“I know. Isn’t he just the cutest! Oh, I would die to sit next to him in math.”
She must appear to have a place to go and vapid people to talk to about her vapid life. She knows the look of an AWOL and has to give the impression of anything but.
“Ugh! I know! I hate her—she is such a loser!”
The officer passes and doesn’t even glance at Risa. She’s got this illusion down to a science. It’s exhausting though—and as the night ticks away, it will be too late for any respectable girl to be on a downtown Omaha street. No matter what image she tries to push forth, she’ll draw suspicion.
The train station was good for about an hour, but it’s a classic hangout for kids on the run. She knew she couldn’t stay very long. Now she reviews her options. There are some older landmark office buildings with old-fashioned fire escapes. She could climb up and find an unlocked window. She’s done that before and has always managed to avoid the nighttime cleaning staff. The risk is being spotted while breaking in.
There are plenty of parks, but while older vagrants can get away with sleeping on park benches, a young fugitive can’t. Unless she can break into a maintenance shed, she wouldn’t risk staying in a park. Usually she’ll scope out such places earlier in the day. When the shed is open, she’d replace the lock with one that she has the key to. Then when the groundskeeper locks up, he’ll have no idea he’s only locked himself out. But she was lazy today. Tired. She didn’t do her due diligence, and now she’s paying for it.
There’s a theater on the next street playing a revival of Cats, which mankind will likely have to suffer through for the rest of eternity. If she can pickpocket a single ticket, she can get in, and once inside, she can find a place to hide. Hidden space high above the flies. Basement crannies filled with props.
She cuts through a back alley to get to the theater. Mistake. Halfway down the alley, she encounters three boys. They look to be eighteen or so. She pegs them right away as either AWOLs who lived long enough to outgrow the threat of unwinding, or maybe they were among the thousands of seventeen-year-olds set free from harvest camps when the Cap-17 law passed. Sadly most of those kids were just hurled out into the streets with nowhere to go. So they got angry. Rotten, like fruit left too long on the vine.
“Well, well, what do we have here?” says the tallest of the three.
“Really?” says Risa, disgusted. “ ‘What do we have here?’ Is that your best line? If you’re going to attack a defenseless girl in an alley, at least try not to be cliché about it.”
Her attitude has the desired effect. It catches them off guard and makes the leader—a prime douche, if ever there was one—take a step back. Risa makes a move to push past, but a beefy kid, fat enough to block her way, eclipses her view of the end of the alley. Damn. She really hoped this didn’t have to get messy.
“Porterhouse don’t like uppity girls,” says the Prime Douche. He smiles, showing two of his front teeth are broken.
The fat kid, who must be Porterhouse, frowns and solidifies his mass like a nightclub bouncer. “That’s right,” he says.
It’s kids like these, thinks Risa, that made people think unwinding was a good idea.
The third kid lingers, saying nothing, looking a little bit worried. Risa marks him as her possible escape route. None of them have recognized her yet. If they do, their motives will instantly compound. Rather than trying to have their way with her, then leaving her there in the alley, they’ll have their way, then turn her in for the reward.
“Let’s not get off on the wrong foot, now,” Prime Douche says. “We could be of service to you.”
“Yeah,” says Porterhouse. “If you’re of ‘service’ to us.”
Sleaze number three snickers at that and moves forward, joining the other two. So much for an escape route. Prime Douche takes a bold step toward her. “We’re the kind a’ friends a girl like you needs. To protect you and such.”
Risa locks eyes with him. “Touch any part of me, and I break a part of you.”
She knows that a guy like this, with more bravado than brain, will take that as a dare—which he does. He grabs her wrist—then braces himself for whatever she might try to do.
She smiles at him, lifts her foot, and jams her heel into Porterhouse’s knee instead. Porterhouse’s kneecap breaks with an audible crunch, and he goes down, screaming and writhing in pain. It’s enough to shock Prime Douche into loosening his grip. Risa twists free and elbows him in the nose. She’s not sure if she’s broken it, but it does start gushing blood.
“YOU THTINKING BITH!!” he yells. Porterhouse is in such agony, he can only wail wordlessly. Sleaze number three takes this as his cue to exit, running off down the alley, knowing he’ll be next if he doesn’t.
Then Prime Douche produces more bad news. He pulls out a knife and starts swinging at Risa, trying to cut any part of her he can. His sweeping slashes are wild, but deadly.
She uses her backpack to block, and he slices it open. He swings again, coming dangerously close to her face. Then suddenly she hears—
“In here! Hurry!”
There’s a woman poking her head out of the back door of a shop. Risa doesn’t hesitate. She lurches into the open door, and the woman tries to close it behind her. She almost gets it closed, but Prime Douche gets his hand in, stopping it—so the woman slams the door on his hand. He screams on the other side of the door. Risa throws her shoulder against the door, slamming it on his fingers again. He screams even louder. She releases the tension just enough for him to pull his swelling fingers back, then pushes the door fully closed while the woman locks it.
They endure the furious barrage of bile—a vitriolic burst of curses that sound increasingly impotent, until the douche and Porterhouse stumble off, vowing vengeance.
Only now does Risa look at the woman. Middle-aged, wrinkles she tries to hide with makeup. Big hair. Kind eyes.
“You all right, hon?”
“Fine. My backpack might not pull through though.”
The woman throws a quick glance at the backpack. “Pandas and hearts? Hon, that thing needed to be put out of its misery.”
Risa grins, and the woman holds her gaze just a moment too long. Risa can clock the exact moment of recognition. The woman knows who she is—although she doesn’t let on right away.
“You can stay here until we’re sure they’re gone for good.”
“Thanks.”
A pause, then the woman drops all pretenses. “I suppose I should ask you for your autograph.”
Risa sighs. “Please don’t.”
The woman gives her a sly grin. “Well, being that I’m not turning you in for the reward money, I figured I could sell the signature someday. It might be worth something.”
Risa returns the grin. “You mean after I’m dead.”
“Well, if it was good enough for van Gogh . . .”
Risa laughs, and her laughter begins to chase away the anxiety of just a few moments ago. She still feels adrenaline making her fingers tingle. It will take longer for her physiology to recognize safety.
“Are you sure all the doors are locked?”
“Hon, those boys are long gone, licking their wounds and icing their bruised egos. But yes. Even if they came back, they couldn’t get in.”
“It’s boys like that who give the rest of us teenagers a bad name.”
The woman waves her hand at the suggestion. “Bottom-feeders come in all ages,” she says. “I should know. I’ve dated my share of them. You can’t just unwind the young ones, ’cause once they’re gone, others’ll sink down to take their place.”
Risa carefully gauges the woman, but she’s not all that easy to read. “So you’re against unwinding?”
“I’m against solutions that are worse than the problem. Like old women who want their hair dyed the color of shoe polish to hide the gray.”
Risa finally takes a moment to look around and quickly understands why the woman made the comparison she did. They’re in the back room of a salon—a retro kind of place with big hair dryers and notched black sinks. The woman introduces herself as Audrey, the proprietor of Locks and Beagles—an establishment specializing in salon services for people who absolutely, positively must bring their dog with them everywhere.