“They want to find us themselves.”
“Exactly. If they put out an alert, every cop in West Virginia becomes a sensor. But they also become a variable. Phoenix hates variables.”
He turns the phone screen off. Slides it into his pocket.
“They’re not casting a wide net, Cassie. They’re hunting with a spear.”
“So they know where we are?”
“They know where we’re going. Or they think they do.” He starts the van. “The algorithm is predicting our vectors based onmy history. It knows I like back roads. It knows I avoid cities. It knows I head for deep country when the heat gets high.”
He looks at the map on his knee.
“So we don’t go to deep country.”
“We disappear,” he says. “But not in the silence.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere the algorithm has too much data. Too many faces. Too much chaos.” He backs out of the spot. “Somewhere ghosts can walk in broad daylight.”
“Diego, where are we going?”
He looks at me.
“Philadelphia.”
“Philly? That’s a city. Cameras. Police.”
“Exactly. It’s the last place Phoenix predicts I’ll take you.” He shifts into drive. “We’re going to hide in the noise.”
The minivan lurches onto the road.
I look at the sandwich in my lap. I’m not hungry anymore.
“We’re on our own,” I say.
“We always were.”
“But—”
“Eat. We have a long drive.”
He reaches out. Takes my hand again. Squeezes once.
“I got you.”
And as we merge onto the highway, turning north toward the storm, I believe him.
EIGHT
“The Crossing”
HALO
The Philadelphia skylineis a jagged wound against the gray sky.
Skyscrapers stack against the horizon like a Tetris game gone wrong. It’s dirty, loud, and alive.
