The Extraction List (7 page)

I sat in the back with Jordyn, as far away from Cain as I could get. It wasn’t that I wanted to distance myself because I was afraid. I wasn’t. I didn’t just see him as the guy who killed people right in front of my eyes. I also saw the person who was risking his life to save us, the person who told me the truth no matter how much I didn’t want to know, and the person who somehow understood when I needed a teddy bear more than anything in the world.

But I should have been scared…to pieces. And the fact that I was more fascinated with him than afraid was something I wasn’t prepared to deal with. Not yet. Not until I could talk to him without Mom hovering over my shoulder.

Mom protested when I didn’t sit closer to her, but I said it was okay and she’d be right in front of me.

Jordyn just stared out the window, leaning against the side of the car. She hadn’t even had time to change out of the torn shirt. The blood on it had dried, but the crusty brown remnants still clung to the fabric. I took off my jacket and set it in her lap. Her lips curled into a smile ever so slightly and she swung the jacket around her shoulders. Her face winced at the effort so I helped her stick her arms through. “Thank you.”

I thought distracting her with conversation might help her forget about how much pain she was in. “So, I never heard how you and Cain met.”

Jordyn sat up as straight as her weak body could. I winced in sympathy as she slowly peeled herself off the side of the car and sat upright. “I looked a lot like I do today the day he found me. I had barely been in the life for a week. I thought I had every single thing figured out…dialed in. Just when I started to think I was really hot shit, a client followed me outside a motel for a second round that he didn’t plan on paying for. I fought him off as best I could, but when I felt my skull knock against the motel wall, I figured it was all over. My world turned black, but right as I closed my eyes, I saw the blurry shadow of a second man.

“When I opened my eyes, I looked down and saw myself covered in white sheets, and next to me sat the tiniest little table with a glass of water and a sandwich sitting on top of it. I still remember what kind it was. Best turkey ever. I reached up to feel my head and found a soft bandage covering half of my forehead. In the far corner of the room, there he was, guarding me.” She managed to giggle. “There was a Bible in his hands of all things. We’ve been inseparable since that day. He taught me how to use a gun, though after I learned the basics, I figured out I was better at it than him.” A pained smile swept across her face. “Even he would tell you that.”

I glanced at Cain in the rearview mirror. He nodded proudly back at me.

“And together we figured out the way to get people out of here. To help people keep their kids.”

Jordyn’s eyes were barely open by the time she finished the story. I could see the trunks of the trees as we drove but no leaves. The road seemed smoother now that we were out of the rickety old van. Jordyn quickly fell asleep next to me. Or maybe she had just passed out. Either way, after what she just went through, I wouldn’t want to be conscious either.

• • •

“I need to use the bathroom,” Bo whispered. None of us were thrilled with the idea of pulling off the road, but we were a good ten miles from the camp, so we did anyway.

“Make it fast,” Cain said, taking guard outside. Mom told me to stay in the car and lock the door, keeping a barrier between me and Cain while she followed Bo to the bathroom. I nodded and sealed myself in. I waited ‘til she was a safe enough distance away where she couldn’t see me and I emerged from the car.

I stared at him. “You killed them.”

“Yes.” He opened the trunk and took a quick glance through our supplies, as casually as if I had accused him of going to the grocery store.

“Yes? Just like that? You aren’t going to say anything else?”

His eyes were still.

“Riley, I’m sorry you saw that. You weren’t supposed to see that.” He shut the trunk. “You want to know how I’m able to do it? To kill? Without hesitation?”

I glared at him, but not in a mean way, more like in a you-better-not-pick-now-to-start-lying-to-me kind of way. “Yeah.”

He bent down so he could look me square in the eyes. “I call it going back to basics.” He sank to the ground and picked up a small twig, twirling it between his fingers. I squatted down next to him, watching the patterns of wood grain spin. “You can’t undo the decisions you make in this life. So you have to have a set of rules that you live by and make the right call every time. Hesitation is death in this world, for you or someone else.” He still made eye contact with me, but somehow I could tell he was somewhere else, like he was looking straight through me and out to the other side. “Jordyn is my family. Pure and simple. We are one and the same. If you were to cut me open, you would find her inside, and same goes for her. When one of your own is in danger, you do what needs to be done. If I have to make the choice between Jordyn being harmed and someone else, I’ll pick the stranger every time.” He put the twig down. “Tonight I was making sure it was someone else. Back to basics.”

I didn’t breathe for a moment. He made it sound so easy. And listening to his words, I could almost agree with him. Then I pictured the blood. “What happened to her?”

“She did her job. With Carl. Then two other men entered through a side door to the trailer that I didn’t even know was there. Stupid mistake. Sloppy on my part. They wanted to…”

I shuddered and turned away from him. “Stop. Okay, I get it. You don’t have to say anymore.” My hands felt sweaty, and I realized I was squeezing them together so hard that the ends of my fingers had turned white…the same way Olivia’s did the last time I saw her. As much as I didn’t want to hear any more, I had one more question. “Cain? Have you ever hesitated?”

He smiled, only slightly. “Just once.”

“What happened?”

“It turned into the first and last time I got caught.”

• • •

I got back into the car right as Mom and Bo came out of the trees. Before the door closed, I told Cain one more thing. “I don’t think I could do it, what you do. I don’t have it in me.”

“You will. Out in this world long enough and you will.”

I curled up in my seat and closed my eyes, hoping that I could sleep away the blood and the skin and the sweat.

• • •

When I opened my eyes, the pitch black night startled me. I had kept my eyes closed for as long as I could and hoped that, when I opened them again, the sun would be rising and the horrible day that we had would be behind us. No such luck. The darkness was just as black as it was before, and it didn’t look like the night had plans to end anytime soon. I looked down to find Jordyn’s head lying in my lap. I brushed some of her hair off her face, noticing delicate strands being drawn to her nose as she took each breath. Amazing how it didn’t tickle.

The house where we parked for the night was stolen straight out of a southern romance novel. Mom said I was too young to read those, but back home I would sometimes sneak one off her shelf when she wasn’t looking and read it with a flashlight after I went to bed. She always said they were inappropriate. Apparently she didn’t know what I heard out of the mouths of other fifteen-year-olds every day at school. If she had, my reading a book wouldn’t have seemed like such a bad way to go.

White with pale blue shutters, the house seemed to glow in the middle of the green field where it rested. A swinging bench sat on the porch that wrapped around the whole front of the house. I imagined Jordyn sipping lemonade out of a big pink glass, floating on the swing, bare feet dangling in the hot summer breeze. In my picture, there was not a bruise to be seen, and her olive skin sparkled in the sunshine.

Despite the darkness invited by the lack of a porch light, Jordyn glided up the steps with ease. I noticed she had slipped my jacket on over her torn shirt and zipped it tight. I watched as the front door swung open.

She threw her arms around a man I learned was her father. He picked her up in a hug and swung her around, and a grin stretched across his wrinkled face. I turned away when I realized his well-intentioned hug was probably squeezing her recently bruised ribs. When I looked back, Jordyn had a smile on her face, but her eyes glistened. Her mother was next in line for a hug and Jordyn kept her smile glued on. “Dad, Mom, this is Riley,” Jordyn nodded at me. I shook her father’s hand.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Riley. Call me Joe. And this is Natalie. Welcome to our home.”

Jordyn threw her finger at Mom and Bo. I guessed she wasn’t as enthusiastic to introduce them to her parents. “Claire and Bo.”

We followed Natalie and Joe inside, and Joe locked the door behind us. This was not a simple task since the door was covered in locks, ranging from huge silver ones to a wooden slide lock. He started from the top and worked his way down, finally finishing with a solid copper contraption that looked like it could stop a rhinoceros from entering the house.

In the light of the living room, Natalie and Joe finally saw their daughter’s wounds. The jacket covered some of them, but her swollen foot and blood-crusted cheek gave her away. “Oh my gosh! Honey, what happened to you? Are you alright?”

Jordyn forced a smile again. “Don’t worry, Mom, I’m fine. Just an occupational hazard.”

Natalie threw her arms around her daughter. “Oh dear. We’re so proud that you’re a Guide and helping so many people, but I wish it wasn’t so darn dangerous.”

I thought to myself that it wasn’t the Guide part of her job that was dangerous.

Natalie’s smile returned. “Thank goodness you made it here. We’re so happy to see you!” She let her daughter sit down then darted off into the kitchen.

When Natalie emerged, she had a stack of sandwiches of all different colors, shapes, and sizes. Some were tuna with mango chutney, others were turkey and goat-cheese with little purple leaves that I didn’t recognize. That was a sure sign of people who had somehow managed to hang on to their money—eating food that didn’t look like it had been preserved from back when my mom was a kid.

They reminded me of what Bo would make me for lunch when Mom had to go anywhere without me. He would sometimes stay with me when she was gone giving her speeches. Bo usually went with her, but sometimes he had other things to do at his office and couldn’t take the time. I always remembered going to school and pulling out a sandwich with fluffy white bread and thick tuna and always trying to eat it subtly so none of the people whose parents didn’t have jobs would notice. I wasn’t proud of it, but after several dirty looks, I always made sure I ate lunch at the table where all the other people with employed parents sat.

We dove into the plate of sandwiches and demolished it in ten minutes. With my belly full and happy, I promised myself to remember what a big meal felt like. Who knows how long we’d have to be eating prepackaged stuff from the packs that Cain had given us at the start of our journey after we left their house.

Cain ate his sandwiches by the window and stared out into the distance. I didn’t know how he expected to see anything out in that black night, but he kept watch anyway. Behind him, there was a fireplace covered in photos. Two large ones sat at each corner. In each one a different smiling little boy looked back at me. One had a missing front tooth but didn’t seem to mind as he grinned just as proudly as the other boy. The second one’s hair looked messy, like he had been playing outside right before the photo was taken. They looked about the same age. The size of the photos reminded me of the memorial set up for Aidan at his funeral. I’d been to seven funerals. Well, seven formal ones anyway. If you count seeing dead people, I’d be up to eleven thanks to the couple days before we had ended up in Jordyn’s living room.

“How are you on supplies?” Joe asked Jordyn.

“We’re doing pretty good, Dad. We may swipe a couple more cases of water just in case. Part of the trip may need to be on foot. We never quite know.”

“Take whatever you need. Extra blankets too.”

“Thanks.” Jordyn smiled lovingly at her father. I couldn’t remember ever looking at my father like that. Mom and Bo sat on a couch listening to Jordyn and her family while I rested against their legs on the floor. “So, how’s it been lately? Lots of people stopping?”

Natalie swallowed her last bite of sandwich. “Been pretty spaced out actually. They’re really cracking down. Last people we had stay with us were probably here a month ago.”

“You have more people stay here than just us?” I asked.

“Oh yes. We help Guides like Jordyn and Cain all the time. Our house is perfect since it’s so far out in the middle of nowhere. Very hard to track down.”

While we all talked, Joe got up to grab us something to drink out of the kitchen. He emerged a couple of minutes later with a large pitcher of ice water. “Who wants ice—?” The pitcher shattered onto the floor, sending a storm of ice chips across the living room.

I looked up, curious what had startled him so much. He was staring straight at my mother.

“It’s you…”

F
luttering lashes, just a touch of white eye shadow…Mom always reminded me of an innocent God-fearing woman during her speeches, someone who you would catch baking cupcakes on Saturdays and going to church on Sundays. But the whole thing was by design. Her handlers manufactured the whole getup to make her look like the poster-child for grieving parents: dresses in light pink (probably with small flowers), gray, or brown, curled hair, flat shoes. Sometimes, she’d even wear gloves. No low necklines or heels, and definitely no short skirts. But when people from the White House started flying in most of her outfits from a special vintage store in New York (why dresses that smelled like old books and dust would need to be flown in from anywhere, I’d never know), the whole thing lost a bit of its charm. Maybe it was just me, but I liked the days of me and Mom frantically digging through her closet much better.

The day we met Bo was one of those days—before New York, before the consultants, before things got so out of control. I stood in front of the stage and smiled up at my mother. Those were the days when she still needed a smile from her daughter to make it through the minutes that followed.