The Girls I've Been(43)

“I didn’t shoot anyone.” The yet hangs there, unspoken, but so clear. I have no idea how to flip this. I gave away what he wanted. But why does he need leverage over the bank manager when he’s got the welding machine?

The safe-deposit box keys. The ones I found in the manager’s office. They’re still tucked in my bra.

Gray Cap thinks the manager has them on him. He doesn’t think they’re in the bank. That’s why he’s so mad about Casey.

I lick my lips and take a step back. He doesn’t let me go, but he doesn’t step forward, his elbow straightening, allowing me the space. Good. Good. That’s good.

“Who did you hurt?” I soften my voice. “The teller?”

“She should’ve told me who the kid belonged to.” He almost smirks at his bad pun. “And you . . .” His grip tightens up again, and my teeth clench even as I try to keep my mouth soft. He wants to see pain. I’m not giving him that.

“I did you a favor,” I say stubbornly. “The news that a kid was inside would’ve brought in the big guys from Sacramento faster. It’s in your best interest to get out of here before SWAT comes.”

“And you’re all about my best interest?”

“Normally, no: I care about me. Unfortunately, that means I have to give a shit about you, because how did you put it? The guy with the gun never has to say sorry. The only reason you haven’t shot me is because I’m betting you’ve done the math and whatever score is waiting down in the basement is not even close to the seven million my stepfather will pay if you bring me back to Florida, all alive and grown up.”

“Sounds like a sweet deal,” he says. “But I know you’re trying to stall. It’s not gonna work. We’ll be out of here soon.”

I know he’s not talking about him and Red Cap. He knows I know he’s not talking about the two of them. He’s talking about him and me.

I made myself bait because that’s what I was born to be, and now I’ve got to pay the price. At least Iris and Wes will be safe.

“You gonna fight me?” he asks.

“You gonna hit me again?”

“Depends.”

“Then ditto.”

He’s quiet for a moment. His grip shifts on me. Changes. When his hand clenches tighter around my arm, it’s nothing like before. Before was punishment.

This is violation. A prying sort of touch that sends every single sense inside me clamoring; running for cover, charging to fight, freezing in place.

“Hitting you is not the only thing I can do to make you behave,” he says, and there it is, in between the lines and in the lick of his lips: the real threat.

Run. Hide. Do it. Now.

No. Calm. Breathe. He wants the fear. The gun didn’t stop me. The hitting got him nowhere. So now it’s this.

Breathe.

Run. Hide. Fight.

No. Swallow that fucking spit in your mouth, Nora. Speak. He can’t know.

“I see we’ve reached the rape-threat portion of the day. Very original. Do you have some evil-dude bingo card stashed somewhere?”

I’m talking too fast. My voice rising. Shit. Shit.

Run.

He shrugs, and it’s terrifying, how casual it is. And then, he gets a whole lot more terrifying, because he says, “I don’t need to do anything to you. All I need to do is go get the girl in the poofy dress. Both you and the boy keep putting yourselves in front of her.”

There is no controlling my reaction. The blood drains out of my face so fast it has him sucking a breath in with a kind of sick joy, and I am so fucking stupid. I didn’t think. I didn’t even think he’d . . .

He steps forward.

Hide.

He’s too close. Too, too close.

My hand curls around the handle of the scissors tucked in the waistband of my jeans.

Fight. Kill.





— 37 —


    Katie (Age 10): Sweet, Spirited, Smart (In Three Acts, Reversed)



Act 2: Spirited

Forty Minutes After

My button-down is stained. I pull my jacket closer around me, trying to hide it as I pick up speed. My sneakers slap through puddles, the chill of the streets almost as bad as the late-night buzz in this part of the city. Seattle sucks in the winter and my jacket’s thin, but I didn’t have time to grab my winter coat.

I didn’t have time to grab anything. My phone’s back there, along with my warm coat and clothes that aren’t rusty with blood.

I need to find a pay phone, something that’s almost impossible. But I keep walking, because if I stop, I’m going to remember what happened.

No stopping. Keep moving.

I’ve been Katie for six months. Katie is Lucy’s daughter. Katie just turned ten. She’s athletic; she wears a rose-gold charm bracelet around her right wrist, little tennis rackets and hearts and the Eiffel Tower dangling from it. Katie is a country club dream; her clothes look like they’re out of a Ralph Lauren for Kids catalogue, and her thick blond hair is always swinging in a ponytail. Katie is not quiet. She is not silent. She is not invisible. She is the first spitfire Mom lets me be, the closest thing to me I’ve been in years.

Maybe if we hadn’t been so similar, this wouldn’t have happened?

Don’t think about it. Keep moving.