One gasp. One scream. One hitch in Red’s chest.
There were two of them out there, in the wide-open nothing. Two of them. Two guns. Two red dots. No, this couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
“Get back inside, Oliver!” Reyna was screaming now. “Get in!” A race between her voice and a finger on a trigger.
Oliver tucked his head and rolled back inside, falling against Maddy on the driver’s seat, and Reyna just behind. Reyna stumbled, pushing into Red. She tripped over Arthur’s feet but he caught her, arms under hers, solid and strong.
“Close the curtains,” Reyna was still screaming, the sound cutting through Red. “Close them!”
Oliver righted himself, reaching up and snatching at the curtains, pulling them together. No gap. Shutting the outside away, splitting them into two separate worlds again: the RV and out there. Only a border of thin black material between them.
“It’s not fair,” Maddy cried, mouth bared, eyes clouded. “We were almost out. We were almost free.” Fat tears broke away, rolling to her chin.
“FUCK!” Oliver roared, tendons sticking out across the length of his neck, red and raw, like the puppet strings that worked his head. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He beat his fists against the steering wheel, against the dashboard, over and over.
“Oliver, stop!” Reyna lurched forward to take his hands away from him, holding them to her chest. “That doesn’t help anyone.”
“Two of them.” Simon walked backward over a large shard of mirror, doubling the sole of his shoe before it cracked. “Two fucking snipers. You know what this night didn’t need?” he called. “Another fucking sniper!”
Oliver was standing again, pushing Reyna out of his way as he stormed through. One of his feet caught on a can of beer, sending it spinning. He roared again, an ugly, scratching sound, as he bent down and wrapped his hands around the closet door. He lifted it up and smashed it back down, the wood splintering, a clean break, clattering back down in two unequal halves.
“Oliver, stop!” Maddy cried. “You’re scaring me!”
“I’m scaring you?!” He rounded on her, eyes wild, a fleck of spit foaming in the corner of his mouth. “It’s not me you should be scared of right now, Madeline. It’s the men with the fucking guns!”
“Oliver, please.” Reyna pushed him toward the booth, the side not blocked by the broken mirror. “Please just sit down and calm down.”
“We were out,” he said to himself, sliding his legs under the dining table, staring at the walkie-talkie. “We were out. I was so close.”
Red’s eyes shifted to Arthur as he dropped back against the sofa, his eyes on her but not here at all, glazed, far away.
His head fell to his hands and he buried his face in them, whitening halos of skin where his fingers pressed in.
Red reached, stretching out her fingers, each one too aware of itself and of what she was making them do. She rested her hand on Arthur’s head just for a moment, near the back of his neck. Mom used to do that to her when she was upset, and Red didn’t even realize until right now that she missed it. She shouldn’t think of her, why did she keep thinking of her tonight?
Arthur glanced up, her hand sliding off. He caught it in one of his waiting hands, squeezed, his fingers warm against the cool of her knuckles.
Too much.
Red’s arm dropped to her side.
She looked around at all of them, at their faces, and there was something new in the air of the RV. Not fear or confusion, they’d had plenty of those. It was despair, plain as she’d ever seen it. And she was an expert in despair.
Reyna was the first to come through it, bending to her knees to pick up the shattered halves of the closet door.
“What are you doing?” Oliver asked her sharply, his finger balanced on the antenna of the walkie-talkie.
“I’m cleaning up,” Reyna said, carrying the pieces of wood toward the back bedroom. “Looks like we’re going to be here awhile.”
Red watched her as she crossed the threshold into the bedroom, chucking the broken door into the gap on the far side of the bed. She returned, making a start on the mirror.
“Maddy?” she asked, gently. “Can you please help me with this? Pick up those larger shards and put them in the trash?”
“Sure.” Maddy sniffed, wiping her nose on her sleeve.
“We’re never getting out of here.” Simon slid down on the sofa, next to Arthur. “This is the worst day of my life.”
It wasn’t Red’s, though, was it? No, she didn’t think so, she’d never replace hers. February 6, 2017. It wasn’t enough just to lose her mom that way, was it? No, there had to be that last phone call too, still hurting from their argument in the kitchen the day before, about Red not concentrating in school, about her grades slipping. Mom called the home phone at 7:06 p.m., to say she’d be late for dinner. Red was the one who picked up. Red didn’t want to talk to her. Fine, she’d replied, thinking Good instead. Maybe she could go to bed without even seeing her mom tonight, without restarting the fight. But Red restarted it then, she couldn’t help it, bristling when her mom called her sweetie.
“Don’t call me that. I thought I was a disappointment.”
Mom never said that, she wouldn’t. Red was putting words in her mouth. They’d talk about it when Mom got home, that was what she said. But her voice wasn’t normal, and Red thought she must still be angry at her.
Disappointed. Did part of her wish Red had never been born? Something interrupted them, a two-tone sound, trilling somewhere in the background behind her mom. A doorbell. Twice.
“Hello,” her mom said to someone else, not Red, because she could never just concentrate on Red for one fucking second, could she? Couldn’t turn the police captain off and just be Mom. That wasn’t fair but Red hadn’t felt like being fair.
“Sweetie. Before I go, I need to ask you something. Can you tell Dad to
—”
And then it came, the worst part.
“No,” Red cut her off. “Stop telling me what to do all the time.” And worse still.
“I hate you.”
Red hung up the phone, cutting off her mom’s voice as she repeated her
name.
And guess what? Mom was dead within ten minutes of that phone call. “Red?” Oliver said, saving her from the memory, but not from the guilt.
That always stayed.
She looked up, just as Oliver reached her, dropping the walkie-talkie into her hand. “Keep cycling through the channels, looking for interference. It’s the only plan we have left now,” he said, darkly, turning away.
Back to hoping for outside help, because the escape plan had gone out the window, which was a funny way to think of it because that was exactly what the plan had been. Red pushed the + button, skipping to the empty static of channel four, then five.
Channel six. She stopped, waiting there. Mom’s channel, from their Cops and Cops game. Stop it, stop thinking about her, Red had no right to be thinking about her. It was her fault Mom was dead, and nothing would fix that, not even the plan. What was it, what was it Mom needed Red to tell her dad? They’d never know, but maybe it would have saved her. It would have saved her and Red said no. Red hung up. Mom was killed, executed, and it was Red’s fault. Only her fault, because the police never found out who shot
her. Twice. In the back of the head. On her knees. Thinking about how her daughter hated her and how she hated her back just as hard.
Up and up through the channels, the walkie-talkie fizzing in her hands, holding it too tight.
Reyna and Maddy had finished clearing up the broken mirror, and now Reyna was in the kitchen, taking down six glasses from the cupboard. She filled them with water, one after the other, the running faucet filling the RV with a new kind of music, blocking the static for a few moments.
“Here.” She passed one glass to Maddy, and another to Oliver at the table, sliding it over. “We need to stay hydrated, it’s been a long night already.” The next two to Arthur and Simon, who needed it most. The last one to Red, a defeated smile on Reyna’s face as Red’s fingers cupped the glass.
“Thank you,” Red said, taking a sip, and then a long draw, raising the glass, eyes on the overhead lights. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was, and something else too, that yawning feeling back in her gut. Hungry, again. But she couldn’t eat. She drained the rest of the water and came up for air.
They couldn’t escape. So, what were they going to do now? Red couldn’t remember exactly—what was it the sniper had said about that secret he wanted? Would they just wait here, trapped, until Catherine Lavoy gave up the name? She looked to Oliver; he should know what to do, he was the leader.
“We’re fucked,” Oliver was saying, speaking into his half-empty glass, lending his voice a hollow echo. “We’re completely fucked.”
Or maybe not.
Arthur took Red’s empty glass from her, carrying it back to the counter with his. Two dull thuds as he placed them down. And there must have been something wrong with Red’s ears, because now she was hearing an echo of those too, which couldn’t be right.
Arthur sighed. “Maybe we should think about the se—” he began.
“Shh,” Oliver spat, holding his arms up to silence them all. “I can hear something. I hear…”
He drew off, tilting his head to raise one ear.
Red heard it too, a low, clicking, rumbling sound. It was growing, growing, overtaking the static.
“What is…” Maddy’s voice faded with one sharp look from her brother.
Red looked up, ears straining beyond the ceiling. It was coming from up there, from the sky.
“It’s a helicopter,” Oliver said, jumping up from his seat. “It’s a helicopter!”
Moving closer and closer, like a mechanical roar of thunder. They couldn’t see it, but they could hear it.
“It’s getting nearer!” Oliver shouted, his eyes glittering, replacing the despair. “We have to signal it somehow. Let them know we need help!”
“The horn!” Maddy said.
“They won’t hear that,” Reyna told her.
“The lights!” Simon crashed up to his feet. “We can signal SOS, I know how to do it.” He jumped across to the light panel, flicking the main switch off and then on again in three short bursts.
“They won’t see, the windows are covered!” Reyna shook her head, looking around frantically.
The helicopter must be right above them now, the mechanical drone slicing through the sky.
“Headlights,” Red said.
“Headlights!” Maddy screamed. “Simon, go, go, go!”
Simon sprinted to the front of the RV, crashing into the driver’s seat as he launched himself into it. Red stood behind him, one hand gripping the passenger seat, the other wrapped hard around the walkie-talkie, the edges biting into her skin.
Simon reached for the lever behind the steering wheel and flicked the headlights on.
A glow filled the covered windshield, around the edges of the pulled-down shade.
“Dot-dot-dot,” Simon muttered to himself and he flicked the lever three times quickly. “Dash-dash-dash.” He moved the control, leaving the high beams on for a longer stretch between the darkness. “Dot-dot-dot.”
“Keep going,” Oliver ordered him, leaning past the driver’s seat, pulling the shade up so they could see the high beams through the windshield, carving up the night.
The motorized whine of the helicopter was fading, moving away from them into other skies.
“It’s leaving,” Reyna said, the urgency all but gone from her voice. “Keep going, Simon!” But not from Oliver’s.
The headlights flicked off and on, following the pattern as Simon whispered it to himself. “Dot-dot-dot-dash-dash-dash-dot-dot-dot.”
Save our souls. Save us. Please save us. Headlights on, headlights off.
An idea stolen from another memory. Red’s mom used to flash the headlights when she got home from work late, into the windows of the living room. She didn’t, though, on the night it mattered most. Red was waiting, angry and hurt, but she was waiting all the same.
“It’s leaving, Oliver,” Reyna said, placing one hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off.
“Keep going!”
Simon flicked the lever, back and forward, the world in front of them flickering in and out of existence as the headlights flashed. And Red too, flickering between here and then.
In seconds, the sound faded to a low drone, then a faint hum, until the night swallowed it whole, leaving not a trace behind.
“Gone,” Red said.
Simon let the headlights click off, sitting back in his seat. He exhaled, long and hard.
“Maybe it will come back,” Maddy said, looking at the back of Oliver’s head.
“Maybe,” he said. “If it was a rescue helicopter for us.”
That was when Red knew for certain that she and Oliver Lavoy did not live in the same world. She could never hear a helicopter and think it was sent for her. No one loved her enough for that.
“Nobody knows to rescue us,” Arthur said, looking up at the ceiling as though he could summon it back with the pull of his eyes.
“My mom, maybe.” Oliver’s voice almost failed him.
“I think it was just passing over,” Reyna added, her hand moving to Oliver’s shoulder, staying there this time.
“Maybe they saw. Maybe they saw the headlights,” he continued. “Maybe,” she said, gently.
“How do you know Morse code?” Arthur was looking at Simon now.
“I mean I don’t, obviously,” he replied. “Just SOS. I got it from a film.
Panic Room, I think it was.”
“Red, keep going.” Oliver turned back to her, mouth tensed in a grim line.
If she was their only hope, then the rest of them really were fucked. Red wasn’t getting them out of here. She raised the walkie-talkie and started skipping through the empty channels again.
Oliver sighed, rallying himself, shaking out his shoulders. Red was watching, saw the exact moment an idea hit him, lighting up his eyes.
“Maybe it wasn’t all for nothing,” he said. “Maybe there’s an idea in there, to make some kind of light signal. Here.” He darted forward, snatching his Zippo lighter up from the resource pile on the table. “He shot out the tank and the gas has leaked all over the road, right?”
“Right,” Maddy answered.
“If I light this”—he flicked up the flame to demonstrate, fire dancing in his too-wide eyes—“and I drop it out the window, it would set fire to that pool of gas. A fire. A signal fire. And maybe someone will see the smoke. Light travels farther than sound, right?”
“Not in the middle of the night,” Reyna told him. “No one will see the smoke.”
“And you’d set fire to the RV,” Arthur said, burying his fingers in his pocket, like he was hiding them from Oliver as he confronted him. “Burn us inside with it.”
Oliver was getting desperate now, careless. Maybe Maddy was right, they should be afraid of him after all. Reyna could control him, though, couldn’t
she? Calm him down, make him see sense.
“The RV is our only cover,” she said. “We can’t set fire to it.”
Oliver ignored her, staring into the flame for one more second before flicking it away, dropping the lighter on the table.
Simon followed him to the table, reaching over the flashlights and duct tape and masking tape and kitchen knife and scissors and lighter, past the pad of paper and pens Maddy had been using earlier, to the bag of still-open chips resting against the side.
He scooped out a handful and placed them in his mouth. “How can you eat?” Maddy asked him, not really a question.
“Like this,” he showed her, opening his mouth in an exaggerated chew so she could see the mulched-up orange coating his tongue.
She didn’t react.
“What’s our next plan?” She looked at her brother. “What do we do now?”
Silence, other than the sound of static as Red skipped back to channel three and left it there. And a muted crunch from inside Simon’s mouth.
“Gu-ys,” Reyna said, strangely, the word coming out in two uneven halves, like she’d had to force it through.
Red glanced up. Reyna was staring past her shoulder, out the front of the RV. Something new and unknown in her eyes.
“Guys!” she said in one this time. And then: “Someone’s here.”
She pointed and Red whipped around, her eyes following the line of Reyna’s shaking finger. Out through the windshield into the world beyond. And there, scattered by the dark bodies of the trees up ahead, were two small lights passing through the night. Winking in and out as branches blocked the way.
The lights curved around with the road, breaking free from the trees, two clean white beams, pointing right at them. Coming this way.
Headlights. “Someone’s here.”
