Undivided

“I don’t need a nursemaid!” Sonia kept telling her, which just doubled Grace’s resolve.

Risa knew a team of two was iffy. They needed at least one more as a fail-safe. And so Risa suggested that Beau be added to team. Bad idea number three.

“Are you kidding me? You want to ask Beau to come?” Co

“We’re going to have to interact out there—we need at least one face that people aren’t currently wearing on T-shirts.” Co

Beau, of course, was thrilled to be included, although he tried to feign being blasé. “I’ll drive,” he proclaimed.

“You’ll sit in the back,” Co

Risa had to grin at the way Co

It was Sonia’s idea to arm them all with tranq-loaded pistols. Risa couldn’t stand the things, because they reminded her of the Juvies. She hated the idea of using the Juvenile Authority’s weapon of choice.

“Tranqs are quick, effective, and leave no mess, and even a peripheral hit does the job,” Sonia told her. “That’s why the Juvies use them.”

Risa was quick to remove the tranqs from Beau’s gun when he wasn’t looking. The last thing she or Co

That was this morning. Now as they run through the hospital complex, Beau insists he knows where he’s going even though neither of them has a clue about the mazelike facility. The blueprint they studied in preparation was hopelessly out of date and didn’t include the newer buildings, or renovations in the older ones.

It’s Sunday, and the particular office wing they’ve barged into is full of empty waiting rooms with generic art prints on the walls. Another place that’s not on the map they studied.

“This way!” Beau says, and although Risa’s sure it’s going to take them back where they’ve been, she goes along, because at this point, any direction seems as good as another. She can only hope that Co

Co

Risa and Beau come to a dead end in the radiology wing. A locked door. The only way out is the way they came. The moment they turn, the two guards come around the corner, and, seeing that the two kids are cornered, they slow down and get a little smug in anticipation of the capture.

“Gave us a good workout, didn’tcha!” the chubby one says, huffing and puffing.

“Put your hands where we can see them,” says the slim one.

Risa turns to Beau and speaks under her breath. “We’ll talk our way out of it,” she says. “We haven’t done anything but make them chase us. If they don’t recognize me . . .”

As the guards get closer, Risa sees a determined look in Beau’s eye, and his hand is still in the pocket of his hoodie.

“No one runs without a reason,” says the chubby one. “My bet is that you’re a couple of AWOLs, aren’tcha!”

“Hands where we can see them!” insists the other again, unsnapping the holster on his weapon.

So Beau pulls out his hand. And in his hand is a pistol. And he aims that pistol at the slim rent-a-cop. Bad idea number four.

Beau levels his pistol at the slim guard. Risa knows exactly how this will go down, and she can only hope that the rent-a-cops are armed with tranqs and not real bullets—but she doubts it. The instant the targeted guard sees the weapon in Beau’s hand, he reaches for his own gun. So Beau pulls the trigger—

—and to Risa’s amazement, Beau’s pistol goes off! She hears the telltale PFFFT! of a tranq shot. It hits the guard in the shoulder, before he can raise his own gun—and in a second he’s down on his knees, and in another second, he’s falling facedown onto the institutionally carpeted floor, unconscious.

The other cop, who probably never actually had to draw a gun in his life, is fumbling with the holster, and Beau tranqs him right in the chest. The man lets out a squeak that sounds like “Pshaw,” stumbles a bit like a dying diva, and falls back against the wall, sliding to the ground, out cold.

“C’mon,” Beau says, “let’s get out of here.” He takes her hand and pulls her away from the scene. She’s too flabbergasted to resist his grasp.

“But . . . but how . . . ?”

“You think I didn’t know what you did? I wasn’t coming in here with an empty gun!”

Risa finally pulls out of his grasp and turns around.

“What are you doing?”

“We can’t just leave them there,” she says. “Someone will find them. We need to hide them.”

Beau goes back with her, and together they drag the men down the hall. Then, when a faint voice comes through one of the guard’s earpieces, asking for the status of the “unsubs,” Beau grabs it and says in a very convincing voice, “Ten-four. Just a couple of local ferals. They ran out a back door. Not our problem anymore.”

“Amen to that,” says the voice on the other end, and they’ve bought themselves at least ten minutes until someone wonders about the two guards’ mysterious disappearance.

“Ten-four?” Risa asks. “Did you actually say ten-four?”

Beau shrugs. “It worked, didn’t it?”

They put the thin guard inside a wooden toy box in a deserted pediatric waiting room. The corpulent one fits nicely in the cabinet underneath a huge fish tank, ironically populated by puffer fish that somewhat resemble the man.

Now that the unconscious guards are safely tucked away, Risa begins to relax. There’s an exhilaration to a narrow escape that Risa had almost forgotten. A physiological payoff to the adrenaline rush of danger.

Beau, feeling his own relief, begins to laugh. It makes Risa laugh in spite of herself, which makes Beau laugh even harder, pushing Risa toward an unwanted giggle fit that is suddenly silenced by Beau grabbing her and kissing her.

Her response is immediate and reflexive—although even if it wasn’t a reflex, she’s pretty sure she would have done the same thing. She pushes him off and pops him in the eye with such force that his neck snaps back and his head hits the fish tank with a thud, scattering puffer fish in all directions. Risa doesn’t want to stay for whatever the aftermath will be—apologetic or angry, she doesn’t care. She storms away.

“Risa, wait!”

Of all the things to deal with at this particular moment, why must she have to suffer the advances of yet another hormonal douche?

“Risa!”

She turns to him with fury and has to restrain herself from slugging him again. “Are you an idiot? Stop saying my name! They don’t know who we are, and if there happens to be anyone in these offices who can hear you . . .”

“Sorry.” His eye is already swelling. Good.

“If Co

“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“Why is it that every loser with a penis feels the obligation to put moves on me?”

He looks at her like the answer is obvious. “Because you’re Risa Ward,” he says. “And whatever happens now, I’ll go to my grave knowing that once—just once—I kissed the one and only Risa Ward.”