When morning came, we ate the continental breakfast in the hotel lobby. In the corner, there was an internet-enabled computer, and so we both checked our email. I didn’t know why I did. I didn’t really know if I wanted to be reminded of my old life. There weren’t any new messages in my inbox, but there was a message from Lilith on myspace. She went on and on about how sorry she was. I couldn’t finish it. I didn’t care that Lilith was sorry. Toby was dead. It didn’t matter anymore. She was going to have to deal with that, now. And besides, I was never going back to Bramford.
Jason checked email next. He said that before leaving Bramford, he’d been in touch with a guy somewhere in Texas, and maybe we could head there next. I let him go to the computer and began eating my Danish.
Jason called me over the computer. “Read this,” he said.
It was an email message. I read it. It didn’t make much sense. It was like it was written in code. But when I got to the last sentence, I gasped. “Hallam?” I said.
Jason nodded. “I don’t usually check my email account with the Sons, but I did because I still think it was weird that they found us in New Jersey. And how did the Satanists get there?”
I told him that Aunt Stephanie had called my mom.
“Oh,” said Jason. “You know, I bet the Sons followed your parents. That must be how they found us. But anyway, I thought maybe there’d be something in my account that would give me a clue. There wasn’t. There was just this.”
“What’s it mean?” I asked.
“I don’t know. He’s not sending it from his email account with the Sons. And he doesn’t use his name. And he says he’s on the outs like I am. And none of that stuff in West Virginia ever made any sense. Like the clean slate comment.”
“Didn’t make sense?” I said. I wasn’t following.
“If the Sons had found me in Bramford, they should have done basically what they did to us last night,” said Jason. “So that was why I ran when I found out Hallam was around. I figured they’d break into your house and start shooting. But they didn’t. Which never made any sense to me. It didn’t make sense that Hallam said I had a clean slate.”
“Yeah, what exactly does that mean, anyway?” I asked.
“It’s a reference to a conversation we had once,” said Jason. “After the incident with the sorority house, Hallam and I talked. I said that sometimes I wished I wasn’t the Rising Sun. I said I wished I had a clean slate, that I could just walk away and be normal.”
I nodded. “Okay. So he was saying that you had the chance to be normal when he talked to me in the woods in Bramford?”
“Yeah,” said Jason. “And the only way he could have done that is if he were working against the Sons. So they must have figured out that he was doing that. And now he’s on the run.”
“Wait,” I said. “Hallam was helping you?”
“I think so,” he said.
“This is the guy who you said was screaming in joy while he was shooting college girls. This is the guy who nearly strangled me in the woods. And he’s on our side?”
“He nearly strangled you? What?”
“Did I leave that part out before?”
Jason looked pissed. “Yes. You did.” He sighed. “Well, I don’t know about our side, but he seems to have gone renegade, hence the name on his email account.”
“What about the rest of it?” I asked. “Wanting to show you things? Bethlehem?”
“I don’t know,” said Jason. “He wants me to go him.”
“Where is he? In Bethlehem?” I considered. “Isn’t there a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania?”
“He wouldn’t put the actual name of where he was in the email. It’s on the Sons server. They’re probably reading all of my email messages.” Jason shook his head. “Bethlehem? What could he mean?”
“Are we going to him?” I asked. “Is that safe?”
“Where else would we go?” he asked. “And is anywhere safe?”
He had a point.
“Okay,” he said. “So what’s Bethlehem? It’s the place where Jesus was born, right?”
“Right,” I said. “The birthplace of the messiah.” I paused. “Oh.”
Jason had figured it out just as I did. “He’s in Georgia. He’s in the town where I was born—Shiloh,” he said.