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"Excuse me, can you tell me where the office is?" he asks one of the slower-moving students.
The kid looks down at him as if Lev were from Mars. "How could you not know that?" And he just walks away shaking his head. Another, kinder kid points him in the right direction.
Lev knows that things must be put back on track. This is the best place to do it: a school. If there are any secret plans to kill Connor and Risa, it can't happen here with so many kids around, and if he does this right, it won't happen at all. If he does it right, all three of them will be safely on their way to their unwinding, as it ought to be. As it was ordained to be. The thought of it still frightens him, but these days of not knowing what the next hour will bring—that is truly terrifying. Being torn from his purpose was the most unnerving thing that had ever happened to Lev, but now he understands why God let it happen. It's a lesson. It's to show Lev what happens to children who shirk their destiny: They become lost in every possible way.
He enters the school's main office and stands at the counter, waiting to be noticed, but the secretary is too busy shuffling papers. "Excuse me . . ."
Finally, she looks up. "Can I help you, dear?"
He clears his throat. "My name is Levi Calder, and I've been kidnapped by two runaway Unwinds."
The woman, who really wasn't paying attention before, suddenly focuses her attention entirely on him. "What did you say?"
"I was kidnapped. We were hiding in a bathroom, but I got away. They're still there. They've got a baby, too."
The woman stands up and calls out, her voice shaky, like she's looking at a ghost. She calls in the principal, and the principal calls in a security guard.
* * *
A minute later, Lev sits in the nurse's office, with the nurse doting on him like he's got a fever.
"Don't you worry," she says. "Whatever happened to you, it's all over now."
From here in the nurse's office, Lev has no way of knowing if they've captured Connor and Risa. He hopes that, if they have, they don't bring them here. The thought of having to face them makes him feel ashamed. Doing the right thing shouldn't make you ashamed.
"The police have been called, everything's being taken care of," the nurse tells him. "You'll be going home soon."
"I'm not going home," he tells her. The nurse looks at him strangely, and he decides not to go into it. "Never mind. Can I call my parents?"
She looks at him, incredulous. "You mean, no one's done that for you?" She looks at the school phone in the corner, then fumbles for the cell phone in her pocket instead. "You call and let them know you're okay—and talk as long as you like."
She looks at him for a moment, then decides to give him his privacy, stepping out of the room. "I'll be right here if you need me."
Lev begins to dial, but stops himself. It's not his parents he wants to talk to. He erases the numbers and keys in a different one, hesitates for a moment, then hits the send button.
It's picked up on the second ring.
"Hello?"
"Pastor Dan?"
There's only a split second of dead air, and then recognition. "Dear God, Lev? Lev, is that you? Where are you?"
"I don't know. Some school. Listen, you have to tell my parents to stop the police! I don't want them killed."
"Lev, slow down. Are you all right?"
"They kidnapped me—but they didn't hurt me, so I don't want them hurt. Tell my father to call off the police!"
"I don't know what you're talking about. We never told the police."
Lev is not expecting to hear this. "You never . . . what?"
"Your parents were going to. They were going to make a whole big deal about it—but I convinced them not to. I convinced them that your being kidnapped was somehow God's will."
Lev starts shaking his head like he can shake the thought away. "But . . . but why would you do that?"
Now Pastor Dan starts to sound desperate. "Lev, listen to me. Listen to me carefully. No one else knows that you're gone. As far as anyone knows, you've been tithed, and people don't ask questions about children who are tithed. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
