placed us near the border of Wyoming. “I figure most state troopers will recognize the make of this vehicle and have a positive psychological response. Thereby becoming less likely to pull us over for speeding. Which we currently are. By a lot.”
I sat there, stunned by his brilliance. “Wow. I don’t think I ever would have thought of that.”
“Don’t worry. You’re still superior to me, in many ways,” Lucas said.
“Well, I am currently at a disadvantage, without my full range of powers. . . .”
“Not for long. Could you check the GPS and see where the next rest stop is?”
Lucas had convinced the car salesman to throw in an ancient TomTom on our sale, since we couldn’t use my internal one or Lucas’s phone. Too much of a risk of being traced.
I reached over to the dashboard and picked up the GPS, but the screen instantly froze and a mechanical voice repeated a phrase that we’d heard several times already: “GPS signal lost.”
Dual groans filled the inside of the Caprice. I opened the glove box and reached inside, pulling out a road atlas that Lucas had brought from the cabin. From the driver’s seat, Lucas sighed.
“Quit it,” I warned, unfolding one of the built-in maps. “I just flipped to the wrong page last time, that’s all.”
A mistake that had cost us twenty minutes before we’d realized my error.
Once I landed on the correct page, I double-checked our route for any markers indicating interstate rest areas. No wonder everyone had switched to GPS.
“This is so archaic,” I muttered, moving my finger along until I found a rest-stop symbol. Using my internal GPS was as easy as breathing for me. I would summon the connection, and just like that, a map unfurled behind my eyes, complete with my own little homing device to lead the way.
“Once I find a way to cloak you, I can normalize all your systems,” Lucas said. “You just have to be patient.”
“Oh boy.”
“What?”
“Patience isn’t exactly one of my best qualities,” I said.
“Funny, I hadn’t noticed that at all,” Lucas deadpanned.
I nudged him with my elbow. “There’s a rest stop about two miles ahead, Smart Guy.”
“Great,” he said.
A few minutes later we pulled off the highway and drove down a stretch of road that led to a building that looked like a log cabin. There were two signs out front: one read RESTROOMS and the other read VENDING MACHINES. Once Lucas parked the Caprice in the lot and shut off the car’s engine, he got out and went into the backseat, digging into his duffel bag. He returned with a pair of red-handled scissors.
I said, “Let me guess. I’m about to change my hairstyle?”
“It’s the first thing that’s about to change,” was his cryptic reply.
“Okay, so should I just do it here and use the rearview mirror?” I asked.
Lucas peered around to see how many people were close by. We spied a family in a minivan a few spaces away.
“Let’s go inside and see if we can find one of those family bathrooms,” he suggested.
I nodded, pulling up the hood of Tim’s dirty college sweatshirt and tightening it so that my face wouldn’t be visible to any hidden security cameras. We walked swiftly into the building, which was practically empty. To the left of the vending machines, I spotted a family bathroom and we quickly ducked inside.
“I don’t mean to rush you, but we should probably—”
“Do this in a hurry? I know. I’ve been a fugitive for a while, remember?”
Lucas frowned a little as he handed me the scissors, but he didn’t say anything else.
I set the scissors on the calcium-stained sink and positioned myself in front of the bathroom mirror, yanking off my sweatshirt. A clog suddenly formed in my throat. Not over the prospective loss of hair. I couldn’t care less about that. But over my last haircut, back in a motel room, with Nicole—Mom—wielding the scissors, trying to protect me. That mad race to keep me out of Holland’s hands had basically signed her death sentence.
Lucas studied my expression while I gazed in the mirror.
“Want me to give it a try? I gave my mom a haircut a few times,” he said.
I glanced at him over my shoulder curiously.
“Agoraphobia,” he said simply. “By the time I was thirteen, she could barely leave the house.”
“Wow.”
I remembered the caged feeling I had at Holland’s compound, where I was essentially imprisoned. I wondered if Lucas’s mother had felt like that—except, instead of being held captive by another person,