But right now she didn’t feel like putting puzzle pieces together. She felt
like walking, like clearing her head of the confusing thoughts swirling
around inside of it.
Swirling. Swirling rhymed with twirling. Why couldn’t she get that
spinning ballerina doll out of her head?
She walked to the park. Office workers on their lunch breaks sat on
benches and ate sandwiches. A dog walker
was somehow walking four
dogs of different sizes without getting their leashes tangled. Kasey smiled at
the tiny Yorkie that was leading the pack as if it were the biggest dog of all.
On the playground, little kids climbed and slid and swung, shouting and
laughing. Their moms watched them, making sure they were safe. Kasey
envied those kids. What must it be like, she wondered,
to play to your
heart’s content and to know that whenever you got hungry or thirsty, your
mom would just pull some crackers and a cold juice box out of her bag? To
know that, when you were tired, you could go home, and your mom would
tuck you into your nice, soft bed for a nap?
Even as a little kid, Kasey had never known that kind of security.
She walked into the more wooded area of the park because she liked the
shade and the solitude. The fall leaves—red, gold, and orange—were
drifting down from the branches of the trees. Leaves that had already fallen
crunched under her feet.
It was the strangest thing. She didn’t want to see Ballora. She didn’t like
the way seeing Ballora made her feel. Yet she felt herself reaching for the
cardboard glasses, felt herself putting them on. She felt the familiar
dizziness, steadied herself against a tree, and stared into the woods in front
of her, where sunlight sparkled through the gaps in the branches.
There was Ballora, pirouetting among the colorful fall leaves. As she
spun, the bright leaves were sucked into her vortex. They flew around her,
at
first gently, then faster, as though trapped in a whirlwind.
For a few seconds, Kasey admired the beauty, but then she thought,
Wait
.
If Ballora is just a picture, a hologram, then how is she affecting the objects
around her?
It didn’t make sense.
Also, wasn’t Ballora closer to Kasey than she was yesterday? It seemed
like she was. The image was clearer, for one thing. Not so fuzzy—she could
see the joints in the doll-like figure’s arms and legs, could see the blue eyes
and red lips on the white face. The painted face looked clown-like, but
unlike most clowns, Ballora wasn’t smiling. The empty blue eyes didn’t
blink, but somehow Kasey felt they were staring back at her. Ballora was
looking at Kasey and didn’t like what she saw.
Suddenly Kasey couldn’t catch her breath. She doubled over, afraid she
might pass out. Why was she freaking out over a stupid toy? She yanked off
the glasses and shoved them back into her jacket pocket. She was being
ridiculous, and she had to stop it. If you wanted to survive, you had to keep
a cool head at all times.
She should go back to the warehouse and talk to the guys. She needed to
know about the plans for tonight.
After midnight, Kasey, Jack, and AJ hit the clubs. They didn’t go into them,
but skulked in the darkness outside. The guys
had targeted a couple of
different bars, and Kasey was waiting in the alley outside a dance club that
was frequented by a lot of college kids, their pockets and purses fat with
their mommy and daddy’s money.
She spotted her target. The girl was wearing a short,
light-pink dress
with impossibly high pink heels. Her designer purse—the same shade of
pink as the dress and shoes—hung from a skinny strap draped over her
shoulder. Pink Dress Girl was talking loudly and giggling with her
boyfriend.
Kasey had a tool for jobs like these, a pair of strong scissors that could
cut through a leather purse strap like it was only made of paper. She took
out the scissors and stepped into the crowd.
She slipped in behind Pink
Dress Girl and positioned the scissors to cut the strap. As she snipped,
someone bumped into her from behind. She slipped, and the point of the
sharp scissors found flesh.
When Kasey grabbed the purse, she saw a
shallow but bloody gash on the girl’s arm.
“Ow! What happened?” the girl yelled. “Hey, my purse—”
Kasey ran.
She ran until she was sure she had put enough distance between her and
her victim, then slowed to a casual walk, tucking the pink evening bag
inside her jacket.
In her mind, Kasey kept seeing the girl’s arm slashed by the scissors, the
red blood vivid against the girl’s pale skin.
Kasey hadn’t meant to hurt her. Sure, getting your purse snatched might
scare you a little—might inconvenience you—but it didn’t cause any
physical harm.
Kasey had robbed dozens, maybe even hundreds, of people, but she had
never harmed anyone physically until tonight.
Spilling blood changed
things.
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