the real crazy thing? These bad facts notwithstanding, deep down I do believe I can swim the mile or more to that dock. I know it, actually. Maybe that’s all that matters. Because if I have learned anything in these past weeks, it’s that strength is just another word for faith. And true courage lies in holding out hope.
And right now, it’s just me and my doubt at the water’s edge anyway. I know not to let that get the better of me. Instead, I need to trust my instincts.
So I take one last deep breath before I step forward and set my gaze on that faraway horizon. And then I start to swim.
I AM IN OUR FOYER staring at the text from Jasper. At that one word: Run.
For a minute. For an hour. Forever.
My heart drums against my rib cage as my eyes stay down. The six agents say things. Their names—Agent Klute and Agent Johansen and Agent something else and something else. Run. Don’t run. Run. Don’t run. They say other things: Department of Homeland Security. Ruling out a domestic security threat. The rest is just buzzing.
Run. Don’t run. Run. Don’t run.
Run.
I spin toward the steps, phone gripped like a hand grenade. Run first. Questions later. Quentin taught me that.
“Wylie?” my dad shouts after me. Stunned. Confused. Worried. “Wylie, what are you—”
Voices, jostling behind me as I pound toward the steps. Don’t look back. Don’t slow down. On and up the stairs. On and up. That’s what I need to do.
But why up? Shouldn’t I run out the back door and not deeper into the house? The upstairs bathroom and the slanted, notched part of the roof. That must be it. A way out. I grab the banister when my feet slip.
“Ms. Lang!” one of them calls. So close I can almost feel his breath.
“Stop! Leave her alone!” My dad sounds so angry I barely recognize his voice. Many more voices shout back at him. Gasping, thudding, a struggle. “You can’t just barge into our house!”
“Dr. Lang, calm down!”
“Hey! Stop!” The voice behind me again. Even closer now. I lunge forward as I hit the upstairs hall.
The bathroom. That’s where I need to go. Focus. Focus. Faster. Faster. Before he grabs me. The door isn’t far. And I’ll only need a second to open the window and crawl out. After a quick slide to the ground, I’ll do then what I have done before. Run. Like. Hell.
Down the hallway I pound, loud feet still just a stride behind me. “Wylie!” the man calls out, but stiff like he doesn’t want to admit that I even have a name.
“This is our house!” my dad shouts again. He sounds closer to the steps.
“Dr. Lang, you need to stay here!”
My eyes are locked on the bathroom door at the end of the hall. It seems so far away. The hallway endless. But I need to get to that door. Window up. Slide out. One step at a time. As fast as I possibly can.
“Ms. Lang!” The voice again, much closer. Too close. And nervous. He is near enough to grab me but is too afraid of hurting me. “Come on! Stop! What are you doing?”
Past the first door on the right. Two more left to go.
But then my foot catches on the carpet. I manage to get my hands up at the very last second so that it’s my wrist that cracks hard against the wall, and then my shoulder instead of my face. Still, the shooting pain makes me feel dizzy as I hit the ground. I think I might vomit as I roll into myself, cradling my arm against my stomach. I’m afraid to look down. Terrified the bone might be poking through.
“Jesus, are you okay?” The agent has stopped in front of me. I can now see he’s the short one with the overly muscular arms that stick out stiffly from his sides. And he is definitely as nervous as he sounded. But also annoyed. He looks up and down the hall like he’s checking for witnesses. “Damn it. I told you not to run.”
A FEW MINUTES later, I am sitting on the slouched couch in our small living room as my dad wraps an ice pack around my throbbing wrist. The pain is making my brain vibrate. The men have silently positioned themselves so that they now block the door and the stairs and the hallway toward the back. Each and every one of the possible exits. They look even bigger inside the compact frame of our old Victorian home than they did outside. There is definitely no way out now.
“I don’t think it’s broken,” Agent Klute announces, peering at my arm. But not nearly close enough to make that kind of assessment.
My dad, on his feet in front of me, turns around and gets right in Agent Klute’s face. He looks so tiny by comparison, like a little boy.
“Get the hell out of my house,” he snaps, pointing toward the door. “Now, I mean it. All of you out.”
Like he will try to remove Klute by force if he has to. My dad’s fury has made him blind to their difference in size. He would die trying to protect me, I can see that so clearly now. I wish I had known it before. I’m not sure what it would have changed about what happened at the camp. Everything maybe.
“I’m afraid we can’t leave, Dr. Lang.” Klute lowers his head. “Not until Wylie answers our questions.”
He is trying to appear unthreatening. Apologetic. It doesn’t work. Especially because he doesn’t feel sorry. I can tell. I can read his feelings well enough to have no doubt. Actually, Agent Klute feels so very little. It’s chilling. My dad steps closer, his anger rising.
“You can’t just barge into my home and chase after my daughter. She is the victim here,” my dad says. “Even if she was a criminal, you need a warrant to be in someone’s home. It’s not legal. God help you if her wrist is broken.”
“To be clear, Dr. Lang, your daughter ran from federal agents. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?”
My dad almost laughs. Then he presses his fingertips to his mouth, as if in prayer. I have never seen him this angry before. Rage has changed the shape of his face. But I can feel him trying so hard to stay calm. To do what needs to be done.
“Get out. Get out. Get out,” my dad says—slow and quiet and steady. Like a drumbeat. “Right now. Or so help me God—”
“As I said, we can’t do that.” Agent Klute is still so freakishly calm. “Wylie is a material witness to a multiple homicide that could be linked to domestic terrorism. We need her to come with us now and answer some questions. That’s all.”
“Ha!” my dad huffs. “I’m calling a lawyer.”
What lawyer? I think as my dad grabs for his phone and dials. And yet he seems so confident as he puts the phone to his ear. Time stretches out as we stand there, waiting for someone to answer his call, for my dad to speak. I can feel Agent Klute staring at me. I try not to look back at him, but I cannot help myself.
Sure enough, his cold, black eyes are locked on me, his mouth hanging open a little so that I can see his huge white teeth. I imagine them biting into me. But I don’t sense any of the hostile feelings I would expect to be coming from him—no annoyance or suspicion or aggravation. There is only one thing: pity. And, it turns out, that is so much more terrifying.
I cross my arms tight as my stomach balls up. Maybe I should just answer their questions. Maybe that would make this all go away faster. Except I also have the most awful sense that—no matter what I say—this is the beginning of something and not the end.
Breathe, I remind myself. Breathe. Because the room is narrowing, the floor beginning to shift underfoot. And this is definitely not the time