Miles drove his little red car with white knuckles, his hands gripping the steering wheel with fear. "I can get you two close," he said, surveying the road, "but not close enough."
He had taken the back roads to avoid the chaos of the Traveler's Bureau, but we snuck fleeting glances whenever the roads connected to the main street. Sage uniforms crammed the streets. Most, if not all, of the police force was diligently working to figure out what had happened. Some carried guns. I tore my eyes away from their weapons to focus on my friends: Miles may have been driving, but Lily sat in the passenger seat by his side, calmer than ever. Apparently, adrenaline didn't phase her.
"Where are you two going?" I asked.
Earlier, we had come to the agreement that no one could stay at my house. It wasn't safe, not anymore. Even Lyn had fled, taking Falo to the hospital with her for an extra overnight shift, leaving the four of us—including an overly silent Noah—to our own means. I had decided to go with Noah. Lily and Miles, though, unexpectedly had their own problems.
"Home," they answered in unison.
"Our mom lied for Lyn," Miles explained, "but she's mad." Ms. Beckett knew something now.
"We'll come up with some excuse," Lily added. "I have volunteer work at the institute anyway." She made the correctional home for troubled girls sound like an intellectual retreat.
"And I might go into work," Miles mumbled. The Traveler's Bureau wasn't as destroyed as the record's building, but it was damaged, and it needed everyone's help to get it back and running at full capacity again. "They want to interview us anyway."
"Another interview?" I asked, waiting for clarification that he wouldn't get hurt again. He just nodded in response. He didn't know.
No one spoke a word about Broden. We were doing this without him, and there wasn't anything we could do about that. We couldn't help him. We didn't even know where he was. All we could do was move forward with the plan, hoping that Broden would be safe—and alive.
Knowing that we were only yards away from his house was unsettling. His parents hadn't even called me, something they always did when Broden got into trouble, and I didn't take it as a good sign. Even worse, if we were near Broden's house, we were near Noah's childhood home.
"Here." Miles' voice was barely audible as he parked against a curb.
Noah, without thanking him, got out of the car. I didn't follow him immediately. Lily met eyes with me in the rearview mirror, her brown eyes darkening against her white hair. I recognized the look. She wanted me to be careful; she wanted me to stay away from Noah.
I looked away and locked on Noah's blond hair as if it were a beacon. I followed him, only hearing Miles' car squeal away. Before I could look back, the twins were gone. We knew we might get caught. The house seemed too obvious, but we walked toward it anyway. I didn't bother looking at the other homes. I didn't know which one was his. They all looked the same—tan, huge, empty.
Noah didn't talk, and we didn't walk very far until we were at the end of a short, curved driveway of a light blue house. The shutters were pearl-white, and delicate purple flowers lined every window. Sitting in the middle of the circular driveway was a small fountain, trickling water away as if the owners still lived within the walls. The grass was recently cut. Noah's abandoned childhood home didn't look abandoned at all.
"Please tell me someone new doesn't live here," I muttered.
"No one does," he said it matter-of-factly, but didn't explain how the house was clean. Someone must have been taking care of it.
"How are we going to get inside?" I asked.
"The front door. How else?"
With that, he bounded up the driveway. My veins surged will panic.
"You cannot be serious," I said, but he continued on.
I ran after him as he jumped over the front steps, a habit obviously reminiscent of his childhood. It struck me, then. That he had lived here. Been close this whole time. And that he was never supposed to return.
As if it had hit him at the same time, Noah halted. Standing in front of the door, he laid his palm on the blue wood. His fingers curled against the paint. A heavy breath escaped his lips. He looked like a boy who had realized his illusion was real.
"I don't see why not," he finally said.
I glanced to our left and right, searching the quiet neighborhood and seeing nothing.
Noah kept his stare on the door. "If Tony set us up, they already know we're here. If he's not, we're fine."
"But your neighbors—"
His hand dropped to his side. "You really think we lived around Phelps' lovers?"
Once more, I took in the identical houses that surrounded us in the small cul-de-sac. Of course they had been a part of Tomery's plan. Nothing as simple as neighbors would have prevented the creation of the drug that began a war.
Noah fiddled with the handle. The door was locked. "There are tunnels, Sophie," he added. "A lot of tunnels with a lot of people keeping them hidden and safe."
Shivers ran up my spine. "Why didn't we take those?"
"They aren't necessary." He twisted the doorknob to the right until it clicked. That's when he pulled—hard—and it shot out. A slit shaped like a circle appeared out of a wooden panel. Noah detached his silver watch, turned it over, and placed it inside. The panel turned. He reached over and turned the knob as if it had always been unlocked.
"What else can you do with that watch?" I asked.
"You'd be amazed what a man can do with a great watch." Noah winked.
Heat rushed over my face, but he hadn't seen my blush. He had already turned toward the door. When he pushed it open, he swung out his arm in a grand gesture. "Ladies first," he said. He was glowing.
For the first time, I truly felt like we were two teenagers hanging out. Not two teenagers running from the law. For that moment, I wanted to forget. I wanted to return to a normal world and pretend that Noah's last name didn't mean he was involved with a practical drug lord. Hell, I wanted to forget that Noah was addicted to tomo, but I couldn't. Not one part of me could pretend.
I stepped inside, avoiding eye contact, and searched the house. Portraits of landscapes covered the walls, and miniature statues decorated the halls. In one corner, a grand piano lingered in dusty silence. A cello leaned against the wall behind it. White carpet spread across the living room floor where two couches, one longer than the other, waited. A television hung on the far wall, and empty water glasses sat on a coffee table in the middle of the room. Nothing was covered. The windows weren't boarded up. The floors weren't falling apart. Next to me, a staircase spiraled upstairs, showing no signs of damage. In fact, the house looked as if it were waiting for the family to return home from an evening out.
The front door closed, and a gust of humid air pushed past me. I turned around to face a dazed Noah. He glanced around, seemingly lost in his memories, and his chest fell as he sighed, "Looks the same."
His hand rose to the nearest light switch, but he didn't pull it up. He didn't have to explain. The electricity would bring too much attention. His neighbors might not turn him in, but someone driving by might. Noah wasn't going to risk that.
I opened my mouth to speak, to say anything, but I bit my lip. For a minute, we stood there in silence, mourning something that I recognized as Noah's reality. His family—his dead mother and brother—his missing sister—his directing father. I couldn't imagine it, yet I was standing in the remnants of it.
Noah moved into the next room, disappearing around the corner to what I assumed to be a kitchen. I listened to his footsteps echo around the house, and I tried to imagine the living room full of people chatting, laughing, anything. Just alive. But they weren't. The same people who once drank from the glasses on the table were dead.
"Are you coming or not?" Noah asked as he spun around the corner. He beamed beneath the floppy white hat on his head.
A giggle escaped me. "I'm coming."
...
Minutes passed like hours, and every room we searched proved to be like the Traveler's Bureau—full of paperwork, but nothing linked to Rinley.
The upstairs was as large and clean as the downstairs, and rich colors plastered the walls. Like a museum, paintings of foreign lands hung from golden frames. I wanted to study the hills of green and waves of blue, but I didn't have the time. We had already been in Noah's house too long, yet we weren't done.
Noah tossed papers to the floor of the master bedroom. "It's going to get dark soon." He didn't have to say what we were both thinking. The police could be waiting for nighttime to get us. They didn't like to do their dirty work in the middle of day.
"That's too much of a risk, even for Phelps." I sucked in breath, trying to hide my concern. "We could've found the file by now and left."
"It's not here."
"It's here." I picked up his scattered papers and placed them on the desk.
Noah stretched to open a corner of the blinds. The purple mist of night melted in. It would be hard to see without electricity soon.
He stood. "I'll be right back."
When he left the room, I tried to follow him, but he was too quick. The boy didn't know the definition of walking. He ran everywhere he went.
I continued without him. I walked down the long hallway and opened the next door, only to linger in the doorway. Thin marks scaled the entrance, showing how tall the resident had been while living in the bedroom over the years, but I recognized where the line peaked. Only slightly shorter than Noah was now. Hadn't he only been gone for a few years?
Before hesitation could take over, I pushed the door open to a cobalt room. School achievements hung on the walls, lined up from oldest to newest, and a twin bed was pushed against a window. Next to it, a small desk sat, and a painting of the ocean was thumb-tacked to the wall behind it. The sun rose over the waves that crashed into the rocks below, but it wasn't a professional photograph. It looked like it had been printed at home. A light tower was the centerpiece.
I tiptoed across the bedroom and surveyed every inch. I couldn't breathe. Certifications from science fairs, piano recitals, and other miscellaneous skills stacked upon each other. A picture of Noah in a graduation cap hung at the top. Topeka South Middle School explained the occasion, but his face told me his age. His cheeks were softer, and shadows didn't cling to his eyes yet. He knew how to grin; he had braces.
I walked over, wanting a closer look, but I was halted by another picture on his desk. In a silver frame, a small photo collected dust, but five faces managed to peek out. The woman with thick, black hair stood next to a fair-haired man, and three kids sat in front of them. All of them were smiling. Without hesitating, I picked it up, and the bumpy frame pushed against the palm of my hand.
"That was taken right before—" Noah's voice faded.
I had been so absorbed in his life that I hadn't heard Noah's approach, but now he stood feet away. I couldn't bring myself to look at him. I could only stare at his siblings. Seeing Liam grinning, alive, was worse than seeing a bullet hole through his chest. It made the bullet real.
My words took over. "You look a lot like your father."
"So I've been told."
"Where did you go?" I asked, unsure if I was referring to years ago or the last few minutes. I let him decide.
"I locked us inside with the security system my father set up. We can get out, but no one can get in without breaking something," he explained. "The security runs on saved electricity in case the power is cut. No one will know we're here." If they didn't already.
I finally looked up.
He shoved his hands into his pockets. "I checked the tunnels. They're all sealed. I don't know how, but they are." His trusted neighbors might not have been as trustworthy as he originally thought. Either way, we were stuck, and we didn't have time to worry about them now.
"So," I tried to sound casual, "we're staying here?"
His eyes searched mine. "For the night."
Him and I—alone. I didn't know how I felt. Too many feelings were threading through me.
Overwhelmed, I spun my back to him as I carefully placed his family portrait on his desk. "What's this?" I asked, reaching out to grab a small trinket that resembled some sort of god—like the ones I read about in The Iliad—but my nervous hands didn't hold onto it. It slipped through my grip and crashed to the floor. It hit the air vent and cracked in half.
I leapt back, squeaking as my hand shot to my mouth. Before I could move, Noah was across the room and picking up the pieces on his knees. He stared at the broken pieces in his hands.
"I—I'm so sorry, Noah," I managed.
"It's fine," he muttered, pressing the pieces together. The statue of a wild-haired man held a sun in his fingers. It looked like the sun imprint on tomo. "It was just an old keepsake."
His face was unreadable as he placed it on the desk, but he pointed to the picture above his desk. "That's the only thing that matters to me anyway."
I stared at the photograph of the lighthouse. The edges were curling, but he laid his hand on it as he pulled out the tack. He stared at it. "I took this."
He was lying. He had to have been. The ocean wasn't in the Topeka Region.
"I was in Raleigh," he explained, folding it in half.
"But traveling is—"
"Not illegal, just difficult." He held out the paper to me. "I want you to have it."
I didn't move.
He shook it lightly. "Take it. Please. Just for now."
"I—I can't. I can't do that."
He reached out with his free hand, grabbed my wrist, and pushed the photograph into my grasp. "You can," he said, stepping away. He leaned against his desk and watched me until I put it in my pocket.
"Don't lose it," he said.
"I won't."
"Good." He was smiling, but his smile grew into a large grin when he glanced at his desk. He leapt up. "No way," he breathed, picking up an envelope from his desk.
I held my breath as Noah ripped it open. His eyes skimmed over the material, and his hand dropped to the desk as if he were holding himself up. "I know where she is."
Before I knew it, I shot forward and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. "I told you it was here," I exclaimed. When he put his arm around me, I ducked away, laughing as I parted from him. His body heat lingered on my torso, but he didn't seem to notice. He was focused on the words in front of him.
"Finally," he whispered. "I can get her out of here."
I forced a smile, knowing what it all meant. Noah had come here to get his little sister out. Now he could. He wouldn't stay in Topeka forever, and the thought was impossible to ignore. This was the reason Lily had looked at me; the reason she had warned me to stay away. She didn't want me to get too close. Too attached. Too—
What was I doing? I no longer remembered why I came to help. I could've gone with the twins, to the hospital with Lyn, to the forest with Argos. Instead I had chased some boy into the arms of danger.
I stepped back. "We should get some sleep."
His gaze shot up, seeing me standing in the doorway, then briefly, he looked at his bed. Much too small for the both of us.
"My parents' room—" he began, but I continued backing up until I stood in the hall.
"We can set up the living room," I squeaked out.
His expression faltered. "You're right," he agreed, running his hand through his hair. Blond strands stuck up. "You go ahead? I'll meet you down there."
"Sure," I forced out, and then, faster than I thought possible, I ran away from Noah Tomery.
...
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