I should have brought Aislin. She volunteered.

But, I don’t know, it just felt wrong. This is about my mother, which means it’s about me. And Solo.

I’m shivering, and it’s not because of what I’m wearing.

I push the buzzer.

He doesn’t answer. I buzz again. Nothing. I press the buzzer and hold it down. I don’t care if he’s asleep, he can damn well wake up and let me in.

The door flies open.

A man—no, more than one man—rushes out. One of them slams me against the wall. I trip and slip to the ground. A third man stampedes by with a heavy step on my once-severed leg.

The door to Solo’s room is ajar. Something is wrong, terribly wrong. Solo isn’t one of the three men.

I climb up and rush into the room. Stupid, really, I probably should call for help or something. I think of this too late.

Solo is in a chair.

The first thing I notice is the blood.

The second thing I notice is the ropes.

“Close the door,” he says in a clotted voice. “Dead-bolt it.”

I do it. Then I rush to him, kneeling down so I can look up into his face.

“Gruesome, huh?” he asks.

He’s wearing nothing but boxers. Thin rivulets of blood have made it all the way down to his shoulders and onto his chest.

“I’ll get help,” I say. But I know that’s the wrong answer.

“No. There’s no help in this place. They’re just shook up because they didn’t expect you.” Solo works his tongue around his mouth. He grunts, and a second later spits out a tooth. “Sorry.”

I run to his bathroom, soak a hand towel in ice-cold water, and run back. Carefully I blot the blood from his head. It’s shockingly red on the white towel. I can’t do a very thorough job because his hair is thick.

I wipe the blood from his face. Forehead. Eyes. Mouth.

I go back to rinse the blood out and as the cold water runs, my brain is racing, then stalling, then racing again, like a very bad driver with a very fast car.

I bring the now-pink towel back and begin to wipe the blood from his neck and chest.

I expect more blood to flow—they say head wounds bleed a lot—but it’s barely a trickle.

I wipe down to the waistband of his boxers.

I look up at him and I’m a little startled. I’m disturbed in about six different ways. I haven’t seen this much blood since it was coming out of me on Powell Street.

I haven’t ever been knocked down, pushed aside before.

I’ve never touched a boy’s body before.

I’ve never knelt in front of a boy before, a boy wearing nothing but boxers and rope.

Rope? “You’re still tied up!”

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

I jump to my feet, flustered and scared and overwhelmed. My fingers pick weakly at the knots.

“There’s a Swiss Army knife in my dresser drawer.”

I find it beneath rolled socks. Carefully, carefully, because I don’t trust my trembling hands, I cut him loose.

He stands, turns, faces me, and says, “You looked at the files.”

But I don’t want to talk about it. Because all of that is so horrible and so complicated, and right now he is just so close.

“You—” Solo begins.

He stops talking, too.

We are inches away from each other. If I lean forward, my nose will touch the hollow of his neck.

Somehow we are closer now.

He breathes out and I breathe in.

Closer. My breasts touch the top of his abdomen. A shudder goes through him.

Through me, too.

His fingers tremble as they touch my cheek. I swallow hard. There’s blood on his fingers, and now there’s some on the back of my neck because his hand is under my hair and we are no longer inches away, we’ve gone metric, we are millimeters away and he breathes and I breathe and we both make shaky sounds like we might both be dying but not yet.

Nothing has ever moved as slowly as his mouth coming down toward mine.

It’s a million years.

His lips touch mine.

So, some part of my brain thinks happily: That’s a kiss.

Oh yes, that is definitely a kiss.

Some years and decades and eons later we pull apart. And he says, “Now: We have to run.”

– 27 –

We race to my room and arrive panting, the two of us babbling to Aislin about beat-downs and crazy people and cover-ups.

“We have to get out of here!” I conclude.

Aislin cocks her head. “You have blood on your mouth.”

“What?” I can feel the furious blush. “I must have cut my lip.”

“Yeah. It’s not your blood, honey,” she says. She turns to Solo. “So, I guess I missed my chance with you?”

“Um…”

“Where are we running to?” Aislin asks. Not upset, mind you, just curious. As though fleeing from my own mother and her crazed minions is a perfectly normal, everyday occurrence.

“Just out of here,” Solo says. He touches the cut on his scalp and grimaces. “Do you still have the flash drive?”

I dig in my purse and produce the little device with the Apple logo.

The three of us look at it, sitting in my palm.

So small, so dangerous, so terrible.

“Good.” Solo nods tersely. “Hang on to it.”

I rush to pull on jeans, turning away to put on a bra and T-shirt. Only then do I realize that I’m facing a mirror.

“He didn’t look,” Aislin says. In a mystified voice she adds: “He really didn’t.”