Change of Climate

Untitled Part 8

London thought she would have trouble sleeping. She thought she'd close her eyes and see her father's mangled body again, that she'd be woken up by the echoes of her own screams. Instead, she tumbled headlong into sleep as soon as she got horizontal, apparently finally pushed to the limits by her flight northward. Or maybe she finally felt, weirdly, safe enough in Quinlan's house to let herself sleep.

Whatever it was, she did sleep, but jolted herself awake while it was still in the middle of the night. She felt groggy from the aborted sleep, which hadn't been nearly enough to catch her up, and in the first moment after waking she remembered that her father had been killed and she was completely alone in the world and, well, there was no going back to sleep after that.

London sat up in the unfamiliar room and looked around it. Like every other room in the Meade house, it was crowded with weird knick-knacks from God knew what corner of the world. In the shadows of the moonlight creeping through the room, they made London shudder. Maybe, she thought, she'd just get out of bed and watch television.

London carefully made her way out to the living area, navigating slowly in the darkness. She didn't turn on any lights, partly because she didn't know where they were located and partly because she dreaded having to face such bald brightness. The dimness of the night was creepy but it was also somewhere she could wrap herself and hide herself up. The thought of light seemed harsh.

She was just inside the living area when she thought she heard someone outside. She froze, listening hard, looking toward the front door, but there were no further sounds. Paranoid, she thought. She was getting paranoid and crazy. She exhaled, just realizing she'd been holding her breath.

Quinlan said, "London?"

London jumped a mile, almost toppling over another stupid knick-knack thing on the table behind her. "Oh, my God," she breathed.

"Sorry, sorry, didn't mean to startle you." Quinlan was stretching on the couch under the purple afghan that had been on the squishy armchair, rubbing at his eyes.

"What are you doing out here?" she hissed.

Even in the slight moonlight, London could tell he looked surprised. "My room's all the way on the other side of the house. What good would the baseball bat do you there?" He lifted it up where it had been resting, unnoticed by London, on the floor next to the couch.

London stared at him. "You were serious about the baseball bat."

Quinlan shrugged, looking awkward. "Well, it's the only weapon in the house."

London sighed and settled into the squishy armchair again and pressed her fingers against her temples. "What am I doing? I should never have come here."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because coming here means I've put you in enough danger that you're sleeping on a couch with a baseball bat."

"I'm protecting you," Quinlan said. "I'm not the one in danger."

"Well, now we're both in danger."

"Look, London, I'm not saying that you're not telling the truth about all of this," Quinlan began.

London bristled. "You think I'm lying?"

"No, that's exactly what I said I don't think," Quinlan pointed out, patient and slow, and London thought that he sounded exactly like the damn therapist he was apparently thinking of being.

"Then what do you think?" London demanded.

"I think maybe you might be overreacting? I mean," he backpedaled, hastily, at what London assumed was her thunderous gaze, "not that you could ever overreact to your dad's murder. I just mean, maybe they're not chasing you. Maybe it wasn't about the thumb drive. I mean, why would anyone be after a string of twenty numbers?"

"Because they must mean something," London retorted, swiftly.

Quinlan just looked at her.

"Fine," London spat out. "Fine. You think I'm crazy. Fine."

"London, I don't think—"

"Shh!" London held her hand up suddenly, looking back to the front door. "Did you hear something?"

Quinlan was silent for a moment, listening. He said, "No."

No, she didn't, either. Anymore.

"London," Quinlan said, after another silent second. "I don't think you're crazy. I just think you'd had a bad shock and—"

"Oh," interrupted London, sarcastically, unable to stop herself, because the idea that she had the ability to make sense of her father's murder was the only thing that had been keeping her going here. "Now your freshman psych classes qualify you to give me therapy."

Quinlan looked annoyed, but London never got to hear whatever he was going to say.

Because the house alarm went off.

They looked wide-eyed at each other and then, instinctively, at the front door. But it was still closed, so whatever had caused the alarm to go off was somewhere else in the house.

"Maybe it's—" Quinlan began, in a strangled whisper.

They didn't have time for speculation about this, thought London, and grabbed the baseball bat and walked over to the huge picture window looking out over the backyard and smashed it to smithereens.

Quinlan's mouth dropped comically open. "What the hell—"

"Hurry up," London said, and wasted no time in leaping out the window and running, hoping Quinlan was following her.

The backyard was pitch black and London stumbled over tree roots and flower beds but kept moving at a punishing pace. Eventually she hit a low stone wall, one of the old stone walls that crisscrossed the country side, built to last centuries ago, and she pulled herself up and over it and bit down on a scream when someone grabbed her arm.

Quinlan. "What are you doing?" he hissed.

"Saving our lives," she hissed back. "We've got to keep moving."

"Why?"

"Because they're going to follow us out here. They'll know we came this way, I wasn't subtle with the window."

"One way of putting it," Quinlan muttered. "But, London—"

And then, behind him, the yard flooded into light. Someone had found the back lights and flipped them on.

Quinlan's eyes widened in disbelief.

London said, "Move."

"This way," Quinlan said, and leaped the stone wall and grabbed her hand and pulled her after him.

Quinlan knew the town, knew the ways that the yards connected, knew shortcuts she would never have found. Eventually they found themselves on a remote part of campus that she didn't remember from her time there, huddled in the back of a building by a dumpster.

Quinlan said, confused, "I don't get it. What the hell—"

"They clearly followed me here," said London. "I'm so sorry, Quinlan, I should have thought before getting you involved—"

"Of all the people who need to apologize to me right now," said Quinlan, stonily, "you are not one of them. What the hell could these people want so badly?"

"This," said London, and held up the thumb drive she'd had tucked in her pocket.