The Jump, page 15
“You didn’t ask,” she says. I guess I didn’t. More guilt. “Anyway,” she continues, “in case you care, I wasn’t in love with him. Mom and Abba were. You wouldn’t know love if it knocked at your front door.”
Pretty sure I would, but now isn’t the time to press. I don’t have time for conversations about love. I have to bail my friend out of jail. Another kind of love.
I step past her toward the fridges where Abba keeps the milk, cheese, and yogurt, and swing open a door once I spot the Gopi paneer, behind a price tag of $4.99. No idea what Spider paid for it at Thirty Foods, but I guarantee it was at least two dollars higher. The money that rich people will fork over, just to be able to shop with other rich people.
“Sudden hankering for a whole block of paneer?” asks Ranya, folding her arms.
I roll my eyes and step past her, back to where I left my phone at the front counter.
FIND THE BAR ON THE GOPI.
It has to be the barcode. I find a barcode scanning app and hit download just as Ranya keeps talking.
“More clues from your little internet puzzles?”
“Shh,” I say, glancing at Abba, who stirs and adjusts his arm under his forehead. We really should wake him or he’ll wake up sore in a few hours. He works so hard here, pours his very soul into this place, and somehow wakes up with a smile on his face. He deserves a good night’s sleep in a nice warm bed next to Mom.
“For your information,” I say, “my ‘little internet puzzles’ are about to pay off.”
Power does a lot of things.
Maybe knocks out corporations.
Maybe saves stores.
Maybe saves the lives of best friends.
“What, did somebody finally promise big money as a prize? Thought that was against the rules.”
“Thought cryptology didn’t interest you,” I say.
“Believe it or not, you interest me,” she says, turning and looking around the store with her back to me. “You’re my only sister. I care about what you care about. I mean, I don’t quite get it. Why would you go leaping all over the city, risking your life for anything but money or career advancement?”
“If I say love, will you take back what you said about me not recognizing it if it knocked at my door?”
Suddenly, more poetically than anything else that’s happened in my life, a knock comes at the front door. Ranya and I both look from the door to each other. The insignia right smack in the middle of the glass is blocking whoever is there, but I can see slender legs in dark clothes, and a white hand sliding into a dark pocket.
Ranya and I exchange a glance, and she raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow at me as a smile creeps across her face.
“A suitor of yours?” she asks.
“I could ask you the same thing.” I grin, looking back at the door. And then a face peeks around the insignia, a face framed by platinum blond hair and icy blue eyes. They cup their hands around their face to shield from the glare of the street lights as they peer in. My blood goes cold as I recognize her. I wonder what the hell a member of Team ROYAL is doing here, right now, at Abba’s store. Heat rushes into my forehead, and I swallow a lump in my throat. Ranya must see my face because she says, “But you do know her.”
It’s a statement, not a question, and I decide that if I play it cool, maybe my sister won’t realize how freaked out I am by this, or that I’m worried maybe she—what’s her name? Starts with an S, I think?—isn’t here to turn me in to the cops for evading officers in Bellevue earlier tonight.
If Ranya finds out that my “little internet puzzles” have led to such shenanigans, Mom and Abba will hear about it, and if Mom and Abba hear about it, I will have to quit JERICHO. And given Spider and Han’s disappointing nonchalance at Jax’s incarceration earlier, if I have to quit JERICHO, he may be doomed.
Ranya can’t find out.
“I do,” I admit. “She’s here for this.”
I pick up the cheese off the counter and slide it into my back pocket.
“Fine, whatever,” says Ranya, pulling out her own phone and stepping up to the counter. “Just as long as you pay for that.”
Obviously.
“Hey, Ranya,” I ask, looking over my shoulder with one hand on the door handle. “Can you do me a favor and wake Abba? I’m… worried he’ll be sore if we don’t get him up and out of here.”
What I’m really worried about is this girl seeing two members of my family and possibly threatening their safety if I don’t help her win this game. No idea why she’s here, but she’s from ROYAL, which means it can’t be for any good reason. I look at Ranya with what I hope is a poker face, but inside I’m pleading with her to just take Abba somewhere safe.
“Fine,” she says, seemingly not suspecting a thing. “But you owe me.”
I don’t answer as she turns and rests a hand on Abba’s.
If I win this puzzle, if I can save Abba’s store, if I can at all protect our family, I’ll be doing more than paying her back for this favor.
I turn to the door, open it, and find the blond girl looking over her shoulder, startled back into looking at me.
“You stalking us now?” I ask, stepping down the steps to her, and letting the door shut loudly behind me for effect, hoping Abba is awake enough that it didn’t scare him. I curse the shaking in my voice and in my hands. I fold them under my armpits to hide them, but her eyes haven’t left mine since the door shut. Her eyebrows fall in a determined stare, the wind toying with her bangs as she balls her fists and takes in a big sigh.
As if she herself doesn’t want to be here.
“Karim was arrested,” she says, her voice pulled into what sounds like a Russian accent. My eyes go wide before I can think to hide what I know, or in this case, what I don’t know. Karim was arrested? When? How? At Thirty Foods? If he was there with Jax and Spider earlier, why didn’t Spider mention that detail? And then a memory hits me. He did mention that Lucas was there, so would it be so far-fetched for Karim to have been there too?
She doesn’t wait for me to continue thinking.
“Yasmin,” she says, softening her voice and leaning in closer, so close I can smell the faintest hint of shampoo or lotion or… something perfumed. I hate how she says my name, so formally, like she’s here to sell me a time-share instead of… whatever she’s here to do. “I don’t think I need to warn you of the danger that he’s in as an incarcerated Black male.”
I look her up and down briefly, wondering how much I should tell her about Jax, wondering how much she already knows about Jax, wondering if she’s here for Karim’s best interest or hers.
“Remind me your name?” I ask.
“Sigge,” she says, lingering on the i and clipping the second half of the e.
Silence settles between us awkwardly, like an unwelcome third guest just walked out here into the cold.
“My mom is Swedish, and my dad’s a die-hard fan of Ziggy Stardust, so… Sigge it was.” That’s a cool story, but that’s not what was making this moment awkward. It’s that I don’t know what to say next. I’ve asked her name, she knows mine—now what? She’s on my front doorstep—well, the front doorstep to my father’s store—and under normal circumstances, I would’ve probably invited her inside for a cup of chai. But instead, I tighten my arms around myself, the chill in the air seeping into my bones, and I stand my ground.
“Jax was arrested too,” I say, waiting for a reaction.
This girl is hard to read. She stands emotionless before me. A single finger uncurling from one of her clenched fists is the only indication that she heard me.
“At Thirty Foods?” she asks finally.
I nod.
We stand here in silence for what seems like forever, each of us waiting for the other to make the next move.
“Why are you here?” I ask, inviting her to be the one to move first.
“For the next clue, just like you,” she says.
My throat closes. So she does know about the Gopi cheese.
“This store is the only other place I could find that carries it,” she says. “That’s open this late anyway.”
I feel the weight of the block in my back pocket. There’s no way I’m giving it to her.
“We’re closed,” I say, unable to hide the triumph blooming in my voice at the discovery of such a convenient cop-out. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
“This is your store, then,” says Sigge.
Well, that triumph was short-lived. As I’m scrambling to figure out what to say next, to my surprise, her lips part into the faintest of smiles.
“It’s cute,” she says. Does she always talk this sharply? This directly? Why is she still looking at me? Studying me?
I can feel my neck growing hot.
“Thank you,” I say, clearing my throat. “But we’re still closed.”
“Yas,” she says, her voice a breathy whisper as she leans in again. I wish she’d stop doing that. That perfumy smell floods my senses again. “The other night, I went to Jax’s house.”
“You what?” I demand, stepping back as if her words have physically burned me. “You looked up his address?”
Sigge glances around, as if she has the nerve to be embarrassed at the revelation that she’s stalking my best friend.
“No,” she snaps, “I didn’t. I rideshared after the bus he caught to escape with that bogus parking ticket.”
My mouth hangs open. This girl is lucky I’m still having this conversation. I should turn around right this minute and slam the door in her face. Stalking my friend? Creeping around my father’s store at night? What, does she still expect me to believe she just happened upon this place tonight? She probably stalked me, too!
“I have to go,” I say, turning to open the door again. “It’s late.”
I feel her hand clamp around my wrist, and I bristle, glaring at her. But her touch is gentle and her eyes are pleading, and suddenly I realize the harsh girl who was so confident and rigid before is crying.
“I’m not playing this game for myself,” she says. She makes it sound like an admission of something. I wait for her to go on and hope my face is unreadable. “I’m playing so my father can keep his job at Roundworld. So that we can keep our medical benefits. I was so desperate that I went to Jax’s house…”
Her voice trails off, and she lets go of my hand and stares at the ground like she’s contemplating whether she actually wants to finish her sentence. She takes a deep breath, and a tear rolls down her cheek.
“My brother has leukemia.”
What?
Is she telling the truth? Who am I to question if she’s lying? One doesn’t just accuse someone of lying about leukemia. I decide that even with all the fact-checking I do, and as much as I question this girl’s motives, I have to believe her.
But that doesn’t mean I have to trust her.
“I’m… sorry for your family,” I say. And it’s true, I am. But I’m also sorry for my family. I’m sorry for my abba, who even now is packing up his things and leaving the store that his grandfather opened to survive in this country, who’s leaving lovingly cooked boxes of food in the fridges to spoil because the fancy offices in the area can’t be bothered to consider the small businesses their free cafeterias are boxing out. As curt and insensitive as she is, I’m sorry for my only sister, Ranya, who’s already heartbroken and now having to care for Mom and Abba as they work themselves to the bone.
“My abba…,” I say, wondering if sharing this is a good idea. I barely know this girl. Who knows if what she’s told me about herself is the truth? But something about the way she’s looking at me—the uncharacteristic softness of her eyes, like she has no other options—makes me desperately want to believe her. And so, I continue. “… will likely lose his store if I don’t win.”
Her shoulders fall just a bit, and she glances past me.
“Then,” she says, “I guess we’re both playing for our families.”
“And our friends,” I remind her.
“And our friends,” Sigge says. She then clears her throat and continues. “So, knowing what I know now, I can’t ask you to forfeit the game and live with myself, but… can I have a fighting chance?”
She extends a hand in front of her, palm up, other hand dangling at her side. She pauses, blue eyes unblinking, the only movement her hair twitching in the breeze. She’s asking me for the cheese again. The cheese that’s still in the hand hidden behind my back.
I could easily say no.
I probably should say no.
But I think of Jax, and what he would say.
What did he say?
“When you went to Jax’s house,” I start, deciding that her answer to this question will determine my ultimate decision, “what happened?”
“I began by apologizing for what Lucas did,” she says, lowering her eyes to the ground in thought.
Wow.
My heart is pounding.
I was expecting anything but that. She continues.
“Stealing that poster was wrong.”
Hell yeah it was, I think to myself. That jackass almost got me arrested.
“I’m desperate to help my father, my brother, and my family. But I’m not a thief.” She looks at me again with a face wrought with determination. I know that look. I see it every day when I look in the mirror. Neither of us are giving up this game without a fight. “I’m not a thief,” she says again.
I swallow the lump in my throat, and I know what I have to do.
“Thank you for the apology,” I say, easing into my decision. Am I really about to hand a clue over to Team ROYAL? Will Jax ever speak to me again after this? Will Spider? Will Han? “Lucas is kind of an asshole.”
She looks at me blankly for a moment before letting a chuckle burst from her mouth.
“Yeah, he is,” she says. “Actually, I just met him last week. Karim and I go way back, but I only recently joined ROYAL. He said he and Lucas could use some athleticism.”
Athleticism?
Okay, now my curiosity is piqued.
“What kind of athleticism?”
“Didn’t you see me dive through that golf cart to catch up to Jax in the alley behind the 5 Point Café?”
Her proud grin only grows, as I’m sure she can see my eyes brightening. I can’t help it. I can’t help my smile. I was hoping for an explanation for that stunt.
“I’d never seen that kind of parkour before,” I say with a nod. “It was… graceful.”
My parkour is like an avalanche—powerful and striking, sharp and quick like a whip. Hers looked more like a wave—bending to her surroundings, ebbing and flowing as needed. I’ve never thought of diving through a golf cart to get where I need to go.
“That’s because it’s not parkour,” she says. “It’s gymnastics.”
“You could try out for the Olympics with moves like that,” I say. I immediately regret it. That smile she gives me, with a bashful glance away, makes me shy too, and I immediately want to crawl into a hole and disappear like Han does all the time.
Why the hell did I say that?
“Could, but then I wouldn’t often get to hang with cool puzzly people,” she says, letting the silence fill in the blanks for her before finishing with “like you.”
Wait.
What?
Why’s she looking at me like that?
Is this flirting?
Am I being flirted with, or am I having a heart attack?
“Yeah,” I say, my voice cracking. Curse my soft heart. I know what I’m about to do is right, but it’s… totally illogical. I reach into my back pocket and pull out the thing that could’ve bought Team JERICHO an extra twelve hours of lead time in this race.
But what is Team JERICHO right now?
Where is Team JERICHO?
Half of us are hiding from the police, and one of us has been caught by the police. I’ll be lucky if I’m not next. Who am I kidding? We’ll be lucky if we all walk free without records after the debacle at Thirty Foods today, let alone win this thing.
So I hand over the block of cheese to someone with a mission as worthy as mine.
“For your brother. For your family. For Karim,” I say. It sounded more official in my head. And then I remember who else I’m handing this thing over for. “For Jax.”
She takes it and nods gratefully, but I don’t let go at first, using the moment to elaborate.
“Whichever of us wins,” I say, “whatever this promised ‘power’ is, and whatever they choose to do about the refinery, winner gets both Karim and Jax out of jail.”
She smiles warmly and says, “Records expunged.”
“Clean slate,” I say.
“Wiped clean.”
“Like it never happened.”
“Done,” she says. I loosen my fingers to let go of the cheese, but then something hits me. And I draw back.
“What?” she asks. “What’s wrong?”
“Tell me you’re not still caping for Lucas.”
Her eyes flicker, and she lowers them slightly.
“I didn’t like him from day one. But even less when he left you in that alley.” She looks up at me again and realizes there’s something I’m not telling her. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
“He put Jax in jail,” I say, folding my arms.
Silence lingers between us.
“He… what?”
“He shot the window in Thirty Foods. He put the gun in Jax’s hands. Jax went to jail.”
Her mouth hangs open. “Then he put Karim in there too. What the… what the fuck is wrong with him?”
I don’t answer.
“I swear, Yas, I’ll never talk to him again. He’s off the team.”
“And if your captain says otherwise?”
“Then I’m off the team,” she says sharply enough to disrupt all the silence on our block. Someone down on the far corner looks our direction before turning back to their phone. I hope it’s not someone from another team.
I lower my voice and hold out the cheese again.
“You’d better be telling the truth,” I say.
“On everyone I love,” she says, taking the cheese with a smile. She opens a barcode-scanning app on her phone and holds it up to the packaging. “When I win whatever ‘power’ this is, I’ll even pick Jax up from the jail in a cop car and then help him light it on fire.”
