Thirty-Nine
After stuffing the money into my pocket, I headed away from the Camaro. With its blown-out glass and license plate and make probably known to every official with clearance in the state by now, it was a moving trap.
I tacked “new car” onto the mental list of things I owed Lucas. Not that I’d ever see him again. I jogged past the Camaro and back toward the streets, keeping my eyes open for any black Suburbans. Every step hurt, like I was abandoning Mom. I couldn’t help thinking that I’d failed, and that Mom had paid for that failure with her life, no matter how much she’d tried to convince me otherwise. And now I was leaving her behind. Forever.
But I made my feet keep moving, and I didn’t allow myself to look back. The only way to honor her now was to fulfill her dreams for me. If I got caught, everything she’d sacrificed would be for nothing. That was the only thought propelling me forward, but for now, it was enough.
If finding this Richard Grady was what Mom wanted me to do, then I’d find a way.
I couldn’t fail again.
I needed a phone, but first, I needed new clothes. Along the way, we’d passed a huddle of homeless people staking out a spare patch of grass. I retraced our path until I found them.
They turned to look up at me from their dirty blankets, huddled against the cold. A couple of faces were blank, others bright with curiosity. I studied their group before finding an older woman close to my size who wore a thin hooded jacket.
I dug into my shoe and extracted two twenties and a ten. “I’ll give you fifty dollars for your clothes. You can have my clothes, too.” I glanced down. Bright-red spots stained the front of my shirt.
Mom’s blood.
My throat tightened again, and in my head, I saw an image of her face. Her pale, unmoving face, with her blue eyes closed for good. How could she expect me to do this, how?
I reached up, and my fingers curled around the emerald pendant that had rested around Mom’s neck until recently. I could picture Mom doing the same, and somehow, the coolness of the gem soothed me. “The shirt’s a little stained, but—”
I didn’t even get to finish before the woman stood up and started unbuttoning her dirty beige jacket. Her gaze clung to the money in my hand like it was her salvation.
“You got more money, girlie?” A thirtyish man sidled up to me, one of his teeth rotting in his mouth, fingers trembling and stained from nicotine.
I grabbed his hand just as it reached for the money, squeezing hard enough to let him know I meant business but not hard enough to do any real damage. “The money isn’t for you.” I didn’t even bother glancing at his face.
He gasped in pain and lurched back when I released him. The others around him muttered, but no one approached. Good. I didn’t have the time or inclination to fend off a desperate crowd.
The woman tossed me her jacket. A brown stain streaked the front, and it smelled like stale sweat. Still, my choices at the moment were limited, and the hood would come in handy. Every single thing brought me a little closer to achieving my—Mom’s—goal.
I turned my back to change, confident I’d hear anyone if they tried to approach. The jacket was long, hanging halfway to my knees, so I went ahead and stripped off my pants while she removed hers, a pair of ripped-up black jeans.
They didn’t smell any better than the jacket; worse, in fact. Gritting my teeth, I pulled them on. Androids couldn’t afford to be squeamish. The pants hung low on my hips, even after I buttoned them, but they’d stay up. Good enough.
I pulled the hood over my head, tucking all my hair inside. Hopefully, from a distance, I could even pass for a boy.
“Here you go,” I said, handing the woman the money.
She gave me a wide grin that wrinkled her face, revealing two missing teeth, but didn’t utter a word. She just grabbed the money and tucked it in up under her new shirt in a flash, like she was afraid I might change my mind.
I glanced over my shoulder, caught a flash of the rising sun glimmering off the Potomac. I did want to change my mind, but that had nothing to do with the money. As I turned to walk away, I stopped by the guy who’d tried to hit me up for money, who was still eyeing me with a wary look. “Here,” I said, shoving a ten into his hand. “Next time, don’t grab.”
Then I took off at a brisk pace, hands in my pockets, head down. Heading into the city.
A block away, I found a red bike locked with a chain outside a building. Uttering a mental apology to the owner, I twisted the lock until it snapped and hopped on. I needed to make better time. Plus I figured a lone person on a bike was the last thing they’d be looking for.
I pedaled down the streets, keeping my head down but my eyes open for the black Suburbans, or any cars whose passengers looked a little too interested in checking out other drivers. A few blocks later, I stopped at a convenience store.
When my hand touched the door, I remembered the last convenience store I’d been to, not very long ago, outside the motel. Back then, Mom had still been alive.
I felt a sharp stab to the gut, followed by a strange, almost welcome numbness. Then I darted inside to buy a prepaid phone card and a frozen coffee drink—again, for camouflage effect.
Once I paid, I headed to the pay phone just outside. In the distance, the Lincoln Memorial rose up against the dawn-streaked sky, its wide white columns and huge rectangular top looking stately and powerful. Abraham Lincoln, abolisher of slavery. Abraham Lincoln, assassinated for his beliefs.
I searched the streets for any signs of pursuers.
No threat detected.
Turning back to the phone, I lifted the receiver, punched in the numbers. And then gripped the phone like it was the only thing keeping me standing.
Three rings later, he answered in a voice still groggy from sleep. “Hello?”
“Hunter?”
“Mila? Is that you?”
I closed my eyes and clenched the phone even tighter. It was unbelievable, just how much I’d missed the sound of his deep voice. No matter how high the quality, memories couldn’t compare to the real thing.
“It’s me. Listen, I don’t have much time but . . . I need your help.” I squeezed my lips together. If he said no, that was it. I’d be completely on my own.
That fear barely manifested before his quick reply banished it. “Of course I’ll help—what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
Mom’s limp, broken body filled my head. I bit my lip and stared back at the memorial, at the tiny birds flocking around it, like today was any other day. Nothing was okay, not for me—but my reality wasn’t theirs.
Maybe it was like Mom said. No one could experience life through someone else’s eyes. Not me, and not them. Maybe we weren’t that different, after all.
“Mila?”
“No,” I said softly. “I’m not okay.”
A pause. “Where are you?”
Hunter was the only person I had left who I could trust, besides Lucas—but contacting Lucas would be impossible. And I didn’t want to have to do this alone. Plus a steady fear had been gaining strength inside me, ever since I’d let the Potomac take Mom. If I lost all contact with people I knew, people I cared about, would I lose the things about myself that made me more human and less machine?
I needed Hunter. But he deserved a choice.
“Are you sure you want to know?”
I pictured Mom again, the crimson spreading across her shirt, and felt my eyes well up. For Mom, those people had proved deadly.
“Yes, I want to know. Let me help you.”
“Thank you. Mom’s . . . gone. I have some things to tell you, but I can’t over the phone, and I can’t go back to Clearwater. But I need help.”
He didn’t even hesitate. “Don’t worry, Mila. I’ll come to you.”
“Come to me? But your parents—”
“Are so busy, they could care less. I’ve traveled by myself tons of times. Besides, I’m eighteen. I don’t need their consent. Just tell me where.”
Oh, god. Between the sweet sound of his voice and his eagerness to help, he was going to turn me into a big weepy mess. And I didn’t want to cry. Not again.
I twisted the metal cord between my hands, completely torn. It was selfish of me to ask, I knew that. What if just meeting me put him in danger? And yet . . . Mom wouldn’t want me to be alone.
“Mila—tell me. Please.”
I should have said no. I should have, but the relief coursing through me was too strong to resist. With no Mom and no Lucas, I had nobody but Hunter to depend on for help. Plus I couldn’t deny that I wanted to see that lopsided smile again. Even if it was only for a short time.
In my head, one of my implanted memories replayed, a fabricated vacation that had always seemed so idyllic. “Okay. Meet me in Virginia Beach in two days. I’ll call you when I get there, to give you more detailed directions.”
Virginia Beach. A wave of longing washed over me. I might never, ever get to visit that beach with Mom for real, but maybe digging my toes into the sand, listening to the crashing waves, and people watching on the boardwalk like in my phony memory would help me feel a little closer to her, somehow.
A siren wailed off in the distance. “Gotta go. And Hunter? Thank you.” I hung up the phone before I heard his reply and headed for my bike.
Yes, Virginia Beach might be the perfect place. All I had to do was make sure I got there in one piece.
