“Until you find her?” I ask.
He nods. “The only thing she left behind was this.”
Josh hands me a piece of scrap paper with a strange phrase written on it at least fifty times.
Hate Our New Land
Scrawled over and over, as if done by a crazy person.
“How do you know this was Nora’s?” I ask, concerned. This doesn’t bode well for the mental health of his sister.
“It’s her handwriting.”
“What does it mean?” I ask him.
“I don’t know.” Josh takes a few steps away from me and sits down on the closest mattress. He covers his face with his hands for a second and then begins to rub his temples. “At first I thought it might be some kind of message, but maybe I’m just losing it.”
I walk over to Josh and take a seat next to him, handing him the paper. Once he takes it, he wraps his fingers gently around my wrist. I understand how he’s feeling—the shock, the confusion, everything—because I’ve felt it too. I want to tell Josh about my insane experience with Elusion and my father and the firewall, but I keep hearing Patrick’s voice, ringing in my ears, and I hesitate.
You have to promise me.
I try to focus my thoughts by glancing at the floor, and I notice that one of the IV bags is inches away from my foot. I trap it with the bottom of my shoe and drag it within reach. I slowly let go of Josh’s hand and pick it up, flipping it over to read the small type on the back.
TPN—Total Parenteral Nutrition.
The formula lists nutrients like glucose, amino acids, lipids, and dietary vitamins and minerals.
“They’re using this to keep themselves hydrated and fed,” I say.
You have to promise me.
What were the emotions behind my best friend’s words? Fear? Guilt? Shame?
My eyes dart around the room and connect with a blue prescription bottle that’s lying near the head of the mattress right next to us. I stretch backward and try to snatch it quickly, not caring that I can feel my skirt riding up my legs. When I have it in my grasp, I lean back up and read the label, but some of the information has worn off. All I can see is that the drug type begins with Zo, and the last name of the patient ends with an L.
“What do you think that’s for?” Josh asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, squinting hard so I can make out the faint traces of lettering. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work.
“Maybe it relieves pain or something.”
“My mom’s a nurse-practitioner; I could ask her,” I offer.
Then again, that could lead to all sorts of questions—questions I’m not sure I can answer, or should.
Josh grins a little. “Thanks.”
We sit there silently for a moment, both of us registering these pieces of evidence. When tallied together, they seem to point to one conclusion: Elusion has been compromised, and we have to do something about it.
Before anyone else disappears. Or worse.
“Maybe we should call Patrick,” I say, half listening to an instinct that I never doubted until now.
“He knows.” Josh stands abruptly and crosses his arms over his chest. “Talked to him this morning, told him everything I saw.”
“What did he say?”
“He said I misinterpreted what was going on,” Josh says, rolling his eyes. “Then I asked him to meet me here after school. Guess he doesn’t plan on showing up.”
Don’t tell anyone what happened . . . You have to promise me.
“That’s why I came to you. I was hoping you could help convince Patrick to take me seriously,” Josh says, his voice cracking a little.
I’m simultaneously touched and terrified by what he just said.
He wants me to help him. Then my thoughts return to Patrick, the most helpful, concerned person I’ve ever known. How could he completely blow Josh off like this, especially when he knows firsthand that strange things are happening with Elusion? And while he and Josh haven’t really been friends over the past few years, the Patrick I know would go out of his way to be there for someone in need, even a stranger.
What has gotten into him?
“There’s also your dad. He taught you everything about Elusion, right?” Josh asks, almost willing that question into a yes. “I’m hoping you know something . . . anything that can give me a jump on Nora’s friends.”
I immediately cast my eyes away, because I can’t bring myself to tell him the truth—that while I understand the general mechanics behind Elusion, Patrick was Dad’s one and only protégé. What I know about programming or code could fill my great-grandmother’s antique sewing thimble.
A crashing sound suddenly echoes throughout the room, startling us both. We look to see what caused it and notice that a strong gust of wind has knocked a big shard of glass out of a nearby window frame. That’s when the black spray-paint numbers on the wall beneath it nearly stop my heart.
5020
.
I gasp so loudly that Josh backs away from me, uncertain of what to do. I leap up from the mattress and run over to the wall, pressing my hands over the number just to make sure that it’s real. The dingy, crackling concrete under my fingernails confirms this isn’t make-believe or imagined.
Whatever is happening with Josh’s sister and her so-called friends is somehow connected to the vision of my father.
When Josh falls in on my right, Patrick’s voice is no longer ringing in my ears. Now I hear my dad calling out.
You need to find me.
I take a deep breath, letting it out slowly before speaking again. “I saw my father in Elusion last night. He was standing on the beach in the Thai Beach Escape, and he talked to me.”
Josh is silent for a moment, his cheeks flushing a deep shade of pink. Then he exhales and says, “Tell me everything.”
As the wind outside continues to howl, I tell him over the rattling windows about my dad, the crumbling Escape, and the number 5020 carved in the sand. When I’m done, it’s like the room has gone as black as the oil clouds outside.
“This can’t be just a coincidence,” I say to Josh. “There has to be a link between what happened to me in Elusion and what’s going on with Nora.”
“So what do we do now?” he asks me, but when I feel him take my hand again, it’s like he already knows what my answer will be.
“We find out the truth on our own.”
Inside my father’s study, everything is exactly as it was the morning we found out he died. His worn brown leather slippers are near the foot of his favorite polyvinyl nest chair. The laminate coating on his desk has a thin film of dust over it. The central air is still set at what my dad thought was the perfect temperature—sixty-eight degrees. But what stands out the most are the walls, which are covered with antique paintings and drawings in square gilded frames. Gorgeous landscape scenes filled with serene baby blue skies, rolling green hills, and picturesque lighthouses perched on towering stacks of rocks.