When I stand in front of him, he says, “Don’t scream. I just want to talk.”

I nod, and my airway clears. I cough and gasp for breath, steadying myself against the dizzy nausea.

“I need you to make a phone call. Just one little phone call, and you can be on your way.”

I don’t believe him for one second, but in order to buy some time I say, “To who?”

“No questions. All you have to say is, ‘Hello, this is Addie.’ That’s simple enough.”

“Why should I?”

“I thought I just showed you why you should. Do you want me to show you again?”

“No. Fine. I’ll do it.”

“That’s a good girl.” He pushes a button on his phone and then hands it to me with a reminder: “When he answers, just say, ‘Hello, this is Addie.’ No more, no less.”

I nod, trying to plot my escape when this is over because I know he’s not just going to let me walk away, but then the man answers, “Coleman here,” and all thoughts of escape are gone.

I almost whisper, Daddy, but bite my tongue. If I say anything, my dad will think I’m in trouble. Technically I am, but I don’t want my dad doing whatever Poison is going to demand of him. Not if I still have a chance at escape.

“Hello?” my dad says again.

I slip my thumb up to the End Call button and push it. The line goes dead. “Dad? Is that you? This is Addie.” I try to say it with panic in my voice, which isn’t hard, since my heart is thumping in my throat.

“That’s enough,” Poison says.

I bring the phone away from my ear, and before he can take over my body again, I push End, pretending to hang up.

“No, you idiot,” he says. “I needed to talk to him.”

“What do you want with my father?”

“He’s telling lies about me. He needs to know I won’t stand for that. I thought I’d give him a little incentive to stop.” He holds out his hand for the phone. I start to give it to him, but I let go before it reaches his hand. It drops to the sidewalk with a clatter. I pray that it broke. As he bends down, cursing, I turn and run toward Bobby’s house, screaming at the top of my lungs. I only get through the sentence, “Help me” one and a half times before my throat is constricted again and my whole body is frozen in place.

Just when I think I’m going to die, Bobby walks out onto the porch and glances wide-eyed between Poison and me. Never have I been happier to see him.

“Addie?” he says, and suddenly I can breathe again. My body drops to the ground, and I land on my palms.

“Bobby, help me,” I croak.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

I stand on my own accord, keeping an eye on Poison while I walk toward Bobby. “Just leave me alone,” I tell Poison. “And my father too.”

Once at Bobby’s side, I grab on to his arm, my legs feeling like jelly beneath me. He protectively takes a step in front of me. “Get out of here, or I’m going to call the Bureau,” he says to Poison.

Poison lets out a low laugh, shoves his hands in his pockets, and then walks away whistling.

Bobby turns toward me. “Are you okay?”

I shake my head no.

“Come on, I’ll get you something to drink. Do you want me to call Duke and have him come over?”

I shake my head no again. “I just want to sit for a minute, and then I’ll go home.”

Bobby leads me inside.

I am overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude toward him. He just saved me.

“Was that the guy you and Duke had me research?” Bobby asks.

“Yes. Thanks for helping me.”

“No problem.” The door shuts with a swoosh, and he slides the security bar across and punches a code into the palm pad.

CHAPTER 34

NORM-less: n. absolutely no normalcy in given situation

I sit up in a cold sweat. My sheet is wrapped around my legs, making it hard for me to move. I untangle it and swing my feet to the ground, looking around my dark room. Something woke me, and I try to remember if it was a bad dream or a noise. Just when I’m about to lie down again, thinking a bad dream was the most likely culprit, my phone chimes. I search the blackness for the lit screen, blindly groping the top of my nightstand. It’s not there. Then I remember I shoved it under my pillow before going to sleep. I pull it out.

Both messages are from Laila. The first reads, Help. The second, Forgive me.

I stumble to my dad’s room. “Dad,” I sob, grabbing hold of his shoulder and shaking him awake. “Dad, I need your help. It’s Laila.”

He sits up, groggy, his hand going to his hair first and then to the digital clock on his nightstand. “What?” he says, when he finally looks at me.

“I should’ve Searched, but I didn’t. I was going to, but Trevor left too late, and I was tired. I might’ve seen something—”

“Addie. Calm down. What’s going on?”

“Laila’s in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I don’t know. She’s been hanging around this horrible kid from school.” Then my memory latches on to something she had mentioned as we were walking through the parking lot to the football game. “Or there’s this guy, one of her dad’s drug buddies, who threatened her. Maybe it has to do with that. I don’t know. I just know she’s in trouble, and I’m scared.”

My words seem to wake him up even further, and he rolls out of bed. “What’s his name? The drug friend.”

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Is it Poison? Was his name Poison?” My dad takes me by the shoulders. I gasp when I remember one of my dad’s notes about Poison: Drug dealer—yes.

“Oh no. You have to do something.”

“It’s okay, baby, just calm down, okay?” He grabs his phone and dials a number. “Hi, it’s Coleman,” he says into his cell. “I know it’s late. I apologize. I may have another missing teenager to report.” He pauses. “You ready? Her name is Laila Stader.” He spells it out slowly, each letter like a jab to my heart. “And get someone over to Mr. Paxton’s house immediately … yes … no … Okay, let me know as soon as you have any information. Thanks.” He hangs up and then looks at me. The pain that fills his eyes is terrifying. It’s like he already thinks the worst.

I climb into his empty bed. The place he had just abandoned feels warm against my shivering body. The mattress behind me sinks down a little when he sits and places a hand on my back. “It’s going to be okay.”

“You can’t say that. You don’t know that. I shouldn’t have left. She needs me, and I’m not there.”

“What could you have done, Addie? You being there wouldn’t have changed things.”

I had seen too many alternate futures to be comforted by those words. “It might’ve. She has to be okay.” I curl into a ball. It’s not too late to Search now. Maybe I can see something. My brain is jumbled, and the anxiety in my chest makes it too hard to relax. Unless I can concentrate, it won’t work.

“Addie, there’s no need to worry before you know.”

The black screen of my cell phone taunts me. I dial Laila’s number again. No answer.

“I’m going to make you some warm milk,” my dad says, standing and moving toward the door.

“I don’t want warm milk,” I snap.

He’s quiet for a long time. “Do you want to call Mom?”

The suggestion rips a sob from my chest, and I pull a pillow against me. “I don’t want to talk to Mom.”

“She told me you aren’t returning her calls. Why are you taking this divorce out on her?”

The question is a valid one, but I’m angry with him for pointing it out right now.

“The decision was mutual. You know that, right?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. My friend is in trouble. That’s all that matters.”

“Yes, right now that is all that matters. But later you need to talk to her. Your mom misses you.”

This is the last thing I need right now—him making me feel worse than I already do. I’m scared and sad and I just want him to be scared and sad with me, not try to tell me how to make my mom feel better about a decision they made. “I don’t care about her.”

I can tell that was the wrong thing to say because his face pales. “It was me, okay?” With the one statement he seems to age a hundred years. His shoulders droop forward, and his mouth pulls down into a deep frown.

“What?”

“I wanted to leave. I couldn’t live there any longer, watching you surrounded by semirealism. And she couldn’t bear to leave and risk the proper development of your ability. We fought about it for years. Maybe it would’ve been different if I couldn’t see through lies, but I could, and they were everywhere I turned. No matter how often she Persuaded me to stay, I couldn’t do it. So hate me, Addie. Hate me for my selfishness. Don’t hate her.”

He leans against the dresser as if the lie had been keeping him upright and now that he expelled it, he couldn’t hold himself up on his own accord. Was that speech supposed to make me feel better? Aren’t parents supposed to say, Our divorce had nothing to do with you; it was all us? Their breaking up had everything to do with me.

I take a deep breath. I had drawn my loyalty lines early in this battle—my mom, with her overbearing personality who drove my father to escape, on one side; my dad and me, who had to put up with her all these years, on the other. I’m not sure if I’m ready to hear that I might’ve drawn the wrong line or stood on the wrong side of that line. But then I think about what he had actually said—living in semirealism. I didn’t want that either. Did I?

“I’m sorry.” He looks so tired and broken and Normal. Then, as if reading the thoughts on my face, he says, “Addie, that came out wrong. It wasn’t about you. It was a fight we had for years, before it became centered on you. It was our beliefs. They were nearly opposite from each other. And then with the new mind program that’s even more invasive—” He stops short, as if he had said too much. “This wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.”

I open my mouth to say something, I’m not sure what, when his phone rings and drowns any thoughts I had, replacing them with fear. I throw the pillow aside and sit up.

“Coleman here … yes … I see …” His eyes dart to me. “Are you sure? … Have you arrested him? … There? Well, yes, I did say that, but … I can’t leave my daughter here alone … No, she’s sixteen, but … yes, of course … okay, an hour, I’ll be there, thanks. Bye.” He hangs up the phone and slowly lowers it to his side. Dread has numbed every muscle in my body, and I’m frozen as I wait for the news.

“They don’t know anything for sure yet, so we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

“What did they say? Where’s Laila?”