I rolled my eyes. “You’d better be. But enough honor defending. Henry, fill me in. What was my mother like when she was younger?”
“You really want to know?”
“I thought she was dead for nearly thirty years,” I reminded him. “In my mind, she still doesn’t exist. Humanize her. Please.”
And so for the next half hour of the drive, Henry talked at length about my mother, their marriage, and the farmhouse that he had inherited from his family as I tried to imagine what life might have been like if Henry Danvers had been my real father.
At some point, Henry finally took an exit to get off the interstate. The red truck ambled past cow pastures, stables, farmhouses, and a quaint town center that consisted of a corner store, a small restaurant called Tony P’s, and a gas station. A little further out, Henry steered the truck off the main road, pulling into a long, dirt driveway bordered by a weathered wooden fence. At the far end of the drive, nearly half a mile down, sat the white farmhouse from the picture Henry had shown me. I shrank in my seat as we drew closer to it, trying to ignore the tightening feeling in my throat.
Loud booming barks suddenly filled the air. A tan coonhound and a black and white border collie raced down the dirt driveway toward us. Henry chuckled, slowing down as the dogs ran alongside the truck, jumping up and down to get a look in the window. They accompanied us all the way up the drive, and when Henry finally parked outside the farmhouse and opened the driver’s side door, the dogs were so excited to see him that he could barely step out of the truck.
“All right, all right,” he said, playfully capturing the coonhound’s nose between his palms. He called over his shoulder to us. “Come on out, you two. They don’t bite.”
It wasn’t uncertainty of the dogs that kept me rooted to the passenger seat. It was the willowy figure that had emerged from the white farmhouse and onto the wraparound porch, wiping her hands on a dish towel and smiling at the interaction between Henry and the animals. I heard Wes hop down from the truck—my periphery registered his boots kicking up the dry dust from the ground—but I couldn’t move. I stared through the front windshield, trying to catch my breath.
In a moment, her eyes met mine. And there was no recognition within them.
Lauren blew an annoyed sigh through her lips, kicking her boots against the nearest leg of the bunk beds. It had been hours since Brooks had attacked her on the drive back to the Waverly campus, and she was getting tired of waiting for one of the Raptors to deign to update her. She massaged the back of her neck. Brooks was an idiot. As soon as he’d made his move, she shoved a stun gun up into his armpit, but despite the acuity of her self-defense, it wasn’t enough to convince the other Raptors in the car that she was innocent.
As Brooks convulsed, Wickes had reached into the front seat to grab the cell phone, unlocking it to look at the text message. “Brooks was right,” said Wickes, showing the message to Olivia and Hastings. “It’s from the Morrigan.”
The three alert Raptors stared at Lauren. She stared back. The SUV was silent save for Brooks’s labored breathing. Olivia offered the phone to Lauren. She took it, glancing at the text: Salander is no longer with us. Bring her in.
The air in the car felt heavy and thick as Lauren tried to draw in a breath. Her mind whirled through the possibilities. She could lie, but the Raptors surely wouldn’t believe her. She could concede and face whatever consequence awaited her. Or she could run.
Lauren jettisoned the phone at Wickes, at the same time using her other hand to open the passenger door at her back. She tumbled out of the SUV, but Brooks had recovered enough to seize the back of her jacket. She jerked against the fabric, unzipped the jacket to escape from its sleeves, and slipped out into the night.
As she sprinted away, she heard the SUV’s doors opening and closing. The Raptors pounded after her. The wind tore into Lauren, making her eyes water and chilling her through the thin sweater that she wore. She wished suddenly that she had joined the other girls from her rowing team on their morning jogs. She detested running, and the benefits of cross-training never persuaded her to suck it up. Olivia Dashwood, on the other hand, was on the crew team and the track team.
Lauren watched the ground rise up to meet her before she even registered Olivia’s arms around her waist. They tumbled down into the dirt, rolling a few times before coming to a stop. Olivia was thinner than Lauren, so Lauren bucked her hips and used her weight to heave her teammate off of her. Wickes and Hastings were only feet away, but when Lauren tried to run again, her ankle buckled beneath her. She’d sprained it on the way down. Olivia grabbed a belt loop of Lauren’s jeans, holding her fast.
“Ollie, don’t,” begged Lauren, trying to scramble away from the other girl.
Olivia’s lower lip shook, but her fingers remained hooked through Lauren’s belt loop. “I’m so sorry, Lauren.”
A moment later, Wickes and Hastings hoisted Lauren from the ground and escorted her back to the SUV. Brooks had moved into the passenger seat, so Olivia climbed in on the driver’s side. Lauren took Olivia’s place, imprisoned between two boys that she had once thought of as brothers.
Outside the door of Lauren’s makeshift prison cell, the sound of footsteps echoed along the corridor. Lauren jumped down from where she had been trying to rest on the top bunk, standing on her tiptoes and
