They’d come the first night Janelle had brought a Bible.
He led them across the first street, all but hurdled the curb, and dashed toward the street where he’d parked the Jeep. By the time the Constabulary organized a true search, Clay and the girls would be long gone. The Jeep waited up ahead. He didn’t miss a stride as he tugged his keys from his pocket and clicked the unlock button.
“Okay.” The door handle dug into his hand as he wrenched open the driver’s door. “Everyone in—”
“Violet?”
The panic in Khloe’s voice turned him around. She and Natalia stood there, both rotating in desperate search. Violet was … nowhere. Gone.
“She was behind me, just a second ago.” Khloe’s voice shook.
The Constabulary couldn’t have grabbed Violet, not without getting the rest of them. If she’d fallen and twisted her ankle or something, she couldn’t call for help.
“Get in. We’ll circle the block.”
“Absolutely no way, Dad.”
Natalia gripped Khloe’s arm and pushed her toward the Jeep. “He’s right, get in. Now, Khloe Renee!”
The middle name had never dented Khloe’s petulance before, so it must be fear that propelled her obedience now.
As soon as the Jeep was in drive, reality vetoed Clay’s plan. “I’ll take you home first. And then I’ll come back for Violet.”
“But, Dad, you said—”
“I know what I said.” He drove down the street at an inconspicuous, residential-zone speed. Distance dimmed the store’s light. “It’s too dangerous to lurk around here.”
“I’m not leaving my best friend for the con-cops.”
“Khloe, I might have to search a little, and I don’t want you ending up in the middle of this.” Behind him came the sound of a door flinging open.
“Khloe!” Natalia shouted.
Clay’s foot mashed the brake pedal to the floor. Something thumped to the ground. He swiveled to look back. Natalia sat alone. She stared at the open door across the seat, her mouth an oval of shock. She threw open her door and leaped out.
Clay jammed the Jeep into park. “No! I’ll get her!”
Khloe had run a hundred feet before his first step. His longer strides could catch her, but she zigzagged like a soldier avoiding crossfire. Must have learned that from a movie.
“Khloe, stop.” The words burst from him.
Natalia gazed back over the field. “Clay …”
He stood closest to the curb, so the tide of red and blue light stained him first. Ahead, at the end of the street, a squad car pulled around to block the way. An officer stepped out. Not Constabulary, just a regular cop. Flashlight in one hand, the other perched on his belt, one twitch away from the holster.
“Need any help, sir?” He walked toward Clay.
“Oh, no, officer, we’re fine. Um, we lost our dog and …”
Lost the dog. At midnight. But the words were out now. Clay had to sell them.
“She looked like she was going to pee in the car, you know? So we went to let her out and she took off …”
The officer’s flashlight beam and gaze pivoted toward the field. Nausea pummeled Clay, but the clearing stretched empty under the clouded night sky, void of fleeing teenagers.
“Sir, I have to ask you to leave the area. MPC asked for local backup, got a tip on an unlicensed gathering. Barricaded themselves inside, and we don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with right now. Just a block away. I need this area cleared ASAP.”
“Oh, yeah … We saw the green lights.”
“You’re going to have to leave without your dog for now. We’ll keep our eyes open. She got tags?”
“Yes, and a pink collar.”
“Okay. Now I need you to get back in your car. You can go around my roadblock up there.”
“Thank you, sir.” Clay forced his legs to keep a leisurely pace back to the Jeep. Once Natalia had joined him inside, Clay turned the key to start the slow, confined cage. On his bike, he’d be gone in heartbeats.
He shouldn’t have brought his family here.
He’d screwed up. Really, in a big way, screwed up.
He drove toward the squad car at a devastating, unsuspicious crawl. By now, they’d probably discovered Janelle’s ruse.
“What are you doing?” Natalia’s voice drilled into his racing brain.
“He told me to leave.”
“Our daughter is out there somewhere, probably watching us abandon her.”
Clay maneuvered the Jeep almost over the curb to make it around the police car. This close, the rotating lights made him squint. “I’ll double back, but we have to wait, at least an hour. If they see us back here again, they’ll know.”
“We should tell them.”
“Tell … the police?”
Natalia glared at him in the rearview mirror. “Obviously not the whole truth, that you’re a Christian and pressured your law-abiding family into—”
“That’s enough.”
She barely paused. “If we explain that we suspected our daughter and followed her here, but she ran away when we confronted her about her philosophical indiscretions …”
Right, blame Khloe for his actions, his beliefs. Clay turned the Jeep onto the main road, and a fragment of his heart shook loose.
“Go back,” Natalia said.
“Not yet.”
Her hand shot between the front seats and gripped the steering wheel. The Jeep weaved.
“Nat, quit!”
“Go back, Clay. That’s our daughter!”
“Text her. Tell her we’ll be back for her as soon as it’s safe.” The quiet held a new tension. “What is it?”
Natalia’s fingers dug into his arm. “Her phone. It’s in the store. On the shelf.”
A red light seemed to materialize a few feet ahead of him. Clay’s foot slammed the brake pedal.
“Their purses,” Natalia said. “The police will have her photo ID, and Violet’s.”
“Not Violet’s. At least, not her phone. Text Violet.” Thank God she’d pocketed her phone.
Natalia was right. He had to turn around and go back. He could plow this bulky off-roader right over the curb, over the sidewalk, into the field. He could turn on the high beams and holler for Violet and Khloe until they emerged from their hiding places and ran to the Jeep.
But … no. It all smashed into Clay, how this would go down. The police would identify two minors at the scene of a terrorist meeting and inform their parents.
“She’s not texting back.” Natalia’s voice was a rubber band about to snap. “She must’ve lost the phone. We have to go back.”
“They’ll never believe we were ignorant of our daughter’s terrorist activities if we show up at the crime scene looking for her.”
He had to keep driving. Get away now or there’d be no one to release the girls to later. He cracked his knuckles against his palm until the light turned green, then turned the Jeep toward home. What kind of father are you? He was leaving his little girl alone in the woods overnight, hiding on the fringe of a search radius. Hopefully, Violet would find her. Parental instinct told Clay that Violet would survive on her own just fine, would look out for Khloe if needed. But if the Constabulary began an earnest hunt … The image of Khloe cowering from a snarling, snapping search dog sent his pulse into overdrive.
Dear Lord, keep them safe and give them back to me. Soon. Please.
After a mile of straining silence, Natalia’s voice came again, calm now. The sort of calm that stole over a landscape just before the touchdown of a funnel cloud. “If any of us end up in re-education over this …”
Janelle was probably already on her way there. But they won’t get us. The promise stayed lodged in his throat. He had no idea if he could keep it.
9
Clay’s taillights faded, and Violet lowered her forehead to her knees. Janelle, at least, was guaranteed re-education. Violet hadn’t totally failed, not quite. But her primary responsibility was to Clay, not a bunch of Christian strangers. One blessing shone out from her disaster of a mission: Khloe wouldn’t get shoved into re-education if her dad wasn’t caught. But in light of everything else, that relief seemed shallow.
Oak bark prodded her back, but Violet didn’t move from her knees-to-chest position at the base of the tree. She inhaled the dampening air and looked up into the foliage that rustled its disappointment. Even Phil and Felice might have escaped. Or maybe not. Her phone vibrated, and she pulled it out. Natalia. Where are you?
Temporary retreat had been smart of Clay. He wasn’t abandoning them. He’d come back when it was safe. In fact, if she asked him to, he’d come back now. Miles away, thunder rumbled. He wouldn’t leave her in the rain, would he? She hit Reply. She could say she was hurt. She could say …
Her thumb hovered over the phone. She’d done the right thing so far. She had to keep doing it.
Even if it cost her her best friend.
“Violet.”
She jumped, scraping her back against the tree. Oh, no. Khloe. Crouched and picking her way forward, her yellow shirt a spotlight against the trees. Khloe half straightened and brushed her wind-whipped ponytail away from her face.
None of this was happening like it was supposed to.
Across the field, through a filter of ferns, sound and light drifted. Green lights rotating. Authoritative shouts. And once, a woman’s husky-voiced shout in response. Janelle.
What made a person stay behind and let her friends go free? That had to be true brainwashing.
“Hiding out in the woods? Seriously?” Khloe whispered.
“What’re you doing out here?”
“Finding you, stupidhead.”
Dumb loyalty. Violet shoved the phone back into her pocket. No luring Clay back. No “come get me” text to the con-cops. Not yet, anyway, unless she wanted Khloe to know everything.
“Oh. My. Gosh. Violet.”
“What?”
Khloe swayed forward. Violet slid toward her through the ferns. “Hey, it’s okay.”
“Our purses. We left them.”
Khloe’s purse. On the shelf. Shoved behind a box, but they’d find it. Even if Clay escaped, Khloe couldn’t.
“It’s over. My life. All over.”
Violet snared her hand. “We’ll turn ourselves in right now. We’ll explain to them that you had no choice, your dad made you—”
“I’m not going to re-ed, Violet. I’m not. Ever.”
A chill washed over Violet, as if the rain had begun to fall. “They have your … our IDs.”
“And they’ll search our houses first. We can’t go back there. We’ll have to go … somewhere … until all this blows over.”
Khloe folded forward, gripped her knees, and cried. Violet wrapped her in a hug and rocked her.
“Shh, okay, it’ll be okay.” Violet rubbed her back. She had to go find a con-cop and identify herself as their spy. But she couldn’t walk away while Khloe clutched her shoulders.
“Dad and Mom, they’ll look less suspicious too, if I disappear for a couple days. Then they can say they didn’t know about me.”
“And what’ll we do, sleep in a tree and survive on fern leaves?”
Khloe shuddered against her.
“There’s nowhere to go, Khloe.”
Khloe pulled back. “This is going to sound crazy, but like a month ago, Daddy told me that if something ever happened … I think he meant something like this.”
What in the world was she talking about?
“There’s a house at the end of our block, with a big deck added on. He said somebody would come for me.”
“Somebody.” Good grief. Khloe wasn’t talking about some random person’s porch. She was talking about one of their porches. A resistance haven.
“They don’t have to know I’m not a Christian.”
No, they didn’t.
“But if you want to turn yourself in, you can, Vi. They might go easier on you if you do, who knows how it works. I just can’t start my senior year in re-ed. I can’t do it. By August, September, this will all be over. Things will be normal. We’ll laugh about it.”
In the distance, but not far enough, voices shouted to each other. Khloe hugged herself, and Violet glimpsed the two of them at ten years old, when Natalia was about to discover that they’d used her credit card to buy forbidden concert tickets online. Violet still couldn’t say how they’d expected to get there, but their logic said that Khloe’s mom couldn’t deny them transportation once the tickets were purchased. Now, despite her speech seconds before, Khloe gave Violet that same stare, the one that said, How do I survive this? The one that said, Please don’t desert me now.
The voices felt closer. Violet dragged Khloe several feet deeper into the trees, until Khloe started to run alongside her. Their fingers wove into a sweaty link.
Khloe was soon panting. “Can’t we … stop? Climb a tree—or something?”
“No.” Violet tugged her onward.
“Why not?”
“They could bring dogs in.” A tree would be nothing but a trap.
They had to run as far as they could, as fast as they could. Violet’s T-shirt stuck to her back. Feathery ferns and rough weeds tried to trip her. In the dark, she miscalculated distances, and her elbow left skin on a tree trunk.
Eventually, lights filtered through the trees before them. The voices had faded and then disappeared. Violet slowed, stopped. Khloe still clung to her hand, pressed the other to her side.
“Ow,” she whispered.
The lights ahead blinked. No, moved. White lights, red lights, and that whooshing sound. Traffic. Probably a main road, judging from the speed of the passing cars.
“Violet?”
“Let’s hope there’s a street sign. We have to figure out where we are.”
She set out toward the road. Rustling grass behind her assured that Khloe was following. She emerged into a gust of wind that dried the sweat on her back and raised goose bumps on her arms. The scent of rain filled the air around her. Perfect, if a dog tried to trail them later. Come on, sky. Rain already.
She jogged a hundred yards or so to the closest road sign, where a residential street butted up against the forest and intersected with this road.
“I know where we are,” Khloe said behind her.
“Me, too.” Mostly.
“I can find my street from here. And that porch.”
Yes. This was it. God had sent Khloe back here to continue Violet’s mission.
But Khloe would find out.
No, she won’t. Violet linked her fingers through her friend’s. Their charm bracelets clinked against each other.
“You’re coming?” Khloe’s whisper lilted with hope.
“Where else would I go?”
“Home, stupidhead.”
Violet squeezed her hand. “Overrated.”
10
His steps should echo through the foyer, down the hall, into the kitchen, but his tennis shoes were silent. Like the house. Like his wife, who slid away into their bedroom and shut the door. What Clay needed right now was the edge of a cliff to jump from, a plunge into water that would numb the silent screaming in this house. His keys dangled from his fingers. He rubbed the key to his bike, cold and ready. What he needed right now was an infinite blacktop carpet rolled out before him—curves and blind hills and speed.
He rushed to the rack of hooks hung across the room, below Natalia’s calendar of waterfall photos. The keys jingled as he shoved them onto a hook. No bike. No running. He wasn’t that man anymore.
This loss wasn’t the one that tore holes in his dreams. Khloe was st
ill alive, still healthy … and imperiled by his own stupidity. Clay wandered to the fridge and pawed for a Dr Pepper. The can chilled his palm.
Go back there and get her.
He popped the can’s seal. Cool fizz sprayed his palm and tickled his throat going down. Maybe pop would settle his stomach. He gulped half the can before he noticed the blender parts in the sink. The glass container lay on its side, not even soaking. By now, the thin pink coat of strawberry smoothie had dried and crusted. Khloe had whipped up and gulped down one of her creations before they picked Violet up tonight for the Table meeting.
“Did you wash the blender or leave it in the sink?”
“I’m such an irresponsible teenager.”
Clay turned the water on hot and squirted some soap onto the dishrag. Behind his eyes, something burned.
“Lord,” he whispered. “You know I can’t go out there and get her. So You bring her home.”
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t turn to face Natalia’s brittle voice. “Praying.”
“Ironic.” She stomped to the sink and slammed the faucet off. “Do not clean that thing.”
Clay angled a glance. Natalia’s lips pressed into a thin, trembling line. He wanted to reach out and trace her cheekbone, her lips. He flipped the water back on.
“You detest dirty dishes left in the sink.”
“She’ll never learn to do things for herself if we’re constantly—”
“That’s your biggest concern for her at this moment, that she learns to wash the dishes?”
Natalia grabbed the blender jar’s handle, and it slid from Clay’s soapy grasp and smashed against the lip of the sink, fracturing the base away. Jagged pieces of glass dropped into the sink. Soap dripped onto the counter.
“You come home from dragging us there and making us criminals and then leaving your child to fend for herself, and the first thing you do is clean the kitchen.”
Leaving your child. Clay’s wet hand curled around the counter’s edge. “That isn’t what I did, Nat.”
She picked up a sudsy sliver of glass and tried to find where it fit.
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