“She acts like we can’t take care of ourselves,” he says. “We can.”
I agree that I can, but I’m also old enough to face the ugly truth about our dad and what he can do. I don’t want to have to fight him. The whole idea hurts, and it terrifies me. But I also don’t want to be left on my own with Connor, responsible for keeping both of us safe. I almost want Grandma, even if her cookies are kind of terrible and her popcorn balls too sticky. Even if she treats us like we’re toddlers.
I shift the blame. “Mom’s never going to let us fight him. You know that.”
“So off to Grandma’s house we go. Like Dad can’t guess that.”
I shrug, but in the dark I know he can’t see me. “Grandma’s moved and changed her name, too. It’ll be just for a while, anyway. Like a vacation.”
It’s eerie how Connor doesn’t move, doesn’t shift. I never hear so much as a rustle of those stiff motel sheets from him. Just a voice in the dark. “Yeah,” he says. “Like a vacation. And what if Mom never comes back for us? What if he comes back for us? Do you think about that?”
I open my mouth to confidently tell him that’s never going to happen, but I can’t. I can’t get it out of my mouth, because I’m old enough to know that Mom isn’t immortal, or all-powerful, and that good doesn’t always win. And I know—Connor knows—that our dad is incredibly dangerous.
So I finally say, “If he does find us, we get away from him. Or we stop him, any way we can.”
“Promise?” His voice suddenly sounds his age. Only eleven. Too young to deal with this. I forget how young he is, sometimes. I’m nearly fifteen. It’s a big gap, and we’ve always babied my little brother.
“Yeah, doofus, I promise. We’re going to be okay.”
He lets out a long, slow breath that’s almost a sigh. “All right,” he says. “You and me, then. Together.”
“Always,” I tell him.
He doesn’t say anything else. I can hear Mom talking in a low voice to someone outside; I think it’s Sam Cade. I listen to the soft blur of their voices, and after a while I hear that Connor’s breathing has deepened and slowed, and I think he’s finally, really asleep.
That means I can sleep, too.
Mom surprises us at oh-my-God in the morning with doughnuts and cartons of milk; she and Sam are already up and dressed, and they have coffee. I ask for some. I get shut down. Connor doesn’t bother. He drinks his milk and mine, when I pass it to him while Mom isn’t looking.
She surprises us when she tells us she’s not sending us off to Grandma, all the way up the coast. Instead, she’s sending us back to Norton. Not home, but close. And I can’t help but feel a little relieved, and at the same time a little anxious, too. Being almost home seems dangerous in a whole lot of ways . . . not so much because Dad would find us, but because I immediately realize it means I can’t really go home, to our old house. To my room. Being so close and not home? That’s kind of worse. Worse still: Dahlia. I can’t talk to her. Can’t text her. Can’t even let her know I’m there. That’s the definition of suck.
But I don’t tell Mom that.
Connor perks up a little when he realizes that instead of weeks with Grandma, he gets to hang out with Javier Esparza, who is a quietly awesome badass. His presence always feels strong and reassuring, and I don’t doubt he can defend us. Connor needs a guy to bond with. He and Sam Cade got close, but I know Sam’s got his own battles. He’s going with my mom, no question about that.
So we’ll be staying at Mr. Esparza’s cabin, which he sometimes shares with Norton police officer Kezia Claremont. Also a quiet badass. They’re totally sleeping together, which I guess we’re not supposed to know. I approve of Kezia, though. It also means we have twice the firepower protecting us. I know Mom’s doing it for that reason, but I’m still glad, for Connor’s sake. I hope having Mr. Esparza around might break him out of his rigid silence.
Packing isn’t much of a problem. We’ve been running for so long, Connor and I are both pros at throwing our stuff in bags and being ready to go in moments. Actually, Connor doesn’t even have to do that. He packed early, while I was still asleep. We keep score on things like that, and he silently points to his bag to let me know he wins. Again. He’s got his nose in a book already, which is his way of blocking out any attempts to converse. Plus, he loves books.
I wish we had that in common. I make the promise to myself, again, to borrow some from him.
We’re in the car and navigating traffic on a foggy highway half an hour from the moment Mom sets the doughnuts down.
I doze, mostly, with my headphones blocking out the nonconversation. Mom and Sam are being very quiet. Connor’s turning pages. I amuse myself by making a new playlist: SONGS TO KICK ASS AND TAKE NAMES. It’s a boring drive, and the pounding rhythm of the music makes me want to go for a run. Maybe Mr. Esparza will let me do that when we get to his cabin, though I kind of doubt it; we’re under house arrest, again, hiding from all the boogeymen in the shadows—not just of the real world of Dad and his friends, but all the amped-up Internet trolls. One pic, and somebody will paste me all over Reddit and 4chan again, and things will get very, very bad, very fast.
So probably no run.
We drive for a couple of hours, then stop at a big-box store, where Sam buys four new disposable phones; I’m temporarily thrilled to discover he had to buy real smartphones, even though they’re still kind of clunky. No flip phones available. These are plain black, nothing special. We unshell them in the car and trade numbers. We’re all used to this by now. Mom liked to buy me and Connor different colors of phones, just so we wouldn’t get them mixed up, but Sam didn’t think of that; all four phones are the same. Mom confiscates mine and Connor’s and does her Mom thing, which locks off all the Internet functions before she gives them back and disables as much as she can. Normal course of business. She’s never wanted us to see the flood of ugliness out there about Dad, and about us.
I slide the phone into my pocket, plug my headphones into my iPod, and crank up the music. I am jamming to Florence + The Machine when I realize that Sam hasn’t started the car. He’s got a slip of paper out, and he’s entering a phone number into his own device, then making a call.
I move my headphones out of my ear and pause the music in midwail to listen.
“Yes, hi, is Agent Lustig available?” Sam listens for a few seconds. “Okay. Can I leave a message for him? Ask him to call Sam Cade. He’ll know the name. Here’s my number . . .” He reads it off to her from the package. “Ask him to call me soon as he’s able. He’ll know what it’s regarding. Thanks.”
He hangs up and starts the car, and as we pull out onto the road and drive on, I realize he’s not planning to share with the class. So I take one for the team. “Who’s Agent Lustig?”