Shane sat down again because she felt dizzy. Nausea swelled as she gagged on memories barely bygone. She thought about going for the kitchen sink but what was the point? She put her head between her knees and tried to breathe, found herself dry-heaving, rancid burps popping, her stomach with its own plan, and even with her eyes squeezed shut she kept seeing it: that piece of skull bowing, distending, shredding free but still attached to the skin.
Jansi slid open the glass door and came back inside. Quinn put her hand on Shane’s back, and she could feel the woman’s hand trembling violently. It’s okay, Quinn kept saying. They had a plan.
“They’re down the road. Maybe five minutes out,” Jansi told them, her eyes wide and thrilled. “Jewelry. Computers. Anything valuable.”
Jansi bounded up the stairs. Quinn knelt in front of Shane, her black medical boot squeaking as it pivoted on the hardwood. She’d tucked the gun back in her jeans. Shane stared at her own arm and the tattoo she’d had inked the same summer she met Kai and Allen: BUILD THE PATH.
“This was his fault,” said Quinn, swollen eyes pleading. “He told us he was here alone. You see what he did, right? He thought we wouldn’t do anything. Once his wife saw our faces, he thought he’d be safe. We gave him a chance to keep her out of danger, but he invited us in.”
Shane’s mind was a white cloud, her ears drumming with blood. Her gaze moved across the kitchen, coming to rest on a bowl of sugar and the small silver spoon Emmy had placed in it like a shovel in soil. She nodded only because her muscles understood what Quinn’s searching eyes wished to extract from her: reassurance that this had been the plan all along. Jansi came galloping down the stairs, a laptop and a jewelry box in hand.
QUINN This was the fucking plan! she wanted to scream. Why else did you tell me to get that overnight flight? Why else did you say we had to shut him down and stop this, no matter what? But Shane looked like she might pass out, and there was no time for that. No time for regret or second-guessing. They had to move fast now. Things would change quickly. This was only step one.
“There’s an old VR in the bedroom too.”
Her big legs took the stairs two at a time and returned a moment later with a bulky headset and a violin in a case. Headlights washed over the windows as a car pulled into the drive. Shane hadn’t moved. She kept taking quick glances at Allen, now fallen to the floor with blood collecting around his shattered head. His eyes bulged, frozen in awe and fear. What had her dad said? Just before he was gone and her mom was gone and she was left to pinball through the mercy and misery of foster care? Fear is useless. You act in the moment, figure out what comes next, and get another mile down the road. In her dad’s estimation, fear conscripted your whole mind, rationalized irrational behavior, and the worst part was when people who were acting out of fear became adamant that they were not.
A man and woman came through the front door, both Black, both wearing gloves, booties, and carrying jugs of bleach. The man had long dreadlocks and a tattoo of a rose peeking from beneath the collar of his shirt, the woman had a military flattop fade and a broad, muscled back bulging from a tank top when she removed her jacket. Shane didn’t know them. They were not Jansi’s comrades from Second, which meant they were from Third Cell. The firewalls were crumbling. The two from Third Cell barely spoke a word. Jansi handed the woman the jewelry, violin, and laptop and then helped the man remove the main TV in the living room. He yanked the plug out of the wall just as The Pastor appeared, muted, raging above a chyron that read THE PASTOR SLAMS REPUBLICANS FOR ELECTION LOSS.
THE FIRST TIME Quinn knew only that the man’s name was Marlon and the woman’s name was Niana. They had been recruited with specific skill sets in mind. They were improving their army, growing stronger. This was all a part of that process, she told herself. And just beneath that sensation, a yawning terror. She would ask Kellan Murdock later if this was what it felt like the first time: terrifying and sickening and electrifying.
Quinn and the other two ransacked the house for valuables and began spray-painting swastikas and crucifixes on the walls. They emptied the silverware drawer into a pillowcase, pulled decorative plates from shelves and tossed them willy-nilly into a trash bag. The Third Cell woman looked at Shane, who still had yet to stand and help, and asked Jansi, “Is she going to be okay?”
“Yeah, she’s fine. Just give her a minute.”
After the house was disturbed, disassembled, and inked with radical right-wing threats, the man brought in a can of gasoline.
“Give us a head start,” he said. “Then douse the place in bleach, light both bodies up, and drive. The rest should take care of itself.”
“I’ll go with them,” said Jansi. “Third Cell are my progeny, ya know? I’m a proud mama.” She winked, and Shane wanted to scream.
Before they left, Jansi grabbed Quinn’s arm and pulled her cheek to cheek. She whispered something fiercely, but Shane couldn’t make out the words. Then the Third Cell operatives were gone, their unmarked van crunching over the gravel as it swung a U-turn and drove back up the long driveway. Quinn clunked over in her boot, knelt beside Shane, and put a hand on her knee. Shane looked over her shoulder at Emmy, lying out in the grass.
“We didn’t have a choice. You know that.”
Shane nodded.
“If he turned himself in, he would’ve given us all up eventually.”
“I said I understand,” she hissed, and then thumped a palm loudly off her chest. “You think I don’t understand?” She found herself shouting, but she wasn’t exactly sure why. “I’m the one, bitch. I fucking made this thing. You think I’d let Allen fuck us like that? Ever? But then you’re bringing in the clown car, Quinn. I told you what he said in confidence. I told you we could take care of it, and you go and spill your guts across our entire organization. Now we have two bodies. Have you thought that this might be what gets us caught?”
“The fire will take care of it.”
“They pull DNA out of fires, you fucking moron. Jesus Christ, and you were Ivy League? Arsonists get caught all the time. They have the DNA of the whole fucking country on file, and you bring in three extra fucking people like this is a club meeting, you stupid blond bitch.”
“You need to keep your head,” said Quinn, a tinge of desperation, her eyes watering.
“I have my fucking head straight, it’s you and the—”
A thump from upstairs.
Both their heads snapped up. Shane stood slowly for the first time since Emmy had shown her to the seat. Quinn’s welling eyes ceased, and she wiped her tears. They stared at the ceiling. A smatter of quick footsteps.
“The dog?” said Quinn.
Shane shook her head. “There’s no dog. We would’ve seen it by now.”
The backyard light blinked on, a grisly spotlight on poor Emmy lying prone in the grass. A figure dropped from the second story and cried out as his legs buckled to absorb the ground, and Shane got a flash of messy brown hair, a white T-shirt, a patchy red beard, and bright red acne on a pale forehead. The boy picked himself up, looked back at the house in panic, and then leaped over his mother’s body, running as fast as his torqued ankle would allow.
Before any of this could sink in, Quinn was thrusting hard metal into Shane’s limp hand. “Go. You have to catch him or we’re done.”
Why me? she nearly screamed, but Quinn only pointed to her left foot, encased in plastic. She took Shane’s hand and forced it to fist around the gun.