Painless

Chapter Eleven

“The parentals say hi,” I said as I climbed onto one of the plush seats on the jet. The engine fired up beneath us, filling the cabin with a soft humming noise, which instantly relaxed me. When I was a kid, I’d had problems falling asleep at night. Apparently the only time I’d close my eyes was when I was in the car. So my parents used to have to drive around for hours just to ensure I’d pass out. This hadn’t changed over the years and still to this day, any kind of engine had the power to lull me to sleep. But right now, I was too jacked up on caffeine and adrenaline to catch any shut eye.

            After leaving Cool Beans, we drove back to the hotel and packed up our things. As we headed to the airport, I gave my parents a call to fill them in on where we were going next. They weren’t exactly psyched to hear I was planning on making a pit-stop in North Carolina before coming home, but after a little begging—and a well-executed guilt trip—they caved.

            So now, the three of us (unfortunately, the Human Shadow was still tagging along; I wanted to ditch him, but he’s faster than he looks) settled into our chairs and fastened our seatbelts for takeoff. With a sigh, I pulled out my laptop and fired up the internet.

            “How are they? Were they pissed we weren’t coming back?” Benji asked as he leafed through a magazine absently.

            “Nah. How could they be? Their daughter’s trying to save her friends. It’s not exactly like they could say, ‘No. Stay here in your room, so we can make sure that you’re safe up in your ivory tower. Screw those missing kids—they can save themselves!’” I answered. When Benji gave me a look, I added, “They just said to be careful and to keep checking in.” The truth was, Mom and Dad may not have used those exact words, and they’d made it clear that they weren’t thrilled that their teenage daughter was now crossing multiple states to get her danger fix. But Benji and Agent Carson didn’t need to know that.

            “Okay. So, what’s our next move?” Benji asked nodding.

            “First stop is Glenn’s place. We need to find out whether this Jack guy contacted him too, or if the person who has Joanie lied about knowing Glenn. If Joanie’s kidnapper actually knows him, then it will make our search a whole lot easier,” I said, running my fingers across the keys of my laptop. “In the meantime, I’m going to try and figure out which site Joanie met Jack on. You’ve been in this world the past few years, any ideas where to start?”

            Benji looked grim. “I’ve been thinking about that ever since Brandy mentioned it earlier and I can only think of three. There’s CIPAFriends.com, NoPainJane.com and PainfreeWorld.com.”

            I raised my eyebrows at Benji, wondering briefly if he was making the sites up. But I decided the titles were so ridiculous that they had to be true, and typed the first address into the browser. Seconds later, I was staring at a bright screen with a sign-in on the right and a brief description of how to navigate the site. It looked like a cheap version of MySpace, but for CIPA kids. If the creator of the social media community was hoping to get a following similar to other sites, they’d picked the wrong disease. Cancer would’ve been a better bet if they were going for numbers.

“So, you go on these sites a lot?” I asked, holding back a smile as I looked around.

“Shut up,” he answered. “And you know you would’ve been all over them yourself if you weren’t trying so hard to get away from us.”

“Oooh. Someone woke up on the grumpy side of the hotel bed this morning…I like it!” I said, happy to hear the fire in Benji’s voice. “And it’s true. I don’t like most people, so why would I try to get away from the only ones who don’t make me want to stab myself to death with a spork?”