to the nearest police station or zone checkpoint and turn yourself in. Let them put you in restraints so they know you won’t hurt them. All I want is for you to be safe. Do you understand?”
I could barely get the word out: “What?”
My whole body, everything I was, recoiled at the thought of turning myself over to be handcuffed and led away. This didn’t make sense. He knew what it felt like to be trapped behind barbed wire, at the mercy of guards and soldiers who hated and feared us. He promised—they all promised—that we would never have to go back to that, no matter what.
The plastic cracked in protest under the force of my grip. I tried to keep my eyes focused on the faded art print on the wall, but it kept blurring.
They’re not going to take me.
“This is a serious situation,” he said, carefully crafting each word. “It’s very important that you listen to exactly what I’m telling you—”
“No!” My throat ached as it scratched out the words, “What the hell is wrong with you? I want to talk to Vi—where is she? Put her on the phone—call her in, I don’t care!”
“She’s on assignment,” Chubs said. “Either stay where you are, Suzume, and tell me where that is, or find the road to a safe place where you can turn yourself in.”
My hand was icy as I pressed it against my eyes, taking in a shaky breath.
“Did you hear me?” Chubs said, in the same measured tone he’d adopted for every council session he was asked to speak at.
That was our lives now, wasn’t it? Even. Steady. Accepting. Never allowed to get mad, never allowed to threaten, or even be perceived as a threat.
For the first time in my life, in all the years I’d known and loved him, I hated Charles Meriwether.
But in the next heartbeat, through the anger buzzing in my head, I heard him.
Somewhere hidden.
Find the road.
Safe place.
Did you hear me?
A small static shock traveled from Roman’s fingertips to my shoulder as he brushed it. I glanced back, taking in his apologetic look as he pointed to the phone. Behind him, Priyanka didn’t bother trying to stifle her groan of frustration.
“Okay,” I said. “All right. I got it.”
He was right. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before now. I wasn’t so far away from the place he was hinting at; if I could get past the cameras and drones monitoring the highways, it would only take half a day to get there. Maybe less.
Will you meet me? The words slipped through my mind, each quieter and smaller than the next. Do you even care?
Before either of us could say anything else, I hit END on the call.
Priyanka unfolded her long legs and practically leaped off the bed to take the phone out of my hand. She broke it into little pieces, taking out the battery and SIM card, all the while muttering, “Using my last phone to call the damn government. You don’t just need help, you need full-on reprogramming. Deprogramming.”
“Who was that?” Roman asked, his gaze piercing. “What’s ‘okay’?”
The last few days had threatened to kill me in a thousand different ways, with a thousand different cuts. But if there was one thing I knew how to do, it was smother the fear just long enough to keep surviving.
In darkness, you only needed to see just as far as your headlights extended. As long as you kept going, it was enough.
“I need a car,” I told them calmly. I moved toward the motel’s windows, pulling back the curtain to survey our options. I couldn’t use the one we’d stolen before. The truck’s engine was on its last legs, in any case, and it was almost out of gas. No way could it get me as far as I needed to go.
But stealing one out of the parking lot, or one nearby…I hated feeling this desperate again. They might have already labeled me a criminal, but that wasn’t any justification to commit an actual crime.
“You need a car,” Priyanka began, arching a brow, “or we need a car?”
I turned toward them again, pressing a hand against my collarbone. My fingers traced the jagged edge of a new scab there. Maybe this was the reason I hadn’t let myself consider my options fully, and why I hadn’t gone straight there—from the moment everything had exploded, there hadn’t been a second I’d been without the two of them. This place was