No Safety in Numbers (11 page)

R
yan ran all the way to Baxter’s Books, that’s how much he wanted to see Shay. He’d started at a walk, but as he thought of her, of getting to spend a whole day in her presence, he’d ended up taking the stairs two at a time up the escalator and burst, breathless and smiling, into the wet coffee stink of the bookstore. Now he had twenty minutes to kill. He decided to check if they stocked any Tagore.

It hadn’t been easy ditching Mike and Drew. Mike had become a bit of a tyrant after the three of them had been stalked by the Tarrytown guys for all of yesterday evening. Lucky for Ryan, it was announced at Lights On that stations had been set up at three locations in the mall for people to register to have their places of employment or schools notified of their detainment. Knowing Mike and Drew would never volunteer to be put on a government
list, Ryan had the perfect excuse to escape alone. Mike had told Ryan to put his name on the list and get his ass back to the Abercrombie.

“I promised your brother I’d watch out for you,” he said, holding up his phone. Mike had texted Thad about the situation and that he and Drew had things under control.

“I feel extremely watched out for,” Ryan had said as he left.

One entire bookshelf was devoted to Rabindranath Tagore. There were books of essays, letters, novels, stories, and some giant thing called
The Oxford Tagore Translations
. Ryan pulled out the smallest, least-intimidating paperback. It flipped open to a weird-looking poem called “Palm-tree.” Ryan liked the simplicity of the thing. The tree thought about flying when the wind blew through it, but when the wind stopped, the tree remembered it was stuck in the dirt and was cool with that.

Ryan understood that tree. Here, in the thick silence between the bookshelves, he could read poetry, he could dream of having a girl like Shay. Out there, he had to stay focused. He could date girls, but only the safe ones, the ones who didn’t ask for too much, who could be fit between practices and games. He’d only spent a half hour with Shay, but already he knew she was anything but safe, and yet she was all that he wanted.

The store speaker beeped. “Will Ryan please come to the information desk.”

She’s here.
Ryan left the book on the shelf and ran for the information desk. “I’m Ryan,” he said, glancing
around to see where she’d gone. The guy behind the counter handed him the phone. It was Shay.

“I’m sorry I’m calling late,” she said.

Ryan hadn’t even noticed. “No problem,” he said. “I found some more Tagore.”

“He’s the best,” Shay said, her last word stretching into a yawn. She continued, “I can’t meet you today. My grandmother—she has diabetes and is in the infirmary.”

Ryan slumped against the counter. “Oh, that’s rough,” he said. He tried to sound like he cared more about her grandmother’s welfare than the fact that she wasn’t going to meet him. He didn’t think he’d succeeded.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“No, hey,” he said, too fast. “No problem. I’ll catch you some other time.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess we can’t get away from each other.”

“No,” he said. He felt like if their conversation were a car, it had turned onto the wrong street.

“I’ve got to go,” she said. “Bye.”

She hung up before he could think of anything to say. Ryan handed the phone back to the guy. “Thanks,” he said.

He was not sure what had just happened, but it hadn’t been good.

Whenever Ryan felt bad, he liked to rock climb. Something about the experience of relying on his own muscles, of hanging far above everyone else, calmed whatever confusion swirled around inside him. Like when his parents fought. When they started to get into it with each other,
Ryan instantly got onto his bike and rode to the climbing gym.

Like now. He needed to be on the wall. He hoped the sales guys at Shep’s were still letting people up.

Just outside Baxter’s, across from the Grill’n’Shake, a cop and a person in a hazmat suit sat behind a table. There was no sign on the table, just what looked like a tackle box, a metal case full of vials, and an empty chair next to the hazmat guy. Ryan walked on the opposite side of the hall as he passed.

The mall speakers squealed.

“Patrons of the Shops at Stonecliff, stations have been established throughout the mall staffed by members of the security team. Some of these individuals are wearing plastic suits for their and your own safety. Please do not be alarmed by the suits.

“You are asked to make your way to the nearest station for a blood test. Everyone must get tested. The police officers at each station have a list of all the people in the mall as compiled on the first evening of the security situation. You must be marked as having completed the testing before you will be allowed to leave the mall. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Ryan didn’t trust this for a second. He speed-walked down the hall, away from what he now realized was a testing station. He wanted as much distance between himself and the hazmat guy as possible. He had to climb; when he’d calmed down, he’d find the guys. They would know what to do.

Racing away from one testing station only brought him closer to another—they were set up everywhere. And now
security guards patrolled the halls in groups of two. Ryan passed a man who began coughing up a lung. A pair of guards was on him in a second.

Ryan ran to Shep’s, stopping only once he was inside the doorway. He bent over a weight bench display to catch his breath. The climbing wall was at the back. Thankfully, it looked like they were letting people up and still had the auto belay devices running for solos.

“Well, look what just fell into our laps,” a voice snarled from down the aisle.

Ryan checked over his shoulder and saw two of the Tarrytown linemen striding toward him. He was about to bolt for the door when a hand caught him around the back of the neck. “We have some unfinished business.”

They dragged Ryan out into the hall, and steered him toward a narrow hallway labeled “Staff Only.” He knew he should scream. But what kind of loser screams for help in the middle of a mall?

The guy holding his neck threw him forward, and Ryan thrust his hands in front of himself to keep from smashing against a metal door. He flipped over to face them.

“You West Nyack cocksuckers are always strutting around like you’re hot shit,” one of them said. He feinted at Ryan’s head; Ryan blocked high; the kid nailed him in the gut.

Ryan doubled over. He’d never been punched before. Sacked, tackled, but not punched. The pain was exquisite.

“He doesn’t look like hot shit now,” another grunted.

A foot connected with his face, dropping Ryan to his butt. He held his head to keep it from fracturing apart.

“Asswipe’s not even defending himself,” another said.

Ryan was pulled to his feet. A drop of blood fell from his nose, marking the tile. He lifted his eyes.

“Put your hands up, you pussy,” the first snarled, bouncing slightly like some sort of boxer. “I guess Thad’s the only one with balls in your family.”

Ryan wiped the back of his hand under his nose, leaving a trail of bright red across his skin. “I don’t want to fight,” he said. Blood dripped down his throat. After ten years of football, he was used to the taste.

“I don’t give a shit what you want,” the guy said.

He threw another punch at Ryan’s face. Ryan expected it this time and blocked. He ducked and drove his shoulder into the guy, pushing him against the other three. If he could push them down the hall, he could break free at the main corridor.

“Get around him!” another shouted.

Arms encircled Ryan’s chest, lifting him away from his target. One arm pulled back and punched him in the kidney. A knee connected with his groin, and Ryan collapsed forward. The guy let him flop onto the tile. They were all laughing. One gave him a final kick in the stomach. Then they left.

Ryan allowed himself a few minutes to lie curled on the floor. He’d expected a fight to be more like practice—brutal, but not terrible. He’d forgotten the power of padding, the simple safety of a cup. It made him think of the time his father punched his mother. Ryan had not understood the pain involved. The violation. But Thad had gone ballistic and driven Dad’s car into a tree. Apparently, Thad had understood.

Standing, he forced himself not to cry, but water slicked his cheeks nonetheless. He wiped his face on his shirt, which he thanked god was navy so the blood didn’t stand out too much. He managed a shambling walk down the hall. He prayed Mike and Drew were still in Abercrombie.

The store was dark as usual, but Ryan spotted Mike in a pool of light shoving Sportade bottles and PowerBars into a backpack.

“Shrimp,” Mike said, seeing Ryan’s silhouette approach. “We gathered some food in case of shortages.”

Ryan stumbled forward, leaning on a rack of sweatshirts. “Tarrytown,” he muttered. “Assholes cornered me.”

Mike dropped the bag and caught Ryan’s shirt, lowered him to the floor and helped him to lean against the wall.

“What happened?” Mike said.

Ryan told him. Mike’s face was stony. His eyes became harder, fiercer with each word.

“Bonner,” Mike snarled at a dark corner. “Drop the chick. There are some shitheads in need of a lesson in manners.”

Bonner emerged from the shadows, adjusting himself and zipping his fly. He caught a glimpse of Ryan’s face, which must have looked about as bad as Ryan felt.

“Where are they?” Drew said.

Ryan would not stay behind. He followed Mike and Drew through the halls as they trolled for the Tarrytown guys. They found the four dunking baskets at a game in the arcade. Drew ripped a fake shotgun out of the neighboring game and smashed three of them in the back of their heads,
dropping them like rocks. Mike sucker-punched the other guy in the back, then grabbed his hair and wheeled him around to face Ryan.

“Do you see what you did?” he whispered into the kid’s hair.

The Tarrytown kid looked at Ryan. “Got your boys to come to your defense?” he taunted.

Ryan took the plastic shotgun from Drew and smashed the kid in the face with the butt. The kid screamed. Blood shot from his nose, which lay at an odd angle to his face. Satisfaction calmed Ryan’s body; at the same time, fear bubbled up.
Did I just break his nose?

“What the fuck, Richter?” The kid’s voice sounded wet with blood.

Mike smashed the kid’s head into the wall of a video game. “You mess with my family,” he said, “you mess with me.” He let the kid drop to the floor. “And my team is my family, got it, Martin?”

The other three began to push themselves to standing. Drew nailed all three in the gut and they fell back to the floor.

“Stay, shitbags,” he said.

The manager of the arcade yelled for the cops and Mike cocked his head like it was time to go.

“Hope you’ve learned your lesson,” Mike said. He put a shoulder under Ryan’s arm and helped him out of the arcade.

Mike patted the manager on the shoulder as he passed. “Sorry about the mess.”

The manager shrank back. That was the power of Mike—no one fucked with him.

Drew seemed invigorated. He bounced on his feet as he walked, then turned to a random woman and screamed in her face, causing her to run shrieking in the opposite direction. Drew laughed and punched the air.

A hazmat dude stepped out of the crowd, stared at Drew, then waved for a nearby mall cop.

Mike smacked Drew in the back of the head. “Chill.”

Drew dialed it down and tried to blend in. They reached the escalator and rode down toward the Abercrombie.

Mike leaned Ryan against the railing, checked to see if the mall cop had followed. “I think it’s time we check in with Taco about our exit strategy.”

Ryan had no idea what the dish kid had to do with an exit, but he was willing to go along with any strategy if it meant getting out of this rat cage.

S
hay stroked Preeti’s head, which lay in her lap. Ever since their arrival yesterday at the emergency medical center, they’d been told to wait on folding chairs beside the glass front wall of what had once been a PaperClips. From the tinny beat thumping out of the headphones, Shay could tell Preeti was listening to Shay’s dance mix, made for her birthday party last spring. Ba had agreed to let Shay invite the whole theater company over. They played a game of Pictionary on a wipe board filched from Bapuji’s office, then turned on this silly spinning light thing Shweta had brought and had a massive dance party in the living room. When Shay escaped onto the back deck to get a breath of fresh air, Raj Patel had kissed her. It’d been nothing special, but nice anyway.

Her family should never have moved. So what if Ba got a whole department to run at this new hospital? If they
had stayed in Edison, Shay would never have dragged Nani to the mall on a Saturday—she would have gone with Shweta or Kaitlyn. Nani would have been home, safe.

If only the stupid hazmat doctors would talk to her. Every time she poked her head through the wall of curtain—which delineated the meager waiting area at the front of the ex-PaperClips from the actual medical part of the emergency medical center—she was told that someone would be with her shortly and would she please sit back down. She had been sitting on this folding chair for more than twelve hours—clearly “shortly” meant something different to these hazmat people.