“LeGrand?” he whispers into the night.
A click answers, and Brandon follows it. He knows he shouldn’t be out, that maybe Jaden is looking for them, but it feels so lonely waiting in the Lovers’ Hideaway by himself, counting down until it’s light enough to join Ava and Mack in the good hiding spot so he doesn’t feel like he’s intruding. He checked it out when he helped Ava climb in. It’s super cramped up there. He won’t even be able to crawl; he’ll have to scoot on his belly. He’s not looking forward to it. He’s never been afraid of heights, but he doesn’t like enclosed spaces.
A building looms at the end of this path—the one with the rotting demon with skeletal wings. It’s hard to make out the details of it in the night, and somehow that makes it even creepier. At least if it was light, he could see how silly, how old and fragile it was. An impression of it, with his brain filling in the details, is worse than the actual thing.
Brandon leans against the bottom of LeGrand’s tree. He doesn’t know whether he wants his back to the demon so he doesn’t have to look at it, or to face it so he can keep an eye on it. Both options make him nervous, and make him feel silly for being nervous about an old decoration.
“Hey,” he says, looking upward as a compromise. The foliage of the tree is so dense, he wouldn’t know where to start with climbing it, and he can’t even see the other guy. How did LeGrand manage?
“Hey,” a soft voice answers.
“We’re up in a sort of crawlspace in the building. Against the front wall, overlooking the entrance. So you know where to find us.” If Brandon feels left out, LeGrand might, too, and he doesn’t want that. In his head, LeGrand is already his roommate. LeGrand’s weird, sure, but he’s nice-weird. Not mean-weird, like Atrius and Ian.
Brandon instantly feels guilty for the thought, because they’re out, or…well, they’re out. That’s what Brandon is okay with thinking. He understands why Ava’s wigged out, why they’re all scared, because he is, too, but he doesn’t want to be. And he doesn’t think anything bad happened. He just thinks someone here is a dick. Jaden, more than likely. It doesn’t really seem like something Linda would do. She seems too…classy for that. Nothing to do with her age, though. She doesn’t remind him at all of his grandma—Grammy had pink hair from a time she mis-dyed it and then declared Why the hell not, and she wore men’s T-shirts and short shorts, her tanned skin soft and crinkly. There was nothing fancy about his grandma, only funny warmth and honesty. Always honesty. Brandon misses her so much. Nothing’s been the same since she died, which is even sadder, because nothing has changed. He still lives in her tiny house, still works his same job, still does all the same things, only now he does them alone.
Everyone here is so worried about money, and he doesn’t have any, but he’s okay, thanks to Grammy. He’s going to invite them all to live with him. If they want to.
Brandon leans against the trunk of the tree and stares at the outline of the devil. He should check before he plans on LeGrand moving into Grammy’s house with him. “Do you have any family?” Seems like most of them here either don’t or aren’t really close with theirs.
“Yes.”
Brandon’s heart falls a little. If LeGrand has family, he’s probably not going to pack up and move to Idaho. “Cool. Brothers and sisters?” Brandon always wanted a little sister. He sometimes imagined what a good brother he’d be, sticking up for her, helping her with homework. Well, that was a stretch. He’d never been great at school. But he’d make sure she was. She’d probably be valedictorian, and he’d clap so hard. He’d start a standing ovation for her.
“Thirty-seven,” LeGrand says, though he sounds strangely unsure, like there’s a hint of a question mark at the end of the number.
“What?” Brandon exclaims, then catches himself and lowers his voice. “What?” he repeats at a more appropriate volume.
LeGrand doesn’t elaborate.
“Wow. Okay. Well, you know where we’re hiding if you’re seeking.” Brandon waits, hoping his stupid joke lands. He doesn’t want to have to explain why it’s funny because then he’ll know it’s not.
“Half,” LeGrand says, softly.
“What?”
“A lot of them are half brothers and sisters, I guess you’d call them? Different moms. My favorite sister is named Almera.”
“Cool!” Brandon says, and he absolutely means it, even though the information is weird at best. He really does think it’s cool that LeGrand has so many siblings, and that he has a favorite. “I’ll bet you’re her favorite, too.”
“They banished me.”
Brandon knows what banished means—he’s pretty sure—but it seems weirdly formal for a family. He doesn’t know how to respond. But then he lights up, because this is it. “You can come live with me. After the game, I mean. I have a house. It’s small and old but pretty cool.”
The silence stretches for so long that Brandon’s sure he messed up. But then LeGrand says, “Okay.”
“Okay. Okay! Cool. Well, see you later!” The sky is starting to lighten, so it’s time to barge in on Ava and Mack. But with this boost of confidence—LeGrand is going to stay his friend!—he’s ready to extend the offer to Ava and Mack, too, and then settle in for a long day of waiting and hoping that absolutely nothing happens.
Things feel less scary and weird. He has a team. Friends. And a future with them.
* * *
—
LeGrand watches as Brandon walks back to the building where the others are hiding, the odd cheerful spring in his step back. It had disappeared on their trip from the camp here, but apparently Brandon’s optimism is revived.
LeGrand has no feelings about that one way or another. Almera. He hasn’t said her name out loud, not since he snuck out of the compound to the closest town and tried to tell the doctor there about her. He was rushed out the door, no help, no concern, nothing.
Why didn’t the doctor help him?
Why didn’t anyone help him?
It’s a numbers game, the woman from the service to guide them in adjusting to “the real world” had said with a sigh. If they keep all the boys in the community, there aren’t enough girls for them to have more than one wife. They have to make up reasons to get rid of you. You didn’t do anything wrong.
At the time, heartbroken, shell-shocked, LeGrand had felt instantly defensive. It was sin to talk about the prophet, the elders that way. He had done something wrong. This was his fault, not theirs.
He feels a little bad now for how much he secretly hated that woman. She really did try to help him. Including filling out the application for this exciting competition that she had heard about through a friend of a friend. All she wanted was for these poor lost boys, uneducated, functionally illiterate, raised for one world only and then abandoned into another, to have a chance.