The Journey Home (15 page)

Jake made up his mind. They had to escape. But first he had to warn Taylor.

Suddenly he had an idea.

Blake looked back suspiciously. “What you got there, kid?”

“Just my journal,” Jake said innocently, pulling the notebook out of his pack and pretending to flip through the pages.

Blake turned back toward the road. Jake desperately flicked through the pages until he found what he was looking for. After the coyotes had attacked him, he'd drawn a sketch of them, prowling and mean-eyed. He showed it to Taylor.

“Hey, remember these guys?”

Taylor chuckled. “Of course I do.”

Jake pointed to the words he'd written under the picture.
I didn't see them coming until it was too late. I should have known I was in danger.
He nodded slightly toward the criminals in the front seat and fixed Taylor with an intent stare, until a flicker of understanding crossed his brother's face.

“Do they remind you of anyone?” Jake said.

“Oh yeah.” Taylor looked up at Blake and Lorenzo. “I know what you mean. You were lucky to get away, huh?” He gave Jake a quick nudge in the ribs.

“Uh-huh,” Jake murmured. “Would you know what to do, if we got into another
jam
like that one?”

“Stick together, and get the heck out of there,” said Taylor quietly.

“Hey, what are you two squawking about? Lemme look at that thing,” Blake demanded, suddenly curious.

Jake reluctantly passed him the notebook. Blake riffled idly through the pages, as if he were just passing time.
But Jake could tell he was looking for a clue to where the money was.

Jake held his breath. He hadn't written anything about Bull or the money in there, so he knew Blake was wasting his time. It was just a record of their wilderness adventures, and the survival lessons they'd learned. But he still didn't want Blake's dirty fingers pawing at it.

Eventually Blake tossed it back to them, disappointed. “Not bad. You can draw, kid.”

“Thanks.” Jake tucked the notebook away, praying Blake hadn't smelled a rat. He knew they were running out of chances.

A few blocks further on, Jake finally saw his opportunity. Lorenzo swore under his breath and stopped the car.

A traffic light up ahead had just turned red, and traffic had slowed to a crawl. There were cars blocking the road ahead of them, behind, and in the other lane.

Now or never.

As the car began to move forward again, he wrenched at the door handle and shoved the door open. “Taylor,
go
!” Jake yelled. He grabbed his pack and scrambled out of the car onto the sidewalk and ran.

Behind him, Taylor did the same, still holding Cody in his arms. Lorenzo started to yell, and Blake threw open the passenger door. The traffic ahead of the car was moving now, but their car wasn't. Angry horns started to honk.

Jake glanced back. Taylor, to Jake's horror, was struggling
with his pack. Cody fell from his arms and came bounding after Jake.

“Leave it!” he hollered. “Run, Taylor. Just run!”

Taylor's face screwed up with effort as he sprinted after Jake. The abandoned pack sagged half out of the car.

Lorenzo gunned the engine and drove the car off the road and onto the sidewalk, out of the flow of traffic. Pedestrians jumped out of his way, shouting in alarm.

“Hold it right there!” Blake screamed. He had something in his hands . . . something black, metallic, and lethal. “FREEZE!”

18
The two boys ran down the sidewalk without looking back. Any second now Jake expected to hear the sharp bang of Blake's gun and for the world to go dark. Death had never seemed so close, not even in the wild. He had to find cover.

To his left he spotted an alley between two buildings. Urging Taylor to follow, he turned and ran down it. Dumpsters half-blocked his path, and trash crunched underfoot, but he ran on, gasping, with Cody and Taylor right behind him.

Yells and screams from the street behind told him Blake and Lorenzo were chasing them.

The alley opened up into a busy street, with cars rushing past in both directions. Jake knew he had to put
more distance between himself and the men.

“Keep going!” he yelled to Taylor. “Cross the road!”

The second there was a lull in the traffic, Jake ran.

A horn blared.

From behind came a sickening
thump
, then a shrill yelp of pain.

Jake knew what had happened without having to turn round.

Taylor cried out in despair: “
Cody!”

The little dog lay, his legs twitching, in the road. The car that had hit him had come to a stop a few yards ahead. There was blood on Cody's muzzle.

“Cody?” moaned Jake. “
No!
”

Jake dashed back into the road and gathered Cody up into his arms. The dog was shivering, forcing a whine out with every breath.

“You're going to be fine, little guy,” he said, although he was far from sure that was true.

“Is he dead?” yelled Taylor.

“He's breathing. But he's hurt pretty bad.”

The two boys ran the rest of the way across the street and looked back at the alley they'd come from. Blake came staggering out and looked left and right, hunting for them.

“Go!” Jake urged. They ran, dodging back and forth to avoid the people coming the other way. Jake's pack jolted and whacked against his back, and the straps dug into his
shoulder. Cody felt heavy in his arms, like the limp rabbit he'd once carried back to his dad's cabin. There was a reason why people used the words “dead weight.”

Stop it,
he told himself.
No more death.

“Jake,” Taylor gasped, “where are we going?”

“I don't know!” Jake yelled. “Just run!”

Jake had no idea where in Chicago they were. It looked pretty built-up, so they were still within the city limits, but there were discount stores among the shops, and some vacant lots with peeling handbills plastered across the boards. In an area like this, Jake thought, you could easily take a wrong turn and end up somewhere shady. If someone ripped his pack away from him, they'd get Bull's money, and the boys' last hope of saving their mom would be gone.

His chest was aching with the effort of running. He couldn't tell if Cody was still breathing or not.

Got to go to ground,
he thought. That was what hunted animals did. Before they collapsed from exhaustion, they bolted for a safe haven.

None of the shops looked like good places to hide. They might be able to push into a fast-food place and hide in the bathroom, but if Blake saw them go in, he'd just flash his fake badge to the management, then drag them out. They could run down another alley and try to hide in a Dumpster. It would stink, but they might be safe. Or they might be trapped like cornered rats.

Then Jake saw it, parked down a side street—their
hiding place. It was a custom pickup truck, shiny black with flames and skulls painted down the side. There was a tarpaulin over the cargo bed, with one corner loose.

“Taylor, c'mon!” He put on a burst of speed, caught the edge of the cargo bed one-handed, and scrambled up. Cody jerked in his arms, as if he were coughing out the last of his life. Jake noticed a wet blood spot on his shirt but tried not to think about it and instead held out a hand to help Taylor up.

A last glance over the side of the cargo bed showed no sign of Blake. The two brothers hunkered down in the dark space. Jake tugged the tarpaulin over their heads.

“Now what?” whispered Taylor.

“We just have to wait.”

“But Cody . . . he might—”

“I know. But we can't go out there until it's safe!”

Jake heard his brother sniff back tears in the dark. Jake pretended he hadn't heard anything. He just put his arm around Taylor and hugged him close.

The weird part was how familiar it all felt. Only a few days before, they'd been huddled together in a snow house, in a cramped little space like this, unable to leave until it was safe, with the cries of wild animals on the wind outside. Now they were hiding in a stranger's truck on a back street of some unfamiliar city with criminals hunting them.

Jake waited for as long as he dared. Cody was still
shivering, and his breath came in shuddering gasps. Taylor tried to pet him and tell him it was going to be okay, but the dog yelped in pain the moment he was touched.

From outside came the sounds of passing traffic and the voices of people coming and going in the street, but though Jake braced himself for angry shouts, none came. A police siren wailed, briefly, in the distance. He wondered if someone had seen Blake waving the pistol around and had called 911. There was no way to know.

“Okay,” he said eventually. “Let's move.”

Taylor held on to Cody as Jake moved the tarpaulin back out of the way. They had begun to climb down, when Taylor gasped.

“Jake, look in the cab!”

“Huh?”

“Snake!”

“You're hallucinating, Taylor. You need to rest, get something to eat—”

Taylor pointed. “Look!”

A flat, scaly head reared up inside the truck cab, looking at them through the window glass. Jake stared at the long, sinuous body that was twined around the steering wheel and vanished into the foot well.

“I don't believe it,” he breathed.

Jake had seen snakes before, but only in the wild, and never anything to compare with this. The reptile had to be six feet long, easy, from snout to tail. It slid along the back
of the truck seats as if it owned them, watching Jake and Taylor with eyes like polished jet.

“What is it?” Taylor said. “An anaconda?”

A laugh came from the sidewalk. “No, Draco's a rock python. He's better than a vehicle alarm, huh?”

Jake gave a yell of surprise and half-jumped, half-fell from the back of the truck. The guy who'd spoken could only be the truck's owner, by the look of him—a tall, gaunt man with spiked-up hair, torn jeans, and a long leather coat, all as black as his truck. Jake saw complicated tattoos on the backs of his hands.

Behind him, walking up fast, was a girl with shocking pink hair shaved on the sides, and a T-shirt with a skeleton rib cage pattern. She folded her arms and glared at the boys with eyes that burned like lasers.

“We're sorry!” Jake burst out. “We needed a place to hide!”

“What'd you steal?” the man said calmly.

For a panicked moment Jake thought he must somehow know about Bull's money. Then he realized that wasn't possible. The man must have thought they were shoplifters.
We look like a couple of delinquents,
Jake thought.

“We didn't steal anything,” Taylor said, and the desperation in his voice made the strange-looking couple stop in their tracks. “This guy was chasing us, and Cody—he's our dog—he got hit by a car!” Taylor held Cody's limp body out to them.

That changed everything. The girl strode up to Taylor. “Let me see.”

Cody leaned up and, weakly, licked her cheek.

“I'm Jola,” she said, “and this is Danny. You'd better bring Cody inside.”

“Inside” turned out to be the apartment above a tattoo studio, reached via a graffiti-scrawled stairwell. Jake held tightly to his pack as they walked. These two might seem friendly, but he knew things could change in an instant.

“Would you cancel the last booking, hon?” Jola asked Danny as she unlocked the door. “I think my hands are going to be full for a while.”

“No problem.” In answer to the boys' questioning looks, Danny explained: “Our studio's downstairs. We're tattoo artists.”

Jola showed them into the apartment. Jake looked around in amazement at the objects inside—amazing sculptures made from twisted metal and salvaged junk. Something like a bear loomed beside the door, with hubcap eyes and claws made from recycled tableware. A mantis, looking like it was welded together from motorcycle parts, stood guard at the end of the corridor. And inside the living room, beside the couch, sat the sculpture Jake instantly chose as his favorite, a wolf made from weathered iron and steel.

“Do you make all these?” he asked Jola.

She nodded. “I love animals. I trained to be a vet, but I
guess I'm an artist at heart. Now, Cody, let's take a look at you.”

She gently laid Cody down on the couch. Jake and Taylor watched as she carefully felt his limbs, checked how his eyes reacted to light, and listened to the sound of his breathing.

Cody didn't even yelp anymore. He was completely out cold.

“Will he be okay?” Taylor whispered.

Without looking up Jola said, “Why don't you and your brother help yourselves to a drink? There's sodas in the fridge.”

Jake understood. “Come on. Let's let her take care of him.”