It was definitely not okay.
It was definitely definitely definitely definitely not okay. It was not okay now, not anymore, not ever again, because the man was going to kill her. He was going to shoot her in the head as she lay on this floor. This spot, this very spot, was where she was going to die. She would never see her mother or her father or her brother or her cats or her room or her toothbrush again. In a moment she was going to be dead. Now she was completely alive but in an instant she would be completely dead and she wouldn’t even know it, it would just be over, and she wouldn’t even know it was over because she herself would be over, and all the stuff in her brain—all the thoughts in her brain right now, right this second—would just be a big sticky mess on the floor of the Deli Barn. And it was now—now—now. It was this instant—no, this instant—this instant—this—
—this is me. This is really me. This is my real life.
She realized her eyes were closed, bracing for the impact of the bullet, and she wanted to see the world one more time—even if it was just a crappy old Deli Barn—so she opened her eyes and there was Lisa Bellow staring right at her.
“Don’t worry, Meredith,” Lisa said. “It’ll be okay.” She didn’t even whisper it. She said it in a normal voice, as if nothing were wrong, or even out of the ordinary. She had stopped crying. Her cheeks were dry. Something in her face made Meredith think she was about to smile.
“You two,” the man said. “Get up.”
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There were candy wrappers all over the inside of the car. It looked like a family car the morning after Halloween, the way they were littered everywhere, the floor, the seats, and all different kinds: Snickers, Kit Kats, Butterfingers, M&M’s. She and Lisa sat still in the backseat while he walked around to the driver’s side of the car, not holding the gun out in the open but his hand tense under his jacket, watching them through the windows every step he took, making sure they knew he was not taking his eyes off them. He got in the car and pulled the ski mask off his head and turned around. His face was flushed pink from the mask but besides that he was ugly. His eyes were squinchy. He had a knobby chin and a mustache that drooped around the sides of his small mouth. It was the kind of face that had always looked older than it really was. Probably he was in his late twenties but he could have been forty. He was a little man who had been made fun of in eighth grade by girls just like Lisa.
“I’ll shoot you if you try to get out of the car. Got it?”
Meredith was shaking from the inside, which she didn’t even know was possible. The shaking started in her heart and lungs and spread out to her sides and legs and arms, and her fingers were trembling and she wanted to put them in her mouth and bite down on them to stop the trembling. It was the only thing she could think to do, the only thing she felt like might make things better, sticking her fingers in her mouth and biting down, hard. She raised her hand to her mouth.
“Got it?” the man said again, and she froze where she was and then lay her hand back on her lap.
A minivan drove haltingly by the Deli Barn parking lot, and inside the van Meredith could see a mother turned halfway around trying to hand something to the kid in the backseat. The van couldn’t have been more than twenty feet away from them. If both she and Lisa screamed bloody murder, the mother in the minivan might hear them. If they opened the back doors and leaped out, the van would surely screech to a halt. If they did it together, maybe only one of them would be shot. And maybe he was full of crap anyway. Maybe he wouldn’t really shoot but would just tear off, his tires squealing. Maybe. But Meredith didn’t even have time to pass this idea on to Lisa, not even with a look. The minivan turned the corner, and the man started the car.
“You suck,” Lisa said. She leaned forward until she was practically right behind the driver’s right ear. “Do you hear me?” She was screeching. “You suck. You asshole!”
Meredith turned to her, horrified. Lisa looked furious, possessed. There was spittle on her lips from screaming.
“Shut up,” the driver said, throwing the car in gear. “Shut your mouth. Shut it. Shut it.”
“You shut your mouth,” Lisa said savagely. “You stupid fuck.”
The driver shut his mouth. Lisa turned and gave Meredith a triumphant little smile. Meredith had seen that smile on Lisa many times before—in the cafeteria, the locker room, the library, every chaotic hall of Parkway North Middle School. It was the smile of the person in control of the situation. It was the smile of the person in charge.
Meredith couldn’t feel her face. She had the sense that her mouth was hanging open but she didn’t feel like she had the ability to close it. Her whole body was numb. The man pulled out of the lot and turned right onto Chestnut, then made a left onto Willow. Lisa was smirking and rubbing her fingers together.
“I got this,” Lisa whispered. “I got this.”
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