“Wait here a sec,” he said, unbuckling his seat belt. “I’m going to scope out the area. Make sure it’s safe.” And it was just like before; he didn’t bother to wait for any of us to protest. He just jumped out of the car, glanced into each room he passed, and began to jimmy the door of his choosing.
Chubs and I were left to divide up the last of the food we had gathered from the gas station in Marlinton. Our inventory was down to a bag of Cheetos, peanut butter crackers, some Twizzlers, and a snack pack of Oreos, plus the candy I had managed to stuff into my backpack. It was every six-year-old’s dream feast.
We worked silently, avoiding each other’s gaze like champions. Chubs’s fingers were quick and nimble as he opened the peanut butter crackers and started in on them. The same ratty book was on his lap, the pages open and smiling up at him. I knew he couldn’t actually be reading them—not with eyesight as bad as his, at least. But when he finally decided to talk to me, he didn’t so much as glance up from it.
“Enjoying our life of crime yet? The general seems to think you’re a natural.”
I reached over to wake Zu, ignoring whatever it was he was trying to imply. I was too exhausted to deal with him, and, frankly, none of the comebacks warring at the tip of my tongue at the moment were likely to win him over.
Before I could step out of the van, my backpack and food in hand, Chubs’s hand reached out and slammed the door shut again. In the dim light of the hotel, he looked…not angry, exactly, but certainly not friendly, either. “I have something to say to you.”
“You’ve already said quite a bit, thanks.”
He waited until I had looked back at him over my shoulder before continuing. “I’m not going to pretend like you didn’t help us today, or that you didn’t spend years living in a glorified shit hole, but I’m telling you now—use tonight to think seriously about your decision to stay, and if you decide to slip out in the middle of the night, know that you probably made the right choice.”
I reached again for the door, but he wasn’t finished. “I know you’re hiding something. I know you haven’t been completely honest. And if you think for some insane reason that we can protect you, think again. We’ll be lucky to make it out of this mess alive without whatever crisis you’re bringing to the table.”
I felt my stomach clench, but kept my face neutral. If he was hoping to read some clue in my face, he was going to be disappointed; I’d spent the better part of the last six years schooling my expression into perfect innocence under the threat of guns.
Whatever he suspected couldn’t have been the truth, though, otherwise he wouldn’t be giving me one last chance to duck and run. He would have personally punted me out of the van, preferably at a high speed, in the middle of a deserted highway.
Chubs rubbed a thumb across his lower lip. “I think…” he started. “I hope you get to Virginia Beach, I really do, but—” He pulled the glasses off his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is ridiculous, I’m sorry. Just think about what I said. Make the right choice.”
Liam began waving at us from the door of the room, keeping it propped open with his foot. Zu put a hand on Chubs’s shoulder. He jumped, blinking in surprise at the touch of yellow rubber. She had been so silent, I had forgotten she was there, too.
“Come on, Suzume,” Chubs said, dropping a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe if we’re lucky, the general will deign to let us take showers. And, maybe if we’re really lucky, he’ll actually take one himself.”
Zu followed him out the side door, casting an anxious look my way. I waved her off with a forced smile and reached in the backseat for my black backpack.
I didn’t notice it until I was already outside, the darkening sky sapping away the last bit of the van’s warmth from my skin. One of my hands reached out to hold the sliding door open as I leaned back into the minivan and pulled the book out of the passenger seat’s back pouch. It was the first and only time I had seen it free from Chubs’s hands.
The flat, empty M&M’s bag he was using as a bookmark was still in place. I flipped the book open to that page, and didn’t need to look at the spine to know instantly what book it was. Watership Down, by Richard Adams. No wonder he had gone to such great lengths to hide what he was reading. The story of a bunch of rabbits trying to make their way in the world? Liam would have a field day.
But I loved that book, and apparently Chubs did, too. It was the same old edition my dad used to read to me before bed, the one I used to steal from his study and put on my shelf for when I couldn’t sleep at night. How had it come to me just when I needed it the most?
My eyes drank in each word, worshipping their shape until my lips started forming them and I was reading aloud for everyone and no one to hear. “All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.”
I wondered if Chubs knew how the story ended.
TWELVE
THE HOT WATER WAS ENOUGH to make me forget I was standing in an old motel shower, washing my hair with shampoo that reeked of fake lavender. In the entire compact bathroom, there were only six things: the sink, the toilet, the towel, the shower, its curtain, and me.
I was the last one in. By the time I finally walked through the motel room door, Zu had already been in and out and Chubs had just barricaded himself in the bathroom, where he spent the next hour scrubbing himself and all of his clothing until they stank of stale soap. It seemed pointless to me to try to do laundry in a sink with hand soap, but there was no bathtub or laundry detergent for him to use. The rest of us just sat back and tuned out his impassioned speech on the importance of good hygiene.
“You’re next,” Liam had said, turning to me. “Just make sure you wipe down everything when you’re done.”
I caught the towel he threw to me. “What about you?”
“I’ll take one in the morning.”
With the bathroom door shut and locked behind me, I dropped my backpack on the toilet seat cover and went to work sorting through its contents. I pulled out the clothes they had given me and dumped them on the floor. Something silky and red spilled out on top of the pile, causing me to jump back in alarm.
It took several moments of suspicious inspection to figure out what it was—the bright red dress from the trailer’s closet.
Zu, I thought, passing a tired hand over my face. She must have grabbed it when I wasn’t looking.
I poked at it with a toe, nose wrinkling at its faint scent of stale cigarette smoke. It looked like it was going to be a size too large for me, not to mention the somewhat icky feeling that came with knowing where it had been.
But, clearly, she had wanted me to have it—and wearing it, loath as I was to admit it, was smarter than running around in my camp uniform. I could do this for Zu; if it made her happy, it’d be worth the discomfort.
There was no shampoo, but the Children’s League had thought to give me deodorant, a bright green toothbrush, a pack of tissues, some tampons, and hand sanitizer—all travel-sized and zipped up tight in a plastic bag. Under that was a small hairbrush and water bottle. And there, at the very bottom of the bag, was another panic button.
It must have been there the entire time, and I just hadn’t realized it. I’d thrown the first one Cate had given me away, leaving it behind in the mud and brush. The thought that this one had been in my bag all this time—the entire time—made my skin crawl. Why hadn’t I thoroughly searched the bag before now?