“Do you mean that?” he asked. “Really, seriously mean it?”
“Of course I do.” Garrett kept studying me, so I felt the need to elaborate. “Maybe we should tell them about Dead Meat. That should prove pretty clearly you’re good at the Business. Your dad would respect that.”
“Princess—”
“I could talk to your father. Make him see what an impossible position—”
He exhaled deeply and said in a rush, “Run away with me.”
“What?”
“I think you were right the other day. We should leave. Let’s run away.” He’d started to do this thing where he almost touched me. Holding his hand so close that I wondered sometimes if he had. He at least stirred the air around my skin so it felt like a caress.
“Are you serious?”
He nodded solemnly.
“What would we do?” Life beyond the gates. Not an hour or an afternoon, but a life.
“Anything we wanted.” He grinned at me. “I’ve got plenty of Dead Meat money.”
“Glass princess.” “Puppet.” Jacob’s words weren’t creative or new insults, but I couldn’t shake how useless they made me feel. But if we left … outside these gates, I could be anyone.
“I can’t live like this, Penny. Trapped on the estate, and with the way my brothers and my dad … since Carter—” He swallowed and met my eyes with a piercing gaze. “It’s been bad.”
I wanted to ask “Bad how?” but the look in his eyes scared me. It was a look he’d worn too often as a child on days when it felt less like he was keeping me company and more like he was hiding, jumping every time a door opened and moving in stiff, skittish ways.
Only once had I seen bruises. Right after his mom left, which was right after his brother Keith died. Carter had pushed Garrett in the pool in his clothes, and the purple across his ribs had been visible through the wet cotton of his white shirt. Even without seeing them directly, I could tell they were as dark and painful as any I’d ever had. And it explained why he’d been so slow and awkward all morning.
He’d grabbed a towel and wrapped it around himself, saying, “You can’t tell,” to wide-eyed Carter and wet-cheeked, ten-year-old me.
“I’ll kill him,” my brother had said, but Garrett shook his head.
“And then I’ll have no parents. Just forget you saw it. It won’t happen again. Promise. If it does, I’ll tell. Promise you won’t tell.”
We’d agreed. Because we were kids and wanted to believe him. Because we’d been raised to see police as enemies, not allies. Because we worried that if we told, they’d take Garrett away—and if anyone looked too closely at the Family, they’d take our father as well.
I’ve always hated myself for that promise.
I put a hand on Garrett’s chest, just lightly—and wondered if the reason he hadn’t joined me in the pool lately was lurking beneath his T-shirt. He shut his eyes and dropped his head. His heart beat beneath my palm, his chest rising and falling in shattered breaths.
“I can’t stay, princess. If you don’t want to come, I understand. But I can’t.” He skimmed a finger down my cheek. I could feel the blush creeping along the line of his caress. He traced it over to brush my bottom lip and tilted my chin up.
“Where would we go?” My voice was breathless.
“Where do you want? New York City? I promise I’ll take care of you. We could use Dead Meat doctors if you need anything.”
Maybe it would be better if we left. Our fathers could work things out without us in the middle—and Nolan would be gone too. In fact, our being missing would give them a unified goal—to work together to find us.
“When will we go?” My mind skipped from “would” to “will” as soon as I considered what life here would be like without him. I could feel the heat rise off his skin as he noticed the change.
“Now. Today. Before you lose your nerve or someone suspects.”
“Today?” My stomach tightened. “But I need time to pack.”
“You can’t. We can’t tip anyone off. Just bring whatever fits in a purse. I’ll get you anything you need.” He grinned, and his hand reached out, his palm skimmed over mine. The nerves in my stomach melted into butterflies.
“We’re really going to do this?” I asked.
“We’re really going to do this.” He leaned his forehead to just barely rest on mine and breathed out a sigh of soul-deep relief. “Thank you.”
Lunch and an afternoon. That was how long I had to play-act at normal. Pretend every glance I shot at Garrett wasn’t full of thrills and doubts. With Nolan gone and the Wards banished there was too much of my parents’ attention focused on me.
“Sweet pea, you are all fidgets. Are you sleeping enough?” Mother asked. “I think you should go lie down after you eat.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Father. “You do look a little tired, and I might need Garrett and Ian to cover some duties this afternoon.”
I shot Garrett a panicked look, but he was calmly eating dill potatoes. “Of course, sir.”
“You could use a rest too,” admonished Mother. “You’re working too hard. There’s no need to train Nolan overnight. I was hoping with him being away, you’d have some free time.”
Before Carter died she never would have criticized Father. But before Carter died he didn’t work twenty-five hours a day. He lifted his eyebrows and I could practically see him debating his response.
“I miss you,” she breathed out with a quiet dignity.
“Garrett, go tell Darius to push the meeting with the VIP up to one thirty. I’ll be wrapping up early today so I can have a glass of wine with my wife.” Father picked up her hand and kissed her knuckles; she blushed and smiled at him as if he’d gift-wrapped the universe and presented it to her with a bow.
“Yes, sir.” I wanted Garrett to look at me that way, but he didn’t glance in my direction as he left the room.
I cleared my throat. “I’ll just go lie down and give you guys some privacy.” I was only half-embarrassed they were being affectionate, maybe less than half. It was good to see her happy, it was good to see him notice things outside his office.
“Love you, sweet pea,” said Mother, turning to flash me a radiant smile. Father tugged my sleeve as I walked by. I offered a tremulous grin, then headed upstairs, feeling like Rapunzel about to be released from her tower and terrified of everything that lay beyond.
Chapter 16
I stood in my room: a half-full purse in one hand and fingers twitching with indecision on the other. I’d spent my life collecting all these things, ways to bring the outside world in, and now I was leaving them all behind and going out.
“Hey.”
I gasped. I hadn’t heard the door open or Garrett cross the room to stand behind me at my bureau. And because my eyes had been on the contents of my jewelry box, I hadn’t seen his approach in the mirror. I looked up at his reflection, slightly aware that a strand of pearls was slipping from my fingers and clattering onto the glass top, but more aware of the way his eyes glittered as they met mine in the mirror. And the warmth radiating from his arms as he circled them around me to rest on the edge of the dresser.
“Just wanted to check on you. Any second thoughts?” He bent down so the question raised goose bumps on my neck.
“No. Of course not,” I stammered. “You?”
He shook his head, his nose grazing the skin below my ear and making me shiver. “You almost ready?”
“When” had become “now” and I didn’t feel ready at all, but I swallowed, nodded, managed a smile. “I need a few more minutes.”
“Sure. Meet me behind the pool shed in ten.” He pressed his lips quickly to the top of my head.
“We are coming back, right?” I almost didn’t dare ask because if he gave the wrong answer I couldn’t go. And he couldn’t stay. I didn’t know what went on in the Wards’ house, but his joy and relief about leaving made my heart ache.
“Whenever you want, princess. Promise
. But for now, don’t be late. We want to go before the gate shift change—Mick’s on duty and he’ll let us leave without telling. We need that head start.”
I nodded. Right answer. I could do this.
He skated his fingers down my arm, then left.
I took a deep breath and shut my jewelry box. I wouldn’t need anything from there. This was temporary. I’d go with Garrett, we’d have adventures, establish that I was fine outside these curved walls without twelve zillion layers of protection. We’d get a break from Family politics and our fathers’ pissing contest. He’d get a reprieve from his family’s bullying … or worse. Then, in a week, maybe two, we could come home. Triumphant.
So why did it feel so much like good-bye? Why did I want to go downstairs to kiss my parents’ cheeks and tell them “I love you both”?
It wasn’t the unicorn statues I minded leaving. Or the closets full of clothes. Or my makeup table. It was the photos. The dollhouse I hadn’t played with in years, as tall as I was and custom-ordered to look just like our house, complete with dolls: Mother, Father, Carter, and a seven-year-old Penelope. It was the teddy bear Father had given me when I was six and my platelets first started rebelling—the one I’d named Rumpelstiltskin, called “Rumpel” for short, and gripped tightly through so many blood draws and nightmares. The nightlight Mother brought back from Venice with the blue-and-green glass that reflected like rainbows on my wall. The crown of dried roses, which had been alive and gorgeously pink when I wore them on my head on the day of my First Holy Communion. The Bible Grandfather had given me that same day, my name and a benediction scratched in his wavering handwriting on the first page. The large illustrated treasury of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales Father, Carter, and Mother had taken turns reading at my bedtimes.
These were the pieces of my life—and they wouldn’t fit inside the lining of my purse.
I took the Carter doll. I took some cash. Took a deep breath.
I kissed Rumpel and left him on my pillow.
I shut my closet. I shut all my drawers. Shut my eyes.
Exhaled slowly.
And stood in front of my door trying to gather the strength to step into the hall.
Don’t be late.
A knock made me jump. I swallowed a scream.
“Penny? You in there?” a familiar voice asked.
“Hey, Caroline.” I shielded my purse behind the door as I opened it. “What are you doing over here?”
“You know how you’re always saying I can raid your closet? I wanted to borrow a dress. I have a first date tonight—do you mind?”
“Of course not.” I still had six minutes to kill—and being early might be more conspicuous. “Did you have one in mind?”
“Not really. Maybe that white eyelet one? Or the blue pleated? What do you think?” Caroline flounced into my room and pounced on my closet door. “It’s so quiet in your house today. Where is everyone? It’s dead in the clinic too. Dr. Castillo is entertaining a VIP, but there’s nothing for me to do. I could play fashion show for hours and he wouldn’t even notice.”
Hours? Normally that wouldn’t be a problem. “Um, why don’t you try on the blue one,” I suggested. “I think that’d be perfect.”
I watched the clock while Caroline wriggled out and into clothing. “Zip me?” she asked. And, “What do you think?”
Four minutes. We need that head start.
“Gorgeous,” I said.
“You’re not even looking.” She laughed. “Why are you so distracted? And where’s your hot-stuff shadow and his creepy family today?”
I gulped.
She laughed harder. “What aren’t you telling me? Is something going on with Garrett?”
“No.” I said it a little too quickly. “He’s in a meeting with Father.”
Caroline’s forehead wrinkled. “No, he’s not. I just saw your dad. He’s sitting on the patio with your mom—”
“I think you should try the green seersucker dress—that would be so pretty on you.”
Three minutes.
I stood. “I’m thirsty. I’m going to run and get a drink. Want anything?”
“Sure. Lemonade? And when you get back, you have to tell me what’s going on. I knew you and Garrett would get together.”
I nodded and fled. Grateful she’d gone back in my closet and hadn’t seen me pick up my purse.
If Mother and Father were on the patio, I didn’t need to creep down the stairs, but I did anyway, doing my best imitation of a spy based on what I’d learned from watching Bond movies with Carter and Garrett. Quiet and caution seemed doubly unnecessary, because I could hear loud voices outside. The shouting would more than cover any sounds I made.
Poor Mother, she got to see so little of Father lately—and if a Business phone call had interrupted their time he’d be furious and she’d be silently annoyed. Had Al called to apologize? If so, it wasn’t going well. The shouting escalated. Something smashed—probably Father breaking his glass. He did that when he was mad—he and Carter both liked to take their frustration out on glassware. At least he hadn’t thrown it through a window this time.
With my parents on the patio, I couldn’t go out the back door. I’d have to go the roundabout way—through the library’s french doors and approach the pool house from the back.
There was a sharp crack and a shattering. Maybe Father had thrown something through a window. Except … that was a scream. A high-pitched scream. Father’s temper wasn’t fun to witness, but it had never scared me, not like the fear I heard in that voice. My fingers froze on the handle of the library door.
It was wrenched open from the inside, pulled from my hand by Dr. Castillo. He was wearing a look I’d never seen before—not during any of my medical emergencies—panic.
“Penelope.” He breathed my name out like a prayer. “Thank God.”
“Something’s wrong.”
“Shh.” He cut me off with a finger to my lips and a tense whisper. “You have to come with me.”
“I can’t.” I had to get to Garrett. You can’t be late. I had to get to him, and then I had to see who was screaming.
“No, you have come to with me. Now.” He propelled me down the hallway and into an exam room with a bruising grip on my arm. That alone was jarring enough to make me obey. That plus the shouts getting louder on the other side of the clinic doors.
Spread out.
Check upstairs.
“Penelope, do you trust me?” Dr. Castillo asked—his voice was barely a whisper but thick with tension.
I nodded, listening for more words, more voices.
“Good.” In a swift motion he swabbed my arm and uncapped a needle. “Hold still.”
The needle wasn’t attached to an empty test tube waiting for my blood. It was a full syringe. Whatever was in it burned. And the effect was instantaneous. A distancing from myself. An iciness in my veins. A detachment that made sounds echo and my fear turn hollow. Just before I gave into the urge to shut my eyes I noticed the light above the exam room door. It had turned on. Red.
Warning red.
Blood red.
Chapter 17
My mouth was dry. Like someone had swabbed up all my saliva with paper towels, leaving behind dust and fibers and not even enough spit to swallow or wet my lips. I coughed.
“Penelope. It’s Dr. Castillo, can you open your eyes?”
I managed it for a moment. Barely long enough to confirm what the voice had said—yes, Dr. Castillo, but also a stranger—before they shut again. My brain worked slower, memories clicking into place one puzzle piece at a time.
Screams. Dr. Castillo. A syringe. Blackness. Garrett.
Don’t be late, princess.
“Penelope.”
My eyes flickered open again, looking for the clock that hung across from the beds in the clinic. They met twilight. Sky. Trees. Telephone poles. Fences. And sunset glare on glass and—I shut my eyes again.
This was not the clinic.
“Wh�
�” I tried to swallow. My tongue was too big, filling my mouth like an uncooperative, floppy, dead thing. “Wh-where?”
“Penelope, open your eyes, little girl.”
I did. Blinking and pausing, I traced the lines of the walls up to a low ceiling. To double doors and their small rounded windows. Followed the lines back to where Dr. Castillo sat on a bench beside me with a stranger. In an ambulance.
When I focused on him, he smiled at me. “Good girl. Welcome back.”
The stranger was a distinguished Asian man with gray hair and a suit. His face tugged at my memory, but I couldn’t place him.
“How about some water?” Dr. Castillo held out a cup with a straw.
I wanted it. Desperately wanted something to cool the fire in my throat and unglue the parts of my mouth that felt like nearly set cement. But I’d never been in an ambulance. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t where I was supposed to be.
“You … drugged … me.”
Dr. Castillo looked down, his eyes falling on a spot on my arm. “I’m sorry I had to do that.”
I wanted to press up off this table. React to the threat of the situation. Dig my cell phone out of my pocket and hit the panic button. It would trigger a GPS tracker, and I’d have a Ward here within …
I didn’t know where “here” was. I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious or how long it would take a Ward to arrive.
I didn’t know what would happen in the meantime.
Why was that stranger staring at me with such concern and fear?
And my fingers were clumsy. Struggling to even open and close, never mind dig around in my pocket to retrieve the phone.
Dr. Castillo held out the water again. “You’ll feel better if you drink. And it’s good you’re moving your fingers. Can you move your toes too? The sooner you can do that, the better. We need to start driving again.”
I’d always thought the panic button was ridiculous—I never went anywhere. The only time I’d ever pressed it had been a mistake, when I was trying to wriggle it into a too-small pocket on tight pants. Al and Mick had thundered into my bedroom with such force that the knob on the backside of the door had been embedded in my wall.
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