Page 55 of Queen of Nothing

We’re not a risk.

We’re just a pair of suckers.

I’m about to give up on the call, put my cell back in my pocket and get closer to the parade again, just for Sal to get a better look at the float passing by now, the one that has him shrieking above me, pulling on my baseball cap.

The float is stacked with a bunch of knockoff cartoon characters, a mouse, a mouse in a dress, a dog with a long face, and they all wave for the shrieking children.

But before I can put the phone away, it buzzes in my hand. I’m quick to answer it.

The huff is restrained in my voice, “What did she want?”

Serena’s words come out whooshed and fraught, “Get out. Get out of there now!”

My illusioned face shutters.

The angular face of a woman in her thirties—not much older than me, but with a warmer complexion and lovely dark hair and chocolate brown eyes—slackens.

Serena’s shout clangs like an instrument, “They’ve breached the shield! They’re in the town! They are in the town right now. Get out of there!”

10

My heart sinks.

Serena’s words hum in my mind, on a loop, and I can do nothing but stare at the brick wall opposite me.

The shock of those words has me rooted to the spot. Icy tendrils unravel through my veins—and I slowly lower the phone from my ear.

I turn my cheek and look at the parade, bursts of colour and confetti and sparklers dancing down the street.

A float passes, three tiered like a white wedding cake, textured with frosting, and the beauty queens stand primly on it, waving their hands in a curved, restrained motion.

And I think I might be sick.

I stagger back into the wall and slump.

Sal shouts something annoyed at me and strikes me on the head.

But it’s all so distant, like I’ve been plunged into an echo.

The plan, the plan, the plan.

I try to focus.

We have a plan for every place we go. Even motels we stop at along the way.

Here, the plan is to get the money from the apartment, then meet Serena—the one with the car—at the filling station on the edge of town.

She’s only ten minutes away.

She’ll be there before me.

She will wait.

I wonder—for a second—if I should leave Sal with someone. Someone I work with, someone I recognise from town maybe, and come back for him once I have our money.

But no, I can’t do that.

It’s harder with him, but I have to stick to the plan, Sal or no Sal.