When I finally came to in the gray light, I knew by the curve of the rear seat and the smell of fake lemon detergent that I was back in Betty.
The van wasn’t on and running, and the road wasn’t passing underneath me, but the keys had been left in the ignition and the radio was on. Bob Dylan whispered the opening verse of “Forever Young” through the speakers.
The song cut off abruptly, replaced by the DJ’s flustered voice.
“—sorry about that.” The man let out a nervous, breathy laugh. “I don’t know why the system brought that one up. It’s on the no-play list. Uh…back to…the music. This one’s a request from Bill out in Suffolk. Here’s ‘We Gotta Get Out of This Place’ by the Animals.”
I opened one eye and tried to sit up, with zero success. The throbbing in my head was so brutal, I had to clench my teeth to keep from getting sick all over myself. A good five minutes must have passed before I felt strong enough to reach up and touch the pain’s epicenter on my right temple. My fingers brushed against the jagged, raised surface of my skin, feeling each coarse stitch holding it together.
Chubs.
I pulled my right arm in front of me. It flopped around, useless and asleep, until the blood began to fill it again. Then it was fire and needles. But the pain was good. It roused the rest of me from its stubborn sleep.
It didn’t let me forget.
I should go, I thought. Now, before they get back. The thought of seeing any of their faces made my chest feel like it was going to explode.
They know.
They know.
I did start to cry then. I wasn’t proud of it, but I knew I couldn’t go through this again and come out of it in one piece.
Footsteps sounded outside.
“—saying it’s too dangerous.” Chubs. “We need to consider getting rid of her.”
“I don’t want to talk about this right now.” Liam sounded agitated.
I used one of the seat belts to pull me upright. The sliding door was wide open, giving me a perfect view of where Chubs and Liam stood in front of a small fire, which was ringed by a series of mismatched stones. The sky was dipping into night.
“When are we going to talk about it, then?” Chubs said. “Never? We’re just going to pretend like it never happened?”
“Zu will be back soon—”
“Good!” Chubs shouted. “Good! This is her decision, too—this is all of our decision, not just yours!”
Liam’s face was as red as I had ever seen it. “What the hell are we supposed to do, just dump her here?”
Yes, I thought. That’s exactly what you should do. And I had started to climb over the middle seats to tell them that much when Chubs lurched forward, throwing Liam onto his back without touching him. Unfazed, Liam pressed his mouth into a tight line, raised his hand, and literally pulled the ground out from under his friend’s feet. Chubs hit the dirt with a sharp gasp, too stunned to do anything but lie there.
Liam stayed on the ground, too, pressing his fists against his eyes.
“Why are you doing this to us?” Chubs cried. “Do you want to get caught?”
“I know, I know,” Liam said. “This is my fault. I should have been more careful.…”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Chubs continued. “Did you know this whole time? Why lie about it? Do you even want to get home, or—?”
“Charles!”
His name cracked as it left my throat. I didn’t think I sounded anything like myself, but the boys recognized my voice at once. Chubs’s face lost some of its heat as he turned to where I stood clutching the minivan’s sun-warmed frame. Liam pushed himself up off the ground.
“I’m gonna go, so you—don’t fight anymore, okay?” I said. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I know I should have left, but I wanted to help you get home because you had helped me, and I’m sorry, I’m so, so, sorry—”
“Ruby,” Chubs said. Then again, louder. “Ruby! Oh, for the love of…we were talking about Black Betty, not your Orange ass.”
I froze. “I just…I thought…I understand why you would leave me behind.…”
“Huh?” Liam looked horrified. “We left the radio on in case you woke up, so you’d know that we didn’t leave you.”
God help me, that only made me cry harder.
When a girl cries, few things are more worthless than a boy. Having two of them just meant that they stared at each other helplessly instead of at me. Chubs and Liam stood, up to their ears in awkward, until Chubs finally reached out and patted my head like he would have patted a dog.
“You thought that we wanted to get rid of you because you’re not really Green?” Liam sounded like he was having a hard time wrapping his head around that. “I mean, I’m not thrilled you didn’t trust us enough to tell us the truth, but that was your secret.”
“I trust you, I do,” I said, “but I didn’t want you to think that I had forced my way in or manipulated you. I didn’t want you to be afraid of me.”
“Okay, first?” Liam said. “Why would we think that you pulled a Jedi mind trick on us to let you stay? We voted—we asked you. Second, what in the name of God’s green earth is wrong with being Orange?”
“You have no idea—” What I’m capable of.
“Exactly,” Chubs cut in. “We have no idea, but it’s not like we’re going to win any awards for normalcy anytime soon. So you get into people’s heads? The two of us can throw people around like toys. Zu once blew up an AC unit, and all she did was walk by it.”
It wasn’t the same, and they didn’t understand that.
“I can’t always control it like you can,” I said. “And sometimes I do things—bad things. I see things I shouldn’t. I turn people into things they aren’t. It’s horrible. When I’m in someone’s head, it’s like quicksand; the more I try to pull free, the more damage I do.”
Chubs started to say something, only to stop. Liam leaned down so his face was level with mine, so close that our foreheads were nearly touching. “We want you,” he said, his hand slipping through my hair to cup the back of my neck. “We wanted you yesterday, we want you today, and we’ll want you tomorrow. There’s nothing you could do to change that. If you’re scared and you don’t understand your crazy abilities, then we’ll help you understand—but don’t think, not for one second, that we would ever just leave you.”
He waited until I was looking him in the eye before continuing. “Is this why you acted that way when I said the Slip Kid might be an Orange? Is that really why you want to find him, or do you just want to go to your grandmother’s? Because either way, darlin’, we’ll get you there.”
“Both,” I said. Was it so wrong to want both?
I had stopped crying, but my lungs felt sticky, heavy, and getting in even an ounce of air was too much effort. I don’t know why my brain was as still as it was, but I was trying not to think about it. Liam and Chubs both took an arm. I was lifted out of the van, guided over to the crackling fire.
“Where are we?” I asked finally.
“Somewhere between North Carolina and the Great Dismal Swamp, I hope,” Liam said, his hand still on my back, now rubbing circles there. “Southeast Virginia. Now that you’re awake, I need to check on Zu. You two stay put, okay?”
Chubs nodded; we watched Liam go in silence, then Chubs turned to me. “Ruby,” he began, voice perfectly serious. “Can you tell me who the president is?”
I blinked. “Can you tell me why you’re asking this question?”
“Do you remember what happened?”
Did I? The memory was milky and distorted, like I was glimpsing someone else’s dream. “Angry man,” I said. “Rifle. Ruby’s head. Ouch.”
“Cut it out; I’m being serious!”
I winced, touching the stitching in my forehead again. “Can you keep your voice down? It feels like my head is about to cave in.”