Maria’s eyes began to shine in the light. “And you—” Maria turned back toward the fiery redhead. She could see that the color was fake and remembered a time when she had disguised herself too. “How do you know my son?”
Addy felt her throat constrict again, but she fought it. “I tried to help him run away from the War after they found him,” she said, “but running didn’t work.”
Maria stood up now. She began to pace, still keeping the table between her and Evan and Addy. “When did they find him?” she asked the two of them.
“They went after him the day he turned eighteen,” Addy told Maria.
“But he felt them following him long before that, for as long as I can remember,” Evan finished on Addy’s behalf.
Maria paced faster now. Evan almost thought that she was going to break into a run. “All of this for nothing,” Maria whispered to herself. Then she stopped pacing and looked at them again. “Where is he now?” she asked. “Where is my son now?”
“He’s with Reggie,” Addy answered. “That’s why Reggie sent us to get you.”
“With Reggie?” Maria repeated, as if she didn’t believe it. “What is he doing with Reggie?”
“They’re going to start an uprising,” Addy said. “They’re trying to end the War.”
With that, Maria fell back into her chair. Her eyes transformed from merely shining to becoming the source of matching rivers of tears. She looked like all the strength had been sucked out of her. “Where are you supposed to take me?” she asked.
“Back to New York,” Addy told her. “Will you come with us?”
“I want to,” Maria said. “You have no idea how badly I want to. But I can’t.”
“Why not?” Evan asked. He wanted to do this for Christopher. “You have to do this. Christopher needs you.”
Evan could see that the words stung Maria, maybe even more than he wanted them to, but they definitely hit their mark. “I can’t because I’m being watched,” Maria told them. “I’ve been being watched almost every day since I was let out of jail five years ago. They started following me the day I left prison. That’s why I never went back to get Christopher. I thought that they were watching, hoping that they could use me to find him, that I would lead them to him.” Maria shook her head. “But you’re telling me that they knew where he was the whole time?” Evan nodded. “So why were they following me?”
It was a rhetorical question, but Addy chose to answer it anyway. “Because they were afraid of you,” Addy said. “They were afraid of what you could teach him.” The silence after Addy spoke went on for several minutes, until Addy finally broke it. “You can still teach him, you know?”
Maria shook her head. “They’ll follow me. I would lead them right to him. It’s true now, even if it wasn’t before. The day that Christopher turned eighteen, I didn’t see anyone following me, but they were back again the very next day.”
“We can take care of them,” Evan promised out of the blue. “We can take care of them, and Addy can make sure that no one else follows us.”
“Can you do that?” Maria asked Addy.
Addy nodded. “I can.”
“How do you know?” Maria asked.
“Because Reggie taught me how to run, and he learned from the best.”
“So where are these people that are following you now?” Evan asked, eager to move forward and see his friend again.
“Right now,” Maria answered him, “they’re outside, watching the house.”
Forty-six
Reggie and Christopher were on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Istanbul. After what had happened to Jin, they didn’t want to risk flying through the Singapore airport again. Instead, they took a boat from Indonesia into Malaysia. Then they caught a ride for the three-and-a-half-hour drive from the coast to Kuala Lumpur. The man who drove them had already heard about what had happened in Indonesia. He’d already heard that the heads of the Underground had decided to follow Christopher. He was excited. This was what he’d been waiting for his whole life, he said. Christopher felt like warning the man about what happened to people who got too excited about working with him. But then Christopher reminded himself that the excitement was important. The plan needed it.
They made it to the airport and into the air without any problems. Once they were in the air, Christopher tried to sleep. Reggie was still trying to figure out how Christopher had pulled it off, how he’d gotten them to believe in him. One down, two to go, he thought to himself. Then the hard part. “Why are you staring at me again, Reggie?” Christopher asked, looking at Reggie through half-closed eyes.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” Christopher answered, “if you promise to stop staring at me and let me get some sleep.”
“How come you never ask questions about the War?”
“Like what?”
“Like what it’s all about or how it started.”
Christopher didn’t move. He didn’t even open his eyes. “Why should I care? What does any of that have to do with me?”
“Don’t you want to know why they killed your father and took you away from your mother?”
Christopher shook his head. “No matter what anybody tells me, I’ll never believe that whatever this War’s about or how it got started has anything to do with my mother or my father or me. I don’t see how it has anything to do with you either, Reggie. It’s not like you had a say in any of it. I don’t see why anybody cares. I’m worried about how we’re going to end the War, not about how the goddamn thing started. Why do you care?”
“I never thought I had the option not to,” Reggie said.
“Well, I do,” Christopher said. “Now can I get some sleep?”
Forty-seven
“We didn’t see anybody outside,” Addy told Maria.
“That doesn’t mean they’re not out there,” Maria answered quickly.
“How do you know?” Evan asked.
“Because they’re always out there,” Maria told him. “I killed the first two. I didn’t think I had a choice. I thought that it was the only way that I’d get away, but they just kept coming. I moved to Kansas after I got out of prison—literally the middle of nowhere. I thought I could get my act together there and then go find Christopher. I wasn’t going to tell him who I was. I only wanted to see him. Then they showed up and started following me everywhere.”
“So you killed them?” Evan asked.
“It was easier than I remembered,” Maria answered. “I thought it was the only way that I could see Christopher. It only took two days for the second unit to show up. I didn’t fight them this time. They never approached me. They’re just always there.” Maria looked over at Addy. “Have you ever been to Kansas?”
“No,” Addy said, trying to determine if she believed that people were really out there or that Maria was crazy.
“It’s a godforsaken place. The strangest part is how flat it is, how you can stand there and look out at the horizon and see forever. Then there’s the wind. Without anything to stop it, the wind blows across the plains, gaining speed and power like a freight train. When it hits you, it’s like someone is trying to push you over.”
“That’s how you get tornadoes, right?” Evan said, pulling out the only thing he knew about Kansas.
“That’s the thing, Evan.” Maria spoke to him in the motherly tone she’d been practicing in front of mirror after mirror for over a decade. “As long as you can feel the wind, you don’t need to be afraid of the tornado. It’s when the wind stops that you need to be afraid.”
“Okay,” Addy chimed in. “Assuming there are people outside, what do you suggest we do?”
“The only way to get away is to get rid of them before they know something is up, before they have time to call for backup,” Maria answered.
“What do you mean, ‘Get rid of them
’?” Evan asked.
Maria shot a glance at Addy and then looked back at Evan. “In the world we live in, getting rid of someone only means one thing. You weren’t born part of the War, were you?”
Evan shook his head. “No. I’m just trying to help Christopher.”
“I wasn’t born into the War either,” Maria said. “Eventually that doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Couldn’t we do something else with them? Do we have to kill them?” Evan asked.
“What else can we do?” Addy replied.
“I don’t know. Convert them. Maybe they hate the War as much as you guys do. Maybe they’ll want to join the Uprising.” Even Evan didn’t have faith in his idea.
“If that’s true, they could have left the War by now. Others did. Eventually it has to be too late,” Addy said in a rush, as if trying to bury the idea as quickly as possible.
“We can’t take that chance,” Maria said to Evan, somewhat more sympathetically. “So are you guys in?”
Evan and Addy shot glances at each other. Neither of them had any trouble reading the other’s thoughts. “Yes,” Addy confirmed for Maria, “we are. What’s the plan?”
“They switch shifts now. Ever since Christopher’s birthday, they’ve been splitting the day into two shifts. Two of them are on every shift. There’s two tonight. There will be two tomorrow. I imagine they’re getting a little complacent. I mean they’ve been following me for five years and it’s been well over four years since anything’s happened. If they didn’t see you come inside, you should stay inside. Leaving tonight is an unnecessary risk. You guys can stay down here. I’ll sneak back upstairs. In the morning I’ll act like everything is normal. I have tomorrow off and I’m overdue for a trip to Quebec City to pick up some mail. They’ll follow me when I leave. They don’t worry about me not seeing them. Sometimes I think they want me to see them, just to scare me. Do you guys have a phone?”
“I do,” Addy responded.
“I’ll send you a message when it’s safe to leave. I won’t go straight to Quebec City. I’ll go out for breakfast first. I’ll eat slow. I’ll make them wait. That will give you guys a chance to get a head start. About halfway between here and Quebec City there’s a little gas station. I know the guy who works there. He works alone. He sells soda and candy out of his store. I’ll go inside to get a soda and he’ll come with me so that I can pay him. I want one of you to be in the store waiting for us. Whoever it is will force him into the bathroom, trap him in there, and act like you’re kidnapping me. That way, when this story gets out, both sides of the War will think the other side finally lost its patience and got me.”
“What about the two people following you?” Addy asked.
Maria looked down at the floor, shadows covering her face. “I’ve stopped at this gas station before. They know it too. They’ll pull up right behind me. I told you before, sometimes I think they want me to know that they’re following me. Whoever isn’t inside the store . . . It has to be quick. They can’t know what hit them. We can’t give them any chance to call for help.” It was clear to Evan and Addy that this wasn’t the first time that this plan had jumped into Maria’s head.
Addy and Evan slept on the floor of the basement in the dark, their fingers intertwined.
Maria woke up the next morning and kept up her act that everything was normal even though it’d been nearly twenty years since anything was normal. She woke up, got out of bed, brushed her teeth, showered, and got dressed. She tried not to think about how whatever clothes she picked might be the clothes she would be wearing when she saw her son for the first time in more than seventeen years. She tried not to do anything too quickly. She struggled not to do anything too slowly. She tried not to think about the two kids asleep in her basement. She tried to forget that Evan had told her that Christopher wasn’t happy. All Maria wanted, all she wanted in the world, was for Christopher to be happy. Nothing else.
Maria walked out of the house, consciously thinking about every step that she took. She got in her car, started the engine, and drove. Less than a minute later, a car pulled out from the side of the road. It had been parked in a spot that was almost impossible to see. It turned in the direction Maria had driven and followed her.
Addy had set her phone to vibrate. She and Evan were both awake when they heard it buzz on the floor between them. Addy picked up the phone and looked at the message. It read, “it’s safe. go now.” Addy didn’t know that Maria had typed it while lying in bed last night, readying it so that all she had to do was hit Send when the time was right.
“Let’s go,” Addy said to Evan. They didn’t waste any time. They climbed out of the basement. They left Maria’s house through the back door. They followed the path through the woods that they’d walked the night before. They got to their car and climbed in. Maria had given them directions to the gas station the night before. They knew where they had to go. They barely spoke. The road they took twisted back and forth, hugging the St. Lawrence River. On the other side of the road were trees, old gnarled trees sprouting young, vibrant green leaves.
As promised, Maria ate slowly. She sat alone at the restaurant. She ordered pancakes with real maple syrup. It was one of the few joys she allowed herself. The men shadowing her didn’t come inside while she ate. Sometimes they did, but not that day. Instead, they waited outside in their car for her to leave. Maria was eager to get going, but she knew that she had to give Evan and Addy enough time. She knew that they wouldn’t be able to find the gas station as easily as she could. The waiting gave Maria time for things that she didn’t want, like thinking. So she concentrated on the sound her silverware made as it scraped against her plate and tried not to think about Reggie and the promises Reggie had made to her that he broke. She tried not to think about Christopher or Michael or Joseph. She tried not to think about a seventeen-year-old, curly-haired girl named Maria and all her hopes and dreams. She tried not to think of how lost the last seventeen years seemed. She tried really hard.
When nothing was left on her plate but crumbs and drops of unused syrup, Maria asked for the check. She paid, leaving the type of tip that someone leaves at a place when they’re never coming back. Then she walked out to the parking lot. She could see the men sitting in their car waiting for her. They’d parked across the street. She tried to avoid making eye contact with them—just like on every other day. She’d spent four years trying to pretend, to herself at least, that she didn’t know that they were always watching her. She got back into her car, pulled back onto the road and headed south, her shadow following behind her.
Addy and Evan had no trouble finding the gas station. It was a single-pump job off to the side of the road. It looked more like a 1950s movie set than a real place. Behind the pump was the small store where the proprietor sold soda and candy. Next to that was a two-car garage with various tools hung along the walls. All the metal was slightly rusted. Even though they saw it immediately, Evan and Addy drove past it. They kept going for another mile before pulling off to the side of the road.
“You go inside,” Addy said to Evan once the car was stopped. It was the first thing either of them had said to each other since they left Maria’s house. “I’ll stay outside.”
Evan knew what that meant. They both knew what that meant. Addy would be the killer. “Okay,” Evan said, relieved that all he had to do was threaten and lock up an innocent man.
“How are you going to get inside the store?” Addy asked Evan.
Evan knew that it was merely a test. Addy wanted to make sure Evan had thought about it. “I’ll wait in the garage,” he told her. “When the old man goes out to help Maria pump her gas, I’ll slip inside.”
“That should work,” Addy said.
“What are you going to do?” Evan asked Addy. He wasn’t testing her.
“It doesn’t really matter,” Addy answered him, “as long as I do it quickly. Pop the trunk
.”
Evan leaned forward and pulled the lever that automatically opened the trunk. He and Addy both got out of the car. Addy reached into the trunk and pulled out the shotgun that she and Evan had taken from the convenience store in Louisiana. Evan reached into the trunk and grabbed one of the handguns that Sam and George had given them before they left Florida. “You good?” Addy asked Evan.
Evan looked at the gun in his hand and how his hand held it. “I’ve never been worse,” he said to Addy and smiled. “But I’ll be okay.”
“Let’s go,” Addy said. “We don’t want to fuck this up by standing around for too long talking.”
They walked the mile back to the gas station together, ready to hide in the woods if any other cars drove by. They didn’t split up until they were only a few hundred feet from it. At that point, Evan made his way toward the garage while Addy kept walking past the gas station.
Maria never sped. She never had any reason to rush anywhere. She didn’t speed that day either, trying her best to conform everything she did to the way the woman she had been yesterday morning would have done it. She wanted to stomp on the gas pedal because she no longer was the woman that she had been yesterday morning. Maria didn’t see Addy or Evan when she pulled up to the gas station. She could feel them, though. They were there.
Maria pulled up to the single gas pump and got out of her car. The gray-haired, round gas station owner hustled out from behind the counter in the store when he saw Maria so that he could offer to pump her gas for her. Normally, Maria would have already started filling up her car by the time he reached her. This time she waited, giving the old man a job to do while Evan slipped into the store from the garage where he’d been hiding. Maria only caught a glimpse of Evan. She didn’t see Addy at all. Addy was too good for that.