“Mornin’, sunshine!” Liam called. “Sleep okay?”
Zu darted out ahead of me, but I could feel my feet begin to drag with an invisible weight as I came toward them. I crossed my arms over my chest, steadying myself enough to ask, “What is this place?”
This time, it was Liam who blew out a sigh. “Well, we were hoping it was East River. The East River, I mean.”
“That’s in Virginia,” I said, looking down at my shoes. “The peninsula. It empties into the Chesapeake Bay.”
“Thank you Detective Duh.” Chubs shook his head. “We’re talking about the Slip Kid’s East River.”
“Hey.” Liam’s voice was sharp. “Lay off, buddy. We really didn’t know anything about it until we were out of camp, either.”
Chubs crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. “Whatever.”
“What is it?”
I felt Liam turn his attention back to me, which immediately prompted me to turn my attention back to Zu, who mostly just looked confused. Get a grip, I ordered myself, stop it.
I wasn’t afraid of them, not even Chubs. Maybe a bit when I thought too hard about how easily I could ruin their lives, or pictured their horrified reactions if they were to figure out what, exactly, I was. I just didn’t know what to say or how to act around them. Every movement and word on my part felt uncomfortable, shrill, or sharp, and I was beginning to worry that the feelings of hesitancy and awkwardness were never going to lift. I already felt like the freak of freaks without the added realization that I lacked the basic ability of communicating normally with other human beings.
Liam sighed, scratching the back of his head. “We first heard about East River from some kids in our camp. Supposedly—and I mean supposedly—it’s a place where any kids on the outside can go and live together. The Slip Kid, who runs the show, can get you in touch with your folks without the PSFs finding out about it. There’s food, a place to sleep—well, you get the picture. The problem is finding it. We think it’s somewhere in this area, thanks to a few fairly unhelpful Blues we ran across in Ohio. It’s the kind of thing that…”
“If you’re in the know, you’re not supposed to talk about it,” I finished. “But who’s the Slip Kid?”
Liam shrugged. “No one knows. Or…well, I guess people know, they just don’t say. The rumors about him are pretty incredible, though. The PSFs gave him that nickname because he—supposedly—escaped their custody a good four times.”
I was too stunned to say anything to that.
“Kind of puts the rest of us to shame, huh? I was feeling really bad about myself until someone told me the rumors about him.” Liam shuddered. “Supposedly he’s one of those—an Orange.”
That single word thundered down around me, freezing me in place. Liam went on to say something else, with a lot less disgust, but I couldn’t hear him over the roar in my ears. I didn’t hear a word of what he was saying.
Slip Kid. Someone who could help kids get home, if they had a home to return to, and parents who remembered them and wanted them. A life to reclaim.
And, potentially, one of the last Orange kids out there.
I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing the heels of my palms against them for good measure. I didn’t qualify for his help, not in the traditional way. Even if I could get in touch with my parents, it wasn’t like they would welcome a girl they considered a stranger back with open arms. There was Grams, but I had no way of knowing where she was now. After finding out what I had done, would she even want me?
“Why do you even need this guy’s help?” I interrupted, still feeling light-headed. “Can’t you just go home?”
“Use your brain, Green,” Chubs said. “We can’t go home, because PSFs are probably watching our parents.”
Liam shook his head, finally taking his sunglasses off. He looked exhausted, the skin under his eyes baggy and bruised. “You’ll have to be really careful, okay? Do you even want me to drop you off at a bus station? Because we’d be happy—”
“No!” Chubs said. “We most certainly would not. We’ve already wasted enough time on her, and she’s the reason we have the League after us, too.”
A sharp pain sprouted on the left side of my chest, just above my heart. He was right, of course. The best option for everyone would be to drop me off at the nearest bus station and be done with it.
But it didn’t mean I didn’t want to, or need to, find this Slip Kid as badly as they did. But I couldn’t ask to stay. I couldn’t impose on them anymore than I already had, or risk ruining them with the invisible fingers that seemed bent on tearing apart every single connection I managed to make. If the League caught up to us and took them in, I’d never forgive myself. Never.
If I was going to find the Slip Kid, I was going to have to do it by myself. You’d think I’d be used to the thought of taking on each day with no one beside me, that it’d be some kind of relief not to be in constant danger of sliding into someone else’s head. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to step out under the gray overcast sky alone and feel its chill work its way under my skin.
“So,” I said, squinting at the nearest trailer. “This isn’t East River.”
“It might have been, once,” Liam said. “They could move around from time to time. I hadn’t really considered it.”
“Or,” Chubs groused, “they could have already been taken back into PSF custody. Maybe this was East River, and now there is no more East River, and we’re going to have to find a way to deliver Jack’s letter and get home by ourselves, only we won’t ever, because of the skip tracers, and we’ll all be thrown back into camp, only this time they’ll—”
“Thank you, Chuckles,” Liam cut in, “for that rousing burst of optimism.”
“I could be right,” he said. “You have to acknowledge that.”
“But you could also be wrong,” Liam said, dropping a reassuring hand on Zu’s head. “In any case, that’s what we’re going with now: this was just a false alarm. Let’s see if we can find anything useful, then we’ll hit the road.”
“Finally. I’m sick of wasting time on things that don’t matter.” Chubs shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and stalked toward me. If I hadn’t jumped out of the way, his shoulder would have knocked into mine and sent me stumbling back.