I hesitate but only for a few seconds. I don’t think she notices. “Yes.”
She throws her arms around my neck and squeezes, and I’m sure I said the right thing. At least I think I’m sure. We can make it work. Mom would like having a little girl around. And maybe we can find Claire’s family. In the time since Claire was lost, the police could have located them. They could miss her as much as I miss my mother. Leaving her could have been a mistake they regret, or an accident. They could be mourning her, and her return would be a miracle.
I look at her, and I swear I see a soft white glow framing her face. If I look directly at her, it vanishes, but it teases the corners of my eyes. My heart beats faster. “Claire—”
Outside, I hear the clatter of tin cans.
Our alarm.
Claire and I look at each other. We don’t speak. We each know our roles. Keeping low, I scoot into the kitchen, and I take one of the knives from the kitchen drawer. There are plenty of lost guns around Lost, but we don’t have any of them. I can’t practice with them—they’re too loud, and they’d draw attention—so at best they could only be used against me. Knives, though...we have knives. Knife in hand, I creep to the dining room window.
The tin cans were strung over the front gate. It could have been something as simple as a squirrel that set them off, or it could have been a feral dog. Or it could have been a person. Claire scrambles out the back window. She’ll climb up on the roof. If necessary, she has a brace of knives up there by the chimney, as well as slingshots and a few miniature catapults that she and Peter built out of scraps. She can attack from above while I handle the ground.
There’s a knock on the front door.
That’s...odd,I think. I peer out the window. Victoria and Sean are on the porch, waiting by the door. Using oven mitts, Sean carries a Crock-Pot.
“Oh, hi!” Claire calls from the roof.
I march over to the front door and yank it open. “Seriously? Do you know how many people could have followed you? Did anyone follow you? What do you want?”
Sean holds out the pot. “Breakfast!”
“Glad you’re home.” Victoria sweeps inside, oblivious to the knife in my hand, perhaps because she has a gun in her Gucci purse or something. I flinch at the wordhome.
Claire drops onto the porch. “Please say that’s hot oatmeal!”
“It is,” Sean says gravely.
“With brown sugar?”
“And honey.”
Claire drags him inside and into the dining room. She then fetches bowls and spoons for everyone. I hang back by the door. “What do you want?” I repeat. “Did anyone follow you?” I think of telling them that Peter is out looking for the Missing Man, but I don’t.
“You’re a suspicious one,” Victoria says. “I like that.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Guess you’ll just have to trust us.”
“Or I could leave.”
“Lauren!” Claire whines. “Brown sugar and honey!”
“And fresh fruit,” Sean says.
I don’t know why I can’t make myself feel friendly. I’m the one who said I wanted allies, and here they are with breakfast, a clear peace offering. But Victoria is smiling too brightly, and Sean’s face is flushed.
“We may have told a few people about you,” Sean says. I feel my heart thud faster. “But you can trust them. They know what you did for us.”
Every muscle in me is tense, ready to run. My feet want to scramble out the door. But Claire is happily scooping oatmeal into a bowl. “Oh?” I say.
“We wanted to, you know, give you a heads-up,” Sean says. “Also, oatmeal.”
“Uh, thanks. Claire, pack what you need.”
“No!” Victoria says. “Please. Stay. That’s why we came—to tell you not to run.”
