For a second, she could swear his jaw relaxed.
“I know you think I’m responsible for what happened to your abuela,” she continued, “and maybe that’s true. Weird, bad things follow me around—we know that by now. But I would never do anything to hurt you or your family on purpose, Dante. I’ll always be here, right next to you, trying my best to make things better.”
Pao took a deep breath, hoping he would turn to her, smile, tell her it was good to have her back. But he didn’t. Not yet.
“I get a little obsessive, sure,” she went on. “I like to know things, and understand them, and dissect them until they barely exist. Sometimes that probably makes me boring to talk to or not great at guessing the perfect thing to say. But I’ll do better, okay? And right now I’m trying so hard to save your abuela, and I have no idea what’s going on, and I need you.”
Now for the grand finish. The words that would make him finally give in to the irresistible power of her friendship.
“So you have to stop being mad at me,” she said. “You have to forgive me, and believe how sorry I am that anything bad happened to anyone. You have to be my friend again, Dante.”
This time, he did turn, a half smile on his face.
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay?”
“Okay, I’ll be your friend again.”
It was a little underwhelming, Pao thought. And maybe she’d believed she deserved an apology, too. That this would be a whole back-and-forth thing where they’d lay out all their issues and make a plan of action and by the end of the trip feel closer than ever.
This is a start, she told herself. It was better than nothing.
“Thank you,” she said, and she meant it. “Now can you help me understand what’s going on with these fantasmas and monsters? I can’t for the life of me figure out where they’re coming from.”
But even as she changed the subject, and he angled slightly more toward her and almost participated in conversations about dreams, locations, green spirits, and demon dogs, Pao wondered if it would always be like this. Her apologizing to him for being who she was. Him believing he deserved an apology. Was there any amount of work or speeches or gestures that could change that? And, if there was no way to make it better, was this really what she wanted?
When they were an hour past the rest stop of doom, hunger became unavoidable. Johnny, who’d been remarkably (if understandably) quiet since the attack, pointed to a truck stop up ahead with a fried chicken place inside.
“Who’s down to see if the headless chickens come back to life and, like, peck out all our eyeballs?”
No one laughed.
“You know, because at the vending machine . . . the dogs, and . . .” He looked to Naomi for help. “So I just figured maybe the chickens . . .”
Silence. Even the car stopped rattling in protest.
“Never mind,” Johnny said with a sigh. “Who’s hungry?”
“Who doesn’t love gas-station poultry?” Pao asked, feeling a little sorry for him—and more than a little hungry.
Johnny laughed too loud, and Naomi joined in, though Pao had the feeling she was laughing more at his flop than her joke. Either way, a little of the tension that had followed them from exit 146 eased, and none too soon.
Pao was on high alert for anything spooky-looking as they trudged into the run-down convenience store. Nothing was going to get in the way of her and lunch this time.
But the popcorn chicken and waffle fries, though a little soggy (and possibly made in a kitchen not quite up to health-code standards), were refreshingly of this world.
Pao, Dante, Naomi, and Johnny wolfed them down by the handful in a dingy booth right by the door, in case the bored cashier turned into a Lechuza or something. She didn’t, and they all felt slightly better with food in their stomachs. Johnny even picked up the tab, which Pao assumed was a futile attempt to impress Naomi. Pao appreciated it all the same—especially since the haunted vending machine hadn’t given her money back, and she only had two dollars left.
While Dante was in the bathroom, Pao turned on her phone under the table, hoping for a message from Emma—even if it was just something to make her laugh—but she didn’t get a chance to check before it started ringing.
Incoming call from Mom.
She turned it off immediately and sighed. No Emma, not for a while at least.
Dante returned, meeting her eyes uncertainly before giving another one of his wan smiles. How long would it take for them to get back to normal? she wondered. Would they ever?
“Only an hour away,” Johnny said as they piled back into the car. “You guys know where you want to be dropped off?” Pao couldn’t help but notice that Johnny didn’t sound at all sorry to be getting rid of them.
She didn’t blame him. Thinking you were getting a road trip in a shiny stolen car with the girl you liked and instead ending up on some monster-hunting expedition with bickering middle school kids was like one of those expectations-vs.-reality memes come to life.
Either way, they were nearing the end of the line, and Pao had no better idea of where Johnny should drop them than of what kind of toppings an ahogado would order on a pizza.
Pao looked up at Naomi, deliberately avoiding Dante’s gaze. There was nothing he hated more than the part of the plan where Pao stopped having all the answers.
“Don’t look at me,” Naomi said. “I’ve never been to Fresno before. We’re gonna need somewhere to lie low until we can find another ride north. How much money do you guys have?”
Pao felt her cheeks turn red. “Two dollars,” she said at the same time as Dante said, “Maybe some change . . .”
Naomi didn’t bother to make fun of them, which made Pao feel more pathetic than ever.
“I’ve got forty-five bucks,” she said. “Which isn’t even enough for a night in a sleazy motel if someone would let us through the door . . .”
No one picked up the thread of the conversation. From tired and worried, the silence in the car grew awkward. If a part of Pao had been hoping Johnny would offer them some help, she was sorely disappointed.
The pressure kept building. Pao was a girl who always had an answer, always had a plan—even if it was one she was making up on the spot. But her past adventures had always taken place only a few miles from home.
Now she was in a state she’d never been to, with people who didn’t owe her anything. She was five hundred miles away from one parent, and five hundred miles from the other—who might not even recognize her, and whom she certainly had no business expecting any help from.
Johnny was waiting for an answer.
The pain in Pao’s arm was clouding her thoughts. She imagined this must be what it felt like when the teacher called on you and you hadn’t done the homework.
Pao had always done the homework, though. Maybe that was the problem.
Her hand was starting to go numb below the bite. Was that normal? What were the signs of infection?
Pao started mentally listing the ones she could remember, trying to use the facts to push out the pain.
Pus or fluid from the bite.
Red streaks from the bite.
Swollen lymph nodes.
Loss of sensation around the bite.
Loss of sensation . . .
Loss of sensation . . .
It was no use. The pain was still there, and she was more worried than ever.
They merged back onto the freeway, the car still positively muggy with silence. Beside the I-5 sign, a boy dressed in all red pajamas caught Pao’s eye. His long dark hair fell into his eyes, and he held a cardboard sign reading North, and nothing more.
Pao looked at him intently as the car passed. How could a boy younger than she was be out here alone, hitching a ride? But underneath that question was the feeling that she’d seen the boy before, though she couldn’t remember where.
“We should pick him up,” she said, almost without deciding to. Everyone turned to look at her. “That boy—w
e should go back and pick him up,” Pao insisted, louder now. “He’s our age—he shouldn’t be hitchhiking alone!”
“What boy?” Johnny asked, his voice half-concerned, half-condescending.
“He’s right there!” Pao said. “At the exit. He’s wearing red paja . . . mas . . .” Pao had turned around to look out the back window, and the boy was gone.
She could still see the sign. The only other thing near it was a trash bag stuck on the pole and blowing in the wind.
“Never mind,” she mumbled. “I guess he left.”
Dante cleared his throat, like she’d just said something nerdy about chemical reactions at the lunch table with his soccer friends.
What had she done to embarrass him now? Pao wondered. Try as she might, she couldn’t remember what they’d just been talking about. . . .
“So, uh,” Johnny said. “A destination? My GPS still just says ‘Fresno,’ and I doubt you guys want to be dumped out in front of city hall . . . which, if I’m not mistaken, is about two blocks from the police station.”
“No,” Pao said automatically. “Definitely not there.”
But she had nothing else to offer. The awkward silence billowed again.
Beside her, Dante had stopped looking embarrassed and instead appeared to be at war with himself. It was enough to pull Pao from her preoccupation.
“Are you—” she began, but he leaned forward before she could finish.
Hanging over the seat, his mouth set in a determined line, he said: “Take us to Raisin Valley.” The grimace grew deeper. “It’s just a little ways southwest of Fresno.”
“I know it,” Johnny said, sounding impressed—which Pao understood 0 percent. “I can take you there.”
“What—” Pao started to ask Dante, but he silenced her with a look that said I don’t want to talk about it as plain as day. He spent the rest of the car ride looking moodily out the window, avoiding Pao’s gaze.
But even the mystery of what was in Raisin Valley, and why Dante looked so grim about going there, couldn’t hold her interest. Not with the pain still increasing in her arm, building steadily to what felt like torture level, making her hairline sweat and her vision blurry.
This is the part of the spy movie when I’d consider selling out everyone I’ve ever loved, Pao thought grimly. No matter how much she’d sworn in act one that she was tough enough to take the pain, she’d definitely be thinking about it by now.
But even if she confessed to Naomi and Johnny and Dante, what would she say? Hey, guys, my demon dog bite is getting way worse and I might pass out? What could they do? She was pretty sure a hospital wouldn’t know what to do with a possibly venomous bite from a monster, and even if they did, they’d call her mom immediately. Game over.
Nothing was going to stop her from getting to her dad, Pao told herself, gritting her teeth against the throbbing. Señora Mata’s life depended on it. And if Franco’s research could be believed, a lot more than just the health of one elderly neighbor could be on the line.
If Franco was right about the anomaly throwing everything off-balance, it was making the fantasmas and beasts appear in places they shouldn’t—places where there were no Niños de la Luz to protect people. This mission was officially about a lot more than it had been when they started.
Trying to ignore her pain, Pao looked out the window. The traffic had thickened, and she understood why when she read the sign coming up.
FRESNO—NEXT THREE EXITS
They had arrived.
Pao had never given much thought to where the country’s raisins originated.
Raisin Valley was the aptly named answer to this unasked question, she discovered as they entered it. Evening gathered and dust clouds billowed as they drove down the location’s single dirt road.
Well, the raisin part was accurate, Pao amended as they passed through. The valley part was a bit of a stretch. It was as flat as flat could be around here. A tiny, low-to-the-ground town with a series of ramshackle houses—most of which had at least one broken-down car in the dirt lot outside and a few chickens lazily clucking nearby.
But between the houses, and extending far beyond them, were hundreds upon hundreds of acres of grapevines. Right now they were just stalks, withered and brown and dead-looking, but during growing season there would be enough to get lost in. Enough to fill all the tiny, sticky snack boxes the world would ever need.
“Where to, boss?” Johnny asked when Dante didn’t immediately volunteer a destination. Pao got the feeling nothing in Raisin Valley was particularly far from anything else, but Dante seemed to think hard before answering.
“Another couple minutes this way. House on the right.”
No amount of throbbing in her arm could stop Pao’s passionate curiosity about Dante’s connection to this place. But far from volunteering any information, Dante seemed to disappear further and further into himself the closer they got.
Johnny glanced at the dashboard clock about five times in the three minutes it took to reach the house Dante had described, and Pao knew he was worried about getting the car back before he got in trouble with its hypercritical owner.
Dizzy with pain, and not at all sure what they were walking into, Pao could feel a fear creep into her thoughts and begin to nest there. She had been to more dangerous places than a mysterious house in a small, dusty town, of course, but they were in a different state now, and their only ally who was old enough to have a driver’s license was about to leave them behind. They’d be stuck here, Pao thought, until they could find a way to continue. If they could find a way.
“Here’s fine,” Dante said, and Pao tried to meet his eyes, to get even a small idea of what was going on.
He didn’t look back, though Pao was sure he felt her stare. His jaw was twitching again, as well as his left eye. He looked deathly pale in the evening light. Like how people always look when they’ve seen a ghost in movies—people who aren’t used to seeing ghosts, anyway.
But Dante saw ghosts all the time. He’d seen his (former?) best friend get nearly devoured by ruthless hellhounds and hadn’t had any trouble snarfing down chicken and waffle fries right after. And that had been this afternoon.
So what could possibly be scaring him so much?
Even though things were complicated between them, Pao couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy in her chest for whatever it was he was going through.
We’ll get through this part, she thought. For Dante. Then she’d tell Naomi and him about her arm. About how she feared the bite was infected, or cursed, or something else awful she hadn’t even thought of yet.
Johnny stopped the car, and Naomi stepped out into the twilight, folding down the front seat so Pao could climb out, too. Pao managed to get on her feet, but she swayed immediately, bracing herself on the car hood to stop from falling.
“You okay?” Naomi asked, squinting at Pao like the cause of her dizziness might be written on her face. Pao imagined it for a moment: demon dog bite spelled out in red paint on her forehead.
She giggled.
Naomi looked alarmed.
“I’m fine,” Pao said, managing to keep her voice steady. “Legs fell asleep, that’s all.”
“Mhm,” Naomi said, like she wasn’t quite buying it, but now wasn’t the time.
Dante, for his part, didn’t look any less pale outside the car. Johnny stood awkwardly beside them, his body language saying he couldn’t wait to get out of there. As little as she liked the idea of losing the wheels, Pao couldn’t blame him. This wasn’t a happy place—she could feel it in her aching bones.
But was it a dangerous one?
Another wave of vertigo hit her. This time Pao could see little green sparks at the lower edges of her vision. She thought of the paper dolls. Not now, she told them, but even her inner monologue was sluggish and slow.
“Dante?” she said, but he was already moving toward the chain-link fence and jerking his chin for Pao and Naomi to follow. He hadn’t heard her. Or he was
ignoring her. Either way, there was nothing to do but follow.
“Later, kids,” Johnny said, lingering even as Dante walked away without so much as a wave good-bye. “Naomi, safe travels.”
“Thanks for your help, Johnny,” Pao said, hoping her words weren’t slurring. Her tongue felt thick and heavy in her mouth as she turned to join Dante.
Johnny and Naomi’s good-bye must have been quick, because Naomi caught up before Dante lifted the latch on the gate. He jiggled it in a particular way to unstick it, like he’d done it before.
When? Pao wondered sleepily. When had he done it before?
The green sparks glinted off the fence as Pao walked through it.
She shook her head to get rid of them, but this time they didn’t go away. Not completely. There was no sign from either Naomi or Dante that they could see them, too. Did that make it better or worse? Pao wondered.
Like many of the other yards they’d seen on their way into Raisin Valley, the lot around the house Dante knew was packed dirt, pitted with holes. An overflowing garbage can stood a few feet from the door, and discarded furniture and auto parts littered the area.
The house must have been white once, years ago, but now it was so grimy that it had turned a sad beige-ish gray. Even the lingering pink light from the setting sun couldn’t improve the aesthetic.
“Dante,” Pao said again, but still he didn’t turn.
“What is this place?” Naomi asked under her breath. Her hand hovered near her hip, where Pao assumed she had a knife concealed.
Pao wanted to say something to Naomi, but she worried that if she opened her mouth, she would just scream in pain.
It was enough to know that Naomi also sensed the mood here. The desperate sadness verging on something worse. Something sinister. Something that made Pao want to reach for her knife, too.
The only trouble was, her arm wouldn’t move.
The green flashes grew brighter at the edges of Pao’s vision, following her up the two sunken steps to the cement porch. At the front door, she swayed again, and Naomi caught her elbow.
“Pao,” she said, concern edging into her normally annoyed expression, “you don’t look so good. Hey, hero boy, maybe we’d better—”
Paola Santiago and the Forest of Nightmares Page 12
