Lareina’s breathing quickened as she tried to grasp the kind of trouble this stranger had involved her in. She wanted to walk away but couldn’t protect herself without understanding the situation. “You have to tell me what’s happening so we can figure out what to do next.” Sliding to the ground, she put a hand on Susan’s arm.
“You saw the blood.” Her typically melodic voice shook and became a muffled clash of cymbals. “They already got him and now nothing will stop them from coming for me.” She finally looked up but her blank eyes seemed to stare at something through the brick wall in front of them.
A sweltering summer sun beat down on Lareina, forming beads of sweat across her forehead, but she shivered. She tried to swallow, but all moisture had evaporated from her mouth, maybe her entire body. “Who will come for you?”
Susan shook her head and rubbed a hand through her hair, pulling blond strands loose to flap across her face. “The man, Russ Galloway. He claimed to be a detective, but he works for them. He wanted to talk to my dad about a project he worked on six years ago. He killed my parents.” She tried to catch her breath in wheezing gasps. “He’ll do anything to get the pendant.”
“Why don’t you just give it to him?” The pendant didn’t have any inherent worth that she could see. A loaf of bread would be more valuable.
Susan shook her head and gripped Lareina’s wrists so tight she thought her bones would snap. “No. My dad sent me away with it so they wouldn’t find it. He said it would be the end of everything, of all of us . . . and his eyes. I’d never seen him . . . scared in my life, but when he gave this to me . . .” She looked down and blinked away a tear. “You can never tell another person about this.”
“I won’t.” The promise rose out of fearful uncertainty.
Releasing her grip, Susan fell back against the wall, sobbing with her forehead against her scrunched knees.
“But I don’t want to be a part of any of this.” Standing, she brushed off her clothes, took a few steps toward the street, and then turned around. Sighing, she sank back down to the ground and waited until her acquaintance’s sobs faded to whimpers.
“I left everything at the hotel . . . all of my money.” Susan sniffled. “I can’t go back there. It might be a trap.”
“Maybe I can—”
“No,” she interrupted. “If he’s been watching us then he’ll recognize you. It’s too dangerous.”
“But he is a detective. He’s caught me stealing before and let me off with a lecture. He’ll just think—”
“I said no.” Susan’s eyes narrowed. “You have to believe me.” She slid her hand into her pocket and finally took a full breath. “I have my train ticket, but it’s for three days from now.” She looked to her only ally, helplessly.
“I’ll help you hide until you can get a train out of the city.” How could she abandon someone so unequipped to survive? After all, she wished someone had been there to guide her through the times she felt alone and hopeless.
Susan stretched her legs out in front of her and stared at her shoes. “I won’t be able to pay you before I leave.”
“You can get the money to me when you’re safe.”
For three days they crept through the city, sneaking from alley to alley, hiding in the shadows, ghosts traveling the streets unseen by any human eyes. On the last night they sat crouched behind a dumpster in a cluttered alley. Susan often complained of hunger and an inability to sleep. She wasn’t used to going without, but stealing enough food for even one person often proved difficult.
“I haven’t told you the worst part of the story.” Her voice shook, barely audible over the rumble of a nearby air conditioner. “My dad had two of these pendants once. They were in a jewelry box in his desk when I was a kid, and I took them for friendship necklaces. When we moved I put this one back, but he didn’t realize the other one was missing until a few months ago.”
“You mean there’s another one of these?”
“More than that, I think. Dr. Iverson should have had one.” She shifted her weight and rested her head against her knees. “My friend is out there and he has no idea what kind of danger he’s in because of me.”
Lareina pulled her feet closer to her body to avoid drips falling from a window air conditioner above. “You didn’t know.”
“I loved him, I think, but we had to move away. We just left in the middle of the night so I never got to say goodbye. I didn’t know it was because of the pendants.”
Another air conditioner clattered to life, a car rumbled down the street, a dozen dogs barked in staccato yelps then yielded to the sirens of a police car screaming in the distance. For a long time they both remained silent.
“Lareina?”
“Yeah?”
“If something happens to me, you won’t let him have the pendant, right?”
“Nothing’s going to happen.”
“But if it does?”
“I won’t let him have it.”
The next day Galloway spotted them at the train station. They made it to the tree line but Susan wasn’t accustomed to running. She wasn’t fast enough to escape the detective’s bullets.
Chapter 6
Lareina dressed in the clean clothes from her bag and carefully rearranged the pendant so it would be hidden under her shirt. Since the day Susan’s bloody fingers had pressed it into her hand, she hadn’t taken it off for fear it would be lost or stolen.
“I won’t let him have it.” Speaking the words out loud renewed the promise. “I’ll never tell anyone.”
Stepping out of the bathroom, she yawned and walked into the living room where Sarah placed a sheet and pillow on the couch. Standing in the doorway, backpack resting on the ground beside her, she imagined her head sinking into the feather pillow. Only for a minute and then it would be time to go.
Sarah turned around and smiled. “Oh there you are,” she exclaimed. “I hope you’ll be comfortable sleeping here. It took me a while to find an extra pillow.”
“It looks really comfortable compared to my bed.” Her back still ached from the lumpy ground she’d tried to sleep on earlier that day. I can’t stay. I can’t stay. The words repeated over and over in her mind, but her feet shuffled to the couch, and she sank down into the cool fabric. A blanket draped over her from her feet to her chin. Light faded from the room and outside crickets trilled their lonely song.
Twigs and washed out clumps of grass swirled through the murky torrent of a swollen creek. The constant roar of rushing water became a rumbling echo as it poured beneath a railroad bridge and lapped against the support beams. Glancing down at the map in her hand, Lareina smiled at Sarah’s cartoon drawing of the structure right in front of her.
Only an hour earlier Sarah had packed a huge bag of deer jerky and a loaf of freshly baked bread. She wanted to send more but couldn’t squeeze even the smallest morsel more into Lareina’s backpack already stuffed with her belongings. She hugged Sarah and the girls each twice before they walked her down to the end of the dirt road, then her footsteps padded along alone as she waved goodbye to the strangers who had treated her like family.
A pulsing clack-clack-clack resonated in the distance. She watched the tracks as the ground rumbled, then a harsh whistle announced the coming train that rattled past her. One, two, three . . . The outflow of air from the rushing train twisted her hair around and across her face. Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five . . . Sunlight glinted off glass in passenger cars revealing the figures of people traveling in comfort. Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine . . . The last car rushed past and a still silence settled over the landscape.
Thirty-nine cars carrying people, food, soap, coffee, and clothes. Each person, each item, had a destination, a place to go where someone waited. The beginning of an idea bloomed as the retreating train punctured the horizon. Trains had been a constant, a familiarity she’d come to expect no matter where the ORI sent her to live. She traveled by train whenever they transferred her to a new Home for Chi
ldren or replacement parents. However, since running away from her last Home for Children, she hadn’t been able to afford a ticket and had been too scared to risk stowing away. In the best-case scenario she would be sent to the nearest home for children. She could also be arrested. And then there was the possibility she would be killed on the spot. It all depended on who discovered her.
I could travel so much faster, without blisters, without worrying about Galloway catching me. She wondered how far north the tracks could take her and remembered the little train station in Maibe always swarming with people. Could Galloway find me a thousand miles away? Is he even following me anymore? She hadn’t encountered him since the flooded bridge almost a week earlier, which offered hope that he would never find her again.
An arrow on Sarah’s map prompted her to cross the railroad bridge and follow the tracks the rest of the way to Austin. During the next hour, two more trains raced along the tracks, both traveling away from Austin. The dewy grass soaked her feet, causing her wet shoes to slap with each step. Her worn right shoe gaped in the front leaving her toes exposed, and her left shoe had been fraying its way to the same fate for weeks. She would need to find new ones soon.
After miles of traveling in the scorching August sun without seeing a house or even a shed, the speck of a structure appeared on the horizon. It morphed from a windmill to a tree to a little blue house sitting eight feet off the railroad tracks.
Vines climbed the walls in thick tangles that pried beneath siding and edged through broken windows. She hesitated before testing the doorknob. A few wispy vines stretched across the doorway, but the rest looped to the side, as if pushed there. Stepping back, she listened to silence. A gust of wind lifted waxy leaves then dropped them back into place. Perhaps the vines had grown that way, unable to grasp any surface in the recess of the doorway. Perhaps someone slept inside or worse, waited to attack an intruder. Caution or courage? Blistered, chafed feet or the chance to find shoes without holes?
One twist of the knob and the door swung forward with a pitiful whimper. After a minute of watchful stillness, she walked into a sparsely furnished living room animated by shadows. Vines rustled in the windows, a tree branch scratched across crumbling shingles, and a train trilled in the distance. Empty cupboards, empty closets, and empty rooms greeted her as she searched the first floor. Frustrated, she ran to the top of the stairs.
In the room straight ahead, a box of brand-new shoes sat on the floor, open and waiting. Her confusion morphed into panic as Galloway’s familiar scent of cinnamon woven with cedar reminded her of the dangers like a rumble of thunder alerts one to an oncoming storm. Her pulsing heart sank and her mouth went dry. Downstairs, footsteps pounded across the wooden floor. Time to plan, to think, to breathe dwindled with each footfall. If something happens to me, you won’t let Galloway have the pendant, right?
The first stair groaned in an explosion of red fragments of sound. Darting into the room, she slammed the door shut as Galloway crashed against it from the other side. It bowed forward but held long enough for her to slide a single hook lock into place.
“Open this door.” His voice rammed through the thin barrier between them. “You’re trapped. There’s nowhere for you to run.”
She backed away from the door and picked up the pink- and-gray running shoes. Tags dangled from the shoelaces displaying a large black six. Exactly her size. Exactly what she needed.
“How did you know I needed new shoes?” It took less than a minute to slip out of her tattered sneakers and pull the new ones onto her feet.
“They looked pretty pathetic when you pulled that tightrope routine last week. I figured you’d find a way to follow the railroad tracks.” The detective laughed a low chuckle.
Determined to escape, she unlocked the window and attempted to shove the bottom upward. Her hands slipped and her shoulder knocked hard against solid glass. Outside, a large tree branch squeaked against the windowpane. The window didn’t move. She examined the sill and found a nail jammed through.
Why did you choose the only room with glass in the window? Because you needed shoes. How could you walk into such a simple trap? Never again.
“Just slide the pendant under the door,” Galloway threatened. “If I have to break this door down, you’ll spend the rest of your life in a San Antonio prison.”
“What are you going to do with it?” Her main goal was to keep him talking, but if she got answers in the process, all the better. She tried to pry her fingers under the window.
“I’ve already told you. It’s not for me.” The gruffness in his voice softened. “I’m under orders to retrieve that pendant by any means necessary.”
Squeezing her fingers beneath the nail, she pulled upward. Her fingers burned, but the nail didn’t move. She tried twisting the nail, then wiggling it back and forth. It didn’t budge. “So when you killed Susan you were only doing your job?”
He stopped beating at the door. Either he had a new plan or the conversation was working to distract him.
“Yes, but I don’t want anyone else to die over this thing,” he shouted through the door. “I’m running out of time and they won’t be as patient with me as I’m being with you.”
Her fingers felt numb and tingly. The nail wasn’t loosening. She had to keep stalling. “What do they need the pendant for?” She scanned the room for anything she could use to escape. The closet was empty and the only furniture was an old bed with musty blankets and a wooden chair.
“To protect the world from something worse than you can imagine.” The usual bluntness returned to his voice, but Lareina, a practiced liar, noticed a telling change in pitch. It betrayed an emotion in Galloway that she never expected to discover.
“Funny, Susan told me the worst would happen if you got your hands on it.” In the hallway, Galloway was silent. She crept to the chair and dragged it to the window, then fumbled to disengage the inside screen.
“What are you doing in there?” His voice dripped with impatience.
A muffled scraping filtered into the room and one hinge wobbled. He would remove the door before she could escape. Talk to him. Distract him. Buy some more time.
“What kind of detective are you? How could it take you an entire week to catch up with me?” she taunted.
“I’ll admit you’re pretty clever, but my plan was to get ahead of you and here we are.”
She picked up the chair and smashed it through glass.
“What was that?” he shouted, but panic replaced anger.
“Thanks for the shoes.”
Tearing a blanket from the bed, she tossed it over shards of glass on the sill before slipping through the window. Propelling herself from one sturdy tree branch to another, she scrambled over slick bark, swinging to the ground in seconds. Before the detective set foot outside the house, her new shoes met the ground and launched her forward.
Any disappointment for being outwitted vanished as her feet came back to life, floating over the ground in the only new shoes she’d ever owned. A sharp right turn through an overgrown field led into a thick grove of trees. It didn’t matter where she was; her only priority was escaping the detective. Lareina didn’t turn around, didn’t flinch at twigs that scratched her face, didn’t give up on pushing her feet through the tangle of slippery brush, but she felt Galloway’s angry determination slither through the trees after her.
Sun filtered through a thick canopy, creating shadows across the ground. She sped out of the trees and into a park on the edge of a disintegrating town. Cutting across the small dirt parking lot, she rushed onto a bigger road that once upon a time was a quaint main street. Now, pieces of shingles, torn plastic bags, and broken furniture littered the cracked blacktop. A few more blocks and dilapidated houses with crooked awnings and shutters lined the street. The overhang of a porch rested against a house at a ninety-degree angle, and telephone poles strained against wires like dominoes ready to fall. The illusion of a slanted town made her dizzy and she couldn’t catch h
er breath.
Keep running? Find a place to hide? How close is he?
Protect the pendant.
Stumbling to her right, she caught her balance and took off down another residential street, this one with larger yards. The road here was more deteriorated, and she had to watch her feet to avoid turning an ankle in the large potholes. Only when the road opened into a cul-de-sac did she realize that she was trapped.
Her feet skidded across loose rocks and sand covering the eroded pavement as she abruptly stopped. Crooked houses, storm-damaged trees, and decrepit fences blocked any escape. She looked back up the road, afraid Galloway would appear at any time. There had to be a way out, a place to hide.
Out of place in its normalcy, the house directly ahead stood straight and retained all of its shingles. The only apparent defect was a hole in the latticed fencing around the bottom of the front porch.
Diving through the opening, she crawled back to the house’s concrete foundation. Scrunching herself into the darkest corner, she clutched the pendant in her hand.
Light faded from the sidewalk, a cat crouched against the lattice then scurried away, dry leaves and dirty paper somersaulted down the street, but heavy black boots never clomped up to the house and Galloway’s ranting shouts didn’t disturb the peaceful evening. Using her backpack as a pillow, she drifted in and out of sleep. In her dreams, fields and towns rushed by through the window of a train. In her nightmares, Galloway gripped her ankle and dragged her from beneath the porch. Hours passed before morning sun found its way through the diamond-shaped gaps in the latticed fencing. Even as she crawled out, she scanned the street suspiciously.
“Hey, what are you doing under my porch.” The small but powerful voice originated directly above her.
Startled, she froze and looked up at a boy, who appeared no older than eight, with his hands on his hips, staring down at her. She stood up and chased crumbled leaves from her clothes with one swipe of her hand. Although she towered a foot over the child, he didn’t indicate the slightest sign of intimidation.
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