The Extraction List (5 page)

I wrapped my fingers around the doorknob, twisting it as slowly as I could. As I started to open it, the phone rang, startling me into releasing the doorknob. I watched my daring escape vanish with the sound of the door slamming against its frame. “Riley, is that you? You know you aren’t supposed to go outside without me,” Mom yelled from upstairs.

Ring.

“I know. Just was looking at a bird. Sorry.”

Ring.

“Sure you were…a bird… Answer the phone please.”

I picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

A whisper that I knew oh so well answered. “Riley? Is that you? Please tell me that’s you!”

I fell against the wall and slowly poured onto the floor, landing in a heap on the crisp white tile. “Olivia? Oh my gosh!”

“I haven’t got long. I snuck into the supervisor’s room. It’s the only phone in the school.”

My breath came in quick gulps. “Are you okay? Why won’t they let you use the phone? I don’t understand!”

“I don’t want to talk about this place. Tell me what it’s like there. Is it sunny there?”

“What do you mean? You’re in D.C. too, right? What’s wrong?”

“Please, Riley! I need to hear it!”

I wiped the tears from my cheeks and forced myself to slow my breathing down. I inhaled deeply. “Okay. It’s really warm here. Clear blue sky outside. The squirrels are out too…the ones in our yard that you liked so much.”

“What are you having for dinner?”

The tears kept coming. My nose dripped down my face and I tasted the salt on my lips but I didn’t care. “Bo’s cooking fried chicken. With mashed potatoes and corn, I think. And the most amazing chocolate cake. So much better than Mom’s!” I forced a laugh. “Don’t tell her, okay?”

A sigh came through on the other end. “I wish I could come.”

“Why can’t you? I don’t understand. Why won’t they let you call me?”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you too! I—”

“What are you doing in here? Put that down right now!” A new, angry voice roared on the other end of the phone, nearly drowning out my best friend’s.

“Riley! Riley!”

Click.

Olivia vanished.

My mom found me on the floor screaming into the long-empty phone. “Leave her alone! Olivia! I’ll find you, you hear me? I’ll find you, I promise!”

“Riley! Dear God, what happened?”

I looked up at her with bloodshot eyes and swollen cheeks. “That was Olivia. Something’s wrong.”

• • •

Three years after they took Olivia, almost to the day, they came for me.

T
he road bounced us up and down as we drove, and our backpacks rattled against our seats. I felt the road shake us down to my bones, so I couldn’t imagine what our poor van felt like. If it had a voice, I’m sure it would have asked us if we could take the highway. Bo told me to lie down in the very back so I wouldn’t be seen. I didn’t know who he thought would see me way out in the middle of nowhere, but I did it anyway. I figured while we were on the run the last thing he needed was me mouthing off. My muscles ached but I stayed quiet, only cursing the Taskforce Officers silently inside my head.

“Where are we going?” Mom asked Cain as she tightened the rubber band that held her hair back. No more bobby pins for her.

“Well, since you were short on cash, and we need a new vehicle, Jordyn is going to do a job and get us a new car. We never cross the border in the same one. We switch in between trips.”

“What kind of job?” I shouted without getting up from my post in the back of the van.

Before Cain could answer, Mom jumped in. “Could you be a little more specific?”

“We’re going to see a group of mercenaries. They can offer us protection for the night, and we can pick up our new vehicle from them.”

“I’ve heard of those people. They kill Taskforce men, right?”

“Correct.”

Mom whispered, “Good.”

It definitely didn’t escape me that Cain never answered my question.

• • •

When Bo finally allowed me to get up, we were surrounded by green. Old growth trees stood strong over us. They had probably been alive for a thousand years, long before the world got so screwed up.

Even in the twilight I saw several RVs sitting in a circle surrounding a giant fire pit. One of them had a sign on the front that said “groceries,” another “medical.” The rest had laundry hanging over clotheslines or flower pots seated in front of the door like a regular house. I guessed that was what these people called home. The RV village seemed like a calm little beacon in the middle of the woods.

At least before we got there.

A man in an apron that barely stretched over his belly came toward us. His stomach swayed gently like a lard-stuffed palm tree. I was pretty sure I accidentally made a face when I saw him, but I hoped no one noticed. Cain hugged him. “Carl, it’s fantastic to see you.” They smacked each other’s backs as they hugged. My dad always did that when he hugged another man. Can’t appear too emotional if you’re a man, I guessed. If you’re hugging a guy you have to be hitting him too. “Where can we set up?”

The rest of us followed behind Cain as Carl directed us.

“Oh, just park your van over there by the orange trailer. That one’s mine. We’re just about to all gather around the fire and have dinner. Pork’s on tonight!”

We all nodded, and Cain followed Carl into his trailer while Jordyn went to park the van. When we started to follow him, he waved us away. The door to the trailer shut behind him.

I started to walk toward the closed trailer, but Mom grabbed my arm. “Best you stay here with me, okay?” I tried to tug myself away from her grasp, but she just tightened it. “Really, Riley, just stay out here.”

I was about to protest, but Bo distracted me. “Besides, Riley, you don’t want to miss out on all the good food do you? Look at all that!” He pointed toward a chain of people carrying a huge table, followed by several more people carrying three giant roasts, followed still by more people with every side dish I could ever want. How these people lived so well in the middle of the woods was beyond me, but if we had to leave our own home, I was ready to sign up for a trailer of my own. My mouth watered, and I ran up and tapped the shoulder of the first person carrying the table. “Do you guys eat like this every night?”

He smiled at me. “Not usually, but we’ve been very lucky in our last few food-gathering trips, so we thought we should live a little!” He put down his corner of the table. “Hey, why don’t you gather your family and come have the first shot at it? You’re guests after all!”

I glanced over and saw Cain had come back out from the trailer and had his arm around Jordyn. Some unfamiliar feeling bubbled slowly in my stomach. If nervousness had a baby with insecurity, it would have been that feeling. Maybe some people would have called it jealousy.

There was a giant fire in the middle of the camp and several tables around it. We picked the one closest to the trailer and sat down with our huge plates of food. The pork melted in my mouth and became so soft I didn’t need to chew. Mom smiled and took bigger bites than I’d ever seen her eat. At home she still hoped that if she led by example I would grow some table manners. Today, when I shoveled more pork in my mouth, she didn’t seem to mind. The fire crackled in front of us and sparks jumped out toward me, gently stinging my hands when I had finally rested them on my knees. I watched the flames twirl as my stomach gurgled, scolding me for stuffing it to the brim.

Carl and Jordyn sat across from us, with Cain in between them. I noticed Carl whisper something into Cain’s ear. Carl’s mouth was wide and his lips were plump like little sausages, which made them easy to read. He told Cain it was time.

Cain looked at Jordyn and nodded. Both she and Carl rose from their seats and headed back toward the orange trailer. I stared at their turned backs. I could have been mistaken, but I thought, as Carl turned around and closed the door, his eyes met mine. For some reason, the face of Olivia’s father flashed inside my head.

After everyone cleaned up dinner, Bo started talking to one of the younger mercenaries, so Mom and I were left alone with Cain. I told them I had a question and asked if we could go to the other end of camp for me to ask since there was a nice little creek to look at. They agreed, though I think at least my mom knew the creek wasn’t the real reason I wanted to pull them away from the group of strangers.

I found a fallen tree and sat on it, feeling myself sink into the wood ever so slightly, like a mattress that was just soft enough to be called alright to sleep on. When Cain and Mom sat down next to me, I asked my question. “Why are Jordyn and that Carl guy in that trailer? Were they friends from before? He’s kinda weird.”

Mom inhaled sharply. “Honey, Carl paid Jordyn to go on a date with him. People…pay her to spend time with them.” Mom looked at the floor when she spoke. That’s how I always knew when she wasn’t telling the truth, or that she was at least prettying up the truth for my benefit.

“What do you mean? Did you ask her or are you making it up?” My question came out harsher than I meant it to, and Mom started getting a pouty look on her face. I softened my volume. “I just don’t get it.”

Cain decided he would answer my question instead. He looked at me straight in the eyes and told me in the most casual tone, “Riley, Jordyn is a prostitute. She’s paying for our transportation to get you guys out of the country.”

The pork twirled around in my stomach like a laundry machine. I liked that at least Cain seemed to have no problem with telling me the truth, but I kind of wished that he had put a little more sugar coating on that one answer—just that one time.

“What? No! I don’t want her to do that! Not for us! That guy’s a creep! What if he hurts her?” My chin trembled but I refused to cry in front of Cain.

Mom started to grab my hand, but Cain shook his head. “No, no! Riley, listen. This is what Jordyn does for a living. She chooses to do it. This is a business transaction. It’s just part of our process of getting people out of America.”

“But it’s not safe!”

Cain gave me a look that on anyone else’s face would have seemed condescending. But on his, it just seemed sympathetic. “It’s as safe as anything else in this world. She always uses protection and I’m always with her. She’s gone for exactly one hour, not any longer. And I’m always nearby to keep watch. If she’s gone any longer than one hour, I know something’s wrong and I can help her.”

As Cain spoke, I looked at my mom. She turned away. “But why does she do that?”

Though I asked Cain, he looked at my mom.

“Claire?”

She turned back toward us. “Honey, sometimes young girls…well, I don’t know what happened to Jordyn, but most girls who do this have very low self-esteem. She probably—”

“No, that’s wrong,” Cain said.

“She probably wasn’t loved by her parents enough.”

“No, that’s not correct either.”

Mom threw her hands in the air and stood up from our fallen log. “Well what then? You wanted me to answer her, I gave you my answer. Go ahead then.”

Cain looked at me. “Jordyn knows how special she is. She was loved by her parents. They were fantastic and did right by her. She just likes sex. That’s it. This was what she chose to do when she left home. She just likes it.”

I felt my cheeks flush, and the burning sensation traveled over the rest of my skin. “Do her parents know? If it’s no big deal, has she told her mom and dad?” The question sounded more like an accusation than an actual question, but I didn’t care.

Silence.

I folded my arms across my chest. “That’s what I thought…”

Mom had to steady herself against a nearby tree. I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t really like that answer either.

I let out a sigh when I saw Bo walking toward us. I hoped he would change the conversation to a lighter subject and I would be able to get the image of that sweaty round man on top of Jordyn out of my head. I’d never had sex, but from what it looked like in the movies, it shouldn’t be done with a stranger, and it for sure shouldn’t be paid for. I didn’t want to do it until I found the person I was supposed to be with forever, the person in the world who I would love the most. That’s what I wished for everyone, even Jordyn, but apparently that ship had already sailed long ago. The most horrible part was that I doubted the image that kept replaying in my mind was as bad as what was actually happening to her.

I hardly noticed Cain, Bo, and Mom arguing next to me. Arms flailed. Words pierced the crisp air. I tried to think of our house back home, especially about the little things: the garden outside, my blue lace curtains that I told Mom I hated but secretly loved. I thought of Olivia too, but that did nothing to calm my nausea.

In fact, thinking of her threw it into overdrive.

The others grabbed my attention back when I saw Cain start to sprint across the camp. He pulled something that glistened from each side of his body and twirled them into position facing straight in front of him. It only took me a second to realize they were knives.

Mom shouted, “Where are you going?”

Without looking back, Cain replied, “It’s been sixty-one minutes.”

M
om sprinted after him. Bo followed. They paid no attention to me running right behind them. Our feet pounded so quickly against the soft earth that it sounded like hail hitting the ground. Other people in the camp emerged from their own trailers: mothers holding their babies, men with messy beards and messier hair. They all just watched us, strangers sprinting in front of their homes like a heard of manic gazelle.

I’d always hated being watched.

Though the other trailer doors swung open, Carl’s trailer door remained shut. The silent faces blurred as I ran. Cain threw open the door of the orange trailer and disappeared inside. Mom and Bo went in after him.

They still didn’t notice me.

When I stepped through the threshold, I knew that moment was a “before” moment. Like when my father left us, seeing what I saw in that trailer would become a marker, something that eliminated time entirely and broke my life down into two simple pieces: the before and the after.