Strikers (8 page)

Jovan folds as gracefully as a bird onto the hard floor but his head impacts the cement floor anyway. That sound is even worse than the one my stick made, if that’s possible. I cringe.

Then the worst thing that could happen for Jovan happens. Worst aside from death, that is. He groans, rolls over and starts making incomprehensible noises that are probably meant to be words. He’s not out, but not coherent enough to play like he is.

While I want to help him and apologize till the sun comes up, I step backward and out of the cell instead. Connor and Maddix grab all the soldiers’ gear and make for the reception area, eager to put distance between us and this place. My father is probably no less eager. Every line of his body seems taut with suppressed energy. Even so, he seems to sense that I’m in a little over my head and having difficulty processing the sudden change in my existence.

His steps are quiet. He puts a gentle hand on my shoulder and whispers, “We should go.”

The soldiers are quiet, perhaps thinking that we’ll hit them too if they make noise. Jovan, on the other hand, rears up even as I turn to go and looks around with unfocused eyes. They slide over me, then back like he’s having difficulty nailing down exactly where I’m at. He says, “Sorry, Karas. Thought this would work. Just wanted you to see your father.” He snuffles a little, his eyes wandering back toward me and adds, “You have such pretty eyes, like the sky.”

His words are a little slurred, but unfortunately clear enough for anyone who can hear them to understand. That last bit proves he has no clue what he’s saying, but it doesn’t matter because the first part is logical enough.

The taller soldier gasps but the short one laughs. It’s a bark of a laugh, bitter and victorious all at once. His voice is low and mean when he says, “Nice try.”

I really don’t like the look on his face. There’s no question now what will happen when we leave. Jovan will be found out and this soldier will be only too happy to let the information flow. Whether Jovan can deflect it or deny it and do a good enough job is something I doubt. He may have dropped our friendship, but he has always been an honest soul. He’ll crack.

My fist clenches around the night-stick and the soldier’s eyes dart toward it, then back to my face. The victory slides off and uncertainty comes back. He knows what I’m thinking and what I’m thinking is that I’ll have to bash his brains in.

My father grabs the nightstick and says, “No. That’s not someplace you want to go. Let’s get him up.”

The choice is made and I can do nothing except make sure he doesn’t die in the process of moving him around. Jovan isn’t a small person. He towers over me when he’s standing and he’s like a long floppy burden right now. We grab him, my father at Jovan’s shoulders and I at his feet, and do a clumsy job of maneuvering him out of the cell and into reception.

Maddix and Connor are going through the duty desks and the shelves behind the big counter that splits the room. There are growing piles of stuff on the counter and the floor. They stop and gape at us when we huff our way out of the cell block with a groaning Jovan between us. This isn’t what we had planned out, so clearly something has gone wrong. My father gets Jovan’s head onto the pile of uniforms and eases him down as I settle his feet.

Jovan immediately tries to get up, uncoordinated and confused. My father presses him gently back down and tells me, “Keep him still, Karas. We have to get moving.”

Inside, I feel like a thousand bees are boiling out of a hive that’s inexplicably become lodged in my stomach. Panic is building and I know what will happen when it gets to be too much. I’ll make a mess of things by running or fighting or just creating general havoc. We can’t afford for that to happen now so I stroke Jovan’s forehead to keep him still, close my eyes and count slowly. It helps to bring me out of my frantic emotions and puts me back in the moment. I feel better by the time I get to twenty.

Around me, the steady activity continues. My father is like the calm center of a storm, comfortable despite the fact that time is passing dangerously quickly. He even seems to know where everything would logically be, opening and closing drawers or calling out something that should be searched for.

When I hear the sound of a successful find, I open my eyes to see him bouncing a handful of keys in his hand and smiling. He’s got a nice smile, very genuine, not at all the smile of a hardened criminal. Not that I would know what that looks like, really.

Maddix stops cramming things into bags as my father dangles several sets of keys in his hand. “Yes!” he exclaims. “That will get us out of here.”

That’s when I realize the keys must be for the Army vehicles here at the Courthouse. They’re probably all charging in the garage we passed less than an hour ago.

My father tosses the keys and Maddix snatches them out of the air. He says, “Go find out what kinds of vehicles they have and check the charges on every vehicle. Hurry.”

Maddix dashes through the door and is gone like a shot into the dark night. My father goes back to his searching, disappearing into the break room that the soldiers came out of.

Under my hand Jovan moves differently, his movements with less aimless agitation and more purpose. His eyes are open and steady now, no longer roaming around and unable to focus. He winces when I touch the side of his head but smiles to take the sting out of it.

He grabs my hand when I pull away and asks, “This didn’t go exactly as planned, did it?”

I shake my head, not sure how I’m going to break the news to him that his privileged life as a Foley has probably just ended. Unless he wants to go in and kill a couple of soldiers and blame it on the escapees, that is.

“I’m sorry,” I say and rest my free hand in my lap, letting him keep the other. I’m not sure why he has my hand since he’s not really doing anything with it. He’s simply holding it like he might hold a pencil or a piece of chalk, absently. Even so, I can feel how hot his hand is against my stress-cold skin.

He sighs and says, “It was bound to happen, one way or another.” He tucks in his chin, puts on a deep and very cultured voice and says, “There is the right way to do things, the wrong way to do things, and then there is the Jovan way of doing things.”

He rolls his eyes and I can tell this is something he’s heard many times. The voice is clearly an imitation of his father’s, who I’ve heard speak a good many times, even though the last time he directly spoke to me I was just a kid. Perfect though the Foley life may appear from the outside, it clearly isn’t perfect in Jovan’s view.

Maddix comes rushing back in and breaks the moment, for which I’ll be eternally grateful. “Most of them are about half-charged, four or five lights, except the little one they used to bring us in. That one’s got three lights. There are the two little cars, one prairie jumper and a four-door. I put the right key on top of each one.”

My father asks Jovan, “Is that all of them?”

Jovan nods gingerly and adds, “Except for the patrol that’s out now in the other prairie jumper. They’re scheduled to go to the lake area tonight. Nowhere close to us.”

My father hands a packed bag to Connor, who stacks it with several others by the door, clearly thinking hard. He says, “Okay, Connor, we’re taking the prairie jumper so load up everything in the back of it but don’t start it. We’ll need all the juice.”

Connor looks like he might balk at this strange man telling him what to do, but an encouraging nod from Maddix settles the matter and he sets to the task.

“Maddix, we need to drain the other vehicles of charge. Unhook them, cut the charging cables and then reverse the leads. That will drain them fast.”

A quick nod of understanding and Maddix is gone again, leaving just the three of us in the room. I still don’t understand how he is so calm and matter-of-fact about the situation we’re in. It’s a dire one and I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around it.

All those little details are in my brain but I can’t let them come forward right now or they’ll paralyze me. Details like me not living in this town anymore after this night, like my mom not having anyone to take care of her, like leaving everyone I know other than the people with me behind forever.

Even the idea of never seeing Mr. Carpenter, the man who runs the compost operation, who always has a smile and a cup of milk for me, is hard to take in. I’ve not had a chance to prepare for it, so all of the consequences keep bouncing off my thoughts like moths against a porch light.

Not my father, though. He’s as cool as a spring morning and doesn’t seem at all ruffled by the idea of his daughter, who he left fifteen years ago, helping him to rob a Courthouse. That, and a bunch of other crimes too numerous to count at this point.

Jovan levers himself into a sitting position, letting my hand go so he can use both of his to brace himself. I back away and stand, not really wanting to be near him given what I’ve just done to his life. He’ll figure that out soon and I can’t see him holding my hand for comfort once he does.

He shakes his head and probes the back of it with careful fingers, sucking in a hissing breath when he finds the spot where I hit him. He looks up at me from under his brow and says, “Not bad. But it wasn’t hard enough.”

He winces when he pushes on it with a finger so I say, “Stop messing with it.”

“I just wanted to make sure it was just a lump and not a soft spot,” he explains, but I’m relieved to see his hand drop away without any blood on it.

Just then my father interrupts us by tossing a sack my way. It’s just a rough burlap sack like the ones used by everyone for almost everything: food, supplies, clothes and anything else that needs toting. This one isn’t patched all over like the ones I have, and it has the dark green stripe that identifies it as Army issue.

“Pack those uniforms and then get him to the garage. We need to move out,” he says.

“What about food? What about Mom?” I ask. Where before it felt like we were moving far too slowly, now it feels like everything is going too fast. I’m leaving too much, too soon.

He sighs, gives a little shake of his head and says, “We can’t risk you seeing her, Karas. I hope you understand.”

I nod, because he’s right even though he doesn’t understand what it's really like at home with her. But that isn’t why I need to go home. “My garden has stuff we can take, plus I have water carriers. There’s plenty of early spring stuff like carrots, beets…” I let the sentence trail off.

The dry lands stand between us and the border and water may be hard to find. Food will be even scarcer. And I saw him come out of the break room with just three small canteens, the kind the soldiers carry on their belts. Those won’t last us half a day.

It startles me to see him chew the inside of his cheek because it is exactly what I do when I’m indecisive or in a bind. It’s a terrible habit but one I’ve never been able to break entirely. For some reason, seeing him do the same makes me smile. It’s like a link between us, even though we are strangers.

“Water’s not that hard to find. You’d be surprised how quickly the dry lands end once we head east. But food, that can be hard when you can’t stop to hunt.” He looks at me with a measuring gaze and asks, “How quickly can you get what you need?”

“Fast enough,” I say. “Faster if I take Connor.”

He sighs again, but not in a way that signals impatience or anything. It’s more like the sigh of someone who has to deal with an inevitable delay, so I know what he’s about to say.

Connor comes back for another load by the time I’ve extricated myself and helped Jovan to his feet. Jovan sways for a moment, but quickly steadies and offers me a smile to let me know he’s fine. He takes Connor’s place at the pile of bags and says nothing as he loads himself up with all the remaining bags. For good or ill, he’s with us.

The streets are dark and quiet. It feels like days instead of a scant hour since I set out with Connor for a final visit with my father. Everything has changed since then and it shows in how I see the dark buildings around us.

I see them through eyes that are saying goodbye. Now the buildings seem shabbier, their fading paint gray in the darkness, the windows old, dusty and dark. As we jog the few blocks between the Courthouse and my home, the sounds of water in the canal across the street accompany us.

The houses are all the same here, varying only in their color. Like everything else, the paint is old and faded to lackluster versions of the original shade. Pale blue that’s nearing gray, lilac where it was once purple and even a faded yellow so pale it glows white in the faint moonlight.

At my house, we dip around to the back. Connor doesn’t need me to tell him what we need. We head straight for my garden shed and he heaves up the pile of sacks on my workbench, lifting a cloud of dust along with the rough burlap. I grab the snips and a small trowel for the garden.

“I need some light,” I whisper. No one will hear us out here, but I find it difficult to speak normally while we’re being so stealthy.

My only flashlight is in the house, but Connor pulls his out of one of his voluminous pockets and starts to wind it while we’re in the slight protection of the shed. It whines terribly and the sound makes me wince.

“Let’s go,” he says when he’s done winding.

“Wait,” I say and start pulling old containers and general junk off a pile in the back corner. When I get to my buckets, I fill up a couple of small bags with the best of my tumbled stones. Connor and I have spent days on end turning the handle on my tumbler to create each batch. These buckets represent years of intermittent labor. I’ve been hiding them here in the shed as a sort of savings account, meaning to sell them when I finally reached my eighteenth birthday and can get away from this house.

I hand one bag to Connor and tuck the other into my coat pocket along with my handful of steel balls and my slingshot. It’s a weak weapon, but useful against rats, and it’s the most common one around, given how costly gun ammunition is.

“You’ve got yours, right?” I ask. He knows I mean his slingshot and nods.