Nick and Aaron sat near the bottom of wide front steps leading up to thick lobby doors. The city had only grown busier the longer they’d been there, and now crowds of people rushed up and down the sidewalks, some of them carrying briefcases, some of them carrying purses or backpacks, all of them with some place to go. Sometimes she felt like the fever had never been in the city at all—and then she would see a woman crying on a bench clutching a picture of a deceased loved one, or hear a little boy asking his father why his mother had to live with the angels because he missed her.
She sank down next to Nick. “Any luck?”
“No.” His face dropped into his hands. “I’m never going to find Ava.”
He had grown increasingly discouraged with each passing day. At first he had been determined to find someone in the building who would help him, then he thought he might be able to sneak in and look it up for himself, and finally he decided persistence would be the only way he could win.
An ambulance siren blared from somewhere in the city, someone shouted something unintelligible from a corner down the street, and Lareina drew her knees up to her chin.
“What did they tell you today?”
Nick rubbed a hand over his eyes. “The usual: that I have to give them my identification number to prove my relation to Ava.”
Aaron stretched one leg down to the next step. “There has to be another way we can approach this.”
There were plenty of different approaches, but what if the census placed Ava in San Antonio like Nick suspected? Lareina could never go south of Austin without risking Galloway finding her. If Nick decided to go back to San Antonio, she would never see him again. Deep down, that made her hesitant to help him.
She felt her own heart sink when he turned to her with dull, hopeless eyes. He deserved to know the truth.
“Who’s at the desk inside?”
“A young guy, older than us but not by much. I think his nametag said Corey.”
She stood. “Come on, Aaron.”
“Where are we going?” He scrambled to his feet before she could answer.
“To find out where Ava is. Nick, wait here. We’ll be back as quick as we can.”
Building a story in her head, she jogged to the top of the steps, then waited for Aaron to catch up.
“What exactly are we doing?” He watched her with that same curious, fascinated look he had when she told him she was a fugitive.
Taking Aaron’s arm, she led him to the side and waited as two men entered the heavy doors. “You’re going to be my brother while we’re inside. Can you follow my lead?”
His eyes shimmered a brilliant shade of bright blue, and a grin formed across his face as if she had suggested they go skydiving or mountain climbing. “Sure thing.”
Aaron held the door and she entered the musty smelling building. Their hollow footsteps thudded too loudly, echoing in the open reception area. The only person in sight sat at a desk about thirty feet in front of them, staring at a computer screen. Wide hallways led in each direction and a closed door divided the wall behind the desk. When Aaron stepped up beside her, she looked over at him and he nodded. They approached the desk.
The lone receptionist, a stocky young man with a square face, didn’t look up.
Lareina cleared her throat. “Excuse me. Could you help us with something?”
The man glanced up at them, lips set in an angry line. His name tag did say Corey.
She smiled and his scowl vanished. “How can I help today?” His voice came out friendly—a complete contrast to his appearance.
“I’m Lucy Welch and this is my brother John.” She nodded toward Aaron. “We’re looking for my sister Ava. I hoped maybe you could give us the lead we need.”
Corey tapped his fingers against the keyboard with a soft series of clicks. “I’m not exactly authorized to give out information like that.”
“Please, we’re desperate to find her.” She leaned in closer to the desk and let panic seep into her voice. “You have to understand, she moved down here with our parents three years ago, while we stayed in Missouri with Grandma and Grandpa, but once she was settled our parents came home and we haven’t heard from Ava since. Right, John?”
“That’s right. Our parents are at home waiting for us to send news. We’re terribly concerned.” Aaron spoke calmly with a hint of restrained desperation, adding to the story as if it were the truth.
Corey glanced at his computer screen then leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. “You know, it’s strange that you’re asking about Ava Welch. I’ve had a guy come in here every day for a week trying to talk me into telling him where she is.”
Lareina stood up straight and gasped, a hand over her mouth. She turned to Aaron, whose eyes went wide in his best imitation of shock.
“You haven’t told him anything, have you?” she insisted.
“No, of course not,” Corey assured. “Is there some kind of problem?”
“Let me guess, this guy is about five-six, blond hair, brown eyes.” She pressed her finger against her forehead at her hairline. “He has a scar right about here?”
“That’s exactly how he looks,” Corey exclaimed.
“Oh no, John, he’s going to find her.”
“Now don’t panic, Lucy. We’ll find her first.”
Corey glanced from Aaron to Lareina. “What exactly is going on here?”
“My sister moved to Texas to get away from that guy. He was her ex-boyfriend and he tried to kill her even though she had a restraining order against him. We have to find her and get her home where she’ll be safe.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get this all straightened out.” Corey typed something with a fluttering click of fingers across the keyboard. “All I need is an identification number from either one of you to verify that you’re family.”
She needed a nine-digit number, anything to make Corey believe her story. For a second, she glanced up at the ceiling as if trying to remember. “Nine, eight, five,” she recited, “Two, five. Two, seven, eight, one.”
He typed each number as she said it, and Lareina held her breath, preparing an excuse for her identity not matching whoever might pop up on the screen. A minute passed and Aaron shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Another minute passed in uncomfortable silence.
“This system has been slow ever since the fever came through,” Corey said with a grunt after three minutes. “Let me go check our census files and see if I can find the information you need.”
“Thank you. You have no idea how much we appreciate it.” She took a breath and smiled.
Corey returned the smile as he slid his chair back. Then he unlocked the door behind him and vanished through it.
Aaron stepped up to the desk and craned his neck around to see the computer screen. He touched a few keys on the keyboard then stepped back again, folded his arms across his chest, and waited silently.
After two minutes, the silence grew heavy. She wanted sound. Shouting, sirens, thunder—anything would be better than the empty silence that surrounded her and threatened to bury her at any second. A door slammed deeper in the building, a shoe squeaked across newly waxed floors, then the door Corey had disappeared behind creaked open.
He approached the desk with a blue notecard flapping in his hand. “Our last records show Ava Welch living in Dallas at the address listed on this card.” He held it out to Lareina.
She took the card and slipped it into her pocket. Dallas. That meant Nick had to go north. They would all be traveling in the same direction. She gave Corey a genuine, relieved smile. “Thank you, we really appreciate this.”
“I’m sure that dirtbag ex-boyfriend will come back tomorrow, and we’ll be ready for him when he does.” He returned to his seat behind the computer. “Don’t worry—he won’t be bothering your sister again.”
Aaron shook Corey’s hand. “You’ve done a great thing. Our family can’t thank you enough.”
Together, Aaron and Lareina left the bui
lding, rushed down the stairs, found Nick, and ushered him into an ally.
“What happened?” he asked. “Do you know where she is?”
“I can’t believe that worked.” Aaron’s hands shook with excitement and fear. “Whose identity number was that?”
“No one’s, for all I know. She leaned back against a brick wall. It felt cool against her back. “In a game like this, it’s not about what’s true, but what you can make someone believe.”
She pulled the card out of her pocket and held it out to Nick with a grin.
He snatched it from her hand. “Dallas! She’s in Dallas. I can go north with you guys. How did you manage to get this?”
“We became John and Lucy Welch,” Aaron bragged. “Oh, and Nick? I would stay far away from that building for a while.”
Nick just shook his head. “I don’t think I want to know any more.”
“I have one more surprise.” Lareina pulled the twenty-five dollars out of her pocket. The boys stared at the bills with wide eyes and dangling jaws.
“Where did you get that?”
“Don’t ask questions.” Nick held up his hand. “Let’s just go buy some supper.”
The three of them walked back to the market and bought loaves of bread, bags of raisins and almonds, peanuts, and beef jerky, freshly picked peaches and green beans. When their bags were bursting at the seams, they spent the rest of the money on sandwiches and cookies that they ate back at the alcove where they’d spent every night since arriving in the city.
As they settled in for the night, Lareina closed her eyes and wondered whether Galloway had come to Austin. Was he searching for her as she tried to fall asleep? Would anyone recognize her if he showed them a picture? Would he follow her two hundred miles to Dallas?
Chapter 13
Lareina wanted to put as many miles between herself and San Antonio—and therefore Galloway—as quickly as possible, but the walk to Dallas proved to be even more frustrating than her walk to Austin. They tried to follow main roads with rusted signs pointing them in the right direction, but flood-ravaged bridges sent them on long detours. Each time they circumvented the obstacle and returned to the main road, they only found another missing bridge or river over the road. Sometimes heavy storms forced them to seek shelter in abandoned buildings or thick tree cover for an entire day. A walk that should have taken one week stretched into two. As September came to an end, blisters plagued their feet and hunger gnawed at their stomachs.
One night, resting in a field of tall grass, Lareina stared up at a sky plastered with shimmering stars. Nick slept using the other half of her bag as a pillow. She could feel the top of his head touching the top of her head, and she felt safer knowing whatever happened she didn’t have to face it alone. Aaron slept a few feet away, barely visible through a screen of grass.
She had almost drifted off contemplating the infrequent houses they’d passed that day when Aaron began thrashing and muttering in his sleep. He had regular nightmares that usually lasted only a minute or two, but his frantic movements lasted longer than normal. Walking over to Aaron, she knelt beside him, placed her hand on his shoulder, and shook him. He shot into a sitting position, breathing rapidly and looking around trying to establish his location.
“It’s okay, Aaron, it’s okay. You were having a nightmare.”
He rubbed a hand across his forehead as his breathing calmed. “I know. It’s always the same.”
“Maybe it would help to talk about it?”
Aaron nodded but didn’t say anything. The moon illuminated wispy clouds racing north, and she wished they would take her along.
“When I left home, I was scared and then I got sick . . . with the fever. I probably would have died . . . but a man came along and found me shivering in the hospital parking lot.”
Nodding, Lareina folded her legs beneath her and waited.
“He took me inside . . . he was a doctor who worked at that hospital.” Aaron smiled. “When I got better, I told him I had always wanted to be a doctor, and he started teaching me how to treat the fever, appendicitis, pneumonia . . . Dr. Liner said I had a gift for treating patients and could be a doctor in no time if I just kept studying.”
Crickets, cloaked in darkness, chirped a late-night concert. Nick murmured something in his sleep then rolled onto his side.
Aaron’s smile sank and vanished. “But then he was gone—a sudden heart attack. To everyone else, I was just a kid . . . in their way.” He cleared his throat and looked up at the sky. “When I left California, I was confident I could find a teaching hospital or at least a mentor, but I can’t find anything. Rochelle, I’m wasting so much time . . .”
“You’ll figure it out. You’re studying right now, so you’re already ahead.” She tried to sound comforting.
Shaking his head slowly, he rested his forehead against the palm of his hand. “I turned eighteen last month. I should have been taking classes months ago. What about my family?”
“Write to them.” She leaned back on her hands and stretched her legs out in front of her. “If they really do care about you then they’ll just be happy you’re alive.”
“Of course they care about me.” His voice vanished into his hand as it slid from his forehead to his chin. “But I don’t want to disappoint them. They could be starving right now because I don’t have the money to help them.”
Any clouds from earlier had vanished across the horizon. “At least you have a family to disappoint.”
His slumped shoulders straightened and his eyes lifted to meet hers. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”
A hint of light accentuated the horizon. She scrunched her knees up to her chin. “It’s okay. I’m over it. Just don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“I’ll try.” He looked up toward the glitter-speckled sky. With his hand he traced a path toward the ground. “That’s a shooting star. Better make a wish.”
Nodding, she rested her chin on her knees, but didn’t make a wish. A lifetime of wishing and thousands of failed attempts added up to enough proof that wishes didn’t come true. Or maybe she just didn’t deserve to be granted even the smallest of requests.
“We should probably try to catch a few more hours of sleep.” Aaron’s suggestion sounded like an apology.
The dying star had vanished, but a translucent curtain painted the eastern skyline misty shades of pink.
“You’re right.”
After trudging back to her nest of grass, she squeezed her eyes shut but couldn’t fall back to sleep. When the sun became unbearably warm against her closed eyelids, she flopped a hand over her face. A soft breeze shivered through rasping grass. Pools of sunlight encroached on shadows. Another warm autumn morning. She stretched her legs straight out in front of her and wondered how much longer the warm temperatures would last. Finding her shoes next to her in the grass, she pulled them onto sore feet, already protesting another long day of walking. Nick mumbled something and turned his face away from the rising sun before slipping back into sleep.
Reluctantly, she stood, tiptoed past a sleeping Aaron, and knelt beside a stream that cut through the pasture. In any normal year there wouldn’t be water there at all, but with record rainfall over the past two summers, runoff had created new streams and lakes. For a minute she stared at its shimmering surface, then scooped some into her hands and splashed it onto her face. Three weeks had passed since they’d left the house with running water and Lareina wondered when she would find a working shower again, then tried to remember the last time she’d changed her clothes. The dry grass rustled behind her and Aaron approached with a toothbrush in his hand.
“Morning,” Aaron said sleepily.
“Morning.”
She trudged back to their camp where Nick sat up, stretching his arms toward the sky. He rubbed the back of his hand against his sunburned face. “How can it be morning already,” he groaned.
“Just be thankful it’s still warm.” She sat, pulled a brush out of her
bag, and began to work the knots out of her hair.
“Maybe we should take a break,” he suggested. “We could find a shady spot, relax, pretend we’re eating ice cream.”
She dropped the brush back into her bag and zipped it shut. “We’re getting low on food again. We better find some today.”
“What are we going to do during the winter when—”
A rustling in the grass interrupted him, and a moment later Aaron crawled into view. “There’s a man coming our way,” he whispered.
Lareina stood up halfway to see over the grass. She heard the trampling crunch of footsteps before she noticed the tall man two hundred yards in the distance rushing toward them.
It was Galloway.
She ducked back down to eye level with Nick and Aaron, breath already hitching in panic. “He found me. We’re going to have to run.”
“We need a plan,” Aaron whispered.
“All right, Nick, you run for that clump of trees,” she gestured to a dark mound in the near distance, “and hide. Aaron, run north as fast as you can and then when the coast is clear, circle back and meet Nick in the trees. I’ll run west.” She pulled her backpack onto her shoulders. “Galloway will follow me, and I’ll meet up with you guys when I can.” For a few seconds, she just looked at them, carefully memorizing each feature of their faces. She didn’t intend to return and risk leading Galloway right back to them. The pendant was her problem and she had to deal with it alone.
“Are you sure—”
She cut him off. “There’s no time. Ready?”
Nick looked at Aaron, who nodded.
“Go.”
The three of them scattered in different directions. Lareina bounded through the grass, cringing each time her sore feet hit the ground. For a full minute, she focused on pumping her arms and legs as fast as possible. When her heart felt like it would burst, she slowed a bit, listening to determine Galloway’s proximity. She didn’t hear the expected swish of trampled grass or snapping twigs behind her.
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