“Can I get a refill here?” He wore his own version of a cheesy grin as he waved his cup in her direction. She paused just long enough to top him off, and didn’t even acknowledge Tyler or me before rushing away again, eager to escape into the kitchen, probably hoping to steal a quick smoke break before having to go another round with Free Mustache Rides.
My dad settled the lip of his mug just beneath his nose, lingering before actually taking a sip. I could smell the strong brew from the other side of the booth and tried to decide if that was a good thing or not. But from the blissed-out expression on my dad’s face I guess I had my answer. After finally downing several long slugs, my dad dug into the pie and that blissed-out expression shifted to shameless ecstasy.
“You have got to try this,” he said through a mouthful of the crumbling apple confection. He held out his fork, offering me a bite.
At any other time, and maybe for Old Kyra, the offer would have been tempting. But now, and to New Kyra, who had different, and less than impressive taste buds, the suggestion wasn’t all that appealing.
I shrugged. “Maybe next time,” I refused, like we were regulars and I wasn’t passing up my one and only opportunity for the World’s Best Pie.
“Ben, seriously,” Tyler interrupted. “Who the hell was that back there? Did you get a good look at them? Did they see you?” Tyler was leaning forward, his face screwed up in determination.
My dad scowled, the fork halfway to his mouth, and then he glared, first at me and then at Tyler, before setting it back down again. After a second he shook his head. “No, I didn’t get a good look.”
“Then how do you know it was them?” Tyler pushed, and I wondered if maybe it was never Agent Truman at all. If maybe my dad had seen—or heard rather—the same people Tyler had.
The Returned must die.
The hairs at the nape of my neck prickled.
My dad cleared his throat and then gazed at me intently. Despite the fact that my dad was sitting right there, Tyler threw his arm over my shoulder and yanked me closer to him reassuringly.
I wasn’t sure which of us was more surprised, me, my dad, or Tyler, but I smiled just a tiny bit.
Tyler wasn’t thinking the way I was. He still thought the Daylight Division had tracked us down. “How do you think they figured out where we were? Where did we go wrong?” he asked.
Ignoring Tyler, my dad reached across the table, his hand closing over mine. “I don’t think they did, kiddo. I don’t think it was that Truman guy or his jackbooted thugs.” He was hedging. For whatever reason, he didn’t want to come out and say what he thought.
I nodded. “So? What are we doing here?” I gestured to the diner around us. “If it wasn’t the Daylighters, then who were you and Nancy running from?”
He sighed again, a giving-up kind of sigh, then looked around, making sure no one was listening. And then he glanced up. Like up-up, toward the sky. “Them.”
My stomach dropped, and I wondered why I felt this way. Why I had that same sick feeling I’d had in his trailer, back when I’d first been returned. Back when he’d told me he thought I’d been abducted by aliens.
Back then the aliens had all been in his head. Make believe. Fiction. The stuff of fairy tales.
Now . . .
Now I knew better. Now he was only confirming what had already been bugging me. What I’d already been telling myself couldn’t be . . . because no way was it them. Not here. Not again.
I tried to swallow but my throat felt like it was one long inflexible steel pipe, and my breath rattled along the hollow tubing. I kept my voice low . . . super, super low so no one could hear the kind of crazy talk coming out of our mouths. “What . . . makes you say that? Why do you think it was”—I leaned closer, our heads almost touching over the top of the table—“them?”
“I think they’re trying to send a message, Kyr. I think they’re after you.”
I stayed inside the bathroom stall for way too long, surrounded by metal walls that were plastered with so much graffiti they looked like they belonged in a high school locker room rather than an all-night diner. One particularly eye-catching piece—a Sharpie collage of a nude woman riding an elephant—was not only bizarre, but so detailed I had to wonder how much time the poor woman drawing it had been trapped in here. I hoped for my dad’s sake it hadn’t been The World’s Best Pie that had done her in.
On the flipside, there were several penis sketches and one For A Good Time Call listing . . .
Seriously, you’d think grown-ups would be more mature.
I looked down to where my dad’s watch was strapped firmly to my wrist. He’d given it to me so I could always track the time, knowing the way it anchored me. Made me feel safe.
But right now, there was no solace in the steady meter of the second hand as it wound its way around the dial. My dad’s words . . . the things he’d said back there at the table haunted me.
Whoever Tyler had overheard, my dad had heard them too . . . only he hadn’t heard them the same way Tyler had. He agreed that they were talking, or at least he thought that’s what they were trying to do.