And she’s made a huge error. “Shit. Mutually assured destruction.”
“What?” Brandon looks to Mack for clarity. Mack has none to offer.
Ava shakes her head. “We should have forced them to come with us. Jaden and Ava Two, I mean. We all hide together, we’re all found together.”
“Like, taken them hostage?” Brandon shakes his head. He’s okay with helping Ava, happy to hide with his friends instead of alone. But he doesn’t actually think something is that wrong. Definitely not wrong enough to get aggressive and hurt someone else. He probably should have stopped Ava when she was punching Jaden. He feels bad that he didn’t. He might not like Jaden, but it’s not right to go around beating people up. Even when you’re upset. “I don’t think that would work,” he says, hoping Ava’s not going to decide to do it right now.
“No, you’re right. Logistically impossible with our current resources.”
Brandon picks up a chunk of concrete, hefting it with dubious care. They’ve amassed a small arsenal. A few pipes. A board with rusted nails. Chunks of concrete easy enough to lift and swing like a fist. Brandon is upset about all of them. “Besides,” he says, still troubled, “we don’t want them with us. Two people have to get out every day.”
“Why, though?” Ava asks.
“Why any of it.” Mack drifts deeper into the dark confines of the tunnel of love. The moon has come out from behind clouds, and there’s enough ambient light from the gaping entrance and holes in the roof that she can navigate. She doesn’t like this spot, doesn’t like that they brought Brandon along, wonders if LeGrand is smart enough to have slinked away into the night, away from them. Away from her.
Is Mack’s instinct to always climb actually a smart hiding strategy, or is it rooted in trauma? The ghost of her sister, prompting her higher? Or Mack climbing to try to escape her? To get to a place where she doesn’t have to think about Maddie, or her father, or anything. Untether herself from the earth.
Whatever the reason, it’s served her so far and she’s not going to stop. She eyes the curve of the ceiling, the artificial cave over them. It was made of plaster, and huge chunks of it have fallen, revealing the beams and cheap corrugated metal roof beyond. Could she get up that high? It doesn’t look like there’s an easy route up. She doubts Ava could climb it. So, surprising herself, she stops looking for a route, instead searching for a place Ava can access, too.
No fair, Maddie whines in her memory of that night.
Brandon joins Mack, yanking her back to the present. “I hid in there.” He points to the line of cars forever frozen halfway through the tunnel, a swan hovering menacingly, one wing spread and one cracked and fallen to the floor. The building is split in half down the middle so the track goes behind the wall, but most of that wall has fallen, revealing the whole of the pathetic loop. And revealing no good hiding spots.
“Obvious,” Mack says. How did no one find him? If she were searching, this would have been one of the first places she’d hit.
“Yeah.” Brandon scratches the back of his head, frowning. He doesn’t seem hurt or angry she dismissed his suggestion. He looks guilty, like he feels bad that he doesn’t have something better to offer. “Sorry. I don’t want to let you down. I shouldn’t have acted like I knew a good place.”
Mack recoils emotionally. She doesn’t want to reach out to him, to comfort and reassure him. To be tied by yet another point to this game, this world. But. Brandon’s soft I hope you win lingers like a hug in the back of her mind. Like an emotional contract. “No, this works. It’s better for more people. Look, there.” Mack points to the section of wall over the entrance. There’s a hole there that looks intentional, several feet across and two or three feet high. It’s not a cave-in or a structural failure, as far as she can tell in the dark, which means there might be a crawlspace between the ceiling and the entrance to the tunnel.
She can’t know that it was used to access the overhang above the entrance and change out the decorations—the delicate streamers rotted fast, like most delicate things do—but it meets Mack’s requirements for unexpected sight lines. And it’s hard to access, too. So anyone trying to get up to them will give them time to—
Time to what?
She doesn’t know.
Brandon is cheered by it, though. “So I did pick a good spot?” he asks, hopeful and happy.
Mack resists the urge to pat him on the head. She couldn’t reach, anyway. “Yeah, Brandon. You did.”