We all turn toward the sound of shuffling feet. Chill’s got one of Poppy’s arms slung over his shoulder, bearing her weight as they hobble toward us.
I run for her, scooping her into a hug. How can it be that we’ve been apart for less than a week? She’s a bird, her bones light as feathers, and I’m terrified I’ll break her. I bite my lip, trying not to cry, because I have already broken her just by bringing her here.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I never would have agreed to go.”
“I know,” Poppy says, brushing a tear from my cheek.
Jack takes Chill in a bone-crushing hug. Chill hangs lopsided in his arms, holding fast to Poppy’s hand. Jack releases him slowly, his gaze lingering on their laced fingers with a curious expression as Chill strokes Poppy tenderly with his thumb. I raise an eyebrow at her through my tears. Her face lights up with a goofy grin, and a choked giggle escapesme. All those late-night arguments they had through video cameras where neither one would be the first to hang up, all those stupid excuses he made for calling our room... How did I never notice before?
“Amber?” Woody murmurs. “Did she see her mom?”
My smile slides away. I’m too close to breaking. I can’t be the one to say it.
Jack clears his throat, the words reluctant to come out. “We were too late. Her mother passed a month ago.”
Woody’s lips part. His Adam’s apple bobs. “Where is she?”
“We don’t know,” Jack says gently. “Chronos’s Guards were close. She never made it back to our meeting point.”
The rasping wheel of Marie’s lighter goes silent. She narrows her eyes at us. “Is Julio with her?”
“The cops were after us. Julio took off on foot to buy us time, and we got split up. We were hoping...” Jack looks back at the canyon, wearing that same unsettled expression he wore when we left the nursing home in Phoenix.
Woody sinks down onto a boulder, cradling the drone in his lap, as if his legs won’t hold him up anymore. Suddenly, I’m grateful just to know where Poppy is. Grateful for whatever small amount of time I might have left with her.
“We were hoping they’d find us here,” Jack says. “We planned to wait for them until morning.”
“And then what?” Marie asks bitterly. “Julio takes the heat so you two can escape, and you’re just going to leave him out there alone?” She mutters a string of expletives. “IfJulio and Amber are alive, they sure as hell aren’t coming here.”
Woody looks up, his long, limp hair falling back from his eyes. “I hate to say it, but she’s right. Amber never intended to leave Phoenix. Her only goal was to see her mother and say goodbye.”
My devastation yields to anger. He’s saying all the same things Jack’s been saying, but that doesn’t make them right. They didn’t see the way Julio and Amber looked at each other. Or the way they danced. The way they kissed. “No,” I say with an emphatic shake of my head. “That may have been her plan in the beginning, but you weren’t with us the last few days. You didn’t see them together!”
“Amber made her choice a long time ago,” Woody says.
“But that wasn’t Julio’s! HebeggedAmber to come back. He didn’twantto be alone.” My eyes well at the memory, my throat burning with guilt. Yes, Julio was devastated. And yes, he made the choice to run rather than get in our car. But he made that choice so we could get away. So Jack and I could be safe. “Marie’s right. If he’s still out there, we owe it to him to find him.”
“How?” Woody asks. “He could be anywhere by now.”
“We can check the police station back in Phoenix,” Chill suggests. “See if he’s in custody.”
Marie rolls her eyes, dragging a cigarette from behind her ear. “Give Julio a little credit, will you?”
“Marie’s right,” Jack says. “We listened to the radio for hours. The manhunt was still going on when we left town.”
Woody tucks the drone under his arm and rises to his feet. “Thenwe’llhave to hunt him.”
“How do you suggest we do that?” Chill asks. “You just said the person most qualified for the job is in the wind.”
A heavy silence falls, broken only by the hum of insects. Up until this moment, none of us has actually come out and said it. The words are gutting, the certainty of Amber’s death suddenly palpable and real.
Woody clears his throat. “We follow the weather patterns. Same as before.”
“That only worked because Poppy knew where Jack and Fleur were heading,” Chill says. “The California coast is huge. If a weird pressure system develops, it could take hours, or even days, to get to it. We might as well throw darts at a map if we don’t know exactly where he’s going.”
Marie scrapes the wheel of her lighter as she steps closer to our group, not quite inside it and not quite apart when she says, “I do.”
42
