Light as a Feather, Silent as the Grave

Chapter 28

Outside, the air was salty, which I hadn't noticed before we'd entered the hotel. Trey and I staggered back out into the sunlight in a daze, neither of having an escape plan or the energy to invent one.

"McKenna! Trey! Wait!" Henry called after us. He was the only person to follow us outside from the greeting party that had been waiting for us in the lobby. The instinct to make a run for it fluttered in my chest, but my sluggish legs were too tired to choose a direction in which to run.

Trey squeezed my hand more tightly. "Don't look," he cautioned me in a stiff, unemotional voice. "We should probably just keep walking."

"But we came so far," I argued, hearing my voice crack mid-sentence. I was probably even more confused by why Henry had shown up in Long Beach with Violet and her father than Trey was, considering how much I had grown to trust Henry since Christmastime. But there had to be a reason for Henry doing something so dangerous. My mind exhaustedly ran through wild scenarios, like the possibility that Violet Simmons had somehow possessed Henry Richmond to find out where we were headed, but nothing seemed plausible. After all of the ways in which Henry had jeopardized his own safety and future to help me, it just didn't make sense that he'd happily hand me and Trey over to the people responsible for bringing so much evil into the world. The people responsible for Olivia's untimely, very violent death.

"I know," Trey encouraged me, "But there can only be one reason why they're here, and we can't stick around to see if I'm right."

Trey was right. I knew he was right and that we'd be wise to keep moving. There was a very good chance that Mr. Simmons was phoning the police in Long Beach at that very moment. In all that had happened over the last few days, it hadn't escaped my attention that one careless decision would result in Trey being shipped back to Northern Reserve. Or possibly even jail, since he was close enough now to turning eighteen that the law might be a little less generous with him the next time he found himself in a courtroom. We had to hurry and there were no circumstances under which I should have been wondering what Henry might have had to say for himself.

And yet... my entire body ached from days of jumping in and out of trains, fitfully sleeping on the hard, splintery floors of boxcars, and eating uncooked junk food. Even if it was my heart's truest wish to break into a sprint and never see Henry Richmond or Mr. Simmons again, my limbs were simply incapable of obeying my brain.

"Guys, he came to me and asked how he could help!" Henry said from behind us. "Just give me a second to explain. Please!"

Trey's eyes scanned the waterfront. He was, as always, scheming more quickly than I was, assembling plans. Trying to determine which direction we should run off in, and how we might make our way out of Long Beach without encountering any cops. He shook his head almost imperceptibly as a reminder to me not to entertain Henry's request.

But the mere thought of jogging toward the skyscrapers of downtown Long Beach on my throbbing legs made me just want to sit down on the ground and cry. I was so dog-tired that my bones felt like they were pulsating under my skin. "We should at least hear what he has to say," I suggested quietly.

Trey and I locked eyes. It wasn't like I was choosing Henry over him in that moment, but rather exhaustion had triumphed over perseverance. But I could tell from Trey's expression that he was interpreting my insistence that we wait a second as my siding with Henry... whatever the consequences may have been.

I gripped his hand more tightly and said, "Look, if it was their big plan to hand us over to the police, they could have easily had a whole task force waiting for us when we walked in there."

Having heard enough from me, Trey turned to address Henry before I did. "OK. Sure. How does he think he can help?" Venom laced Trey's words. "Surely he must realize that all of this is his fault. Doesn't he? Doesn't Mr. Simmons know that this a mess of his own making?"