by Sophia Sharp
“It’s been the only home I’ve known,” she whispered.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… um, I’ve never told anyone this, but…”
“Yes?” I encouraged gently.
“I never really had a family growing up.”
I jolted upright. “What do you mean?”
“My dad left when I was four. I don’t remember him at all. My mom was working all the time. I was her only daughter. But I never saw her. She was a… um, a dancer. My earliest memories of her are her coming home drunk with her ‘special friends,’ as she called them. When I got up in the morning for school, she’d be asleep, and when I came home, she’d be out. She never spent any time with me.”
“That’s terrible!” My heart went out to her. I could never imagine growing up like that. My parents were the tightest-knit people I’d ever known, and they raised me exactly the same way. I couldn’t imagine not having that childhood stability growing up.
“I moved around a lot when I was younger, too,” she continued. “I changed elementary schools almost every year—sometimes, twice a year. My mom could never hold a stable job. When I was nine or ten, I tried running away from home…”
“And?” I prompted.
“I stayed at a shelter for three weeks before my mom even started to wonder where I was.”
“That’s horrible!” I said. Learning this about her was a revelation. It explained so much of her behavior, her personality.
“It wasn’t that bad,” she said. “I made friends for the first time when I was there, and I felt like there were people who cared about me.”
“And then what happened?”
“My mom came and took me home. She yelled at me and said that having me was the worst thing that ever happened to her. I cried and cried for days. That was… the last time I talked to her.”
“What do you mean?”
“She killed herself that week.”
“Madison!” I took her hands in mine. She wasn’t shaking, or even distraught. The whole time she spoke it was with a cool detachment. “I… I can’t even picture dealing with that. How did you get through it?”
“I managed,” she shrugged. “My teacher found out and let me stay with her. I didn’t want to go to school after that, so she home-schooled me for a few years. I learned fast, faster than anyone else. I finished the elementary school curriculum in a year and a half, and then I applied here. And I got in.”
“You got in? Did you go right away?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“Yes?” I did some quick math in my head. “Wait! So how old are you now?”
“I turned fifteen in August.”
“Fifteen! That means you’re two years younger than me!” Suddenly I saw Madison in a whole new light. Fifteen, and dealing with all of this? That was unbelievable.
“Yeah, I guess,” she said shyly. “But don’t tell the other girls! They don’t know.”
“I promise,” I said. “Madison, you’re amazing!” I genuinely meant it.
She giggled. “Nah. I don’t even know why I told you all that just now. Sometimes I feel… safe around you, you know? Sometimes it even feels like you’re my older sister.”
I smiled. “I always wanted a younger sibling.” I put my arm around her shoulder and brought her close to me. “Thank you for telling me all that. Can I ask a question? How come the other girls don’t know?”
“They were the only friends I ever had,” she explained. “When I met them, I wanted to fit in. I was afraid if they knew I was younger, they wouldn’t like me. And I just never mentioned it since.”
“Well, your secret’s safe with me,” I assured her. She was just fifteen! I couldn’t get over that fact. No wonder she felt so attached to Oliver Academy. It was the only thing that had ever been stable in her life. And what about the guilt she must have felt over her mother’s death? That would have consumed a weaker person! The girl was absolutely amazing. There was no doubt in my mind about that.
“Tracy?” she asked after a moment.
“Hmm?”
“I’m not going to let you down.”
I smiled, and began stroking her hair. “I won’t let you down either,” I promised. Madison was just a young girl. Our age difference was only two years. But, two years made a big difference at this age. A huge difference. It was astounding to think she’d fit in so well with all these girls before I arrived! “Come here.” I brought her into me and let her rest her head under my arm.
Madison as a little sister? I could live with that. And she felt safe around me, of all people? When I was the only one who was clearly targeted so far? Sometimes people surprised you. Madison had done just that. We were all frightened, all alone, but we had each other. Even if all the certainty in our lives was gone, we had our friendships. And Madison had revealed to me more about herself than I had ever known.
I felt her nestle in close to me, and I rested my head on top of hers. I closed my eyes, and let the gentle rock of the boat lull us both to sleep.
***
The boat lurched, jerking me awake. I opened my eyes. Everyone else was still asleep. I blinked. Something felt different. And then I realized that the boat wasn’t moving anymore.
I got up, easing Madison gently away, and went upstairs. When I opened the door, the bright rays of the sun shocked me with their luminescence. My eyes stung. I had to shield them with a hand as I made my way around the deck. John was kneeling at the side of the boat, tying it to a dock.
“Where are we?” I asked. I looked around at the land. It didn’t look like there was civilization for miles. It was just a long, empty shoreline that extended indefinitely either way. There was the dock, but nothing else.
“Shore,” he said simply.
“Where?” I prompted.
He looked at me, saw my confusion, and laughed. “An old estate. Nobody’s been here for generations. So, I thought it’d be a good place for us to land. We don’t want to draw any attention to ourselves. Right?”
“Right,” I said hesitantly. “But how are we going to get to Harvard from here?”
He pointed to the tree line, and I noticed a tiny path running from the dock. “We take that road for about five miles, and we’ll end up in a town called Forrester. From there, we can use the ATM to take out some cash. We should be able to rent a car from one of the locals and drive to Boston.”
“How long’s that going to take?”
“Maybe a day?” he answered. “The drive itself isn’t that bad, but the roads are unbelievably disorganized. It’s all too easy to take a wrong turn and get lost for miles. It’s wise to give ourselves some time to navigate all that.”
“And why do we need to take out cash?”
“Credit cards can easily be traced,” he said. “I don’t know who your enemies are, but I know that if they’re resourceful enough to get on Traven Island they’re resourceful enough to be able to track us. We don’t want to give them any easy leads.”
“Makes sense,” I said.
John finished the knot he was working on, and stood up. “Why don’t you wake the others? We’ve got a long road ahead of us.”
I descended to the lower deck to call everyone up. My friends woke up groggily, and filed out one by one. When Madison passed me, I gave her a secret smile and squeezed her arm. She beamed at me, and ran up the stairs before I knew it.
We tied the boat behind us and started the journey along the path. The walk to town didn’t take long, maybe an hour, but I discovered that my shoes had been destroyed by the rain last night. To make things worse, I had new blisters all over my feet. It made for an unpleasant trek. At least the weather was good, and the sun was out. But, it was quite chilly.
When we got into town, I took a moment to look around. It was the smallest place I’d ever seen, smaller even than the main yard at Oliver Academy. It was nothing more than a bunch of old, single-storey houses plopped on the land haphazardly. There was only one main street. Th
e path we took merged onto it. In the distance, I saw what looked like a tiny strip mall. I assumed that was where everyone did their shopping.
There wasn’t a single person outside yet. The few vehicles that I saw were mostly pickup trucks parked right on the lawns. As we walked along the main road to the strip mall, I realized the town was even smaller than I had thought. The parking lot had space for no more than ten cars. There was only one store – a department store called Larry’s. It was marked by a weathered, old sign with cracked letters and peeling paint. It reminded me a lot of a corner store that used to be a block away from my old school back home. The only good news was that the front door was open.
We went inside. John went to talk to the clerk, telling us to find some food. I was starving, and assumed that everyone else was, too. None of us had eaten yesterday. We picked up a few boxes of cereal, cognizant of not wanting to spend too much of John’s money. I thought it would be enough for all of us. We brought it up to the front, where I caught the tail end of the conversation he was having with the clerk.
“I’ve got a truck you can use,” the clerk was saying to John. He was an elderly man, maybe in his late sixties, with curly, whitish-gray hair growing from two tufts in his head. He was wearing a checkered green shirt. His hands were dry and wrinkled. “I don’t need it no more. Got nowhere to go. That’s the closet thing you’re going to get.”
“How much to rent it?” John asked.
“Rent?” the man laughed. “Boy, I ain’t gonna rent it to you. You can buy it, if you want.”
“How much?” John asked again.
“A thousand bucks,” the man said, eyes shining greedily.
“The piece of junk on the walkway outside?” John asked. Immediately, the clerk’s smile faded. “The blue rusty one?”
“It’s reliable,” the old man defended. “It’s served me well my whole life.”
“That’s not worth more than four hundred dollars. Hell, I wouldn’t even be able to sell the scrap parts for that much.”
“Eight,” the man countered.
“Four-fifty.”
“Six.”
“Five.”
“Fine, five,” the clerk grumbled. He finally took note of us, and scanned the boxes of cereal unhappily. “But you should know you’re ripping an old man off.”
“You’re ripping a young man off,” John replied, and looked over to wink at me. I took a step back in surprise, and Liz huffed indignantly. I remembered the first time I’d met John. I thought we could have been flirting, sort-of, maybe. But that had just been my imagination. Hadn’t it? John noticed the boxes we brought, looked at us, and frowned. “There’s seven of us,” he said. “We need more. Don’t be afraid to stock up. It’ll be a long trip. Get some water as well. And Rob, grab some ice for your head, and a bottle of Advil.”
We went back and got the things he asked for. I felt bad about spending his money, but he was the one who insisted on it. Finally, with plastic bags in our hands, we left the store and came to the car.
“This thing doesn’t even look like it’ll start,” Rob said as we neared it.
I agreed with him. The vehicle looked even worse from close up. The outer layer of paint was dotted with spots of rust. The seats were ripped and had foam coming out of them. There was a crack that extended across half the windshield, and one of the tires looked flat.
“We’ll see,” John said, opening the door. He put the key in the ignition, starting the car. The thing heaved and groaned. After a long moment, the engine revved on. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Liz took the seat beside John up front, while the rest of us tried to jam in the back. It quickly became clear that that wasn’t going to work, so Eve and Madison went to sit in the pickup bed, leaving Rob squeezed between me and Ashley.
We drove for most of the day, stopping only for gas and bathroom breaks. The car sputtered along, barely able to keep up with traffic on the highway. But it hung in there. It was both exciting and strangely discomforting to be on the open roads. Exciting in that we had unparalleled freedom and were coming closer to finding out more about the crystals, but discomforting in the sense that the severity of what we’d done was setting in and becoming very real. We’d run away from school, and broken dozens of different rules doing so. The fact that it would have been extremely dangerous for us to remain made things a little better. Having John with us made it a lot better. Even if he was just a few years older, he was still a doctor, which spoke for his intelligence. And he was clearly on our side. He was clearly interested in helping make things right… even if he didn’t quite know what we were facing.
I struggled with that the whole day. Neither Rob nor John had any idea of the true dangers of what we were up against. They may have known some of the details, but neither of them could have ever suspected anything remotely close to the crystals. It made it even worse that one of them was sitting to my right and the other directly in front of me. They had both abandoned Oliver Academy, just as I had. They did it for no reason to do so but to help us.
It was selfish and foolish to keep them in the dark. They had a right to know. They had both proved their loyalty by coming with us. I promised myself that, as soon as I had time alone with the girls, I would plead my case about telling the two men about the crystals.
I thought I would finally get my chance when we made our final stop for the night, at a cheap motel less than a mile from the freeway. It had already been dark for a few hours. We were all anxious to get out of the cramped vehicle and into our lodgings for the night. John had initially suggested we stay at a nicer place, but the threat of being discovered ultimately led us here. It was low-key, and we were unlikely to draw undue attention to ourselves. There was, of course, also the little matter of the guilt I shared with many of the girls about spending his money.
After speaking to the attendant and getting our rooms – two of them, side by side with a door linking each other, with two beds plus a fold-out sofa in each – John parked the truck in the mostly vacant lot and we all got out. It was the first time I had a chance to look around.
The motel was on a long, deserted road. A single street lamp from the other side illuminated the parking lot, casting it in a hazy yellow glow. I went to the edge of the road and looked both ways. The motel was the only visible structure aside from the raised freeway in the distance.
“Don’t wander too far,” John cautioned me. I didn’t need the warning. I turned back to the vehicle. The motel itself was two stories. Our rooms were on the second floor. John had parked the car in front of a decrepit-looking flight of stairs. The wood was splintered and the paint had long since faded. I wondered if they would even hold under our collective weight.
I was the first to go up. The stairs creaked dangerously under my weight. I put my hand on the railing, and immediately jerked it back when a splinter implanted itself under my skin.
“Better not put too much faith in that,” Rob said from behind me. I shot him a smile but kept moving. When I reached the top, I came to the railing to look down. John was fiddling with something in the front seat, and – surprise, surprise! – Liz was still with him. Everyone else was making their way up the stairs. Liz said something that I couldn’t hear, and John laughed. Then she laughed, too. She even had the gall to look up at me to make sure I was watching, and when she saw I was, stepped even closer to him.
It was painfully obvious what she was doing. But if she thought I’d get jealous, she was dead wrong. This was definitely not the level-headed warrior I’d gotten to know recently; this was the ditzy girl I first came across at the breakfast table my first day at Oliver Academy. She really did seem like a totally different person when it came to guys. I turned away. Let her do what she wanted. I had other matters on my mind.
I heard a door open behind me. I looked to see Rob, key in hand, standing in the doorway. “Our first room,” he said. He left the door open, walked over to the adjacent one, and used the second key. “And the second one
.” He walked in, followed by Ashley, Eve, and Madison. I glanced down, saw Liz still flirting shamelessly with John, sighed, and walked into our room.
The first thing I noticed was the sour stench. I scrunched my nose immediately. It smelled like cat litter mixed with smoke and alcohol. Everyone else seemed to be having the same reaction. Unfortunately, these were the only rooms available that were big enough for us, so changing them wasn’t an option.
The carpet was a dirty shade of orange, but, like the railing, the color had faded over the years. There were random stains all over. I didn’t even want to guess their cause. The beds in the room were both large enough for two, but the mattress sagged deeply in the middle without anyone on them. I was not expecting to get much sleep on that tonight.
Thankfully, there was a TV. It wasn’t large, but I couldn’t remember the last time I watched TV. The only ones available at Oliver Academy were in the common rooms of the dorms, and they were always taken by guys watching sports.
A scream came from the other room, and all thought was abruptly displaced by an acute sense of danger.
I ran to the door, clutching my crystal, prepared for the worst. I had been the first to react. Everyone else was behind me. I saw a light on in the bathroom, and went there. I arrived at the door, and found… Ashley. Nothing except Ashley.
She was alone, but she looked as if she’d seen a ghost. There was nothing in there that could have elicited such a response. “What is it?” I asked.
She pointed, entire arm shaking, at the bathtub. Frowning, I looked there. And found a cockroach no larger than a coin chilling there.
“Oh, give me a break!” Eve said as she squeezed in behind me. She reached down and picked the bug up by its back. It came to life in her hand, squirming furiously, flailing all its legs around, desperately trying to get free. Eve made as if to toss it at Ashley, who gave a loud squeak and ducked for cover. Eve laughed, taunting her, then threw the bug in the toilet and flushed it down. Ashley visibly relaxed when the cockroach disappeared.
