Blackwood (20 page)

  
She is
. Phillips headed for the door. "I'm not leaving, I'm staying," he said, shocked to discover it was true. Under his breath, he added, "For once." He pressed the glass door, then crooked his head back. The officer might or might not have sunk into sleep, but he said, "You'll both be fine once the drugs wear off. I'm not
that
stupid."

  Phillips hit the parking lot and considered his options. They weren't great – none of the things he needed to do meshed, and he had no idea where to find Miranda. He scanned to make sure the area was deserted and stopped.

  Across the street in the station parking lot, the driver's side door of a maroon Taurus – he'd never seen it before, he was certain – swung open. Before he could take off, someone stepped out of the strange car, someone who wasn't a stranger. Her hand gripped the top of the door.

  
Miranda?

Blinking at the front of the jail from across the street, Miranda was convinced she
had
lost her mind. Maybe she dropped her brain somewhere in the courthouse square. The jail's front door had opened and Phillips strolled out.

  He squinted in the sun, the wind punking his hair into messy pieces. The clothes he'd been wearing the day before were rumpled. And probably still rough with fine grains of sand worked into the faded T-shirt's green cotton and the grooves of his jeans.

  The memory opened inside her, a raw wound. She'd shoved him
to the ground
. She'd shoved him
to the ground
when he was
in pain
. Getting to him had been her biggest goal an hour before, but she considered running again. Or at least ducking so he couldn't see her.

  But they both just stood there, looking at each other.

  Phillips moved first, jogging over to the car with easy strides that gave her the courage to leave the safety of the car door shield. She walked forward to meet him, putting her hands in her pockets to keep them from shaking. Correction: to hide their shaking.

  
Letting other people have this much power over you is dangerous
. She thought it, but somehow, she couldn't care about that. Not with Phillips almost to her.

  He stopped and she did, too. Half an arm's length separated them. She wasn't sure what to do next. He grinned at her.

  "I'm sorry," she blurted.

  When his brow wrinkled above the grin, the grin that stayed, she was afraid he'd ask what she was sorry for, so she blurted again. "We have big problems. Huge, really."

  His eyebrows shot up. She'd missed those eyebrows.

  "Well, yeah. You're a federal fugitive," he offered. "For one."

  She thought of the missing, standing in their rows, lifting their arms, and her father walking among them. Or the man
wearing
her father, she corrected herself, feeling dizzy. Which possibility was worse?

  She detected the shimmer of sand in his shirt. He was waiting for her to respond.

  "Oh," she said, "I didn't mean
that
."

  "I am too," he said. "Now, I mean. A fugitive."

  She angled her head at the station house, "You
didn't
?"

  His grin slipped away. "I did."

  "You escaped from jail?"

  His nod was short. "Guilty," he said, fidgeting.

  So he really
was
a federal fugitive. But then so was she. How had he managed to… What if he got in
more
trouble? Because of her?

  Her hand left her pocket before she knew what she was doing. She reached up and gave him a push with her palm. "Get in the car, Houdini."

  His shoulder rolled away from her stupid shoving hand. But the shove had been light this time. A tap. A request.

  He got in the car without a word. She joined him, shaking her head –
he escaped from jail
– as she put the car in drive.
He escaped from jail and I immediately shoved him again.

  He patted the dash. "Whose is this?"

  "Polly – the stage manager at the show. A friend," she said. "Or she used to be."

  "Are you OK?" His question came low enough that she could ignore it if she needed to. But she looked at him, giving him permission to go on, and he did. "Last time we were together you were… freaked. Understandably freaked."

  "Fine. OK, maybe still freaked." She'd expected to have to apologise. "About yesterday…"

  He touched her cheek, below the evil birthmark, the one she wanted to force off her skin. He didn't seem to hate her. She relaxed as much as she could manage.

  He stroked his thumb over the curve of her cheek. She wondered if there might finally be kissing, and if that'd be how they got busted.
Well, judge, they were apprehended lingering outside the jail making out in a stolen car
. Still, she'd have stayed inside the moment, right where they were, no matter if the cuffs were coming. It was the first time in years she'd felt like escape might be possible.

  Then Phillips crooked his head toward the back seat. "Your last donut spoken for?"

  She laughed because she couldn't help it, the motion tossing his fingers aside. "That creepy donut is all yours. I'm never eating donuts again."

• • • •

As they began a slow approach to his house through the woods, Phillips was still absorbing the bulk of what Miranda had told him. The voices in his head rumbled and rushed at each revelation, but the flow never reached an overwhelming level. It was almost like the voices were confused, too.

  What she had to say didn't make any immediate sense to Phillips. So he focused on making another plan, isolating the steps they needed to take to figure out the endgame. He hoped whatever he came up with would work as well as the escape plan he'd eventually land in jail for.

  He didn't want Miranda to know what he'd done to get free. Not yet.

  They wouldn't be able to keep her friend Polly's car for long, but their options were limited. He pressed a low hanging branch aside so Miranda could pass in front of him. "We do this, then I promise we'll go get Sidekick. And return the car so they won't say it's been stolen. Is that OK?"

  Miranda had wanted to go get Sidekick first. The green branches turned her into a haunted creature from some other realm when she turned to him, the kind who lured men into the forest to their deaths. She'd taken her black hair down and it hung wild with tangles.

  She resituated the strap of her messenger bag, which had John Dee's weapon in it. Miranda hadn't seemed to want to answer how she'd gotten the gun out of the trunk of his mom's car and so he'd dropped it.

  "You're sure we can't do this later?" she asked.

  "It's just going to get more risky to come back here. People will be back at the jail soon. I need to get something from my room."

  "Maybe we can still beat Polly and the others back to the Grove." But Miranda didn't sound sure of that.

  They traveled another stretch of woods. Birds and insects chirped around them, as if it was any normal day. Miranda stopped near the tree line, the house's yard steps away. A quick scurry across, and Phillips could climb the tree outside his room and retrieve the letter. Simple.

  Phillips said, "After the Grove, we'll head to Roswell's–" He caught the look Miranda tossed over her shoulder. "We need to question him more about your family history, right?"

  Miranda rolled her eyes. "Yes. But I told you – I
ran away
from him at the square."

  "You should have, I wasn't with you." He puffed his chest out and put his fists on his hips in parody of a superhero.

  Her teeth bit into her lower lip, restraining a laugh as she turned toward him. "Captain Ego!"

  "I prefer to go by…" He searched for a better name.

  "The X-Prisoner?" she offered.

  They didn't have time for this, but he dropped his mouth open in false outrage. "Not catchy enough."

  "Mischief Man?" she tried again.

  He tilted his chin down and gave her a look full of acid disapproval.

  "OK, OK. That one sucks." She bit her lip again, thinking this time, and then thrust a finger into the air. "I've got it – Random Fact Boy!"

  He considered. "Not bad. Except facts aren't random, you know–"

  The front door opened. He moved to Miranda's side, pulled her hand down. They crouched, wordlessly, letting the dense groundcover conceal them. His mom stepped out onto the front porch. She scrutinised the yard and trees where they were hiding, but she didn't come any closer. When she went back in and closed the door, he was sure she hadn't spotted them.

  "Damn," Miranda said. "She's home."

  Phillips frowned, more at Miranda's damn than at the news his mother was home. He'd expected her to be.

  "I like your mom," she said. "Don't get me wrong."

  "Not that. Why didn't you say 'frak'?"

  Her cheeks flushed. "You noticed I do that?"

  And he'd missed her saying it more than he was comfortable with. "I like it."

  "Wait. You've seen my room. You already know that I'm an enormous nerd."

  "I know." He smiled, encouraging her to draw the conclusion.

  She straightened her shoulders. "Frak," she declared.

  "My thoughts exactly."

  The noise of the woods seemed to surge around them, a wall that melded with the chattering voices in his skull. This girl could steal him into the wild and he wouldn't mind.

  "Anyway, I like your mom."

  "Me too, but she's not on my side right now. Not how we need her to be."

  "Because she cares about you," Miranda said.

  "Why doesn't matter right now. So you'll wait here and–"

  "No," she said. The levity of the past few minutes disappeared, the darkness around her eyes like an aura. "My father. He… I can't…"

  
She's scared to stay here alone
. Bringing her along would make getting out dicey if anything went wrong, but he didn't want her to wait and suffer either.

  They just needed to storm the castle fast, make it in and out before his mom had a chance to catch them.
My kingdom for
a couple more sedatives and a cloak of invisibility, just in case.

  "I get it," he said. "You'll come too."

19

Last Wishes

Phillips insisted on climbing the tree outside his window instead of trying to sneak in the front or back doors. She could tell he was surprised that she didn't argue – and that she was proving to be an ace tree climber.

  It was something she and her mom had done together when she was a kid. Her mom calling her a monkey and laughing, even though
she
was just as good as Miranda at finding holds for her feet at the right angle to avoid ankle twists, at gripping the bark without scratching her palms, at looking up and going there. Maybe they had an advantage in that a fair number of island trees tended to grow weird, with dips and curves, or with trunks split by hurricanes and storms. Bent, deformed, cursed trees. No wonder she'd always liked them so much.

  Phillips reached the thick limb that extended almost to his window, and Miranda raised herself up behind him, staying near the trunk.

  He scooted toward the window. The limb thinned near its end, and she wasn't sure it would survive his weight.

  "You don't have to stay back there. It'll hold us both," he said. He maneuvered into a crouch, just where the thin end began to bow.

  She protested, "Wait, that looks–"

  He hopped the space between the limb and the window, landing in an upright crouch on the ledge. As if he'd done this a million times.

  "–dangerous," she said.

  He grinned at her. "It is, I guess."

  "That's not what I want to hear," she said. She stalled. "How do you
know
it could hold us both? Entertain a lot of girls when you were thirteen?"

  "Of course," he said, "because most thirteen year-old girls would have no problem with what you're about to do."

  She traced her palms over the scarred bark. He meant come across.

  "What is it?" he asked. "You climb like a–"

  "Don't say monkey."

  "Leopard," he finished.

  The limb swayed in a breeze.

  "Maybe I should stay here and wait," she said. After all, what were the odds that the dead man who looked like her father climbed trees?

  "What's wrong?" he asked.

  She had to tell him. "Breaking into your mom's car, I tripped when there wasn't anything there. I'm not usually klutzy."

  "Oh." He touched his cheek. "Do you think that's because of…"

  "This thing?" She nodded. "I do."

  He reached out. "Give me your hand. No matter if it's a snake moment, I'll catch you."

  He'd catch her. OK.

  She pulled her messenger bag's strap as tight as it would go, and then shimmied a few inches further until the branch began to bend with her weight. She grabbed Phillips' hand and climbed unsteadily to her feet. He took her other hand, and, rather than get across in any graceful way resembling what he'd done, she counted to three and jumped across to him. She squeezed her eyes shut, opening them when she landed.

  He caught her, but they swayed on the ledge with the force of her jump. He grabbed at the windowpane with the curled fingertips of one hand. Miranda braced against the brick wall that formed the ledge. There was barely room for them both.

  The swaying stopped.

  Phillips was so close she could have tilted her head and bitten his nose. He held her elbow, steadying her.

  "Not
so
klutzy," he said, "but a little."

  He turned to the window. Miranda sucked in a breath, dismayed by the sight of the windowsill. "Nailed shut?"

  He maneuvered a fingernail under the edge of one flat metal circle, popping out the nail. He did the same with the other. "It was a problem the first time, but after that…"

  The window glided open under his hands, and Miranda accepted his help climbing through it. Having solid floor under her feet became the height of luxury, like maid service or a DVR.