I realized I was gripping the padded dashboard and the armrest on the door, my fingers digging in.
Whyhadthe town let me go? By Olivia’s explanation, which made an uncomfortable sense, I should have had the same reaction to approaching the town limits that Olivia had described, because Ghaliya was in the car with me.
The town wanted me. It had arranged to have my mother killed in order to bring me here. Why would it just…let me go?
There was a spot on my cheek that tingled. Still. I sheered away from what that might mean.
…those sort of bonds…they take time.
Or did they?
The town was ruthless. It wasn’t human, so it had no human morals or empathy. It cared only for its own preservation and for some reason, it needed people to do that. It understood people and their connections to each other enough to manipulate us. To make us stay where it needed us. It knew us better than we knew ourselves, because we had weaknesses and blind spots. We are so very good at denying what is too painful or scary to acknowledge. And the older we get, the better we become at hiding from what we don’t want to deal with. Experience, scars and old pains teach us how to do it.
“The road to Edwards,” Olivia announced with a touch of relief. She slowed the car even more. The strip of highway in front of us was well-plowed. To the left, about a mile away, I could see the first houses of the town.
I let out an unsteady breath, my heart hurting. My breath shallowed. My head hurt.
Olivia turned on the indicator and looked both ways. The indicator was for the right, and the road to Syracuse and the airport.
I watched her knee lift a little as she took her foot off the brake, to shift it to the gas pedal.
“Turn around,” I gasped. It came out just above a whisper.
“Yes!” Ghaliya cried in the back seat.
“What?” Olivia asked.
“Turn around,” I repeated, my throat aching from the two simple words.
Ghaliya was bouncing in the back like a little child. “Yes, yes, yes!!” She pummeled the seat.
Olivia put her foot on the brake once more and looked at me. “Are you sure?” She didn’t add all the other things she could have.Have you thought this through? What have you left behind that is drawing you back? What does the town know better than you?
“I’m scared right down to my crappy boots,” I told her. “I’m not even a little bit sure. I just know that there’s no point in leaving.” I didn’t bother wiping away my tears.
Olivia cleared her throat, then glanced along the highway in both directions. “This car doesn’t exactly turn on a dime,” she muttered. “Let’s see.”
It was a seven-point turn, but she got the car around, and steered it back onto the unplowed road to Haigton Crossing.
I turned and looked at Ghaliya. “You understand what this means, don’t you? You may end up never being able to leave.”
“Don’t care,” Ghaliya told me. Her face was glowing. “You don’t know how sucky it was in San Francisco, Mom. How sucky it’s been since high school. But in the Crossing, it’s…peaceful.” She put her hand to her belly. “And in the Crossing, I feel like…well, anything is possible.”
I drew in a breath. “You might be right.”
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