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  However, she gives his smile an A+.

  Too bad he’s laughing at her.

  Should she say it? she wonders, should she say playback—the word that will stop the orderly progression of time and rewind to twenty-three minutes earlier, to before she made an idiot of herself in front of this guy? No, she tells herself. Duh! He’s in his mid-twenties! Since when has she been in the habit of looking appraisingly at adult men who aren’t singers or actors? And besides, that would mean reliving the whole getting-caught-in-the-rain thing.

  A foot comes down on the reindeer paper, and it belongs to the bank guard. And the guard asks, “Any trouble here?”

  “Not at all,” the young guy says, “except for …,”—he indicates the paper under the guard’s shoe—“the fact that you appear to be stepping on one of our papers.”

  Ooh, our. He’s aligning himself with her: the two of them vs. the guard.

  The guard, who has observed them come in separately, who sees how totally different from one another they are on the socially acceptable scale, seems to suspect they must be up to something, but he clearly hasn’t determined what yet.

  Almost reluctantly, the guard lifts his foot, then leans down for a closer look. Zoe shifts forward to intercept the paper before he can read it, and they clunk heads. While she and the guard are distracted, her co-conspirator with the nice jacket and the nicer smile whisks the bank slip off the floor. He wipes it on his jeans, which might be to brush off the guard’s footprint, or might be an excuse to hand the paper to Zoe writing-side down.

  “Thank you,” she says—mumbles—again. She hurriedly jams all the papers, bank slips and group home forms, back into the folder.

  Jacket Guy is definitely amused, and the guard is definitely not.

  Jacket stands, a quick, graceful movement, and extends a hand for Zoe, who is neither quick nor graceful despite—or maybe precisely because of—his help.

  “Thank you,” Jacket says to the guard. He sounds like a perfect example of impeccable manners—but he’s also clearly saying, You can go now.

  Not that she needed Jacket’s help. Or anyone’s. Zoe prides herself on being self-sufficient.

  Rain or no rain, she determines to dash across the street to the card shop, where she won’t stick out so badly; and it is at that exact moment she loses the attention of the interesting-rather-than-good-looking Jacket. He is staring beyond her with an expression she can’t quite make out before his face shuts down entirely, blank and intentionally unreadable. At that same moment there’s a ruckus behind her. One of the bank tellers squeals. The guard turns to see if there’s something wrong going on in his bank—something more wrong than Zoe—and she sees that his hand actually starts moving toward the gun he wears on his hip, but then he freezes.

  This has nothing to do with you, Zoe tells herself. None of your business. Get out of here now. At this moment, there seem to be several options for getting out, and playing back time is only one of them.

  But if there’s something dangerous going on behind her, surely she’d be better off knowing what that danger is.

  Though perhaps not …

  Because once she, too, has slowly turned around, she sees the twitchy customer, the one who entered the bank so quickly he’d almost run her down. And he has a gun. He just hasn’t decided yet where to point it. He’s waving it at the row of five tellers, at the customers, at the guard, who—though he has a weapon of his own—holds both hands up and away from his body in a conciliatory gesture.

  It’s cold out, and wet, so she had noticed without really noting that this … well, as it turns out, bank robber … had come in with his shoulders hunched and his raincoat collar up around his face. Now she finally takes in that he has the brim of his baseball cap pulled down, obscuring all of his hair and much of his face. And now he is standing not three feet away from Zoe.

  “Hands up!” he yells, sounding for all the world like he’s channeling every crazed bank thief Zoe has ever seen on TV or in the movies. “Everybody, hands up!”

  Everyone obeys, even the customers who are diving behind the few pieces of furniture in this suddenly way-too-open room. Even Zoe, who lets her folder—with all its papers—slip from her arms and drop to the floor.

  Which is OK, because to make the playback work, she needs to put her arms around herself. Once the thief is distracted enough not to notice her, of course.

  “Hands away from the gun!” he yells at the guard, although the guard’s hands are already well away from the gun.

  “They are, they are!” the guard assures him.

  “You!” the gunman orders the teller whose window he’s at, the one who helped—or rather didn’t help—Zoe. “Keep filling the bag!”

  She has a canvas bag into which she’s been dumping all the money from her drawer. When she finishes, clumsy because of her shaking, she looks to the gunman for further instructions. He indicates for her to hand the bag to the next teller.

  “Nobody try anything!” Gun Man warns tellers and customers alike.

  Although Zoe is the one who, by the unhappiest coincidence, happens to be standing closest to the thief, he’s looking beyond her, watching the guard. Zoe brings her arms down and wraps them tight around herself, the first move to getting rid of this version of time. But the motion draws Gun Man’s attention. He grabs hold of her arm roughly enough that the thought—the damn stupid thought—crosses her mind: Ooh, that’ll leave bruises.

  More importantly, it will also prevent the playback from working.

  “Take his gun,” the robber demands.

  “What?” Zoe’s brain is numb with the awfulness of the situation she’s found herself in.

  Which is no reason for him to use his free hand to slap her, the way people in movies always calm down the hysterical. Zoe has no idea why Hollywood writers seem to think a slap should have a calming influence. With her cheek red and stinging, she is more terrified than ever.

  “There’s no cause for that,” a level voice protests, and Zoe realizes it’s Jacket, who was kind to her just moments before as he tried to deflect the ire of the bank guard, now trying to deflect the robber. “She’s just a kid. I’ll get the gun.”

  In fact, he’s already partway turned toward the guard, but Gun Man orders him, “Turn back around. Face me.”

  Don’t draw attention to yourself, Zoe mentally wishes at Jacket. Zoe has grown good at not drawing attention to herself.

  Except, of course, that she’s standing within being-slapped distance of a very nervous guy with a gun.

  “Take the guard’s gun,” the robber tells Zoe. “Now. With your left hand. Two fingers only. Slowly.”

  Zoe hopes everyone can see she is not doing this of her own free will, that she is not part of this man’s bank-robbing gang.

  “Sorry,” she tells the guard.

  But even as she reaches for the guard’s weapon, Gun Man seems to snap. He suddenly starts shooting.

  People scream and cover their heads with their hands.

  Zoe has seen gunshot victims before. She knows what woefully inadequate protection hands are.

  But for the moment, Gun Man is only shooting at the bank’s cameras. Which Zoe supposes makes sense.

  It is also the point at which she realizes, He’s going to kill us all.

  Gun Man is furious about something. Zoe can’t tell if it’s because she’s been too slow, or if someone else here has done something to tick him off, or if he’s passed some mental landmark that was holding him in check, or what. He doesn’t even seem to be concerned anymore about Zoe getting the guard’s gun. Instead, he’s fixated on the young guy in the good clothes.

  What have you done? Zoe wonders at Jacket.

  Besides the obvious: He’s taken one big step forward. And this means he, not Zoe, is now the one standing closest to Gun Man. He still has his hands in the air, but apparently that isn’t good enough.

  Gun Man grabs him by his well-cut jacket and shoves him against the half-wall that s
eparates the tellers from the rest of the bank. He has his left arm pressed against the young man’s throat, and his gun pressed against his temple. “Drop the gun,” he shouts at the guard. “Drop the gun or I blow this asshole’s brains out.”

  Zoe hadn’t even been aware of the guard drawing his weapon.

  And of all the stupid things he could say, Jacket tells the guard, “Don’t.”

  “You think I’m bluffing?” Gun Man demands. “I can do it. You gotta know nothing would make me happier than to do it.” He twists the gun back and forth as though trying to screw it into Jacket’s head.

  In any case, the guard does not put down his gun. He steps right next to Zoe, and he has his gun aimed at Gun Man’s head. Zoe sees the guard’s hand is shaking, and surely that’s not a good sign.

  The tellers—very sensibly, in Zoe’s estimation—all duck behind their counters.

  Stop this, Zoe tells herself. Stop it now. She can. To a certain extent.

  But she has not had good luck with this sort of thing in the past. She spent way too long on it at thirteen—she thinks she may have spent years playing back various moments when she was thirteen, trying to fix things, despite the fact that, really, nobody can fix being thirteen. And just a few weeks ago, there was the whole business with Delia’s boyfriend, when she didn’t understand the situation. Not that this situation seems open to a lot of interpretation.

  “Take the money,” Gun Man is ordering Jacket, since the bag has made its way back to the teller nearest them and is sitting right there next to him. “These nice people are going to let us walk out of here so I don’t have to shoot you.”

  “Screw you,” Jacket says. Which strikes Zoe as yet another very obviously not smart thing to say.

  “It’s this simple,” Gun Man says. “Cooperate—hope everyone cooperates—and you live. I’ll release you outside.”

  “No, you won’t,” Jacket argues. He repeats the thought to the guard, as though to make sure the guard understands. “He’s never going to let me go. He’s never going to let any of us go. There are too many people who could identify him. So you might as well just shoot him now.”

  First no video witness, then no people witnesses. This is the same conclusion Zoe reached when the man shot out the cameras. Still, she can’t help clutching at hope. You don’t know for a fact that he’s going to kill you, she thinks at Jacket. Better the chance of maybe being killed later than definitely being killed now.

  Which is when she has the thought: Is he stupid or suicidal?

  Jacket refuses to take the bag that the one teller is trying to hand him, reaching up from behind her hiding place.

  The guard seems to decide that Zoe, standing so close, is in the way, and he shoves her; but she trips over her own feet and instead of ending up farther away, ends up on her knees on the floor.

  Jacket is looking directly at Gun Man and tells the guard, “Take the shot.”

  “Even if,” Gun Man hastily points out, “this clown cop could get a shot off before I could, even if he puts the bullet in my brain and I’m dead in an instant, in that instant my finger will tighten on the trigger, and you’re dead.”

  “I’m dead in any case,” Jacket tells the guard, and Zoe wishes he wouldn’t be so sure of that. “Or he’d prove his good intentions by putting his gun down now.”

  Gun Man proves his bad intentions by not moving.

  Jacket repeats to the guard, “Take the shot.”

  The guard isn’t the only one whose hand is shaking. Gun Man sees his options dwindling as Jacket refuses to cooperate, and Zoe knows this makes him even more dangerous.

  Say it, Zoe tells herself. Say it now.

  She needs to risk drawing attention. She crosses her arms, hugging herself. All she needs to do is to say, “Playback,” which will make all of this go away.

  She falters when she sees Jacket brace himself. For what? Does he have a plan? Does he expect the gunman will see the hopelessness of getting away and back down, or does Jacket think he can overpower him? Will he dodge or duck or drop to his knees in the hope of avoiding Gun Man’s bullet while giving the guard a clear shot? Or is he preparing himself to die? She’s looking directly into his blue eyes and can’t begin to guess what’s going on behind them as he says, “Take the damn shot.”

  And the guard does.

  Whether conscious revenge or muscle reflex, the bank robber squeezes his trigger, too.

  And whatever Jacket’s plan was—unless it was to die—it doesn’t work.

  Which brings everything back to the beginning, leaving Zoe spattered in the blood of both the thief and the customer she’d almost had time to grow to like. Not to mention bits of bone. And what she very fervently tries to convince herself could not possibly really be pieces of brain matter.

  That’s how the story starts.

  CHAPTER 3

  SOME OF THE BANK CUSTOMERS—BOTH THOSE WHO FROZE into please-please-please-don’t-notice-me statues and those who dove behind chairs and tables—now take the opportunity to make a break for the door. Zoe is vaguely aware of the thudding of their feet, like antelope spooked by a lion.

  Which she recognizes as being an unreasonable there-you-go-thinking-you’re-better-than-they-are judgment, considering she is among the frozen. She thinks of those National Geographic films where you watch the stupid baby antelope, the one without the sense to even try to run, get taken down and devoured.

  Still—burst appendix and thunderstorms notwithstanding—this is as close as she’s ever come to dying in her fifteen years. At least, as far as she knows. She supposes the world is full of idiot drivers—really-too-old-to-be-driving or really-too-young-to-be-driving or really-too-stupid-to-be-driving drivers—who end up hitting a street sign before they have a chance to head off into oncoming traffic, so all the people who might have been plowed into never even know how close a call they’ve had. Not to mention assorted meteor strikes and flash floods and earthquakes and plagues and spontaneous combustions that might have occurred, but didn’t.

  But Zoe recognizes that she’s intentionally trying to distract herself with some pretty lame nitpicking. The fact is, she could very easily have been killed just now—and for the moment she is still feeling more scared by the might-have-beens than grateful for the big wasn’t.

  One of the bank tellers is screaming—a reaction for which Zoe has no patience, not after the fact—and at least one of the customers is crying, which Zoe is more willing to accept, as she herself might give in to crying later on. It’s just there’s no time now. Not because the police are coming in, which they are, too late, carrying enough gear to attack a terrorist stronghold. But because a decision must be made. By Zoe. She must make a decision, and she doesn’t want to because she knows how easily things could have gone another way, how easily the bank robber could have turned his gun on all of them.

  This has nothing to do with you, Zoe reminds herself. Not for the first time since she walked into this bank. Not for the first time in her life.

  She intentionally tries to avoid thinking of the young man who may well have died in her place.

  She is staring so intently at her knees to avoid looking at the two dead bodies, which she’s almost close enough to touch, that she does not at first see the feet and legs of the policeman who steps between her and the bodies, specifically trying to block them from her view. As though the image isn’t fixed in her brain indelibly.

  Despite the way she knows she looks—like a street kid, or at least a troublesome kid, neither of which she is, but that’s what she looks like—despite that, the situation is such that the policeman doesn’t focus on this. He puts his hand, his free hand, not the one holding the assault rifle, on her shoulder. “It’s all right,” he encourages her. “It’s all over.”

  Shows how much he knows.

  Zoe looks up the length of his black-clad legs, his flak jacket, past his face, hoping to catch sight of a clock, but she can’t get beyond the blood on the wall behind him. A normal te
enager would have a cell phone to tell the time, but the group home kids are not allowed to carry them.

  How many minutes have passed, have been wasted by her feeling sorry for herself? Twenty-three minutes are all she has. After that, her options will have ended.

  Which would be a relief.

  For a coward.

  But it hasn’t been twenty-three minutes. Definitely not since the shooting. Probably not even since she walked into the bank.

  Is Zoe a coward? She doesn’t want to be. But she doesn’t want to be dead, either. Dead is the end of all the possible stories of one’s life. Dead is closing the choose-your-own-adventure book and returning it to the library—no, it’s burning the book. Dead means no more chance for even having options.

  I don’t have to put my life in danger, Zoe tells herself. I don’t have to come back inside the bank. I can stop this from somewhere else.

  She hugs her arms tight around herself and makes the wish by saying, “Playback.”

  CHAPTER 4

  TIME RESETS TO TWENTY-THREE MINUTES EARLIER.

  Zoe is once again clutching her ill-gotten folder, back out on the street, closer to the hat and purse boutique—too cutely named Tops ’n Totes—than to the bank. It hasn’t started raining yet, though the oddness of the light—unnaturally bright and glittery as the sunlight bounces off the dark and swollen-looking clouds—should be a warning to anyone who glances up at the sky. Zoe wonders how she could ever not have sought shelter at this point. Fortunately, a lot of other people don’t have any more sense than she did.

  To free her hands, she once more tucks her folder of papers beneath her t-shirt, securing it with the waistband of her jeans. If anyone on the street is alarmed to see that flash of her midriff, they’re not saying.

  She isn’t used to asking for help and isn’t quite sure of the best approach. She suspects if she sounds hysterical, this will scare people off; too composed, and they won’t think twice about blowing her off.

  “Excuse me,” she says, almost grabbing for the arm of a woman passing by—but she hasn’t lost herself that far, and knows touching would be a mistake.