16
ANSON
Twill led us through a narrow opening between two buildings at the back of the lot, an alley no more than three feet wide, littered with broken bottles and discarded trash.
We followed the narrow space to the opposite end, blocked by the wall of a red-bricked building.
An old refrigerator was propped up against the wall.
Once white, the flaked paint was covered in rust, the chrome handle tarnished and dull.
Someone had fastened a padlock to the door, and I couldn’t help but think of our refrigerator back home.
Mother locked ours, too. Unlike Mother’s lock, this one wasn’t real.
When Twill pulled on the door, I realized the brackets attached to the lock weren’t screwed in, only resting against the battered metal.
The refrigerator opened with a tired squeal.
The interior shelves were gone. The refrigerator had no back.
Instead, it was open to a dark tunnel. It was a door.
“Ain’t that some Alice in Wonderland bullshit,” Paul muttered.
Twill reached inside and found a small magnetic flashlight fastened to the backside, just out of sight. She flicked the beam on and stepped through the opening. “I prefer The Witch and the Wardrobe.”
Unlike the narrow alley, the tunnel was clean and free of garbage. The air was cool and fresh, fed by some draft up ahead.
We pushed through a beaded curtain on the opposite end and found ourselves in the center of a giant indoor marketplace crawling with people.
Shops lined both walls of a long building that seemed to go on forever.
Between the shops were tables cluttered with t-shirts, trinkets, tourist memorabilia, toys, books, and magazines.
Food, too. I didn’t see it, but the smells filled the air—burgers, hot dogs, funnel cake, and who knew what else.
Twill pressed a folded hoodie into my hand.
A moment later, she handed me a pair of jeans.
The cash she’d received from Ruddy never left her pocket.
She swiped the items from nearby tables with a practiced expertise, moving with the crowd’s noncommittal shuffle, gazing around as if looking at this place for the first time, although I was fairly certain she knew every inch.
When she stopped and pointed at an old photo booth, I realized she’d gotten clothing for Paul and Vincent, too.
She pulled the curtain open and gestured inside. “Hurry up! Change in there.”
A few minutes later, the three of us were dressed, and Twill shoved our stolen hospital wear into the mouth of a trash can. Somehow, she even managed to get the sizes right. She’d slipped into a hoodie, too.
When we passed an electronics store, we froze. A wall of televisions in the window were tuned to the news with live shots of the hospital. The parking lot was flooded with patients, visitors, and cops. Talking heads stood in front of the chaos, rambling on with excited hand gestures.
A photo appeared in the top right corner: a still shot of the four of us taken from one of the security cameras.
The caption below read, “Hospital terrorists at large.” The image was hazy, not the best quality.
Our faces were visible, but not very clear.
I was hopeful this was the best shot they got when it was replaced by four individual photos of our faces.
“Fuck me.” Vincent stared at the images.
Twill raised her hand above her head and let out a sharp but short whistle, just enough to get the attention of the kid manning the counter at the back of the store.
When he looked up at her, she twirled her finger in a slow circle and pointed at the televisions.
He nodded, reached beneath the counter, and all the screens switched from the news to a Tom & Jerry cartoon.
This girl . . . Father’s voice muttered.
“Yeah,” I said.
Twill heard and was staring at me. “Do I need to be worried about you?”
“I’ve seen him shoot,” Paul told her. “He’s weird, but harmless. Can we eat now?”
Her gaze lingered on me for several more seconds before she turned and led us to what looked like half a food truck built into the wall.
An older bald man dressed in white hovered over the grill, expertly flipping burgers into the air and catching them with his spatula.
At the sight of Twill, the hard lines around his mouth and eyes softened. “Hey, beautiful.”
“Hey, Lou. Four with the works, please.” She took the wad of bills from her pocket, peeled off a twenty, and handed it to him. He reached for the bill, drew his fingers over it, but didn’t take it. The bill went back into her pocket. To anyone watching, it looked like she paid.
“You track down Emily?”
The look she gave him told all he needed to know. The harsh lines tightened up again and his jaw clenched. “That goddamn bastard. They need to catch the guy.”
“Nobody’s looking. They don’t give a shit about us—you know that. As far as they’re concerned, he’s cleaning the place up. One less girl on the streets.”
“He’s a fucking psychopath.” He slid four boxes, bottles of water, and a stack of napkins toward us, then slapped a small bell on the corner of the counter. “Order up!”
We carried everything over to an empty table in an open courtyard just outside the door and tore into the boxes.
We were all starving. It’d been nearly a day since we’d eaten anything, and while I might have consumed just about anything and liked it, the burgers were absolute perfection.
Nearly as good as the ones Father made on the grill.
The fries, too. Minutes passed without a word—only grunts, slurps, and a rather loud burp from Paul before he told nobody in particular, “My compliments to the chef.”
“Screw him,” Vincent said. “Fucker gave us used napkins. Someone wrote all over these.”
He spread the napkins across the table.
Names and phone numbers were scribbled on seven of them. One of them had an address.
For the first time since I met her, Twill appeared embarrassed. Her cheeks flushed red. She quickly scooped up the napkins and shoved them in her pocket. “They’re potential clients.”