12
CHINA
I unlocked the door to the apartment and stepped inside. I still hadn’t grown accustomed to the heat. This place was an Airbnb monthly rental that I’d paid for via Bitcoin and that was located in one of the less-than-savory parts of New Orleans. July was a crappy time for the air conditioning to go out. I’d been suspicious of its wheezing when I’d moved in more than a month ago, and I’d been right. It was on its last legs, and those legs had given out in the middle of the night.
Muttering under my breath, I pulled out my cell. I had a voice mail from a missed call.
“Sorry can’t make it today to fix your unit. We’re all backed up. Someone will be out tomorrow.”
Fabulous.
I set the groceries I’d picked up on the counter, my mood going from bad to worse. In my head, I added Suffering through no AC in New Orleans during summer to my list of Reasons I Hated Mark Danvers. It was a long list. Recent additions had been Having to tell Mia she couldn’t stay with me this summer and Weeks since I’d spoken to Grams. The last one was incremental and was already at ten.
Organizing and sorting the groceries didn’t take long. My dietary needs were simple. Red Bull, Fig Newtons, some frozen meals (including frozen pizza and Chinese, since I couldn’t order takeout), and Pop-Tarts.
Incorporating a new routine for breakfast had been a difficult decision. There were so many breakfast items available. In the end, I’d decided on Pop-Tarts because a) they were portable, and b) they had enough flavors for me to vary day to day and still have a routine. The week began with a semblance of health (strawberry, blueberry), and ended without any pretense (chocolate chip cookie dough, hot fudge sundae). The inner-cynicism made me smile, when there was precious little to smile about at the moment.
So far, my search had yielded few results. I’d spent weeks scouring the deep web for traces of the account with the money stolen all those years ago and what might have happened to it. Once the money had been received by that account, it all disappeared into a dozen different accounts around the world, then a dozen more, until it was removed so far from the source that it was a needle in a haystack to find. I’d written a program to automate the money-laundering trace, but it was combing through years of data and took time.
I’d also decided to infiltrate airline databases because obviously he would have flown over the years, but there were a lot of Mark Danverses in the world. When I’d finally found the right one, the most recent address on file had been a fake one. Google Street View had shown me it was an empty lot in downtown Detroit.
Ha. Good one, Dad.
But I wasn’t going to give up. He was out there somewhere, and hopefully, still in the United States.
I ate frozen pizza for dinner, glumly watching the latest Game of Thrones episode on my computer. I couldn’t even muster much enthusiasm when the dragons started kicking some ass, and I’d been waiting years for that.
As I did nearly every night, I took out the police report I’d finally received. It had shown me how he’d done it.
According to an eyewitness, my mom had been driving behind a semitruck. The weather was bad, with low visibility from the sleet and snow. Another car attempted to pass my mom and apparently lost control just long enough to run into us with enough force to push our pickup sideways.
Mom had overcompensated in her steering, trying to stay on the road, and the ice had done the rest. We’d been sent careening into the guardrail, spun a 360, and caught the back edge of that semi. It jackknifed, twisting in the middle of the road. The trailer hit our pickup and sent it tumbling down the embankment into the median.
When it stopped, the pickup was lying on the driver’s side. Good Samaritans passing by stopped to help and were able to get me free. Unfortunately, the pickup’s underbelly was rusted, and the crash had caused the gas tank to leak. Flames gave enough warning but not enough time to get my mom out of the vehicle.
The automobile that had initiated the chain of events didn’t stop, and its driver was never found. My mom was the only fatality.
I didn’t remember any of that. I wasn’t a therapist, but blocking out the horrific death of my mother in an accident I survived seemed pretty normal. I was sure I probably had survivor’s guilt, too, if I were to be clinical about it. Killing Danvers wasn’t just about avenging my mom but putting my own ghosts to rest as well.
I checked my trace program—it was still going—and sighed with impatience. My mind wandered and it was just so damn hot. Even with the windows open, the heat was oppressive. I took my third shower of the day, leaving my hair wet, and put on a tiny pair of bikini panties and a thin camisole. I’d had to do some clothes shopping when I’d arrived, and no one seemed to have Star Wars–themed pajamas here. I’d made do with some plain clothes that were serviceable but not any fun. I hadn’t been able to muster up much more than indifference to not having my normal clothes, which was very unlike me.
There was a quiet ding from my computer. The program had finished.
I sat down to take a look. The laundering had gone through more than a dozen countries over the years, a myriad of shell companies and banks, before finally returning to one account in Luxembourg. I stared at the blinking account number and the sum of money it contained.
Time for Act I of The Wrath of China.
I had an account ready on Grand Cayman, and with a few keystrokes, the money began siphoning from Luxembourg to the Cayman Islands. I watched the numbers, feeling a measure of satisfaction that I was depriving Danvers of his money. But it wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t be enough until he’d paid in blood.
When it was done, I closed my laptop and climbed into bed. I lay on top of the covers in the dark, staring at the ceiling. I could hear traffic outside and people talking, laughing, having a good time. Sometimes, like tonight, I didn’t think I’d ever laugh again.
The look on Jackson’s face when I’d left . . . and Clark’s. I missed them. Three inadequate words for the hole left in my life. But it had to be done. I was no more capable of having a normal romantic relationship than my biological father was. Jackson and Clark would move on, and, in time, they’d forget about me—that odd girl who’d disrupted their lives with her fandom T-shirts, her obsessive routines, and her tendency to take things literally.
I loved them both, just in different ways. I didn’t regret being with them—as in the biblical sense. After all, wasn’t sex the ultimate expression of love for someone? The act had been cheapened by society into something selfish, but I didn’t view it that way. Even my Friends with Benefits attempt with Clark had still been born out of love for him, though I hadn’t wanted to face it at the time.
My eyes were leaking again, but I didn’t bother brushing away the tears that rolled into my hair. This was the only time of day I allowed myself to remember and to mourn. It hurt inside, a persistent ache that wouldn’t ease. All I wanted to do was sleep, to keep the pain at bay, but sleep turned on me. Dreams turned to nightmares that left me shaken and more tired in the morning than if I hadn’t slept at all.
Right before sleep claimed me, I realized I had no idea what day of the week it was. And I didn’t care.
A pounding on the door startled me awake. I shoved my tousled hair back from my face and grabbed my glasses, then reached for the handgun I kept loaded on my bedside table. I’d bought it weeks ago and had even taken a class on how to shoot. I didn’t like it, but I resolutely kept going to the gun range to practice. Danvers would have no problem using a gun, and I couldn’t afford to be squeamish when the time came.
The pounding came again, and I hurried toward the door, gun in hand. It didn’t have a peephole, so I called through the door.
“Who is it?”
A man answered. “It’s your friendly neighborhood Spiderman,” he said.
The voice was familiar. I made sure the chain on the door was set before opening the door a crack.
“Oh,” I said. “It’s you.” Relief mixed with disappointment as I swung open the door.
Kade Dennon stood there in jeans and a T-shirt, arms crossed over his chest. He gave me a once-over, his gaze sticking on the gun. “Expecting trouble?”
“I was hoping you were the repairman.”
“Did he overcharge you?”
I sensed sarcasm by the lifting of one dark brow. “He hasn’t come yet.”
I sighed and headed toward the couch, then realized I didn’t have pants on and changed course for the bedroom. I heard him come in and close the door as I grabbed a pair of shorts and tugged them on. When I came back out from the bedroom, he’d made himself comfortable on my couch.
“It’s fucking hot in here,” he complained. “What’s with the AC?”
“It’s broken, hence my hoping you were the repairman.” I flopped down on a chair, finger-combing my hair into a ponytail. He was watching me, an odd look on his face. “What?” I asked. I knew I didn’t look put together, but he’d yanked me out of bed at—I glanced at my watch—six thirty in the morning.
One side of his mouth lifted in a sort of smile. “Nothing. Just some déjà vu.”
I frowned. It wasn’t like we’d spent a lot of time together, so how could he have déjà vu? Oh well. Whatever.
“How’d you find me?” I asked, since that was the most important question.
“Because you’ve been digging the same places I have,” he said, “trying to flush out Danvers.”
“You told me he killed my mom. I found proof. I want to find him.”
“And do what with him?”
I shrugged, noncommittal. “Maybe I need a ‘father-daughter’ moment.”
His lips twisted. “I like your style.”
I glanced down at my clothes, confused. “What do my clothes have to do with it?”
Kade rolled his eyes. “Never mind.”
“Wait,” I said, making a connection. “You said we’ve both been digging in the same places? What are you talking about? Vigilance? Have they been tracking my deep web searches?”
“They haven’t,” he said. “I have. I’m not just a pretty face, you know.”
“You?” I stared in disbelief. “You.” Then I laughed. I couldn’t help it. He had the gall to look offended.
“What the hell?” he said, holding his arms out, palms up. “You think I’m joking?”
I tried to quell my laughter. “It’s just, I’ve been around hackers and IT geeks all my life. None of them look like you.”
“Hey, do I judge you by your looks?”
Okay, he had a point. I was a pint-size grown-up Punky Brewster, but my brain ran in ones and zeros.
I cleared my throat, swallowing the last of my giggles. “True. My apologies. You were saying?”
His eyes narrowed and he leaned forward. “Remember that Asian kid who hacked your firewall and your Iron Man and ended up helping you out?”
Yes, I remembered. It had scared the crap out of me when he’d taken over my Iron Man Mark IV replica suit.
“How did you know about that?” I’d only told Clark.
Kade relaxed back against the couch, looking smug. “Meet your Asian hacker.”
I waited.
His smugness evaporated into irritation. “Me, China. It was me.” He muttered something unflattering to my intelligence under his breath.
“Oh.” Was he serious? “Oh!” He was serious. The gorgeous Kade Dennon—sexy even with a touch of gray at his temples—was a hacker genius. Who knew? “Well . . . that’s . . . cool.”
“I know, right?” He rolled his eyes again. “My point is, China, that you and I need to team up.”
“Why?”
“You know, two minds are better than one. Birds of a feather flock together. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I love it when a plan comes together.”
One of those wasn’t an idiom. I opened my mouth to point that out, but he interrupted.
“Anyway, my point is that we’ll have better luck finding him because,” he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, “you’re not looking deep enough.”
“What do you mean? I’ve dug through every database and then some. He’s a ghost.” My frustration leaked into my voice.
“And you’re innocent and naive. I’m familiar with the type.” His dry tone made me wonder, but he kept going before I could ask questions. “You need to go into the dark web. You can lure him in.”
“Lure him how?” It had been the same thing I’d been thinking of doing, once I found out where he lurked.
“You’re his kid,” Kade said with a shrug. “Take his money away. He’s going to want it back. And his dear progeny will have it. Use your imagination.”
I felt the need to put my head between my knees and take deep breaths, but pushed it aside. “And you think that’ll work?”
“Yep. Curiosity killed the cat, you know.”
I got that idiom. Danvers equals the cat. “And how am I supposed to lure him in close enough to kill him?” I asked.
His smile was cold. “You’re the puzzle guru. Leave him a puzzle to follow, and stay one step ahead of him until he’s right where you want him.”
“Why are you helping me?” It was weird, him taking such a personal interest in it.
For a long moment, I didn’t think he’d answer me. Then he spoke.
“Because I was Danvers.”
That made no sense. I waited to see if he’d continue and explain. I didn’t have to wait long.
“The government likes their assassins,” Kade said. “They handpick them, train the humanity out of them, teach them the most effective ways to kill, point them at the target, and set them loose. Danvers is one. I was one.”
Looking at him, it wasn’t hard to imagine that he’d been trained as an assassin. That was actually easier to believe than the hacker part, but I didn’t think it would be an appropriate thing to mention. “Was?”
“I changed careers a while back,” he said. “Ironically enough and such a fucking cliché, but I met someone. And she made me want more. She offered me more. And she accepted who I was.”
Hmm. Interesting. Still, “That doesn’t explain why you want to hunt Danvers down.”
Kade’s blue eyes iced over. “Danvers committed heresy. The unforgivable sin. He had the love of a good woman who was devoted to him. Got her pregnant with his child. Then not only abandoned her, but killed her. You deserve a shot at vengeance. And he deserves to die.”
“He didn’t abandon her,” I correct him. “She ended it.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that he killed her.”
Okay, then.
“Jackson doesn’t agree,” I said. “He thinks I’m acting out of emotion and not logic. That I’m afraid I’ll end up like my mom.”
Kade settled back. “What about your other boy toy? Clark. What does he think?”
I shrugged, pulling my knees to my chest and bracing my feet on the seat. “He thinks like you do, I guess.”
“Where are your sidekicks anyway? Did you ditch them?” I nodded. “Why?”
“Because it was too hard. Too painful. Somehow, things got complicated and I made bad decisions. I hurt them both, and choosing one over the other just seems . . . wrong.”
“So you try to fix a bad decision by making another bad decision?”
I stiffened at his tone, which sounded judgy. “I’m doing the best I can. They don’t make instruction manuals for relationships.” Or I totally would have bought it, read it cover to cover, and highlighted the most pertinent parts. “Besides, what do you know about it?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised.”
“Can we get back to Danvers, please?”
“Fine. I take it you’ve already set up a secure network and a different computer for your work?”
“Yes. Local network, and two DMZs. I’ve enhanced the firewalls between them myself.”
“Good. You’ll need to download Tor on the laptop to access the dark web.”
“Yes, I’m aware.” Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “Just because I don’t frequent the cesspool that is the dark web doesn’t mean I don’t know how to access it.”
Tor was the acronym for The Onion Router, the original name of the project used to create the software. It kept the user anonymous, sending Internet traffic through relays to access content, with each relay adding or removing a layer to the onion. Like playing a game of Telephone, where one person starts with a whisper to someone else, which gets repeated—only instead of the message getting mutated going from person to person like in the game, with Tor, no one would know who’d started it.
“You’ll need this.” He handed me a piece of paper. “It’s the CIA server with the database you’ll need. Hack it, and the key to the dark web’s underbelly is in there. You just have to find the right key.”
Now that was information guarded like Fort Knox. Few people even knew that since the dark web had become every would-be hacker’s playground as a tourist, the real bad guys had gone even deeper. Even to access the sites, you now had to have a 64-bit encryption key. And the keys were held by third parties, so as to keep vendor and customer anonymity.
The problem was finding a third party to connect the two. I knew a lot of hackers, but there was no way I’d associate with anyone who actually had that kind of information. Lucky for me, Kade had just handed me the location of the virtual lockbox where the CIA kept the keys they knew about.
Kade rose from the sofa. “Good luck.” He was almost out the door before he glanced back at me. “And by the way, you should call him.”
“Who?”
“You know who,” he said. “The one you’re in love with. Because the other one will move on, but him . . . you’re his one and only.”
I didn’t want to believe him, because then I’d hope. And if I hoped, then I’d have to face that maybe I’d made a mistake. A mistake that was possibly irreparable.
He stared at me for a moment, then left, closing the door behind him.
I didn’t move from the chair for a long time.
Loading Tor on my laptop wasn’t the only precaution I took—any newbie browsing Wikipedia knew to load Tor—so when I felt I was as secure as I was going to get, I logged on.
Digging through the dark web was akin to sifting through a dumpster. Occasionally there’d be something humorous or innocuous, but the dark web was dark for a reason. I especially avoided servers offering images. The worst you could think of—and so many things more horrible and reprehensible than your imagination could conjure—was photographed and on display. It made me sick for humanity.
The CIA server was well concealed and well protected. It took me more than three hours to hack into, and I had to go through two firewalls to do it, all while concealing my hack attempts.
The database was one that held the names, and most important, the curve and the keys used by the websites for encrypted access. It didn’t surprise me that those using the most advanced kind were those the CIA kept track of inside the deeper dark web.
Mathematicians (and the government) are always searching for better methods of encryption. Currently the most advanced way—and the method for the websites forced from the dark web to go even darker—was using elliptic curve cryptology. The mathematics were complicated, but like any code, it starts with a single number. A single random number to begin the coding process. There were rumors and reports that the current random-number generator for an elliptic curve encryption could have been built with a back door, meaning that any key could be reproduced by someone with the right secret starting number.
I didn’t doubt for a second that somewhere buried in the NSA was the code for that back door.
Once I found the database, my fingers flew over the keyboard, sending the commands to download. Despite my care, chances were higher than likely that my intrusion had been detected. Even now I was being chased by techs on the opposite side as they hunted me down through my layers of anonymous routing through the Internet. Some hackers lived for the thrill of just avoiding detection. That “thrill” made me nauseous.
As soon as the file was downloaded, I severed the connection, pulling the network cable for good measure, and blowing out a deep breath. I was still sweating, and it wasn’t just because of being without AC. Being logged in to a supersecret and more-classified-than-classified CIA server for longer than a few minutes was anxiety-inducing. I no longer had my Vigilance Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card. Men in black would just show up at my door, and I’d disappear, never to be heard from again.
I sat back in my chair, closed my eyes, and took a moment to breathe. My heart was racing as though I’d been running from the cops, which I had been—figuratively.
Once I’d calmed down, I got another Red Bull from the fridge and sat down to go through the database, querying the different tables to pull a comprehensive report of who was in it and what they did for the CIA when the CIA didn’t want anyone to know what it was doing.
The database wasn’t as large as I thought it’d be (“That’s what she said”—Clark’s voice inside my head.) And the list of those who were willing to kill for a paycheck was even smaller. Of those, Danvers was at the top, and it wasn’t alphabetical.
I looked at the information for several minutes. This was it. The ticket to finding him. And yet . . . for some reason, I hesitated.
Not for the first time did I think about what Jackson had said. Should I be doing this? Maybe this was the wrong course of action for my life. Vengeance never ended well in the movies. Unless you were a superhero.
I decided to sleep on it. I had the information. It could wait another twelve hours. Because once I moved forward, there would be no going back from this point.
Powering off my computer, I got ready for bed. I made my tea and ate two Fig Newtons, then climbed into the lumpy bed. I missed my bed. I missed my apartment. I missed my things.
I missed Jackson and Clark.
I looked at my cell, sitting on the floor next to the bed. I’d had it turned off for weeks. Even though the geolocator on it was disabled, I hadn’t wanted to take chances.
Don’t lie to yourself. You didn’t turn it off so no one would track you. You turned it off so you wouldn’t hear the silence of them not calling.
It was ridiculous. I had left. Of course neither one would be calling. Switching it on would only be more painful, as my text messages would be empty, as would my voice mail. I wasn’t some lovestruck teenager mooning over her ex-boyfriend(s) and listening to Taylor Swift songs (though I had preordered her next album and listened to the new single five times).
All this was going through my head as I picked up my phone and pressed the power button. Kade’s words were echoing inside my head. “You should call him.”
And say what? I wondered. I know I left and said we were over, but hey, I miss you and I’m in love with you and that scares me to death. Want to meet for a drink?
Yeah. That oughta go over like a lead balloon. Why would he risk it? I’d hurt him before, chances were I’d do it again.
I desperately wanted to call Bonnie, Mia, and Grams. Any of them. All of them. My life was unrecognizable to me. I’d taken one of those online tests yesterday, and it determined I was severely depressed. Of course, the test had been via Buzzfeed, but still.
As I’d predicted, there were no messages and no texts. I’d told people not to try to reach me, that I’d be out of touch for a while, so it wasn’t as though it was a surprise. But the feeling of isolation—one that I’d craved and cultivated for many years—was now unwelcome. I’d changed. And at the moment, I wished I could change back.
It was cold outside, the snow coming down in swirls of white. She shivered despite the fact that she was inside and wearing her winter coat. A group of students moved past her, pushing open the doors and letting in a gust of frigid wind. One smiled at her as she passed by, which seemed odd. They weren’t friends. All the students were at least eight years older than she was, and none had spent any time speaking to her over the weekend.
Should she smile back? Maybe it was a social thing, like Mom said people did. If she did smile, would the girl stop and talk to her? She wouldn’t know what to say if she did. What if the girl asked questions and she said the wrong thing? But what if the girl was trying to be nice and she didn’t smile back, would the girl think she was being a snob?
By the time she’d decided to half smile (just in case the girl was looking at her by mistake), the girl’s friend walking beside her said in a loud whisper, “See? I told you. She’s weird.” Then they were gone, out the door after the rest of them.
The door clanged shut, echoing in the now-empty foyer of the university building.
China stood, feeling as brittle as the icicles on the edge of the roof outside.
A pickup truck pulled up outside, its headlights cutting through the falling precipitation. China recognized it and hurried out into the winter storm. She climbed up into the warm cab, the sight of her mom behind the wheel making the icicle inside her melt.
“Hey, honey,” her mom said, reaching over and hugging her. “Did you have fun?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be fun,” China corrected her. “But I learned a lot. I knew all the answers to the professor’s questions. I even fixed an answer he’d gotten wrong.” She’d been very proud of that. After all, it wasn’t every day that an eight-year-old got to correct a tenured mathematics professor at the University of Nebraska.
Her mom sighed, then smiled. “Of course you did, sweetheart. I’m so proud of you.” She squeezed her one more time. “Put your seat belt on. The roads are bad.”
China obediently clicked the belt and settled back into the seat. She was short, and not just for her age, so she was barely tall enough to see over the dashboard and out the windshield.
The snow was so thick, all she could see was a curtain of white, angrily pummeling the truck as her mom drove onto the highway. The other cars were moving slowly, too, though there weren’t many of them. China was nervous, but she trusted her mom. They’d get home safe because Mom would make sure of it. She always took care of her “baby girl.”
“Did you make any friends?” her mom asked.
“No.” That answer was always the same.
“You will someday,” Mom said, smiling.
“I don’t need friends.”
“Well, you might not need them, but they’re nice to have. And one day, you’ll meet someone who’s your best friend and completely understands you. Then you’ll fall in looooove—”
“Mom!” China blushed, but was grinning. She pushed her glasses up her nose. “That’s gross.”
Mom just laughed, the sound warm and comforting. It made China laugh, too, though she didn’t see what was funny. Boys were gross. Her two brothers were proof of that, always making fart jokes, and burping, and missing the toilet.
It was slow going and China didn’t talk more. Idle chitchat wasn’t her thing, and she knew her mom needed to concentrate on the road. She’d gotten behind a semitruck now, which seemed to make it easier to see the road, since she only had to follow the taillights.
The warm cab and thrum of the engine lulled China into a doze. She hadn’t gotten much sleep in the dormitory over the weekend. Although she’d had a room to herself because of her age, the other students had been up late partying and being generally loud. She’d told herself she couldn’t sleep because they were being rude, not because she felt left out.
You’d think she’d be used to feeling left out by now. The “weird” girl.
Something loud jolted her awake and she bumped her head on the window. She’d slumped against the door in her sleep. She was jerked hard against the seat belt again and came fully awake.
The pickup was swerving, her mom frantically working the steering wheel. China’s heart jumped into her throat.
The semi swerved, then started a slow rotation. China watched in horror as the cab came into view. Everything seemed to be in slow motion as it came closer and closer, dwarfing the pickup.
China screamed at the impact, which sent the pickup sliding across the icy road. Darkness loomed outside her window, and she screamed again.
“Mom! Mommy!” She hadn’t said Mommy in years, but fear terrorized her. As the truck teetered, she held her breath. A hand clamped around her arm, and she looked left. Her mom’s eyes were wide and terrified. Then they pitched over the side of the embankment.
China screamed for her mom over and over. She lost control of her bladder, and her pants grew soaked. She was sobbing uncontrollably as the pickup tumbled over on her side, smashing in her door and breaking her window.
Then they were upside down. She didn’t have the breath to scream anymore. The seat belt was cutting into her abdomen and chest. But she could feel her mom’s grip, tight on her arm.
Another turning of the sky in an ear-splintering crunch of metal and glass, fracturing apart. Then . . . everything stopped.
China was suspended in the air, held in place by the seat belt. She struggled to breathe.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. You’ll be okay.”
Mom’s voice. China frantically looked to the side. Mom was squished against her door, the steering wheel mangled and pressed down into her thigh. Her face was bleeding, but her eyes were calm.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
China managed a shaky nod. “I-I think so.”
Her mom smiled. “Good. Just stay calm, okay? Someone saw, I’m sure. Help will be along any minute. Can you unbuckle your belt?”
China reached down and tried to press the buckle, but her hands were shaking. She shook her head, looking fearfully at her mother.
“It’s okay. Just keep trying.”
Her mom reached, but was too far away and pinned to be able to get to China’s seat belt. China grew alarmed at this, but her mom just smiled and kept repeating, “It’s okay. Just keep trying. It’ll all be okay.”
Snow crunched and China looked out her window, but she only saw sky. Snow was still falling through the broken glass and into the cab. Suddenly, the truck creaked as someone climbed up. Then a man’s face appeared at her window.
Her mom gasped audibly. “Mark? Is that you?”
“Hello, Kimmie.”
“Oh, thank God. Mark, help us. China’s okay, I think, but my leg is fractured. Possibly my elbow, too. I can’t reach her seat belt—”
“I’m not here to rescue you, Kimmie. I’m here to finish the job.”
China’s wide gaze swung from her mom, to the man, then back. Her mom’s face was bloodless, her mouth slightly agape as she stared, unblinking, at the man.
“What are you talking about?” she said at last.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out? That I was too blind to see?” His voice was full of contempt.
“Mark, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her mom’s voice shook for the first time, and China began to be scared again.
“Of course you don’t. Sticking with it till the end, are you? The Company would be so proud.”
Her mom’s face was white with pain, and tears began rolling down China’s cheeks.
“Please, I’ll do whatever you want,” she begged the man she’d called Mark. “Just get China out. She’s a child. She’s—”
“She’s collateral damage,” Mark interrupted. “Her death is on your head. The wages of sin.” He cast a quick glance at China, then was gone, dropped out of sight.
China’s mom let out a sound, the kind that made the hair stand up on the back of China’s neck. It was a sound that she sometimes heard on the farm, when a coyote would corner prey. An animal, grievously wounded, voicing their fear and anger at whoever could hear. To her horror, China’s mom began to sob.
“Mom, please! Don’t cry!” Never in her life had she seen her mom cry.
“Mommy!”
Her shriek seemed to get through, because her mom abruptly stopped crying. Her head jerked up and she pulled at the dashboard, trying to see outside. There was a noise from beyond the cab, and a strange smell. Like . . . when Dad fueled up the combine.
“Oh God,” her mom murmured.
Suddenly she was clawing the seat, trying to pull her way out from behind the wheel to get to China.
“China! I need you to undo your seat belt.”
“But, Mom, I—”
“Don’t you dare tell me you can’t!” Her mom was yelling at her. She never yelled at China. “Undo it! Now, China!”
Her hands fumbled at the clasp, her fingers numb from the cold. The button was so hard to press, the seat belt straining. She gritted her teeth and pushed . . .
It gave, and she tumbled, falling across the seat into her mother’s arms.
“Mom!” China grabbed her and held on, her arms tight around her mother’s neck. She could smell faint traces of her mom’s perfume, the kind she always wore. Sometimes when her mom was out of town, China would sneak into her parents’ bedroom and steal away her mom’s pillow, just so she could have that smell near her while she slept.
Instinctively, she knew this would be the last time she’d smell that unique scent.
China was sobbing into her mom’s neck, and she could hear her mother’s voice in her ear.
“It’s okay. Some things are meant to be, my baby girl.”
“That man—”
“Don’t you worry about that man. Forget him.” Her mom pried her off her neck to make China look in her eyes. “Promise me. Promise me you’ll forget all about him.”
“I p-p-promise.” Her nose was running, she was still crying, and her pants were wet with urine, but she didn’t want to move. She was too scared to move.
“Hey!”
A voice from outside.
“Hey! Anyone in there?”
“Yes! Here! Help us!” Her mom’s shout startled China.
Two men suddenly appeared at the passenger window, the pickup dipping again as they climbed up.
“You two okay?” one of them said.
“She’s okay, get her out,” her mom said. Her voice was firm, demanding. The men immediately scrambled to get access to China through the window.
“Come on,” one of them said, hooking his finger into the back of China’s jeans. “We need to get you two out, pronto.”
The sky was brighter now, and as China was pulled back, she could see flames licking underneath the hood. She was far from stupid, and she immediately knew what this meant.
“Mom! It’s on fire!” She scrambled back as the man helped pull her through the window. He tried to drop her onto the ground, but she pulled out of his grasp, scooting to the side. “Get my mom out!”
He knocked out the rest of the glass in the window and climbed inside. China watched as he braced himself above her mom and started working on her seat belt. It came undone and China breathed a sigh of relief. Then he started working her mom out from underneath the mangled dash.
A scream splintered the cold air, and China shivered. Her cheeks were cold, but her tears were hot tracks as she watched her mother’s face grimace in pain. A broken leg. A broken elbow. Pinned under the steering wheel of a 1990 Chevy pickup.
There was a burst of flame, and China jumped back, staring in horror as the flames moved to the windshield. She could see the man in the cab hesitate, the flames reflected in the glasses he wore.
“Get my mom out!” she cried. “Get her out!”
He looked back at her mom, and they seemed to exchange an unspoken understanding. She nodded, and he began backing out of the cab.
“What’re you doing?” China screamed. “Get my mom! You can’t just leave her there!”
He was out of the cab now, and China shoved him out of the way. If he wouldn’t rescue her mom, then she would. She started climbing back in . . . and was abruptly caught by an arm around her waist. She started kicking.
“Let go of me! Let me go! I’ve gotta get my mom!”
The arm was like iron, slowly pulling her loose as China fought and screamed.
“No! Let me go! I want to stay! Let me go!”
China was mindlessly fighting, her hands gripping the edge of the window. The broken glass cut into her fingers, making them slippery with blood.
“China.”
She froze at her mom’s voice. Her gaze lifted to her mother’s blue eyes, bright with tears. Incredibly, her mom smiled.
“I love you, baby girl. Make me proud.”
She kissed her fingers and blew . . . then China was yanked from the truck, tucked underneath the man’s arm as he ran up the embankment.
“No! No! Mommy! Don’t leave her! Don’t leave her! Please! Don’t—”
An explosion ripped through the night, engulfing the pickup in flames. China screamed and screamed and screamed . . .