I know my mom wonders what happened to us in that basement. Connor and I haven’t talked about it, and I don’t know when, or if, we will. She’ll try to make us, sooner or later.
I just want to be able to close my eyes and not see that winch and the wire noose that dangled from it, and those knives and hammers and saws glinting on the pegboard mounted on the walls. That room outside the cell looked just like my dad’s garage workshop—the pictures I’ve seen of it, anyway. I know what happened there. I know what could have happened to us, in Lancel Graham’s replica dungeon.
Most of all, I wish I could forget the stupid rug. Somehow, Graham found an exact replica of my dad’s rug. Well, it was really my rug, because it was one of my first memories: a soft spiral-braided rug in pastel greens and blues. I loved that rug. I would lie facedown on it and scoot around on the floor, and Mom and Dad would laugh, and Mom would pick me up and slide the rug back in place by the door, and it was love, that stupid rug.
One day when I was about five, the rug disappeared from the spot in the hall, and Dad put a new one there. It was fine, I guess. It had a nonskid back, so nobody would go sliding around on it. He told us he’d thrown the other one away.
But on the day that our lives ended, the day Dad became a monster, that rug, my rug, was on the garage floor, right under the winch and the noose and the swinging body of a dead woman. He’d taken a piece of my life and made it part of something awful.
Seeing one just like it in Lancel Graham’s horror basement broke something in me. When I close my eyes at night, that’s what I see. My rug, made into a nightmare.
I wonder what Connor sees. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t sleep. When you sleep, you give up the choice to control memory.
Connor hasn’t responded to my torture gaffe, so I stumble on. “You seriously want to go with Mom if she’s hunting Dad?”
“She acts like we can’t take care of ourselves,” he says. “We can.”
I agree that I can, but I’m also old enough to face the ugly truth about our dad and what he can do. I don’t want to have to fight him. The whole idea hurts, and it terrifies me. But I also don’t want to be left on my own with Connor, responsible for keeping both of us safe. I almost want Grandma, even if her cookies are kind of terrible and her popcorn balls too sticky. Even if she treats us like we’re toddlers.
I shift the blame. “Mom’s never going to let us fight him. You know that.”
“So off to Grandma’s house we go. Like Dad can’t guess that.”
I shrug, but in the dark I know he can’t see me. “Grandma’s moved and changed her name, too. It’ll be just for a while, anyway. Like a vacation.”
It’s eerie how Connor doesn’t move, doesn’t shift. I never hear so much as a rustle of those stiff motel sheets from him. Just a voice in the dark. “Yeah,” he says. “Like a vacation. And what if Mom never comes back for us? What if he comes back for us? Do you think about that?”
I open my mouth to confidently tell him that’s never going to happen, but I can’t. I can’t get it out of my mouth, because I’m old enough to know that Mom isn’t immortal, or all-powerful, and that good doesn’t always win. And I know—Connor knows—that our dad is incredibly dangerous.
So I finally say, “If he does find us, we get away from him. Or we stop him, any way we can.”
“Promise?” His voice suddenly sounds his age. Only eleven. Too young to deal with this. I forget how young he is, sometimes. I’m nearly fifteen. It’s a big gap, and we’ve always babied my little brother.
“Yeah, doofus, I promise. We’re going to be okay.”
He lets out a long, slow breath that’s almost a sigh. “All right,” he says. “You and me, then. Together.”
“Always,” I tell him.
He doesn’t say anything else. I can hear Mom talking in a low voice to someone outside; I think it’s Sam Cade. I listen to the soft blur of their voices, and after a while I hear that Connor’s breathing has deepened and slowed, and I think he’s finally, really asleep.
That means I can sleep, too.
Mom surprises us at oh-my-God in the morning with doughnuts and cartons of milk; she and Sam are already up and dressed, and they have coffee. I ask for some. I get shut down. Connor doesn’t bother. He drinks his milk and mine, when I pass it to him while Mom isn’t looking.
She surprises us when she tells us she’s not sending us off to Grandma, all the way up the coast. Instead, she’s sending us back to Norton. Not home, but close. And I can’t help but feel a little relieved, and at the same time a little anxious, too. Being almost home seems dangerous in a whole lot of ways . . . not so much because Dad would find us, but because I immediately realize it means I can’t really go home, to our old house. To my room. Being so close and not home? That’s kind of worse. Worse still: Dahlia. I can’t talk to her. Can’t text her. Can’t even let her know I’m there. That’s the definition of suck.
But I don’t tell Mom that.
Connor perks up a little when he realizes that instead of weeks with Grandma, he gets to hang out with Javier Esparza, who is a quietly awesome badass. His presence always feels strong and reassuring, and I don’t doubt he can defend us. Connor needs a guy to bond with. He and Sam Cade got close, but I know Sam’s got his own battles. He’s going with my mom, no question about that.
So we’ll be staying at Mr. Esparza’s cabin, which he sometimes shares with Norton police officer Kezia Claremont. Also a quiet badass. They’re totally sleeping together, which I guess we’re not supposed to know. I approve of Kezia, though. It also means we have twice the firepower protecting us. I know Mom’s doing it for that reason, but I’m still glad, for Connor’s sake. I hope having Mr. Esparza around might break him out of his rigid silence.
Packing isn’t much of a problem. We’ve been running for so long, Connor and I are both pros at throwing our stuff in bags and being ready to go in moments. Actually, Connor doesn’t even have to do that. He packed early, while I was still asleep. We keep score on things like that, and he silently points to his bag to let me know he wins. Again. He’s got his nose in a book already, which is his way of blocking out any attempts to converse. Plus, he loves books.