“What?”
“If my parents are in on it, like you said, and if this is really happening, then . . .”
“Lorna—”
“Stan, I just saw your brother smash a bear’s head into a highway wall. My mother just told me to let my sister die because the government thinks she’s a weapon. Callie, who is right there, in the backseat, weaving a crown out of grass as we speak, a weapon. Because apparently my parents, and probably every single other parent who adopted an Iceling, are not who they say they are and don’t work where they say they work, because they actually work for the government.” My sobs come out in short choking bursts now, until I’m still deeply crying, but there’s no sound or water, and my face is just twisting itself into all these distorted shapes.
He takes a deep breath. “You’re right,” Stan admits. “My dad’s probably on the inside of this too. He’s been looking at Ted this whole time like he might be a weapon, not because he has a kind of anger problem, which could happen to any teenage kid, but because he knows how they were found.”
“We know how they were found too. My dad was the one who found them. He told me all about it.”
“And did he tell you the government has thought Callie is a weapon from the start and that he worked for the government too? Did he tell you that they were monitoring their every mood and moment? Did he tell you we were probably—shit, I’m sorry.” He stops as he looks up at me, noticing that I’m sobbing. Cool. This is great. This is the most fun road trip in the history of the whole world. Four stars, would embark on again. “I’m sorry, Lorna. I know I’m being a jerk.”
“It’s fine. This situation is sucky as hell, but you’re fine. You’re not being any more of a jerk than anyone else would be, considering we just found out our parents probably work for the government, and the government thinks Ted and Callie are deadly weapons. And so our parents have also definitely been lying to us, about stuff way bigger than the tooth fairy or the democratic process, for our entire lives.”
“So our parents have been in cahoots with the government about our weird Orphan Icelings, about our families, our whole lives. And according to your mom, they have some sort of nefarious plan for them. So we just need to figure out what, if anything, we can do about it. Right?”
“So you think we should take them to their home, right? No matter what? Even if that’s the one thing my mom said not to do? We’re taking them back to where they were found—really found, wherever that is. That’s where we’re going. That’s what we’re doing.”
And then I look to the backseat, where our Icelings are. What do I do here? How do I ask if this is really what they want? How do I make them know that if we keep going north, a serious threat might be lying in wait? Do they already know and don’t care? Or are their minds as free from suspicion as their faces seem to suggest?
I look back at Stan, and he’s just staring straight ahead, looking as perplexed as I feel. Then I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I turn around. Callie, reaching out to me. She touches my tears, which makes me start crying again, and then she just nods over at the road, like hey, let’s get going, sister. Stan and I switch shifts. I turn the key and then signal to merge. And lo, we have merged.
So that was that. Second star to the right and straight on ’til morning, or ’til the government blows us up and our parents pull off their parent masks and are complete strangers, and everything around us crumbles and burns.
FOURTEEN
SO BASICALLY EVERYTHING is completely terrible and also a total disaster right now.
This is how it feels, for me, at least, to be alive, in Maine, which is huge, by the way.
Dave keeps texting me, and now that I know what I know, I have no idea what to say to him anymore. It’s not as if I feel like I’m talking to a stranger now, but rather like he’s talking to a stranger whom neither of us know. I just keep answering that everything is fine, then tell him about the clouds I can see from the car, or type something cute and witty, because what else can I tell him that won’t put both of us in danger?
My phone lights up with a buzz, and I think how quickly I went from loving when that happens to absolutely dreading it.