The road blurs through tears I didn’t realize I was crying. I blink them away, focusing on the familiar route. Left at the old gas station. Right past the salvage yard. Then the narrow dirt road that leads into the woods behind the clubhouse property.
I know exactly where I’m going.
The hickory grove.
It’s been here forever. A cluster of old hickory trees about a quarter mile into the woods behind the clubhouse, with one massive oak in the center that split decades ago from lightning. The split created a hollow at the base, just big enough for a teenager to crawl into and disappear.
I found it when I was thirteen, the first time Dad and I had a screaming fight about me going to the dance academy. I’d run from the clubhouse, crashed through the woods, and found this place. My secret spot. The only place that felt like mine in a world where everything else belonged to the club.
I park the stolen car at the edge of the dirt road and get out. Someone will find it eventually. Right now I just need to get to the tree.
The walk is brutal. Every step on my surgical boot sends pain shooting up my leg. The physical therapist would kill me if she could see this. But I keep moving, using tree trunks for support, hopping when I have to, until I see the familiar shape of the split oak against the darker woods.
I wedge myself into the hollow, half-collapsing into the sharp smell of dry leaves, remembering how it felt those nights I hid out here, refusing to come home until Dad gave up and sent Bones or Lee looking for me.
The pain in my leg is white hot now. I can’t take it anymore, can’t even pretend I’m following recovery protocol. I dig my fingers under the hard plastic rim of the surgical boot and yank. The Velcro rip sounds like a scream in the muffled woods. I want to join in, scream at the pain, but instead I grit my teeth and keepgoing, peeling the brace off inch by inch, feeling the sharp shift in my joint and the dull fire along my heel. When it’s finally free, I toss the boot into the underbrush, where it thumps and settles, a dark lopsided turtle among the leaves.
I sit there, sweaty and trembling, and pull my knees up to my chest.
The bark is rough against my back. The smell of damp earth and old wood surrounds me. And for the first time since I saw that man’s face, I can breathe.
Sort of.
My hands are still shaking. My heart won’t stop racing. Every shadow looks like a threat.
He was there. At the town meeting. Like he had every right to still exist.
Which means Summit knows exactly where I am. What I’m doing. They’re watching.
And if they’re watching, they can grab me again.
The thought makes my stomach heave. I press my forehead to my knees and try to breathe through the panic.
Bones will find me. He always finds me.
But right now, in this moment, I need to be alone. Need to fall apart in private before I can pull myself back together.
In the distance, I hear bikes. The rumble of engines getting closer, then fading.
They’re looking for me.
Part of me wants to call out, let them find me, let Bones wrap me up and tell me everything’s OK.
But it’s not OK. That man is out there. Summit is still coming for us. And I just proved I’m still the scared girl I always was, running at the first sign of danger.
So much for belonging here. So much for being brave.
I close my eyes and wait in the dark, listening to the distant sound of engines, and wonder how long it’ll take before Bones is crouching in front of me.
23
BONES
The sound of an engine starting cuts through the voices and shouting coming from inside the town hall.
I turn just in time to see taillights—an old Honda sedan pulling out of the parking lot, heading toward the back road.
Emma.
