by Tracy Deebs
“He also left extra money for us in case of emergencies, since he and Theo’s mom are on their honeymoon,” Eli interjects. “This definitely qualifies as an emergency, so we took all that plus what was in his safe.”
He opens his door, steps outside. I start to follow, but Theo stops me. “We’ll be quick, Pandora. I promise. Lock the doors and stay in the backseat, where the windows are tinted.”
“I really can’t go?” I’m pissed, even though a part of me knows he’s right. Still, it grates to be left in the car like a little kid.
“You look exactly like you did when you left your house,” he says, examining me in the dim overhead light. “It’d be like putting a sign on you that reads, FEDERAL FUGITIVE HERE.”
He closes the door, once again plunging the car into shadows, and then walks away without a backward glance. I watch them until they disappear into the store, then reach for the flashlight Theo left on the dash. I turn it on and immediately the churning panic in my stomach subsides a little.
I tell myself to turn off the flashlight, that it will attract attention, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. At this point, I think I’d rather get caught than spend one more moment in the dark.
Dropping the flashlight on the floor of the van, where its light will be less conspicuous, I yank out one of the two spare bras I packed and one of the last couple of shirts. I change quickly, then curse myself for being so shortsighted when I packed this thing. Why the hell didn’t I pack a second pair of jeans? Or even better, a pair of yoga pants so that I could travel comfortably? Pajamas aren’t going to cut it if we have to ditch the van and run.
Probably because, when I packed, I hadn’t dreamed I’d be fleeing from the authorities. I’d been going for sleepover necessities at my best friend’s house. Next time I’ll be sure to do better.
The absurdity of that last thought catches up with me and I start to laugh. Because the truth is, if there ends up being a next time that I have to flee for my life and my freedom, then I’m just going to give up and let them do to me what they will.
Still, I’m grateful that of all the guys in my high school, I managed to team up with two of the smartest and most prepared.
I fiddle with my hair, brush it a little, though there’s not much to be done after that rainstorm and the subsequent humidity. Still, it feels good to do something normal. I slick some lip gloss on my mouth. Refresh my deodorant. Then stretch out on the floor of the van, between the two seats, and try not to drive myself insane.
It doesn’t work.
Everything that has happened these last few hours catches up with me, and I start to cry. Long, loud, jarring sobs that rack my entire body.
I can’t believe this is happening. Simply can’t believe that I’m here, in the middle of nowhere North Texas, running for my life. Or what very well feels like it. Agent Mackaray’s face appears in front of my closed eyelids, and I cry some more.
I have the feeling I’ve made—we’ve made—a powerful enemy in him. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who likes losing his prey. And he really doesn’t strike me as the kind who can stand being one-upped by a teenager.
I don’t know how long I lie there crying, the flashlight clutched in my hands.
Long enough to curse my father with every swear word I’ve ever heard.
Long enough to release some of the pent-up emotion inside me, so that I no longer feel like I’m going to explode.
More than long enough for night to turn to dawn and dawn to turn to daylight.
It’s that early-morning light that finally calms me down, has me wiping my eyes and taking a few deep breaths. I switch off the flashlight—we need to conserve the batteries—then sit up as the thought registers that the guys really should be back by now.
I’m not wearing a watch, but I know that over an hour has passed since they went inside. Concerned for a whole different reason now, I lean forward and peek my head out the window. What could be taking them so long?
I try to tell myself that I’m overreacting, that nothing bad has happened to them. But with each minute that crawls by, my heart beats an uneasy tattoo in my chest. Should I go in and check on them? I wonder frantically. Or will that only make things worse? If they’re in trouble, the last thing they need is to have me show up in the middle of it. I don’t know if Mackaray and the others have managed to get out my description—without Internet, faxes, or the phone, that would be difficult. But not impossible.
Is it conceivable he saw what Theo looked like when he came for me? I don’t know how he could have, with it being as dark as it was in my house. But maybe he did. Maybe he released Theo’s description as well. And while I agree with Theo that it’s hard to hide a six-foot redhead, it’s even harder to hide two giants, especially ones who look like Theo and Eli do.
I turn on the van with the keys Eli left for me, check the time. It’s 7:19. I’ll give them ten more minutes. If they aren’t back by then, I’m going in. I don’t care if it’s a risk. They came for me when I needed it. I can’t do less for them.
The thought galvanizes me, has me searching the van for sunglasses. I don’t find any, but in the back I do find a ton of supplies already. Nonperishable food like granola bars and cereal, water, portable gasoline cans completely filled. Three sleeping bags. A couple of flashlights. Some blankets. Duffel bags full of extra clothes for Eli and Theo. A wicked-looking knife that has me drawing back in surprise.
I want to pretend it’s for nothing more ominous than cutting twigs for a fire, but it isn’t a hunting knife. And I’m not that good a liar—even to myself.
I glance back at the clock, silently counting down on the dashboard. It’s been eight minutes. I close my eyes, make a wish. Then I reach for the sheathed knife and tuck it into the waistband of my jeans. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it, but it’s better to be prepared, right? Especially when I don’t think that one blow from my fist is going to result in anyone falling unconscious.
I’m reaching down to put on my boots—something I really, really don’t want to do—when I see them walking out the front door. Theo is pushing a fully loaded cart and Eli is carrying a bunch of extra bags. Did they buy out the whole store?
I want to leap from the van, to rush up and throw my arms around them, which would be insane, not to mention a hugely unnecessary risk. But the relief rushing through me at the sight of them is so potent, so huge, that it’s nearly impossible for me to stay sitting in the car, waiting.
They reach the van soon enough, Theo opening the tailgate and loading in bags, one after another. I scoot to the back, start to help him as he organizes the stuff. At the same time, I surreptitiously drop the knife where I found it. No need for them to know I was ready to take on the Super Walmart to break them out.
“Just throw everything in there for now,” Eli suggests to Theo. “Two of us can get it all sorted while the third one drives. We need to move.”
“Here, Pandora.” Eli hands me the bags he’s carrying, and I take them, start pawing through them. In one is some sunscreen, face moisturizer, and brown hair dye. In the others are a couple of pairs of yoga pants (thank God), jeans, a hoodie, and some shirts. Mostly tank tops. And to be more specific, mostly low-cut tank tops.
I pull out a particularly lacy, low-cut, spaghetti-strapped shirt in electric purple. Eyebrows raised, I ask, “Who decided that this was what I needed to blend in?”
Theo just rolls his eyes, holding his hands up in the universal not-me gesture. I turn to Eli, who is grinning wickedly at me, charm all but oozing out of his pores. “It’s purple,” he says, like that explains everything.
“It’s practically nonexistent.”
“Hey, it’s the end of the world. A guy needs something to look forward to.”
I laugh, shove the shirt back down in the bag. “Dream on, buddy.”
“Oh, I will.” Another grin, this one accompanied by a wink that makes my stomach do some kind of odd little flip.
I ignor
e it. There will be no flipping. None at all. I have more than enough problems as it is.
“Come on, Pandora. Sit in front with me. Eli’s going to stretch out and try to sleep.” Theo tosses me a plain black hat. “Until we can get you to a motel somewhere so you can dye your hair, that’s better than the Mavericks cap.”
I nod, slip the baseball cap into place. Then crawl through the car to the front seat.
Theo’s there waiting for me, standing in the open passenger-side door. “Let me see your feet.”
“My feet?” I look at him uncertainly, but he just raises a brow and holds up a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. He noticed the blisters, bought stuff to take care of them. To take care of me. My stomach does that strange little flip thing again, and this time I’m too dazed to remember to ignore it.
I extend my right foot tentatively. Theo grasps it in strong fingers, then turns my leg so that my knee is facing out and the blister is toward the side. He mutters something when he gets his first good look at all the damage I’ve done, something low and obscene that I can’t quite catch. Then he says, “This is going to hurt.”
It’s all the warning I get before he liberally douses my heel with peroxide. Razor blades of agony slice along my nerve endings, and I have to bite my lip to keep from screeching.
“I’m sorry,” he tells me, as he carefully blots the blisters dry with gauze and then applies some Neosporin and a couple of large Band-Aids. He repeats the process with the second foot, wiping the last of the blood away with a couple of Handi Wipes before pulling a pair of black flip-flops from another bag. He slips them on my feet and then walks to the back of the car, where he stows the first-aid stuff.
Eli is already asleep—I can hear the deep, even rhythm of his breath—as I wait for Theo to come around to the driver’s side. And then he’s there. Turning on the car, buckling his seat belt, pulling out onto the nearly deserted road.
Within minutes, we’re back on the highway, driving fast, going nowhere even faster, into a real-world Pandora’s Box.
15
We’ve been on the road half an hour or so when Theo says, “Make yourself useful. Reach behind you and get that bag.”
He’s smiling when he says it, so I flip him off before turning around to do what he says.
“This is a CB radio,” I tell him. “What do you expect me to do with it?”
“Figure out how it works.”
“You’re the tech genius. Isn’t that supposed to be your job?”
He cracks up, and as I watch him, I realize it’s the first time I’ve ever really heard him laugh. It’s a good sound—happy, like the opening chords of Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life.” When he turns to me, his eyes are the brightest blue I’ve ever seen, clear and laser focused.
“Pandora, a CB radio is about as low-tech as you can get. If the girl who unleashed ‘cyber-Armageddon’”—he puts air quotes around the words—“can’t figure out how to work that, then I don’t know what to tell her.”
“Whatever.” It’s a lame comeback, but the best I can do under the circumstances.
Opening the carton the radio comes in, I fiddle with it for a little while. Nothing happens, so I give up trying to look cool and go straight for the directions. Theo’s right. It is pretty low-tech, and it only takes a couple of minutes to get the thing up and running.
Of course, there’s nothing out there when I scan the channels. After all, no one uses CB radios anymore, except maybe truckers. And I’m not even sure about that.
I say as much to Theo, but he just shakes his head and says, “Give it a little while. In a few hours, that thing is going to light up. It’s pretty much the only means of communication out there right now. We got the second-to-last one on the shelf.”
I snort. “Did it ever occur to you there were only two to begin with? It’s not like it’s a high-demand item, after all.”
“The world just changed overnight, Pandora. You haven’t got a clue what are high-demand items and what aren’t.”
I think of the extra first-aid kits I glimpsed in the bags Theo shoveled into the back of the car. The medicine and batteries. The three sets of walkie-talkies. Stuff I never would have thought to buy.
“How did you know what to get?” I finally ask. “You’re so prepared, so calm, like you’ve done this a million times before.”
“I watch the History Channel a lot,” he says. “You’d be surprised how many shows they have about the end of the world. Though usually it’s because of some weird viral pandemic sweeping through and taking over, not something like this. The rest is just common sense. Either way, it’s not going to be long before civilization starts breaking down—forty-eight to seventy-two hours. We’ve already seen some of the cracks.”
How long will it be before everything goes to hell? Not nearly as long as it should be, I think. Not nearly as long as I want it to be.
“Why did you come back for me?” The question is out before I know I’m going to ask it. But it’s one I’ve wanted the answer to since the adrenaline wore off and I was able to think clearly again.
“You don’t actually think I would leave you in that mess, do you?” he demands, obviously insulted. “When I helped put you in the middle of it?”
“You didn’t do anything! I’m the one who was stupid enough to pull down those pictures from the Internet. My father …” My voice catches and I stop, swallow. Try not to show how humiliated I am. “My father did this to me, to all of us. You had nothing to do with it.”
“I’m the one who told you to open that present. Besides, I thought we were starting to be … friends.” The word comes awkwardly to him. “I couldn’t just let Homeland Security get their hands on you.”
“How did you know they’d be there?” It’s another one of the questions that’s been bothering me. “How did you even know that I’d need help?”
“From the second I saw how things were going at Little Nicky’s, I started to get worried. Then with the car accident, no 911, I don’t know. I just knew. If I’d planned this all out and then shown up at your house last night and you’d been fine, I would have felt stupid. But Eli and I figured it was better to be wrong than risk letting something bad happen to you.”
My own mother doesn’t have time to wish me happy birthday. My father turned me into a destroyer, gave me a technological Pandora’s box to open. And Theo and Eli didn’t want to risk leaving me behind.
It’s a lot to wrap my head around. I swallow once, twice, try to get rid of the lump in my throat. It doesn’t work, and my voice is husky, barely audible, when I say, “Thank you.”
Eli stirs in the backseat, sits up, and when he reaches for my hand I realize he’s been listening for a while. “It’s going to be okay, Pandora. We’re in this together now.”
It’s a ridiculous line, completely corny, and any other time I would have called him on it. But right now, it’s exactly what I need to hear. I glance down to where our hands are joined, his so much bigger and broader that it all but envelopes mine. It makes me feel sheltered, protected, something I’ve never felt before. And something I never knew I was missing until this moment. I can do things on my own if I have to—I’ve learned that in the last few years—but it’s nice to have a partner.
Two partners, I think, glancing back at Theo. He’s staring straight ahead, face once again blank and fingers clamped tightly on the wheel. I want to say something to him that will bring back the camaraderie of the last few minutes, but he’s already a million miles away.
Ignoring Theo, Eli scoots forward until he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor of the car, right behind our seats. His green eyes are still a little foggy, the last remnants of his nap not yet gone from them. He looks adorable. “Where are we?”
“Way North Texas.”
Eli nods. “Where are we going?”
“I’m thinking Kansas, maybe,” Theo answers.
“What’s in Kansas?” I demand.
“Not much. Which is exactly the
point. It’s easier to hide you if we stick to rural areas.”
“We’re going to need gas soon,” Eli says, nodding at the gas gauge.
I hadn’t noticed, but it’s on empty, the red light already blinking. “I know,” Theo says. “We’ll stop at the next place we see that’s open—or we’ll crack into the gallons we have in the back.”
We drive past three more gas stations, all closed, before we find one that is operating. Theo coasts into it—we’re literally running on fumes at this point—and pulls up to the last open gas pump.
“You should dye your hair here,” Eli says, handing the box to me. “We can hang out for a few extra minutes while you do it.”
“It takes longer than a few minutes,” I answer.
“Still, it needs to be done ASAP,” Theo tells me. “If a cop sees you …”
I take the box with a nod, and try not to think about what I’m going to do. Becoming upset won’t change things—better to just get it done.
I hop out of the van and walk around to Theo, who is counting out a hundred and eighty dollars in cash. “So much?” I ask, shocked.
“Look at the price of gas,” he tells me. I do, and I am astounded that it’s three dollars more a gallon than it was when I filled up two days ago. Creepy.
Eli starts to come with us, but Theo says, “Stay here, outside the van. And stand up straight.”
“I’ve got to take a leak,” Eli complains.
“When I get back,” Theo growls. “Pay attention!”
We do, and it takes only a few seconds for his meaning to sink in. Almost everyone standing around is looking at us, sizing us up. I can practically see the wheels spinning in their heads as they try to figure out what, if anything, we’ve got in our van.
Forty-eight to seventy-two hours before civilization breaks down, Theo told me, but it’s barely been fifteen, and already things are starting to change. These people all look normal, like the same kind of people I would see at a gas station any number of times. Except there’s a palpable aura of panic around them now, as if they know that things are only going to get worse and they’ll have to protect themselves—their families—any way they can.
