Page 90 of Doomsdate

“Wow,” I finally manage. “Um, what does she say back?”

He tilts his head to the side, then grins. “That she hates him. But she doesn’t mean it.”

That startles a laugh out of me. “Sounds like a great movie.”

“It is. We’ll watch it sometime.”

“Okay,” I say, my voice small and content. Happy at the thought of a future where Everett and I watch movies together. And maybe my dumb, hopeful heart just wants to believe it, but right now, under these blue skies and in this crisp spring air, it feels possible. Chicken hops into my lap, startling my hands upward. Instead of circling until she finds the perfect spot, though, she sits tall and regal, staring up at me.

Ask him to stay together, her knowing kitty eyes seem to insist, and I swear I hear that high-pitched orphan’s voice Everett gave her in my head. You don’t have to let us go.

But how? I want to demand. What am I supposed to do? I can’t abandon Gramps. No matter how angry he made me yesterday, all his words are rooted in a deep, loving concern for me. And without his permission, I simply can’t bring Everett and Chicken with me to his bunker. It’s not like Everett’s invited me to stay with him at West Point, either. What if this is still just a weeklong fling for him? Survival with benefits?

You’re scared, Chicken accuses me with her eyes.

Yeah. No shit, cat. I stare right back.

What’s worse, being rejected again or living without us forever?

I suck in a deep breath.

Everett glances between us. “Am I…interrupting something?”

Chicken mreows petulantly, then crosses over into Everett’s lap instead, a clear rebuke of my cowardice.

“Do you ever get the feeling that Chicken is, I don’t know. Judging you?” I ask, wincing a little at how crazy that sounds. But Everett tosses back his head and laughs.

“Only constantly.”

Chicken narrows her little amber eyes and mreows again, like laugh it up, humans, but it’s getting late.

I glance up. The rolling ticker’s date and time are still accurate, though the news flashing across it isn’t. One p.m. We decided we’d leave the city by two, two-thirty at the latest, just to give us time to get to our rig across the river where we left it and find a safe house outside town. If we’re going to my grandparents’ home today, it’s now or never.

Everett picks up on the shift in my mood immediately. His arm curls around me protectively. “Is it time?”

I force myself to nod. Ten minutes later, we’re riding our bikes on the sidewalk beneath the open canopy of Central Park, the trees just starting to unfurl fresh, new leaves. When it’s time to turn left down my grandparents’ street, I glide to a stop instead. Without questioning me, Everett hops off his bike, too, and we lean them against a sign and walk, side by side.

The park is majestic, even this early in spring. To see such lush nature surrounded by buildings, like an island in reverse, is surprising in the best way. A delight sandwiched by city. Did Mom walk down this sidewalk, too, when she was a little girl? Did she ride her bike through the winding paths into the green of the park beside my grandmother, looking at her with eyes that trusted instead of feared?

Or did she have reason to fear them, even then?

Were my grandparents terrible people Mom was right to hide from? When I walk through their front door, will I see rooms where she was hurt? Abused? The genesis of all her mental illness?

Will I even be able to tell?

It’s hard to explain to Everett the decision weighing on my heart right now. The conflicting loyalties I feel to my mother, though she is long gone, but also the truth, which I’ve been trying to find ever since I walked out of our farmhouse ten years ago. It’s hard to trust the woman who trained me to believe there was nothing beyond our farm but horror, but it feels like the ultimate betrayal to question her on this—her life’s biggest decision. Leaving her family, our family, behind forever.

I pull the keys out of my pocket, running my finger along the ridges hard enough to hurt. One block away. We’re only one block away from discovering who my family is, or was, at least. Where I come from. I stop, dead in my tracks, unable to take a step farther.

“We don’t have to go, you know.” Everett pauses to slip his hand into mine, his gaze concerned.

“It’s the whole reason we took the risk in coming here,” I say, looking anywhere but his eyes. “So I could find out who I am. I can’t back out now.”

“No one is making you do anything, and that should include you. Besides, how could a house you’ve never seen tell you anything about who you really are, Maisie?” He draws me to him. “Maybe you’d learn more about the people in your life who are gone, but who your family is doesn’t determine who you decide to be. I know because I had to learn that, too.” He gazes down at my upturned face with so much quiet understanding of how I’m feeling, it tightens my throat.

“I don’t know what to do,” I admit, my voice hushed.

“Listen, I’m here to support you and what you want, no matter what that is. But something is telling you not to go in there, isn’t it?”