“Maybe a little of a loner. A little of a geek, too, but in a really good way. But mostly, you’re the one to rule them all.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, frowning. He laid the last twig and sat next to her.
She laughed. “It’s from Lord of the Rings. You’re not evil, like the ring is in the book. I don’t mean that. I just mean you’re in a category all your own. You’re different. You’ll probably rule over all of us someday: populars, geeks, and jocks combined.”
He thought she meant it as a compliment, but wasn’t sure. Maybe she was laughing at him.
As the sun started to dip in the sky, Jake left the cave again to do a little reconnaissance and retrieve more wood. Harper looked relieved when he returned and said he hadn’t found anything of significance. She helped him stack the armful of wood he brought. For dinner, they shared a can of chicken noodle soup and a sleeve of saltines. Afterward, they drank cool water from a shared cup and continued talking.
As it got darker, their voices gradually grew more hushed and their laughter died. By the time full night settled, they huddled around their tiny fire, and their conversation waned. Jake wondered what she was thinking as she watched the flames so soberly.
“Jake?” she asked after a while.
“Yeah?”
“What’s going to happen to you? After we get to Barterton?”
“I’ll go with you to the police station. Don’t worry. I’ll tell them the truth about Emmitt,” he said, staring at the glowing embers of the fire.
“But . . . what then?” He could tell by the wariness of her hushed voice she hadn’t considered the question before.
“I’ll go back and live with Grandma Rose.”
“But I thought you said she was really sick, and they said you had to go with your uncle or into child services.”
“That was when I was younger and couldn’t take care of myself,” he said dismissively, tamping down his anxiety over the topic. “I’m older now. I can take care of both myself and Grandma Rose.” She didn’t reply. His sideways glance told him she was worried. “They’ll let me stay with Gra
ndma Rose. Don’t worry.”
“But what if they don’t?” she whispered. “You’ll have to do whatever the police tell you to do.”
He shrugged. “I’ll run away, then. I’ll come live here, in the cave.”
“But what about school and everything?”
“Don’t worry about it, Harper,” he repeated shortly. Guilt immediately swooped through him for snapping at her, but he didn’t know what to say to make her not worry. He certainly didn’t have any good answers for her.
He stood and went to his pack, returning with an apple. Neither of them spoke as he retrieved his multi-tool from his jean pocket, extricating the sharp, six-inch blade. The tool was a treasured prize he’d found and claimed after a particularly drunken, wild party at Emmitt’s after a vicious dogfight. He cut off a slice of apple and handed it to her. He cut a piece for himself, then for her again, trading off until only the core was left.
“I’ll tell my parents about everything you did for me,” she said after she’d swallowed her last bite. “I’ll ask them to talk to the police and stuff, try to convince them to let you go stay with your grandma.”
“Thanks,” Jake muttered. In truth, he hadn’t thought much about what would happen once he got Harper to the police. That had become the period at the end of the mission. He didn’t like to think about the fact that he didn’t have a home anymore, and that he’d possibly enter a world of strange adults and the courts and confusing, cold government organizations like Child Welfare Services.
Increasingly, he didn’t like to think about the fact that once he got Harper to the police, her parents would soon be there to claim her and whisk her far off to Washington, DC, where he’d probably never see her again.
“I’m going to tell them about everything you gave up for me,” Harper continued so forcefully that he glanced over at her in surprise. “I’m going to tell them, Jake. Don’t worry. My parents are really nice, for adults I mean. I’m going to tell them that we want to stay friends. You could come and visit me in Georgetown.”
He nodded, because he sensed her excitement on the topic and that she wanted him to agree. He tried to imagine it for a few seconds, him traveling all by himself—maybe in a train?—to Washington, DC, and finally seeing Harper’s big house and her bedroom and the shelves filled with all her books. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t quite picture himself in her world. It was like he couldn’t squeeze the concept of his mean existence into her shiny, clean one.
“I hate being a kid,” he said dully after a moment.
Harper opened her mouth to reply, but that was when they first heard it: the distant, eerie shriek. The hellish sound seemed to echo off the walls and ceiling of the limestone cavern, amplifying it.
Jake leapt up and started feeding the fire, intent on creating a blaze.
“Jake? What was that?”
“Go get more wood,” he told her, stirring the sparking embers forcefully.