Chapter 33

We huddle in the back of the flatbed truck with a plastic tarp thrown over us. Miesha has shut me out, refusing to elaborate on Karden Sanders or the land pirate's change of heart.

"This is insanity," I whisper, incensed that she's pulled a card like this but then won't share it. "Insanity!"

"But it's my insanity, and all you need to know is it bailed you out."

Miesha is mixed up with something bad--maybe illegal--and that means I am too. That makes it my business. I fume in silence while we eat the sandwiches that we got to go. The tuna is greasy, and the bread is stale. At least the moody Greta at Gatsbro's estate could cook. Right now I think Dot is lucky that she doesn't eat. Even she is silent. Mostly. "I'm an Escapee. An Escapee. Just like you." Besides the occasional chanting of her new status, she concentrates on keeping her balance so she won't slide across the bed of the truck when our driver takes sharp turns. The land pirate and his friends hooted when they saw the rest of Dot beneath her canvas blanket. Contraband, they called her. Stolen Bots bring high prices and stiff sentences. Even land pirates don't mess with them. We're quite the trio, illegal on every level imaginable. At least I assume Miesha has some criminal past--and maybe a present one too.

I finish my sandwich and give Miesha one last glaring look before I close my eyes and try to block it all out. How did I get here? Hiding in the back of a land pirate's truck with fabricated but very cracked ribs, a stolen Bot on one side of me, a likely criminal on the other, and more than two centuries and a dozen lifetimes from who I was? Does any part of the Locke I was even exist anymore?

A familiar ache sneaks inside of me and fills the space where real things used to be. Real things like my parents, my sister, even my brother. My aunts and uncles and their potluck dishes. My dad's voice telling me not to be too late as I walked out the door.

His voice. It was the last thing I heard.

Don't leave us, Locke. Please don't leave us. But I did.

There was a time when all I wanted was for my life to be different, and now all I want is for it to be what it was. I might as well be wishing for a time machine. It's all gone. My home. My family. My whole neighborhood. Even the small stone bridge a few blocks from my house that I thought would last forever. It was one of my favorite places to be by myself, and when I met Kara and Jenna, I shared it with them. We used to dangle our legs from its lower trestle while we spouted great thoughts that would change the world.

Kara and Jenna. Our thoughts. My thoughts.

At least I still have those.