Sam urged me behind him. “You’ll have to go through me first.”
I gulped down fresh air, trying to cool the burning in my lungs, ease the tightening of my insides.
“Fine,” Riley said as he turned the gun on Sam. Sam launched himself in Riley’s direction and kicked out a foot, forcing Riley’s knee to bend in an unnatural way. Something cracked. Riley cried out as Sam wrapped one hand around Riley’s gun, the other around his wrist.
The second agent started for me.
I scanned the alley for a weapon. A few cardboard boxes were broken down and stacked behind one store. Plastic crates towered near a Dumpster. Broken garden urns lay on their sides behind the home-goods store. That was as close to a weapon as I could get.
I ran, picked up too much speed, and skidded across the rocky concrete when I tried to stop. I went down on one leg, sliding over the ground, gravel biting through the material of my jeans. I reached for the urns, scooping up a chunk of broken plaster.
The man grabbed me by the ankle, yanked me around. Riley growled somewhere behind us. I rocked back on my free hand and kicked up with my other leg, catching the man in the kidney. He doubled over. I leapt to my feet and swung down with the chunk of urn, connecting with the back of his head. The flesh split open, and blood gurgled up like springwater as he crumpled to the ground.
Sam clipped Riley with an uppercut. Riley flew backward, slamming into the Dumpster. Sam was immediately on him again. He grabbed a chunk of hair with his left hand and clocked Riley with his right.
Riley went limp. Sam aimed the gun at him.
“No! Don’t. Please.”
Sam looked over a shoulder. “Anna,” he said, making my name sound like an exasperated sigh.
“Please.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” I knew Riley personally, and even though he was ready to take my life, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to cross that line. “Please,” I said again, “don’t.”
Sam let the gun drop. “Check him.” He nodded at the man behind me. “ID. Keys. Weapons.”
I checked the man’s pockets, watching the rise and fall of his chest. I found a wallet, a set of zip ties, and keys. I handed the items to Sam. He’d taken Riley’s belongings, too, and tossed everything into one of the nearby Dumpsters.
We ran around front and Sam slowed while he called the others. “You guys all right? We had to backtrack.” He paused. “Meet me at the car.”
To me he said, “You okay? Can you keep moving?”
I nodded, even though running was the last thing I wanted to do. I was not as resolute as Sam. I couldn’t fight people, people I knew, people I thought I trusted, and keep going. I couldn’t bury everything and pretend that any of this was okay. Riley had pointed a gun at me. Would Connor have done the same thing? And Dad? What would he have done if he were here?
“I’m good,” I said. Because it was Sam. I wanted to prove that I could stand next to him when things got bad.
As we crossed in front of the bookstore, a gray car squealed into the parking lot. Rubber burned against the pavement as the car turned in our direction.
“Is that—”
“Go.” Sam pushed me toward the Jeep.
The gray sedan cut left, racing across the parking lot, parallel to us. The other boys burst from the sporting-goods store on my right. We converged, Cas ahead of me, Trev next to me, Sam and Nick in the back. I tried to count my breaths, to control the tightness in my lungs.
The sedan whipped down the parking lot aisle as we darted across it. Our vehicle sat three rows away. We weren’t going to make it.
Brakes screeched behind us. I looked back but Nick urged me on. Footsteps pounded after us. Cas reached the Jeep first. Sam tossed him the keys and Cas snatched them from the air before sliding in behind the wheel. Trev ripped up on the back door handle. Nick rushed to the passenger side.
“Get the girl first!” someone shouted.
My throat constricted. The footsteps closed in as Sam rounded to the other side of the Jeep. I clambered inside. Trev fumbled in behind me. A hand snaked in at the last second and I screeched as one of the agents tangled his fingers in my hair, yanking me back. Sam wrapped an arm around my waist.
“Go! Go!” Nick yelled.
Cas jammed the vehicle into drive.
My head felt like it was on fire, the hair ripping from my scalp.
Trev hoisted the gun bag from the floorboard and swung it at the agent. The bag hit him and he lost both his grip and his footing. He stumbled backward. Cas punched the gas and the vehicle shot forward. Trev slammed the door shut.
“You idiot!” Nick screamed. “You lost the guns!”
“They had Anna!” Trev fired back. “It was the only thing I had close by.”
I blocked out the argument as Sam pulled me toward him, tucking me in close to his side. The fear crowded out the pain in my leg and in my head.
Five minutes ago, he’d asked me if I was okay. Five minutes ago, the real answer had been no. But we’d narrowly missed capture, and in this new life, that seemed as much like success as anything.
Was I okay? I was as okay as I was going to be, and here, so close to him, feeling the rise of his chest, I felt safe. I was devastatingly thankful and relieved that I was here, with him, and not left behind in the parking lot with Connor’s men. They were not the good guys like I thought, like Dad had taught me. Connor, Riley, the Branch. How could I have been so stupid to trust in them?
“Thank you,” I said to Sam and Trev, the words coming out muffled.
“We wouldn’t have left without you,” Sam said.
And I believed him.
19
IN THE HOUR IT TOOK US TO REACH the cabin, Sam never moved. I pushed closer, finding a comfortable niche in the crook of his arm. His right hand was splayed over his leg, and I traced the curve of his long fingers with my eyes, the sharp edges of his knuckles, wondering what it would feel like to take his hand in mine. I wanted him to anchor me to the real world. I felt disconnected from everything.
The words Is this happening? kept spiraling through my head.
I had been so sure of my life and Sam’s role in it back at the lab. Maybe I’d spent every single day pining for him, wanting his attention and his affection, but I knew that glass wall would never move.
Now here I was, pressed against him again, and I was having a hard time separating how I felt about the Sam of my past and the Sam here in the present. They were the same person, obviously, but liking the Sam of my past was safe. Liking the Sam of now wasn’t.
He could escape from a locked room with only straws and tape. He’d killed people right in front of me. How could I have feelings for someone like that? And what did it say about me if I did?
Cas pulled into the driveway and stopped. Sam opened his door and slipped out. Immediately I missed him. Nick followed quickly behind.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
Cas drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. “Checking the house.”
Right. I hadn’t thought about that. If Riley had found us in that shopping mall, how long would it be till he found the cabin?
I watched Sam disappear into the woods to the right of the driveway. One minute he was there, slinking through the trees, and the next minute he was gone. It felt like I held my breath the entire time. When Trev’s cell chirped from his pocket a few minutes later, I jerked in surprise.
“Everything clear?” Trev asked. “All right.” He ended the call, then slid the phone back into his pocket. “We’re good.”
I exhaled in relief.
Thanks to Nick, a fire was already crackling when we walked into the house. I folded myself into one of the easy chairs, tucking my legs beneath me. The heat felt good, but it made my torn-up leg burn more. It wasn’t too bad, as far as scrapes went, but it was still annoying. Plus, my brand-new jeans were already ruined.
“Let’s talk about the guns,” Nick said once we were grouped in the living room.
The room went icily still. I had the overwhelming urge to back into a corner, far from the others. It was partially because of me that the guns had been lost.
Sam leaned a shoulder against the wall near the windows, his eyes downcast. “We can’t go without guns. I know you were protecting Anna,” he said to Trev, “but it’s left us vulnerable.”
Trev scratched at the back of his head. “I’m sorry. It was the first and only thing I saw that I could use.”
Nick rose to his full six feet plus. “How about unzipping the goddamn bag and, I don’t know, using one of the guns!”
“Hey, come on.” Cas stepped into the middle of the argument, arms outstretched, as if he meant to hold Nick back, despite their four-inch height difference. “We can get more guns. Right, Sammy?”
Everyone turned to Sam and his shoulders sank an inch. “Yes, but it’s not in the budget, and going around asking about guns is only going to draw more attention.”
“We have a budget?” I asked. The boys ignored me.
Cas gestured toward Sam with a quick lift of his chin. “How many bullets we got?”
Sam was the only one with a gun now. He retrieved it from beneath his new coat and removed the magazine. “A full ten.”
“Not going to get us very far,” Nick said. A few rogue curls stuck out from behind his ears. It wasn’t fair that he could look so good after going so long without a shower. He had that perfect kind of wavy, bordering-on-curly hair that looked presentable even when unwashed. Silently I wondered if he was dying without his organic shampoo. I hoped so.
Trev scrubbed his face with his hands. “I’m sorry I tossed the guns, but guns are a liability, anyway. We can get by without them.”
“Don’t be a f**king idiot.” Nick propped himself up with a hand on the fireplace mantel. “We can’t go without weapons. Ever.”
“So what now?” Cas said.
Sam pushed away from the wall. “Now we go find some guns.”
We stuck to back roads on the way to the seedier part of Whittier, in case Riley or Connor was around. Staying so close to the town where they had found us was dangerous. It was only a matter of time before we’d have to leave, and I dreaded the idea. I liked Sam’s cabin.
Sam parked in front of an empty flower shop and got out, everyone but me following. They grouped at the front of the vehicle, their voices hushed and urgent. A few minutes later they broke apart, and Sam came to the passenger-side door. I opened it.
“So, where are we going?”
“We are not going anywhere. You are staying with Cas.”
Cas cocked his head to the side and gave me an innocent look. “You were voted in as my babysitter. Sorry.”
I snorted, knowing it was really the other way around. Better him than Nick, though.
After the others left, following the draw of loud rock music to the bar it blared from, Cas turned to me. “You got me for sixty long minutes. What do you say we get to know each other better?”
I screwed up my mouth. “Very funny.”
“I kid, I kid.” He laughed, the sound reminding me of so many moments shared in our basement, of Cas goading me from the other side of his glass wall. He was a pain in the butt, but he was also extremely easygoing.
“Actually, I’m starving.”
He dug in his coat pocket. “I have… seven dollars. Want to see if we can find something close by?”
“Please.”
“You got it, babe.”
We set out on foot and found a gas station a few blocks away. Inside, the hum of the fluorescent lights felt oddly comforting, like I’d stepped out of one world and into another I knew well. We each grabbed a cola, but we decided to share an egg-salad sandwich.
Two blocks away, we found a little marina that butted up against a large lake that faded into the darkness. Since it was mid-October, most of the boat slips were empty, but tiny green lights still glowed on the end of each dock.
I gulped down fresh air, trying to cool the burning in my lungs, ease the tightening of my insides.
“Fine,” Riley said as he turned the gun on Sam. Sam launched himself in Riley’s direction and kicked out a foot, forcing Riley’s knee to bend in an unnatural way. Something cracked. Riley cried out as Sam wrapped one hand around Riley’s gun, the other around his wrist.
The second agent started for me.
I scanned the alley for a weapon. A few cardboard boxes were broken down and stacked behind one store. Plastic crates towered near a Dumpster. Broken garden urns lay on their sides behind the home-goods store. That was as close to a weapon as I could get.
I ran, picked up too much speed, and skidded across the rocky concrete when I tried to stop. I went down on one leg, sliding over the ground, gravel biting through the material of my jeans. I reached for the urns, scooping up a chunk of broken plaster.
The man grabbed me by the ankle, yanked me around. Riley growled somewhere behind us. I rocked back on my free hand and kicked up with my other leg, catching the man in the kidney. He doubled over. I leapt to my feet and swung down with the chunk of urn, connecting with the back of his head. The flesh split open, and blood gurgled up like springwater as he crumpled to the ground.
Sam clipped Riley with an uppercut. Riley flew backward, slamming into the Dumpster. Sam was immediately on him again. He grabbed a chunk of hair with his left hand and clocked Riley with his right.
Riley went limp. Sam aimed the gun at him.
“No! Don’t. Please.”
Sam looked over a shoulder. “Anna,” he said, making my name sound like an exasperated sigh.
“Please.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” I knew Riley personally, and even though he was ready to take my life, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to cross that line. “Please,” I said again, “don’t.”
Sam let the gun drop. “Check him.” He nodded at the man behind me. “ID. Keys. Weapons.”
I checked the man’s pockets, watching the rise and fall of his chest. I found a wallet, a set of zip ties, and keys. I handed the items to Sam. He’d taken Riley’s belongings, too, and tossed everything into one of the nearby Dumpsters.
We ran around front and Sam slowed while he called the others. “You guys all right? We had to backtrack.” He paused. “Meet me at the car.”
To me he said, “You okay? Can you keep moving?”
I nodded, even though running was the last thing I wanted to do. I was not as resolute as Sam. I couldn’t fight people, people I knew, people I thought I trusted, and keep going. I couldn’t bury everything and pretend that any of this was okay. Riley had pointed a gun at me. Would Connor have done the same thing? And Dad? What would he have done if he were here?
“I’m good,” I said. Because it was Sam. I wanted to prove that I could stand next to him when things got bad.
As we crossed in front of the bookstore, a gray car squealed into the parking lot. Rubber burned against the pavement as the car turned in our direction.
“Is that—”
“Go.” Sam pushed me toward the Jeep.
The gray sedan cut left, racing across the parking lot, parallel to us. The other boys burst from the sporting-goods store on my right. We converged, Cas ahead of me, Trev next to me, Sam and Nick in the back. I tried to count my breaths, to control the tightness in my lungs.
The sedan whipped down the parking lot aisle as we darted across it. Our vehicle sat three rows away. We weren’t going to make it.
Brakes screeched behind us. I looked back but Nick urged me on. Footsteps pounded after us. Cas reached the Jeep first. Sam tossed him the keys and Cas snatched them from the air before sliding in behind the wheel. Trev ripped up on the back door handle. Nick rushed to the passenger side.
“Get the girl first!” someone shouted.
My throat constricted. The footsteps closed in as Sam rounded to the other side of the Jeep. I clambered inside. Trev fumbled in behind me. A hand snaked in at the last second and I screeched as one of the agents tangled his fingers in my hair, yanking me back. Sam wrapped an arm around my waist.
“Go! Go!” Nick yelled.
Cas jammed the vehicle into drive.
My head felt like it was on fire, the hair ripping from my scalp.
Trev hoisted the gun bag from the floorboard and swung it at the agent. The bag hit him and he lost both his grip and his footing. He stumbled backward. Cas punched the gas and the vehicle shot forward. Trev slammed the door shut.
“You idiot!” Nick screamed. “You lost the guns!”
“They had Anna!” Trev fired back. “It was the only thing I had close by.”
I blocked out the argument as Sam pulled me toward him, tucking me in close to his side. The fear crowded out the pain in my leg and in my head.
Five minutes ago, he’d asked me if I was okay. Five minutes ago, the real answer had been no. But we’d narrowly missed capture, and in this new life, that seemed as much like success as anything.
Was I okay? I was as okay as I was going to be, and here, so close to him, feeling the rise of his chest, I felt safe. I was devastatingly thankful and relieved that I was here, with him, and not left behind in the parking lot with Connor’s men. They were not the good guys like I thought, like Dad had taught me. Connor, Riley, the Branch. How could I have been so stupid to trust in them?
“Thank you,” I said to Sam and Trev, the words coming out muffled.
“We wouldn’t have left without you,” Sam said.
And I believed him.
19
IN THE HOUR IT TOOK US TO REACH the cabin, Sam never moved. I pushed closer, finding a comfortable niche in the crook of his arm. His right hand was splayed over his leg, and I traced the curve of his long fingers with my eyes, the sharp edges of his knuckles, wondering what it would feel like to take his hand in mine. I wanted him to anchor me to the real world. I felt disconnected from everything.
The words Is this happening? kept spiraling through my head.
I had been so sure of my life and Sam’s role in it back at the lab. Maybe I’d spent every single day pining for him, wanting his attention and his affection, but I knew that glass wall would never move.
Now here I was, pressed against him again, and I was having a hard time separating how I felt about the Sam of my past and the Sam here in the present. They were the same person, obviously, but liking the Sam of my past was safe. Liking the Sam of now wasn’t.
He could escape from a locked room with only straws and tape. He’d killed people right in front of me. How could I have feelings for someone like that? And what did it say about me if I did?
Cas pulled into the driveway and stopped. Sam opened his door and slipped out. Immediately I missed him. Nick followed quickly behind.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
Cas drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. “Checking the house.”
Right. I hadn’t thought about that. If Riley had found us in that shopping mall, how long would it be till he found the cabin?
I watched Sam disappear into the woods to the right of the driveway. One minute he was there, slinking through the trees, and the next minute he was gone. It felt like I held my breath the entire time. When Trev’s cell chirped from his pocket a few minutes later, I jerked in surprise.
“Everything clear?” Trev asked. “All right.” He ended the call, then slid the phone back into his pocket. “We’re good.”
I exhaled in relief.
Thanks to Nick, a fire was already crackling when we walked into the house. I folded myself into one of the easy chairs, tucking my legs beneath me. The heat felt good, but it made my torn-up leg burn more. It wasn’t too bad, as far as scrapes went, but it was still annoying. Plus, my brand-new jeans were already ruined.
“Let’s talk about the guns,” Nick said once we were grouped in the living room.
The room went icily still. I had the overwhelming urge to back into a corner, far from the others. It was partially because of me that the guns had been lost.
Sam leaned a shoulder against the wall near the windows, his eyes downcast. “We can’t go without guns. I know you were protecting Anna,” he said to Trev, “but it’s left us vulnerable.”
Trev scratched at the back of his head. “I’m sorry. It was the first and only thing I saw that I could use.”
Nick rose to his full six feet plus. “How about unzipping the goddamn bag and, I don’t know, using one of the guns!”
“Hey, come on.” Cas stepped into the middle of the argument, arms outstretched, as if he meant to hold Nick back, despite their four-inch height difference. “We can get more guns. Right, Sammy?”
Everyone turned to Sam and his shoulders sank an inch. “Yes, but it’s not in the budget, and going around asking about guns is only going to draw more attention.”
“We have a budget?” I asked. The boys ignored me.
Cas gestured toward Sam with a quick lift of his chin. “How many bullets we got?”
Sam was the only one with a gun now. He retrieved it from beneath his new coat and removed the magazine. “A full ten.”
“Not going to get us very far,” Nick said. A few rogue curls stuck out from behind his ears. It wasn’t fair that he could look so good after going so long without a shower. He had that perfect kind of wavy, bordering-on-curly hair that looked presentable even when unwashed. Silently I wondered if he was dying without his organic shampoo. I hoped so.
Trev scrubbed his face with his hands. “I’m sorry I tossed the guns, but guns are a liability, anyway. We can get by without them.”
“Don’t be a f**king idiot.” Nick propped himself up with a hand on the fireplace mantel. “We can’t go without weapons. Ever.”
“So what now?” Cas said.
Sam pushed away from the wall. “Now we go find some guns.”
We stuck to back roads on the way to the seedier part of Whittier, in case Riley or Connor was around. Staying so close to the town where they had found us was dangerous. It was only a matter of time before we’d have to leave, and I dreaded the idea. I liked Sam’s cabin.
Sam parked in front of an empty flower shop and got out, everyone but me following. They grouped at the front of the vehicle, their voices hushed and urgent. A few minutes later they broke apart, and Sam came to the passenger-side door. I opened it.
“So, where are we going?”
“We are not going anywhere. You are staying with Cas.”
Cas cocked his head to the side and gave me an innocent look. “You were voted in as my babysitter. Sorry.”
I snorted, knowing it was really the other way around. Better him than Nick, though.
After the others left, following the draw of loud rock music to the bar it blared from, Cas turned to me. “You got me for sixty long minutes. What do you say we get to know each other better?”
I screwed up my mouth. “Very funny.”
“I kid, I kid.” He laughed, the sound reminding me of so many moments shared in our basement, of Cas goading me from the other side of his glass wall. He was a pain in the butt, but he was also extremely easygoing.
“Actually, I’m starving.”
He dug in his coat pocket. “I have… seven dollars. Want to see if we can find something close by?”
“Please.”
“You got it, babe.”
We set out on foot and found a gas station a few blocks away. Inside, the hum of the fluorescent lights felt oddly comforting, like I’d stepped out of one world and into another I knew well. We each grabbed a cola, but we decided to share an egg-salad sandwich.
Two blocks away, we found a little marina that butted up against a large lake that faded into the darkness. Since it was mid-October, most of the boat slips were empty, but tiny green lights still glowed on the end of each dock.
