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The vision continues to envelop me. Each frame, every scene, becomes
me
. My skin burns hot from imaginary flames. My eyes water from invisible smoke. My lungs scream for non-existent air. It’s all too real; a sure sign that I’m about to lose it again.

I grab his arm tighter. My fingers cramp.

“Dakota? What’s happening?”

I have no words to answer Josh.
Just breathe
, I say to myself.
Everything is okay
. Part of me believes the lie. Another, bigger part of me doubts anything will ever be
okay
now.

I refocus my thoughts and count each heartbeat, forcing a calm to come.

One-two-three

The pulses come one on top of each other as the visions refuse to abate.

Four-five

Finally a break. The flames lose their heat. My eyes no longer sting.

Six-seven

The vision stops abruptly, my mind blank.

Eight-nine

My heart-rate slows and my breathing returns to normal

Ten

“Dakota?” Josh shakes me back to reality.

“Mari, a girl from the hospital. I think she . . . died.”

Josh’s face blanches for the briefest of moments. “You saw her die?”

“Yes. I think I did.”

Something else, fear maybe, passes through his expression. “Relax. Clear your mind.” We speed up the hills, drenched in a relentless panic I don’t understand. It feels as though I’ve lived a thousand years in the past hour and a half.

The street is too dark when we arrive, adding to the apprehension I can’t shake. No street lights illuminate our way. No lights filter from the other houses. Something is wrong. Horribly wrong.

Josh slows the car. He sits straight in his seat, his senses on overdrive just like mine. He edges the car to the house. “Something’s not right,” he says, echoing every one of my fears.

“We shouldn’t be here.”

Josh ignores me and turns off the headlights as he pulls into the driveway. I half expect to see Dad’s car next to us like nothing’s happened.

Wishful thinking.

My senses kick in to overdrive as something from somewhere deep inside me awakens. I glance from side to side, noting every detail, every sound around me. Through the darkness I see—no, feel—every feature of the landscape, the house. I sense the leaves as they rattle in a light breeze, smell the scent of rain alerting me to another impending storm.

“What if someone’s inside?”

Josh’s eyes roll up for a moment. He pauses, closes his eyes. “There’s no one,” he says. His eyes open. Concern and desperation color his wide pupils.

“Should we go in?” I ask Josh.

Josh stares at the house, silent. He opens the car door. “Stay close,” he says as we climb from the car.

We take the porch steps in twos. The front door is slightly ajar. In my thoughts I push open the door and stare at the room. Furniture litters the floor, papers tossed carelessly about. Photos lay in pieces, ripped from their frames. A shadow looms in the darkness, coming closer and closer. Her face blurs and sharpens. Deeply set eyes. Mocha skin. Wild hair. The hair on my skin stands alert and I pull back.

Josh reaches for my arm. “What’s wrong?”

I can’t explain what I sense and I don’t trust that anything was there to begin with. So, I say “I’m fine,” instead.

He nudges the door open and pulls us into the house, flipping one light switch after another. Nothing works. We step over tossed furniture and broken artifacts until we are in the kitchen. The cupboards hang from their hinges, drawers lying in waste on the ground. Whoever tossed our house was thorough.

“Who would do this?” I whisper to no one.

We walk from room to room in silence. The entire place is a mess, surreal, like something from a crime drama. Except this isn’t a scene from my favorite mystery novel. It’s my life.

I wander up the stairs, stepping over the pictures of my life, torn from broken frames. I push through the clutter that blocks the way into my room. My desk is upended, the contents scattered everywhere. Photographs and trinkets lay waste on the floor, pieces of life that no longer seems real. A flicker of metal catches my eye. I pull the golden chain free from the mess. A heart-shaped charm swings back and forth as a sob catches in my throat.

David
.

His name reverberates through me and adds fresh pain to the tangled knots inside. Tears overrun my eyes as I remember my discussion with Elaine before I freaked out at the Coffee Café. I’d probably never see her again. I didn’t get to say goodbye. Just like with David. I swallow hard, slip the jewelry deep into my pocket, and gather whatever clothes I can find: a few t-shirts and crumpled jeans. Shoving them into a backpack, I walk back into the hallway.

“Let’s go!” Josh’s voice bounces across the house.

I find my brother at the bottom of the stairs. He leads me to Dad’s office in the back of the house. It’s tossed like the rest of the place. Nothing is untouched. Josh climbs over the mess to Dad’s solid oak desk seated near a large bay window. Slowly opening the center drawer, he fingers the edges of the felt-lined organizer. A smile curls his mouth as his hands stops moving. A low clink and small drawer opens from the side of the desk.

“Yes,” Josh murmurs as he retrieves a small slip of paper from the bottom of the shallow drawer. A series of numbers—a combination, perhaps—is scrawled in Dad’s writing.
56-13-29
.

“What is that?” I ask.

“Come and help me move this,” is Josh’s only reply.

I walk to him in a haze. I still couldn’t believe Mom and Dad had planned for this? Did everyone just expect me to go crazy and jeopardize our safety? “Josh?”

“Not now. Help me.”

I sink my shoulder into the desk and shove as hard as I can. Slowly the heavy wood moves a few inches. Josh gives it another hard push. The floorboards bend and move as the desk slides toward the window.

“Here,” Josh says as he wiggles a loose board to expose a small compartment. A small black box peeks out from the floorboards. Josh pulls it out from its hiding place and works on the black numeric knob of the safe.

“What is that?” I glare at the safe in disbelief.

“Dad’s.” The door clicks open and Josh pulls out a black leather sachet.

“What the heck, Josh?”

“We’ll talk about everything later,” Josh says without looking at me. He fumbles through the bag, retrieving what looks like ID cards and money. “Right now we’ve got to leave.”

“I’m not going until you tell me what’s happening.” I grab his arm. “The truth, Josh. All of it! Right now!”

Josh releases a heavy sigh. “It’s what I told you. Mom and Dad went into hiding to protect us. Some bad people are after us. Mom and Dad never really trusted WITSEC or the government, so they made a contingency plan.”

“Contingency plan?”

“Yeah, a safe place we can all meet up if something goes wrong.”

“Like if I go crazy?”

“Or if someone comes to find us.” Josh looks through the rest of the contents—a couple of photographs, a few credit cards, and a map—before shoving it all into his backpack. “Now come on. We’re leaving.”

Josh half drags me to the car. My mind can’t keep up with the events, but I know he’s right. We can’t stay.

He tosses his jacket and the backpack in the backseat next to mine, slides in and starts the ignition.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“To find the others.”

“Others? What are you talking about? And what about Mom and Dad?”

“If I’m right, they’ll be waiting for us at the safe house in New York.”

Safe house? Others? Nothing gels.

“What if they aren’t there?” I ask the question, even though I don’t want an answer.

“Then it’s too late and we’re all we have left.” Josh glances at me, his eyes betraying the fear he’s kept hidden from his voice. “We’ll get through this, Dakota. I promise.”

I wonder who he’s trying to convince more, me or himself.

JOSH DRIVES FOR HOURS, SILENT SAVE FOR THE INCESSANT TAPPING OF HIS THUMB AGAINST THE STEERING WHEEL.
I stare out of the window, barely cognizant of the passing cars that thin as the night continues. The day’s events flicker in and out of my thoughts, refusing to fuse. Nothing makes sense, not the gunfire or the wrecked building I used to call my house.

“Where are we going?” I finally ask when the silence weighs too heavy in the air.

“We need sleep. I don’t think they’ll look for us at a rest stop. We should be safe.”

His words fail to connect. I scrunch my brow as he pulls off the highway and into a well lit rest stop. “We’ll sleep in shifts. You first.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Try; even a few hours would do you good.”

He isn’t wrong. I climb into the backseat of the car. Sleep comes before I shut my eyes, punctuated by pictures of children, a large facility with several sterile labs and people in white coats. Mari touches my dreams, appearing as both the suicidal girl from the hospital and a child, unbroken. I toss and turn as the pictures fade in and out. More than once I sense a scream on the fringe of my awareness. Terror grips my subconscious as the endless dreams continue.

The sun burns through my eyelids, waking me with a start. I gasp, forgetting for a moment where I am.

“Josh,” I say as I nudge him awake. “You fell asleep.”

He groans and opens his eyes.

“Wake-up. It’s morning.”

Josh stretches his arms and back.

“I’m going to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.” I don’t wait for permission.

The morning air is heavy with moisture and the ground is wet. Everything smells of rain, pine and ocean air. A sharp breeze brushes across my skin as I stretch my legs.

The water is cold on my hands as I wash up. There’s no mirror, thank goodness. The last thing I need is to confirm what I already sense—I look as messed up as I feel.

Shaking off the last of sleep, I walk back to our car and climb into the front seat. “Where to now?”

“The first star on the map,” Josh says as he hands me the folded paper. “North.”

“Who lives there?”

“Someone in hiding just like us.”

“So close?”

“Mom and Dad tried to keep all of us as close as possible as part of their conditions with WITSEC. Mom said she felt like we were her responsibility and didn’t trust anyone else.”

We drive up the winding coast, pulling into a small town similar to Cambria. Several turns later, we drive up a large bluff that reminds me of home. The sun reaches across the sky, casting long shadows on the pavement and yards in the small neighborhood. Everything reminds my of my neighborhood, beach bungalows turned modern ranch houses. A sharp pang of longing stabs my heart and I push it aside, too afraid I’ll lose my fragile grip on reality if I indulge in my emotions now.

Josh slows the car to a crawl, parking in front of the last house, a modest two-story with white siding and wrap-around porch. No cars sit in the driveway, no lights give life to the rooms. The world is quiet and still.