Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children

I felt a tickle against my leg, but was too tired to look and see what it was. My head was heavy as a boulder.

“Don’t go to sleep again,” said the dog, and then he turned to Emma and began to lick her face.

The tickle again. This time I shifted my weight and reached for it.

It was my phone. My phone was vibrating. I couldn’t believe it. I dug it out of my pocket. The battery was nearly dead, the signal almost nonexistent. The screen read: DAD (177 MISSED CALLS).

If I hadn’t been so groggy, I probably wouldn’t have answered. At any moment a man with a gun might arrive to finish us off. Not a good time for a conversation with my father. But I wasn’t thinking straight, and anytime my phone rang, my old Pavlovian impulse was to pick it up.

I pressed ANSWER. “Hello?”

A choked cry on the other end. Then: “Jacob? Is that you?”

“It’s me.”

I must’ve sounded awful. My voice a faint rasp.

“Oh, my God, oh, my God,” my father said. He hadn’t expected me to answer, maybe had given me up for dead already and was calling now out of some reflexive grief instinct that he couldn’t switch off. “I don’t—where did you—what happened—where are you, son?”

“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m alive. In London.”

I don’t know why I told him that last part. I guess I felt like I owed him some truth.

Then it sounded like he aimed his head away from the receiver to shout to someone else, “It’s Jacob! He’s in London!” Then back to me: “We thought you were dead.”

“I know. I mean, I’m not surprised. I’m sorry about leaving the way I did. I hope I didn’t scare you too much.”

“You scared us to death, Jacob.” My father sighed, a long, shivering sound that was relief and disbelief and exasperation all at once. “Your mother and I are in London, too. After the police couldn’t find you on the island … anyway, it doesn’t matter, just tell us where you are and we’ll come get you!”

Emma began to stir. Her eyes opened and she looked at me, bleary, like she was somewhere deep inside herself and peering out at me through miles of brain and body. Addison said, “Good, very good, now stay with us,” and began licking her hand instead.

I said into the phone, “I can’t come, Dad. I can’t drag you into this.”

“Oh, God, I knew it. You’re on drugs, aren’t you? Look, whoever you’ve gotten mixed up with, we can help. We don’t have to bring the police into it. We just want you back.”