“People still live in places like this?” asked Maggie. Her levity was gone. She stared out the window with wide eyes, looking baffled and horrified at the same time.
I shrugged. “Where else are they gonna go?” The question sounded rhetorical. It wasn’t. There were patches like this in almost every city, tolerated despite their sketchy adherence to the safety requirements, because there was nowhere else to put the people who lived in those slowly collapsing houses. Eventually, they’d all be condemned and razed to the ground. Until that day came, people would do what they always had. They would survive.
“Take the next driveway on the right,” said Mahir. “To be more specific, it says ‘Turn right at the serial killer van.’ ”
“You mean the big white one that looks like it was set on fire at some point?”
“One presumes.”
“One right turn, coming up.” I leaned on the wheel, sending us bumping down a driveway that was, if anything, even less well maintained than the street. It felt like my nuts were going to bounce all the way up to my shoulders. I gritted my teeth, clenching my hands on the wheel as I steered us to a stop in front of the one house on the cul-de-sac that looked like it might still be capable of sustaining life. “Now what?”
“Erm.” Mahir looked up. “Now you and I are to put our hands on the dashboard, and Maggie and Rebecca are to put their hands behind their heads.”
“What?” demanded Becks.
“That’s what it says—oh, wait, there’s another line. ‘Do it, or else Foxy will shoot you until you are very, very, very, exceedingly dead.’ ” He frowned. “That sounds unpleasant.”
“Yeah, and it’ll hurt, too,” said a chipper female voice. It sounded like it was coming from the speaker on Mahir’s tablet. He and I exchanged an alarmed look. The tablet chirped, “Hi! Look in front of you!”
We all looked toward the windshield.
There was a short, slim woman standing in front of the van. The top of her head probably wouldn’t have come higher than my shoulder. That didn’t really matter. The assault rifle she was aiming at the windshield more than made up for any lack of size.
“Ah,” said Mahir. “I believe we’ve found the right place.”
“That, or we’ve found the local loony bin.” I put my hands on the dashboard. “Everybody do what she says. We’re going to go along with this for now.”
“Good call!” chirped the tablet.
“Mason—” said Becks.
“Just chill, okay? They knew we were coming. Let’s do things their way and see what happens.”
One by one, the rest of my team did as we’d been told. Becks was the last to move, sullenly putting her gun down and lacing her fingers behind her head. She glared at me in the rearview mirror the entire time.
Once we were all in position, the girl with the gun half walked, half skipped over to the van, stopping next to the driver’s-side door. She beamed through the glass, blue eyes wide and bright as a kid’s on Christmas morning. Her hair destroyed any illusion of childishness, despite her size. Most kids have bleach-blond hair these days, a sign that their parents are properly respecting security protocols. Her hair was so red it was almost orange, and only the last six inches had been bleached, ending in about an inch of inky black, like the tipping on a fox’s tail.
She tapped the barrel of her gun against the window, gesturing for me to open the door. I did so, moving slowly in case she decided to take offense at the fact that I was moving at all.
“Hi!” she said, once the door was open. She removed her right hand from the gun stock long enough to reach over and tap the skin behind her ear, presumably turning off the transmitter she’d been using to speak through Mahir’s tablet. “I’m the Fox. Welcome to the Brainpan.”
“Uh,” I said slowly. “Nice to meet you?”
“Oh, that’s probably not true,” she said, still with the same manic good cheer. “Why don’t you come inside? The Cat baked bread this morning, and I don’t think it’s poisoned or anything! Also, leave your guns in the car, or I’ll not only kill you, I’ll fuck up your corpses so bad that even DNA testing won’t be able to figure out who you were.” She flashed us one last, bright-toothed smile and started walking backward down the path to the porch. She kept her gun leveled on us all the way. Only when she reached the porch did she turn, bounding up the stairs and vanishing through the open door.
“Oh, great,” said Becks, in a faint voice. “I was wondering how we were going to fill our daily quota of bat-shit crazy.”
“Maybe we can make quota for the rest of the month.” I unbuckled my belt and slid out of the van. Once I was clear, I removed the guns from my waistband, setting them on the seat. “Everybody drop your weapons and come on. We came to them. We may as well play by their rules.”