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“I…I don’t know how,” I whisper, panicked. “We
shouldn’t--”

She grabs my
shirt, pulls it recklessly over my head, and she rubs against me, warmth on
warmth, skin on skin. God…I’m going to explode right now. I can’t stop. I’m
caught up in the moment; she’s right. I could die for what I’m about to do. We
could be caught…I can’t die a virgin.

She tugs at my
jeans, pulls at them desperately, shoves me against the tree, and straddles me,
a conquering princess.

Sinking into
her, plunging into the unbearable warm electric sweetness, holding her to me,
melting into her so I can’t tell where her skin begins and mine ends. She
moves, dancing so slowly, covering my neck and face with kisses, swipes of her
cotton candy tongue, breath in my ear, shining curtain of hair brushing my
chest. She moves faster, faster, and my world is only this, this moment, this
space, this amber sunset electric haze wave of love and longing and all the
desire I’ve never felt in this world, pushing, pushing, harder, harder, until
we arch into the night sky, sending sparks flying across star trails, grasping,
sweating, clinging—breathing slows, a bit at a time, like music on the
carousel, slower, slower, until we stop, stay, stay, willing a moment to stay
frozen.

I hold her. She
holds me. Warm salt tears, hers, tickle my chest, catch the cold in the air,
and I imagine they freeze into diamonds. “Please,” she whispers.

I kiss her
forehead.

“Please. Let’s
go. Let’s just run away right now. Forget McFarland. Forget everyone. Let’s go.”

“No.” I know
now. I understand.

This isn’t
wrong. My body can’t lie. God made me this way. This is right; we
fit.
For the first time in my life, I
feel like I’m telling the truth.

“When can I see
you again?” I whisper into her hair.

She moans. “Let’s
just stay here and build a tree fort.” She checks her phone. “We’ve been here
too long already. You go first.”

“What are we
doing to do?”

Carmen smiles,
and gazes into my eyes. “We’re going to be together soon. I think we need to be
really careful before then. God, I want to see you—I want to disappear with you
into a hole in the ground and just….but we have work to do. So, until then...”
She lightly kisses the tip of my nose. “
Here.
” She
presses something into my hand.

 
In the moonlight, the plate on the leather
bracelet shines silver. Etched into the surface is a Perpendicular sign, like
an L inverted. “Where did you get this?”

“Your sister,”
she says proudly.

I fold the
braided leather band in on itself and stuff it into my pocket. “So, this means
we’re going steady?”

“It does.” She
kisses me full on the mouth.

Leaving her by
the tree—one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I want to just leave
with her, run like animals following the river, but then things will never change.
I’ll be running for the rest of my life.

Jana’s waiting
at the edge of the driveway, behind a tree. “How’d it go?” she asks, then puts
her hand on my shoulder, turns me this way and that. “You did it, huh?”

“Christ, Jana.”
I march away from her, embarrassed.

She jogs to
catch up. “But you did. Wasn’t it amazing?”

I don’t say
anything. But I can’t help it—I smile.

“See? I knew
it. I knew it!” She hums a tune as we jog up the stairs. “Oh…you should wash
up. Just in case they can… you know…”

“Yeah. Okay.”
She opens the door and I go left into the tiny water closet off the kitchen,
while she goes ahead. I hear her voice concocting some story about our
wonderful book club.

I look in the
mirror. Something distinctly different…I wonder if anyone will be able to tell?
I scrub my face, trying to wash any trace of her away, even though I want to
hold onto it like it’s sacred. I pat my pocket to be sure the bracelet is still
there.

I’m starving!
God, it’s like somebody took everything I had inside and emptied it out,
leaving me hollow! Is that what sex does to people?

“Chris!” David
taps at the door. “Good book club?”

“Yep.” I want
to giggle. I want to laugh out loud. I want to strip off my clothes and run
around like a wild animal, growling and roaring and clawing the furniture.
Instead, flush the toilet, run some water, and exit the bathroom. “Is there any
more pizza?”

“I think so,”
David says absently.
 
“So, Jim and I were
talking about what you mentioned. About Indian Lake.”

“
Mmmm
.” I rout in the fridge and find the leftovers. I eat a
piece the same way Jana did, caveman style.

David grabs me
gently by the elbow as I close the refrigerator, and steers me toward the
dining room, where McFarland sits, sipping a brandy. Warren’s sitting there
too, looking pretty disenchanted as he polishes silver. He only does that when
he’s really, really frustrated. “So, Jim. Indian Lake?” David says.

McFarland runs
with it. “I’d really like to see it,” he says casually. “Maybe Chris and I
could take a little trip up there. Would you like that?”

The idea of
being alone with him makes me want to hurl up all the food I’ve just wolfed
down, but I have to remember the greater good. Carmen. Me. Us. Away from here.
I planted this seed and I have to run with it. Especially when it means being
able to do
that
all day, every day,
whenever we want…I grin an unreasonably ridiculous grin, which I’m sure he
takes as a green light.

Warren drops a
fork heavily, and I glance over at him. He looks furious, in an understated
Warren kind of way. “It’s a bad time to be going away,” he says. “School’s
going to start again in a week, so when would you go?”

“I guess on the
weekend,” I offer, as if the idea just occurred to me. Warren’s eyes get wide;
looks like he might burst a vein or something. I wish I could tell him what
just happened, tell him how it felt, what it means, how I’m different. But I
can’t.

“This weekend.”
McFarland’s piggish eyes look puzzled. He didn’t expect me to be so easy, I
guess. “Well, that sounds great. I’d really love for you to show me some of the
astronomical sights of Ohio.”

Creeper. I am
starting to not feel bad about helping get him kidnapped.

“Then it’s
settled,” David says happily. He beams at me, as if I’ve just made him the
proudest dad in the world. “I’ll call and make all the arrangements. If you
leave here at six, you’ll get there by eight. Perfect time for stargazing.”

The rest of
evening is a blur to me; it’s like I’ve been reduced to nothing but appetite.
Food tastes amazing, the water is wetter, the colors are brighter. And images
and sensations of Carmen spice up everything I touch, taste, or see. A bubble
of happiness surrounds me, and I imagine nothing can pop it.

Wednesday
night. I’m on the balcony with the telescope, trying to locate the constellation
Lyra
within the blanket of silver stars. My
concentration is crap, though; soft lips, skin, curve of her hip, these things
infect my mind and float in my consciousness, waking dreams. I’ve hidden the
bracelet with the note in my telescope, and I take it out, look at it, put it
back.

“Hey.” Jana is
suddenly there; startled, I whack my forehead on the edge of the telescope. I
guess my concentration really was bad, because I didn’t even hear her come in. “Want
to go for a ride?”

“To where?” I
sit up, stretch my neck, and realize it’s actually pretty cold, and I’m
shivering in an old t-shirt and jeans. I cover the scope and go back into my
room, Jana trailing behind me.

“I need to get
some air,” she says. She makes a Perpendicular sign with her two index fingers.
“Warren already said we can borrow his car.”

So, we’re going
back out to the woods. Maybe I have to report in to the Underground. Maybe they
want to know, firsthand, what I said to McFarland.

David’s gone,
at some church meeting, so we just have to check out with Warren before going
off on our secret mission. “We’ll be back in a bit,” Jana says breezily, as if
she’s stepping out for ice cream.

“Careful,”
Warren says, giving us owl-eyes over the tops of his reading glasses. He drops
the newspaper he’s reading. Careful? Why? Does he know what we’re up to?
 
“I don’t want my car scratched, dented, or
pooped on.”

“I promise I
won’t poop on it, but I won’t vouch for Chris.” Jana wraps herself in a red ski
parka and I follow her wordlessly, grabbing my old brown bomber jacket. One
glance back, and I see Warren has already gone back to his newspaper.

I can see my
breath outside, so as soon as we get in the Escalade, I crank up the heat. “I
assume we’re going back to Camp
Dirtyshack
?” I ask.

“Yep.” She
pulls the car onto the road and steers away from home. “Magnus wants to see
you.”

“So how does
Magnus communicate with you? Secret carrier pigeon or bat signal?”

I expect at
least a chuckle, but nothing. Jana stares straight ahead, a statue.

“I said, how
does—”

She jams on the
brakes, tires squeal, I pitch forward and nearly hit my head on the rim of the
windshield. We’re dead in the middle of the road.

“What the hell
are you doing?” The engine idles, purring patiently.

She turns to
me, and I swear if she could’ve stabbed me, she would’ve. But her voice is dead
calm, flat, totally terrifying. “I don’t think you understand what’s going on.
You’re going to do something that could potentially kill you. Do you get that?”

I stare at her.

“This, all of
this, is no joke, no spy movie. This is real life, and even if you’re playing
the hero, it doesn’t mean you’re going to come out of it with the medal for
valor and the girl of your dreams. It’s a lot more likely that you’ll end up
dead in a ditch somewhere.”

 
She grips the steering wheel, her hands white
in the moonlight, eyes focused on the road ahead.

 
“I’m sorry.” I touch her hand, and it
stiffens slightly, but doesn’t look at me. “I’m just nervous. This just…isn’t
what I’m used to.”

A choking
laugh, a lowering of the chin and a shaking of the head as if she can’t believe
we’re related, which I can’t believe either. “Chris, who would ever be used to
this?”

“I guess
Magnus. Sam. They seem to be all about the secret dirt shack in the woods,
covert operations, secret messages, plots. I don’t think I’m smart enough to
keep it all straight, to be honest.”

“But you’re
still going to do it?” She turns her face to me, and gazes intently at me as if
I might take away something expensive she got for Christmas. “You’re going to
do it, right?”

I stare down at
my shoes. “Yes. I will.” I hope I will. I hope I don’t chicken out or screw up
or have a heart attack. No guarantees.

Jana takes the
Escalade out of park and steps on the gas, bulleting our little rebel caravan
into the night.

We do the same
routine as last time; park the car, move the brush, soundlessly drive in dark.
Soon we see the small bobbing lights of the men as they trudge soundlessly
toward us. Ben’s with them, and he runs to Jana, grabs her and lifts her up
like he doesn’t want to let her go. I know what that feels like now.

Sam claps me on
the shoulder. “Chris.” He motions for us to follow, and we trek down the same
path we took last time, onward to the hideout. We don’t go in, though. Outside,
the only sign that anyone is there is a small red firefly of a cigarette
glowing and receding as someone puffs.

We get closer;
it’s Magnus. “Tell me,” he says. “What’s the plan with McFarland?”

I thought they
knew already. Didn’t they tell
me
what to do? “We’re going to Indian Lake Friday night. Leaving here at about
six, getting there about 8.”

“Take Decatur
Road,” Magnus instructs. “When you check in, our connection will be sure you
get the Deer Creek cabin. Remember that. Deer Creek.”

“Deer Creek.” I
repeat it. It feels ominous on my tongue, an evil spell.

Magnus
continues. “You’ll go into the cabin. Set your bags down, excuse yourself to
use the bathroom. Ask him to go out to the car to get a bag you left on the
passenger seat.”

“What bag will
I leave on the passenger seat?”

Magnus sighs
heavily. “You won’t. It’s just so we can get him outside so we can grab him.
You’ll be in the bathroom. You won’t see or hear anything. Stay in there for at
least half an hour. When you come out, just do whatever you’d normally do.
Watch television, read a book, take a bath. At midnight, someone will knock on
the back door of the cabin. That’s when you’ll go.”

Go. As in,
leave the country. As in, ditch anything of my old life to start somewhere
totally foreign with someone I barely know.
 
Nausea creeps into my gut, and it must show on my face, because silence
blankets us, quiet as before, but heavy with something no one can see.

Jana touches my
shoulder. “Chris. Are you sure you can do this?”

Oh, God. I’m
not sure. Not at all. Images of Carmen swim in front of my eyes, images of
David and Warren and our house, my house.
Andi
. I
won’t ever see her again. Jana? I won’t see her for who knows how long. No
school. No graduation. Where will I live? And, ridiculously, I wonder: where
will I buy stuff like food and toilet paper? God.

“Why does it
have to be McFarland? And me?”

From behind me,
Sam’s jagged voiced jars my ear. “He is one of the highest profile targets in
the country at the moment. And he just happens to desperately want you. And you
happen to desperately want a girl. It’s fate.”

“But what’s
going to happen to him?”