The Extraction List (2 page)

Boy, was I right.

“Claire, I’ve known about this for a while. I tried to convince them to leave Riley alone, but they insisted that they were going to take her. So I decided to stay on and learn the best way to get you both out safely.”

I gasped as Mom raised her hand and slapped Bo across the face. “And you waited ‘til tonight to tell me? Why the hell didn’t you tell me sooner?” Mom’s cheeks always flushed when she was angry, but at that moment, they looked as red as a sunburn. I’d never seen her so much as kill a bug, let alone hit someone before.

Bo gently stroked his cheek. The skin rose under his fingers. “Because I knew you’d panic. You’d either a) go to Gray and get caught, or b) take Riley and run…and get caught.”

“Fuck you, Bo.”

I grabbed Mom’s shoulder. “Come on, Mom, you know he’s right. That’s exactly what you would have done. And no offense, but I don’t have any interest in ending up like Olivia.” I sucked in my breath at the last part and wished desperately that I could take it back. So much for helping Mom avoid a guilt complex.

Mom sat silently for a moment, but conceded. “You’re right. You’re both right.” She messed with a strand of her hair that didn’t look like it needed to be messed with. Smiling weakly, she said, “Let’s get on with it then.”

Bo pulled back onto the road.

I took a moment to glance out the window as the city passed by me. As we drove to wherever it was we were going, the streetlights pointed at young women guarding the intersections. Some looked like they could have been sitting next to me in school. They were wrapped in fishnet stockings and fake fur coats. Their costumes almost hid the dirt on their faces. The majority of America was broke, but people were always able to find money for sex. I knew all about selling yourself. Not from personal experience, but I had seen enough of it for ten lifetimes. A girl who sat next to me in geometry got hepatitis from doing that after school. Her birthday was after mine.

Bo parked the van in a back alley behind a bar. Bo, Mom, and I found ourselves surrounded on three sides by brick walls, and garbage cans spewed their contents beneath the stones. It was the kind of alley I wouldn’t want to be caught in alone late at night. I shuddered to myself and bet those walls had some stories that I never wanted to hear.

Mom said she didn’t know whether leaving me in the car or taking me inside would be considered worse parenting, so she opted to take me in with them. She squeezed my hand as we walked inside behind Bo. He carried a duffel bag full of cash, which he was going to use to buy us safe passage out of America. As expected, smuggling people out of the country wasn’t cheap, and his arm sank under the weight of the bag. As we passed through the door, Mom whispered, “THIS is where these Guide people wanted to meet? Lovely.”

“Stay behind me and keep quiet.”

Blackness covered the bar from top to bottom: black walls, black furniture. The only color came from the faces of the sweaty, shiny patrons who looked like they had seen better days. They didn’t seem to mind being surrounded by darkness. Most of them just stared at their beer mugs anyway, so I guessed the décor didn’t make much difference. The paint on the walls dangled off in flakes like fingernail polish, and I fought off the urge to go pick at it.

I kept my eyes straight ahead as we made our way toward the bartender. His head had a big gap in the middle where hair should be, and the hair that remained on the sides overlapped the top of his ears. His shirt had once been white, but streaks of yellow lined the armpits and stretched downward, much like his skin: overused and under-cared-for.

Bo set his bag on an empty barstool and waited for the bartender to turn around. His back was to us, but I could see that he was drying a glass over and over again. Mom waved at him. “Excuse me, where can we find a man named Cain?”

I was facing away from the bar’s customers, but I could swear I felt them staring at us after Mom spoke, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. The bartender set his glass down hard. He turned his greasy face toward us. And laughed.

“Haha, lady…you’re in waaay over your head. If Cain wants to find you, he’ll find you. Lookin’ like he already did.” His eyes moved toward the barstool where the bag of money had been. The stool sat empty.

“Oh my God! Where’d it go? Bo!” Mom’s head swirled around. Bo glared at the bartender.

“Don’t look at me, man, I didn’t take it. SHE did.” He pointed toward a doorway at the back of the bar. The beautiful, dark haired woman from the picture stood there, letting the bag dangle gracefully from her long fingers. She smiled.

“Misplace something?” She let the bag fall from her grasp, and Bo jetted over to grab it. When he was bending over to get it, Jordyn shoved it away with her foot and made him chase it a couple times before she gave in. The bartender found himself laughing at us once again. “Follow me.”

The doorway Jordyn had been standing in front of lead to a staircase. We formed a line behind her and followed her down into the darkness. Though there were no lights, Jordyn hit every step. I tried hard not to stumble but managed to snag my toe more than once.

Jordyn lectured us: “Did you see how easy that was? The three of you are going to have to be more careful if you’re gonna make this trip. I can give you clothes, shoes, and a route, but I can’t give you plain old common sense. Even Cain can’t give that to you.”

I almost tumbled headfirst down the stairs, but Jordyn caught me and stood me back up.

“I’ve never seen anything like it…just coming into a bar with a bag of money dressed like THIS?” She picked at Bo’s suit with two fingers, like he was infested with some contagious disease. Her eyes then turned to Mom. Jordyn looked her up and down, from her stilettos to the bobby pins that held her hair back. “Were you TRYING to stick out like a skinny kid at fat camp? If I hadn’t been there, those guys woulda stolen your money and had you thinkin’ they did you a favor. Then we’d all be screwed.”

When we reached the bottom of the stairs, I glanced backward. The staircase stood almost vertical, and it reminded me of an old fairy tale where a bear cub disobeyed the rules and wandered deeper and deeper into a cave. I remembered it didn’t turn out too well for the bear.

The room only had one light, and it hovered above a gray metal desk at the far end of the room. Though the desk was free of any office supplies that would help someone put it to some use, I saw a man sitting at it with his back toward us. He slouched in his chair.

Five cots lined the room, and each had only one thin blanket. The blankets barely covered the tops of the cots, and the fabric was stained brown with age. A black backpack sat at the edge of each of our beds. The cement floor clinked with each footstep, and I doubted we would be able to stay warm that night. The heat outside couldn’t seem to find its way in, and there was a chill in the basement that went straight to my bones.

Or maybe it was him.

“Cain, they’re here.”

The man turned in his chair.

I recognized him from the photo Bo showed us, but the photo had not done him any justice. His eyes were the blue of blue M&Ms. I didn’t think they made people with eyes that blue. The way he moved his hands was like they floated through the air, in one endless, graceful motion. His hair was the brown like the brown of Mom’s favorite dresser, the one where all the pictures of Aidan rested. I stifled a smile.

I noticed a long tattoo on his forearm, stretching the length of it in a deep brown, nearly matching his hair. I never wanted a tattoo myself, but I was always curious about what people loved enough to paint on their bodies with ink and needles. His tattoo was a long rectangle, stopping a couple inches below the top of his wrist to stretch out into two sections that wrapped around to the other side of his forearm. The long rectangle started again after the two offshoots jetted off, and the whole shape was covered in complicated patterns. I stared at it for a long time, squinting so that I could make out every detail. After he moved his arm slightly, I could see the other side of the tattoo. I realized the shape was a cross.

“Money?” Cain didn’t move from his slouching position. His fingers rested intertwined in front of his chest. Jordyn snatched the bag away from Bo and set it on the desk. It landed with a thud. Finally, Cain shot out of his chair and ripped the bag open while keeping his eyes on Bo. “Not nearly enough for your lot.” Cain pushed the bag over the side of the desk and let the money spill onto the floor in a storm of green snowflakes.

Bo’s voice quivered. “What do you mean? This is your asking price. So this is what I brought.”

Bo’s voice wasn’t supposed to quiver.

Cain smiled widely, in that way that people do when they think the person they’re speaking to is a complete idiot. “Look, we’ve got one government rat, that would be you, and a woman who’s the face of all the bullshit. With more risk comes more reward.” He smiled and gestured around the room. “That is supposed to be the American dream you people work for after all, right?” He stepped in a wad of green money and gently rubbed it into the floor with his foot. After he was done, he sat back at his desk, looking rather pleased with himself.

Mom stepped toward him. “Please, we swear we’ll get you your money. It’s not my daughter’s fault. We’re all she’s got!” Mom tried to stand strong and still, but I could see her hands were shaking.

I marched past her.

When I reached Cain’s desk, I hopped right on top of it and sat down. He may have been good-looking (really…really good-looking), but I wasn’t thrilled about the way he was talking to us. “You’re kind of a jerk, aren’t you? My mom’s been through enough tonight. If you aren’t gonna help us, just say so.”

He looked at me square in the eyes.

I stared right back.

He grinned. “I’d have to agree. Not much fear in you, huh, Riley?”

I shook my head. Right then another piece of information about him crept out of my memory, another clue that would help me rediscover him. Crossing my legs in a sitting yoga pose, I asked, “Did you really kill a man in a room with nothing but an orange, a glass of water, and a toothpick?”

Cain’s eyes met mine. He laughed. His laugh sounded like a children’s choir singing, short little notes one right after the other.

He leaned toward me like he was going to tell me a secret. I could smell fresh mint as his breath brushed my face. “Ah, you must have seen that TV report about me.” Of course. I had seen a documentary on him a few months earlier. And if I remembered correctly, the reporter didn’t exactly praise him with flying colors. “Mostly garbage, some truth.” He paused, running his hand gently across his desk. “I like you, so I’ll tell you…it was a grapefruit…and three men.” He winked. Looking around my shoulder, he declared, “Alright, I’ll do it.”

Mom thanked Cain for his understanding, but as the words fell from her lips, she gestured for me to back away from him and stand beside her. I could see Jordyn roll her eyes from across the room. She must not have gotten the message about leaving my mom alone. “Why don’t you want to help us? What did we do to you?”

“It’s nothing personal, just worried about how we are going to get THESE two across the border,” she pointed to Bo and Mom, “without getting ourselves killed in the process.” After looking them over once more, she sighed. “I have my work cut out for me. I hope nobody here has an aversion to dressing down.”

Cain smiled. “That’s why you’re the best, Jordyn. Get them dressed and ready…we’re leaving at first light. I need them ready to run out the door the minute I say so. Oh and you…” He pointed at Bo, then at the money on the floor. “Pick that up.”

Mom cautiously went up to Cain. “Why first light? Don’t you people do all your…well, you know…at night, so no one can see you?”

Jordyn scoffed and shook her head. I could already tell she had an opinion on just about everything. But Cain answered the question anyway. “Because the only reason people travel at night is to do things the police and the Taskforce tell them they aren’t supposed to do. They see someone walking or driving around at night, especially in a group? They know something’s up. Automatic target. Right on our asses.”

Jordyn marched up behind my mom and ripped her sweater right off her arms, then tossed it across the room. “Easier to blend in.” As Jordyn spoke, she dove to Mom’s feet, yanked her heels right off, and threw them in the direction of the sweater. “You two, follow me. I’ll deal with your man friend next.”

Mom and I obeyed.

Jordyn walked us toward the back of the giant room where there was a stack of old boxes. I guessed she realized that changing the rest of our clothes would require a little more privacy. The boxes created a dressing corner just big enough for the two of us.

Our new wardrobe hung neatly on a pipe that sagged low from the basement ceiling. There was a black shirt for each of us. Both shirts were almost long enough to cover our butts, and we each had a pair of jeans that dangled from below the shirts. Clunky, thick, brown boots sat on the ground under our clothes, and the laces hung loosely open at the sides. Mom groaned as she took off her pressed, white blouse. I picked up one of our new boots and examined it. It had thick leather, with the biggest tread I had ever seen, like there was a cut-up car tire on the bottom of the sole. Mom noticed it too and ran her finger up and down the too-straight lines. “Are we climbing mountains or something?”

Jordyn nodded. “Maybe.”

When we emerged from our corner, we looked like people in the old war movies. The only thing missing was black tar smudges on our cheeks. Bo’s eyes widened, but Cain just said, “Ahhh, that’s better. Now, everyone pick a bed and get some sleep. You need to be ready. When I say it’s time to go, we go. Oh, and Bo,” Cain walked over to him. “Give me the gun I’m sure you’re carrying.”

Bo paused for a moment but reached into his holster and handed it to Cain.

“And does anyone have a cellphone on them?”

We all shook our heads.

“Of course not. We’re trying to stay lost, not be found, for goodness sakes,” Mom said.

Jordyn spit out a laugh. “With you people it wouldn’t surprise me. All this planning and those Taskforce fuckers find us because of a goddamn cellphone.”