“Oh...oh, Lucas, no,” she whispers. The missing years stretch out between us, and I hate that I have to fill them, that I have to tell her this. I hate all of the what-ifs. What if we’d just stayed where we were and tried to fight through it? What if I’d come to Thurmond with Sam and Mia and I’d known, at least, where I could find them? “What happened?”
I try to shrug off the ache that pierces my chest. “We—we went up to Pennsylvania, to live with Grammy and Pops. You remember?”
“Of course.”
“We couldn’t stay with them after they started making those announcements about Collections. I’d already changed. It was too dangerous and people knew where we were. So we left and went a few towns over.” We lived out of our car in an abandoned parking garage, but I couldn’t tell her that, not when her face was already so shattered. It wasn’t even that bad, you know? We put up sheets in the window during the day, when Dad went out to look for work, and Mom and Mia would try to outdo each other with their stories. Sometimes I think about being small enough to lay across the backseat, my cheek against the fabric, just listening to Mom as she voiced each of her characters. Dad would come back with food and a smile, lean across the way and kiss her. I miss the days that were boring, hot, and long, because those were the days when I felt safe.
“It was just...it started as a carjacking. The two guys were out of their heads on something. It turned into something else when they realized me and Mia were there. My parents weren’t going to let us go. Mom reached for the money we’d been keeping in the glove box. They panicked, thinking she had a gun, too. Dad tried to cover her. It was over so fast.”
“Are you sure they’re dead?”
The stench of blood and smoke fills my senses, and the rumbling of pain starts at the back of my head, carrying forward like a rattling drum. I focus on the rain’s pattering so I don’t have to hear Mia’s screaming.
“God,” she said, “of course you are. I’m sorry. You can’t...you...” She’s blinking hard, trying to clear her throat until she gives up, and I see the first tears collecting on her lashes.
“Your folks?” I ask.
I didn’t like the Dahls. At all. Sammy was the best thing about them, and they never once recognized it. I don’t know how someone like her could survive in a house that’s just so...stiff. Stiff words, stiff hugs, stiff dinners. Mom felt so sorry for her, liked to tease out Sam’s devious, wicked streak with her own. Anything she lacked at home, we would have given her. We were always overflowing with the good stuff. My house in Bedford was loud and messy and so sweet, so bright the memories almost hurt to look at.
Sam shrugs. “Dad walked me to school. That was the last I saw or heard from them.”
I don’t know what to say to that that wouldn’t be horrible and offensive to the people who raised her. I can’t do anything, but lean against the crate. Sam does the same, and I try to imagine what it would be like if there wasn’t that barrier between us, if we’d lived our lives the way they were supposed to pan out. The missed things—games, dances, studying—those things just leave me hollow. But I know Sam is there. I know she is.
“Do you still see Greenwood?” Sam asks softly.
“Not like I used to,” I say. “There are other things I need to focus on. Remember.” I wish I still had the kind of heart to come up with the stories I used to. They were so pure and simple. And because we were making the rules, I always got to be the hero.
But there’s no room left for play or pretend in our lives. Even these minutes we’ve had are being stolen for reality. I need my shell, but I can’t lose my focus on the future because I’m letting myself get lost in the sweet glow of the past.
“I think about them all the time,” Sam said. “There was this one—Mia was the sorceress and she took over the fort and held you captive. I can’t remember why she was pelting me with her stuffed animals, though.”
I have to smile. Mia had a flair for the dramatic. She was happiest as a sorceress, an evil queen, or monster—and even happier if Mom let her raid her makeup to complete the look. “She could control the animals of the forest, remember? They were defending her.” Including her stuffed Tiger, Ty-Ty, because, of course, why couldn’t there be large predator cats in Greenwood?
“And she’d turned you into a beast, too! How could I forget?” Sam’s laugh is so faint I think I’ve imagined it. “Her weakness was water. I broke your Super Soaker.”
“But then you realized you could sing her to sleep,” I say. “Sammy saved the day again. How did that one go? I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart...”
“And I’m so happy, so very happy...” Her voice drifts off as she swallows hard. “I missed you. Is this even real? I can’t...Is this really happening?”
“I’m gonna bet I missed you more,” I say with a heat that has nothing to do with what I am, but who I am, who I want to be. “It feels the same.” You never left me.
Sam sits back, her lips parting, but if she means to say something, I’ll never know. The lights overhead suddenly snap on and I rocket to my feet, straightening out. The drug-like daze rips away from my mind and I slam back into reality. Sam scrambles back against the metal bottom of the crate. In the second before she disappears from my line of sight, I see the desperation on her face, and I’m cut in half by the kind of pain that’s worse than any baton, any shock, any blade. My ear is buzzing with updates, the Control Tower coming through with a firm “Power at full capacity, return to schedule.”