Chapter 5

Abigail's breathing turned ragged. She pushed me toward a small hollow in the side of the ditch. "Aaron, hide in here. I'll go out."

I grabbed her. "If you go out there, they'll take you away!"

"But I'm the one they're after." Her voice was shaking, but she was still trying to soothe me. "When you go back, just tell them I tricked you into it. They won't do anything to you."

"Yes, they will," I cut her off.

She froze.

I clenched my jaw and whispered, "I ran away with you today. I'm not on their side anymore."

At least, that was surely how Dad would see it.

In my last life, while I stood on his side, he'd doted on me. But that love came with conditions. I had to obey him, help him shout for my sister, and believe she was the bad one.

The footsteps outside the ditch were getting closer.

I hurriedly pointed west. "Go to the brick kiln. Nobody's blocking that way."

My sister didn't move. Instead, she looked right at me. "Aaron. How do you know where they're going to be?"

The words caught in my throat.

For a split second, I almost told her everything. I wanted to tell her that she'd died, and that I hadn't learned the truth until I was eighteen. I wanted to tell her that for twelve years, every time I dreamed about her, all I could hear was my own voice shouting, "I found my sister!"

But someone was already running along the edge of the ditch above us. All I could do was grip her hand tight.

"Because I don't want to be the reason you suffer ever again."

She stared at me, stunned.

I didn't give her the chance to ask anything else. I just pulled her onward.

A man's voice drifted down from right above our heads.

"Catch the little one, carry him off first! Don't let the big one get away. Tie her hands if you have to, just get her over there. We can't afford to cancel the ceremony!"

Abigail immediately pressed me flat against the wall of the ditch. We barely even breathed.

Only after the footsteps had passed overhead did she slowly let go of me, though her hand never left the back of my head.

By the time we crawled out the far end of the ditch, her feet had started to bleed.

The old brick kiln was just ahead. She made it a dozen or so steps before she couldn't hold herself up anymore, and she sank down against a crumbling wall.

"Aaron, take my ID card." She pushed it into my hands. "And Ms. Stein's number. Go flag down a car on the highway, and once you get to the county seat, go find her.

"Show her my ID card. She'll know something happened to me."

I put my hands behind my back. "No."

She got frantic. "Do as I say!"

"You said you'd teach me how to write your name."

She clearly hadn't expected me to bring that up out of nowhere.

I looked at her. "You still haven't."

Her lips moved.

After two seconds, she tucked the ID card away again. "Okay. Once we're out of here, I'll teach you."

We circled around the brick kiln. The highway lay at the bottom of the barren slope ahead, and I could already hear cars passing by.

The 11:40 bus to the county seat came through here every day. When I was little, I used to stand by the road and count how many times a day it honked its horn.

When I looked up, I saw the green shuttle bus coming around the bend.

My heart leaped into my throat. "Abby! The bus is here!"

She saw it too. Ignoring the pain in her feet, she grabbed my hand and ran down the slope with me.

If we could just get down there. If we could just flag down that bus. If someone would just be willing to let my sister on...

Then a woman's voice came from behind us.

It wasn't loud. If anything, it was perfectly calm.

"Aaron. Where are you taking your sister?"