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  Angus shook his head at the men, at the bar in general.

  “Come on,” I said.

  Angus looked hard at the people watching us for a couple more seconds, then relented and began to walk slowly with me to the exit.

  We’d almost made it out of the swinging doors when the bartender rushed toward us, then halted to keep a healthy distance between us.

  “You!” His voice shook with so much emotion that I slowed to hear what he had to say.

  “Don’t come back.” He pointed at us. “We’ve seen your kind before and you’re not welcome here.”

  “What the fuck?” Angus muttered.

  Once we were out of sight, we began running to the motel.

  “Get your stuff,” I said. “I’ll meet you at the car in five minutes. Dammit. Now we need a new car.”

  “What do you think he meant?” Angus asked, fascinated.

  “I have no idea. Go!”

  “Sleeping Beauty!”

  “What?” I snapped, shifting in the passenger seat. I must have spaced out. That’s all I wanted to do now—retreat and pretend this road trip had never happened. It was too confusing. I had a plan and that should have been it. But thinking I could cut Angus out from the rest of my life was getting harder to imagine.

  “Hey, no need to take it out on me. Let it go. I’m not worried. They can’t prove anything.”

  I looked out the window. Every mile turned our mountainous scenery to desert as we descended into Utah. “We need to change cars in Salt Lake.”

  “Yes, we do.” Angus seemed almost happy.

  “Am I only contributing to your reckless thrill-seeking?”

  “Yes, you are. Ha! I can’t believe you were the one who made the mistake!”

  “What if the FBI finds you? God, why did I do that?”

  “Because Novak never taught us how to properly use our abilities. That’s what he held over us—that he was going to teach us. Now, we have to figure it out on our own. And if you hadn’t done what you did, we never would have heard what that guy had to say about ‘our kind.’ ”

  Angus had been fixated on that point, asking me over and over again what I thought he’d meant.

  He slowed the car, taking in the barren, desert scenery. I noticed the wild rock formations in the distance. “Arches,” he said, pleasure in his voice, pointing to the sign for Arches National Park.

  “No, we’re not going. I’m done with being tourists.”

  “What’s waiting for you in California? No one. Nothing.” Angus started putting his flip-flops on while driving, and the car jolted, slow and fast, in response.

  “I have that interview at Stanford in a few weeks,” I said, pulling on a loose khaki thread from my shorts.

  “We need to look into that address.”

  “What address?”

  “Your mother.”

  My stomach clenched. Lifting my elbow to the narrow window ledge, I rested my cheek in my hand.

  Angus shifted, taking one hand off the wheel. “After what that bartender said, I really want to see your mother. What if there are more people like us?”

  “John,” I said.

  “No. I mean that guy at the bar made it sound like groups of people. Like us. The way we were, I mean.”

  “Novak would have known.”

  “He’s not perfect.”

  I prayed that was true.

  “So, are you still in a rush to get out to Cali?” Angus raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Fine,” I said, pissed. Angus steered us toward Arches.

  When I stepped out of the car, the panoramic view became real, finally capturing my full attention. There was nothing around us except space and sky and rock formations in the distance, standing like odd, giant ghosts. The world was so much bigger than me.

  Angus put his arm around me, and I allowed myself to rest my head on his shoulder. We stood there, quiet, taking in the view, but it was also as if we were listening. If I wanted to forget my troubles, even temporarily, this was the place, under the enormous sheltering sky.

  JULY

  Chapter Fifteen

  “This way.” I tilted my head to the entrance of the one story, nondescript branch of the Salt Lake City public library. Not one person looked up as we walked through the sensor even though it began beeping ferociously when Angus took his turn.

  “Keep going,” intoned an older man at the front desk, as if this were a normal occurrence. But my heart was still pounding.

  I looked up for any cameras in the corners of the room. There was one old one. Angus wore a baseball hat, ignoring the sign that said please remove all hats. The screens of the two old Macs at the back of the small library faced the entire room. Angus whispered the address associated with Elizabeth Blackcomb, and I glared at him, annoyed he would think I wouldn’t remember.

  “What?” Angus shrugged. “I have no idea what parts of your brain you’re acknowledging at this point.”

  I knew I needed to bury my abilities again—the scare at the bar had told me that—but I hadn’t yet. I was putting it off, knowing how much it was going to hurt.

  “Stop chewing your nail. It’s slovenly. When did you pick that up?”

  I hadn’t realized it, but I probably had a whole host of new habits.

  “I think we’re a bit slovenly in general right now,” I said, pointing to our wrinkled clothes thanks to driving through the night.

  “Never,” Angus said. For him, a pureblood, it was the truth. Me on the other hand…he’d reminded me I was all too ordinary in comparison to him.

  I took a seat at one computer and Angus sat at the other.

  “Let me do this,” I said.

  “Then do it. Just type it in and print out directions. See what a pain it is when you don’t have a real phone?”

  I quickly typed in the address and felt gross doing it, like I was going one step deeper, committing. Angus paced behind me, hands shoved in the pockets of his dirty designer jeans. Per usual, his actions spoke louder than his words and shitty tone and he came to stand behind me, putting his hands on my shoulders. It was becoming second nature to rely on him. I was growing used to being with him for almost every second of every day.

  “Hit print.”

  “God, you are too much.”

  “What? I’ll go get it. Where the hell is it?” Without waiting for my comment, Angus walked off in search of our printed directions. Good, he could hold on to them. I had another couple of days before I had to think about possibly finding her.

  While Angus was across the room, I quickly did a search for John’s tennis results. A photo of him at the Clay Court Championships popped up, taken just the other day.

  I made it larger, waiting for the pixels to arrange themselves on the old computer. I scooted back in my chair to gaze at my boyfriend. It was a beautiful picture taken by a professional photographer.

  John stood with one arm fully extended, racket held straight up to the sky. From the stance on his back foot, heel off the ground, it was clear he was serving.

  The photo showed not only how attractive he was but that he was nearing peak physical performance. It hit me that John had the makings of the perfect tennis star: great looking, modest, and consistently getting results so far this summer. He should slow down. He was becoming too noticeable.

  I scanned his results. Sure enough, he’d won the entire tournament. That was his first national tournament. And he’d said he wasn’t comfortable playing on clay.

  Angus walked up with pages in one hand. “Does it smell like peanut butter in here to you?”

  I swiftly collapsed my search and cleared the history. “What, are you finally hungry?”

  Angus lifted his shirt and rubbed his stomach, deliberately showing off his washboard abs.

  “Maybe?” He looked genuinely perplexed
, not used to the feeling.

  “You at least need some nutrition. My dad—” I stopped. I’d been about to bring up the chlorophyll drinks he seemed to endorse by always having one in hand.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know what you were going to say.” Angus glossed over my words for my sake. “Fine, I’ll let you buy me something at a gas station.” We were speaking in whispers; even more than whispers, I realized we were speaking the way our people used to—so fast and quiet it sounded like a code with our letters and sounds dropping and blurring

  “I’m going to go use the bathroom,” I said.

  “Okay, hurry up. We need to figure out if we want to stay somewhere in the city tonight.”

  Walking partway through the dark, low-ceilinged library, I realized I needed my bag. I returned to the computer stations and found Angus typing furiously on one of them.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  He’d felt me coming and had already collapsed the window he was using. “Nothing. Weren’t you going to the restroom or something?”

  “Are you checking email?” I asked incredulously, brushing the hair out of my face.

  “Get out of here, okay? It’s how I stay in contact with my parents.”

  “Ah. Sorry.” Of course. I hadn’t even thought about that. I walked away, giving him some privacy.

  When I returned, Angus was still at the computer. I stopped in my tracks and then spun around when I saw what was on the screen. I left the building for some air.

  I was temporarily blinded by the bright daylight and sat on the edge of a brick planter in the shade to wait.

  What was he doing? Why did he need to look at pictures of her? I wanted to un-see all of them. His screen was filled with a row of images of Liv and search results that contained the words “seventeen, daughter, missing.” I could look at the picture of John endlessly, but I couldn’t, even for one second, look at one of Liv.

  Eventually Angus appeared. “Why did you leave like that? I just wanted to see what was being said about the kids. Of course, she’s the most famous one.”

  I didn’t answer him.

  “You can’t even look at her?”

  “That’s not her,” I finally said.

  Angus stood tall in front of me, blocking the sun. “Oh, excuse me, you can’t even look at pictures of her?”

  I didn’t know what to say. Angus watched me for a second and then took a seat next to me.

  “What’s wrong?” he finally asked.

  I shook my head. He should understand how shocking that had been—it was one thing to talk about them, another thing to see a picture. I didn’t know how to file them away, and every day I tried something new. Seeing Liv again toppled my house of cards.

  “She’s not dead,” Angus said.

  I shrugged.

  “You feel like you didn’t do right by her?”

  “Are you saying I should feel guilty?” I asked, rearing back to look at him.

  “Keep your voice down.” Angus scanned the area around us. “No, I just wonder what it’s like for them. If it feels right. I hope so. Who knows? Maybe we’re the idiots and that was the place to be.”

  I stood. “Let’s go.”

  Angus followed me to our newest car. I kept seeing Liv’s face. One of the photos had been taken just before they left—a school photo. In her eyes, you could see the real Liv despite the fake persona all of us had inhabited at school. Her blue eyes had the spark that showed who she really was: joyful.

  We drove aimlessly, searching for a place to stay. I knew we should check in to a hotel so I could call John and hear about his big tournament win.

  “Let’s just drive straight,” I finally said.

  “Really? What’s the rush?”

  “I want to get off the road. It’s too hard to lie to him.”

  “Fine,” Angus said. I was surprised he didn’t argue.

  “They’re in paradise,” I said it like I needed him to confirm it.

  Angus didn’t say a word.

  Next stops: Reno and then San Francisco. Thirteen more hours total. It was easier to just get it done and finish this road trip.

  It was hard to imagine not traveling all day, every day in a car, living with this strange kind of rhythm. We stopped briefly in Reno so I could stretch my legs and use the restroom. Angus got out to get gas, but other than that I was glad to see he stayed in the car. He still turned too many heads. Even in a hat, sunglasses, and dirty clothing, he looked like a movie star.

  In a grimy rest stop bathroom, I used my elbow to run the faucet, washing my face and drying it with stiff paper towels. I looked at my flip-flops. I’d come a long way. Julia Jaynes from a year ago would not have been comfortable using a dark highway bathroom, with its leaking toilets and wet floors. Less than a week on the road was all it had taken.

  Shaking my hair out of its ponytail, I tried to comb through the tangles with my fingers. There was no longer a trace of makeup on my face and I’d worn the same army green tank top for three days in a row. The designer clothes and diamond bracelet I had worn in high school were long gone. Maybe that should all be dropped permanently now. California was mere hours away. It was supposed to be a place for a new start.

  When I exited the restroom, I had to navigate around two retractable dog leashes. Two older women with two poodles milled outside the bathrooms, talking while their little dogs sniffed the brown weeds.

  “Sorry, Hon, can you get around?”

  “Yes, no problem.” I smiled slightly. One of the women suddenly elbowed the other.

  “You know who you look like?” one of them said to me a second later.

  I shook my head quickly, continuing to walk.

  “That heiress. You know who I’m talking about, right?”

  “From that weird cult they’re trying to hunt down,” the other woman said.

  “Ha!” was my only acknowledgment. I walked to the car, got in, and locked the door. “Someone recognized me.”

  Without a word, Angus started the car and carefully drove out of the rest stop. Once we were back on the freeway, he sped up.

  “What’s wrong?” Angus asked, sensing my moodiness.

  “I thought I was unrecognizable.” I gestured to my dirty clothes. “I keep having fantasies that I’ll go to college and blend in,” I admitted, wishing I could take it back the second I said it.

  “Yeah, that’s never going to happen,” Angus said bluntly. “You are who you are.”

  But I didn’t want to be that person anymore. “I’m trapped. We’re trapped.”

  “You look pretty free to me right now,” Angus said, an edge in his voice.

  I had to be careful because technically, I was a lot freer than he was. “Don’t you ever get mad? That we can’t just be like other people?”

  “Am I mad I’m a Puri? No.” There was a pause. “It’s the honor of my life.”

  It was the most sincere thing I thought I’d ever heard him say.

  It’s a curse, I wanted to say. Angus didn’t understand. He would have been happy if we roamed the world like Bonnie and Clyde for the rest of our lives. And even though I could see the appeal of that I knew that if I wanted to be with the love of my life, I had to make it work in John’s world.

  I was driving, three hours out from Palo Alto, when Angus said, “We’ll drop you at your hotel and figure out a meeting place for tomorrow.”

  “What? Where are you going?”

  “I said I’d see you tomorrow.”

  “So we have a little more time together?”

  “Sure.” Angus kept his voice perfectly unemotional.

  I found myself getting worked up, already thinking about not having him nearby.

  “You know you’ve been emotionally cheating on him, right?” Angus said, picking at me, the only indication that he didn�
��t like the thought of us separating.

  “Emotionally cheating?” I scoffed.

  “Yep. What else do you call this? Sharing hotel rooms, being together twenty-four hours a day. I know you better than he ever will. Except in the biblical sense, but we can change that whenever you’re ready. I’m a gentleman.”

  “You’re not a gentleman.” I tried to deflect by joking.

  “Julia.” His voice was serious, not letting me escape the conversation. “You’re lying to him.”

  I was glad I could keep my eyes on the road. “Angus,” I said, using his name in return. “You’ve given me no choice. When you showed up, you knew you put me in that position.”

  “Facts are facts. You’re here with me, not him, and he has no idea.”

  “Way to push me away.”

  “I’m doing the opposite. I’m reminding you who you’re naturally supposed to be with. You can’t even be in the same room with him. Something’s got to give. You change yourself or you change him. Or you do neither and stay with me.”

  That was so Angus. He had started out attacking me and ended with offering himself to me.

  “You know—”

  “I’m the one who can protect you. I’m the one who nursed you back to full health when you were making yourself sick. Just…how about you don’t say anything? Not right now.”

  Right then and there I knew I should tell him we were done once we arrived in the Bay Area. If I wanted to start over for real that was the thing to do. But I didn’t say another word.

  AUGUST, one month later

  JOHN

  US National Clay Court Champion: John Ford. That was unexpected.

  My spirits picked up a little bit, but I pretended things weren’t looking sharper again.

  Nightly, I was also playing and winning a lot of poker against Alex and some kids we’d known for years on the tennis circuit. Everyone’s tell was broadcast loud and clear to me. I could see things other people couldn’t. I was starting to have more fun, joking around with friends. Those are the fun parts of this thing—having people look up to you, winning every damn thing. No wonder you and your friends had an attitude.