Page 18 of In Her Memory

“My legs can’t take much more,” Emma muttered now through cracked lips. Her water bottle had emptied hours ago, somewhere in the pre-dawn darkness as she’d pedaled through nameless country crossroads. “We’ve been moving all night.”

“Pain is temporary. Being found is permanent.” Loyalynne’s voice was as dry as autumn leaves.

Emma steered her bike to the side of the road and dismounted, her knees nearly buckling beneath her. She leaned against a lamppost, breathing hard, her chestnut hair falling across her eyes. When she pushed it back, her hand trembled.

“When does it end?” she asked, her voice barely audible. “How long do we run?”

Loyalynne drifted closer, her China face just inches from Emma’s. “We run until you’ve fully outrun the delusion that you’re somebody else, a woman named Piper. Until those phantoms can no longer pull you back into their lies.”

Emma closed her eyes, her head throbbing. “I know I’m Emma. I’ve been Emma for as long as I can remember.”

“And yet you still hear them calling for Piper,” Loyalynne reminded her. “And for a while you believed them—at least until we got away last night. And the phantoms persist.”

A memory surfaced unbidden—the man’s voice that had called to her in the darkness as she’d pedaled through a stretch of empty highway sometime after midnight. It had seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, a voice laden with grief and hope.

Piper? Piper, is that you? I’ve been looking for you, sweetheart. Your sister needs you. I need you. Please come home.

It had sounded so real that Emma had actually stopped pedaling, had looked around wildly in the darkness, half-expecting to see someone standing there on the empty road. But there had been nothing—just the wind and the distant howl of a coyote.

“It wasn’t real,” Emma whispered to herself now, as much to convince herself as to respond to Loyalynne. “Just like all the others.”

“They’re getting closer,” Loyalynne said, her voice hardening. “The voice last night was stronger than before. We need to be more careful.”

Emma pushed herself away from the lamppost, her gaze drifting down to her bicycle—an old blue Schwinn. It had served her well.

“The bicycle has to go,” Loyalynne said, reading her thoughts. “It’s too recognizable. They could track you by it.”

“But without it—“

“You’ll move differently. Less predictably. Look there.” Loyalynne pointed down the street. “A pawn shop. You can get money for it.”

Emma hesitated. Something about Loyalynne’s logic kept failing to add up. But she had nothing else to go on. And she was hungry. Her companion had no interest in food.

“Fine,” she said at last, wheeling the bicycle down the sidewalk toward “Ed’s Pawn & Loan,” a narrow storefront wedged between a laundromat and a long-closed-down video rental store.

A bell jingled as she pushed open the door. The interior was dim and cluttered, smelling of dust and old metal. Glass cases filled with jewelry and watches lined one wall. Musical instruments hung from the ceiling. A heavyset man with a graying beard looked up from behind the counter.

“Help you?” he asked, his eyes moving from Emma to the bicycle and back again.

“I’d like to … pawn this,” Emma said, gesturing to the bike. She tried to stand straighter, to not look as desperate as she felt.

The man—Ed, she presumed—came around the counter and examined the bicycle. “Brakes are shot. Gear shift’s sticking.” He peered at her. “How long you been riding this thing?”

“A while,” Emma answered vaguely.

“Hmm.” He stood up. “Forty bucks.”

“It’s worth at least a hundred,” Emma protested, though she had no idea if that was true.

Ed shrugged. “Maybe when it was newer. I’m offering forty.”

Loyalynne drifted closer to Emma’s ear. “Take it. We need to move quickly.”

Emma bit her lip. “Fine. Forty.”

Ed went behind the counter to fill out paperwork. “Need to see some ID.”

Emma tensed. Loyalynne had warned her about leaving paper trails. And she didn’t have any ID with her.