Run For Cover (8 page)

He laughs again, and I feel a weird flutter in my chest.
No, Louisa is NOT right. This is not flirting. This is ordinary conversation with a guy; it’s just hard to recognize because I haven’t done it in so long.

I step away from him so he’ll stop looking at me like he knows all my secrets. I check the other leaflets, hoping for more recent news about the War, but none of them have been updated recently.

There’s nothing else useful in the motel lobby, so we slip out the glass door and run across the street to the gas station. The clouds have slipped down the sky to the horizon, leaving the moon bright above us. It’s shockingly cold, but in a clear, bracing way after the claustrophobic stuffiness of the truck.

I check up and down the road as we cross — no cars anywhere, which isn’t surprising — and spot an on-ramp to a bigger highway not far away. The sign points to Route 94 East. I stop by the gas pumps and write that down for Evelyn, too.

It takes me only a minute, but when I look up, Drew has vanished.

I
’m not going to panic. I’m not going to panic.

I
am
going to kill him.

So much for my hypervigilance. Was he just waiting for me to get distracted? Where did he sneak off to so fast? And what is he doing while I’m not watching him?

I hurry to the door of the convenience store, but it’s locked. So he’s not in there, unless he figured out how to lock the door behind him really quickly. I peer in through the glass, but there’s no movement in the dark aisles.

“Drew!” I hiss, whirling around. “Drew! Where are you?” The gas pumps are like tall, silent robots, watching
me blankly. The little numbers over the nozzles say that gas is sixty dollars a gallon here.

Silence stretches around me. It’s so cold even the insects are holed up somewhere. There’s a faraway hum like a generator off in the distance. Then I hear a soft
clink
around the back of the gas station.

I pelt around the corner of the store and run right into Drew. He’s standing at a pay phone, holding the receiver in one hand as he slides coins into the slot with the other.

A pay phone!

“Hey,” he says, giving me the most harmless, innocent grin I’ve ever seen. “Look what I found! We really are out in the country, huh? It’s like a relic from the last century. Who still uses these? Right? But I’m getting a dial tone, so I figured I’d try it.”

I glare at him.

“Who are you calling?” I ask. I know I sound accusatory, but too bad; I
am
accusing him. How dare he sneak off like that! He can’t have had time to call

Alliance agents in the minute I took my eyes off him … can he?

“My parents, of course,” he says. He looks puzzled, like my anger has confused him all over again. “But no one’s answering. They might be traveling for work — they do that a lot. I can’t remember their cell phone numbers, though.” He hangs up, shaking his head, and coins shower into the slot at the bottom of the phone.

I eye him suspiciously. He can’t remember his parents’ phone numbers? Or is he lying to explain why he’s not talking to someone right now? Did he just hang up on the Alliance? “Seriously?”

“Well, I always use my cell phone to call them,” he says. “Their numbers are in there, so I never bothered to memorize them. You know?”

I guess I do understand that. We are crazy about keeping track of one another in my family, so I know all my parents’ numbers, but I need my phone to call any of my friends or find their e-mail addresses. Yet another
annoying thing about Mrs. Brewster taking away our electronics.

“All right, let me try,” I say. But as I pat my pockets I realize I don’t have any change. Why would I? It’s been ages since I used cash at all — not since we left home, probably. We just use our ID bracelets to charge everything.

It’s actually kind of weird that Drew has change. I’ll add that to my list of Suspicious Things About Drew, although I can’t come up with an explanation that points to Alliance spy.

“Here, use these,” he says, passing me his handful of quarters. I slip them in and dial home. My anger at Drew starts to fade as the phone rings and my hopes rise. I could be moments away from talking to my parents! Just the thought makes my throat feel tight, like I’m about to cry, although of course I won’t let myself do that.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

Where are they?

Ring.
One more ring and I’ll get the voice mail.
Should I leave a message? Or save the quarters and try a different number?

Part of me would love to hang on just to hear Dad’s voice on the message, but I know I shouldn’t. I’m about to hang up when Drew reaches over my shoulder and hangs up for me. The coins clatter down again, and I frown at him.

“Saving the change,” he explains.

“I
know
,” I say. “I was about to do that. I’m not an idiot.”

“Of course you’re not! I know!” He raises his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Sorry. Just trying to help.”

There’s a pause as I scrape the coins out and look at them, heavy in the palm of my hand. Dread is starting to gather like smoke in my stomach, coiling and twisting around my insides. “Why aren’t they there?” I say. “It’s the middle of the night. Where else would they be?” I hesitate. “Maybe I should try again.”

“Sure,” Drew says gently, but I stand there for another minute, thinking. What if something terrible has
happened? What if they’ve been found out, and they had to run? They wouldn’t have left home — or, worse, the country — without me, surely. But how would they have gotten me a message, out at CMS with no phones or mail?

What would they do about a ransom demand? Would they call the police? Almost definitely not; they wouldn’t want the extra questions, and where I come from, calling the police is a guaranteed way to have a kidnapping end with somebody dead.

Maybe they’d call someone else … the guys who made our ID bracelets, for instance. Or the Resistance fighters who helped us get to Chicago. That seems more likely … but what could any of those people do?

The horrible part is that we all believed I’d be safer at school. Mom and Dad didn’t want to send me away, and I didn’t want to go. But it was getting so dangerous in Chicago, and they worried about me all the time. I knew they’d be able to focus on searching for Wren if I were
tucked away somewhere safe. We thought that sending me to CMS was the right thing to do. Boy, were we wrong.

The pit in my stomach yawns deeper as I imagine my parents turning over the money. We’re rich, sure, but not so wealthy that we can spare as much as Mrs. Brewster probably asked for. What if my parents are meeting Alliance agents on some deserted street corner right now, with a suitcase full of cash and no idea that they won’t be getting me in exchange? Will the Alliance let them walk away alive from a meeting like that?

Surely it wouldn’t have happened that fast. But now the urgency to get home is prickling all across my skin. I feel sick.

“Try another number,” Drew says. He reaches out and lightly runs his hand down my arm. Normally I would shove him away, and I still haven’t forgiven him for disappearing, but there’s something weirdly comforting about his touch.

I dial my mom’s cell phone. It rings and rings; no answer. I hang up again, collect the coins, and dial my dad’s cell phone.

It goes straight to voice mail. I hang up fast, too fast, without thinking, and the machine swallows Drew’s change with a self-satisfied
clunk clunk clunk.

“Oh no!” I cry. I grab the phone, shake the box, press the lever to return the coins over and over again — but nothing works. The quarters are gone. All I’m getting is a dial tone.

“I’m so sorry,” I say to Drew. “I didn’t think — the voice mail — I should have just left a message.” I hang up the phone and lean my head against the wall, pressing my hands into my eyes. “I can’t believe I did that.”

“It’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up,” Drew says. He leans on the wall beside me, nudging my shoulder with his. “We’ll find more change, another phone. Maybe one of the others has quarters. It’s not the end of the world.”

I take a deep breath and stand up straight. I’m not a pity-party kind of girl. “You’re right. Not the end of the world.” I turn around and look at the empty road and the empty lots around us. I’ve never missed my parents as much as I do right now. I breathe in, out, trying to calm down. I look at him sideways. “Nope, I still feel awful.”

“Think of it this way,” he says. “Maybe it’s better you didn’t leave a message. Maybe the Alliance has their phones tapped. You could have led them right to us. Eh? See? Really, you were doing the smart thing. Plus we’ll probably be in Chicago by tomorrow. So then you’ll see your parents and all this will be over.”

He’s trying so hard, I can’t help but smile. “Nice try. You and Louisa could teach optimism classes.”

“I think Ryan would prefer that job,” he says. Is he implying that Ryan has a crush on Louisa? I give Drew a quick look, but his face doesn’t give anything away. That’s the feeling I’ve been getting, too, but I’ve also noticed that she keeps looking at Alonso, so I’m not sure Ryan has a chance. Unless Alonso and Evelyn … Wow, this is
a stupid train of thought. We so don’t have time for middle school who-likes-who. The other girls might enjoy that, but it’s not me at all.

“Let’s get back to the others,” I say, shaking my head to clear it. “I don’t think we’re going to find any food here.”

“Not without breaking in,” he agrees. “And I don’t think we should do anything that people might notice. At least not as long as we want to keep hiding in the truck.”

We head back across the road. I keep looking back at the gas station, feeling guilty and confused, but also still a bit suspicious. Why did Drew disappear so fast? Was he trying to ditch me? If I hadn’t found him quickly enough, would he have called the Alliance to tell them where we were? What if he’s only being nice to me to throw me off the scent?

Or … what if I do like him, the way Louisa thinks I do?

Right now, it’s hard to decide which would be a bigger problem.

A
s we pass the motel lobby, I stop, glancing in through the glass doors.

“What?” Drew asks.

“There is one thing I want to take,” I say. “Wait here.”

I slip inside and pull one of the chairs over to the table with the coffeemaker on it. I climb up on the chair, then the table, balancing carefully so I don’t knock anything over. The clock lifts right off the wall. It’s as light as a Frisbee, and I feel a flash of gratitude for whoever decided it was worth spending precious batteries on it.

“Sorry, motel people,” I whisper to the lobby. But in
the sunless, muffled space in the back of the truck, we need a way to know what time it is.

Drew nods at the clock when he sees it in my hands. “Yes. Totally useful.”

“Hopefully they won’t notice it’s gone until we’re far away,” I say.

We sprint across the dark parking lot and climb into the back of the truck. Ryan is waiting by the door to roll it shut behind us. He latches it closed again, and we all crawl back through the tunnel to our hidden space.

While Louisa and the guys arrange the boxes to hide us again, I show Evelyn the address we found. She lights up at the sight of the highway number and slides her map toward me.

“I thought we might be somewhere along there,” she says eagerly. “Let’s see if we can find the town.”

We both study the map in the small yellow beam from my flashlight. The lettering on the towns is so tiny it makes my eyes ache. Maddie leans over to help us, her bun of brown hair looking like a flat, messy bird’s nest
next to Evelyn’s tight, neat rows of braids. I don’t even want to think about how my hair must look, after two days without a shower.

“There!” Evelyn yelps excitedly, jabbing the map with her finger. “I found it! So let’s see… .” She takes out a pencil and measures the distance left to Chicago, comparing it to the scale at the bottom of the printout. “Okay, it looks like we’re still about three hundred miles from Chicago.”

“So we definitely don’t want to get out here,” Louisa says. “That’s too far. We could get closer if we stay put in the truck.”

“But what if she doesn’t stop near Chicago?” Alonso asks. “What if she keeps driving all the way to New York tomorrow?”

We all sit in a circle, looking at the map and thinking. Louisa unpacks the food and shares it out so we can eat while we decide what to do.

“We don’t have many options around here,” I say, peeling the wrapper off a protein bar. “Either we walk the rest
of the three hundred miles, or we stay in the truck. I wouldn’t risk trying to get a lift from anyone else.”

“What if we steal the truck?” Ryan suggests.

Everyone stops eating to stare at him.

“I’m serious,” he says. “We take it right now and drive the rest of the way to Chicago. Drew and I took Auto Shop at CMS. I bet we could get it going, even without the keys.”

Drew is shaking his head. “Probably, but it’s way too dangerous. As soon as she reports us, the Alliance will know exactly where we are, where we’re going, and what we’re driving to get there. They’ll catch us long before we reach Chicago.”

“Or the cops will,” I say. “There aren’t too many cars on the roads these days — I think they might notice one driven by a bunch of teenagers. Then we have to explain why we don’t have ID bracelets, why we’re out after curfew …”
Who I am and where I really come from …
I shake my head. “I just want to get back to my parents before I have to deal with reporting any of this. You know?”

“Really? I wouldn’t mind finding a cop,” Maddie says. “They could help us. They’d get in touch with our parents and get us home. Maybe we should be
trying
to do that.”

My stomach lurches nervously. I can’t explain to everyone why I don’t want to involve the cops. They don’t know how much trouble I could be in.

“Let’s vote,” Drew suggests. “Raise your hand if you want to get out here and find another way to Chicago.”

Maddie is the only one who raises her hand. She smiles and shrugs like she doesn’t really care that much.

“Okay, raise your hand if you vote for stealing the truck,” Ryan says. He raises his hand, and so do Alonso and Evelyn.

“All in favor of staying put?” I ask. It’s me, Drew, and Louisa. Stalemate.

“So you decide,” Louisa says to Maddie.

Please don’t say steal the truck,
I pray quietly.
Please don’t send us out to get caught by the police.

“Oh, dear,” Maddie says, twisting her hair around her index finger. “I don’t know! What if we get stuck in here and go right past Chicago? They might catch us when they open the truck to unload the boxes!”

“Gladys will have to stop sometime between here and there,” Drew offers. “For lunch or to stretch her legs or anything. It’s too far for one straight drive. There’s a good chance we’ll be able to hop out sometime during the day tomorrow. I’d bet on it.”

“But —” Ryan starts.

“Okay,” Maddie says. “That makes sense. I vote we stay hidden.”

I exhale with relief and punch Ryan’s knee. “Good work thinking outside the box, though, Ryan. I’d never have come up with an idea like that.”
Mostly because it’s idiotic, but I’m trying to reassure, not gloat.
“It’s pretty cool that you’d know how to start the truck, anyway.”

Ryan looks grumpy, as if he really wanted to test out his car-stealing skills. He takes a dried apricot and chews on it, grumbling under his breath. I wonder if I need to
try harder to cheer him up, to keep team morale going, but he’s been a pretty cheerful guy so far. I’m guessing he’ll be back to normal if we just leave him alone for ten minutes.

“So let’s sleep in shifts,” I say. “That way we won’t miss it when the truck starts moving again. When it does, whoever’s awake, keep an eye on the time.” I set the clock in the center of our circle. “What do you think, Evelyn — four hours to Chicago?”

“Probably more like five,” she says. Five is what I thought, too, but I guessed wrong so she’d get to feel smart correcting me. That ought to help if she’s feeling stung over being on the wrong side of the vote. But judging from the way she squishes herself in next to Maddie and splits a cookie with her, I don’t think Evelyn’s going to hold a grudge.

“Great, okay,” I say. “Well, I’m wide-awake. I’ll take first shift.”

“Me, too,” Drew says, and I dearly hope he misses the
Ooooooooo
face Louisa gives me.

“And, Louisa, you, too,” I say quickly. “That way we can all keep each other awake.”

Evelyn, Maddie, Ryan, and Alonso wriggle around trying to get comfortable for a while, but they finally fall asleep. I lean my back against the stack of boxes, combing my hair with my fingers. In whispers, I tell Louisa what happened with the pay phone.

“I didn’t even think of that,” she whispers back. “I don’t know a lot of numbers by heart, either. Like my parents at the hospital … I totally haven’t memorized their work numbers.” She fingers the neck of her shirt where her locket would be. “I wish we could call them now,” she says, “but I guess we’ll be in Chicago tomorrow. That’s soon enough. Wow, can you imagine? We’ll be sleeping in our own beds tomorrow night!”

We grin at each other. I have a feeling it might not be that easy, but I want to believe her. For a moment I let myself be Louisa, convinced that things will turn out great.

I let myself forget that there’s anything dangerous out there, hunting us.