Forty-five

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WE WAITED IN THE WAREHOUSE for one hour and forty minutes.

“They caught them,” I whispered.

Rae shrugged. “Maybe not. Maybe they saw their chance to get away and they took it.”

A protest rose to my lips, but I swallowed it. She was right. If they had the opportunity to escape and no easy way of alerting us, I’d want them to take it.

I lifted my numb rear off the ice-cold cement. “We’ll wait here a bit longer, then we’ll go. If they got away, they’ll hook up with us later.”

Rae shook her head. “I wouldn’t count on it, Chloe. It’s like I said, the way they act, the way they behave, it’s always us against them, and ‘us’ means the two of them. No one else, except maybe that missing dad of theirs.” She shifted into a crouch. “Did they even give you any idea where they think he is? Or why he hasn’t come for them?”

“No, but—”

“I’m not arguing, I’m just saying…” She crawled to the opening and peeked out. “It’s like last year, when I went out with this guy. He was part of a clique at school. The ‘cool kids.’ ” She added the quotes with her fingers. “And, sure, I kinda liked getting to hang with them. I thought it’d make me one of them. Only it didn’t. They were nice enough, but they’d been friends since, like, third grade. Just because I had an in didn’t mean I’d ever be one of them. You’ve got these superpowers. That gives you cred with Simon and Derek. But…” She turned my way. “You’ve only known them for a week. When push comes to shove…”

“Their first priority is each other. I know that. And I’m not saying you’re wrong, just—”

“Simon’s nice to you and all, sure. I see that. But—” She nibbled her lip, then slowly lifted her gaze to mine. “When you were back there, looking for Derek, it wasn’t you Simon was worrying about. He didn’t even mention you. It was all about Derek.”

Of course he was worried about Derek. Derek was his brother; I was some girl he met a week ago. But it still stung a little that he hadn’t mentioned me at all.

I’d been about to tell Rae about the part of the plan she missed, to make this our permanent rendezvous point, and keep checking back. But now it would sound like I was trying to prove the guys hadn’t turned their backs on me. How pathetic was that?

I still thought they’d come back after things died down. It had nothing to do with whether Simon liked me or not. They’d come back because it was the right thing to do. Because they said they would. And maybe that makes me a silly girl who’s watched too many movies where the good guy always comes back to save the day. But it’s what I believed.

That did not, however, mean I was sitting here like an action-flick girlfriend, twiddling her thumbs waiting for rescue. I might be naïve, but I wasn’t stupid. We’d set a rendezvous point, so there was no need to stick around any longer.

I crawled from our cubbyhole, looked, and listened. I waved Rae out.

“First thing I need to do is get money,” I said. “I’ve got my dad’s but we might need more. There’s a daily withdrawal limit, and that’s probably all I’ll get, so I have to act fast, before they put a trace on it or freeze the account. Derek said the nearest ATM was—”

“What are you doing?” Rae asked.

“What?”

She took hold of my arm and pointed at the blood. “You don’t need money; you need a doctor.”

I shook my head. “I can’t go to a hospital. Even if they haven’t put out an APB on me yet, I’m too young. They’d call my Aunt Lauren—”

“I meant your Aunt Lauren. She’s a doctor, isn’t she?”

“N-no. I can’t. She’d just take us back—”

“After they shot at us? I know you’re mad at her right now, but you’ve told me how she’s always worrying about you, always looking out for you, defending you. If you show up at her front door and say that Davidoff and his buds shot at you, even with tranquilizers, do you really think she’ll march you back to Lyle House?”

“That depends on whether she believes me. A week ago, yes. But now?” I shook my head. “When she was talking to me about Derek, it was like I wasn’t even Chloe anymore. I’m a schizophrenic. I’m paranoid and I’m delusional. She won’t believe me.”

“Then tell me exactly what the gun and the dart looked like, and I’ll say I saw it, too. No, wait! The dart. Derek pulled one out of his shirt, right? Do you know where it is?”

“I—I think so.” I thought back, pictured him dropping it in the delivery bay. “Yes, I know exactly where it is.”

“Then let’s go get it.”

***

It wasn’t that easy. For all we knew, the factory yard was swarming with cops searching for two teen runaways. But when we looked out, the only people we saw were a half-dozen factory workers, heading in to work Sunday overtime, laughing and talking, lunch pails swinging, takeout coffees steaming.

I took off my blood-soaked sweatshirt and swapped it for Liz’s hoodie. Then we crept out, moving from cover to cover. No sign of anyone looking for us. That made sense. How many teenagers run away in Buffalo every day? Even escaping from a home for disturbed kids wouldn’t warrant a full-out manhunt.

Last night, it had probably been only Lyle House employees chasing us. Maybe board members, like Tori’s mother, more worried about the home’s reputation than our safety. If they wanted to keep our escape quiet, they’d be gone before any factory employees arrived. By now they were probably in a meeting, deciding what to do and when to notify our parents—and the police.

I found the dart easily, and put it into my backpack. Then we headed for the business district, looping three blocks past Lyle House and keeping our eyes open. Nothing happened. We found a pay phone, I called for a cab, and gave the driver Aunt Lauren’s address.

***

Aunt Lauren lived in a duplex near the university. When we walked up her steps, the Buffalo News was still there. I picked it up and rang the bell.

After a minute, a shadow passed behind the curtain. Locks clanked and the door flew open. Aunt Lauren stood there in a short bathrobe, hair wet.

“Chloe? Oh my God. Where—” She pulled the door open. “What are you doing here? Are you okay? Is everything all right?”

She tugged me inside by my injured arm and I tried not to wince. Her gaze shot to Rae.

“Aunt Lauren, this is Rae. From Lyle House. We need to talk to you.”

***

As we went inside, I did a proper introduction. Then I told her the whole story. Well, the edited version. Very edited, with no mention of zombies, magic, or werewolves. The boys had been planning to run away and they’d invited us. We’d gone along just for fun—to get out, goof off, then go back later. Knowing Aunt Lauren didn’t care for Dr. Gill, I included the part about her attacking me in the yard with her wild accusations. Then I told her about the gun.

She stared down at the dart, lying on her coffee table, on top of a stack of New Yorker magazines. She picked it up, gingerly, as if it might detonate, and turned it over in her hands.

“It’s a tranquilizer dart,” she said, voice barely above a whisper.

“That’s what we thought.”

“But—They shot this at you? At you?”

“At us.”

She slumped back, leather squeaking under her.

“I was there, Dr. Fellows,” Rae said. “Chloe’s telling the truth.”

“No, I—” She lifted her gaze to mine. “I believe you, hon. I just can’t believe—This is so completely…” She shook her head.

“Where did you find Lyle House?” I asked.

She blinked. “Find?”

“How did you find it for me? In the yellow pages? Through a recommendation?”

“It came highly recommended, Chloe. Very highly. Someone at the hospital told me about it and I did all my research. Their recovery rate is excellent and they had glowing reports from patients and their families. I can’t believe this happened.”

So I hadn’t randomly arrived at Lyle House. It’d been recommended. Did that mean anything? I fingered Liz’s hoodie and thought about us—all of us. No ordinary group home would track runaways with tranquilizer guns. The ghost had been right. There was a reason we’d been at Lyle House and now, withholding the truth from Aunt Lauren, I could be putting her into danger.

“About the ghosts…” I began.

“You mean what that Gill woman said?” Aunt Lauren slapped the dart back onto the magazines with such force that the pile fell, magazines sliding across the glass table-top. “The woman is obviously in need of mental help herself. Thinking you can communicate with ghosts? One whiff of that to a review board and her license will be revoked. She’ll be lucky if she isn’t committed. No sane person believes people can speak to the dead.”

Okay, forget the confession …

Aunt Lauren rose. “I’m going to start by calling your father, then my lawyer, and he can contact Lyle House.”

“Dr. Fellows?”

Aunt Lauren turned to Rae.

“Before you do that, you’d better take a look at Chloe’s arm.”