Chapter 15 Ana
Ana
Ana fell to her knees. This was real. This was happening. It was happening again.
Vaguely she was aware of the others running up. Everything sounded distorted, as though she was listening through a long tunnel. There was crying, shouting, voices raised in pitch. Slowly fading away. One by one, falling silent. The aftermath. She knew the sounds too well. She closed her eyes.
Leaves, broken glass, a can of green paint.
Someone put their arm around her, but she didn’t know or care who.
Leaves, broken glass, a can of green paint.
Her body felt disconnected, like a broken limb. She was being pulled into someone; she slumped against them her head falling against their chest. Alex. She could feel him, smell his clean linen-fresh smell as she buried her face into his T-shirt.
She remembered this moment. At the hospital, the bitter smell of disinfectant, red plastic chairs bolted to the wall, waiting to be officially notified of what she already knew, waiting to be told Danny was dead—it had been Alex who had sat through the night with her, his arm tight around her shoulders, holding her up, until she couldn’t bear it any longer.
Couldn’t breathe with his gentle care and love. Love she didn’t deserve.
The thought made her snap into focus. This was not the time to remember.
Ana pulled back from her memories, extricating herself, untangling the barbed wire of pain inside her head. She forced herself to her knees, moving away from Alex.
She looked out across the sand, at the lifeless dark outline. Red dust was blowing across Benny’s body, pockets of it accumulating in the folds of his clothes. The bucket was rattling as it wobbled backwards and forward in the wind.
Benny was dead. The clock had reset. And in an hour, someone else would have to cross the line—someone else would have to die. She looked around. Everyone was here. They were all standing on the white line.
“We can’t leave him like that,” Raya whispered.
“How are we going to bury him without getting killed?” Ellis snapped back at her.
“I don’t know.” Raya was shaking. She couldn’t take Ellis’s assault right now. “It’s just…wrong. Leaving him like that.” She turned her face away from the desert, from Benny.
Ana knew Ellis was right, but the thought of Benny lying out there in the dirt, for all to see, as the hours ticked by, was horrifying. Once again, they were helpless. Just like last time. Just like a year ago.
How could this be happening again? How?
She turned to look at Alex. He was bent forward, hands on knees, head down.
His hair was covering his face, but she didn’t need to see it to know what he was feeling.
He hadn’t been in the gym a year ago. He hadn’t seen, first-hand, the searing flames tearing at the walls, at people, shadows falling over each other, screaming.
He hadn’t seen death. This was his first time.
A powerful impulse swept over her. She wanted to walk over to him and hold him, to push his hair back and look him directly in his soft eyes and tell him everything would be okay.
Even if she knew it wouldn’t. It couldn’t be.
But her feet wouldn’t move. It was as though she was frozen in place. Locked down inside. Useless.
A loud grunt made everyone jump.
Ana had almost forgotten Caden was there. He had been lurking off to one side since the shooting. He was staring into the distance, one hand shading his red eyes.
He grunted again, and raised a hand, pointing towards the horizon. Far away, by the mountains, a cloud of dust was forming, growing larger by the second.
“What the fuck is that?” Ellis muttered to no one in particular.
The dust cloud was blowing to the right, stretching out across the desert. There seemed to be a red dot at the center of it, some kind of car maybe.
“Oh my god. Help us. Help us!” Jade shouted. “Someone’s coming, they’ll rescue us. We’ve got to signal them. Come on.” She started waving her arms in the air. Jax followed her lead, and before long, the others joined them, shouting and waving.
Only Ana and Ellis stood still.
There was something wrong. The red dot wasn’t coming from a road. It was driving cross-country, barreling at high speed, headed directly for them. Whoever was coming knew exactly where they were going and why.
The dot grew, forming the clear shape of a red truck. They could make out dark outlines behind the windshield. It looked like there were at least two people inside.
One by one, the others fell quiet as they realized that the truck was coming whether they shouted or not, whether they wanted it to or not.
Closer and closer, the trail of dust was forming a mighty cloud above the truck, several stories high. Like an approaching sandstorm. Dangerous.
As the truck neared Benny, it swung around, skidding to an abrupt stop just feet from the body.
A fan of dust settled over everything. The doors opened and two men got out, bandanas over their faces.
They looked like they were in their twenties, wearing indistinctive flannels and jeans, with matching cowboy hats pulled low.
No one called to them. No one waved. Something about their efficient, businesslike manner warned the group to stay quiet and watch.
Without a glance in the direction of the motel, the men walked over to Benny, one standing at his head, one by his feet. They stared down. There was no surprise or concern in their movements. They had known he was there, and they knew he was already dead.
Ana felt nauseous. What were they going to do to him? What did they want?
One of the cowboys pulled something out of his pocket and held it up to his bandana.
It appeared to be some kind of handheld radio.
He listened intently, nodding, then slipped the radio into his pocket and bent down to grab Benny’s outstretched arms. He said something to the other man, who picked up the feet.
Benny’s gray shirt pulled up, exposing his belly; the ignominy of it felt like a slap in the face.
“Leave Benny alone!” a loud voice shouted, making them all jump. Caden stepped forward, his face flushed an angry red.
He picked up a stone and flung it in the direction of the truck. It fell short, rattling along the ground.
“Leave him!”
The men must have heard Caden but didn’t so much as glance in his direction.
Something released inside Ana; suddenly she could move again. She bent down and grabbed a rock and flung it as hard as she could in the direction of the men.
“Don’t touch him!” Her voice sounded puny and distant, but she didn’t care. “Leave him alone!”
“Stop it!”
“Let go!”
“Put him down!”
Everyone was shouting now. They followed Caden’s lead, grabbing anything they could reach and throwing it at the two cowboys. Caden rooted around and grabbed an entire fridge door and with a roar flung it over the line. It crashed loudly onto the ground.
The men didn’t even acknowledge their efforts. They lifted Benny’s body easily between them and carried it towards the truck.
Helpless again.
Ana looked around desperately, noticing Ellis standing off to one side, watching. She walked over to him, grabbed a sharp rock off the ground and held it out. He was the Wolves’ all-star point guard. Fifty feet was nothing to him.
“Ellis,” Ana said. “Please, do something.”
Ellis nodded, understanding. He grabbed the rock, balanced himself, took aim, and launched it high into the air.
It was a perfect throw, smacking one of the men hard on the back. The man dropped Benny’s legs and, for the first time, turned to face the motel.
Ellis smiled and bent for another rock, aimed, and threw it. This one hit the truck inches from the second man.
Caden cheered. The barrage picked up, led by Ellis. Infinitely more dangerous now they had their captain.
“Stop it.”
“Don’t touch Benny.”
Ellis kept up the attack, gauging the distance and getting closer and closer to his mark. The men were forced to take cover behind the truck.
Now both of them faced the motel. One pulled out the radio again. He spoke briefly into it, then nodded to the other.
They didn’t seem worried; their movements were relaxed and easy. They took up their positions behind the truck, leaning on the back, arms resting over the sides of the flatbed. What were they waiting for?
Ana paused, rock in hand. This felt wrong. They looked too comfortable, just standing there, faces hidden smugly behind their matching bandanas.
She looked around and caught Ellis’s eye. He had stopped too, a worried expression on his handsome face.
Who had they called on their radio? What was going on?
It didn’t take long before they found out.
One of the sheds close by suddenly exploded. It felt like the air was sucked up as a wave of burning heat whacked them.
Ana fell to the ground, momentarily disorientated. In a second, she was back in the gym. Back in the burning hallway. Her ears were ringing; she shook her head trying to clear it, pushing herself up to sitting. She looked around.
The others were spread out, some on the ground, some on their knees. They all seemed cowed, shocked. Raya was trying to stand, shaking dust off her arms. Alex was already standing, staring at the fire that was burning on the spot where the shed had been just seconds ago.
Dirt and ash fell from the sky as an immense cloud of black smoke spiraled up into the air over them.
Ana turned back to look at the truck. The two men had thrown Benny’s body in the back of the flatbed. They slammed the tailgate shut and calmly walked to their doors. Not so much as a glance in the direction of the motel.
The truck pulled away, swerving fast, heading back to the nowhere it had come from. It was over. Benny was gone.
So that was it.
The motel was wired to explode. That’s how they would die if they tried to hide out—if they didn’t send someone over the line. They were in a cage, a trap, and there was no escaping, no running. Play or die.
They had been warned.