“What if my mom shows up before then?” I ask.
“Lock the door and don’t answer it.”
“What if she breaks in?”
“Then call 911,” the lawyer says, and leans forward, brightening up a little like I’ve just told her good news. “Because if that happens, we can get you an order of protection.”
“What if she tries to grab me off the street?”
“If you think that’s a real possibility, then maybe don’t go for any walks by yourself.”
This is a whole lot less helpful than I was expecting, but everyone else looks relieved.
“Hypothetically,” Siobhan says, “totally hypothetically, what sort of help could you offer to an unrelated teen whose parents had sent her somewhere to be abused and who has now run away from the abuse?”
The lawyer shoves her glasses higher onto her nose, checks her phone for the time, and says, “I’ve got to get to a bail hearing. But hypothetically, I’d suggest you not bring this up with the judge in Crow Wing County. There are some social service organizations in town for homeless teens that you could put her in touch with that might be able to help her out.”
That’s less than I was hoping for, but not as bad as I’d feared. There’s another round of handshakes and we’re done.
Waiting for the elevator, the hallway is silent. None of the Things are talking. My father is staring at the floor.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I say.
He looks over at me nervously. “I don’t … What do you…”
“I mean, you could have talked to a lawyer when you first left. Gotten visitation. Seen me.”
He presses the button to summon the elevator again like it’s going to show up and rescue him from this conversation.
“But you didn’t,” I say. “You left me with my mom. You let her raise me in a cult. In a whole series of cults. Instead of doing anything to get me away from her.”
My father turns around, and I realize with a shock that he’s crying. “I know,” he says. “I’m so sorry, Nell. Your mother told me that I was a bad father and that me fighting to see you would be worse for you than if I just left. She said you were better off without me. And I believed her. I shouldn’t have, and I am so sorry.”
There’s a ding, and the elevator doors open. We all load on. I stare at the back at my father’s head, at his scarlet ears. Thing Three is right next to me, but I refuse to look at her or at any of the others. They’ll either be cross with me for making things difficult, or they’ll be radiating righteous sympathy, and I can’t bear either.
We get off the elevator, but instead of going out to the car, my father stops and says, “Nell. You have every right to be angry at me. But I promise, I’ll do better. By you and by your girlfriend. Like Jenny said, if we have to go on the lam to keep Glenys safe, we’ll do it. You are both part of the family, and that’s never going to change. We’ll fight for you. We’ll fight as long as you’ll let us. Okay?”
His voice breaks. He’s probably crying again. I don’t want to look at him, but I realize as I stare at the ground trying not to start crying myself that I really want him to hug me. He comes closer, hesitantly, and holds out his arms. I lean in, and he wraps his arms around me and kisses the top of my head, and I realize I can remember him doing that when I was little. Before he left.
“Okay,” I whisper, since he did ask a question.
“And we should probably go home now and let Glenys know what we found out.”
We head out into the cold and pile back into the car. We’re heading along some downtown street when we have to pull over to let a dozen emergency vehicles pass, including a fire truck. Two blocks later, we get to a barricade. And beyond that: fire.
Fire and people. Armed with guns, armed with clubs, armed with actual honest-to-goodness pitchforks. Some of them are facing off with others.
I lean forward. “Turn around,” I say. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Good idea, thanks,” my father says. I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not. He turns around, but the mob is spreading out, and there are people behind us.
Siobhan lets out a string of curse words, and I realize I may be the only person in the car who has ever prepared in any way for something like this.
“Come on,” I say, the last of the tears leaving my voice. “Leave the car and follow me. Trust me. I’ve trained for this. And we need to get out of here now.”
40• Steph •
Can Can Wonderland is in an industrial park—the amusement park is inside a big building that used to be a factory that made soup cans. When it started, it was mostly just an artist-designed mini-golf course, but it’s changed hands several times and now it’s an elaborate indoor amusement park staffed mostly by robots.
Rachel pulls into the parking lot, and we sit there for a minute. It’s open; we can see people going in, and an impatient parent with a screaming child coming out. “Are we really going in there?” Glenys asks.
“You can totally wait in the car, if you want,” I say. “Maybe Mimi could stay with you.”
Both Glenys and Mimi glare at me. “I’m staying with you,” Glenys says.
“Cat, if we run into Rajiv and he tries to keep us from leaving, do you think you can get us out?” I ask.
“Yes,” CheshireCat says. They don’t elaborate on how.
“I’m going in to look around,” I say, and everyone else follows me out of the car.
We are welcomed by a greeter robot. “Welcome, humans,” it intones as it swings the door open.
