You Never Know Who to Trust

What's in Virginia Beach

Chubs was in the front seat folding and unfolding something in his lap, over and over again, almost like he didn't realize he was doing it.

"Will you cut that out?" Liam burst out, agitated. "You'll rip it."

Chubs stopped immediately. "Can't we just try? Do we need the Slip Kids for this?"

"Do you really want to risk it?"

"Jack would have."

"Right, but Jack..." Liam's voice trailed off. "Let's just play it safe. They'll help us when we get there."

"If we get there," Chubs huffed.

"Jack?" Ruby said.

"It's none of your business," Chubs said, and left it at that.

Liam was only a little more forthcoming. "He was our friend in our room at camp, I mean. We're trying, we're just trying to get in touch with his dad. It's one of the reasons we need to hit up the Slip Kids."

Ruby nodded toward the sheet of paper. "But before you guys broke out, he wrote a letter?"

"The three of us each did," Liam said. "In case one of us backed out at the last minute and didn't want to come or didn't make it out."

"Which Jack did not." Chubs's voice could have cut steel. That's sad, I Behind him, house after gorgeous colonial house passed in rapid-fire succession, their colors winking at us through her window.

"Anyway." Liam cleared his throat. "We're trying to put his letter in his dad's hands. We tried going to the address Jack gave us, but the house had been repossessed. He left a note saying he was going to D.C. for work, but no new address or phone number. That's why we need the Slip Kid's help to find where he is now."

"You can't just mail it?" Ruby asked.

"They started scanning mail for this exact reason about two years after you went to Thurmond," Liam explained. "The government reads all, speaks all, and writes all. They've crafted a lovely little story about how we're all being saved and reprogrammed back into sweet little darlings at camp, and they don't want anyone to get wind of the truth."

I honestly had no idea what to say to that.

"Sorry," Ruby mumbled. "I didn't mean to give you a shakedown about it."

"It's okay," Liam said, after the silence had stretched to the point of breaking. "It's fine."

There wasn't a way to explain how I knew. Maybe it was the way Liam's emotions changed to a panicked state, or how his whole demeanor shifted or how he kept glancing in his side mirror throughout the conversation, long after a silver car had passed us from the other direction. It could have been the way his shoulders sagged, sloping down in a way that was so defeated. I just knew, long before I caught his worried eyes in the rearview mirror.

Slowly, without disturbing Zu and Chubs as they watched an endless stream of forest pass by the side windows, Ruby crouched between the two front seats again. I could tell we were the only ones who noticed.

Ruby met my gaze for a split second, nodding in the direction of Liam's side mirror. See for yourself, she seemed to say. So I did.

Trailing behind us, back about two car lengths, was an old white pickup truck. With the rain fogging up the air between the two cars, I couldn't tell if there were one or two men inside. They looked like little more than two black ants from where I was sitting.

"Interesting," Ruby said, keeping her voice even.

"Yep," Liam said, his jaw clenched. The muscles of his neck strained. "Gotta love West Virginia. Glorious Mountain State. Land O'Many John Denver Songs."