I squirm uncomfortably in my seat and adjust the vent to get a stream of air on my neck. Okay. So there’s an added hitch to me and Burnham that I haven’t much wanted to admit to myself.
A week ago, that first night when I was visiting Burnham in Atlanta, I had a vicious nightmare and woke in a panic. Burnham got up to make me cocoa in his kitchen, and shirtless Burnham is quite the sight. The whole memory makes me uneasy, and not just because I feel guilty about hanging with Burnham while my relationship with Linus was murky. Now that I have a little space from the cocoa episode, I feel like Burnham shouldn’t have kissed me. I know that I came to the kitchen dressed in, well, not much, and I didn’t resist the kiss as it was happening. And yet, if Burnham was really as noble as I always thought he was, he should have known I was vulnerable.
I check my gas. I’m at half a tank. I put on my blinker to pass a slow car and then ease back into the right-hand lane.
The worst thing is, I apologized to Burnham the next day, like the whole thing was my fault, like something was wrong with me for not being into him more. I kept trying to be honest, but I didn’t really owe him anything.
Then the other night, when Burnham and I discovered that clip of me in Linus’s bed, Burnham was not pleased. I could tell. I wish none of this bothered me, but I feel this ick about Burnham and it isn’t going away.
I turn my thoughts to my last real option: Thea. She changed me. I wanted to stay angry and not care for anybody ever again, but when she was suffering and having her baby in that dark, filthy tunnel, I wanted so badly to help her. I felt like I was seeing myself struggle in pain, and in the end, she broke me open. She’s me. That’s why. She’s truly me no matter how much we change. And if I can feel so fiercely protective of Thea, I must have the ability to care for other people, too.
Fine, I think, but this isn’t helping me come up with a plan.
I’d love to talk to Thea and find out if she’s all right, but I don’t have a secure way to reach her. Anything I plan now needs to be kept from Berg if I’m going to have any chance of beating him, which brings me back to Burnham.
He set up a dark web Tor site so I could reach him securely if I needed to, and that’s exactly the situation I’m in now. When I consider how devoted Burnham has always been to discovering what Berg’s up to, it reassures me somewhat. Despite our turbid chemistry, I can count on Burnham. I’m probably making too big a deal out of the kiss, anyway. Could be he doesn’t even remember it.
At the next chance of a turn, I ease off the main highway onto a narrow, unpaved road and head north. My headlights bounce over the gravel, and phantom bushes fly past my windows, but I hold the jittery wheel steady until I find a decent place to pull over. I turn off the ignition, and in the quiet, the gravel road gleams a ghostly, pale line through the dark desert brush.
I dig into a satchel for Freddy’s tablet, doubtful I’ll even get a connection here, but after a moment of a searching signal, I get a Google window.
Yes.
I check Facebook and look up Peggy’s profile. Her latest post says, The idiot is gone. Nothing about my parents. It’s disheartening, and I shiver, thinking of Ian on the loose again.
I pull up the Tor site Burnham created when I was with him in Atlanta and type in our passcode, Waffles67. A string of messages pops up, and I feel a jolt of surprise. They’re from Burnham, and the first is time-stamped from last night.
From: BurnFist51
To: LKRose
Sent: Sat 3/26/67 8:59 PM
Subject: Hey
I’m finally back up. Berg’s virus totally fried my computer. I had to buy a new one. Call me. 404-484-1223. The line’s secure.
From: BurnFist51
To: LKRose
Sent: Sat 3/26/67 9:14 PM
Subject: FW: Hey
Are you there?
From: BurnFist51
To: LKRose
Sent: Sat 3/26/67 9:23 PM
Subject: FW: Hey
Reply if this reaches you.
From: BurnFist51
To: LKRose
Sent: Sat 3/26/67 9:32 PM
Subject: FW: Hey
I get it. You’re not online yet. It’ll prolly take you a while to get to a computer. I’m not going to panic. Call me as soon as you can. Waffles says hi.
From: BurnFist51
To: LKRose
Sent: Sun 3/27/67 6:06 AM
Subject: FW: Hey
I just saw Berg on the Forge Show like nothing’s wrong. Where are you? Don’t be dead. That would be uncool.
From: BurnFist51
To: LKRose
Sent: Sun 3/27/67 10:34 AM
Subject: FW: Hey
The now is miserable.
Burnham once professed that he didn’t worry because it made the now miserable, but clearly I’ve pushed him over the edge. I scramble for one of my new, recyclable phones and pull off the wrapper. Please have a signal, I think. I punch in Burnham’s number and listen to the rings. What time is it in Atlanta? Before I can calculate time zones, the connection comes on.
“Hello?” he asks.
I bolt up in my seat, smiling. “So you do worry after all.”
“I’ll be,” he says in his Southern drawl. “You’re not dead.”
I shake my head, clutching the phone hard. Hearing his voice twists me up because he sounds so close. A thrum of wind surrounds the car, and the desert outside my windows is impossibly vast and dark. “Nope,” I say.
“Don’t do that again,” he says. There’s a fumbling noise like he’s arranging something, maybe reaching for his glasses or shifting his brace. “Where are you?” he asks.
“About an hour west of Doli. I’m in my car, by the side of the road,” I say. I glance out the window. “In the desert.”
“Alone?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re really okay? Berg didn’t hurt you at all? It sounded bad when I got cut off.”
“I’m okay,” I say. “I was able to jab a couple syringes into him and dose him with sleep meds. That was fun.” I explain how I escaped, and how my friend Thea had her baby down in the tunnel. “Berg kept her prisoner down there.”
“That guy is seriously twisted,” Burnham says. “But now, who’s Thea?”
I’m startled to realize I’ve never told him about her. I didn’t really know who she was myself when I visited him in Atlanta. It’s tempting now to tell him the whole story, but I have a sneaking suspicion he’ll want to tell his parents, which would not be good. Besides, I should check with Thea before I divulge what’s basically her health history. Come to think of it, I really should have checked with Thea before I told Peggy about her, too.
“Thea’s a friend of mine from way back,” I improvise. “We’re really close, actually, and she showed up at Linus’s house looking for me. She’s normally in Texas with her family, and I really need to talk to her and find out how she is, but I don’t have a safe way to call her. In fact, I haven’t been in touch with anybody ’til now.”
“No problem,” he says. “I can send her a recyclable phone and give you the number. Do you still have one yourself?”
“I have one left,” I say.
“Then what else? What else do you need?”
He is truly such a nice guy, and it feels so good to have his support.
“I have to find my parents and my sister,” I say. “Berg said they’re in Las Vegas, and he pretty much promised to kidnap them if I didn’t let him mine me.”