Gemma nodded. She was too nervous to speak. A sign ahead pointed the way to the interstate, and here there were more cars on the road, funneling onto or off the highway. The Volvo was still following them, but at a distance of about fifty yards.
Pete put on his blinker and moved into the far left lane, as though he was about to turn across traffic and into a shopping mall that boasted two liquor stores, a nail salon, and a pizza joint. At least one car crowded in behind them, separating them temporarily from the Volvo’s view. The traffic light turned red. Pete inched forward. Gemma could hear him breathing. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe, as if she was being squeezed between two iron plates.
“What are you . . . ?” she started to say, but then the light turned green and Pete slammed his foot on the accelerator.
The engine whined, then yanked them forward. Gemma nearly cracked her head on the dashboard before she was pulled backward by the seat belt, smacking her head against the seat. Pete jerked the wheel to the right, cutting across two lanes of traffic. Several drivers leaned a long protest on their horns, and a Chevy screeched to a stop to avoid colliding with them.
“What the hell? What the hell?” Gemma was screaming, and more horns went off as Pete careened onto the entrance to the interstate. But then it was over. He was speeding up the on ramp. Traffic blurred past them, a solid moving mass of cars dazzled by sunlight, and then they were there, passing among them, and the Volvo was long gone. The sky was bright and puffy with clouds. They could have been anyone, going anywhere.
“How’s that for a chase scene?” Pete said. He was out of breath.
Gemma couldn’t help it: all her fear transformed into the sudden desire to laugh. It practically lifted her out of her seat. She doubled forward, holding her stomach, laughing so hard it hurt. Pete started to laugh, too. Then he snorted, which just made Gemma laugh harder, until she couldn’t breathe and had to lean back, gasping.
“Not bad,” she said. Her eyes were watering, blurring her vision of the highway and the featureless towns on either side of it, all of them identical, replicas of one another. “Not bad at all.”
Turn the page to continue reading Gemma’s story. Click here to read Chapter 12 of Lyra’s story.
THIRTEEN
THEY DROVE FOR ANOTHER HOUR. Pete switched onto different freeways several times, just in case, although Gemma couldn’t imagine how anyone could still be pursuing them. She was surprised to see a sign for Palm Grove—the town where Emily Huang, the nurse at Haven who’d been killed before she could talk to Mr. Witz, had lived—and equally surprised when Pete turned off the highway.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m starving,” he said. “I’m seriously about to self-cannibalize. And I need both hands to drive.”
“I’m hungry too,” Gemma said, before remembering that she tried never to admit to being hungry in front of other people. But of course, the fact that they’d just escaped from a military tail made her normal concerns about being overweight seem unimportant. Besides, Pete didn’t look at her that way, as if there was something wrong with her, as if she really shouldn’t, as if she would be pretty if only she’d slim down a bit.
She liked how Pete looked at her.
They pulled over at a diner across from a motel called the Starlite, its parking lot empty except for a white Chevrolet and a few beat-up, dusty sedans. She didn’t want to think about the kind of people who used the Starlite midday. Gemma climbed out, stretching, her body still sore from being contorted on a lawn chair all night. Once again she had that awful, full-body sensation of being watched. She whipped around, certain she saw a face peering out at her from a window of the Starlite. But it was only a trick of the light.
Still, even after they were seated and tucking into enormous burgers and a platter of fries so towering it seemed to defy physics, she kept glancing out the window. Another car pulled into the diner parking lot and her heart stopped. But it was only a dad and his two kids. And after a while, she began to relax.
“So what’s the next move?” Pete had waited until they were both finished eating before leaning forward and speaking to her in a low voice. “I mean, we can’t depend on Jake anymore. The replicas are gone. Are we finished here?”
Again, she liked his use of the word we. “I’ve been thinking about that.” She’d eaten too much too quickly and now she was nauseous. “I have to talk to my parents. It’s the only way.” Even saying it made her chest feel like it might collapse, but she kept talking, half hoping to convince herself. “My dad has answers. He’s been miserable for years, and I think it has to be because of Haven.” She was surprised to realize, as soon as she said it, that this was true. “He walks around like he’s got something clinging to his back. Like a giant vampire bat or something.”
Pete made a face.
“What?” she said. “You think that’s a bad idea?”
“I think it’s a great idea.” Pete sighed. He swiped a hand through his hair. It stood up again immediately. “This is big stuff. These are big, serious people. I worry . . .” He looked up at her, and something in his eyes made her breath snag. But he quickly looked away. “I was worried, that’s all.” He was back to his normal self, easy and silly. “You ready to hit the road, then? I made a playlist for the drive back, you know. ‘One hundred greatest bluegrass hits of the 1970s.’”
“I’ll throw you through the windshield,” Gemma said. She felt surprisingly free now that she’d made the decision—as if something had clambered off her back. “Meet me in the car, okay?”