Santa Olivia (Santa Olivia #1)

Santa Olivia (Santa Olivia #1) Page 21

“No.” He was quiet a moment, then leaned down to kiss her cheek. “No. You know what, loup-garou? It really, really doesn’t. That’s just one more thing you’re not afraid of, right?”

“I guess.” She cocked her head. “What else?”

“What what else?” Tommy laughed. “You’re not afraid of anything.”

“What else did Mom say that you haven’t told me?” Loup asked. He didn’t answer. “Tommy?”

“I don’t want to say.” He looked at his feet.

“Tommy.”

He dragged his head up. “That you might not live real long.”

“Why?”

Tommy rubbed his eyes with the heel of one hand. “That’s what Martin told her, okay? Your father. The scientists who studied him and the other guys thought they’d have a… a…” He pronounced the words carefully. “A shortened lifespan.”

“Oh,” Loup said. “How short?”

“Thirty-five years,” he said. “Maybe forty.”

She laughed. “Oh, hell! That’s a long time.”

“No.” Tommy grasped her shoulders and tried to shake her. “It’s not, Loup. And I’m sorry I never told you, but that’s one reason I’m trying so hard to win us a ticket out of here, okay? I don’t want to grow old without you. Out there, there are probably people who could help, people who aren’t part of the army. Scientists and guys like that. I know I’m not smart, but we could find people who are, you know?”

“Aw, Tommy.” Loup sobered. “Just quit worrying about me, okay?”

He eased his grip. “I do, though.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I know.” She fell silent, frowning and counting on her fingers.

“What is it?”

“It might not be true,” Loup said. “Those scientist guys, they said my father couldn’t have kids, right?”

Tommy nodded. “Yeah.”

“So maybe they were wrong about this.” She shrugged one shoulder. “But I was just thinking that if they weren’t, it means he’s already dead, doesn’t it?”

“Probably,” Tommy said gently. “I’m sorry.”

“You think he got to Mexico?” Loup asked. “To that place with the funny name and the fish that he told you about?”

“You bet I do.”

“I always thought maybe I’d go look for him someday when I was grown up,” Loup mused. “After you won a prize match and we got out of here and found out what the real world was like. I promised Jaime I’d come back and tell him; then I thought I’d try to get across the wall. I bet I could make it. Find my father, find out about other stuff, too. Like what he said about El Segundo being made up.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” Tommy said again. “I didn’t know you thought about looking for him.”

“ ’S’okay.” She summoned a faint smile. “I been thinking about it more lately, I guess. Just thinking it would be nice to know him, to know other people like me.”

“There still might be, you know,” he said. “What if Martin wasn’t the only one to have a kid? They were all trying to get to the same place, all the Lost Boys. I bet Martin wasn’t the only one to make it. There might be a bunch of little loup-garous running around Mexico.”

Loup’s eyes brightened. “You think?”

“Yeah, sure.” Tommy ruffled her hair. “You’ve gotta tell me what goes on in that hard head of yours, Loup. I don’t want to shove my dreams down your throat, okay?”

“You’re not.” She shook her head. “I wanna see you win a match more than anything. That comes first.”

He smiled. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m sure.”

NINETEEN

Outpost simmered with the tale of Santa Olivia’s vengeance. The army released a statement claiming it had been a prank played by soldiers on one of their own, but the story continued to circulate.

“Fucking liars,” Mack muttered the day the statement was released.

“They’re nervous,” Jaime said. “Folk heroes are the sort of things that start insurrections. Anyway, we should be glad they’re lying. Takes the heat off us.”

“I’m not,” Katya said with unexpected bitterness. “They got away with it in the first place by lying. Those guys, Braddock’s friends, they’re just as guilty as he is. I wish Santa Olivia could pay them a visit.”

“I’ll do it,” Loup offered.

The Santitos exchanged speculative glances.

“No,” Mack said firmly after a moment. “It’s too dangerous. We can’t take the risk. No more vigilante justice, remember?”

Loup sighed. “Okay.”

“What if Santa Olivia did a good deed instead?” Maria suggested. She flushed as the others glanced at her. “You know, performed a miracle?”

“Um, hello?” Jane pointed at Loup. “She’s not actually a saint, dummy!”

Maria turned a deeper shade of pink. “I’m just saying!”

“Sister Martha says God helps those that help themselves,” Jaime mused. “Maybe we could make our own miracle.” He nudged T.Y. with one sneakered toe. “You’re the one survived the bomb, miracle boy. Any ideas?”

T.Y. didn’t look up from his comic book. “Nope.”

Jane rolled her eyes. “This is ridiculous.”

“It doesn’t have to be a miracle,” Maria said stubbornly. “It would just be a good deed, like Santa Olivia feeding the soldiers.”

“Hello?” Jane repeated. “Have you noticed that’s what we do here? Tend the sick and feed the poor?”

“Not the O’Brien kids,” Pilar said absently, leafing through a decades-old fashion magazine.

“Who?”

She glanced up. “Celia O’Brien’s kids. They lived on my street. She won’t take charity from the church on account of, um, all the godless fornication, so her kids are half-starved all the time. I used to give ’em handouts out the back door after I fed my uncle’s brats.”

“So we sneak them a basket of food?” Jaime frowned. “It’s a nice gesture, but not much of a miracle.”

“Money,” C.C. suggested, bouncing a tennis ball off the wall. “Big money.”

Jane gave him a scathing look. “And where are we going to get big money?”

He tossed the ball again. “Steal it from the Salamancas.”

Diego shook his head. “Bad idea.”

“No, see, here’s the thing,” C.C. explained. “Not the club; they’ve always got Garza muscle there. But Rosa Salamanca, she ran their gambling racket for ages. She still counts all the money herself every night and puts it in an old safe in her office. Doesn’t trust anyone else. I know this guy whose brother works for her. He told me all about it. He read about how to crack a safe in some old detective novel, even showed it to me. He wanted me to steal a stethoscope from the infirmary.”

“Did you?” Maria looked horrified.

“Nah.” He grinned. “I’m not that stupid. If the take was short the next day, the Salamanders would be hard on the lookout for anyone flashing cash. But if a thousand bucks went missing and turned up as a miracle… that’d be different, huh? I bet Rosa Salamanca would keep her mouth shut about it.”

They digested that in silence.

“You actually think you could crack a safe?” Mack asked.

C.C. nodded confidently. “An old-timey one? Yeah.”

Mack glanced at Loup. “Think you could force a locked door open?”

She nodded happily. “Uh-huh.”

“And I could repair the damage so it looked like we’d never been there.” Mack gave a slow, hard smile. “I like it. Let’s do it.”

Three days later, they put their plan into action.

Pilar and Maria went on a scouting mission, bringing a basket of canned goods to the O’Brien household in the church’s name. They returned to report that Celia O’Brien chased them off her doorstep with a broom, disparaging the church and calling them names.

“I don’t think she remembers me real fondly,” Pilar commented.

The children, they reported, hovered behind their mother and watched the proceedings with wide, hopeless eyes set in gaunt faces.

“Definitely hungry.” Maria crossed herself. “Pobrecitos.”

Mack snuck out to spend a night watching Rosa Salamanca’s office, which had once been the Citizens National Bank. He returned to report that the bank was locked and unattended between the hours of two a.m. and eight a.m.

C.C. cracked his knuckles. “So it’s a go?”

“It’s a go,” Mack confirmed.

They stole out of the darkened church and crept through the streets in time to watch Rosa Salamanca and her goons lock the office and leave. Once, the Citizens National Bank would have been protected by alarms and surveillance cameras, but the equipment hadn’t functioned for decades. There was only a locked door and the threat of Salamanca vengeance. Loup put her shoulder to the door, testing the lock’s resistance.

“Keep it quiet,” Mack whispered.

Loup nodded. She planted her feet and pushed hard—harder, steady, and deliberate. Something gave way with a low screech and pop, and rattled onto the floor inside. She eased the door open.

“Hold on.” Mack caught her arm. “I think you shoved the plate clean out of the frame. Let me find the pieces. I gotta put this thing back together.”

They waited while he groped on the dark floor, watching the empty streets for patrols or headlights. C.C. bounced on the balls of his feet. “The doctor is in the house,” he crooned, stroking the stethoscope hanging around his neck.

“You’d better know what you’re doing,” Loup commented.