A week before their high school graduation, Ellie's boyfriend walked her to her door and kissed her goodnight, just like any other night. But there was nothing ordinary about what followed. Austin disappeared without a trace, never to be seen again...
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It was well after two in the morning by the time we pulled up to the cabin. We had done several detours on the way to throw off any potential tails, and stopped halfway to get something to eat and let Bear go to the bathroom. I'd taken over the driving at that point so that my brother could do whatever it was he did on his laptop while Ellie remained in the back with Bear.
"I think they went inside," my brother said after he clicked around for a while.
"Inside our house?" I asked to make sure, figuring he'd watched the surveillance.
"Yeah. There wasn't much stuff left, but I think it's safe to say we can't go back there ever again."
I'd figured as much, but it still bothered me. That house had been our home for three years, and it had been the best one so far.
"Can you tell if they're after us?"
"No. I have no idea what kind of car they have, or if they even have one. They arrived at the house on foot."
"Probably parked down the street."
He grumbled under his breath while his fingers flew over the keys. The cameras didn't reach that far and none of the neighbors had any pointing towards the street.
"I think we have to assume that they do, and that they at least tried to follow us, but hopefully we lost them somewhere along the way."
"Likely," he agreed.
Since we couldn't say for certain that they weren't after us, or that they didn't know about the cabin, I took extra precaution. Although I doubted they knew where we were going. We'd jumped through so many hoops to cover who actually owned the cabin that it should be impossible for anyone other than some major hacker, with talents like my brother, to figure that out. But then they'd found us in Boston, so whoever these men were, they had a lot more skill than the average person.
I kept those thoughts to myself because I didn't want Ellie to worry any more than she already did.
We'd explained some more things to her during the drive, about our background and how we left our parents, and that, more than likely, whoever was after us was actually looking for our father.
Ellie had asked some questions, but spent most of the time petting Bear and whispering encouraging words to him. Which I think was more for her than him.
I had her call both her sister and her parents on my phone when we stopped to get gas to let them know she was okay but had lost her phone. She promised she'd be in touch again over the next day or so once she got a new one. I felt bad that she had to lie to them about what was going on, but she recognized it was for the best.
Both Bear and Ellie had fallen asleep during the last hour of the drive. Him with his head on her lap, and it surprised me how comfortable Bear was with her. He was usually weary of new people, but he'd taken to her like he knew she belonged with us. And damn if it didn't feel like that to me, too.
