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  “He’s having you watched. You have to know that.”

  “Even if he is, I have been so careful. We never go out in public together. Until tonight.”

  “Oh, come on. I’ve seen you trying to be careful, but Novak has got to know by now that you have a boyfriend. God, he probably has someone at the W, reporting to someone else who reports to him. If you’re near John”—Angus spat out the name—“and he does the slightest thing in public that makes him seem like us, Novak will find a way to get to him. You’ve led your father right to him.”

  “John isn’t—”

  “You’re prodding the beast, Julia. You have to leave for the summer. Just until it’s safe.”

  I had no choice but to get gas. I pulled off at an exit and drove into an eerily deserted industrial area. “Why the summer?” I could feel my brain scrambling to make sense of the information.

  “My dad told me where the group is hiding.”

  “Stop! Don’t tell me, Angus. I don’t want to know.”

  “They’re underground in—”

  “Stop talking! I mean it!” I uselessly covered my ears with my hands, letting the car drift smoothly into the next lane. I let it go. Down to the millisecond, I intuitively knew how much time I had until we smashed into the median. Angus knew it too, but it never made it any easier for the passenger.

  “Fine!” he said, impatient. I placed my hands back on the steering wheel. “But you need to know one thing.”

  Angus paused, giving me a last opportunity to shield myself. I remained silent. Finally Angus spoke, “They have a hard deadline. I know because my dad is counting the days until he knows he’ll never see Novak again. It’s September first.”

  “Why September first?” I searched my mind for the relevance of that date.

  “That’s when a mining company begins work close to where they’re hiding. At that point, they need to seal themselves in if they don’t want anyone to come across their spot.”

  Angus rose and rested his chin on the back of my leather seat, speaking softly, close to my ear. “That means Novak only has until September to keep tabs on you and to search for people like us.”

  “What did Lati say? Did Novak plan to search for one person specifically or many?” I refused to name John in this scenario.

  “Both.” Angus’s voice became mocking. “No one believes him by the way—that there are others. But the bad thing is, you and I know he’s right. And deep down Liv knows the truth about your boyfriend. Even if you talked her out of it.”

  We were silent. “You’re going to need to leave soon,” I finally said.

  “Yeah, for sure. And you need to come with me.”

  “This is because you’re lonely. Obviously. You were even doing cheap magic on the street. Trust me, I know—”

  “No, I’m trying to keep Novak far from the Puris who are still left above ground,” Angus said with a sudden force, uncaring that he’d just served up more information than I ever wanted. “Don’t you understand? The closer you are to John, the better the chances that Novak will find him and abduct him and punish you. You need to separate from him if you want to protect all of us. It’s only for the summer, until they’re gone.”

  “We’re fine! I’m about to leave Austin. I’m going to be on the road.”

  “What do you mean ‘the road’?” Angus made quotation marks with his fingers.

  “It’ll be good—nine tournaments in nine different cities across the US for the next eight weeks. I’m going to be using cash only. I can stay under the radar with John.”

  “Wait, so following him around the country to watch him play tennis is safe? People aren’t going to start clueing in to your presence?” Angus laughed in my face.

  I obstinately shook my head, but my tone was gentle. “I’m not going to leave him. There’s no reason, Angus. He’s not one of us.”

  “You have blinders on. What about that guy taking pictures? Something has you scared.”

  “I’ll just be more careful.” I didn’t know for sure he’d been after John’s picture.

  “Why would you risk his life and ours? After this summer, you’re free and you can decide what—or who—you really want. Lie to him if you need to but leave with me.” He lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “Come on, Julia. Come now. You know it’s the right thing to do.”

  The quiet weighed between us. I slowed and edged the car over to an old gas station. The fluorescent lighting was startling. Angus abruptly flung open the car door, and the smell of gasoline permeated the car’s interior.

  “Make up your mind soon. I don’t think you have as much time as you think.”

  The car door slammed. When I whipped my head around, he’d already vanished somewhere in the dark.

  AUGUST, two months later

  JOHN

  I keep thinking about the night you were missing for three hours, after our failed date—was that when Angus came back?

  It had to be. That’s when everything changed. When you finally showed up at my parents’ house, I was so incredibly mad at you. We’d done that camera drill before, but I was just over it. When you wouldn’t even look at me in the street—what if I denied your existence in public that way? And then I had to roll in early on what was supposed to be a big night, and my whole family felt sorry for me. It really made me second-guess who I’d become.

  I was especially pissed because I was going to tell you at dinner all about what was going on with me. Everything I couldn’t explain, everything I was hiding from you. For months I thought I was losing my mind—I looked up schizophrenia—but I kept it to myself because I knew once I told you or my family, I would have to deal with it. But of course deep down I knew there’s you and your family and everything you all can do, and it seemed like you were rubbing off on me. I was going to tell you that night. I was ready…

  JUNE

  Chapter Five

  “Eight to six.” John snatched the putter from Alex’s hand and lofted it into the rusty disc golf basket. The dangling, waving chains gave a piercing clang a moment after John released the disc. “Nine–six. Go.”

  The irritating jangle echoed my mood.

  Alex retrieved the putter and missed. “Whoever gets to fifteen first.”

  “No. To ten,” John said flatly. “Didn’t you used to be good at this?”

  Alex laughed. “Shut up.” He picked up the disc and was handing it to John when I walked out of the shadows and into his line of vision.

  “What the…!” Alex exclaimed. He put a hand over his heart. “You came out of nowhere.”

  I was about to touch Alex’s shoulder in apology but pulled back, unsure if that was too friendly. “Sorry. I heard the chains so I came straight to the backyard. It’s late. I didn’t want to bother your parents.”

  I looked to John. In the dark of their backyard, a cockeyed outdoor fixture the only source of light, he leaned forward and lightly tossed the disc right into the basket.

  “Hi,” I said when he straightened.

  “Hey,” he said normally as if he’d known all along I would appear out of the dark in his backyard at ten-thirty at night after being MIA for three hours and not answering his call or text. But he didn’t make eye contact when he walked past me to the basket. In a moment, I’d worry that he was mad. Later, I’d worry about Angus being in town. At this second, I was so happy to be reminded that this was my real life now.

  The back door opened, and from the house, a smoky voice I didn’t recognize called out, “Boys! It’s too loud. You’ll wake the neighbors.”

  They knew better than to attempt even one last throw. John and Alex stopped the game and walked over to the woman who held the door to the kitchen partway open. John looked back to me, as if he was daring me to follow.

  “Grandma, this is Julia,” John said, outing my presence.

  With no o
ther choice, I walked into the brighter light of the patio. I’d been counting on John thinking it was too late to invite me in.

  I joined them in the cramped kitchen, brushing past John’s grandmother, who held the door open with one hand while dangling a dark brown cigarette in the other.

  I reached out my hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  She certainly didn’t match the stereotype of the tiny, silver-haired Asian grandmother I had pictured in my head. Her age was impossible to guess, her skin was barely lined, and her jet-black hair was gathered in a low twist. Flicking her cigarette outside, she blew clove-smelling smoke out the back door before turning to face me. Her nails were perfectly manicured and painted a chic black.

  She didn’t answer for a moment, sizing me up. I had on the strapless dress that was sexier than what I would have preferred to be wearing in front of John’s parents and grandmother. When I glanced down, I saw bits of dirt stuck to my bare legs and fresh scratches from the highway grasses. I surreptitiously rubbed one leg against the other.

  “I’m Jade,” John’s grandmother finally spoke. I looked away first. I now understood where Taro and John got their poker faces from.

  “Mom, can you close the door when you’re done? Spirit’s going to make a run for it again,” Taro said from where he and Kathleen were standing at the counter cleaning up after a late dinner. “Hi, Julia,” he said.

  “Hi, honey,” Kathleen said to me. I could feel her trying not to look at Taro.

  Unblinkingly, Jade peered at her son. “Why can’t you leave him in the backyard? He’s a dog.”

  “He climbs over the fence. We still need to figure that out.”

  “Your house is too small to have a big dog in it.”

  John had said his grandmother liked to dig at his father for choosing to be a math teacher instead of an investment banker like his uncle.

  “You live in Chicago?” I asked Jade in a cringe-worthy voice that sounded like I was at an audition for the role of “polite girl at dinner party.” I was always afraid I’d slip into what sounded almost like a different language—speaking too fast, in shorthand, the way the Puris often communicated with each other.

  “I do,” Jade said, bending to put out her cigarette in a potted plant on the doorstep. She closed the door and reached just behind me to the dining room table to retrieve her red wine glass, lipstick marking the rim. “When my husband passed away, I thought about moving to Austin to be near my grandsons and my son but it’s too hot here and I can’t leave my friends.”

  “You’ve always lived in Chicago?” I could hear the shade of an accent, and I was trying to find out if she’d emigrated from Japan.

  Jade said, “no” without expounding.

  “She moved from Peru when she was a child,” Taro said, filling in for her brusqueness.

  “What?” I asked, too rudely.

  “She came from Peru?” Taro repeated, unsure if that was what I was asking.

  I took a deep breath, trying to put the brakes on my racing thoughts. “I didn’t know that.” I glanced at John. He knew that was where my people came from.

  John shrugged. “I forgot.”

  “There’s a small Japanese population there that came looking for work,” Taro said. “They mostly farmed and mined for gold. That side of the family lived there for a few generations.”

  “I hear you’re going to Stanford,” Jade interrupted, deflecting attention from herself.

  “No,” I said quickly, though my head was still on Peru. “My application was late, so now I need to go for an interview in person this summer.” This was a strange coincidence. Not just Peru but also the connection to gold mining.

  “You’ll get in,” Jade said.

  An understanding seemed to pass between us.

  “Thank you,” I said. “We’ll see, I guess…”

  Jade still watched me. She had the same high cheekbones as Taro and John.

  “Come on,” John said to me, pointing in the direction of the living room. I noticed he wasn’t touching me.

  John led me to the hunter green sectional, out in the middle of everyone and everything. I perched on one end, and John planted himself on the other, leaving more than ample space between us.

  “Are you mad at me?” I asked, very softly, though that much was obvious. My paranoia worried that he’d somehow sensed I’d been with Angus.

  John’s silence made me take the only action I could. I searched his thoughts.

  I can handle someone taking my picture. What, you’d rather be arrested than be in a picture with me?

  I jerked back. John had never done that before, and it was disconcerting—communicating this way with him. I had silently communicated with the Lost Kids, but it had never been the other way around with anyone. John watched me. He knew I was listening. He also knew I couldn’t reply.

  I mouthed, What are you doing?

  “I know you didn’t want my help, but I wanted to do something,” he said aloud, thankfully. Even if what he had just done was an easily explainable guess on John’s part, after Angus’s warning, I didn’t like it.

  “I know. But it wasn’t bad. The last photographer lingered for a while. But then more people showed up. I guess there must be a bunch of preteens who have some use for my photo. I called Stuart and waited for him inside.”

  “That’s where you were?” he asked. As in, that’s where you were for three hours? And it didn’t answer why I hadn’t texted him back. Knowing John, he would never ask.

  I hated Angus for forcing a secret on me. “Yes,” I said, stepping over a line.

  John watched me for a second like he knew I was hiding something and then stared down at the low, square coffee table. He was stressed, and I realized he was not only mad, but he’d also been worrying. When he focused on me again, I saw that he’d decided to trust me. In that moment, I knew I wasn’t good enough for him.

  John moved closer to me on the sofa. “I don’t care if we’re on every magazine cover together.” He sounded like he was challenging me, but it was also a pretty romantic thing to say.

  John’s parents and Jade were still in the open kitchen, not even pretending they weren’t listening to our conversation.

  “I do care,” I finally said, knowing he would be annoyed. But I wouldn’t tell John what had really scared me—that the man who had taken his photo hadn’t felt like paparazzi. At that thought, I felt the truth of Angus’s warning before I shoved it down.

  I expected John to grow suddenly distant the way only he could when we disagreed about being a couple in public. He surprised me by silently saying, What is going on with you? There’s something you’re not telling me.

  “Okay, lovebirds,” Alex said, entering the room, “you know Mom and Dad are standing right there.” His expression was strange, as if he didn’t like something he was seeing.

  I drove two hands through the sides of my hair and stood up. “It’s almost eleven. I should go. You’ve got to leave early for Dallas tomorrow.” To Kathleen and Taro, I said, “Sorry for the late visit.”

  Taro set down the sponge he was using on the dining room table. In profile, he looked exactly like John, except for the grey running through his black hair. “You know you’re welcome anytime, Julia.”

  I cleared my throat. “Thank you for having me,” I said.

  You don’t need to be so nervous around them.

  I turned and stared at John. Now he was making me nervous. He stood up and draped his arm around my shoulder, as if he was trying to tell me that I belonged.

  Kathleen stood farther back at the sink and remained quiet. What were they supposed to say to me? I’d disappeared halfway through the graduation party for their son, and then tonight I’d ended John’s date with me before it started.

  I was sure I came off as a freak. I didn’t know what to say that would make
me seem like a normal, likeable person. Everything I said to them came out sounding odd.

  Then Kathleen surprised me by crossing over to us, wiping her wet hands on the back of her jeans. She wore an orange T-shirt with a lion mascot on it from the school where she worked. When I’d first met Kathleen, she’d been easy for me to sum up as a strict mother and a competent school administrator. Now I had a fuller view of her, how self-possessed she was, how her presence made every room she walked in to better. I thought of my severely elegant stepmother and how Kathleen had become so much more beautiful to me. John made jokes about keeping his parents happy as long as he won matches, but as an outsider watching Kathleen and Taro with their kids, I knew they cared beyond just supporting Alex and John’s ambitions. They were just in a tough position because sports scholarships and being debt-free could make a huge difference in the boys’ lives.

  John moved partially in front of me, like he wanted to shield me, which proved to me he was worried his mother didn’t like me.

  “That must have been frightening tonight,” Kathleen said in a sincere tone, the one I was sure she used in her vice principal job.

  “It was fine. I’m used to it. I just don’t like dragging John into it.” Lately, the few times I’d seen her, I’d wanted to receive some of the caring she showed her kids and even August. But I knew I was different. I didn’t invite that in people.

  Kathleen nodded, agreeing with me completely. I should have been happy she backed me up in front of John, but illogically I was a little offended.

  “Julia, if you need it—John’s probably told you—my sister lives on a farm in Ohio. She’d be happy to have you if you wanted to go somewhere private this summer.”

  I was taken aback at both the kindness and the suggestion of a change in plans. After a second, I said, “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll weather the storm. Things will get better when I leave Austin, I’m sure.” I watched John for his reaction to his mother’s words.