Riley zoned in and out while the adults talked over her head. At some point, her mother started cooking and Riley set the dining room table with extra plates for Gail and the deputy. Her mother served spaghetti, and everyone sat around making ridiculous small talk about weather and sports scores.
Riley’s cell phone started to blare out Shelby’s ringtone, a spastic circus beat cutting through the white noise in the room. Deputy Hempstead, Riley’s parents, and Gail all stared at the thing as though it were a bomb. Riley snatched it up and thumbed it to silent.
“Sorry,” she breathed.
The adults went back to staring at each other around the dining table, and Riley went back to poking at the spaghetti on her plate. It was cold, and the cheese had congealed with everything else, so each time she stabbed a fork into it, the whole thing moved together.
“I’d like to get you out as soon as possible,” Deputy Hempstead said. “There hasn’t been a breach in security as far as we can tell, but I’m not in the business of sitting around and waiting for things to happen.”
“How long?” her mother asked.
“End of the week at the latest.”
Her father nodded and poked at his dinner. “Yeah, I think that’s advisable.”
“We’ve already alerted the FBI and they’re actively searching for new identities for each of you.”
Riley’s head snapped up, her fork clattering to her plate. “What?”
“Our location and our identities have possibly been discovered, Ry. We’re going to have to change them.”
Riley felt her mouth drop open. “You mean move?”
Her mother forced a smile. “A new life. A new life! I won’t have to deal with flu season after all.”
Riley felt her mouth drop open. “Dad—Mom, you studied so hard to become a nurse. You can’t just leave! You can’t just leave in the middle of the school year. The kids are going to wonder what happened to you. Dad, you can’t let this happen! Mom worked so hard.” Her heart was beating hard, the few bites of pasta that she had eaten sitting like a cold, hard fist in her gut. “Tell them, Dad.”
Her father’s fake smile mirrored her mother. “Who knows? Maybe our new house will have a swimming pool.”
“A swimming pool is supposed to make up for you dragging me out of my life? I don’t want to move. I don’t want to run away. I don’t want to be someone else!”
“Riley—”
“How do we even know they care about us anymore? They’ve probably moved on or at least forgotten and don’t care about us.”
Her father pressed his lips together, the muscle in his jaw jumping. “That’s not how it works, Riley. These kinds of people don’t just forget things.”
Riley could feel the sting of tears behind her eyes. She felt them break over her cheeks too, but by that time, she didn’t care. She would have to leave. She would have to leave Shelby and JD and school.
“I’m not leaving,” Riley said, standing. “You can’t make me go. I’ll stay here. I’ll stay with Shelby’s family.”
“Even if that were possible, Ry, if you were to stay, we couldn’t ever contact each other.”
The realization hit Riley like a fist in the gut. “Ever?”
“We can’t have any links. We can’t have any ties from this life that could be traced. Which means, when we go—”
Riley’s cell phone started to blare again and she instinctively went to at least pick it up, but her dad pinned her with a look. “Not now.”
“But it’s just Shelby.”
The deputy stared her down. “Your dad is right. You should probably give me your phone.”
Gail broke in. “Do you have accounts on social networking sites?”
Riley looked from her mother to her father, hoping that one of them would jump in.
“Everyone’s online,” she said slowly, licking her lips.
“We’ll have someone delete your pages.”
“What? Why?”
Hempstead’s cell phone went next, a curt, conventional ring. His conversation was just as curt and conventional. Riley strained to hear, but his side was mostly “uh-huhs” and “yeses.”
“The FBI has secured new identities and a new residence for you.” He smiled as though he were telling the family something positive. Riley gaped, expecting her parents to jump up, to protest, to say they appreciated it, but everything was going to be just fine.
No one did.
Riley launched herself off her chair. “So that’s it, we’re moving? I have to give up my cell phone and my Tumblr and everything and we’re moving? Where? Why? Nothing happened. You said that there isn’t any threat.”
“I said there hasn’t been any threat yet. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be.”
Her father stood up. “Riley—” He reached out for her, but she dodged his arm, feeling hot tears pricking behind her eyes. She looked up at him, anger coloring her cheeks.