Pretty Wanted (28 page)

He shrugged. “Happy to be alive. I should thank you for that.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Don’t ever thank me. You wouldn’t have been in that situation at all if it wasn’t for me. At least it’s over, you know? We can go back. We can give up.” I savored the relief. Not worrying about where our next bed and meal was coming from, not worrying about who would recognize us and turn us in. We could at least predict where we’d be for a while and after a lifetime of moving around the country, and the past several weeks of living on the road, that was something I looked forward to.

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to go back, Willa.” He was shaking his head, but unapologetically.

For him it wasn’t just juvie, I remembered. It was real jail time and I certainly understood why he was anxious about it.

“It might not have to be that bad. I’m sure your parents could hire someone, a fancy lawyer. You could fight the charges.”

He leaned forward in his seat. “That would mean being part of my family. I told you, I’m done with them.”

“They do love you, Aidan.”

“How can you say that? You didn’t hear my dad on the phone. My life was on the line and he was worried about minimizing his losses.”

How
could
I say that? They had to love him, didn’t they?

But I didn’t know, not really. There were so many variations on families, I was learning. And parents operated in strange and unpredictable ways. Says the girl who didn’t know who her real mom was until she was fifteen. I really didn’t know the first thing about parents, when it came down to it.

“I just can’t go back to living there like nothing happened. I can’t let them control my life anymore.”

“So then what?” I was afraid of his answer. He was slipping away, the distance between us widening—physically it was only a table’s surface, but emotionally it felt like a much greater expanse. After all that happened we should have been closer, but now I was less sure than ever.

“So then I stay on the road.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve thought this through. You can stay with me. It will be like it was before. Only this time, we’ll be smarter. We’ll plan it out. No one will find us. I have a way to get new Social Security numbers. We can move somewhere far away, start over. I can develop some software and we can make a fortune, like my dad.”

I realized then that for all his school visits, he’d never planned to go to college in the first place. He didn’t need to. He was probably as smart as his father, if not smarter, and he’d go farther than him, I had no doubt about it.

For a moment, the idea was tempting. We’d had fun together these last few weeks. Driving on the open road. Our night at Sam Beasley’s. Playing in the City Museum. Even running from the police had somehow turned into a fond memory. It had always seemed like it was me and Aidan against the world. We were free, we’d broken all the rules, and we’d had each other. And this plan of his, it didn’t sound half bad, except for the Social Security fraud. I’d already been down that road with Leslie.

But so much had changed, also. I was run down. I felt like I’d given up too much already.

“I don’t know if I want to live that life anymore,” I said. “I’m only fifteen years old. There’s a lot of time ahead of me, Aidan. I still want to finish school and go to college and get a job, live in a house. I don’t want to be someone else again.”

He gave me a cocked smile. “But you’re Sly Fox, and I’m your partner. We have more adventures to live out, Willa. This is only the beginning.”

I let his words hang in the air. Was it really the beginning? To me it felt like the end. Sly Fox—whoever that girl had been—was gone. I didn’t want to break the rules anymore, even if it was to do right.

I looked at Aidan’s eyes, the green eyes that had captivated me for weeks now.

I cared about him. I was still attracted to him. The idea of losing him, of us being separated by jail and juvie terrified me. Other people our age were in long-distance relationships at college, but this was completely different.

Maybe I could try to help him, I thought. Maybe if we both gave ourselves in, we could work together to turn things around, build a better relationship with his family. I imagined us writing emails, keeping in touch. It would only be a matter of months.

I could be a good influence, a calming one. Supportive.

But I also knew Aidan would never agree to that. He could never give in. That wasn’t his style, to surrender. He was more suited to life on the road. He was truly rootless—in many ways, he was more of an orphan than I was. I wanted family; I wanted to be cared for. I couldn’t live the way he did.

And, as deep as my feelings went, I knew I could never really do anything to make him a different person. Love wasn’t always enough. It wasn’t with my mom and Granger, that was for sure. Their love had ended in tragedy. I couldn’t stand to see anything like that happen to me and Aidan. I loved him too much. I’d almost lost him already.

“What do you say? Come with me?” he asked, and he looked so hopeful it almost broke my heart right then and there.

“I can’t,” I said finally.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not a good idea.” We’d tried so many bad ideas out by now, and I couldn’t knowingly fling myself into another one. “I don’t think we’re the best influence on each other, you know?”

“How can you say that? Me and you?”

“It’s not you. It’s me.” His eyes flashed and I cringed at my own cliché. “What I mean is, this is about me. I feel like I need to start taking responsibility for what I’ve done. I need to try to take care of myself, because there’s no one else out there who can do that for me.”

He cupped a hand over mine. “But we love each other, don’t we? Shouldn’t that be enough?”

It wasn’t. “I care about you, Aidan. I really do. You are the first person who ever made me feel this way. You changed my life, and you’re amazing.”

He nodded slowly, drawing his hand away from mine. “I guess I didn’t change your life for the better, though. Otherwise you’d want to be with me.”

“That’s not true.” The tears came then, clouding my vision. It was hard to separate out what was him and what was this impossible set of circumstances. “I just—I just can’t see it working. Not this way. If things were different . . .”

He closed his eyes. “I get it. You don’t have to explain any more.”

“I’m sorry.” And I was. I couldn’t stand knowing I was causing him pain. I sucked in a breath, as I returned my hand to my lap. “But you have to promise me you’ll be careful out there. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Okay.” He looked away. That was what killed me, when he shut me out of his vision, like he was already trying to forget, block me out.

The door opened. Behind it was Tre carrying three coffees. He set them down on the table. I watched him do this act slowly, with care, his long fingers grasping each cup as he lifted them out of the cardboard carrier. His timing should have been awkward, but actually I think both Aidan and I were grateful that he showed up when he did. There was no sense in prolonging the conversation any further.

“You wanted milk, no sugar, right, Willa?”

“Right,” I said, feeling dizzy.

What had just happened? I brought up my palms to my eyes, tried to press back the tears. I was a mess. An embarrassing, horrible mess. This was the worst moment I could imagine.

“I’m sorry,” Tre said. “Was I interrupting something?”

“No,” Aidan said. “I think we’re finished.”

“You want me to leave you two alone?”

Finally, Aidan met my eyes. There was, at least, some agreement between us. “Nah, man. Have a seat.”

Tre sat down and the three of us sipped at our coffees, together for the last time.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

TWENTY-ONE

AIDAN MUST HAVE
slipped out in the middle of the night. We’d all been sitting around in the conference room, dozing off in uncomfortable arrangements of chairs because according to Corbin, it was easier for us all to stay here under supervision. Personally, I would have preferred the hotel room. When I woke up, at the crack of dawn, there was a handwritten note from Aidan on a napkin on the table.

Gone back on the road. Good luck at home. Tell Tre thank you for his help. I’ll miss you, Colorado. We might not work together as a flavor anymore but you taught me how to be free. You were right, though. This is probably for the best.

Love, always
,

Aidan

I’d known it was coming, but even so, my eyes filled with tears. He was really gone. This was it. Would I ever hear from him again?

I wondered how he’d pulled it off. If he’d used Sly Fox techniques or his own. Probably his own.

I looked out the window into the city, the streetlights flicking off, and the bruising morning sky settling over everything. The world seemed huge, suddenly, now that Aidan was out there. Away from me.

Tre, who was too tall for chairs, rolled over on the floor, and opened his eyes. “What time is it?” he moaned.

“Six
A
.
M
.,” I said. “Aidan’s gone.”

“He did it, huh?” Tre said, smiling. “He actually snuck out of the FBI offices. That’s one for the books.”

I smiled, too, vicariously enjoying the badassness of it all. Somehow Aidan had become the slickest of the three of us. How had
that
happened?

He put a hand on my shoulder. “You all right?”

“I guess so. Yeah.” I mustered a smile. As devastating as it was to lose Aidan, it also felt right, letting him go. “It’s going to be hard without him around.”

“You’ve been through a lot together.”

I nodded. “Individually, too.”

“But this whole thing, it was worth it?” He rooted around in his pocket for his phone.

“It was.”

“You have no regrets?”

“No, not really. There was so much I didn’t know when I started out, and it seemed like the more I found out, the less I understood, not just about my mom and who she was, but about myself. But I guess this whole journey has helped me understand. I mean, we always carry our families inside us, whether we realize it or not, and we have to learn to live with that, even when we don’t always agree with them.” I looked up at Tre. “I didn’t even know what I thought was right or wrong when this whole thing began. I just did what I thought I had to do, trying to fix the problem I inherited. But now I see that you don’t have to play the cards you’re dealt. Bottom line, you have to be able to live with yourself in the end and be good to the people you care about.”

“So you’re done with being Sly Fox?”

“Well, it’s come to an end. We’ve achieved what we wanted. I have to turn myself in now. I can’t speak for Aidan or why he’s made the choices he made—I don’t have the right to do that anymore. But I think he’s going with his heart and that means being on his own, for now. I’m really going to miss him.”

“I’m sure he’ll miss you, too.”

I frowned, registering that he was still holding his phone. “Is this some kind of interview?”

“Actually, yeah,” Tre said. “Don’t kill me, but I got all that on video.”

“For what?”

“For the fans.” He gave me a crooked smile as he pressed a few buttons. “I’m posting it to Facebook.”

I looked at him to see if he was kidding, but he was completely serious. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten about the Facebook page, but in the midst of everything, it wasn’t exactly my top priority.

“Hey, they’ve stuck by you through all of this, and they’ve supported your decision to stay on the run. So we need to give them an update. And I knew it would be better to get it in your own words, when you weren’t self-conscious about being on camera.”

He had a point. “Can I see it at least?”

He handed me the phone, and I watched it play back, cringing only slightly at the sight of myself on video.

Tre was right, and if I owed an explanation to my online fans, then I definitely owed one to my real-life friends.

I dialed Cherise’s number. She answered on the third ring, even though it was eleven
A
.
M
. on a school day. “Hello?” she half whispered, and for some reason I pictured her with her backpack on, springy hair held back in a headband. “Tre?”

“It’s Willa. Where are you?” I asked.

“Willz! Precalc. Where are
you
?”

“At FBI headquarters in St. Louis. Everything’s okay.”

“Okay okay?”

“Okay okay. We did what we needed to do. And now I’m in custody. Tre’s on his way home. Aidan left.”

I could hear her pause hanging. “And how is that?”

“It’s all right. It’s over, I guess.” My voice constricted over the words. “We talked it through and we’re both doing what we need to do.”

“I’m sorry, Willz. Really, I am.”

“He won’t be coming back to Paradise Valley, I don’t think. He’s a good guy. We just want different things. Can you do me a favor, though, and make sure that people know that? That no matter what’s going around the grapevine, he’s not what they think? Not some player or derelict?” It seemed important to me, suddenly, that his reputation was protected, even if he himself had allowed it to be tainted.

“Sure,” she said. “I can do that.”

“And we made a video for the fan page. It explains everything.”

“That’s great. We desperately needed an update on there. When will I see you?”

“Soon, I hope,” I said. “Very soon.”

“Okay. So long as you’re all right and everything, I should probably go. I’m kind of under the table right now and I don’t want to get busted with this phone.”

I laughed, picturing the sight. Also remembering how Cherise was a stickler for rules. She was always going to be a much better person than I was in that way. In most ways, probably.

“Get out from under the table. I’ll call you when I can,” I said. “Miss you lots.”

“Miss you, too. Be safe, Willz.”

I sighed as I clicked off the phone. “This is all harder than I thought it would be.”

“That’s ’cause people care about you, Willa.” Tre’s brown eyes burned into mine. His lips parted slightly, and I found myself transfixed by them, for a moment.