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Chapter 3
Idraw in a breath, latch the deadbolts, and turn around.
Half the stormtouched leap from their beds, friends gravitating together. Jem perches down next to the newcomers. She gives the little girl a toothy grin, making her giggle. But as I pass them, she shoots me a tense look over the mother’s head. She’ll talk to the woman and figure out if we can trust her and her child.
Amma sits at the edge of the bed closest to the kitchen, her hands resting on the head of her cane. They tremble until she tightens her grip. I take her hands in mine and kneel at her feet. I rub my thumbs over her knuckles, over skin that’s fragile and spotted with age. Her hands are so light in mine; they’re more bone than flesh.
“Go to him,” Amma murmurs, slipping free of my grip and patting the top of my head.
I lean my forehead against her knee, gathering my courage, breathing in the smell of spices that lingers on her clothes. Getting to my feet takes more energy than it should, and the kitchen might as well be a mile away. Drawing the curtain shut behind me, I kick aside the rug and knock on the trapdoor, in code: three raps, a pause, then two, a pause, then two more.
A moment passes, then comes the sound of a lock unlatching. Asection of the floor pops up, and I grab the edge, hauling it open. Pa lifts himself up to sit on the floor, his legs dangling into the little room beneath.
“Did you hear?” I ask.
“I heard.”
I imagine dropping down beside him, and him wrapping an arm around my shoulders, pressing a warm kiss to my forehead. Telling me it’ll all be okay.
“We have to leave,” he says, speaking quietly so his voice doesn’t carry through into the main room. “You’ve seen what happens. They won’t stop.”
Mercifully, he doesn’t say,It’s all your fault.
“We repay Amma by making sure they don’t know we’ve been here. Get your things.”
He drops back down into his hidden room and tears papers off the walls, stuffing everything into a worn pack. His room seems even tinier than when I saw it last, fitted with a small cot that’s not quite long enough to sleep on without curling up.
“Where will we go?” Amma’s has been our home for years. She took us in when I was ten and is more a grandmother to me than anyone who shares my blood.
Pa looks up at me, his hands stilling on the drawstrings of his bag.
The curtain rustles as it’s pushed aside, and Amma enters the kitchen. “Put that bag away,” Amma says, leaning on her cane as she peers down to meet Pa’s eyes. “You think a couple of pretty boys in shoulder pads scare these old bones?”
Pa shakes his head, his black hair falling into his eyes. “I can’t repay your kindness like that.”
“You can if I say so.” Amma’s wispy white eyebrows draw together as she frowns down at him.
Pa almost smiles. It’s not a happy one. “They won’t stop, Amma. Don’t toss away your life for us.” He fixes his gray eyes on me. “By the time I’m back, I want you to be packed.”
Wood cuts into my palms as I grip the edge of the opening tight. “Where are you going?”
Pa glances at Amma, then gestures for me to hop down.
Amma sighs as she leaves us. “This is how they win. How they’ve always won.”
Once the mosscloth curtain falls behind her, I let myself down. A thrill flutters in my stomach to finally be allowed in Pa’s secret lair. Tucking my legs under me, I sit on the cot and face him as the sounds of Amma’s sitar filter down through the dusty air.
“Your mother and I had friends once,” Pa says. “Some of them are still around.”
Once, when they fought in a revolution. Before Ma was lost. “They’ll help?”
“Maybe. We’ll see.”
“I’m sorry, Pa.” I fix my gaze on my hands. I can’t handle seeing the disappointment in his eyes.
He sighs. When it comes, his voice is tired. “It’ll be okay.”
“Will it?”
