CHRISTINE “CHAOS” ROE:
Elise didn’t come home. That’s what Andi told us. He held a mug in both hands and talked very quietly and didn’t take a single sip.
A plate of green beans sat in front of me. I’d eaten one, but I couldn’t stomach the rest. “So, she’s gone?”
“I waited all night at the kitchen table,” he said, “and she did not come home.”
Ivy asked, “Did you doze off at all?”
He nodded.
“You could’ve fallen asleep before she came home,” Ivy said, “woke up after she left. Right?”
I scoffed, “Do you want to assume something like that?”
Tears in her eyes. She pulled off her glasses and covered her face with her arms.
Andi said, “We’re okay,” even though we were absolutely not okay. He squeezed Ivy’s shoulder. “I’ll walk to the bus stop. See if I can find anything.”
He handed me the crossbow. Already loaded, string pulled back so tight it looked like the whole thing would snap. “Do not set this down. Not until I’m back.”
I thought maybe I wanted something like this to happen. Respect. Trust. But I gripped that crossbow and could not take a full breath.
“Your pocketknife—”
“I have it.”
He told us he’d be back soon. He told us things would be okay (again). He told us to reset the alarm behind him.
It was quiet once he left. For a moment, Ivy and I stared at the door.
She said, “We can sit here, wait for him.”
So, we sat on the tile. I rested the crossbow against my legs.
“What if—” Ivy set three fingers on her lips “—he doesn’t find anything?”
I gave her a look. “Our plan…her office…”
She bit the corner of her lip. “Chaos, I don’t know.”
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNwEhLc8OYr
Andi came back, didn’t find anything. Told us, “Maybe Ivy’s right,” but his face said we shouldn’t believe it.
He spent the next few hours outside, checking and rechecking the wiring for the alarm.
I spent the next few hours watching Ivy fit two pins into different locks. The one on our bathroom door, the one on her box, the front door. I bit my nails, bit back my impatience. We could’ve left right then, get home before Andi even realized we were gone.
“I can’t believe,” Ivy muttered, “you think we can pull this off.”
“Just focus on getting the door unlocked.”
Click. She pulled open the front door, then closed it, relocked it. Held the pins in front of her face, furrowing her eyebrows. “It’s still stupid.”
“Mom. Dad. Elise.” I kept my voice low. “They need this.”
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3Xl1cuuhe5
Every time she picked the lock, she’d look at me, recite her familiar refrain: We shouldn’t, we shouldn’t, we shouldn’t. Layouts. Timelines. Contingencies. And maybe Ivy was right, and maybe we never would’ve gone. But we found Andi asleep, head in his hands, several supply boxes in front of him. Items laid on the tile: 9-volt batteries. A light bulb. Several copper wires.
I caught Ivy’s eye. I guess she could tell what I was thinking because she shook her head slightly.
“This is our only chance,” I hissed.
Five heartbeats. She huffed and held up all ten fingers. Slowly counted down: nine, eight, seven…
I waited until all her fingers were folded. Then I crept upstairs. Slipped through the door to Elise’s room. Stood at the threshold for a few seconds. Go, go, go. Opened the drawer of her nightstand. There: Red. The size of my palm. It was the push-button. Elise used it to notify someone that she needed to be driven to work. I blinked twice. Inhaled sharply. Pushed it down.
Walter was upstairs, too, and when I left Elise’s room, he caught my eye and cocked his head in question. I rolled my eyes in response.
Ivy by the front door, holding the duffel bag. I stood next to her. This was it. Were we ready to go?
Red push-button, check. Bag, check. Pins, check.
Outside. Ivy shielded her eyes from the sun, refused to look at me.
“If Andi finds out,” she said, “It’s your fault. One hundred percent your fault.”7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNNZ8YcpD4v
“Sure. Whatever.”
We made it to the bus stop, with its faded signs and decrepit bench. Ivy’s eyes darted from the sidewalk, to her fingernails, to me. Her hands shook slightly.
I told her, “Don’t overthink it.”
She didn’t reply, and we waited in silence until a pick-up truck pulled up next to us, its tires crunching the gravel.
The window rolled down, and a man squinted his eyes, “Who are you?”
Ivy offered a wobbly smile. “We’re Elise’s sisters. She forgot something.” She held up the duffel bag.
It was too easy.
His name was Joseph, and he talked the entire time about his “crazy” job of driving back and forth for hours on end.
“But I’ve got it down to a routine,” he smiled, “I’ve been right on time, every time, for over a year, now.”
I nodded absently. Tried to tune him out. It’ll work, it’ll work, it has to work.
Something thumped from the cargo bed. I twisted around in my seat but couldn’t see anything from the back window. Joseph didn’t notice. He kept talking, and I watched the scenery pass by. Blurry trees. The hum of the engine. The airy sound of the tires against the road. Had being in a car always been like this?
I wanted to roll down the window and stick my hand out, but I was pretty sure criminals didn’t do that. I wasn’t sure what they did.
I’m not a criminal, I reminded myself, this is a one-time thing.
We stopped at the bridge gates, Joseph typed in his passcode, and the gates pulled back. We were in.
Skyscrapers, with one thousand mirrored windows. Teenage girls, several shopping bags dangling on their arms. Neon signs! Sports cars! Shopping centers!
We stopped in front of a building with marble columns. I thanked Joseph, grabbed Ivy’s hand, and we walked towards the entrance.
Three circles on the door. I bit back hesitation and reached for the handle.
The lobby: High ceilings, plants everywhere, the walls seemed to be made of marble, and in the center of the room, water cascaded down a glass panel. Every step we made echoed.
Ivy and I exchanged glances. She said, “No wonder Elise wants to work here!”
I understood, too. This world was not gray. It was a deep red, a shimmering blue. Mahogany and olive and gold.
To our right, a woman behind a desk eyed us. “Girls, are you lost?”
I glanced at Ivy, and I saw what the woman saw: Two scrappy girls gawking at a fountain. So much for acting normal.
“Um, no,” I replied, turning my nose up to seem sophisticated, “We are here to give something to Elise Roe. We are her siblings.”
The woman typed something on her computer and frowned; my heart leapt into my throat. Did she know?!
“She’s not in right now. Overnight training. You’ll have to try again when she’s back later today.”
“Can’t we put this in her office?” I held up the bag. “We know right where it is.”
The lady pursed her lips. “No ID, no entrance.”
A second. Maybe two. I smiled and said, “Okay, we’ll come back later.”
I grabbed Ivy’s hand and pulled her out the door.
“At least we know Elise is okay,” Ivy said, “At least we know she’ll come home.”
I didn’t let go of her arm. “Walk a little faster.”
“Are we leaving?” She had to double her steps to keep up with me. “I knew it wasn’t worth it.”
Around the corner. Traffic lights. Billboards. Someone had their windows down, blasted a rock song, and when the light turned green, they rushed past. Across the street, a shopping center. An electronic sign blinked: Buy! Buy! Buy!
“Chaos!” Ivy yanked on my hand, trying to slow me down. “Let’s find Joseph. Let’s go home.”
“There’s another entrance,” I told her, “We just need to find it.”
“What?”7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb8V7yxDgjA
“A loading area. Something. Follow me.”
I walked the perimeter of the building, and Ivy trailed behind me, muttering about backup plans.
There. An entrance with no label. A delivery truck parked in front. I stopped, waited for Ivy to catch up.
“This,” I said, “is what we’re looking for.”
We were lucky. I guess the delivery guy had a lot to deliver, because the door was wedged open. A few boxes stacked on the pavement.
I grabbed one end of a box, Ivy grabbed the other, and we walked through the door, past the security man, who nodded his head, called us strong.
“Did you hear that?” I asked Ivy, “Tell me you heard that.”
“It’s not that heavy.”
“Oh, whatever.”
The hallways were cramped and smelled like mold. Scuffed walls. Something dripping from an exposed pipe. We passed a single poster. Bright yellow. The words: CPC = DEBT FREE. Ivy and I exchanged glances.
Through a door, into an elevator parlor. High ceilings again. Granite tile. I balanced my end of the box on my knee and pressed the gold up button. When it lit up, Ivy gasped. “It’s crazy how much I missed electricity.”
The elevator dinged. When the doors slid open, a man in a suit walked out, gave us a look. “You’re supposed to use the freight elevator.”
“It’s uh—” Ivy bit the bottom of her lip. “—broken.”
The man sighed. Complained about how often this happened.
I asked, “Do you know what floor we can find paper files?”7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTZrbaaRtQz
Central File Wing: floor three.
Ivy thanked him, and I hit button number three. When the doors closed, she smiled. A tiny bit. I smiled a little too.
Floor three: I expected to get lost in a sea of people, but the office was completely empty. Was that a good thing?
We set the box down, tiptoed through the room, afraid to make any sort of noise.
“I guess everyone’s on overnight training,” I whispered in Ivy’s ear.
“I don’t know.” She looked around the room. “This doesn't feel right.”
I pressed my lips together. “Don’t overthink—”
“— Stop.”
We found a door labeled Files. I tested the handle, "Locked."
Ivy pulled out the pins, inhaled slowly. “Here we go.”
Three minutes. Then the lock clicked, and I pulled the door open. Hundreds of thick folders. Mom. Dad. Were our names in this room? Could it be that easy?
“Last names A through F,” Ivy said after scanning through the labels.
My face fell, and I pushed the door closed. Ivy ran over and began unlocking the next door.
“Not this one: G through L.”
“Okay, hurry, hurry.”
Right as we unlocked the M-R door, the elevator dinged. A weight fell through my stomach. Ivy and I stared at each other for half a second, and I pulled her into the closet.
Dark.
We crouched against the door, trying to listen, trying to make out the details of the room we were in. Shelves and shelves of paper. The elevator doors slid open, and someone with heavy shoes walked out. Ivy grasped my hand. Her breath was in my ear. My heart was in my neck. Footsteps echoed across the empty office.
I reached for the Roe file and slipped it into my hands. More footsteps. Around the office. Right in front of our door.
Ivy started whispering under her breath: save us save us save us. I squeezed her hand.
Maybe we hid for thirty seconds, maybe five hours. We stood in that closet, gripping each other’s hands, breathing in the paper scented air. It was so dark, I could barely see Ivy’s face, just the sliver of light that bounced off her glasses.
The footsteps faded. We waited.
“You think we can go?” I whispered.
Ivy barely nodded. “Yes. Slowly.”
Almost giddy with relief, I cracked open the door. Ivy and I peeked out of the room. Someone glared back. We shrieked.
“I knew I heard something.” A security guard. He sneered, “Thieves!”
He grabbed our arms and dragged us out of the room.
“We aren’t thieves!” Ivy tried twisting herself out of his grasp, but he was too strong.
I couldn’t reach my pocketknife, so I thrashed around, kicking, yelling, and when that didn’t work, I bit down on the security guard’s arm. Hard.
He cried out and let go of his grip.
I didn’t even think, just ran. Down the stairs, into the lobby. Towards Joseph’s car. The sole on one of my sneakers came loose and was flopping around. But I was so close. And the files—I still had the files!
But I didn’t have Ivy.
I stopped in the middle of the parking lot. My shoulders rose and fell, rose and fell. For a second, I hoped maybe she bit the man, too. Maybe she was about to run through the doors and jump into the car and go home: mission accomplished!
Who was I kidding? That wasn’t happening.
I darted back into the lobby.
There she was. The security guard gripping her arm, pulling her, walking towards me. Tears on her face, her glasses sliding down her nose. I’d punch him in the solar plexus. Kick him in the knees. Bite him again, if I had to.
But I tripped on the sole of my shoe. And landed right in front of him.
The security guard didn’t say anything. He grabbed my arm and twisted it so my shoulder was pinned back. I could hardly move after he did that.
Ivy cried, “I am so, so sorry.”
Was she saying that to him? Or to me?
He led us out the side of the building. Into a van with bars.
Before he shut the door closed, the man snatched the files from my hands, and I tried to grab them back. “We need those!”
“What you need is jail time.”
“Wait. Wait,” Ivy pressed a trembling hand to her lips, “We’re minors. Can’t you let us go with a warning?”
“That’s for the police to decide.”
He locked us in the musty van, and we watched in some sort of dazed stupor as he walked away. Are we going to jail?
Ivy pushed up her glasses, whispered, “Andi’s gonna wake up and find us gone, too.”
“I’m sorry.” My voice trembled. “This is all my fault.”
“I don’t know.” Ivy shook her head, “I planned it.”
“I encouraged you.”
“Stop.”
Stop? No, we had to get out. I squeezed my arms through the bars, tried to get a hold of the lock.
“Get the pins,” I told her, “You might be able to unlock this.”
Silence.
“Ivy?”
“I don’t have the pins. I dropped them when that guard grabbed us.”
I cursed. Sat back down on the floor of the van.
“I can’t believe you came back.” Ivy sniffed. “Are you mad at me?”
My nails were bleeding, that’s how short I’d bitten them. “You thought I was gonna leave you?”
“A little bit.”
We sat in silence for a few moments, beginning to grasp what was about to happen to us.
Ivy said, “You think Elise could save us?”
“Maybe, but she could get in trouble.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “And we’ll all end up in jail.”
Ivy held her knees to her chest. Tears pooled in her eyes.
“I could try to stab our way out.” I held up my pocketknife. “Think that’ll work?”
Ivy shook her head.
I tried it. Stabbed the side of the van with all my might. It was like trying to stab a rock. My wrist buzzed from the impact, and there was just a tiny dent in the wall.
We were basically doomed.
Ivy said it again: “I am so, so sorry.”
“We’re gonna figure it out,” I told her, “They’ll let us out with a warning.”
The temperature began to climb, and Ivy and I hung our arms out of the bars, desperate for air circulation.
“Do you think,” Ivy asked, “they forgot about us?”
I told her I didn’t know.
She told me she’d do anything for a bottle of water.
And it got quiet because there wasn’t anything to do but wait. For the police to take us to jail. For a miracle.
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8clhbtPMnx
Someone whisper-shouted our names. I thought maybe I just imagined it, but Ivy caught my eye, and we pressed our faces against the bars, trying to figure out who was out there.
I saw a familiar green sweater, and for a second, I thought it was Andi, but I remembered he let Walter wear the old sweater.
WALTER?!
Yep. Walter was wearing Andi’s green sweater, and he was running towards the van, his eyes darting back and forth between buildings.
Ivy gripped the bars. “No way.”
He ran up to the van and started fidgeting with the lock. Ivy grinned and said it again: “No way.”
“What are you doing?!” I hissed.
“Saving you,” Walter hissed back.
I scoffed, “You can’t save me.”
“Oh, excuse me,” he sneered, staring at me through the bars of the van, “I was talking to Ivy.”
Then he opened the van door— Walter had picked the lock.
Ivy stepped out, ran to hug him. “I didn’t know you could do that!”
“Of course I can.” He didn’t take his eyes off me. “I’m a thief.”
I called him dramatic. He crossed his arms and blocked the door. “I could close this, you know.”
“Seriously?!” I was taking any chances. I shoved him back and jumped out of the van. Walter stumbled to the ground, clutching his arm, hissing in pain.
I was free. But Ivy was pointing to the front of the building. “Chaos, we have to go.”
The security guard was walking back.
I said through my teeth, “Walter!”
We couldn’t wait; I dragged Walter away from the van. At some point he got to his feet, and the three of us ran to where Joseph was parked. My shoe sole made a flopping noise every other step.
Joseph eyed Walter. “Who is tha—?"
“We gotta go home.” I tried so hard to keep my voice calm. “We gotta go now.”
He pulled out of the parking lot. Casually, slowly. Onto the main road. “Are you in trouble?” He stared at me from the review mirror.
Ivy said, "It’s just a misunderstanding,”
I sat on my hands to hide the shaking, and no one spoke for the rest of the drive.
Joseph parked in front of the bus stop. Part of me wanted to thank him, but that part of me was stuck behind my pounding heart.
“I only drove two people,” Joseph said, looking at Walter. “Who are you?”
“I’m Walter.” Walter stared at the sidewalk. “You drove me, too. I was in the back of the pickup truck.”
Joseph cursed under his breath. “No more favors.” And he drove off.
We watched the car until it was out of sight. Just like that: No more favors. No more files. No more chances.
Walter still had his hand gripped around his bad arm. Maybe I felt a little guilty. Barely.
Ivy broke the silence. “Let’s go home.”
We trudged through the grass. My steps were wobbly. I looked at Walter; he caught my eye and quickly turned away.
Maybe I should’ve seen someone who saved my life, or at least got me out of jail. Maybe I should’ve seen what Ivy saw: A friend.
Instead, I saw someone who thought he was better than me. Technically, he was better than me, but that’s beside the point.
Walter glanced at me again, probably expecting some words of gratitude.
“You shouldn’t have been following us,” I sneered.
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0R8daT0xhA
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd8OWHQsXeb
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJUX7AuqHmZ
and then Add to home screen.