hands and feet, linking them together so they were bound like animals, like they used to back when Thurmond had Red cabins.
My feet slowed. Something dull and silver flashed in their hands—needles? It must have been. They jabbed them into the exposed skin on each Red’s neck, leaving the kids to slouch back into the mud, boneless.
Dead?
God, would they kill them?
Don’t think, just go, don’t think, just go—
Maybe I should have looked back, taken in the sight of the few smoldering cabins left behind by either Reds or explosions. Maybe I should have taken more pleasure in seeing the PSFs trapped in the mud, kicked down again and again. Maybe the moment should have felt bigger than it did—maybe it would, later. After all, I never forget anything.
But what mattered was right behind me, that I was finishing what he’d started.
We slowed our pace, drifting back farther and farther from the thousands of kids in front of us spreading out among the trees, edging farther and farther to the right until I could barely make out the trail of lights they cast, and a booming voice telling them to stop where they were.
I didn’t need to go with them. I was with my family.
I got us out of there. He was with me. That should have been enough.
But just because you want something, it doesn’t mean you’ll get it.
Just because I wanted to save Lucas, it didn’t mean I could.
THE CAR GLIDES UP INTO the carport with a tiny jolt, the headlights sweeping up over the house. It’s a small—minuscule—wooden structure. A cottage, almost; the stone walkway leading to the door is overgrown, covered by dead crabgrass and pockets of snow. There are a few icicles dripping, dripping, dripping off the edge of the steeply peaked slate roof. A sunshine-yellow paint trim is peeling off the windows and has been dropping into the snow-filled flower boxes.
The car’s wheels find the well-worn grooves in the dirt as we coast around the side of the house. Sam brings the car to a hesitant stop, inches from some kind of shed.
Neither of us have said a word since we crossed out of South Dakota and into Iowa. The sign at the city limits proudly declared LE MARS: ICE CREAM CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. And, okay, I guess there are worse things to be known for, but what good is ice cream going to do in our situation?
This place is a people desert, and I’m sure that’s why Sam picked it—why she felt safe here leaving him behind. Alone. We haven’t seen a single person out, even when we were blazing down its main street.
Sam slips the keys out of the ignition and sits back. I can’t tell which has exhausted her more: the drive, or the story she just unloaded on me.
“Remember what I said….”
“I remember!” I snap. God, like I could forget with her repeating it a thousand times. I don’t need her rules or her warnings. If I want to hug my brother, I will. He was looking for me. He was coming to find me.
And he would have been there at the hotel if he hadn’t tried to save her, too. He wouldn’t have left me feeling humiliated, like a stupid overeager kid who was one of the first to board the buses, only to end up being one of the last to leave.
Am I supposed to be grateful that she came to get me at the very last second, out of guilt? Sam can say whatever she wants, throw a million denials my way, but Lucas will know me. You don’t forget family. And when we leave, it won’t be with her.
I slam out of the car, running—bounding—up the stairs. But of course, Sam makes me wait for her to limp up and unlock it, and then pockets the key. I see the little stone hedgehog she found under by my feet.
“Move,” I growl, shouldering her out of the way when she doesn’t.
“Mia, remember—”
Slow, use a quiet voice, don’t touch him—she wants me to treat Luc like he’s some kind of rabid dog, foaming at the mouth, and I won’t. I refuse to. Screw all her stupid rules.
“Lucas?” I call the second I’m through the door. “Luc?”
I wrinkle my nose, trying to breathe through my mouth. It smells like sour milk and weeks-old garbage. I spin around like I’m balanced at the center of a merry-go-round, trying to see everything at once. The décor in here is like…cut and