So I’m pacing.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Kenji is saying to me. “He probably just got hung up doing whatever it is he’s doing. You know, commandering and shit.”
“Commandering is not a word.”
“It has letters, doesn’t it? Sounds like a word to me.”
I’m too nervous to banter right now.
Kenji sighs. I hear him stomp his feet against the cold. “He’ll be here.”
“I don’t feel right, Kenji.”
“I don’t feel right, either,” he says. “I’m hungry as hell.”
“Warner wouldn’t be late. It’s not like him to be late.”
“How would you know?” Kenji shoots back. “You’ve known him for how long, exactly? Five months? And you think you know him so well? Maybe he’s in a secret jazz club where he sings a cappella and wears sparkly vests and thinks it’s cool to do the cancan.”
“Warner wouldn’t wear sparkly vests,” I snap.
“But you think he’d be down with the cancan.”
“Kenji, I love you, I really do, but right now I’m so anxious, and I feel so sick, that the more you speak, the more I want to kill you.”
“Don’t talk sexy to me, J.”
I huff, irritated. God, I’m so worried. “What time is it?”
“Two forty-five.”
“This isn’t right. We should go find him.”
“We don’t even know where he is.”
“I do,” I say. “I know where he is.”
“What? How?”
“Do you remember where we met Anderson for the first time?” I ask him. “Do you remember how to get back to Sycamore Street?”
“Yeah . . . ,” Kenji says slowly. “Why?”
“He’s about two streets down from there.”
“Um. What the hell? Why is he down there?”
“Will you go with me?” I ask, nervous. “Please? Now?”
“Okay,” he says, unconvinced. “But only because I’m curious. And because it’s cold as hell out here and I need to move my legs before I freeze to death.”
“Thank you,” I say. “Where are you?”
We follow the sounds of each other’s voices until we bump right into one another. Kenji slips his arm into mine. We huddle together against the cold.
He leads the way.
FORTY-NINE
This is it.
The robin’s-egg-blue house. The one I woke up in. The one Warner lived in. The one his mother is stored in. We’re standing in front of it and it looks exactly as it did the last two times I was here. Beautiful and terrifying. Wind chimes whipping back and forth.
“Why the hell would Warner be here?” Kenji asks. “What is this place?”
“I can’t really tell you,” I say to him.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not my secret to tell.”
Kenji is silent a moment. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Can you wait here?” I ask him. “Will I be able to stay invisible if I go inside? Or will I get out of range?”
Kenji sighs. “I don’t know. You can definitely try. I’ve never tried to do this from outside a house before.” He hesitates. “But if you’re going to go in without me, can you please hurry the hell up? I’m already freezing my ass off.”
“Yes. I promise. I’ll be fast. I just want to make sure he’s all right—or that he’s even in here. Because if he’s not inside, he might be waiting for us back at the drop-off.”
“And all of this will have been a huge waste of time.”
“I’m sorry,” I say to him. “I’m really sorry. But I just have to make sure.”
“Go,” he says. “Go and come back fast.”
“Okay,” I whisper. “Thank you.”
I break away and climb up the stairs to the little porch. Test the handle. It’s unlocked. I turn it, push the door open. Step inside.
This is where I was shot.
The bloodstain from where I was lying on the ground has already been cleaned up. Or maybe the carpet was changed. I’m not sure. Either way, the memories still surround me. I can’t walk back into this house without feeling sick to my stomach. Everything is wrong in here. Everything is so wrong. So off.
Something has happened.
I can feel it.
I’m careful to shut the door gently behind me. I creep up the stairs, remembering how the floorboards squeaked when I was first captured and brought here, and I’m able to sidestep the noisiest parts; the rest of it, thankfully, just sounds like it could be the wind.
When I’m upstairs, I count three doors. Three rooms.
On the left: Warner’s old room. The one I woke up in.
In the middle: the bathroom. The one I was bathed in.
On the far end of the hall, all the way to the right: his mother’s room. The one I’m looking for.
My heart is racing in my chest.
I can hardly breathe as I tiptoe closer. I don’t know what I’m expecting to find. I don’t know what I’m hoping will come of this trip. I don’t have any idea, even, if Warner is still in here.
And I have no idea what it’ll be like to see his mother.
But something is pulling me forward, urging me to open the door and check. I need to know. I just have to know. My mind won’t rest otherwise.
So I inch forward. Take several deep breaths. I grasp the doorknob and turn, so slowly, not even realizing I’ve lost invisibility until I see my feet crossing the threshold.
I panic in an instant, my brain calculating contingency plans, and though I briefly consider turning around and bolting out the door, my eyes have already scanned the room.
And I know I can’t turn back now.
FIFTY
There’s a bed in here.
A single bed. Surrounded by machines and IVs and bottles and brand-new bedpans. There are stacks of bedsheets and stacks of blankets and the most beautiful bookcases and embroidered pillows and adorable stuffed animals piled everywhere. There are fresh flowers in five different vases and four brightly painted walls and there’s a little desk in the corner with a little matching chair and there’s a potted plant and a set of old paintbrushes and there are picture frames, everywhere. On the walls, on the desk, sitting on the table beside the bed.
A blond woman. A little blond boy. Together.
They never age, I notice. The pictures never move past a certain year. They never show the evolution of this child’s life. The boy in these photos is always young, and always startled, and always holding fast to the hand of the lady standing beside him.