“We can’t go home, Dad. Homeland Security and all those other agencies will be looking for us. But you could arrange to meet her somewhere. You guys are going to have to go into hiding for awhile, unless you want to be dragged right back to that internment camp to start drugging the next batch of lab rats they haul in.”
He grumbled under his breath. “Fine, I see your point. But you’re coming with us.”
“No, I’m not.” I took a deep breath. “I’m staying with this group until they’re safe.”
“Tarah, these are not our people!” he hissed, his words lost to the rest of our truck’s passengers thanks to the roar of the road noise the huge wheels made on the asphalt.
I winced. Like I needed a reminder of how very unspecial I was. Still, I got the point he was trying to make. Logically, I wasn't from the Clann and I had no special abilities whatsoever, so this wasn't really my fight.
Except in my heart I knew this wasn't about logic or facts. It was about doing what was right, not what was easy. And I knew if I ran away and abandoned these people now, I would never be able to live with myself. I had to see this through, wherever that path led me.
Maybe Mom was right. Maybe I was crazy after all.
“You could die,” Dad said. “You understand that, don’t you? You could have died last night. We all could have.”
I nodded. “If not for Hayden.”
Dad groaned. “Please tell me you’re not doing this for that boy.”
“I’m not.” At least, not entirely. Hayden was only part of it. Even if he woke up in an hour and drove away from this group in his truck, I would stay with these people.
“Then tell me why.”
Pressing my hands against my temples, I struggled to explain my decision to myself as much as my dad. “I..I need to know, okay? I need to know what happens to these people. And not through some news article or book someone else writes years from now. I need to see it with my own eyes, to be a part of it. To...”
“Is this some late blooming teenage need to fit in somewhere?” Dad’s face scrunched up, as if channeling even a few seconds of Mom’s therapist line of thinking hurt his brain.
I swallowed a laugh. “No. I’ve known for awhile now that I’m not an outcast and will never truly fit in with them, at least not in that way. It’s more about...” I tried again to understand, to put it into words. “Jeremy sees it all, you know? He sees the true world around us, not just the sanitized or safe parts, and not the lies told by the governments. He’s right there in the middle of it all, doing something important just by being there, by witnessing it and then writing it down as best he can so others can experience it too. He makes his readers see it and feel it and smell it just like he did just by reading one of his articles. He gives a voice to people who have none.”
“And he could get seriously hurt or die in the process. Is that what you want? Are you jealous that his life is more exciting than yours?”
I did laugh at that. “Dad, there is no way his life is more exciting than mine right now.” I shook my head. “This isn’t some thrill ride for me. I think...” I remembered how I felt every weekend, watching Gary and Aimee and the others as they experimented with their growing powers, how it had felt to see that process taking shape right before me even when my own attempts to do magic failed. “I think maybe this is what I was always destined to do. I want to be a part of the real world, not just watch it safely from my couch at home. And I want...”
I hesitated then finally said out loud the words I’d hardly even dared to think to myself in secret. “I want to live it, and then I want to write about it so others can live it too. I want to be a voice for people who have none. Like Jeremy.”
Dad groaned. “That’s what this is about? You want to be a journalist like your big brother?”
I smiled tiredly, my free hand absently stroking the side of Hayden’s forehead where my fingertips found his reassuringly steady heartbeat pulsing just beneath the skin at his temple. “I don’t know if I want to write for a newspaper or magazine, or if I just want to write a book someday. I guess I haven’t quite got it all figured out yet. But I’m working on it. Promise I’ll let you know when I know?”
“And just how long do you plan on...embedding yourself with these people before you’ve seen enough to write your story?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “No idea. I guess I’ll know the ending to their story when I see it.”
Dad sighed and shook his head. “Even if you do get the story written and out there someday, just how long do you think you’ll be able to hide before the government comes after you for writing it? You’re going to be in enough trouble as it is just for breaking out of an internment camp. The government’s sure to believe you’re from the Clann now. If you write a story revealing what’s really going on, and they find you—”
“If they find me.”
“When they find you, they’re not going to let you escape again. They’ll throw you right back into another internment camp. How am I and your mother and brother supposed to save you then? Especially if we don’t even know where you are?”
Again he had a good point. “Maybe I’m turning into a rebel, but Jeremy’s not. You know he’s smart enough to always dance on the right side of the law. So we’ll just use him as our go between. When I change locations, I’ll post a message on this forum he likes to use all the time to find new sources. I’ll use that nickname he always used to call me by.”
“Worm?” Dad said with a half smile.
I nodded, remembering how Jeremy used to love to sneak up behind me, grab my ankles, and yank me into the air upside down while saying “look, Ma, I hooked a worm!” So stupid of him, and yet now I’d give anything for him to do it again. But it had been years since I was small enough for him to pick me up. And now there was no telling when I’d even see my big brother again.
I sighed.
Dad shook his head, his eyes turning sad. “Do you honestly expect me to let my little girl just go running off with a bunch of strangers for who knows how long on some crazy mission to become a Pulitzer prize winning writer?”
“You let Jeremy.”
“He’s—”
“Do not say it’s because he’s a boy,” I warned.
“I was going to say he’s older,” Dad muttered. “Not to mention he at least went to college first. And he’s being as safe as he can. He’s with the military everywhere he goes, in armored vehicles, wearing protective gear. And on the right side of the law, as you just pointed out.”
“But he’s still in war-torn areas risking getting blown up by some road side bomb or a missile toting terrorist at any second. And if he gets caught by the other side, his being a legally embedded American journalist will only make things worse for him.”
Dad grunted his reluctant agreement with those points, and with that single sound, I was taken right back to the countless family debates I’d managed to survive sitting through all my life.
Family debates I might never be a part of again.
I cleared my throat as it tried to tighten. “And besides, what does going to college have to do with it? I don’t have to go to college to become a journalist.”
“Maybe not, but at least your brother’s college years gave your mother and I more time to try and talk him out of his crazy plan. We were supposed to have at least four more years to coerce you into a career of our choosing. You’re barely eighteen!”
I couldn’t help but smile and lean my cheek against my dad’s shoulder. We both knew my parents never would have tried to push me into a career of their choosing. They were too proud of how independent they were raising both of their kids. “Well, think of it this way. You’ll be saving gobs of money on student loans for me.”
“Like I care. I’d pay it all three times over just to know you were safe.”
“I know, Dad. But sooner or later you have to let me go out into the world on my own.”
He went silent for a long moment. Finally he mut
tered, “What am I supposed to tell your mother?”
I cringed. Now that was one scene I was glad I wouldn’t be around to have to witness.
Sunday, December 13th
Hayden
Quiet. Warmth. Soft hands stroking my right hand.
I peeled open my eyelids, then wished I hadn’t as a thin line of daylight stabbed at my eyeballs. I groaned.
“Shh,” Tarah whispered against my ear. “Don’t talk now.”
I took a few seconds to open my eyes, letting them adjust to the light. Finally, I could see a little.
Metal floor beneath us. Dark greenish brown canvas roof and walls. We must be in the back of one of the camp’s military trucks. Which meant at least a few of us had made it out after all.
I used my stomach muscles to help me sit up. The movement made the several layers of scratchy wool blankets fall away from my chest and my left shoulder twinge in protest. I remembered Tarah’s voice at the camp telling me I’d been shot. My shoulder continued to burn and throb with a low pulse of pain in rhythm with my heartbeat. But for a bullet wound, it didn’t hurt nearly as much as I’d always imagined one would. I wanted to see what it looked like, but my entire left shoulder had been wrapped in gauze under the white T-shirt I wore now. The shirt fit looser than normal. Probably swiped from the camp’s guard building by someone to replace my other shirt and hoodie. If not for the blankets, I would have been freezing.
Then the blood rushed away from my head. My upper body swayed out of my control, and nausea hit me so hard and fast I feared I would puke right then and there. While I saw dots and little squiggly lines dancing over a dark and blurry field of vision, Tarah helped me scoot backwards till I could rest upright against the metal side of the truck. I closed my eyes and clamped my teeth shut till both the sensations passed.
Her shoulder brushed my good one, tempting me to open my eyes again and watch her as she twisted to peek outside the truck through a tear in the canvas.
After a minute, I heard a car start up a few feet from us and drive away.
Tarah sighed. “Okay, now we can talk. How do you feel?”
I grunted.
Whispers and rustling as bodies shifted all around us, and for the first time I noticed we weren’t alone. The truck bed was full of outcasts I recognized from the internment camp. And all of them were watching us.
“How many made it out?” I muttered to Tarah and braced myself for her answer, knowing whatever she said, ultimately it would be my fault and everyone in this truck would blame me for it.
She grinned. “Everyone.”
What? What about the fight at the end? “How many were wounded?”
“Just one. You. And Pamela said you should be pretty close to healed by now. The healers are really good. They took turns fixing you up. Though they said you might still end up with a scar. The bullet went right through your shoulder. You might also feel a little woozy for a while since you lost a lot of blood.”
I blinked, unsure how to react. On the one hand, I hadn’t gotten anyone killed or seriously hurt, other than myself.
On the other hand, I was the only one who’d gotten hurt at all. Now that was just plain embarrassing. “Guess I should’ve ducked, huh?”
Tarah stared at me without a hint of a smile now. “You saved everyone’s lives, Hayden. Because of you, no one else was hurt, and everyone’s free of that place.”
“Yeah, well, still, no one else ended up being carried out of there. I bet they had a good laugh about it.”
“Uh, no one’s laughing about it. In fact…” She leaned in closer and whispered, “I think you’re developing quite a fan club. You’re a real life hero.”
She made a point of raising her eyebrows and looking around.
That’s why everyone was staring at us? I thought they were blaming me for not getting everyone out of the camp.
I looked again at all the faces surrounding us, this time daring to make eye contact. While I didn’t see any glares of hatred and blame as expected, what I did find made me almost as uncomfortable. Their eyes shone with something like gratitude mixed with hope and a whole lot of questions I couldn’t answer for them.
I cleared my throat then whispered, “How many’s in the group? And where are we headed now?”
“Well, some of the families already had their own plans for what to do next. So we dropped them off at a bus station along the way. Including my dad.” Tightness crept into her voice on that last part, and I looked at her. Her chin rose a bit as she continued. “The rest of us decided to stick together. Now we’ve stopped for gas. I think we’re somewhere in Oklahoma?”
She still hadn’t told me where we were headed.
“Where are we going?” I leaned over to peek out through the tear in the canvas at what looked like a dusty gas station.
“I…um, found that name and address in your pocket. I called her, and she said she’s your grandma? She said we should bring everyone to her house, and we could figure out the rest from there.”
I froze, hoping I’d heard her wrong. “We’re all going to my grandma’s? In South Dakota? Tarah, that’s over a thousand miles from the camp.”
She rolled her lips in and pressed them together then shrugged. “It’s a safe haven. Besides, you weren’t exactly available for consultation. But if you want to change your mind about South Dakota and take us all somewhere better, no one’s gonna argue with you.”
This felt like a really bad idea. “Why is everyone sticking together anyway? Don’t they realize they can hide better if all these families split off on their own? A group this big is too noticeable. We’re going to attract too much attention.”
Tarah stared at me, her expression unreadable. “I don’t think they know what to do. And most of them weren’t carrying much cash on them when the soldiers dragged them off to the camp, and of course now the government’s frozen all their accounts so they can’t get to whatever funds they did have in their banks. So there’s no way they can afford to go off on their own anyway. At least together they can pool what they have for enough gas to get us all to South Dakota.”
“I’ve got a credit card I can use.” Unless Dad had heard about my small part in the prison break. Then I would be just as screwed as everyone else, depending of course on whether he chose to cover my tracks in order to keep his own name clean or else use all of his political resources to hunt me down. I thought about Mom’s business card. It might still be safe. Maybe. “Look, why don’t I just give them some money and—”
“And then what? They’re all probably wanted by the FBI by now. If they try to leave the country or cross any of the borders, they’d get caught and thrown into another internment camp. And either they have no family and friends who can hide them, or they don’t want to endanger them. Plus, I think they kind of feel safer together as a group. Even if we are more noticeable this way.”
I groaned under my breath, using my good hand to scrub my face. This was nuts. What were we supposed to do with them once we got to my grandma’s house, stick them all in the basement for who knew how long till the government changed the laws again? That could take months, or even years.
A car engine grew louder as it pulled into the gas station and stopped. What few whispered conversations had broken out in the truck cut off as a car door clicked open then slammed shut just a few feet away. Adults grabbed their younger children and clamped hands over their mouths to keep them quiet. The children didn’t resist, their faces extra pale beneath the streaks of dirt.
Even the youngest of these outcasts had learned the importance of hiding.
Carefully I peeked out through the tear in the canvas then silently swore. A local police car had pulled up across from us at the gas pumps.
I turned to the group and mouthed “cop”.
Tarah blindly grabbed my good hand, her nails digging into my skin as she clamped down.
Two men in badly fitted military uniforms exited the gas station. The police officer nodded in greeting
at them. One driver nodded back. The other soldier pretended not to notice.
I silently swore again. I’d seen enough photos at Kyle’s house of his dad and Mr. Kingsley’s military buddies to know that no way did these fake soldiers look the part. One outcast had obviously thrown his uniform on in too much of a hurry, missing a button near the top. His jacket gaped to reveal a gold chain necklace over a blue t-shirt. The other pseudo soldier’s uniform was about two sizes too small, stretched to near bursting around his gut, several inches of his wrists exposed below the sleeves.
Not to mention, both wore sneakers.
Keep walking, I prayed as the police officer headed for the gas station.
He went inside the building. The fake soldiers parted ways, each climbing behind the wheel of a separate truck.
Then the police officer came back, walking faster this time, heading straight for my truck driver’s door. His two hard slaps on the metal exterior echoed throughout the covered bed, making several kids jump.
Everyone’s eyes either rounded with fear or clamped shut in terror as we all fought not to panic. A couple of the older kids not held down by their parents twitched. I held a finger to my mouth, and they froze again.
The truck door hinges screeched as our driver opened it and stepped out.
“Yes sir?” the driver drawled.
“Where you coming from?” the police officer asked.
Despite the lack of heat in the truck bed area, sweat beaded and slid down the center of my back. I resisted the urge to throw off the blankets from my legs, worried any small movement would still make enough of a sound for the cop to hear through the canvas.
The driver’s reply was a murmur too low to make out. And definitely not the snappy answer Kyle’s dad would ever give anyone. If Mr. Kingsley was anything to judge the typical soldier by, we had yet another mark against us.
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