Girl of Rage Read online

  Mendoza: See you, Bacon Bits.

  Dylan laughed silently, then typed in the search bar. Alex Paris. Andrea’s sister’s profile showed up immediately. Dylan pulled up the message box and typed in: Andrea and I are alive and well. In hiding. I’ll be back in touch as soon as possible. Stay low. Keep your status updated so I know you’re okay. Love u.

  Then he logged out without waiting for an answer. He looked over his shoulder, then pulled up the drop down menu. Delete cookies. Delete history. Then he logged out of the computer.

  “All right. Let’s go.” He stood, and Andrea followed. Both of them walked as casually as possible toward the door of the library. Andrea could see Dylan was nervous. Like he thought someone was watching them, or they were in danger. His back was tense, muscles in his arms bunched up, his neck tightly wound.

  She touched his arm and he froze. “Is something wrong?” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “Come on,” he said. His voice was curt, almost rude.

  She didn’t understand why he was always such a prick. What did Alexandra see in him?

  She followed him anyway. What choice did she have? Once they were outside, he turned quickly to the right and walked down the sidewalk. A cool wind was beginning to blow, and since they’d been in the library, the sky had become much more cloudy.

  Lips compressed tightly, he walked. His right leg was a little stiff—the leg that had been nearly destroyed during the war.

  “One of the librarians was watching us as she talked on the phone. She was sweating.”

  “You think she recognized us?”

  “Yeah. We gotta get to the Metro right now. Cops might be on their way already.”

  She nodded. They were less than half a block from the station entrance.

  That’s when she heard the sirens.

  “Shit,” he muttered. He didn’t falter, his legs moving, one step in front of the other. “Mess up your hair,” he said conversationally. “In your face a little.”

  He turned and walked backward, casually lighting a cigarette. A police car rounded the corner, drove past the Metro station, and then passed them. Another sped past. Both police cars had their blue lights flashing, but no siren.

  He took a deep drag from the cigarette and turned around again. “Come on.” He ducked into the entrance to the Metro station, tossed his cigarette to the ground, and swiped the Metro card he’d purchased from a machine earlier that day. She followed.

  The inside of the station was crowded. It wasn’t quite time for rush hour, but there were far more people in the station than they’d seen when they arrived an hour before. Dylan led her down the escalator to the platform, then stood leaning against a pillar. She leaned against it too, facing him.

  “I’m worried, Dylan,” she whispered.

  He grimaced. “It’s going to be okay.”

  He said the words, but she could see his eyes, and Dylan was a terrible liar.

  “You don’t look like you mean it.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe I don’t. Ray used to say that shit to me. It’s gonna be okay. Don’t worry, he’d say. It’s all good. But sometimes it’s not.” He looked away.

  Andrea sighed. First rule of being on the run with Dylan: don’t tell him when you’re feeling anxious. Because he can’t help.

  “What happened to you?” she asked.

  He rolled his eyes. “I’m fine.”

  Yeah, right. She turned away from him. She could feel wind blowing from the tunnel, and a moment later saw headlights. With a loud roar of brakes and a rush of wind, the train entered the station.

  She turned to him as the train was coming to a stop. “I know you lost your friend, Dylan. But you need to get yourself together. You’ve got a lot more you could lose.”

  His mouth opened, but he didn’t say any words. She walked away and stepped on board the train. He followed a moment later. A loud ringing peal burst from the overhead speakers, and the doors closed with a thumb. She scanned the car. No seats, so she wrapped her left hand around one of the stainless steel poles. Dylan took the pole opposite the car from her and glared.

  As the train pulled out, he said, “What exactly does that mean?”

  She sighed. “I’m worried. I’m worried because you sound like a pessimist and you look like a drunk and my life depends on you. That’s what it means.”

  “I’m the guy who took those killers on with a knife to protect you,” he muttered.

  “I know that, Dylan. Don’t think I’m ungrateful. I’m telling you, I’m worried about you. You know my sisters said it too. Carrie said you haven’t been the same since Ray died.”

  He looked as if she’d punched him between the eyes. “He was my best friend.”

  She leaned close as the train car swayed, a loud screeching sound from the tracks below. “You should honor his memory, then.”

  Dylan’s eyes widened. He shifted his position and turned away from her, looking out the windows of the car into the blackness of the tunnel.

  He sighed, then said, “You’re right. I know it. It’s been almost nine months since he died. I’m stuck. All I can remember is seeing him in that hospital bed, with his body all screwed up, then the funeral. He had a lot of life left in him.”

  She reached out with her right hand, the one that wasn’t wrapped around the steel pole, and took his arm. “It’s going to be okay, Dylan.”

  He gave a small laugh. “You do look like you mean it.”

  She shrugged. “I do. Some things we can do something about. We can run and protect ourselves. We can do our best for the people we love, for the people around us. We can push for—for truth. For doing the right thing. But some things we can’t control. And that stuff—it’s out of our hands. All I know is I’ve got family I love. Uncle Luis and Abuelita, and my sisters. You, even.”

  He nodded. He didn’t say any words. Just nodded.

  “All right, then. What’s next?”

  He gave her a soft grin. “We go see Mendoza.”

  “Who is this Mendoza? He’s Spanish?”

  “Guatemalan, I think. Or Texan. I don’t know. Anyway, he’s wired, and he owes me some favors.”

  “Wired?” she asked.

  “Wired in. I think he can get us fake IDs. Give us a place to stay. And he feels like he owes me a favor.”

  “What sort of favor?”

  “I knew him in Afghanistan. He broke an ankle two months into our deployment, so he missed basically all the fun.”

  What sort of fun? she wondered. Her impression had been that Dylan was very bitter about his experience in Afghanistan. Sometimes the things he said made no sense. Or maybe she just didn’t grasp his bizarre language.

  “Can you trust him?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, I can trust him. I told you, we served in Afghanistan together.”

  Andrea said, “I thought Ray was falsely accused. By his Sergeant.”

  Dylan froze, stricken. He stared at her, his mouth open for a minute, then he nodded. “Yeah,” he whispered. “That’s true.”

  “Dylan…”

  “Just leave me alone. We trust Mendoza because right now we don’t have any other choice.”

  She stared at him. “All right.”

  Ten minutes later the train came to a stop at Clarendon Station. Dylan bent his knees as the train pulled into the station, peering out the window, looking for police. When the doors opened, he said, “Come on.”

  The platform was uncomfortably hot, air blowing from the tunnel. The train on the opposite track pulled in and disgorged its passengers. Andrea was suddenly crowded in, people on all sides, elbows and briefcases and backpacks. Dylan grabbed her arm and pulled her along with the crowd.

  Conversationally, he said, “Look over there, near the station manager.”

  Andrea’s eyes darted to the small office encased in glass near the turnstiles. Two police officers stood there, scanning the crowd.

  Her heart began to pound, and she shook her head, letting her hair fall p
artly over her face. Dylan scanned the crowd, then made a snap decision. He walked over to a teenager, a boy with spiked hair. He whispered something, urgently, as the crowd rushed past them. Another inbound train pulled in. Dylan stuffed something in the teenager’s pockets, then turned and took her arm again. “Head low,” he said.

  They walked toward the turnstiles. The cops were still scanning the crowd carefully. There was no way they were going to make it by.

  Until the teenage boy suddenly shouted at the opposite end of the platform, letting out a loud whoop, whoop, whoop! and waving his arms in the air. One cop, then the other, looked toward the teenager.

  “I WANT TO FUCK SOMEBODY!” shouted the teenager.

  Someone in the crowd tittered, and the cops shook their heads simultaneously, then began to push their way through the crowd.

  Andrea and Dylan had reached the turnstiles. They swiped their cards and went through just as the cops reached the other end of the platform. Andrea took one last look—the teenager stood between the two police officers, a grin on his face.

  They rode up the escalators and reached the top right in the middle of the crowd.

  “Over there across the street. That’s Mendoza in the green car.”

  The green car was an Oldsmobile, probably thirty or more years old. It was twice the length of most of the other cars on the block, and it wasn’t just green, it was a loud, fluorescent green that probably stood out in satellite photos. A twenty-something man—Christopher Mendoza—sat behind the wheel.

  Mendoza saw them in the crowd, but Dylan didn’t acknowledge him, instead turning down the sidewalk away from the station.

  At the end of the block, Dylan said, “Here he comes.”

  She could tell, because the rumbling of the engine underneath the hood of the Oldsmobile was shaking the newspaper stands half a block away. The car pulled to a stop at the corner. Dylan opened the back door for her, then ran around to the passenger side and got in the front passenger seat.

  The back seat had been leather once, but now consisted largely of grey duct tape. The seat was large enough she could have laid down lengthwise and almost slept comfortably. As it was, she slid to the center of the seat.

  “Chris Mendoza,” said the driver, holding a hand back to shake. “I used to hang out with this jerk.”

  She smiled and shook. “Andrea Thompson.”

  Mendoza put the car in drive and sped away when the light turned green. He turned to Dylan and said, “I saw cops going in the station—how’d you get past ‘em?”

  Dylan smirked. “Paid a teenager to make an ass of himself.”

  Mendoza chuckled. “Well, let’s get out of here. I went online and checked out the news after we talked. You got some big guns after you. What the hell for?”

  Dylan looked over his shoulder at Andrea. Then he shrugged. “Don’t know. But whoever it is, they’re serious.”

  “Yeah, you aren’t kidding,” Mendoza responded. “Anyway, we’ll get you under cover. You need anything?”

  “New clothes. Haircuts. I’ve got a ton of cash—I want to buy some prepaid credit card and disposable phones.”

  Mendoza nodded. “Can do all that. What about ID?”

  Andrea said, “The police have my passport. Everything, really.”

  Mendoza looked in the mirror and met her eyes. Then he looked back to the road. “We can cover that. I know a guy. He’s good.”

  “How long?”

  “Rush job? I don’t know. Usually he takes a week or two. Sometimes I help arrange some IDs for the local high school kids.”

  Dylan snorted. He turned in his seat and said to Andrea, “Mendoza had a whole operation going. Buying and selling shit we couldn’t get through the PX. I swear to God guys all over the FOB were crying when he broke his ankle.”

  Mendoza chuckled as he slowed the car at a red light. Andrea half listened. She didn’t know what a lot of the words Dylan said meant. Was the PX some kind of supply shop? Store? What was a fob? She didn’t know, and somehow she didn’t think the details mattered. What mattered was Dylan’s manner. As he talked, he seemed animated, his eyes wide, a light and easy tone of voice.

  Andrea had only met Dylan twice before: at his wedding with her sister Alexandra, and a few months later after the accident, when Ray was still hanging onto life, then the days they’d spent around each other over the last week. Dylan seemed to be unstable. Grim. Humorless. But in Mendoza’s presence, a different Dylan emerged. He laughed and seemed less grim.

  Was it merely the presence of an old Army buddy? And if so, why didn’t Alexandra affect him that way? After all, as Alexandra had said no less than 99 thousand times, she and Dylan were soul mates.

  Whatever that meant. Instead of speculating any further, she sat back in her seat and tried to relax as Dylan told their story to Mendoza. He went into a lot of detail, taking his time.

  When he’d finished, Mendoza looked in the rearview mirror and caught her eyes again. “You seriously went up against those guys in the car and took them out? Then jumped off a twenty-story building?”

  She swallowed, but didn’t answer.

  Mendoza had pulled up to a driveway, in front of an old townhouse. It was brick, surrounded by yellowing grass, and toys were scattered around the front porch. He twisted around in his seat, and raised a hand to her, fist closed.

  “Respect,” he said.

  She touched his closed fist with her own. And didn’t say a word as they got out of the car.

  Dylan. May 2. 4:00 pm.

  “Mama! This is my friend, Dylan Paris, and his sister, Andrea.”

  Dylan breathed a sigh of relief as Mendoza said the word. From then on, if anyone asked, Andrea was his sister.

  Mendoza’s mother was not what Dylan expected. She wore a black dress with a cowl-neck collar and a strand of unusually large pearls. When they walked in, she was sitting at a table with three other women, all of them elegantly dressed and with cards in their hands. Dylan looked at the cards—they were unlike any he’d seen before. Colorful, with swords and cups and coins instead of the suits he was used to.

  “Dylan and Andrea? I’m Sofia. It’s nice to meet you.” She set her cards face down on the table and stood, then muttered, “And don’t you card sharks touch mine.”

  She walked over and took Dylan’s and Andrea’s hands.

  “Nice to meet you,” Dylan said. “I don’t see how such a beautiful woman ended up with him as a son, though.”

  Mendoza punched Dylan in the shoulder even as his mother blushed.

  “Thank you, dear. Are you just visiting? Do you live around here?”

  She was a nice lady. But Dylan wasn’t planning to tell anyone the truth about anything right now. “We’re from Raleigh, ma’am. North Carolina.” His accent wasn’t exactly North Carolina, but only a Raleigh native would be able to tell the difference.

  “Oh, isn’t that nice. I got a speeding ticket in North Carolina once,” she said.

  Dylan chuckled. “Most people can’t get away fast enough,” he said.

  “Ma, we’re gonna grab some lunch, all right? Then we’ve got some errands to run.”

  “You go ahead, I’ve got to get back to my game,” Sophia said.

  Mendoza led Dylan and Andrea into the kitchen.

  Andrea said, “It was pleasant to meet you,” as they left the room, and Dylan thought he might have to come up with a better cover story. He could pass off North Carolina. Andrea couldn’t, not with that Spanish accent.

  “So what’s the plan?” Mendoza asked.

  Dylan looked at Andrea. She looked back at him, her expression not giving him a clue. He spoke. “Can we hole up here for a couple days? And then we’ll make ourselves scarce. I don’t want to put you in any danger.”

  “Danger is my middle name,” Mendoza said, pushing his chest out.

  “Yeah, well, maybe it’s yours, but I don’t think it’s your mom’s.”

  Mendoza nodded. “Truth. All right. I’m thinking we go fo
r a completely new look, right?”

  “Yeah,” Dylan said.

  “Let me get that rolling, then. I gotta ask you one question though—you got enough cash for all this? The IDs are gonna cost. I can spot you some … I still got a little in the bank from Afghanistan.”

  “Nah,” Dylan said. Mendoza didn’t have to offer, but in some ways it relieved Dylan that he did. “We’re good.”

  For the next several minutes Mendoza puttered around the kitchen like an old woman. Dylan and Andrea stood there in uncomfortable silence—Andrea sipping a glass of water and Dylan just watching. Mendoza seemed different. They’d been friends at Fort Drum, then deployed to Afghanistan together. Just a few weeks into their deployment, Mendoza had broken his ankle, a nasty compound fracture, during a firefight.

  He used to joke and laugh a lot more, Dylan thought. Now, Mendoza had a haunted look. He didn’t talk as much, and he certainly didn’t laugh as much.

  It worried Dylan. He didn’t say anything right away, letting Mendoza finish putting together a salad.

  “All right,” Mendoza said. “Hope you guys don’t mind some greens. They’re good for you, make you live longer.”

  “That looks wonderful,” Andrea said.

  “Rabbit food,” Dylan muttered. “Ah, well.”

  Mendoza grinned. “We’ll take it out on the porch, and if you don’t like it you can throw it to the rabbits, right? Some live in the neighborhood.”

  Outside, Dylan sat on a cast iron seat and soaked in the sunshine. The backyard was simple, with neatly cut grass and a wooden fence surrounding it. Toys were scattered here and there.

  “You got a little sister, right?” Dylan asked.

  “Two. Twelve and seven. They’ll be home from school soonish.”

  “And you doing okay?”

  Mendoza met his eyes. “Why do you ask?”

  Dylan shrugged. “You don’t seem yourself is all. You don’t laugh.”

  Mendoza chuckled a little. “You should look at yourself, amigo. You look like someone died.”

  Dylan shrugged. “Someone did.”

  Mendoza’s lips tightened in a straight line. “That’s right. A lot of someones.”