. The disappearance of the prisoners is the signal that we’re free to go and people spill out into the street, releasing the pressure from so many bodies on the sidewalk. A few people shove past me roughly and I step back, closer to Jovan, out of reflex.

The pressure of him against my back startles me and I step off the curb and out from under his hands in one move. When I turn, his hands have dropped to his sides. He doesn’t say anything to me, which just makes this entire situation more awkward, if that’s possible.

What can I say to him that won’t sound incredibly pathetic? “Oh, hey, thanks for carrying me around, but that was my habitual criminal father who left me with a drunk who likes to use me for a punching bag”? While I stand there searching for words, he just looks at me with those crazy beautiful eyes of his.

“Thanks,” I say, settling for simplicity.