I was pretty good at a lot more than I'd known I was. I'd taught myself how to drive a car within a day or so, after Henry and I had gotten back to San Judo. We'd taken our time returning; we made sure to stay in obscure places, outdoors when we could, motels when we had to. We took buses when we couldn't hover and, once we got to the city, found a pretty run-down car lot from which to hotwire a car. He knew how to do that, not me. I had no idea how cars were put together, but he dragged that skill from the recesses of his mind, and we'd pulled a car off the lot within a matter of minutes. He hadn't wanted to or remembered how to drive it--I wasn't sure which it was. In any case, I'd had to learn right away. Fortunately, I seemed to have a knack for it, which made me wonder whether I'd driven before, somewhere in my past.

The trip from Oliphant back into the city was almost entirely silent. I played some music on the radio, but it was pretty crackly and only served to add a little sound; most of what came from the speakers was inaudible. This night would be like all the others. We'd get back to the house, eat something we'd picked up at a gas station along the way, take care of our own business, and go to bed. There'd be some generic conversation but nothing friendly. Nothing two people who were friends or more than friends would have. I didn't know what Henry and I were, right now. I hadn't even been sure what we were back then, back when we'd been on the run together. Something like friends but something more, and something less. Something unnameable. What I'd felt about him all the months I was searching for him--I'd thought it was so real. That current, the magnetism drawing me toward him, pulling me, like we were supposed to be with one another in some way. I held onto the hope that we'd find our way to each other again.

I also hadn't put aside the notion that he might not even be Henry. I mean, I felt that this was him, even if he wasn't himself, but I had been fooled by Lucas.

The thought of another trick was almost too much to bear, though. This had to be him. It'd break me if it weren't. I couldn't imagine this mild person beside me could possibly be deceiving me. He was so incredibly not Lucas.

Pulling into the parking lot of an empty storefront, I thought about how I actually missed Lucas. I missed his determination, his follow-through. I'd been drawn to those qualities in Henry, too, but he certainly didn't possess them at the moment. Nevermind how brutal Lucas had been; at least he'd accomplished what he'd wanted to. Or . . . almost. He'd died before prying that memory from me, but if he hadn't, I was sure I would've ultimately given in to him.

I got out of the car, slammed my door, looked to Henry to make sure he did, too. He was slower moving than I was, but he followed me as I started off across the lot toward the sidewalk. We'd been staying in the Hineses' house. The whole thing was weird, but when we'd returned to San Judo, I hadn't known where else to go. So we'd driven into the Hineses' neighborhood. Their house was for sale. We saw the sign in the lot. I'd known we couldn't park in front of it--not in this neighborhood, in this car. We'd no doubt attract suspicion. So I'd driven to an old shopping strip a couple of miles away, and we'd walked back. It'd been night, and no one was around. The house had said it was for sale, but it hadn't said it was sold. The Hineses had kept a key in a very-well-disguised knot in a tree, and I'd had no trouble finding it. We were lucky the locks hadn't been changed yet. Henry and I had slipped in the back; the alarms had been turned off. And the house had been ours.

We'd returned to it each night since, going on a few weeks, now. The house didn't have the same furniture. It didn't have much furniture at all but it did have some, as it was set up to show. We left early in the morning, and we didn't come back until late at night, and those hours had seemed good enough to avoid running into anyone. I wondered, actually, whether many people were even looking at the house. Pretty weird that all the previous occupants had been murdered.

In any case, Henry and I made absolutely sure not to leave traces of ourselves. Any trash we built up in an evening we took far away the next day. If one of us took a shower, we'd use our own clothes to dry ourselves and then dry the shower. We never turned on the lights, relying instead on my flashlight and the moonlight, and we reset the alarm each morning we left. We stole clothing from a collections bin outside a grocery store and had a mix of random things that didn't entirely fit us, which we washed at a laundromat when we needed to, but frankly, we had almost no money. I had a small amount left over from what I'd taken from the Hineses so long ago, when they'd disappeared and I'd left the house, but that was almost gone. We found money, sometimes, and once we'd found a wallet and I'd taken the cash from it. But there was no consistent way to get money. It was a good thing that we didn't need to eat so much. We could go a few days at a time without needing to eat, and we had water, of course, at the house.

Ever since Lucas had pointed out how we needed to eat less, sleep less, how we didn't get ill, I had thought about it ad nauseam. It hadn't meant much to me before; I hadn't really noticed it. But now I wondered often what it meant.

We reached the house, slipping to it from behind, as we'd learned to do. The gate no longer had a code; it was instead locked, but I'd been able to pick it every night and recalibrate it the next morning. Henry always let me do everything on my own. I didn't know if he didn't remember what to do or if he just preferred me to do it all, but I'd gotten used to his passivity. I would've rather he be the one to take charge, but I'd gotten used to him this way. I didn't like it, but I accepted it.

We passed the covered pool where I'd spent many blissful, quiet moments and sneaked to the back door, where I used the key I'd found in the tree knot. Then we slid into the darkness. We had nothing to split and share as far as food, so he just moved off toward the room he'd sort of settled on as his own--the old master bedroom on the first floor. He'd probably shower and then sleep on the bed, there. I let him be. He'd offered to let me have that room when we first arrived, but I preferred my old room upstairs, for some reason. It was small, and it reminded me of too much, but there was also a comfort to being in it. The furniture had all been cleared out, and now only a sofa and some chairs were in there, graced by potted plants and a coffee table. I thought it was a weird set-up for a bedroom, but the couch was large and comfortable, so I didn't mind. In fact, if it had looked too much like my old room, I might have been less inclined to stay in it.

Still, even sitting on the couch made me think of all the evenings Mel would come sit on the edge of my bed and gossip with me about a bunch of people whose names I could never recall. I remembered the night she'd told me about Old Lisa's death, and I remembered how effusive she'd been about a certain someone the night after we'd met him at that party . . .

But thinking about him was a dead end.

I moved into the bathroom adjoining my room and turned on the shower. I set up my flashlight on the edge of the sink, where it created blue shadows in the corners of everything and glinted off the shimmering water as it streamed down. As I removed my clothes, I thought of Oliphant burning, and a smile crossed my face. I warmed at the image. Would anyone have noticed it by now? I pictured it surrounded by fire trucks, people attempting to put out the impossible blaze. The building was so far-removed from the city, though, that I was uncertain as to whether it would be noticed any time soon. I was fine with that scenario, too. By the time anyone checked on it, the place would be a pile of rubble. That's what it deserved to be, hateful place. I was sure anyone who'd been forced to go there had been damaged more than they'd been reformed.

I got into the shower and sighed as the heat enveloped me. I found myself wondering whether Henry was doing the same thing, standing under the hot water, reveling in it, but then I shook my head, my thoughts making me feel awkward and confused.

Think of something else . . . Roxie. What was my plan for that? For her? I wasn't sure. Seeing her name on paperwork had meant something to me. I'd grabbed the paper without even really knowing why. She'd been brave. Maybe even stupid brave. And intimidating. I'd been scared of her. Now, I recognized that fear was probably envy. I'd been so passive, so lost in those days at Oliphant. Roxie hadn't listened to anyone but herself; her spirit hadn't broken, there. What could she do for me, now?

If she were even around, if she hadn't been transferred somewhere else when Oliphant shut down, how could she possibly help us? I didn't know. I didn't even know how we could help ourselves. I felt lost, again. I knew what I wanted, but I had no idea how to get it, and Henry was not going to be any help in his state.

I finished showering, dried myself, dried the shower, threw on a T-shirt, and lay on the couch. My thoughts moved slowly through the things I knew and the things I didn't. I couldn't look back. The past was meaningless. What I wanted was the opposite of what I'd wanted for so long--I wanted to find the Circuit.

I woke the next morning in a start, Henry right in my face. His eyes were the first thing I noticed, followed by the daylight. We'd overslept.

It had happened before, but the panic in his face told me this time our late stay had consequences. And right as I thought it, I heard voices from below. I leapt to my feet, shuffled to put on pants, threw whatever I needed to into my bag, slipped into my shoes--it wasn't as if I had much. I did all this with surprising quiet, Henry watching at the door, and then he motioned me out into the hall. I followed, and we moved silently across the landing. We could see down into the foyer, and a woman in a suit was speaking with a man and woman, presumably about the house. They didn't seem to hear us, and I thankfully knew the layout of the house and led us to a back staircase in the hope of avoiding them. Down we crept, quietly, carefully, and my mind seemed to flash back to months ago, when I'd attempted a similar escape from a much different house with someone whose face I didn't want to recall. If my previous experiences had taught me anything, it was that you usually get caught. And we did, just as we thought we were safe at the bottom of the stairwell--the real estate agent rounded a corner and ran right into Henry.

She'd been so quiet! I took advantage of her absolute shock to dart past her and out the back door, and I heard Henry's footsteps not far behind.

Racing through the back yard, around the pool, I heard the woman yell something at us, but I was only exhilarated. Through the gate, through all the early morning backyards with their dewy foliage and emerging flowers. A fine mist hung over everything, and whether people in the houses saw us or not I didn't stop to wonder. We didn't let up running until we were halfway to the empty lot where our car sat, and even then, we didn't stop but only slowed to a brisk walk.

I was sad that our hideout was unusable, now--there was no way we could return, whether the house got sold or not. They'd be changing all the locks for sure, maybe setting up the alarm system again. But I wasn't worried about them catching us, either. Henry and I were untraceable. No fingerprints, not in any databases we knew of. I didn't even know my own name, so there was no fear of us being apprehended for trespassing.

"Now what?" I didn't ask it of Henry until our car was in sight. "Where can we go?"

"It doesn't matter right now. Let's get something to eat."

I leaned back against the car. "We have no money. I don't even know if I have anything to get some more gas." Bending my knees, I slouched to the ground, frustrated. "I mean, I might have enough gas to get us somewhere for food, but seriously, I maybe have ten dollars left."

"I'll get you breakfast, then." Henry rounded the car and stood in front of me.

He was so tall I had to squint looking up at him; the light around his head was like a halo. "What are you talking about?"

He held up a wallet. "I'm quick."

I rose. "Henry! Amazing! Is there any cash in it?"

He opened and rifled through the real estate agent's wallet. Disappointed, he shook his head.

"The debit card, though. We can use that."

"We've never used a card before. They're traceable."

I bit my lip in thought. "Well, we can use it to withdraw some cash and then leave it at the ATM. They won't find us. We're not traceable. I'll wear your hat, pull it down; they won't see my face." I looked around. "It's early enough--what is today, Sunday? There won't even be anyone around. Banks are closed on Sunday."

"But don't they have pin numbers?"

"I'm way ahead of you. I can figure this out. It's not much different than a lock, right? I think I can do it." I got up and into the driver's side of the car. "Get in."

And he did.

We drove to the nearest bank. It didn't match the card, but that didn't matter. It was about eight thirty, and there were people starting to move around. But they were slow. Our car would draw some attention. It was a decent car, and it had plates because we'd stolen them off a van someone had left abandoned on the side of the highway a few weeks back, but if the bank had cameras, they'd catch sight of the vehicle. So I parked it a ways away and walked to the ATM while Henry waited for me.

Nobody was there. As I approached the machine, I pulled Henry's knit hat onto my hair, tried to get it low enough so that it shaded my eyes. Good that the thing was so stretchy. I surreptitiously eyed the camera above me but didn't look directly at it. Then I slid up to the ATM and stuck in the card. The computerized screen noted I'd incur a fine, which I accepted, and then it asked for the pin. This was the only moment I'd feared, but I thought I could handle it. If I'd been working with a keypad, I'd put my ear to the door or wall next to the device, but this was a computer screen. I'd never dealt with something like this. Putting my ear to the screen would no doubt look weird on the cameras, but no one was around, so I did it anyway. The screen was cold and smooth, but it wasn't going to help me, so I moved closer to the number pad. There was nothing at all--no sound. Nothing that could give any sort of hint as to what the four numbers of her pin were. But I wasn't going to get anxious.

Anyone passing by would've seen a girl, bent over an ATM screen, ear against the keypad, looking as if she were hugging the thing. I just needed time. A moment with the machine. I held onto it with my hands, closed my eyes. Ignored how ridiculous I must've looked. And I tried in a strange way to communicate with the thing. I asked it for help, and as weird as it sounds, four numbers shimmered into my mind's eye. I didn't see them; I just knew them.

Jumping back from the ATM, I wondered at myself, at what had just happened, but didn't wait long. I plugged the four digits in and, miraculously, gained access.

When I returned to Henry, I was grinning ear to ear. "Fifteen hundred," I told him, waving the cash out in front of my face.

I could tell he was shocked. "What'd you do with the card?"

"Left it there. I don't think we should keep it on us." I opened the driver's side door. "I'm thinking waffles, cup of coffee."

He nodded in agreement, then climbed into the car.

Breakfast had never sounded better.