So. Note to self: Here are a few more things you know for sure. It was late when you heard that broadcast. You weren’t exactly in the clearest state of mind when you left Vegas. And most importantly, Gaby’s cell phone no longer works. The only one with that message is you. Anything else is paranoia.
Hypervigilance. That’s what my therapist, Maurice, had said the first time I tried to use the p word.
Hyper-what now? I’d said.
That sense you’re describing, like you’re constantly scanning for threats? he’d said. Hypervigilance.
Oh? I’d said. That still sounds like paranoia to me.
Not really. He’d smiled one of those deceptively placid smiles. Not the way you mean it, at least.
English is Maurice’s third language. So naturally, he understands it better than any native speaker I know. He listens to every part of a word: the meaning, the nuance, and the stuff that goes unsaid.
But hypervigilance, to me, has always been a physical thing: tight shoulders, tension headaches, that potential energy too deep in my rib cage to unfurl. Sometimes it’s just a feeling, a shift in the air that washes the world into an uneasy gray. It isn’t hearing broadcasts that couldn’t possibly exist.
The early morning haze lifts. And gradually, up ahead, shapes start to form: dark and boxy cutouts against the sunlight, and behind them, the thin black line of the tower.
I’m a lot closer than I thought.
A bit farther and the shapes start to form into neat rows of houses, little villas of reds and oranges and angular bricks. The kind of desert houses that try too hard to be desert houses. The closer I get, the more I see, lined up at the edge of a thin wrought-iron fence, and behind them, violently green grass and the edge of a spiraling street.
It’s late enough that I should see people. I should at least hear them. But there’s no movement. And it’s as quiet as it ever was.
I slide my backpack off my shoulder and toss it over the fence.
It lands with a soft thwump. Not quite soft enough to go undetected. But nothing changes. The air stirs a little, curling the grass in on itself. And that’s about all the response I get.
So I go ahead and vault the fence, too.
I touch down on the grass, right into someone’s backyard. There’s a big picture window facing me head-on, curtains trailing at the edges like it’s a screen and I’m the movie. I don’t seem to have an audience. From what I can see, the house is fully furnished and totally empty. Walking quickly, I round the corner and step out onto the street.
Places like this aren’t totally unheard of in the sprawl of the Mojave Desert. My stepfather has a thing for abandoned places—I’ve heard all about housing developments built in the middle of nowhere, finished and polished and never filled. But I’ve never seen a place so dead look so . . . cared for. The paint seems fresh. The windows are spotless. The grass is similar enough from house to house that I’d think it was fake if I hadn’t touched it myself. There’s a sign facedown in one of the driveways, and I carefully wedge my shoe under it to flip it over.
A drawing of a ’50s housewife-type grins up at me, teeth glinting in the sunlight. lethe ridge luxury homes, the text proclaims. we’ve been waiting for you!
I laugh darkly. “Sounds like a threat, bro.”
I use the broadcast tower’s spire for reference as I curve through cul-de-sacs and dead ends, and I spend more time doubling back than moving forward. There’s no way to get anywhere in this place without cutting across someone’s lawn, but I decide to stick to the street.
That turns out to be a good move on my part when, with a hiss and a sputter, every sprinkler in the neighborhood starts running.
“Sprinklers,” I say out loud. Maybe if I reason with my stomach, it’ll find its way back down my throat. “They’re sprinklers.”
“Mmm,” hums a voice from behind me. “Like clockwork.”
I spin around. And behind me, where I was walking just seconds ago, there’s a girl lying on her back in the road.
She doesn’t notice me stumble back a step. Or if she notices, she doesn’t care. She stays sprawled on the ground, her eyes still closed.
I squint down at her. She’s even whiter than I am, if that’s possible—way too white to be sunbathing in the middle of the street. But she stretches out a bit farther, taking in more and more of the light. The pavement must be getting hot. She doesn’t seem too bothered.
“Um,” I say. “Are you okay?”
“What?” she says, eyes still closed. “Oh. Right. You know those times when you just can’t get warm?”
I try not to stare. That doesn’t work. “Not really.”
“Well.” She sits up, shaking her loose blonde curls. “All in good time.”
I get a better look at her face now: round, pretty. Probably my age. And still not looking at me.
Carefully, I ease my water bottle out of my backpack’s side pocket and take a few steps toward her. “Here.”
She opens her eyes, but she still doesn’t look at me. She takes in the water bottle instead. “No thank you,” she says.
“Come on,” I say. “Desert 101: hydrate. And, you know, watch out for snakes.”
Finally, she smiles. Crooked with a little squint, like that was unforgivably nerdy but she’ll allow it. It’s so similar to how Gaby would have looked at me that for a second I forget what we’re doing.
“Well,” the girl says, extending her hand. “How can I say no, then?”
I close the distance between us and hold it out to her. Our fingers brush as she takes the bottle.
And suddenly she’s looking right at me.
Her eyes widen a little. She looks me up and down. And then she says, “What brings you here?”
Without realizing it, I’ve taken a step back again. “Car trouble.”
“I see,” she says. “You walked all this way?”
