Domino Falls (27 page)

“Yes!” Sonia said. “I saw a rise and a door behind the ranch that could have been something like that. Chris and I were standing on the bluff, looking down.”

“Show me on the map where you think the tunnel was,” Terry said to Jason.

Jason paused, uncertain. Then he tapped his finger on a spot just beyond the ranch's rear fence, roughly centered on the map. “That looks right.”

Sonia checked his spot and nodded. “Yeah.”

“And the tunnel goes into the ranch?” Terry asked Jason. “You're sure?”

“Yeah, 'cuz a door from the house opened and I almost got caught. The light inside was so bright, like a huge storeroom or something.”

Kendra's heart raced as she ran her finger along the blueprint. Sure enough, a large room against the rear wall was marked Basement. “Here!” she said. “Maybe this is where the door opened. But why isn't there a tunnel on the map?”

“Maybe whoever gave Myles the map didn't know about the tunnel,” Terry said.

“Kid,” Ursalina told Jason, “we need to know everything you know about the tunnel. Anything you can remember.”

“Want me to draw a map?” Jason said, grinning. What kid didn't like to draw?

Jason's sketch of the tunnel was fascinating. With an X marking the entrance beyond Wales's back gate, the tunnel must have been at least seventy-five yards long, if he truly made it to Wales's basement door. Jason was a nervy kid.

But one thing confused Kendra as she stared at the drawing: on either side of the tunnel, he'd created mirroring rows of small enclaves, almost like rows of teeth. Eight of them, recessed. “What's this?” Kendra said, pointing to one of the enclaves.

Jason hesitated. “You know they were playing games, right? Inside the tunnel, there's like . . .” He paused, biting his lip.

“What, darling?” Deirdre said.

“I just remembered,” Jason said, blinking. “They're cells. Jail cells or storage rooms. I thought it was for the games, but . . .”

“Cells?” Myles said, alarmed. “Was anyone in the cells?”

“No, they were empty,” Jason said. “They weren't even locked. Some of them didn't have bars. It was just . . . for the game, I thought. To make it more real—”

Myles's face turned hard with anger. He grabbed Jason by both shoulders and swung him around to stare him in the eye. “Are
you telling me you knew Wales had cells down in that tunnel and you never said anything?
Why?
” He roared the last word.

Jason's eyes filled with frightened tears. Maybe he had never seen his father lose his temper. “Dad, I was a kid. I thought . . . it was just for the game.”

Myles didn't soften his eyes or his grip. “Well, you're not a kid now, Jason! How long have we been talking about Rianne? Why didn't you tell us she could be locked up in a tunnel?”

Jason shook his head, mortified. “I . . . don't know, Dad. I didn't think of it.”

Deirdre gently squeezed Myles's elbow, and Myles let his son go. Jason was sobbing by then, but Kendra barely had the spare energy to notice. At least he had his mother to comfort him.

“One of us has to get to that tunnel,” Kendra said. “If we don't see Rianne when we get inside, we check there. If we can't leave through the front, we'll leave through the back. Even if we can't get her out of the cell, at least we'll know.”

They all fell away to their thoughts, and silence came to their war room.

“We need to scout that tunnel exit,” Darius said. “Beyond the gate. Make sure it's still a way out.”

“I can take the gate lock,” Piranha said, certain, “as long as there're no guards.”

“I didn't see any guards from the bluff,” Sonia said. “But there are probably cameras. And you'd have to be careful—the best vantage point is close to a Threadie camp up there by a big house. Someone might see you.”

“That's what camo and ghillie suits are for,” Darius said. “Nobody will see us.”

Terry nodded, his face bright for the first time in hours. “That tunnel might also be a way in, not just a way out.”

“No,” Kendra said. “We know our way around way better
from the front. Too many surprises the other way to start there.”

Sonia agreed. “Only if we have to.”

Ursalina was nodding. “We've got a long way to go,” she said, glancing at the ticking clock. “But this is beginning to sound like a plan.”

The bedroom reminded Kendra of her own, down to the Barack Obama
poster on the wall, although Kendra's pictured Michelle and the girls too: the perfect family. She wondered if the people living in her house now had left her poster up or taken it down.

Deirdre opened the sliding closet door and began pulling out clothes.

“Imani is a fashion plate,” Deirdre said, carefully avoiding saying
was.
“So there's plenty to choose from. You two are close enough to her size.”

Kendra had never been interested in fashion but was excited to find a pair of black jeans that looked like new. Between new jeans and any of the frilly blouses decorating the closet, she would look much better than she had during her first visit.

Not that Wales would care. Kendra still couldn't figure it out, but she was certain Wales had wanted something from her that had nothing to do with her clothes. When it came to seduction, Sonia had the edge; she knew Thread culture, and she'd already coupled sex to survival. Even she assumed she'd be the one, and something told Kendra she relished the role.

Sonia was excited as she held clothes to her chest, posing in the mirror while Deirdre watched. She looked at a black minidress for a long time.

“Cute but comfortable,” Kendra told Sonia. “No heels. You might need to run.”

“Oh, we'll need to run, all right,” Sonia said matter-of-factly.

The guys and Ursalina were still in the living room, debating scenarios and strategies, their voices rising with disagreements. Everyone was getting nervous, having second thoughts. But it was already nine-thirty, and they needed to go to the ranch.

Deirdre closed the door, shutting out some of the noise.

“Girls,” Deirdre said, troubled. “I know we're the ones who came to you, but I couldn't live with myself if I didn't say you don't have to do this. We all love Rianne, but there's so many more of you now. If it goes bad . . .”

“Oh, it'll go bad,” Sonia said in that same eerie, matter-of-fact tone. “Even if we make it out of here and back to the road, the bad stuff's waiting.”

She sounded like Ursalina. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Kendra said.

Sonia shrugged. “Things always go bad. That's when you find out who you are.”

“Then don't do it,” Deirdre said. “What you're planning with Wales . . .”

“Conscience kicking in, Mom?” Sonia said, and Deirdre's face froze. Sonia wrapped her hair in a scrunchie she found on the desk. Sonia could vanish into a mirror in a way Kendra never had. To Kendra, it was like watching Sonia transform into a character on a stage: the sassy, sarcastic, invulnerable Convention Goddess.

“How old are you?” Deirdre said.

“Legal,” Sonia said. “Eighteen going on eighty.”

“Take it from me, Sonia, when you're eighteen, you can't imagine how long a lifetime is,” Deirdre said. “Don't do anything you can't live with.”

Sonia pulled her eyes away from her reflection to stare at
Deirdre. “That's the problem, Mom,” Sonia said quietly. “I've learned I can live with quite a lot.”

“We can both stay in the library,” Kendra said. “Leave Wales out of it.”

“And if Rianne's not near the library, or in that tunnel, maybe Wales will tell me where she is,” Sonia said. “Hell, if I ask him right, maybe he'll take me straight to her. It makes no sense to leave Wales out of it. This is his circus; he's the head clown.”

Her eyes went back to the mirror, the leading lady preparing for her close-up. Watching Sonia, Kendra felt her dinner twist in her stomach.

We can't do this,
Kendra thought, wondering why she hadn't realized it before.

A knock on the door, and Deirdre rushed to open it. “Jason?” Her son had cried for an hour after his disclosure about the cells.

But Ursalina stood in the doorway, her rifle slung over her shoulder. Her gun had been locked on the bus, so Ursalina stroked the stock like it had fur.

“Got any clothes in here for me, Mom?” Ursalina said.

Kendra was holding her breath. She might have heard wrong. Understood wrong. “You're coming with us?” Kendra said.

“Hell yeah,” Ursalina said. “I wouldn't send civilians in alone to do an extraction. What kind of soldier do you think I am?”

Kendra shrieked and, despite weak protests, showered her with hugs.

And didn't see the object Deirdre handed Sonia. Black plastic box, about the size of a pack of cards. And with it came two things: sixty seconds of instruction and a hard, ugly smile.

U
rsalina
Maria de Campos Cortez didn't know why she was going to Threadrunner Ranch, another of the great puzzles to add to the growing list.

She still couldn't explain how she'd dodged her bullet in the snow with the Yreka pirates, or how she'd escaped a horde of freaks at the Barracks. Why hadn't she been bitten at the gas station instead of Mickey? Why hadn't she stayed behind with Mickey and let it all go when she had the chance? She had enough puzzles to last her a lifetime.

Want to come work the fences, Ursalina? Want to come be a scav?
Oh gee, tough choice. Should she tempt chance in the freak zones, or wipe noses in day care? Only practicality would keep her alive in the post-freak world. But this rescue attempt was Practical's evil twin, Foolish. At best, it was a quick trip back to the road. And there were no depths to how bad the other way could go.

So Ursalina understood less than anyone why she was dressed in club clothes, leaving her precious rifle behind. No, she wasn't
a soldier. There was no flag to die for anymore. But she was still a warrior, with her own battles and her own reasons.

The henhouse fluttered with nervousness; even the chickens knew. The mechanic's backyard reminded Ursalina of her grandfather's house outside San Juan: dirt instead of grass, rows of rusting cars, chicken wire, and a vegetable garden. The mechanic's garden was better tended than Abuelo's had ever been, neatly organized in rows, laden with shiny, perfect tomatoes.

The others streamed out through the mechanic's back door in couples, heads bent close in conversation; Sonia with Piranha, Terry with Kendra, the Twins side by side, the mechanic and his wife. Only she had no one left to lose. Ursalina stewed in her aloneness, waiting for it to hurt.
Nada.
Or maybe pain had become meaningless, like saying a word over and over until it was only gibberish. The past, present, and future were only babbling nonsense to her.

Mom had done a good job with the girls. Wales would wet himself when he saw Sonia, and even Kendra had transformed from naïf to sex kitten, all push-up bra and pouty lips. Ursalina was wearing lipstick and mascara only because Mamí's ghost hounded her when she didn't. If you were going to do a job, Mamí always said, might as well do it right.

Women were the oldest bait in history, never mind that Ursalina had loathed this game since her breasts had blossomed in sixth grade.
Here we go again,
she thought. Ursalina wished she could take Sonia's job instead, but Wales would know her heart wasn't in it.

“Talk to you a sec?” Terry said, and nodded her toward a junked Mustang a few yards away. The guys surrounded Ursalina while Deirdre worked on the girls' faces in a bright kerosene lamp on the back porch. Terry kept his voice low.

“We've been talking,” Terry said.

Darius took over. “We need another shooter. Stay out with us.”

“Forget it,” Ursalina said. “They need backup inside.”

“Maybe I could go in with them,” Terry said. “I could say I want to read the Threads stuff with Kendra.” The idea was so terrible, he could barely meet her eyes.

“No guys inside,” she said. “The first thing guys do when they see each other is size up the threat. We need to fly under the radar. Girls only.”

Terry sighed, nodding. He'd known what she would say.

“We'll be fine,” Ursalina said. “If I didn't think so, I would scrap the plan.”

“You're a better shot than I am,” Piranha said. “Or Terry. If something goes down, we want the best we've got covering them. The shots might be tight.”

The shining eyes from Terry and Piranha were hard to take. Ursalina never thought she'd be one to begrudge anyone love, not after how hard she'd had to fight that battle, but their eyes made her miss Mickey. On a list of one to a hundred, Mickey was the last person she needed to be thinking about tonight.

Or, possibly, ever again.

That voice. The one that wanted to seal her heart away, leave her in a shell. No. Mickey had died before her heart's last beat. She'd given her life that Ursalina might live.

“I'm the best,” Ursalina said. “That's why I'm going in. I don't need a gun to take care of business.” She grinned. “Besides, I'm scared of those big bikes.”

The Twins laughed. The plan called for them to ride their bikes to the bluff.

“You could ride with me,” Dean said, maybe the most words she'd ever heard him speak at one time. He was smiling, but
his smile was sad. “You know, snuggle up behind me, grab something big to hold on to.”

They all laughed, such an unexpected sound that the others glanced at them before continuing their makeup session.

“Nah,” Ursalina said. “But if I change my mind, I'll bring my tweezers.”

“You're killin' me, lady,” Dean said. The fondness in his voice surprised her. In an instant, she understood: once upon a different time, in a different life, she and Dean would have looked good together. Might have fit. She'd never noticed it before.