is a stately kind of brick building. Classic in a way that a lot of the newer buildings from the second half of the twentieth century aren’t. A fully uniformed PSF meets me at the door with his rifle resting against one shoulder. I’ve seen pictures and shots on TV, but man, in person, it’s a whole new level of intimidation. Whoever decided to jack Darth Vader’s red-and-black color scheme knew what they were doing.
“What’s your business?”
Not getting my ass shot.
“I’m here about…” The words trail off. The school’s entry hallway has been converted to look a great deal like a police station. There are desks with uniformed PSFs behind them around the perimeter, and a rainbow of men and women hanging around the waiting area in hunter camo and caps, biding their time until it’s their turn to be seen.
I don’t see any kids, but maybe they have us bring them in through the back?
“How many times do we have to tell you to check your damn applications?” a man shouts from the far end of the hall. The man sitting next to him stands and slams his hands down on the desk, prompting the PSF next to him to stir. “We already searched the plate numbers in the system! He’s not registered—yet!”
The hall carries exactly two words from the man sitting next to him. “Stolen” and “score.” And even before they start to turn to go, I know I’m standing less than a hundred feet away from the beards.
Holy shit.
I back through the door, but I have no idea what excuses I’m mumbling to the soldier. I burst back out into the parking lot at a full run.
Because this isn’t suspicious at all! Good job, Gabe!
Shit, shit, shitshitshit—even if I were to wait for them to leave, the officers in this station will recognize the plate number when I give it to them on my application. Not to mention they probably have me on camera acting like a sketchball at the door.
Phoenix. I can do Phoenix. I’ll change my clothes, wear a hat and sunglasses, swap out my license plate with one from one of the abandoned cars I find along the I-17. It’s less than a two-hour drive. If the gas situation starts to get touchy, well, I’ll figure it out.
I feel better now that I have a plan. It’s probably what I should have done in the first place, but it’s okay. Lesson learned.
The kid is still sitting on the floor when I jump back into the driver’s seat. There’s a rumpled piece of notebook paper smoothed out over her knees that she immediately tries to stuff back into her jean pocket. From my vantage point above her, though, I can read at least the first half of it: We love you. If you need help, look for
Look for who?
“Well, Dorothy,” I say as I turn the key in the ignition. My mind scrambles to come up with some excuse that won’t make me look pathetic. “They’re not accepting freaks at this location. Looks like you’ve got two more hours of freedom.”
I swear, she can see right through the lie and she looks…unimpressed, to say the least. I put the car in reverse and she climbs up into the passenger seat, dropping the handcuffs into the drink holder between us.
Okay. Seriously. What the hell?
The girl sighs, but deigns to show me her trick. With the cuffs in one hand, she slides what looks like a warped bobby pin out of her pocket. I glance between her and the highway as she wiggles the bent end of the pin in a small hole on the handcuffs I’ve never noticed before. The metal arm springs open.
“Kid, you have the worst sense of self-preservation I’ve ever seen,” I tell her, because now I know not to use the handcuffs on her. I’ll stick to zip ties. She’s trying to teach me how to do my job, and while a tiny part of me is impressed she knows how to do this, a bigger part of me wants to stretch out across the highway and wait for someone to just run me over. All my anger from the morning has drained me to the point where I can only feel humiliated and tired about all this.
“I didn’t rescue you,” I remind her, but she reaches over—gloves and zip tie and all—and turns the radio on. I listen to hip-hop or I listen to silence, so naturally she finds the one