Elijah smooths it over the closest branch. Sarah nods in approval.
The garbage bag wilts in Elijah’s hand, shiny and black against the dull paleness of the forest floor. “What’s left?” she asks, praying that things go her way for once.
Elijah takes out a single key attached to a fob.
Her heart stops.
“Should I toss this as well?” he asks, crumpling the garbage bag into his coat pocket.
“No!”
She reaches for the key, but Elijah pulls it back. “You’re not wearing gloves.”
“Ben’s car. I don’t have to take Caleb’s truck. I could take the car to get out of here.”
Elijah shakes his head. “Caleb won’t like that.”
“Fuck what Caleb likes.”Rage first.
Elijah says nothing, only stubbornly presses his lips together. She takes a deep breath. What would Ben do? Make them feel sorry for you. “Elijah. Help me get out of here. Please. I know I’m supposed to be in quarantine at least another week, but we don’t have the time. Caleb says they’re turning on him in town. It’s because I’m here. It’ll be safer for all of us if I go.” She doesn’t have to fake the tears welling in her eyes.
Elijah closes his fingers over the key. “I can’t disobey Caleb. He’s family. He’s all I have.”
Sarah takes a step toward him. What next? Give the love and acceptance they hunger for. Give it and take it away when they don’t do what you want.
Now you get it, Ben whispers.Now you understand.
“Elijah,” She closes a hand over his arm, the arm that holds the key to her freedom. Literally. “I could be your family, too.”
Elijah raises his hand like he’s about to drop the key into her palm, but then withdraws it. “Take me with you,” he says, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He’s so heartbreakingly young. In Jacob Vass’s shearling coat, he looks like a little boy playing dress-up in his father’s clothes. “I don’t want to be left alone with Caleb. You know how he is. The storm inside him—it’s gotten worse lately.”
Do you ever feel like you’re becoming someone you hate?Jacob Vass hangs over the house like a stench. Elijah was worried one day his father would come back, but Jacob already haunts Sweetside Manor.
“I feel bad leaving him, though. I’m the only one who really understands him,” Elijah says. “And I can’t help thinking he’s right I’m better off at home.”
Sarah stares despondently at the paint-stained fist in which the key has disappeared. “That’s what he wants you to think. You’re smart, Elijah. You’ll figure out how to survive outside Sweetside. And I’ll look after you,” she adds, and she means it. She’s already Wendy to his Lost Boy.
“Will you?” He turns his dark, soulful eyes on her. “I’ve been alone for so long.”
Sarah tucks a curl behind his ear. “So have I,” she whispers.
She brushes the spot below his black eye gently with her knuckles. His breath trembles. Closing her eyes, she presses her forehead to his. She cups the back of his neck, and he does the same to her, his latex gloves cool and soothing on her skin.
It feels right, to be twinned like this. They’re two peas in a pod, her and Elijah. Both damaged. But both survivors.
Sarah’s eyes fly open as a metallic jingle interrupts the quiet moment. “Oh, I dropped the key,” Elijah says.
Sarah pulls away from him and starts scrabbling in the snow. She has to find the key first. She’s happy to take Elijah with her, but she’s worried he might withdraw his help if he’s afraid of Caleb.
“Got it,” Elijah says.
Sarah hides her disappointment with a smile, and then a silver glint beyond his shoulder catches her eye. Another key? Another relic of a disappeared man?
“What is that?” She rambles off the path toward the base of a tree. The roots are exposed like veins, the snow mixed with dirt and dead weeds, as if a wild animal—or Elijah—has been digging.
“It’s okay, Sarah. I got it,” Elijah says.
Sarah ignores him, crouching over the little metallic knot shining from the overturned dirt.
