by Kieran Scott
“You already knew they were dead,” I said, more harshly than I intended.
I’d told him they’d died in a car crash. That I was an orphan. That this was why I was living with my grandparents. But Henry and Bess were not my grandparents. I’d met them for the very first time when I’d shown up on their doorstep last year. They were old colleagues of my parents and had taken me in out of loyalty to them. Henry and Bess had cared for me, fed me, clothed me, even helped me with my homework.
All that blood… Could they have possibly survived?
“Yeah, I know.” Oliver took my hand. “But this…this is different. Not knowing, having to wonder if they’re out there. If they’re ever coming back.”
My chest constricted. Oliver knew how it felt. His mother had passed away when he was only eight years old, and then his rat-bastard father had abandoned him. Left him at the mercy of the system with nothing but an old soccer ball and a picture of is mom. And even though the man sounded like a worthless piece of crap, he was still Oliver’s father. He was still out there, living a life. Sending Oliver cards on his birthday but never with a return address, always with a postmark from a different part of the country. But wherever he was, there existed the possibility he might straighten up, realize what he’d lost, and come back for his son.
My situation was not the same.
“They’re not,” I told him firmly, slipping my hand from his. “My parents are dead, Oliver.”
I grabbed the duffel, the sleeping bag, and my backpack and left them by the door.
“But how do you know—”
“I know. Because if they were alive, they would have come for me,” I told him, shoving down that flicker of hope. It had taken forever for me to come to terms with the fact that I was never going to see them again. I couldn’t go back to wishful thinking. “If they were alive, they’d be here right now.”
A look came over Oliver’s face, like I’d offended him somehow. Maybe I had. Maybe I was implying that my parents were better than his dad. That they would never, ever leave me by choice, when that was exactly what his father had done. But it was the truth. The Thompson family stuck together, no matter what. It was the only truth I’d ever known. If I didn’t believe it, my parents were not only gone, but I had never known them in the first place. If I didn’t believe it, I had nothing.
Oliver tossed the German’s passport at the leather bag. It slid across the top and hit the floor. A scrap of paper fluttered out onto the floor, attached to a paper clip.
“What’s that?” I asked.
Oliver plucked it up. “It’s a bunch of numbers.”
He held out the scrap to me. It was numbers—but they weren’t random. “They’re coordinates. Eight sets.” And the first four had been scratched through.
“Coordinates for what?” Oliver asked.
“I don’t know. I’ll look them up later.” I shoved the scrap in my pocket and yanked open the front door, effectively cutting off whatever he was going to say next.
“Come on,” I said. “We have to move.”
chapter 4
OLIVER
The sun was going down as I followed Kaia through the woods. My phone kept dinging, but I refused to look at it. I’d already texted Brian to tell him Kaia’s grandmother wasn’t feeling well, so we had to skip the movie to help out. Which he probably took to mean that Kaia hated his girlfriend, Grace, and she was making up excuses, but whatever. I had bigger things to think about than hurting Grace’s feelings. If it wasn’t Brian texting me, it was Robin. And I really didn’t want to read her texts. She was expecting me home half an hour ago.
About fifty paces into the trees, Kaia took out the huge knife she’d found back at the safe house—was I really throwing around words like “safe house”?—and slashed the trunk of a tree.
“What’d that tree ever do to you?” I said, trying to lighten things up a little.
“I’m marking our trail.”
Okay. So Kaia was not in the mood for jokes. She kept moving, cutting trees here and there, vaulting over fallen limbs, and scrambling over rocks like someone out of The Hunger Games. I shook my head, trying to process what was happening. My girlfriend was the daughter of trained assassins. She knew how to use a gun and wield a knife. She was in possession of more money than I’d ever seen in my life.
The second I saw those stacks of cash I’d started to sweat. Because the things I could do with money like that… I could buy a car. I could finally tell my foster father, Jack, to back the fuck off. I could run away and take Kaia with me—the daydream to end all daydreams come true.
And Kaia had acted as if it was a given that the cash would be there. She’d shoved the bills into her bag like it was nothing. Was Kaia’s family rich? They must have been to leave thousands of dollars hidden at unused safe houses. But she never acted rich. Kaia owned, like, one pair of boots and two pairs of sneakers. And yes, a dozen skateboards and an iPad, but practically everyone I knew had an iPad. I’d only used the ones bolted to the table in the school library.
“What’re you gonna do with all that cash?” I asked Kaia as she paused to catch her breath.
“Use it to survive,” she said. “Until I find out what happened to Henry and Bess and whether it’s safe to go back.”
“Henry and Bess?”
“They weren’t really my grandparents,” Kaia said.
I pictured Kaia’s grandfather and grandmother as I’d known them. Him large, straight-backed, and intimidating; her sweet, soft, and wrinkled. I’d once told Kaia that she had her grandmother’s eyes. Joke was on me I guess. “Wait—weren’t?”
“That much blood…” she trailed off. “It’s not promising. And they’re not answering their phones.”
My heart twisted as she shoved aside a branch. Here I was imagining my getaway from Robin and Jack, who had at least put a roof over my head for the last nine years—ever since my dad bailed and I was placed with them by social services—and Kaia had no idea if the people she’d been staying with were even alive, if she’d ever have a home to go back to. Suddenly I felt like a selfish jackass.
But then, out of nowhere, this heady feeling came over me and my heart started to pound. My favorite daydream wasn’t just a daydream anymore—it was happening. I’d always thought the hard part would be the leaving, but Kaia and I were already gone. If she had no family, and I had no family and if she had a bag full of cash, then we could start over together. I could totally get a job to support us. I could get my mechanic’s license, easy. We could be together forever. We could be free.
It would be hard, leaving Trevor behind. We might not have been technically related—him being the son of my foster parents—but he was the closest thing to family I had outside of Kaia. Still, what was the alternative? Going back to Robin and Jack’s and kidnapping him? Even I wasn’t optimistic enough to think that Kaia and I could take care of a ten-year-old with Asperger’s without help. Without his therapists. And there was also the whole fact that it would be kidnapping. No matter what I said to him to make him feel safe inside his own home on a daily basis, I couldn’t be there for him forever, even though I wanted to.
“You coming?” Kaia asked over her shoulder.
I cleared my throat. “Yeah.”
About fifteen minutes into our hike, the sky went from pink to purple. By this time, Robin was definitely wondering where I was. Not that I cared. When had she ever shown that she cared about me? When she stood aside while her estranged husband kicked me in the face? When she sent me to school without lunch because she’d spent all her extra cash bailing him out of jail—again? Let her wonder. I mean, honestly? I might never see her again.
But what if Jack showed up in one of his moods and there was no one there to shield Trevor?
My lungs constricted, and I curled my fingers into fists until the stab of panic eased. There was nothing I could
do for Trevor right now. I was a good couple hours away. If Jack came by to see his son tonight, Robin was going to have to step up and protect him. For once.
I ignored the little voice in my head telling me that she wouldn’t, that she never had and never would. She’d long ago delegated the job of protector and professional punching bag to me. It was the one thing I’d never told Kaia about my life. My one big secret.
Secrets.
“Kaia…was anything you told me about yourself true?”
She paused and looked at me. For the first time in hours, she seemed like herself. Or at least the version of her I knew. Her eyes were soft and in the waning light, her freckles stood out across her nose. But she still had the lump on her forehead, and the red scratches on her face had darkened to black.
“I really do love french fries.”
I smirked. “And ice cream.”
“So very much,” she said with a longing sigh.
For a split second, I thought about kissing her. I wanted to tell her that I understood why she’d lied to me and that everything was going to be all right. But there was so much that I didn’t understand—like what had happened back at her house. Why, if her parents were dead, would anyone be coming after her? It wasn’t like she’d ever done anything to hurt anyone. And how the heck could I know if we were going to be okay? But there was one thing that needed to be said.
“I love you, you know. I don’t care what your parents did.” I took her hand—the one not holding a weapon—and pulled her to me. My fingers ran over her hair, smoothing it down the back of her head, then cupping it against her neck. There was nothing I loved to do more than touch her hair. “I love you, Kaia.”
Her smiled waned. “I know.”
That was not the reaction I’d been expecting. She started walking again, and it took me a second to catch up. Panic started to tickle my gut, but I refused to acknowledge it. She was obviously stressed. That look had meant nothing.
“So the people in the SUV, back at your house?” I asked. “Were they with this Dieter guy?”
Kaia shrugged one shoulder and impaled another tree. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
I climbed over a large, rotted tree trunk, trying to keep up with her. “Well, why were they shooting at us?”
Kaia paused and glanced around. “I assume because they want me dead, whoever they are. Dieter said there would be others coming.”
“Others?” I tripped over a rock and would have fallen into her, taking her down with me, but at the last second I grabbed a thick tree branch and saved us both.
“Are you okay?” Kaia asked.
“Fine,” I said, embarrassed, dusting bits of tree bark off my palm. “I’m fine.”
“Good,” she said. “’Cause we’re here.”
Suddenly I could hear the whoosh of traffic, see the flash of headlights in the near distance.
Before I could ask where we were, Kaia was already on the move. We emerged into the rear parking lot of a small gas station market. The Dumpster near the back door was overflowing with garbage, and the air reeked of rotting food and fresh exhaust. Kaia walked toward the front of the place, the parking lot lights elongating her shadow. Around the corner, a couple of guys smoked cigarettes and discussed the upcoming Panthers game. They stopped when they saw Kaia and blatantly checked her out. She didn’t notice. I tried to ignore them.
“Kaia, what do you mean, ‘others’?” I whispered again. “Other Germans? Other…bad guys?” It sounded idiotic the moment the words left my lips. “Are we talking a couple of random people here, or an army?”
“I don’t really know,” she said calmly. “I don’t even know if he was telling the truth.”
We went inside the shop. Kaia panned the store, like she always did whenever we entered a room. Now I knew why. She was scanning the place for enemies. Probably a habit she developed on all her “missions.” Seemingly deciding the coast was clear, she ducked down a short aisle filled with processed baked goods. She picked up a cylinder of powdered donuts and handed them to me. My favorite.
“You have your cell phone, right?” she asked.
“Yeah, why?”
I pulled it from my pocket. My prized possession. I’d worked a lot of hours at minimum wage selling replacement windshield wiper blades and car batteries at the downtown auto parts store and body shop to buy it and pay for its monthly plan. I still got a happy feeling whenever I held the thing. Not that I’d ever tell anyone that. The job was totally worth it, and not just for the phone. Hank Fusco, the guy who owned the place, was helping me salvage parts to restore a crappy old Chevy to working order. And when we were finished, he was going to let me keep it.
We were months from being done. But at least it gave me something to look forward to. I spent hours, days, fantasizing about Kaia and me driving off into the sunset in that car.
Kaia went to the refrigerated aisle at the back of the store and took out a single-serve bottle of chocolate milk. Also my favorite.
“Call Brian. Or Hunter. Tell them to come pick you up.”
She tried to hand me the milk, but I took a step back. “Wait. Pick me up? You’re not coming?”
“Oliver, I told you five seconds ago, I can’t go back there right now.”
“Kaia, what are you gonna do? Stay here?”
“Yes.” Her gaze darted to the door as it swung open. The smokers were coming inside. They made their way to the far end of the store, where the slushie machine lived. “I’m going to hang out at the safe house for a few days and figure out my next move. Maybe I’ll try to track down my uncle Marco and see if he knows what’s going on. My parents always told me that if anything ever happened to them I wasn’t supposed to contact anyone from my old life, but this seems like a worst-case scenario situation.”
“Okay then,” I said, my pulse racing. “I’ll stay with you.”
Kaia snorted. “Oliver, you can’t. You have a life. And I may have to travel. I may have to go to Marco, wherever the hell he is.”
“So I’ll go with you,” I said, though my throat was dry. The daydream was slowly fading in my mind. How could she not see the opportunity this nightmare had given us—to be alone together? To get the hell out? Besides, Kaia had never mentioned an uncle before today. Who was he? What was his deal? Was he in “the family business” too?
She crossed her arms over her chest, still holding the milk bottle in one hand. “What if those guys find me again? I don’t know if I can fight them off and keep you safe.”
“Keep me safe?” I balked. “Are you trying to crush my manhood?”
“Oliver, come on,” she said, her voice condescending. “You know what I mean. I want you to go home because I care about you. It’s the only way I’ll know you’re okay.”
The irony of that statement was so thick I could have choked on it. I was anything but okay when I was at home. At home, I was Jack’s recreational kickboxing dummy. He took out all the frustrations of his sorry-ass life on me. At home, I was always one left hook away from the ICU. But Kaia didn’t know that. After my last trip to the hospital with a festering black eye, Jack got really good at keeping the bruises centralized in places I could hide them, and I got really good at hiding them. Across the room, the Panthers fans cackled.
“Oliver,” Kaia said again, mistaking my silence as stubbornness. “I’m sorry, but if you come with me, you’ll be a liability.”
I was about to tell her that she’d hit below the belt, when the door opened and her face went white. I hadn’t seen her look that pale since the morning we’d met. That morning had changed everything. I could still remember the scent of cafeteria french toast that hung in the air, how some of her thick hair was still wet from her shower even hours into the school day, the way her T-shirt had been tucked half-in, half-out of her jeans. And she thought I was going to leave her?
I turned to see two m
en. One was tall, sleek, and handsome in a ballroom dancer sort of way. Except he had this nasty, jagged, purple scar from the tip of his ear, down his cheek to his chin. The other man was broad-shouldered and tough-looking, the kind of guy who would rather punch you in the face than argue his point. He had a wide, flat nose, a healthy black beard, and fleshy cheeks that seemed to hang down over his collar. They both wore sleek leather jackets, pressed shirts, and too much jewelry. They couldn’t have been more out of place in the forests of northern South Carolina if they’d been sporting pink wigs.
Kaia hit the floor so fast that for a second I thought she fainted. Then she grabbed my hand and dragged me down with her. My kneecap smacked the tile floor and I bit my lip to keep from cursing.
“Oh my God,” she said under her breath. “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.”
“What? What is it?” I hissed.
“We have to get out of here.” She spoke through her teeth. “We have to go. Now.”
There was an unmarked door behind her, maybe leading to a stock room or to the back lot where we’d come out of the woods. I tilted my head toward the door and she nodded. We crawled over on hands and knees, ignoring the sheen of filth on the floor. As I pushed the door open with one hand, the man with the scar spoke. He had a thick Mexican accent.
“She’s about this tall…got dark hair, blue eyes…freckles… Have you seen her?”
Outside we scrambled to our feet, just as the thug came around the corner. He must have walked out the front door half a second after he’d walked in. He startled at the sight of us, then flicked a smile. One of his front top teeth was missing.
“That was almost too easy.” He pointed a thick finger at Kaia. “You. You’re comin’ with me.”
What happened next was a blur. The guy lunged for Kaia. I spun and launched my foot at his face. A perfect spin kick. My heavy work boot collided with his jaw and there was a satisfying crack. Kaia screamed. The guy hit the asphalt, knocking his cheek against a pile of cement bricks near the door. Blood oozed everywhere.
