“I want this to all work out okay, Mana.”
“Me too.”
I wince. Of course I do. What an inane thing to say.
“I’m going to help you, you know. We’ll find your mom and then we’ll get that chip thing and the world will not be invaded by aliens and…” He pauses. “Um … and then something good will happen. Something we can think forward to and get excited about.”
“Like what?” I squeeze his hand, just a little.
He thinks. “A Doctor Who marathon?”
“Lyle!”
He laughs.
“A world without an alien invasion?”
“How about something simpler?” I stare up at him. His eyebrows are raised up a little bit. Damn, they’re so cute. Wait. I think eyebrows are cute? The stress is obviously getting to me, or maybe it’s just because I’m super relieved to have Real Lyle back and Not Lyle gone. Kiss me, I think. Kiss me.
“Like what?” he says, and his voice is hoarse and low.
I make myself not think about all the girls he’s dated.
I make myself not think about all the times I’ve seen him making out at a party or at a dance.
I make myself not think about the fact that we’re supposed to be just friends, because seriously? We might not even survive all this craziness. What if I never take the chance and therefore never get to kiss him, or see if he wants me to like him that way, or potentially even likes me back that way, and instead just die not knowing?
Crap.
Crap.
Crap.
I can do this. I am fearless and tough and I can do this.
So I make myself go up on tippy toes and I kiss him. My lips push against his lightly.
He tugs his head away, just an inch, not too far. He makes my name a question. “Mana?”
“Please, Lyle.”
And then he doesn’t hesitate. His lips come right back, brushing against mine. And it doesn’t matter that we’re at a Jeep dealership, standing in the middle of the showroom floor, and it doesn’t matter that I have voices in my head, or that we both need new, nonsmelly clothes, or that the world is full of aliens, or that China is making a joke about us to the car salesman. All that matters is the way our lips touch each other, the way his hand is all curled into my dirty hair, the way he feels so solid skinny against me, and how his arms are lifting me up, off the floor.
“Don’t let me fall, Base,” I whisper against his lips, laughing.
“Never, Flyer. Never.” He kisses me again. He breaks away to say the words. “I’ll never let you fall.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later, all the paperwork is filled out and we’re tooling around in a brand-new Jeep. I try not to keep touching my lips and instead pump the heat up all the way. China and Lyle argue incessantly, for freaking ever, about what the right thing to do is. Lyle votes for telling the regular police. We decide that Mom would never keep the chip on her person.
“The more I think about it, it’s against her nature. If she was kidnapped, or if she was worried, she would hide that chip because she’d know that if it was on her? Well, aliens do pretty good searches. They’d do it right away,” China says and we agree. China votes for going back to my house and searching for the chip, and then China says we don’t even have a say, because he is the expert and in charge and blah blah blah.
“It’s got to be there,” he says for the five hundred millionth time. “I can’t think of any other place she’d put it. Can you?”
“No.” I smoosh my legs into the heated seat and tuck my backpack beneath my legs.
Lyle leans forward between our seats. “It’s too dangerous to go back there. That’s what they expect. It’s too obvious. They were waiting for us at Mana’s dad’s apartment. They’ll be waiting for us there. They might even be at my house now, or Seppie’s. They’re not stupid. To go back is to play right into their hands.”
China scoffs. “We can handle whatever they try to do.”
“We almost lost Mana! Do you even remember what happened at the compound? With Pierce?” Lyle’s face reddens. “Have you even checked in? Do you know if they are okay?”
“Of course I’ve checked in.” China’s cheek muscle twitches.
Lyle leans forward a bit. “And?”
“They haven’t responded.”
“Is your seat belt on?” I ask, trying to decrease the tension with the first thing that I can think of, which is kind of a dumb thing, I guess. “Lyle, is your seat belt on?”
He fake glares at me. “Yes, Mom.”
“Do not ‘Yes, Mom’ me. Just because you’re pissed that I don’t think we should go to the police, either,” I say. “You are totally taking it out on me.”
“No, I’m not,” he says. He makes direct eye contact.
My insides get a bit melty, but I insist, “Yes, you are.”
China nods. “You are, dude.”
Lyle’s hands lift into the air. His knuckles knock on the roof. “Don’t call me dude.”
China does this little side-glance thing, where he keeps all his attention straight ahead but for one second acknowledges the object in his peripheral vision. That object is me. He has got just one hand on the steering wheel, hanging over the top, all casual. “The kid’s really cranky. Is he always like this?”
“No,” Lyle and I say at the same time.
“Only after kissing you?” China snarks.
An awkward silence descends. I lean forward, touch my nose to my legs, try to not have a heart attack of anxiety right there. What if me kissing him made Lyle an ass? Was it bad? I thought it was amazing. But what if—
“The kiss was good,” Lyle says sheepishly. “That’s not why I’m grumpy. Please don’t think that’s why I’m grumpy, Mana.”
China taps his thumb on the steering wheel. “Not well played, dude.”
“Do not call me dude. I am not a dude,” Lyle says, and then adds, “please.”
“Dudette?” China asks.
“Look, I have no idea why you have to put me down, but we have bigger things to worry about, so can you lay off?”
“I have an idea!” I say. “The chip is obviously not at the house. The aliens searched it; you searched it, too, right, China?” I ask.
“Right.”
“So Mom had to put it somewhere safe or with someone safe. She normally goes where after work? The grocery store and the gym,” I say. “We should look there.”
China drives us to the grocery store first. All the food aisles and people make it seem pretty impossible. Disheartened, I throw up my hands. “How can we possibly find it if it’s here?”
“It would be a good hiding place,” China says, starting to walk straight toward the organic produce aisle. He really does know my mom. “She wouldn’t put it in any of the front items because they could get purchased.”
He starts knocking boxes off the shelf. Cups of organic kimchi soup, Annie’s macaroni and cheese, and additive-free fruit gummies topple to the floor. Lyle gasps. “What are you doing?”
I answer for China. “Looking.”
“You’re making a mess!” Lyle glances around, embarrassed and horrified. A crowd has begun to gather. They all make faces.
“It’s the fastest way,” China says, without even looking up. He’s just moved on to the Thai packaged food. People stare at us, and I’ve never felt so disconnected from the rest of humanity as I do right now. All these people, who must think we are beyond deranged, staring at us like we’re the bad guys, like they are better than us, while simultaneously they are scared by us. Even with China and Lyle right here, I feel so alone.
I rush off. I have to look all around the front of the store before I find it: the fire alarm. Yanking it down, I sprint back to the aisle. There’s a second of delay and then the lights begin to flash and the alarm sounds—a horrible blaring noise that hurts my ears.
“Good job,” China says. “You take after your mom. Quick thinking.”
I smile and start
searching. “We don’t have much time before the fire department gets here.”
“About five minutes,” China agrees. “We can get through this in five minutes if Lyle helps.”
Lyle throws up his hands, giving in, and then begins dumping food products into the aisle even as a red-shirted Hannaford’s worker yells at us to evacuate. China doesn’t even look up.
“Sorry!” Lyle yells. “Important business! Trying to find the right box of organic oats.”
We don’t find that or the chip. But we manage to leave the store via the storage room’s back door just as the fire department barges through the front door.
We don’t fare any better at the gym, but much to Lyle’s relief, we don’t make a mess for the employees there to clean up. We just casually peruse all the equipment, touching the bikes, the treadmills, the weight machines, the rower. I search the locker room even though Mom doesn’t have a locker and just brings a bag and changes. We can’t find anything anywhere.
“We’re just not thinking of something,” China says as we get back in the truck, but unfortunately, none of us comes up with any great ideas. “I think we should just go back to the house. It’s the most logical place. She probably—”
My cell phone rings, interrupting him. We all jump. I panic and clasp it to my chest, but don’t answer it.
“Who is it?” China demands. He moves into the passing lane to get around an old lady driving a copper-colored sedan.
I read the display. “Seppie. I was supposed to meet her at the Y today. How did her call get through?”
I flip it open, trying to figure out how to get out of the fact that I was supposed to meet Seppie a half hour ago. She always knows when I’m lying.
“Hey Sep…”
“Mana?”
I try to think fast. “I am so sorry that I’m—”
She talks right over me. “Mana, listen, Lyle’s—”
She’s gone.
“Seppie?”
Nothing. I glance up at China. He mouths, “Everything okay?”
I mouth back the word no.
“Seppie?” I try again. I can hear noises in the background.
The next voice I hear sounds like it’s being digitized by a computer, mechanically disguised or something. “Mana.”
“What are you doing to Seppie?” I demand. “Who are you?”
Lyle leans in toward my shoulder. “What’s going on?”
I put up my free hand to make him stay quiet. China swerves the Jeep into the slow lane and then into the breakdown lane—so there’s no extra noise, I guess. He puts on the hazard lights. I put the phone on speaker so everyone can hear.
The voice comes back. “Seppie is fine. For now. But I need you to bring the device to me.”
“What device?” Does he mean the chip?
“Don’t play stupid, Mana. You’re not stupid. I know you’re with your mother’s partner. I know you have the device.”
I turn to China for help. He nods vigorously.
“Right. Right…” I watch China scribble something on the back of the bill of sale receipt for the Jeep: Pretend we have it.
“Right, okay, the device,” I lie.
“If you want your friend to live, you need to bring it to me.”
Lyle curses.
“Alone,” the voice goes on. “No Lyle. No China.”
“How do you even know about Lyle?” I ask. I clutch the phone so tightly that I accidentally push a button. It beeps obnoxiously—a long tone of nothing, in an unfortunate pitch.
As soon as the tone stops, the voice says, “I know everything about you, Mana.”
“But—”
China gives me a warning look. A logging truck drives by and the entire Jeep jiggles in its wake.
“I’m going to text you the address,” the voice continues. “Do not attempt to call back on this line. Do not bring anyone else. Just you. Just you, or she dies.”
He hangs up.
“Crap,” I say.
A text message comes through.
“Where’s the meeting?” China asks.
I can’t believe it. “The animal rehabilitation place?”
“A zoo?” China repeats. “Is there even a zoo here?”
Lyle answers for me, because I’m still staring at the phone. “Yes, but it isn’t a zoo. It’s more like an animal refuge, but they’ve got lions and moose and monkeys and emus.”
“Lyle loves it,” I manage to say. “He volunteers there in the summer. He’s the softie, honestly.”
“Good.” China almost smiles and starts up the car. “You might be useful after all.”
CHAPTER 17
The animal refuge looks exactly the way you’d expect a wildlife refuge to look at the end of autumn, when it’s closed because there aren’t enough people around to justify keeping it open. The workers only come in at dawn and dusk to feed the animals. Cold metal cages pen up mountain lions and bobcats and wolves. Some grazing, herd-type animals huddle in corners by stumps of trees. Some stare as I walk by. Some sleep in the fetal position, like this world and its cold is just too much for them. The dirt trail that meanders past the monkey house and the llamas is covered with a light dusting of snow. It’s naked of footprints, except for mine. A wolf howls. The mountain lion paces back and forth in her little cage as I go by. The place smells of wet fur and helplessness, with a nice after-aroma of predator poop.
I wonder if these animals ever knew what it was like to be free, or if they think this is it—the sum total of their existence. A cage, food and water, people staring. And I wonder if people are like that, too. We go around thinking that our lives are somewhat planned and vaguely understandable. We’re born. Most of us go to school. Some of us make the sex, have a baby. We die. We watch online videos, gossip, love each other, worry, eat, drink, study, work. That’s it. But if the last forty-eight or so hours have taught me anything, it’s that this idea of a life is just a cage, really. There are so many things we don’t know, don’t even know that we don’t know. We are those mountain lions, and sometimes someone opens up one of our cage doors and the reality we’ve been basing our existence on just cracks.
I make my way to the caribou field. This is about an acre of land at the far side of the refuge, surrounded by a metal fence. Caribou and bison roam around in there. The caribou resemble reindeer, like happy little promises of good gifts to come. I keep trudging toward them, too hyped up by fear and adrenaline to shiver any more. Finally, I spot some footprints. Two sets. One set, hopefully, is Seppie’s.
I pull out the little silver tool that China gave me. It looks like just a mini flashlight, but it zaps right through metal somehow. It’s how I broke the lock on the big wooden front doors and got into the refuge. It’s how I break the security lock on this fence, too.
If I get out of this, I’ll have to make a donation to the refuge to cover the costs of the locks. Ahem. Right. If I get out of this.
My feet smoosh into the three inches of snow. Some leaks into my shoes and melts into my socks, making my feet cold again. For the last two days, I have basically been nothing but cold. I tighten up against it. It doesn’t matter. What matters is saving Seppie. What matters is finding my mom, and probably finding my dad, too, assuming he really is missing and not just on some weird work assignment with no cell signal.
A raven circles in the sky above me. Some sort of animal moos, which makes me jump. It’s probably a cow. I’m not sure. Do they have cows in animal refuges?
Following the footsteps through the field, I spot them. Two figures. One is a little bigger than the other, a little taller—and has a gun pressed to her head. But she’s not cowering. She is beautiful and angry, standing up straight. That’s my Seppie. Even though I can’t see their faces yet, I recognize her stance. I get closer. My heart beats panicky hard. My fingers twitch into themselves. I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know how to do this. What am I doing here?
Then I gaze up again, stop worrying, start thinking. I will
save her. I have to. And to do that, I have to assess the total asshole who is holding her hostage, willing to kill her to get what he wants. I stare. I stop walking.
“Mrs. Stephenson?”
She moves her shoulders up just a little bit. Some muscle in her cheek twitches.
“Mrs. Stephenson?” I repeat.
She says nothing. A caribou traipses downfield and bends his head down to poke through the snow, graze, search for something that he can eat, something that is green and makes sense in a world that has suddenly gone white.
I look at Seppie. “It’s Mrs. Stephenson? Mrs. Stephenson kidnapped you?”
Seppie nods. She crosses her arms in front of her chest. “I think when aliens do it, it’s called abduction.”
I just stare at her.
“What are you talking about? Mrs. Stephenson, what is going on?” I adjust my backpack straps so the weight isn’t so heavy on my back. It suddenly feels like I am going to fall over backwards and not be able to get up. God, is she really so angry that I slept in Lyle’s bed? We didn’t even do the nasty. She is so out of control.
Mrs. Stephenson nudges Seppie forward. She’s still got the gun—which I now see is sort of weird and shiny—pointed at the side of Seppie’s head, but at least it isn’t pressed into her hair anymore. Seppie is trying not to cringe, and to be all brave cheerleader toughie, but it is so not working.
“Mrs. Stephenson?” I say it again, like saying it will suddenly make this whole scene make sense. It doesn’t work.
Instead, she just stares at me while her mouth moves. It’s the only part of her body that does. “I need that device, Mana. That chip.”
That’s when it registers. She’s here for the chip. Lyle’s overprotective, churchgoing, wide-hipped mom is not here because she’s angry and has gone mental about the whole finding-me-in-bed thing. No. She is freaking kidnapping my best friend because she is somehow a part of this whole dealing-with-aliens thing.
I try for jokey. “Mrs. Stephenson? You don’t even like chips. ‘A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips’ is what you always say.”
“I’m not talking about Cool Ranch Doritos here, Mana.” Not even a smile.
“You have no sense of humor.” I put my hands on my own, sadly nonexistent hips, and glare at her. “I do not have the chip.”