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“Yes, Mr. Walker. He did.”

Dad nodded, then whistled, and Rudy bounded off the bed with unquestioning obedience.

He waved. “Breakfast should be about ten minutes. Bring your appetites!”

It sounded like Bren had swallowed half the gravel in the driveway when he spoke some eons later, his eyes fixed on the empty doorframe. “Can I just go back out the window?”

A.J. flopped back on the bed, hoping it might force some of the blood out of his face.

“Only if you take me with you. Life on the lam. New identities. Sorry, you might have to pretend to be English.”

“I’m givin’ you a pass for that one ’cause I know you’re not thinkin’ straight, like,” Bren said before getting to his feet with great effort. “But you better not say it again.”

He looked down at himself like he’d forgotten he was butt naked.

“Come on, Robolad,” he said, pulling on the pajamas from last night. “Pancakes first, new lives second.”

A.J. groaned but let Bren pull him to his feet. He had to spend the rest of his life trying to figure out how to live with this. He might as well get to it.

26

Tears clung to Nat’s eyes as she shook with a choking laugh. Bren watched as Arlo had delivered the last half of the story to the nectarine clenched in his hand, and Arlo groaned when he looked up to find his best friend fighting for her life.

“It’s not funny!”

Nat shook with silent glee but managed to pull herself together enough to wipe the tears from her eyes.

“I agree. It’s hilarious.”

A.J. must have considered throwing the nectarine at her, but he took a bite instead. The hope of being able to keep her out of the loop had been shattered before Bren had tucked into his first stack of syrupy distraction. Her parents had noticed that the breakfast table was one Irish lad short, and Nat had swooped in to tell them he’d gone to school early to work out with Dustin.

As if the day hadn’t been bad enough already, now he had to suffer through however many early morning workouts it would take to sell the lie.

“Seriously, though. It could have been worse,” Nat said, wiping her eyes on the collar of her t-shirt. “Imagine if it was the parent with functioning eyes.”

Her shudder looked like it came from the very depths of her soul, and Bren was sure his bony arse had flapped its way across her mental landscape.

Served her right.

“Can we talk about literally anything else, please?” Arlo asked, his voice echoing around the deserted stairwell they’d hunkered down in.

“Dude, not a chance.”

She dug around in her duct-tape purse and pulled out a handful of Starbursts. Bren was convinced that the raggedy thing magically produced the brightly coloured sweets like something out of Mary Poppins.

“Seriously, though. Midnight booty call?” she grinned as she twisted the first of the wrappers into the start of another bracelet. “And I thought I was a bad influence.”

“It wasn’t a booty call! I had a . . . bad night.”

Even though Nat hadn’t been there, Bren was sure she could see the trees back in Glenbridge reflected in Arlo’s eyes as the veil fell across them.

“Fuck, dude. Sorry, I didn’t mean—” She fiddled with the pile of sweets in her lap in lieu of finishing the sentence and Bren’s hand went to Arlo’s shoulder. Something like a smile formed on his face and he leaned into the touch.

They sat in silence but for the crinkle of wrappers for long enough that Arlo seemed to get up in the one part of his mind that felt off limits to him. It had always been there, of course, and Bren had taken great pride in being able to lead him back to reality when he got turned around. But things had changed after the attack, and the way out kept moving to places Bren couldn’t always reach.

All because he hadn’t gotten off his arse and done the shopping.

“Uh, hey, guys?”