Took Me Yesterday (book 2 of The Tomo Trilogy)

Out in the Open

That night, Lyn torched the car. She didn't tell me where she did it, but she did tell me the police found it an hour or two later. Now that three days had passed, Lily and I were all over the news, but it wasn't how I had expected we'd be portrayed.

"We believe the two girls are in extreme danger," one reporter said. "Both were cooperating with the State, but the terrorist group might believe the sixteen-year-olds knew something they shouldn't have. This is an event of retaliation, for the execution of Broden O'Conner, and—"

I leaned over and turned off the TV before Lily could have another panic attack. She'd barely calmed down since Broden's execution—since Broden wasn't executed—and it was all I could do to not lose my mind as we hid inside the locked forgery in my father's basement. What we were waiting for I didn't know. But I believed the boys would help us find a way out. I believed someone would. I had to.

"Why'd you turn it off?" Lily asked as I stood up and moved to the closest welder. A half-bent knife sat rusted in the grip. My father had been in a hurry when he left. I sat in his chair, and for a brief moment, I pretended he was here instead of me.

"You know why."

Lily didn't argue, but she also didn't have the time to. A soft rapping—four small knocks on each corner—echoed through the three-foot thick door before it creaked open. It was Lyn's way of warning us it was her. That way, I didn't throw a knife into her skull. I slid one knife back into my boot's leather sheath at the sound.

"Any news from Dad?" I asked before her face appeared.

"No." She stepped inside, a giggling toddler following her all the way. Falo. Her son. He looked healthier than ever before, and he smiled like he didn't think the world held any reason not to. Argos ran up behind him, nearly knocking the boy down. My dog leapt into my lap, soft barks echoing around our cement chamber.

I buried my nose in his fur, right between his ears. "Hey, boy."

He half-barked, half-licked my face. I, myself, let out a giggle and was surprised to hear the sound leave my lips. I silenced as Lyn closed the door to seal us inside. Her look said it all.

"Sorry," I mumbled, knowing I shouldn't have spoken until she was inside. There was a high chance Phelps had bugged our house. Still, I doubted he would've done it to the basement. No one knew of my father's forgery. Not many anyway.

"It's fine," she said, but her tone said it wasn't. The way she bit her lip said it was much worse than that.

I jolted up from my chair, forcing my elkhound-husky to land back on the floor. "What happened?"

Lily stood up slowly, like a cat arching its back toward an intruder. Lyn's dark eyes watched us both. Falo giggled the entire time.

I held my breath until Lyn reached into her purple scrubs and pulled out a single slip of folded paper. I practically tore it from her hands, but she grabbed my wrist before I could get away to read it.

"It came from a woman I didn't recognize."

A lump formed in my throat. That meant one of two things: She was another friend of the Tomery's, or she worked for Phelps and it was all a trap.

I nodded, Lyn let me go, and I read the note.

Meet at the trees, 11 p.m.

I blew air out, both relieved and annoyed by the cryptic but familiar vocabulary. "At least we know it's from our side," I said, passing off the note to Lily. She was the only one who could break the code.

Her brown eyes moved over it with ease, but her lips bent down. "4 a.m. at the lumberyard?" she questioned. "Are they crazy?"

"Really?" I laughed. "The trees mean the lumberyard? That's obvious."

"You didn't figure it out, did you?" Lily pointed out. She stared at the note until she crumbled it in her hands. "We can't go there. It's suicide."

The lumberyard was a form of punishment handed down by the Topeka Region. If you broke the law, you went into the military. If you broke the law too much, you were sent to work in the lumberyard. If you broke the law after that, you were off to Phoenix, never to return. The lumberyard was both filthy and heavily guarded. A fortress without being a fortress, a form of jail that made you feel like you were free when you weren't free at all. It was out in the open and completely dangerous. It was also a form of escape. The trains coming in and out were famous for carrying illegals—illegals just like me. We'd risk everything by going there.

My hand found the tough fur of Argos' forehead. "We have to go."

Lyn agreed, nodding so fast her bob of black hair moved with her. "Go from the east." Her eyes met mine. "The lumberyard isn't the way it used to be."

I swallowed her warning. "What do you know?"

"Phelps lost a lot more than Broden that day." At that, she scooped Falo up, and her son laid his short coils on her shoulder, closing his eyes like he was ready to sleep. She stepped over to me and pulled me against them both. She smelled of hand sanitizer from the hospital. "Be good, baby girl," she whispered against my forehead, "and don't you dare come back."