UnSouled

He sees a little bit of his old self in Argent. Was Co

Argent takes another hit and reels. “Oh man, this is good stuff.” He looks bleary-eyed at Co

“We’re the same, Co

The giggle is contagious. Co

“Gotta show you this,” Argent says. “You’ll get mad, but I gotta show you anyway.” Then Argent pulls out his phone and shows him one of the pictures he took with Co

“Good one, right? I put it up on my Facelink profile.”

“You . . . did what?”

“No big deal. Just for my friends and stuff.” Argent giggles again. Co

“Do you know how bad that is, Argent?”

“I know, right?”

“No, you don’t. The authorities. The Juvenile Authority. They’ve got facial tracing bots on the net.”

“Bots, right.”

“They’ll take down this house. I’ll get taken in. You’ll both get five to ten for”—Co

“Ooh, this is bad, Argie,” says Grace from the corner.

“Who asked you?” Argent says. Being wasted doesn’t temper his treatment of his sister.

“We gotta get out of here, Argent,” Co

“Yeah?” Argent still doesn’t quite grasp it.

“We’ll be on the run—you and me.”

“Right. Screwing with the world.”

“It was fated, just like you said.”

“Fated.”

“Argent and the Akron AWOL.”

“Triple A!”

“But you have to untie me before they come to take us out!”

“Untie you . . .”

“There’s no time. Please, Argent.”

“I can really trust you?”

“Did we or did we not just do tranq together?”

That’s enough to clinch the deal. Argent puts the pipe down, then goes behind Co

“So where do we go?” Argent asks.

Co

Grace stands staring at Co

“Yeah, I know.”

She doesn’t go to help Argent. Instead she just looks at Co

“Is it true what you said about the police coming after us?” she asks.

Co

7 • Grace

Grace Eleanor Ski

“Don’t be a stupid wimp, Gracie,” he yelled for all to hear. “Don’t think about it—just jump.”

Behind her, others were getting impatient.

“Gracie, jump already! You’re making everyone mad!” In the end, Grace had backed away and gone down the ladder in shame.

That’s what this feels like today. Only now the threat is far more real. Argie’s words from that day come back to her. Don’t think about it—just jump. She follows the advice this time.

She pushes open the cellar door and bursts forth into the light of day. This is a game, she tells herself. I win games.

There are sharpshooters in the yard, but they don’t see her at first. Their rifles are trained on the house, and the cellar is at the far back of the yard. They haven’t gone in yet. The force is still positioning.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” she yells, ru

“Don’t shoot,” she says again. “It’s this way. He’s over here. Don’t shoot!”

“On the ground!” one of the sharpshooters orders. “On the ground now!”

But no. Rule one—never allow capture unless it gives you an advantage.

“This way! Follow me!” She turns around, hands still flailing in the air as she runs back to the cellar. She half expects to be shot, but the other half wins; they don’t fire. She races down the stairs into the cellar and waits. In a moment, the sharpshooters are there, covering one another, aiming at her and into the dim light of the cellar like soldiers in hostile territory. Although her heart feels like its exploding and she wants to scream, she says calmly, “You don’t need guns. He’s unarmed.”

The marksmen still hold their ground, covering for an officer in a suit who follows them down the stairs.

“I knew it was a bad idea,” Grace tells him. “I told Argie, but he wouldn’t listen.”

The officer sizes Grace up quickly, dismissively, just as everyone does. He guesses she’s low-cortical and pats her shoulder. “You’ve done a good thing, miss.”

More officers come into the cellar, making it crowded.

The figure tied to the pole is limp and semiconscious. The lead officer grabs his hair to lift his head and looks into his face.

“Who the hell is this?”

“My brother, Argent,” Grace says. “I told him not to steal all this stuff from the supermarket. I told him he’d be in big trouble. I knocked him out and tied him up. I had to hurt him, see, so he wouldn’t get shot. He’s not resisting, right? So you’ll go easy on him, won’t you? Won’t you? Tell me you’ll go easy on him!”

The officer is no longer kind to Grace. Instead he glares at her. “Where’s Lassiter?”

“Who?”

“Co

“Oh, that? Argie made that up on the computer. It was a gag for his friends. Looks real, don’t it?”

The other officers look to one another. The lead man is not pleased in the least. “I’m supposed to believe that?”

Grace shakes her brother’s shoulder. “Argie, tell them.”

Grace waits. Argie might have a lot of faults, but he’s pretty good at self-preservation. Like Co

Argent glares at Grace through his blood-clouded eyes. He radiates a sibling hatred that could kill if it were set free. “It’s the truth,” he growls. “Gag photo. For my friends.”

It’s not what the officer wants to hear. The other men chuckle behind his back.

“All right,” he says, trying to seize what’s left of his authority. “Untie him and get him to a hospital—and go through the house anyway. Find the original file. I want that picture analyzed.”