“He’s claiming it’s your fault,” Dallas says quietly, looking at me in the mirror, “like you’re some sort of vixen. You’d think he’d be more concerned about getting his only son home.”
James is still reading, and every second that ticks by makes his posture tighter, his hands curl into fists. I’d only skimmed the interview, but James’s dad claimed I was the mastermind behind our disappearance. There’s even a picture of him posing with a framed photo of James from middle school. It’s absolutely absurd.
“Propaganda,” Dallas calls back, even though James and I have fallen silent. “They baited him into that interview to gain public support. I wouldn’t let it bother you too much.”
I scoff. “Right, Dallas. I’ll just put it out of my mind.” I look at James, trying to gauge his reaction. Eventually he turns the phone screen off and hands the cell forward to Dallas. I start to chew on my nail, waiting. But James just crosses his arms over his chest like he might never talk again.
“James?” I ask when his nonresponse nearly sends me over the edge.
“My dad’s an asshole,” he says quietly. “Let’s just leave it at that for now.”
But I can’t drop it. I don’t know how James’s father feels about me—or at least I can’t remember. He could have a reason to hate me, or like James said, he could just be an asshole. Either way, the fact that this is news shows the reach of The Program. Using his father is another layer of betrayal. They knew it would hurt James. They wanted it to. It’s proof they won’t stop. They won’t let us go. “What are we going to do?” I whisper.
James turns toward me. “We hold on,” he replies. It’s not the give-them-hell response I need to hear, but James is only human. We’re all vulnerable. Like Lacey.
The reality of our situation is crushing, and we ride in silence—James lost somewhere next to me. I watch out the window as we pass a park. There are children playing in bright-colored shirts, running around while their doting mothers look on. For an instant, I miss my parents in a desperate way I haven’t felt in a long while. For an instant I wish I could go home.
But then I think of James’s dad sitting down for that interview and know it just as easily could have been my parents. I close my eyes until I’m back to now, on the run with James and Dallas.
“I think you’re going to love Denver,” Dallas calls from the front, startling me from my thoughts. “There won’t be any Suicide Clubs for a while, though. The last one got raided after we left. In a way, Lacey saved my ass by taking off.”
“How did they find out about the club?” I ask.
Dallas begins twisting her blond dreads absently. “A handler probably,” she says, watching the road outside the windshield. “Those bastards are embedded everywhere.”
Embedded handlers—the thought hadn’t occurred to me. My memories from last night at the Suicide Club are hazy, but I remember Adam. Was he a handler putting on an act, pretending to be depressed? That’s so wrong, so unethical. If he was a handler, then . . .
Fear crawls up my back and arms, a devastating reality I can’t even tell James. Not yet, not when he’s still feeling guilty about Lacey. But Adam knew my name—he knew who I was. If he was a handler, why didn’t he take me right then? What if I was the reason the Suicide Club was raided?
“Hold up,” Dallas tells us when her phone vibrates. James’s eyes narrow as he watches in the rearview mirror as she answers it. “Seriously?” Dallas says into the phone. “Goddamn it, Cas. Fine,” she growls, and hangs up, dropping her phone into the cup holder. The Escalade zooms past us, but we turn right.
“Cas says we need to split up,” Dallas tells us. “The place in Denver won’t work for you, and it’s too risky to continue driving right now. Apparently they’re doing a Dateline special about the two of you. The media has totally latched on to your runaway-lovers story—and the scanner is going crazy with possible sightings. This is a total clusterfuck.”
“So where are we going, then?” James asks, his mood still dark from reading about his father. “Don’t you have any friends here?”
The dig makes Dallas flinch, but she smiles, brushing her hair behind her shoulder. “Oh, I have friends, James. But they won’t exactly welcome me in with the rebel poster children in tow. Too bad your handsome face couldn’t be a little less memorable.” She says it like she hates him for it.
“Yes, too bad,” I respond sarcastically. James chuckles, side-eyeing me. His angry expression softens, and then he shoves my shoulder playfully.
“Hey!” I push him back, to which he retaliates until I’m finally smiling. I love how we can do that—break through the misery to always find each other.
Dallas interrupts. “We’re heading to Colorado Springs. There’s a small house where Cas used to crash. He told us to head over while he drops off the others. He’s going to stay with us, though. The four of us,” she mumbles. “Won’t that be cozy?”
“Lovely,” I respond. Because spending more time with Dallas is what I need. I rest against James; he braids strands of my hair between his fingers as I watch the passing street out the window. The blue sky and the white-capped mountains.
And when the moment of normalcy fades, I’m haunted once again by thoughts of Lacey—and how I could have saved her. I go to twist the ring on my finger and become alarmed when there’s only naked flesh. I hold up my hand and hitch in a breath. I spin to James, tears ready to spill over.
“I left it behind,” I say. At first his expression is a mixture of concern and confusion, but then he looks at my hand and realizes I’m talking about the ring. His shoulders slump, hurt crossing his features.
A few weeks ago I’d found a ring hidden in my bedroom. I’d placed it there for when I got out of The Program, and it eventually helped lead me back to James. Just last week he’d gotten me a second ring—a new promise. But I was careless enough to lose it. It’s starting to feel like a pattern: losing things I care about. People I care about. I curl against James, my face buried in his shirt while he murmurs he’ll get me another. It was just an object; it’s replaceable. But as he talks, I rub absently at the empty space on my ring finger, thinking about replacements. And wondering if I’m just a replacement of the girl I used to be.
The house is a skinny two-story with peeling yellow paint and a broken wooden fence. I take a quick peek around as we pull into the garage behind the house. Dallas leads us toward a sagging back porch and picks up a key from underneath a coffee can filled with old cigarette butts that’s just outside the door. James and I survey the yard, and he points to a dilapidated doghouse in the corner.
“Can we get a puppy?” he asks, grinning at me. I want to say yes and then really get a dog. We’ll give it a stupid name and take it everywhere with us. But our situation isn’t permanent. We may never find permanence again. We may never find Lacey again. When I don’t respond, James’s smile fades and he puts his arm around me as we wait for Dallas to get the door open.
I was in the school cafeteria the first time I met Lacey. She was wearing the same sort of clothes as the other returners, but on her they didn’t seem so bland. She told me not to eat the food because they put sedatives in it. She told me this even though it could have gotten her in trouble. She sat with me—a hollowed-out, confused girl—until I started to feel less lost. She made me laugh. She tried to protect me from The Program. But I let her down. I should have taken the nosebleed more seriously. I’m not sure what I could have done for her, but I should have figured something out. If Realm had been here, he would have known what to do.