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government-sanctioned assassination, and the faster I can get through my list of ten debtors, the better my chances of catching them like this, unaware. I can only hope that they’ll all be this uncomplicated—one person, alone, at home, confused, with no warning or rumors. It will be so much easier if they haven’t heard mysterious gunshots all day or found some ­accidentalslipup on the Internet. The guy from Valor Savings said they would prevent that, but we all know that the Internet was made for conspiracy theories, even ones that are eerily true.
    I slow to a walk to stick the gun in the back of my jeans and unbutton the Postal Service shirt with one hand. God, it’s just the itchi­est, scratchiest, we-don’t-give-a-shit-about-your-comfort-est piece of clothing imaginable, even with a tee underneath. Plus, since I know that the camera in the top button never turns off, I’ll just feel better when it’s wadded up in a ball on the floor under the seat. I’ve still got my pride, and I don’t want them to see me puke, whoever they are.
    â€œDad? Dad!” someone shouts behind me.
    I don’t turn around. I walk faster.
    â€œYou! What did you do?”
    I break into a run and sling the basket and shirt into the passenger seat as strong hands yank me down, flailing, from the open sliding door of my still-running truck. The guy spins me around and holds the front of my T-shirt bunched in one fist, shoving me against the truck hard enough to make it rock, hard enough to hurt. Rage sings through me, and I don’t need to throw up anymore. I need to fight.
    â€œWhat did you just do?” he yells, slamming me against the truck again.
    I gulp down my anger and grab his wrist with my left hand, struggling to put some room between my body and the cold metalof the truck. Reaching behind my back for the gun, I whip it around and put it to the side of his chest, tight, so he can’t jerk away. So he can’t see my hand shaking.
    â€œLet me go,” I say, quiet and cold.
    I look at his face for the first time, and my heart wrenches in my chest. It’s like looking at a ghost. He looks like his father, like what his father used to be when he was my age. Dark blond hair falling over buttery brown eyes, tall and broad-shouldered like an athlete. And yet he’s wearing the shirt of a band I like, a shirt I have too. Or used to have. It’s at my old house with my mom and most of my stuff, just another part of the life I was forced to leave behind.
    His fingers fall open as the gun kisses his ribs. I yank my shirt away and step back. But the gun doesn’t budge. The kid’s hand is open between us, frozen in place, and I’m transfixed by a prominent Adam’s apple that bobs all the way down and back up.
    â€œWhat just happened?” he says, staring into space.
    â€œYour dad had a debt, and Valor Savings called it in. This is totally legal.”
    â€œValor Savings? The . . . the bank? But why? You can’t just go around shooting people.” Rage and sorrow war on his face, and he’s panting like a dying animal.
    â€œGo read the card, Max,” I say.
    â€œWhat card?”
    I exhale, a soundless sigh.
    â€œThe one I left on his chest. Just read it, okay?”
    I climb into the truck backward, my eyes locked with his and the gun still pointing at his chest. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t turn to his father’s body. He definitely doesn’t go read the card, which would explain how Valor Savings Bank, now just Valor Savings, paid off every debt the US government owed to every other country on earth and now owns everything from sea to shining sea, plus Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.
    If he would just read it, the dumb asshole, he would know that Valor Savings is now calling in debts and that, thanks to a tricky and vague little clause in a credit card application that no one bothered to read before signing, they can