Will I ever see him again?
“Rory, do I really have to?—?”
“Go,”he said. “I’ll be fine, Eva.Please.”
It was thatpleasethat got her feet moving. The next thing she knew she was sprinting down the alleyway, back toward the old paper company. If she cut through the field she could make it to the bus stop by the school and be halfway to 30thStreet Station before anyone thought to look for her.
She did her best to push the panicked feeling aside. Instead, she focused on that picture of Sam and her sister.
Once she got to Trinity Falls, she would be safe.
4
EVANGELINE
An hour later, Evangeline watched the city melt away as the train rumbled down the tracks, her heart still pounding as she thought of her brother.
He’ll be okay,she told herself.
But she wasn’t sure that was true. Most people adored her brother within a few minutes of meeting him. But the police wouldn’t give him a chance to show them who he was. To them, he would just be another troublemaker.
Rory was probably in a jail cell right now, and she wasn’t there to bail him out, or to explain to anyone who would listen that he was a selfless man who had given his life to ensure that she had one.
She itched to pull out her phone and try to find out what was happening. Even if she couldn’t reach Rory, Rooster would probably know what was going on by now, and know if there was anything she could do.
But the only thing Rory had asked of her was that she turn off her phone and run. She knew from TV showsthat the police could locate mobile phones. She didn’t think the Vagabonds had that kind of technology. She honestly doubted that any of them could work a toaster oven. But all it took was for one of them to have a cousin on the force…
She decided to keep her phone off—just in case.
When I get there I’ll find a way to help him.
But “there” was a relative term. She had found the Trinity Falls stop on the train schedule, but she had never been this far out of the city before and she had no idea where to even find Sam and her sister in the little village.
Without her phone, she couldn’t even look Sam up.
I’ll get off the train and I’ll ask for the veterans center,she told herself firmly.It’s a small country town. People will know where everything is.
But as the buildings shrank and the suburban sprawl stretched out the windows and the afternoon sun began to sink, Evangeline grew more certain that she was going to reach Trinity Falls and find the center closed already, leaving her with no hope of getting any answers until the morning.
She spentthe rest of the ride trying and mostly failing to come up with some better plan. By the time the train finally pulled into the station, the sky was a deep, dark blue and snow flurries were drifting down.
Evangeline stepped onto the platform just as all the streetlamps popped on one by one, like the will-‘o-the-wisps in the fairy tale book Rory used to read to her, showing her the way to the center of the tiny village.
A candy cane decoration hung from each lamppost, and pretty lights were strung around the display windows of all the shops and the smaller windows of the apartments above. She smiled, thinking about how much the kids she babysat would love this kind of thing.
A pang of guilt twisted her stomach as she thought about the Andersons noticing tonight that she hadn’t come home. She doubted this town was big enough to have any kind of internet cafe, but it probably had a library. Hopefully, she could sign into email tomorrow morning and let them know there had been a family emergency and she couldn’t come back to work for a while.
They would find someone to take her place quickly. Plenty of nannies would love to live in that pretty attic room and take care of their boisterous, good-natured children. Evangeline knew how lucky she was, and hoped she wasn’t burning any bridges with them.
She hurried down the platform after the other travelers. A cold, sweet breeze swirled around her, lifting her hair from her shoulders. Tiny flurries kissed her cheeks, and she ducked her head down to follow the small crowd.
Now would be a good time to ask someone about the center, but they all seemed to be in such a hurry. She felt shy about stopping anyone.
Besides, the town didn’t look too big, maybe she could find it without help.
The platform led to a crosswalk, and since everyone else was crossing the street, Evangeline did too.
The happy sounds of people up ahead had her looking up to see one or two of the other passengers being greeted by their families, who had been waiting on the sidewalk for the train. It was such a wholesome sight that Evangeline found herself smiling again, in spite of all her worries.
