The Greater Good

1. The Great Escape

The first time I left home, I was nine years old. I went straight to the bridge in central park and hid beneath it for hours. People with flashlights came by calling out my name. Every time the light got too close, I would hold my breath and sink deeper into the darkest corner where all the spiders and monsters hid.

I can't even remember why I ran away in the first place. My home wasn't terrible. Maybe I just wanted attention. Or maybe I was trying to outrun Noah's shadow. Not that I had anything against Noah-- he is the only person who has ever cared about me. Unfortunately, his undying love for his little sister made him even more perfect, and you can't hate someone for being a good person.

Eventually, a young police officer found me. He bribed me out from under the bridge by letting me wear his jacket and his badge. He even let me ride in the front seat of his cruiser. Instead of taking me to the station, he took me straight home and told my parents that I had gotten lost on the way to the park. To the officer's surprise, neither of my parents even knew I was gone. It was Noah that had called the police and told them that his little sister had run away. The officer refused to let go of my shoulder until I had given him a small smile and a nod.

When I was twelve, we moved away from my hometown of Seattle due to my dad's job transfer. I don't remember much about his transfer, but I remember he was pretty torn up about it. His entire life's work had to be abandoned because the funding for his research had been taken away. He ended up leaving Pierce Labs and relocating to a different lab in a different city.

Noah and I took the move pretty hard. We didn't want to leave our friends behind and start at new schools halfway through the year. Noah was especially angry because he was on the varsity football and baseball teams. His teams were good, too-- they were on their way to the State Championships for football and a majority of the seniors on his baseball team were being recruited. Noah thought his future was reliant on those teams and leaving all his teammates behind was heartbreaking for him.

Though I wasn't as popular as Noah, I still had people that I didn't want to leave behind as well. In Seattle was the dance studio that I had been training at since I was three years old. Everyone at the studio had become my second family. We were only a few weeks from the competition season when we finally moved. I watched as they restructured some dances and completely replaced me in others. In a way, that hurt me more than the move itself.

Most importantly, Noah and I were leaving our best friend behind: Everett Pierce. He was the son of James Pierce, who was my father's research partner and owner of Pierce Labs. While our fathers were working, the three of us were often thrown together. Noah and I had grown so close to Noah and me that we thought of him as a sibling. When we found out we were moving, we tried to convince our parents to let him come with us. Naturally, they said no. Though I was expecting that answer, it was still hard to hear.

The next time I ran away, I was fourteen. This time, I had the beginning of a plan. I had bought a bus ticket to Seattle and I planned on going to my brother's dorm. He had just left for college a few months prior and he had told me he wasn't planning on coming home for Christmas. I remember being hurt that he wanted to leave me behind, and I wanted to prove to him that I needed him to come back home.

When I got to the bus stop, the same officer was sitting on the bench waiting for me. It wasn't uncommon to see him around; I lived in a small town and there weren't many officers. But he wasn't there by chance. My mother had seen me leave from her bedroom window. I thought both my parents had been asleep when I left the house.

"You're running away?" the officer had asked me. The bus pulled up and he stood to place himself between me and the doors. When I nodded, he crossed his arms over his chest and looked down on me with a disapproving stare. "Look, I'm not gonna stop you. You're old enough to make your own decisions."