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“Save it,” said Hunter.
“No,” said Michael. “I just—Jesus, if you thought we were leaving, why didn’t you say something?”
“Because you didn’t want me to know!”
“Okay, first of all, we weren’t talking about you. We were talking about James.”
“You—what?”
“James. Hannah’s son. When I said I didn’t want ‘him’ to overhear us, I meant the five-year-old with ears like a tape recorder. If we were going to leave, I wanted Hannah to hear it from me, not a rumor from her kid.”
This had to be bullshit.
Right?
“Fine. If you didn’t care whether I knew you were leaving, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because that’s as far as the conversation went. The movies make it sound like it’s easy to pick up and change your identity, but it’s not—especially not for four people, two of whom are identical twins. They’re all underage, easily identifiable—hell, I’d probably get in a shit ton of trouble with the state if they knew I’d even considered it. But no, Hunter, our plan was not to pack up the house and leave you here, with no warning at all. Is that what you’ve thought? All this time?”
Hunter stared out the window at the trees whipping by, and felt about six years old. His eyes were raw and his throat swollen. “Yeah,” he finally said.
“God, you’re as bad as my brothers.”
It loosened something in Hunter’s chest, this revelation. He didn’t feel quite so alone. “You really weren’t going to leave?”
“No. We were going to do exactly what we discussed, together : let the Guide deal with the middle schoolers and wait to see if that would lead to more trouble.”
Hunter scowled. If he’d known that then, he probably wouldn’t have talked to Silver on the quad on Friday. He wouldn’t have attacked Noah Dean, and he and Kate wouldn’t have been on the run.
And she might still be alive.
Sacrifice.
“But now,” said Michael, “we’re hiding in a hotel.”
“Hiding?”
“Yeah. The Guide obviously went after that kid, and we didn’t know if we were next.”
Probably smart, considering that Silver did show up at the Merricks’ house. “You didn’t answer my calls,” said Hunter.
“We didn’t bring our phones because they’re easy to trace. We’ve got two prepaid ones right now.”
His voice was a bit hollow, and Hunter ran his finger along the edge of Kate’s phone in his pocket. He really wanted to turn it on and read through their texts, but if it was sending out a homing beacon to Silver’s phone or whatever, that was the last thing he could do.
“How did you know where I was?” he finally asked.
“Bill called Becca and told her what happened.”
“Bill.” Hunter snorted. “He wouldn’t even let me in his house. I didn’t know he cared.”
“He wouldn’t let you in his house? Jesus, that guy is an ass**le.”
“Tell me about it.”
Hunter almost laughed.
Then his world came crashing back down.
