“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that—I was just worried,” I say. “I’ve been waiting for you. Something really incredible happened!”
Sam looks like she’s physically bracing herself for whatever is about to come out of my mouth. It pricks at my nerves, but I don’t let it deflate the flutter of excitement that’s still trapped under my skin.
“I know where we have to go,” I say, grinning. “We have to go back to Bedford. To the old house.”
“Bedford,” she repeats slowly, carefully, like she hasn’t said the word for years. “Why?”
“Because earlier, I was talking to Lucas—trying to see if there was anything he remembered, or if I could just…find him, you know? And he reacted. I told him one of his old stories and it calmed him down. And I kept going and going and by the time I was finished, he was looking at me, Sam. He was watching me.”
I don’t understand why she isn’t smiling, too. Why she isn’t running over to test this out for herself. This is so simple: we just need to take him back to the place that meant so much to him, one that doesn’t bring him any pain.
“By Bedford, what you really mean is Greenwood, right?” Sam leans back against the counter, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Well, yeah.”
Her brows draw together sharply. “So your solution for helping him is to bring him back to a place where we played as kids and, what, expect him to be magically fixed? He’ll suddenly remember everything?”
“Why are you acting like this?” I demand, getting angry myself now. “It’s not a stupid idea!” It isn’t! And even if it is, it’s not like she’s offering any other solutions.
“Because this isn’t some fairy tale, Mia!” she says, throwing her hands up. “This isn’t make-believe. He can’t even hear your parents’ names without lashing out—how is he going to handle seeing your house?”
“I don’t know! And neither do you!” I say, my voice cracking. “That’s the whole point! We have to at least try. Maybe they haven’t ruined that place for him. Why are you shaking your head? Why are you acting like this?”
Sam sucks in a few deep breaths, rubbing at her forehead. When she finally speaks again, the words are strained to the point of breaking. “Because I have thought about it…all day, every day, for weeks. It’s all I think about! I’ve had to watch him get worse and worse, and then, yesterday…I thought maybe you would be the thing to bring him around. He didn’t react to your name the way he did to your parents’, so I hoped that seeing you would be enough. I really did. But it did nothing.”
That stings, more than I can put into words.
“What are you saying, then?” I demand. “You…what? You want to just let him go?” No—it hits me then. Her words add up to a horrifying truth. “You want to give him back to the people who made him this way?”
“No!” She presses her hands to her face. “I don’t know! I don’t…he wouldn’t want to be like this.”
“They’re going to kill him!” I yell. “You’re sending him back to be killed! You’re giving up on him!”
“You don’t know that!” Sam shouts. “What if the only people who can fix him are the ones who made him like this? There’s no need for the program anymore, right? Maybe they…”
“I will take him and run if you even think about it,” I warn her. “If you want out of this, then just go. We don’t need you. We never have.”
I’m aiming to hurt with that one, to make her feel that same jagged pain that’s got me in its grip. But instead of responding, she tilts her head back toward the kitchen door, brows drawn together. Not listening to me.
I hear it a second later—a car engine. It clatters and moans and only gets louder before it cuts off completely.
Doors open.
Slam shut.
“No—” Sam’s whole body tenses as she closes her eyes. “Get in the bedroom. Lock the door.”
She pushes past me, limping into the living room. She turns off the flashlight and throws my gray blanket over Lucas’s still form before I can even move.
“Mia! Now!” Sam throws an arm out, pointing toward the hall. “Don’t come out—no matter what. Promise me!”
“What’s going on?” Why won’t she tell me? Why is she so pale?
“Go!”
I’m mad at myself—furious—that I listen to her. I don’t want to leave Lucas, but if I stay I