The Chosen (A Talents novel)

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

We changed cars just before we crossed the border into Idaho, but that car only had a quarter tank of gas, so we had to try again about a hundred miles later. When we got to the place where Izzy thought there would be a car, the house looked abandoned, with no car in sight. Instead, I hid in the trunk while he filled up at a gas station. The whole thing was so bizarre, I almost wanted to laugh. I wondered how the people who owned the cars got them back, and whether they were all part of the Irin, or if, like Izzy suggested, some of them were just “friends” who were willing to help out, for some reason.

We turned on the radio to hear if they were still following us, and turned it off just as fast. Because they were. And it didn’t really do us much good to think about that.

Izzy bought a huge bottle of pop, a box of crackers, and a big bag of chips at the gas station. I was still feeling sick, especially after breathing in the gas fumes while they were filling the tank, so I didn’t eat much. Izzy powered down his share in a few minutes flat. I guess he was hungry.

I wondered if he’d ever held someone while they died, but I didn’t want to ask. I felt like I’d already pushed his boundaries with my questions about the Irin. Still, something in my gut said he had. He just seemed so unfazed by everything that was happening. The strange sense of ease I’d felt with him ever since we met had just gotten stronger. When I woke up sweating from a nightmare, with Cam and Mr. Judan and spreading bloodstains on a white t-shirt, he reached over and put his hand on my shoulder.  And his touch made me relax, if only just a little.

The sun set, and the roads became dark. We didn’t talk much. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to say, and he seemed to feel the same. I asked him if there was any way for me to talk to Grandma, but he said no. Not now, anyway. Once we got to camp we could arrange to have a message sent to her. I had to hope that the woman I’d asked to call her had done so, and she’d heard the sound of the ringing phone in the night, and understood what it meant.

The road we were on turned from a windy, two-lane highway to a single blacktop road, and then to gravel. Izzy turned on his high beams, and twice we had to stop for deer in the road.

We bumped down the gravel road for another hour before coming to a line of red reflectors that marked the edges of a large parking lot. There were no overhead lights, but before Izzy turned off the car headlights, I caught sight of a handful of wooden cabins silhouetted against the night sky.

“We made it,” Izzy said, blowing out a breath. “We can finally relax.”

“What is this place?” I asked.

“Camp.” He smiled, and white teeth gleamed in the dim light. “Not very creative, I suppose. But it works.”

Izzy pushed open his door and stepped outside, and I did the same, filling my lungs with the smell of pine and earth. A creek murmured somewhere nearby. There were stars in every direction, the sky so clear and dark the Milky Way glowed a wide path of silver dust.

Everything was still.

“Who lives here?” I asked

“Mostly kids,” Izzy said. “People who need somewhere they can be safe.”

I guess I should have felt some kind of relief. But instead of relaxing and breathing freely for the first time in twenty-four hours, the sudden absence of movement and noise had the opposite effect. Tears instantly built up behind my eyes, and I had to steel my jaw and blink furiously in an effort to suppress them.

A second later, someone trained a flashlight on us, and a female voice called out, “Who’s there?”

“It’s Ishmael and Dancia. Is that Callie?”