wanted to. That’s part of why it was so important that I stay with you, guide you toward academia, let you embrace your love of dead languages and not being an asshole. I didn’t switch sides just to replace the old bastard with a new bastard.”
Both of them are gaping at her now.
“I know this is a lot.”
“You think?” demands Dodger.
“I know it’s hard to take in.”
Roger snorts.
“But we’re out of time. We need to hide, and we need to figure out our next move, and the two of you need to decide whether you’re going to believe me, or whether you’re going to die. Choose, because you’re not getting a third option.”
Roger and Dodger exchange a look. It’s still uneasy, the space they make between them, packed with the ghosts of seven years and the shaking of the ground beneath their feet. Dodger finally appears to realize that she’s touching him; she yelps and pulls away, back to her half of the back seat. Some wounds don’t heal in an instant. Some wounds don’t heal at all.
Erin hopes this one isn’t that kind of wound. If it is, they’re all doomed. She twists back around, puts the car back into gear, and pulls off the shoulder. “Tell me where to go.”
“Uh,” says Dodger. “Left?”
“Roger? Activate her.” This is it: this is the real test of how much attention they’ve been paying, how willing they are to follow her under the undertow and into the Up-and-Under. She’s no Niamh, no daughter of the sea, but she’s the best guide they’re going to get, and she’s betting more than they can know on what’s about to happen.
“Don’t you dare,” says Dodger.
“I’m sorry,” says Roger. He sounds like he genuinely means it, which makes it worse, somehow, when he continues: “Dodger, tell us where to go.”
The air in the car changes, becoming thick and electric. It’s like the charge they made between them when they summoned the earthquake, but subtly different: it’s brighter, cleaner, more aware of itself. Dodger sits up straight, eyes going wide and glassy for a count of ten. Roger isn’t even sure she’s breathing. She looks like she’s somewhere else, somewhere better.
When she blinks, crashing back into the present, he feels almost bad for her. Then she shoots a glare in his direction, poisonously mad, and his feelings shift into an odd mixture of self-pity and guilt. He didn’t know it would work. He hadn’t been sure. How can she blame him when he wasn’t sure?
“Dodge—” he begins.
She cuts him off. “Take the next exit, and turn left at the bottom of the off-ramp,” she says. “We need to leave the car.”
Erin smiles to herself and hits the gas.
They leave the car in a Fremont Park-and-Ride, stuffing bills into the machine until it produces a parking ticket good for twenty-four hours. Dodger snatches it from Erin’s hand, darting off into the maze of vehicles and returning a few minutes later with a different ticket clutched in her hand. This one is good for only eight hours. She sticks it to the windshield, glancing at Erin and saying, “Anyone who looks at this car will think it’s been here for more than half the day already. It can’t be how we got here.”
She’s not just describing physical concepts anymore, although she may not realize that: she’s in shock. They both are. This is the sort of thing that should be presented gradually, a little bit at a time, easing the subjects into their new reality. Instead, Erin has shoved them into the deep end of the pool and is counting on them to figure out how to swim.
And they are. Dodger is right about the tag, about the car. There are ways for someone like Leigh to track them to this parking lot, even after they leave the vehicle behind. The Hand of Glory guttered out somewhere on the freeway, leaving them visible to both mundane and metaphysical surveillance. They’re going to be found. But when Leigh gets here, she’ll find a trail that’s been cold for sixteen hours, because all that time has been shunted somewhere else. All that time has been moved.
Dodger doesn’t know what she’s doing. That isn’t going to stop her from doing it. Once they get moving, the children of the improbable road act on instinct, and their instincts are rarely wrong.
“All right,” says Erin. “Let’s go. We need to figure out where we are, and then we need to get wherever it is