Silent Creek’s remote mountain location made it ideal for what Thom needed: hiding an entire camp of eternal teens from civilization. What had once been a thriving logging community had turned into a virtual ghost town when timber laws had changed decades earlier. Most of the locals fled, leaving only a handful of holdouts who’d refused to vacate the outlying areas. The decaying old church in the center of the small settlement had turned out to be the perfect operation center for the Returned.
During my time there, I’d only seen a single car pass through Silent Creek, which Natty said almost never happened, mostly because the place was so far off the beaten path. And since there were no stores or cafés or gas stations, not even a single latte stand, there were zero reasons to stop, even on those rare occasions when someone did stray their way.
And it hadn’t escaped my notice that up here, cocooned in the mountains the way we were, it felt somehow safer. I mean sure, Jett had to “jack” his internet connection, which I assume meant he’d illegally hacked into someone’s satellite service or something, and the closest groceries were some forty miles away at a convenience store where truckers and RVers stopped to stock up on energy drinks and chips while they filled their tanks, but at least we didn’t have the No-Suchers breathing down our necks.
Plus, the stars here were so bright they were practically fake, and yet every night they appeared, they sort-of-totally-absolutely took my breath away.
According to my calculations, and trust me, I’d done the calculations, the drive from the central Oregon camp to Tacoma should have taken somewhere along the lines of six hours. If I was being completely honest, I knew precisely how long it should’ve taken—you know, because of the calculations and all—six hours and seventeen minutes. And I’d planned to count down every last second on Jett’s watch.
But things didn’t go exactly as planned, and instead of taking just over six hours, we were closing in on eight and a half, none of which was because Willow had decided to take the scenic route. A mere fifteen minutes had been eaten up at a run-down little nothing of a gas station we’d stopped at to refuel. Simon had picked the stop because he doubted they had surveillance cameras the NSA could tap into. He was so certain, in fact, he even let us get out and stretch our legs while we waited. But fifteen minutes was nothing, no big deal.
The other hour-plus was taken up by the tire we’d blown in the middle of the winding two-lane mountain highway. I shouldn’t complain—we were lucky. One, Willow had mad driving skills and had somehow managed to keep us from crashing into the guardrail, or worse, from plummeting over the side and ending up in a fiery heap of scrap metal at the bottom of the mountain. And two, and significantly less dramatic, we’d had a spare. So we’d been able to change the flat.
And when I say we, I mean Willow and Simon. I was useless, mostly because there was no way Willow would ever have let me help, so I stood there watching, along with Jett, Natty, and Thom—who was still doing everything in his power to avoid everyone. Even Simon wasn’t a huge help, mostly just serving as Willow’s one-man pit crew, while she was the one who got her hands dirty.
But apparently our “spare” was just that, a temporary fix until we could get a replacement. When we finally made it to the next crappy little station—also presumably without cameras—Simon managed to procure us a not-necessarily-new but definitely-not-flat tire to get us back on the road again.
Every time Simon mentioned security cameras, my shoulders tensed up all over again. I didn’t want to admit it, but the closer we got to Tacoma, the more worried I became. But none of these things changed the countdown in my head.
The hours, the minutes, the seconds . . .
All potentially leading me to Tyler.
I might not be able to get back any of the time I’d lost during the five years I’d missed, but at least with Willow, who didn’t worry about such insignificant matters as speed limits or laws or anything like that, behind the wheel we might make up some of the time we’d lost on the road.
When we crossed the bridge over the Columbia River, I found my eyes glued to the sign indicating we were entering Washington—the state where I’d been born . . . the state Tyler had vanished from, and where I hoped to find him again.
As I glanced over my shoulder, I saw that Thom was still staring resentfully out the window, pretending there was some invisible barricade between him and us.
Super. Mature.
I turned back around to Natty, deciding enough was enough. “I don’t care what anyone thinks.” I made sure I was loud enough to be heard in both the front and the back seats. “I’m glad you decided to join us.”
Natty’s surprising hazel eyes got all huge and her cheeks flushed pink. “Um, thanks . . . ?” She hedged over her words, like even acknowledging my approval might keep her in the doghouse with Thom.
I twisted around again, this time to Thom. “You too,” I added, and now I was probably the one in trouble. I could practically feel Simon’s disapproval drilling into the back of my head. “Everyone’s acting so calm, like this is no big deal, but I’m freaking out. It makes me feel better you guys are here.”
Thom stopped staring out the window and faced me, and even though he didn’t actually answer me, his expression softened just the slightest bit and his nod said what he couldn’t. We were cool.
Jett was the first one to use real words. “I’m glad you’re here too,” he said, from the other side of Natty.
From the driver’s seat, Willow followed Thom’s lead and jerked her head in an almost nod while her eyes strayed briefly from the road to the rearview mirror. It was the closest to an acknowledgment that she didn’t at least hate me that I’d gotten from Willow.
Simon kept his mouth shut, but the second I caught him glancing my way, I made a face at him, letting him know what I thought of his ridiculous pigheadedness.