Strikers Read online

  They might take a strict view and say that each element required thought and offered an opportunity to stop, giving more strikes. Some might take a looser view and decide that once begun, all offenses were part of the same crime. The simple truth is that coming from a good family with money and connections means fewer—or no—strikes, while families like Connor’s and mine can expect to get more.

  He’s right. If I had to make a bet, I’d bet Jovan will walk out with two at most. None if he says we made him do it.

  But I’m not willing to bet on anyone’s life. That’s where I differ from my mother, Connor’s parents and all the others who think this system is the right way to do things.

  “No,” I say and hope it sounds like it’s a final decision that brooks no argument.

  It’s too bad all the men now standing at the bars of their cells don’t like my answer.

  The man with the scar and the pulled up lip presses his face to the bars and says, “You try to leave and I’ll bring them all in here.” He grins and it makes his face look even worse, if that’s possible. His grin widens and he adds, “All it’ll take is a yell. And I’ve got some good lungs on me.”

  This is bad. Mostly because he’s right. I can tell that Jovan is just this side of panicking. He’s been looking behind him like he expects someone to march in for the past two minutes. We are way past his five minute mark. We’re probably inching toward ten.

  I have no idea what comes over me, or even how I might describe it. It’s some automatic reaction that makes me take two steps toward Jovan, reach out and snatch the gun from his holster, then hold it up a few inches from the forehead of the man in the cell.

  For the span of a long breath no one says anything. I look at him and he looks at the barrel of the gun. Then he backs away and holds his hands up.

  “Hey, now. I didn’t mean it,” he says.

  That’s a lie and we both know it. The gun stays steady when I turn to Jovan, his mouth hanging open and eyes on the gun.

  “We’ve got to go. Now,” I say.

  Jovan seems to shake out of it and holds out his hand for the gun. “Right, give me the gun.”

  “Once we’re gone,” I say and give the man in the cell a level look. “Just in case I need to use it.”

  Connor is looking at me just like Jovan, his mouth hanging open and something like fear in his eyes. This is his fault and he knows it. I have no idea if I could really shoot someone. If the need arises, I’m hoping I can. Possibly, I’ll squeal and run away as quickly as possible. There’s no way to tell which way it will go at this point.

  My father has been quiet this whole time, watching it all play out without adding more confusion to our situation. Now he whispers, “Go, Karas.”

  We move backward, Connor telling Maddix how sorry he is the whole way and for one relief-filled moment, I think we’ll make it.

  Then the door to the break room opens behind us and I hear voices.

  Chapter Eight

  Time comes to a stop as we face each other across the reception area. I’m not even sure my heart beats in the short time it takes for us to take in the presence of the others. In that flash, I see two duty belts with guns on hooks behind the duty desk that stands between us. I also see that neither of the two soldiers is wearing one. Lastly, I see our way out of this.

  The eyes of one of the soldiers slide toward the duty desk and he telegraphs his intentions. He’s tensing to go for the gun belts. I swing the gun toward him and take two steps out into the big open space. He freezes and there we stand for an endless moment.

  I have no idea what I’m doing, but I know I have to do it.

  “Don’t even think about it. Put up your hands,” I say and then look at Jovan. “You too, soldier boy.”

  Jovan looks at me in confusion. He doesn’t understand what I’m doing. That I’m trying to save him as well as us.

  I wave my hand for him to comply and he does, raising his hands from his sides slowly. When I point him over towards the soldiers, he goes, dragging his feet a little but without any words that might make this incredibly stupid plan impossible to carry off.

  Connor rushes past me, grabs the two duty belts from their hooks, and drops them at my feet. He plucks one of the guns from a belt and stands next to me. He looks a lot more confident than I feel holding a weapon, but I know he’s faking. We are equally clueless. Aside from a butchering knife, the most dangerous weapon either of us has held is a slingshot.

  My thoughts are a little jumbled and it’s hard to decide which thing to do in what order. We’re holding guns so this is now a situation where we either get away or we die. If they get hold of weapons, or if they have any more on them, we’re toast.

  “Connor, leave the gun here and go get the keys. Let my Dad and Maddix out and have them come up here to help me a minute,” I say. I’m surprised my voice is so calm and steady. The rest of me feels like it might shake to pieces.

  He gives me a look, but I must appear confident because he carefully places the gun on the floor next to my feet. He’s cautious when he approaches them and I can see the two soldiers measuring their chances. I can also see Jovan positioning himself to intervene.

  “The first one who tries anything gets the first bullet. The next gets one, too.”

  Both of them freeze again and the shorter soldier, the one who looked like he was game for taking a chance, glares at me, but holds his hands up higher. Connor pulls the keys off another hook and scoots past me without a word. I hear clanking and the squeak of rusty metal hinges. Seconds later my father slides up next to me.

  I risk a glance and see disappointment in his eyes. Not directed at me, but at what has happened. He’s calm, though, and steady as far as I can see. I hear more clanking but also more noise from the other men in the cells. They aren’t going to let us take two and leave the rest of them to face punishment.

  Maddix rushes up and he’s not the picture of calm my father is. He utters a profanity and pushes his hands through his hair like he doesn’t know what to do. My father puts a hand on his shoulder and whispers for him to be calm.

  They must know each other pretty well, because Maddix responds like he’s used to following his lead, taking a deep breath and shaking his hands out like he’s flinging away the stress. It’s strange to think that he knows my father and I don’t.

  “Dad, you and Maddix go pat those guys down. Take everything.” I kick the duty belts at my feet and say, “Get the handcuffs and get them secure. Take care of soldier boy last. He’s a cadet.”

  Clearly, my father is quicker on the uptake than Jovan was, because he gives me a nod and stoops to retrieve the cuffs, his eyes only leaving the soldiers for the barest minimum required to unsnap the handcuff holster.

  We all stand in silence while he and Maddix pat the soldiers down. He’s surprisingly good at it, my father. His pats are quick and professional, very thorough. Maddix is less so and my father reaches down to pull a knife from the soldier’s boot that Maddix missed. He even takes their belts.

  When they are cuffed, he pushes them to the floor, but it isn’t ungentle. It’s like he’s done it a million times before. He even puts them against the wall so they’ll be comfortable.

  For Jovan it’s more awkward. His pat-down is less thorough and even I can see the shape of a pocketknife in his pocket from all the way across the room. My father takes his duty belt and the rest, cuffs him with his own cuffs and then moves to seat him against the wall with the others.

  “No,” I say. “Soldier boy, to me.” I say it like I’m just another soldier because that’s the way they talk when they stop you on the street. Like a dog. It’s necessary, though. I want no question in these soldiers minds that there are only two people in charge here. My father and me.

  He shuffles forward with hesitant steps and when he nears, I shove him around to face away from me and say, “Knees.” He kneels and it’s a relief not to see his face anymore. I can’t stand seeing the betrayal there. Even the ba
ck of his bowed neck looks vulnerable. How can a bared neck look hurt and sad? I don’t know, but it does.

  My father walks toward me when I shoot a glance his way. When he comes close, I bend to grab the gun next to my feet and hand it to him. He takes it and gives me a wink when he clicks off the safety and racks the slide. I make a note to remember that next time. My own gun has had neither of those things done to it. I’m clearly an amateur.

  All of us look at each other then—Maddix, Connor, my father and me. Whether they understand completely what I’m up to, I can’t know, but they’re willing to follow my lead at the moment. The two soldiers are watching us, trying to figure out what’s going to happen to them. I’d certainly be worried if I were them.

  I coil a fist into the back of Jovan’s shirt and jerk so he’ll stand up. It feels incredibly wrong to do it, but I put the barrel of the gun right up against his spine and look back at the two soldiers.

  “He’s a Foley. If you do anything, I’ll shoot him first. You’re not worth spit, but he is. If he dies, you’ll wind up in those cells, too. Behave and you might make it out of this.”

  With that, I push Jovan forward and go in to talk to our new friends in the cells. We have a problem that still isn’t solved.

  Chapter Nine

  I pull the door to the cell block closed behind me, though I’m careful to be sure it doesn’t lock. I don’t need that complication on top of everything else.

  In the walkway between the cell rows, I feel like I have an audience. A hostile audience, at that. The nine men and one woman—at least I think she’s a woman, though I’m still having doubts—wear a mixed bag of expressions on their faces. Hope, anger, fear and everything else a person can feel is on display and the air is thick with tension. Most disturbingly, on a few faces I see a mean sort of victory that I don’t like at all.

  Jovan is still looking at me like he doesn’t know me at all. Or maybe like he’s just figured out who I am and doesn’t like it a single bit. I lower the gun and say, “We have a problem.”

  One of the younger cell inhabitants, four strikes plain on his neck, says, “Are you going to let us out or what?”

  I consider him for a moment, then ask, “What are your strikes for?”

  If he blushes, I can’t tell, but he glances away and licks his lips, which is almost the same thing. He gives me a measured look and answers, “One for stealing, two for assault and one for destruction of private property.”

  The way he says it is straightforward and emotionless, like someone reading a list, and he keeps his gaze steady on mine. Instead of launching into a list of reasons why the strikes were undeserved, he just waits and lets me decide how to interpret the information. That’s how I know there’s more to his story and he’s probably not as bad as his list of offenses might make me think.

  “Let’s see what we see, okay?” I ask.

  He nods once and looks at Jovan, rightly guessing that it somehow hinges on him.

  “What are you playing at?” Jovan asks and rattles the handcuffs still binding his wrists behind his back. “Why did you lock me up? Did you think I would turn on you?”

  He’s angry that I would think that. I can tell by the way his voice changes and gets tight. Does he really think so poorly of me that this is what he assumes first? And I guess it’s even worse that he assumes I think so poorly of him.

  “Uh, in case you didn’t notice, now they think we forced you to do this. You’re not involved. Get it?” I ask, but I can’t stop the bitter tone that creeps in.

  He winces. It’s real and unpracticed, so now I know he gets it and feels like a turd for thinking I would turn on him. It gives me a small measure of satisfaction and that isn’t nice of me at all.

  “Listen up. We can’t leave them out there for long. You said you’re on watch for the rest of the night. How long until someone else comes here?” I ask, talking fast.

  When he doesn’t answer me fast enough—he looks like a confused new calf—I wave my hand at him to hurry.

  “Uh, it would depend.”

  Through my teeth, I say, “Please do not make me drag every bit of information out of you, Jovan. Just work with me here.” I’m frustrated with how long this is taking.

  I’ve never been one of those people who somehow stay all calm and collected under stress. If I’m stressed for too long or too severely, I get snippy with people and eventually, angry and plain short-tempered. It’s a flaw.

  “Sorry. Well, it depends…” At my loud sigh he gives me a pleading look and I grit my teeth. I close my eyes and take a breath. When I open them again, he says, “If anyone calls for a soldier, like if a crime happens or something like that, then they’ll notice if no one answers. But if nothing happens, then we should be good until five. That’s when my patrol is supposed to end and I go home.”

  That’s good and bad. There’s nothing I can do to prevent anyone calling for soldiers so I can’t waste precious time worrying about that. Since it’s the weekend, cadets will do the morning patrol, which is just a nice way of saying they’ll do gopher duty, fetching things and answering easy calls. With cadets, I can be reasonably sure the morning shift will not be showing up early. All in all, it’s as good as it can get.

  Except for the people in the cells. That’s the bad.

  “Jovan, I can put you in a cell with the other two, but that won’t stop anyone from finding out you were involved as it stands now.”

  My pointed glance at the cells tells the rest of the story and he seems to sag a little. All these prisoners are going to race over each other to barter their freedom for information about what went on in here tonight. I think Jovan had begun to hope he might be able to get away with his ill-advised impulse to help us. Alas, no good deed goes unpunished.

  “But,” I say and then stop. I can’t believe I’m about to suggest what I’m going to, but it is an option. My mouth is dry so I swallow. There’s not a drop of moisture in my mouth or throat so all that happens is that it hurts and my throat clicks. It’s so horrible I can barely work up the spit to speak the words. “We can either let them go or we can kill them.”

  The options lay between us like a bad smell. Those in the cells aren’t going to sit idly by while I discuss ending their very short lives. Most of them will get final adjudication tomorrow and be dead by nightfall, but every hour of life a person can get is all the more precious when they know there are only a few such hours left. They start working themselves up for a loud round of making their preferences known.

  I can’t simply hush them so I raise the gun instead and say, “The first one to raise their voice will make my decision for me. I’ll be left with only one option.”

  It’s like a soundproof door closes on them it gets quiet so fast. The only sounds are Jovan’s hard breaths and those of the young man with four strikes. And young he is. Cleaned up and without a layer of fine Texas dust marring his features, he’s not much older than I am.

  “We…you can’t do that,” Jovan says. His face is flushed. He’s scared and he wants to distance himself from this decision.

  “Which one?” I ask.

  “Either!” he hisses back at me. “You don’t know what any of these guys did, Karas. We don’t even have them identified yet.”

  I nod, giving in on that point. He’s right that I don’t know what all they did to earn their strikes and go Striker. For all I know they could be really bad criminals, the dangerous kind. I start walking down the line of cells, looking at the occupants to either side.

  They are mostly young, but not all. The woman—and I’m still not completely sure she is one—and the grinning man are the only ones aside from my father who seem to have any real age behind them. What I do see is strikes. Three and four strikes on every single neck. Except the grinning man. He doesn’t have even one.

  I stop at his cell and ask, “Where are you from?”

  He grins at me, making his creepy scar even creepier, but he answers. “North.”

  �
��Wild lands?”

  He nods but doesn’t specify where. It wouldn’t make any difference anyway since all I know of the north is that it is wild and that very bad people live there.

  “Smuggler?” I ask.

  He nods again but this time he adds, “Mostly medical supplies. I also do regulated trade of some of the electronics overflow for the Tribes.”

  This does surprise me. The Tribes inhabit the vast desert west of Texas, over the border, and are the primary conduit for any official trade we have. Not many places outside of Texas will trade with us, but those who do have only one decent path to get it to us—through the Tribe lands. They work those routes for us and extract a pretty percentage for themselves in the bargain. That would mean this ugly man has an official trade business as well as a smuggling route. It seems ludicrous to risk a good living by smuggling when you can do it officially with an assurance of safety.

  “Then why smuggle?” I ask, genuinely curious.

  “Are you kidding? How much trade do you think you’ve been getting here lately? What do you think you have left to trade with? I’ll tell you in case you don’t know. Not much,” he says, emphasizing the last bit with a shake of his head.

  I’m not sure what he means about not having much. We have lots that people want here in Texas. Or, at least I think we do. He seems surprised that I don’t know this for myself when he notes my admittedly blank look. I turn away and shrug. There’s no time to waste. It does explain a lot, though, about the lack of necessary things in the market during the last few years.

  “What do you say, Jovan?”

  He shakes his head at me, pushing back any attempt I might make to force him to share in this decision.

  “Okay, let’s try this,” I say and turn to the other cells. “Is there anyone in this group who thinks there is any other person in this group that they wouldn’t want with them if I let them out.”