Even though he agrees with Charlie’s idea in theory, it feels different when he sees the pressure cookers splayed out on the table like that. He tries to follow a conversation between Charlie and Slash, then Slash and his crew. He can see they are debating whether to delay their plans for whatever they were originally going to blow up in order to reallocate their equipment. He is brimming with a nervous energy that makes him want to shout, or just run away from the place, but what good has that done him so far?
You o-k? says Charlie.
If she is at all worried about standing in a room full of homespun explosives, she doesn’t show it. He looks to Austin, who also seems unfazed.
Yeah, Eliot says, and on his hands it feels true. Just thinking.
We’re not hurting anyone.
You can go back if you want, says Austin. We trust you not to say anything.
Charlie gives him a nod of encouragement, traces her gaze down his neck.
No, he says after a while.
She smiles, the real one again. Austin does, too.
And you trust these guys?
Yes.
Yes.
Slash breaks from the huddle with his friends and approaches.
You didn’t take the bus, did you?
Austin looks to Charlie to translate. Eliot and Charlie shake their heads.
His car.
Where is it?
Eliot points to the back of the basement, describes the skinny alley behind their house.
Okay, lemme think.
Lem looks up from her work and hands Eliot a roll of blue electrical tape, which he takes without knowing why.
Go fix your plate numbers, she says.
What? Eliot says.
It’s the first time he’s spoken aloud in a while and he’s not even sure he’s made a sound at first.
Your license plate. You know, like make a 3 into an 8, or a D to a B or something?
She mimes ripping and then pressing small strips of tape out in front of her.
D…make B? Slash tries.
Okay, Eliot says.
Greg is upstairs, Slash says, points to the ceiling. He’ll let you back in when you’re done.
Outside, Eliot’s eyes are assaulted by the morning sun. He feels foolish doing this in broad daylight, but there is no indication that the neighborhood is any busier than it had been when they arrived. Last chance, he thinks. You can still leave. But he doesn’t know if this is true.
When he returns, Greg offers him a cigarette and a warm Natty Ice, and the nicotine reminds him all is well, that it is only logical, long overdue, really, to fight fire with fire. He finishes the beer and Greg points to the corner of the room, where the rest of the case sits. Eliot carries it downstairs.
Breakfast of champions, says Lem. She pulls a beer from the box and downs the can in five great slugs.
austin, they quickly work out, has the steadiest hands of the group. He leans against the wall nursing beer after beer, but the alcohol has no effect on this skill, and Slash increasingly motions him to the table to help make the most intricate connections.
Slash waves, Austin goes to him. Slash, leaning back over an old travel alarm clock, says something he can’t see.
What?
Austin looks for Charlie. Slash calls her name, then facepalms himself, and the sequence makes Austin laugh. The joke being that Charlie has long been the deafest one of them all—the electrode array of her CI razored whatever hearing she’d had left. The joke being that hearing people, in their fear, tried to create cures that only made deafness more absolute. Now that the device is gone, Charlie won’t hear the sound her parents wished upon her, not voices, or music, not even the strange, ghostly echoes of extremely loud things he himself sometimes hears. It’s not a bad thing, he thinks, that kind of quiet. Except for the part where she nearly died to get it. Except for her scars. He couldn’t protect Charlie, but he will never let that happen to Sky. He goes to Charlie, taps her on the shoulder.
Help, he says. Don’t want to mess this up.
She smiles and follows him to the table, relays Slash’s instructions.
Austin nods. He feels proud that his hands have given him this. He holds the two wires close while Slash turns up the flame.
after she pukes onto their tire, February knocks on the door of the police camper, and tells them to amend the Amber Alert to include a third student, Charlie Serrano. Back outside, she tries to bring Mr. Serrano up to speed, but eventually he gets so frustrated with her non-answers he makes a wide arc around her and bangs on the door of the camper himself. They can’t help him either, she knows, but she understands—in his shoes, she’d probably do the same.
Then, for the rest of the morning, she ping-pongs between phone calls with journalists, parents, district administrators, and the sheriff’s tech people. They’ve cracked the kids’ phones, but besides a lot of flirting between Charlie and Austin, they don’t reveal much. Apart from River Valley, there are only three locations where Charlie and Austin have been at the same time. One is quickly identified as the Workmans’ house, and the other two—one on State Street, and the third in East Colson—are handed off to patrol units for follow-up. Still, February leans close over the desk in the police camper and snaps a photo of the coordinate list as surreptitiously as she can, just in case.
Her teachers have an in-service day now that classes are canceled. Some are catching up on paperwork, some lending a hand in the dorms for the students on lockdown, others milling about on campus trying to help but not being of much use. It’s the kind of adrift behavior that February normally finds annoying but can’t really admonish today—she also doesn’t know what the hell she is doing. Henry appears in her doorway.
Any news? she says.
No, but…
He stops himself.
What is it?
I think this is my fault, him running away. We told him we wanted to implant Sky, and he ran out of the house, and, well, we never really recovered.
Implant her? February says, feigning surprise.
It’s clear Beth hasn’t relayed their New Year’s conversation to Henry, and February isn’t about to third-wheel her way into that argument.
It’s complicated, says Henry.
Of course, says February. I’d never presume…
She lets herself trail off. Of course she would presume; she’s presuming all kinds of things right now, none of them helpful.
There’s something else, Henry says. He knows the school is closing.
Jesus. Shit. Okay.
I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to tell him.
February isn’t sure what to say. She can’t very well scold Henry when she’s the one who has lost his son, however large a breach of ethics he might have committed.
This is helpful, she says finally. Thanks for letting me know.
Henry nods and lingers in the doorway. She can see he doesn’t want to go—maybe he just doesn’t want to be alone—but eventually he leaves, and she jogs down the hall to Wanda’s lab, flashes the lights to get her attention.
They know the school is closing, the kids. Austin at least. I’m assuming he told Charlie and Eliot.
Everyone will know soon enough.
But do you think that could have something to do with them running away?
Maybe. Did he just find out?
She shakes her head. That is a sticking point—if Austin had learned about River Valley’s closure over a month ago, why now? Could the three of them really have been planning to disappear for so long without a teacher or parent noticing? She spoke to Charlie just the day before for history tutoring, and she seemed fine, given the circumstances. Obviously February has missed something. The key will be in finding what tethered these three students together beyond simple proximity. She can feel the silvery thread of an idea forming, but it is still slick and new, and she cannot yet grasp it.
Henry said he’s known since December.
Did he say anything else? How did Austin take it?
Badly, obviously, February says.