Not that any of this is his fault. I'm just so tired that I don't want to deal with anything. I want to go inside, curl up, and take a nap. But we can't. In one week, every kid in Baton Rouge will be dead, including Sam's little brother. I don't even know whether Sam told his dad about Rafe. Would that change John's mind? Possibly?
I have no idea.
I flog my tired brain. My problems are gas for the truck, and finding Sam, because I need him. I've got to tell him how I feel and convince him I don't need space. I only want him.
Solutions. Come on, brain. Work. Frank and Paul had extra gas in the vans, but it won't help us now. They've already left. My uncle had some extra, but he took it. Even if we find Sam, he won't know where the Defense trucks are anymore.
“We'll steal some gas,” Wesley says. “My dad has some in his garage, I think. I'll risk that even, but again, we are not taking John Roth's car.”
One problem solved! I smile and lean against Wesley. “Fine.” He wraps one arm around me to keep me from falling over. It's good to have a best friend, but I wish I was leaning on Sam instead. I need to open my eyes so we can get moving, but it feels so good to close them. Just for a moment, to pretend nothing is wrong. My body relaxes and I'm almost asleep.
“Looks like you're enjoying your space,” Sam says.
I shove away from Wesley, stumble over the curb and fall flat on my bottom. In a mud puddle. Sam leans down and offers me a hand, but I wave him off. He looks far too put together in jeans, a black shirt and a dark jacket, with a backpack slung over his shoulders. I've been imagining him suffering in a cell, when he was clearly taking a shower and freshening up. Me on the other hand, I'm wearing the same clothes I've had on for days, now coated in mud.
I refuse both of the offered hands and stand up without help.
“Actually,” Wesley says. “We were brainstorming how to come break you out of a cell. We aren't quite the brain trust of tactical maneuvers you might have hoped for, as it turns out. It appears you took that one off our plate before we could swoop in to save you.”
“What were your ideas?” Sam asks.
“Well, Ruby thought we should threaten your dad,” Wesley says. “Tell him WPN demands the release of its head of Defense.”
“And your idea?” Sam asks.
“Actually, I hadn't had one yet. But she had a fall back. I was going to sneak back into my own house and do some recon on where you were being kept. Then Ruby thought she could pelt the window with pebbles until you broke yourself free. Which is sort of what happened, minus the recon and the pebbles.”
I wipe my muddy hands on the red truck. It makes a mess on the truck and my hands don't look any cleaner. So basically, it was as good an idea as I’ve had tonight.
Sam says, “Good plans. I'm impressed.”
“Oh, shut up Mr. Perfect,” I say. “We've been focused on other stuff, like figuring out where to go next.”
“And where are we headed?” Sam asks. “Galveston? Or Republican City?”
I want to throw my arms around him as tightly as I can and never let go. I want to tell him I don't want any space between us now or ever, but Wesley's a foot away, and it doesn't seem like the right time. Also, I need to change my pants. A shower wouldn't be the worst thing.
“Neither,” Wesley says. “Nebraska.”
Sam rolls his eyes.
“Republican City's the town in Nebraska where we lived,” I explain to Wesley.
Sam grins. “I think that's the right call. If there was any information in Galveston, you'd have heard it from Solomon or seen it yourself. I don't think you'd find any answers there.”
I don’t point out that it took me an hour to come to the same conclusion he just reached in three seconds.
“I'm going to go change,” I say, “but we need gas if we're taking this truck that far.”
Sam shakes his head. “We're not taking my brother’s junker. I have a much better idea.”
I raise one eyebrow. “Wesley won't steal your dad's Range Rover. I already asked.”
Sam whistles. “Wow, that's a monumentally bad idea sunshine. Besides, Range Rovers break down regularly and parts are impossible to find. My dad’s an idiot for driving it. No, I thought we'd take Port Gibson's tactical ops vehicle.”
“The Land Cruiser?” Wesley asks. “It's hidden and you can't possibly know where.”
Sam shakes his head. “Can't possibly? I spent the last few hours in the Mayor's house. I bit my tongue while my dad alternated between yelling at me and interrogating me. I swallowed my pride and apologized to him every time I could see he wanted me to. When he finally went to bed, I broke into your dad's safe. Pathetic security measures, by the way. I stole the location, and it’s close enough that we can hike to it easily.”
This time I do hug Sam. “I'm so glad you're back.”
His whispered words tug at my heart. “You weren't going to leave without me, were you?”
“I didn't know what to do. I'm so tired.” I lean my head against his chest.
“Go change and we'll go get the Land Cruiser. Then you can sleep.”
“Aren't you tired?”
“I'll be fine.” Sam pulls back and I reluctantly walk back to the house to change.
“Do I have time for a shower?” I ask.
“Wesley can catch me up while we wait,” Sam says.
One cold shower and a pair of dry pants later, I'm much more awake as I run down the stairs. Wesley and I follow Sam out of town, leaving via the same blind spot Uncle Dan showed us before.
“If you know about these, why not deal with them?” I ask.
“For exactly this reason,” Sam says.
Wesley says, “Ah yes. You leave the weaknesses in our defenses so people can steal town resources to attempt a rash cross country trip in the vain hope of locating evidence that will lead us to the man who stole a hacker virus that might save your long lost little brother. That makes a lot of sense.”
“Have I told you lately,” Sam says, “how much I enjoy your company, Wesley?”
“I don't think you have.” Wesley grins. “But it's always good to have a fan.”
At least the sarcasm's better than the sniping. It keeps me awake until we reach the Land Cruiser, which is right where Sam said it would be. Wesley climbs into the backseat without comment, and I open the door on the passenger side.
I stay awake long enough to hand Sam the map, take off my coat, and ball it up by Sam's thigh. Sam stretches his jacket out over me, and buckles my seatbelt.
When I finally wake up to the sound of a chainsaw, the sun's already high in the sky.
I rub my eyes. “How long did I sleep?” Once I look around, I realize no one's in the car to hear my question, much less answer it. I smooth out my jacket and slide my arms into it, because it's gotten much chillier. I stretch and look around.
Sam's moving a tree trunk, the muscles rippling in his back as he drags Wesley along with it. I've been there, dragged along and feeling useless. I open the car door and the cold air hits me like a wall, stabbing my lungs as I take a deep breath. I grab Sam’s coat and jog over to take it to him.
“Where are we?” I ask.
Wesley grins at me. “You're awake.”
Sam scowls. “I told you the chain saw would wake her up.”
“And I told you the truth. We weren't going to move this trunk without cutting it.”
“I feel great.” I hand Sam his coat. “I want to help.”
“Tell him to sleep, then,” Wesley says. “Or he's going to pass out and kill us all.”
I snort. “Sam, even you need to sleep sometime.”
Sam nods. “I told them I would when you woke up.”
“Wait, who's them? Or is Wesley finally acknowledging his other personalities?”
I turn around to see Rhonda waving at me from behind the wheel of our WPN jeep. I breathe a sigh of relief. We met up with them, and the sun is high. It's been at least seven hours. Now if one of our cars dies or
gets stuck, we can still get back.
Sam jogs around the car to the passenger side, since he's not driving anymore, and I follow him over. He reaches for the handle, and I step even closer. Mere inches separate us.
Sam says, “You're driving, right?”
I nod.
“Great, but Dan and Job are going to take point.”
His breath warms my face, and I struggle to think clearly. “Why? You think I can't navigate?”
“You can't clear most of these limbs and trees, even with Wesley's help.”
“Oh,” I say.
Sam whispers. “I'm trying to give you space sunshine, but you're making it hard.”
“What if I don't want space?”
Sam's eyes search mine slowly, almost in a daze, and I realize just how tired he is. This isn't the time, not yet. “You need to sleep. We can talk later.”
He grins at me. “We will. And as soon as we hit snow, you wake me up.”
I pull the car door open and slide inside. He follows behind me as I scoot over to the driver's side. “We haven't hit any yet?”
Wesley's already sitting in the back seat. “We've been lucky, or so Sam says. I slept through a few hours of it.”
I look around us, but I don't see anything that identifies our road. “You never answered. Where are we? How long did I sleep?”
“We're on Interstate 40, almost to Fort Smith in Arkansas. We've been driving for nearly ten hours, which is pretty good considering we had to stop about a dozen times in the last hour.”
But we have at least another ten hours to go, and the roads are only going to worsen. As far as we know, no one really lives up here. In spite of the weather and disuse of the roads, the drive passes uneventfully. Sometimes we go fifty miles without needing to stop. Sometimes we stop a dozen times in a mile. Since I'm not clearing the road, I do a lot of sitting.
A few hours in, I glance back and realize Wesley's asleep, too. Probably for the best.
It's sleeting when we reach Wichita, and I shake Sam.
He sits upright immediately, eyes alert.
“Sorry,” I say. “I didn't want to wake you up, but it's sleeting. I figured you'd count that as snow.”
Sam's eyes look more green than golden when they first meet mine. His dad's are such a bright golden color, and Rafe's are pure green. I wonder what his mother's looked like.
He yawns. “I'm glad you did.”
I pull over on the side of the road and Sam jumps out of the car. He doesn't even shiver when he jogs up to talk to Uncle Dan, his breath puffing out in a big white cloud as he speaks.
Wesley stretches and yawns as well. “Sorry I fell asleep again.”
I shake my head. “I was fine and I'm glad you did. It's not quite the same in the car as it is in a bed. It's been a long few days, and I doubt it's going to get easier. We should all sleep whenever we can.”
When Sam comes back, he jogs around to the driver's side. I slide over so he can get back in.
“We're taking point again,” Sam says. “Hope you brought a rain coat, Wes. It's cold out there.”
We're still at least an hour away when the sun begins to set. “It's a miracle we haven't hit any real weather yet,” I say. “Right?”
Sam sighs. “Coincidence, luck, whatever you want to call it. Sure, it's a practically a miracle.”
Thirty minutes later, we turn off 81 onto 24 and our luck runs out. It's not snowing, but piles of snow lie in drifts all over. The jeep gets stuck just before the turn onto 36. It takes Sam, Dan, Wesley and Job nearly an hour to get it out. When the boys climb back in the car, they're shivering and Wesley's lips are blue.
“Maybe we should take one car,” I say. “If this one's better, we can all pile up?”
“It was plain bad luck they got stuck,” Sam says. “I think these cars are evenly matched, so we're better off if we keep going with two in case one of them suffers any real damage.”
I nod. “Okay.”
When we reroute to avoid crossing the dam on county road 1815, the jeep gets stuck twice, and our Land Cruiser gets stuck once, too. Finally, when the Land Cruiser lodges high center on a drift right before West Road, on the 706 past Naponee, even all four boys together can't get us out again.
“It's only a few miles from here,” Uncle Dan says. “Let's take the Jeep.”
“I'll go in the back,” I say. “I don't mind.”
We move most of the remaining gas and supplies from the Jeep into the beached Land Cruiser. “Maybe we can get it on the way back out,” Sam says. “But you don't need to breathe all those fumes back there.”
The last few miles take us past fields and roads I vaguely remember. When we finally turn down Cedar Point Road, I try to recall the visits I made here with my dad. I think about why he bought this place, the real reason. To hide me away from my birth parents. We may finally find out what kind of awful person would sell Tercera to a foreign government just to make a buck, and possibly the identity of my dad's true murderer.
My heart races and my hands tingle.
Uncle Dan's driving with Job sitting shotgun. Sam, Rhonda and Wesley all sit on the back seat.
Sam turns and takes my hand. “Are you cold?”
I shake my head.
“You're shivering.”
I can barely talk past the lump in my throat. “Nervous.”
Sam reaches his whole arm over the seat and wraps it around my shoulders. “You're okay.”
I want to talk to Sam about us so at least one thing in my life is solid, but I can't. Not with Wesley and Rhonda ten inches away, and Job pretending not to notice, but periodically glancing back at us.
Job finally says, “Are you two broken up or not? I can't keep up, and frankly you're acting super weird right now.”
Wesley smirks. “You aren't the only one who's confused, but I’m thinking they may be waiting to DTR when we aren’t all in the car staring at them.”
“DTR?” Rhonda asks.
“You know, define their relationship. It’ll go something like this.” Wesley adopts a falsetto. “Oh, Samuel, your arms are so big and so strong and I need them in my life. I just love to rub them.”
Sam frowns, but my heart lifts a little.
Wesley continues, this time sticking his lips out and talking gruffly. “But my love muffin, buff arms are not enough. You need to want me for my brains, too. How else will I trust you won’t leave me for that guy with the amazing hair who makes you laugh?”
Sam’s shoulder stiffens. “This is—”
Wesley cuts him off in his falsetto. “Because, my big hunk of a meathead. Even with his fabulous hair and hilarious mannerisms, all I can think about is you. Just kiss me already and we can make up.”
I giggle, my stress and anxiety melting away. I can’t help it, and I notice Sam’s grinning too. Wesley’s so stupid, but we needed something stupid. Some kind of distraction from the anxiety.
I smack Wes on the shoulder as Uncle Dan pulls into the driveway. The headlights on the Jeep cast eerie shadows across the red log cabin and the big white barn, but they both appear intact. I wait for everyone else to climb out, and slide over the seat. We all scramble over dirty piles of snow, and scraggly, dead vegetation to reach the front door.
Uncle Dan tries the knob, but it's locked.
Sam shoulders his way past my uncle and rams the door twice without success. Thankfully it gives way on the third slam.
“I guess I know who to thank for the shattered hinges at home,” Uncle Dan mutters.
Sam shrugs. “It’s already fixed.”
“You owe Mr. Nyugen a favor,” Uncle Dan says.
I can't help my snort. “Told you he was going to be pissed.”
Job hands me a flashlight as I near the front door. “There will be animals inside, Ruby. Every building with a roof that hasn’t collapsed will house a plethora of wild residents.”
Sam says, “I can clear them out first, but it might take a while.”
The wind gusts
cut through my jacket like a thousand frozen needles. “I'll take my chances. I might freeze solid if I wait.”
Sam checks the basement, Uncle Dan takes the bedrooms, and Rhonda and Job look in the family room and kitchen. Wesley shines his flashlight on my face. “I'm the only one who hasn't ever been here. Where should we look that they aren't already checking?”
“It’s not a very big place. The barn and garage are the only places left, and paperwork wouldn’t be in the barn. We only kept animals in there.”
“Lead me to the garage, then.” He waves his flashlight at me and bows with flourishy hands.
An opossum lives in the garage. I don't scream, but the bones in Wesley's hand grind a little when I squeeze them.
“Sorry.” I shine my light at Wesley's face. “That scared me, but I didn't mean to grab you so hard. Are you okay?”
Wesley grimaces. “It's a good thing your boy has super healing powers.”
I roll my eyes, not that he can see it. We displace another furry something, but at least there aren't cockroaches this far north. Or I don't remember seeing any when we lived here.
“Here's a box.” Wesley pulls a rectangular shape out from under a pile of cans.
I shine my light inside it eagerly, but it sadly contains years and years of tax returns.
“Who's Russell Charzewski?” Wesley asks.
“Look at the address,” I say. “It's for this house and those are super old. I'm guessing they've been here since before my dad bought it.”
He sighs. “Yeah, probably so.”
I knock over a box of screws, trip on an extension cord, and search through a bin full of snow boots, displacing a nest of mice.
“I think we either need to wait until morning,” Wesley says, “or call it good in here.”
I sigh. “I'm glad some living things are thriving, but if I'm being honest, I'm sick to death of finding critters all over.”
“It's dry in here and warmer away from the wind. I can't really blame them.”
I walk toward the stairs back up to the door into the house, and stumble on something. I shine my light down hopefully.
“An air pump.” Wesley says.
I roll my eyes toward the ceiling, and that's when I see it thanks to Wesley's bobbing flashlight. Wedged between the top shelf of a metal storage rack and a light fixture rests a black leather briefcase.
Sins of Our Ancestors Boxed Set Page 66
