S. Bodeen - The Fallout

Phil interrupted, “You’ve got no proof of anything.”

I stood up and practically leaped across the table. “You were there with the helicopter!”

He smiled and tilted his head a bit. “I was there to rescue you.”

“After six years?” I scoffed. “You were a little late.”

Eddy pulled on my arm to get me to sit back down.

Mom pointed at Phil. “One way or another, I will get you out of here.”

Phil leaned back and crossed his arms. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Mom shoved away from the table and headed for Phil, who jumped to his feet. I followed Eddy, who quickly grabbed her arm and said, “Mom, we’ll figure this out. Just calm down.”

Phil turned to his lawyer. “I have to get back to work.” He looked my way, a smirk on his face. “I have a company to run.”

In an instant, I had my finger in his face. “This isn’t over.”

“Oh, really?” Phil shook his head. “I think—” Dodge pulled him away and they huddled together, heads down, their backs to me.

My heart was pounding, and I looked down, trying to stop myself from doing something I would regret later. Phil’s briefcase was open on the chair right by my leg. A flash drive sat on top of a few folders. Without thinking, I reached in, closed my fingers around it, and slipped it in my pocket. Then I backed away and stood beside Mom and Eddy. “Let’s get out of here.” And I glared at Phil one more time before we left the room.

Out in the hallway, Mom turned to our lawyer and said, “I want him gone.” Her jaw clenched and her eyes grew dark. “One way or another.”

I’d never seen that look in her eyes before.

The limo ride home was quiet. Quiet and uneventful, thanks to our recent move to Mercer Island in the middle of Lake Washington. After spending a few weeks at Gram’s in Hawaii, we had flown home to Seattle, arriving one night at a private airfield near YK, and then piling into two big SUVs. As we neared our mansion, the road swarmed with news vans and satellite dishes and reporters. Fortunately, the windows of the vehicles were tinted, but that didn’t stop the cameras from flashing. It took forever to get through the gates and onto our driveway.

The second I’d opened the car door, our chocolate lab, Cocoa, jumped out and ran around to the back, probably wanting to see if her doghouse was still there. Inside, our housekeeper Els had been waiting for us. Ever since we’d gotten out of the Compound, she’d been getting the mansion ready for us, and our extra siblings. Reese went right to her old room, leaving Eddy and Lexie and I to help get the little ones ready for bed. I took Lucas to a former guest room that had been repainted in primary colors. A big red fire-engine bed rested on one wall. He squawked, then ran to it and climbed the ladder to the top. He waved. “Look how high I am!”

I grinned. “Can you sleep that high up?”

He nodded and flopped down on the mattress, disappearing from view.

I walked over to the curtained window and peeked out. Although the street itself wasn’t in view, the glow from all the lights was, and cameras still flashed. How long were they going to stay there?

I let the curtain drop and went over to the bed, then climbed up the ladder. Lucas was already asleep.

I tucked him in, then backed down the ladder a step before dropping to the floor.

Downstairs, Mom, Gram, and Els were in the kitchen. Mom was holding a snoozing Finn. I said, “Lucas is asleep.”

Els set an apple pie on the counter and held up a knife. “Hungry?”

I smiled. “Sure.” I reached out to get the knife.

Els gently slapped my hand away. “I can still get things for you.”

“Fine.” I made a face at her and climbed up on a stool beside Mom. Els slid a piece of pie over to me. I picked up a fork. “Thanks. May I have some milk?”

Els nodded and went to get a glass, her white orthopedic shoes squeaking as she walked across the tiled marble floor.

Weird. Being served again after so many years of doing things for myself. I took a bite of pie. “Yum. Els, this is great.”

She set a glass of milk in front of me and handed me a napkin. “Wipe your face.”

Without a word, I obeyed.

Mom handed Finn to Gram, who said, “I’ll take this babe up to bed.”

I asked Mom, “What are we gonna do about all those news crews?”

She shrugged. “We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

Those first two days, being home in our mansion was surreal. Paparazzi and news vans surrounded us. Our home wasn’t visible from the street where they camped out, but helicopters could fly overhead. We didn’t dare go outside, not even to take Cocoa for a walk. One day I stopped by an upstairs window that looked out over the pool and the basketball court, wishing I could go out there. Beyond the basketball court, something new had been built. I couldn’t tell what it was, but I saw a lot of concrete.

Did it really matter? After being cooped up all those years, I was once again denied the coveted freedom of the outdoors.

After three days of virtual house arrest, the YK helicopter came one night and took us to the office. There, we switched to several white windowless vans, which secretly transported all of us to a new house on Mercer Island, bought under a name that would never be traced to us.

While not our mansion, the new house was still huge: seven bedrooms, six-and-a-half baths, on over an acre of lakeshore property, next door to a home that was even bigger, with even more security than ours. Which meant we had a pretty good chance of not sticking out, at least for a while.

My room had a massive bank of windows looking out onto Lake Washington. In front of them was a state-of-the-art treadmill, which I ran on every morning. Running outside would have been better, but we had tried that. Once. Our security force had all been hired for their bulk, not their stamina, and those guys couldn’t keep up with me for more than a mile.

Cocoa followed me to my room, where I inserted the stolen flash drive—initials P.A.W. etched on its side—into my desktop computer. Of course, I also had a new YK tablet, which made my old laptop in the Compound seem laughable, but I found myself still using the desktop most of the time. The list of files on the flash drive popped up, and I hoped one of them had something that would shed light on Phil’s connection to my dad and the Compound.

But as I opened the first several files, everything appeared to be legitimate business: schematics of products, meeting notes, schedules. After about an hour, I couldn’t stop yawning. I rubbed my eyes, ejected the flash drive, and put it in my desk drawer.

Cocoa had been curled up at my feet, but when she felt me stir, she sat up and put her head in my lap. As I petted her, I realized I would have to figure another way to get Phil out of the company. And out of my life.

The daily routines that had been so confining, so infuriating, while I was underground became something to cling to once we got out. Maybe it was because every morning I still woke up feeling angry and trapped. But then I looked around, saw the late-summer sunshine, smelled coffee and cinnamon, heard birds singing outside my open window. An extra dose of my new-and-improved reality came that morning when Lucas’s foot kicked me in the gut, and I realized he’d snuck into my bed sometime in the night. And then Cocoa stuck her cold nose in my face.

Every morning I got to realize it all over again; the nightmare was done. We were out. Safe. Together as a family.

Lucas was still zonked, so I covered him up and took Cocoa outside, then filled her dish with food. In the kitchen, Els was busy making breakfast on one of the two stoves and Gram was the only other one awake yet. She didn’t ever speak in those early-morning moments, instead she simply set a hand on my shoulder and squeezed, then set a steaming cup of coffee and milk in front of me as I slid up on a bar stool at the counter.