But I was right. We’d all been thrust into this against our will. That fact was only strengthened further when I looked around our tiny circle at the faces that stood across from me. Callista, the girl who I’d once thought was dead. Thad, the boy who I knew so little of, I had never even heard his last name. I doubted the three of us would have ever met had it not been for this chain of horrible events. It was like fate had unceremoniously shoved us together, but hadn’t been polite enough to provide an introduction.
“I know you wish you were back home,” I pressed on, my voice calmer now. “I do too. But we’re here now. And there’s a whole lot of people out there who seem to not want us around, and sooner or later they’re going to realize we’re still alive.”
The sides of Callista’s jaw bulged, her teeth ground together as tightly as she could force them. Her gaze wasn’t pointed at me though, looking downward, fighting to remain in control over herself. She knew I was right, she just didn’t want to admit it—not because it’d mean I won, but because it’d be admitting that going home wasn’t an option anymore. I found no victory in being right this time.
“And I don’t trust him either,” I said, lifting the letter. “But he’s right, we don’t have any other choice. You said it yourself yesterday: if we go home, they’ll follow us. And I’d rather spend the few days we have of not being chased down and shot at actually finding out why.”
I shifted my gaze to Thad. Out of both of them, I knew that he’d be the most likely one to support me. Already—and as much as it was against our wishes—we’d become a group, and when Thad nodded, it was a majority vote.
We rolled our sleeping bags but in the end figured that it wasn’t worth carrying them along. So we bunched them up into the corner of the cliff along with the bags of now-unneeded water bottles, hopeful that a wandering homeless person might find it and feel lucky. At least something positive might come out of our situation.
Taking flight was far easier this time than the others had been. There was a moment of thrill as I felt myself rising, but it was hard to take much joy in it.
Still, the strange familiarity of flying helped to calm my soul of its troubles. Part of me feared that I would soon take it for granted, that it was already weaving itself in as part of my being. If I just continued to believe that all of this would be over soon, then I’d be alright. It’ll all go back to normal, I tried to convince myself. But what if this was my new normal? The thought terrified me.
I had a good sense of where Anon’s written address was leading us: somewhere in Beverly Hills, no less, otherwise known to me as “that place where all the rich people live”. I’d been there a number of times, spying on targets while trying to disguise my long-range camera so I wouldn’t get thrown out. Sometimes I’d even gone down there on my own to get pictures for my walls. It was almost sad how tourists would stand outside and take picture by the neighborhood’s entrance sign. It was as if that was the most they ever aspired to be: a person left standing outside a gate, the lesser-known subject in a picture of them and a wooden sign.
We cut over hills and communities until we crossed out of the San Fernando Valley. The buildings were stacked together in clusters like shining gift boxes sorted into piles. A steady stream of heat hit me from both the sun above and the roads below, but the wind in my face managed to cool the sweat away. I could see different collections of buildings far off, cars darting in and out and massive jets passing unhindered above us.
I led them now: it was strangest because it felt right. As we flew, the landscape below changed again, becoming more suburban with sprawling houses dotting the ground between heavy trees and clipped yards. When the attached garages got to be larger than my entire home, I knew I was nearing the right place. We descended slowly upon a street until finally the tops of the houses were so close I could have scraped them if I’d reached. There were expensive cars shining in the long driveways, vast rows of extinguished lights leading up to grand entrances. I doubted my life savings could have even bought their doorknobs.
I kept checking the street signs. I realized how close we were to the ground. I still didn’t know the depth of my powers—how did the strange invisibility work when we flew, while I could still see the others near me? Was it true invisibility, even? Or just some type of chameleon-like effect? Either way, I was thankful because I could already see people walking and driving not far below us. We threw shadows, but the people were too distracted to notice.
Finally, I spotted the house’s number, painted against the curb for emergency crews to find at night. I swooped down and landed on the top of the mansion like a bug, my palms instantly burning against the red Spanish-style roof. I winced and stood up straight as the others fell to a stop beside me.
From where we stood, I could see a vast horizon of rooftops and chimneys—not nearly the view that had been in the sky, but at least a more telling one. Trees and fences blocked a lot of the houses. It felt too quiet for midday so close to Los Angeles, little more than the snipping of garden scissors and water hoses running. I guess you can get serenity if you pay for it.
“Is this it?” Thad said, stumbling on one of the looser tiles.
“You sound so unimpressed,” I replied. “You might be able to play basketball off this roof.”
“If it wasn’t so bumpy, I’d try.” He grunted. Callista, whose severity had lightened up during the flight, ventured away from us. She found the brick chimney and waved for us to come over.
“If we’re gonna do this, let’s get inside,” she said. “I haven’t figured out how no one can see us when we fly. But it’s not a good time to start testing it out now.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” I said. So I went to the edge and jumped over, hovering around in a circle as I descended. I saw the window right below the chimney and pushed myself toward it. There was a screen to keep bugs out so I extended a claw and sliced through it. The glass was unlocked, just as Anon had said it was. I grabbed both sides of the frame and pulled myself through.
The floor was further from the window than I thought. My face slammed into the carpet. A painful snort erupted from my nose.
Unfortunately, the other two had been right behind me so they’d seen the entire episode. I heard Thad and Callista trying to hold in laughter, even as they landed beside me. Neither of them volunteered to help me up this time.
“Come on, guys,” I told them, rubbing my now-sore nose.
“Shut up, Thad,” Callista commanded him, though she was having a harder time being quiet than he was. Inside, I was relieved that something had dispersed a little of the tense air.
I brushed the dust from the roof off my hands as Callista shut the window and pulled the curtains closed behind us. Our surroundings went dark as the window’s glow disappeared. We had entered a room of white and gray, a giant bed with folded sheets and an abundance of pillows against one wall, and opposite that a couch and flat-screen television nearly as tall as me. The floor was carpet, the softness of which my nose was still grateful for. Everything from the intricately threaded rug to the glass cabinets filled with pottery exuded wealth and perfection. Even the way the blanket rested languidly on the couch looked like a photo from an advertisement.
“This feels weird,” I observed.
“But we were invited, weren’t we?” Thad said.
None of us really dared to venture from the window at first, looking for any signs that we might have come to the wrong place—or worse, fallen into a trap. But Anon had been right so far, and the silence that embraced us and flowed freely throughout the vacant house only strengthened the truth in his directions.