Just then the door slammed open, and the commissioner stood panting in the doorway, his face red with blood and sweat.
“What do we do?” I asked Phoenix. He pointed to a paper clip lying separate from the rest, and then to the commissioner. I grabbed it and held it high in the air. I’d underestimated the power of Bertha’s special paper clips before, but not now.
“TAKE THIS!” I yelled. I tossed the clip with a flick of my wrist and braced myself for the eruption of smoke that would follow.
The paper clip bounced harmlessly off the commissioner’s chest and fell to the ground. He scratched his head. “What the hell?”
Phoenix grabbed my hand and pulled me through the window.
“It was just a normal paper clip?” I said.
Phoenix nodded. “But it distracted him, didn’t it?”
I pretended not to be disappointed, but silently I added paper clips to the list of things I couldn’t trust: puddles in public restrooms, door handles, the Lost Boys, and, now, paper clips. I had a feeling the list would grow indefinitely.
Mila crawled through the window after us. As she slipped out, a hand shot out from the office and wrapped itself around her ankle. The commissioner’s bloodshot eyes appeared in the window, staring angrily at her as he fought hard to catch his breath. Mila’s hood fell back around her neck, and a flash in the commissioner’s eyes told me recognized her curls.
“Mila Vachowski,” he said, his eyes foggy—distant like those of the denizens of Skelewick. “I knew that wasn’t your face on the news.”
Mila turned and, for the first time since I’d met her, I saw real fear in her green eyes. She tried to pull her leg away, but the commissioner held on even more tightly. “I remember your father,” he said. “He was a good man. One of the best we had in the Ministry. We don’t get ones like him often.”
Mila nodded slightly, her eyes drooped, and her mouth went slack in a breathless gape. The commissioner released her leg. “I hope you know what the hell you’re doing.” Mila yanked her leg away, and we ran.
The commissioner had known her father—he’d worked for the Ministry of Transpiration & Commerce. That was how she’d known about the keys and the layout of the border station—because she’d been there before many times. We ran over a hill that backed up against the side of the station and fled into the city. Mila wiped tears from her eyes.
I wondered, again, who were the Lost Boys, and what were they really doing? And, perhaps most importantly: what did they want with me?
Chapter 30
We stole a white minivan from a Bixby & Barnnigan’s parking lot in Maui. Phoenix figured it belonged to a soccer mom and that she’d be in the store for a while, giving us time to run before she reported its theft to the cops.
Next we drove to a local Drive-n-Thrive burger shop, and demanded that they give us a set of their uniforms (ridiculous green baseball caps) and pairs of sunglasses. I tried to edge in a request for a cheeseburger by showing them my socks, but they hadn’t fired the grills up yet and it’d be thirty minutes if we wanted to wait.
Phoenix hadn’t wanted to wait.
In Maui, we drove along the ocean highways (mostly because there were fewer police officers there) instead of taking the Tubes. The ocean broke along the cliffs and shoreline, its water dull and gray, complemented by the angry clouds above.
Mila slept in the front seat. She’d said her head still hurt from the airbag earlier. That, and she didn’t want to talk about the conversation with the commissioner. She didn’t want to acknowledge her past at all. I asked Phoenix what happened exactly, but he shook his head and said, “She’ll tell you in time, kid.”
I sort of resented the fact he called me kid. I was fifteen years old, for god’s sake—an adult for all Federal intents and purposes. Had I been vaccinated, I could’ve voted in the fall elections. Instead, I sat there with brown eyes like a child, praying the Indigo pills Phoenix had given me those first few days were still working.
When at last we reached the end of the highway, we had no choice but to merge onto the Atlantic Northwestern Tube. It was much quieter than the Pacific Southwestern, with only three lanes for cars and one track for the subway. Phoenix told me the Tubes that went to the Suburban Islands were really only busy during rush hour, when commuters used them, and that, unlike Maui, border patrol was essentially nonexistent. Sure enough, the man at the station waved us through with a smile. He didn’t even stop us to check out our registration.
“Strange that security’s so lax here,” I said.
Phoenix shrugged. “I guess they figure they’ve got nothing worth attacking. Better to put the troops near the big cities.”
“Did you hear what the commissioner said? About Mila being on the news?”
“Yeah, I remember him saying something along those lines. It can’t be helped, I’m afraid. The girl they caught was probably a criminal anyway. I hope they execute her—for her sake. Torture would be far worse.”
I couldn’t believe what he was saying. How nonchalantly he spoke. I felt sick to my stomach, and a lump formed in my throat. “Torture?” I croaked.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “If the Feds catch us, we’d better pray for death. It may seem like a fair trial on TV, but off-screen… you can be sure they’ll pull us apart piece by piece, the way a megalodon maims its meals before it eats them. They’d marinate us in our own suffering like a steak in vinegar.”
I thought of Charlie’s bald head and sunken eyes. I imagined the Feds pulling her apart—using the chopsticks from her bun to cut her into pieces until all that was left were her bright blue eyes. The girl was probably a criminal anyway. Phoenix didn’t have an ounce of compassion for human life. Death rolled off his shoulders like rain.
“We’re here,” he said. We sat outside a small two-story house with blue shuttered windows. It was identical to the other houses in its row, a clone, right down to its manicured lawn and rosebush to the right of the driveway. Phoenix tapped Mila’s arm to wake her.
“But Sarah,” she mumbled, wiping sleep from her eyes.
“Who’s Sarah?” I asked, but they’d already climbed out of the car.
Phoenix rapped his knuckles against the white wooden door. “Let yourself in,” called a woman’s husky voice. It was familiar. I’d heard it before. In my past life—where I hadn’t been an enemy of the people, a Lost Boy.
Mila turned the knob, and the three of us entered a living room. A woman sat on a green leather couch, fanning herself with a red paper fan in one hand as she eyed the cuticles on the other. “You can shut it behind you,” she said, without looking up.
Phoenix slammed the door. “Neevlor’s dead.”
The fan fell from the woman’s wrist. I saw a burning bird flash across its side as it dropped.
It was the woman from the Tube—the one I’d spoken to the day it cracked. The one who’d told me not to get vaccinated. She laid her head down on her knees. “This is wrong,” she muttered. “This is all so wrong.”
Phoenix sat next to her on the couch. “Nice to you see you too, Gwendolyn.”
“Who’s the kid?” she said without lifting her head.
“This is Kai.”
I offered her my hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
She ignored it. “Pleasure’s all mine.” She ran her hands through her graying hair.