Pittacus Lore - Return to Paradise

“That car . . . ,” I start.

“Doesn’t look friendly.” Sarah finishes my thought.

I put my truck in gear and start driving, my eyes locked on the rearview mirror, hoping that the car will stay put.

It doesn’t.

“Mark,” Sarah says.

“I know.” My foot presses harder on the gas. I tell myself this is just a coincidence, but there’s no way I can talk my brain into believing that.

“It’s gaining on us,” Sarah says. She’s completely twisted around in the seat, her hands gripping the headrest.

I glance down at my speedometer. I’m already going sixty in a thirty, but I speed up even more.

“SHIT!” Sarah shouts, and I look in my rearview mirror again just in time to see the front bumper of the car disappear under my tailgate.

The car gives me a fairly light love tap—probably not enough to cause any damage but enough for me to feel it, and to rattle me pretty hard. It lets up a little, but it’s still trailing me by only a few feet. Instinctively, I speed up. The car does the same.

“Get back under your seat belt,” I yell at Sarah, who’s wiggled out of it to keep her eyes locked on the car.

“What do we do?” she asks.

My mind races. I can’t slow down. Luckily, the street we’re on is fairly straight, but there’s a curve coming up I’ll never be able to take at this speed.

“I don’t know,” I mutter. I’m pushing ninety and rising, but the car’s not letting up. I can barely make out someone behind the wheel—just a big black blob vaguely in the shape of a human. I wonder for a second if it’s a Mog or an FBI agent or some new type of alien we didn’t even know existed, because that’s a very real possibility at this point.

“What do they want?” I ask.

“Obviously to murder us,” Sarah shouts. She grips her seat.

We’re approaching the curve in the road when the car suddenly zips into the oncoming traffic lane and revs up beside me until we’re speeding along parallel to one another. The tinting on the car windows make it impossible to see anything but the reflection of the outside world—like the car is some sort of automated machine out for blood without an actual driver inside.

Sarah gasps. “Crap! Is it going to—”

I see what she’s guessing at a split second before it happens. I slam on my brakes. Sarah screams. The black car whips into my lane, missing the hood of my truck by what looks like inches. I can feel my antilock brakes pumping beneath my foot as the bed of my truck starts to slide to the right.

“HOLD ON!” I shout, bracing myself with one hand on the wheel and one gripping Sarah’s arm—as if I’m going to be able to hold us in place if we start to roll. I can feel the truck start to fall over.

But we don’t roll. The truck tips, then shudders, and finally comes to a stop after spinning a quarter turn. Smoke from my tires drifts through the air around us, filling my nose with the stench of burned rubber. Every muscle in my body is contracted, and I can already tell that I’m going to have some kind of bruise where my body’s been thrown against the seat belt.

There’s no sign of the black car. It’s disappeared around the curve.

“Are you okay?” I ask Sarah, who looks at me and nods. Her hair’s been thrown over her face, and her eyes are wide. She wriggles a little, and I realize I’ve got a viselike grip on her. I let her go. My fingers feel stiff.

I put the truck into park and start to shake a little, adrenaline rushing through me.

Ahead of us, the black car appears, stopped at the head of the curve in the road.

“Mark,” Sarah says. “Get us out of here.”

And then there’s smoke coming from the car’s wheels as it peels out. It careens straight for the passenger side of my truck.

I flip the truck into reverse to try and get us off the road, but I’m too slow. There’s no way we’re getting out of the way in time.

And then, at the last second, the car swerves to the right and misses us completely, then continues to barrel down the deserted road as I stomp on the gas and back up as fast as possible. I end up slamming into a thin, tall tree. It falls over with a crack. Splintering.

We watch as the car disappears from sight again, this time miles and miles away. I’m breathing like I’ve just played the most intense scrimmage of my life. Sarah’s hands are shaking.

“What the fuck was that?” I ask.

“I think that means we were poking around where we weren’t supposed to.”

“That car just tried to kill us.”

“No,” Sarah says, shaking her head. “It was just trying to scare us. To warn us about what would happen if we keep digging. If we get more involved.”

I glance at the clock. The period after lunch is starting in Helena. Shakily, I put the truck in gear and head towards our new school. There’s nothing else for us in Paradise right now.

MY DAD’S ALREADY HOME BY THE TIME I GET back from school that night, which is strange, because he’s recently been getting home about an hour after I do. I back my truck around the side of the house—there’s a good-size dent in my bumper and some scraped paint on my tailgate that I’d like to hide from him as long as possible. Stupid tree.

I can hear fighting when I walk inside. I rush to the dining room, where Nana’s reprimanding Dad about something. There are several cans of beer on the table.

I walk in on him midsentence.

“. . . bastards have no right to kick me out of my own damned office.”

“You may be an adult,” Nana says, “but you won’t use language like that under my roof.”

They notice me at the same time, and Nana moves to usher me out of the dining room while my dad swigs back a beer.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“Apparently the FBI has completely taken over your father’s station,” Nana says, pushing me into the kitchen and pointing at a plate of cookies. I shake my head.

“What?”

“He’s less than pleased. Apparently a man named Perty or Purdy or some such kicked him out of his own office.”

Purdy .

“How can they even do that?” I ask.

Nana just shrugs. “I wouldn’t ask him right now if I were you. Let’s give him some space.”

I nod. I’ve seen my dad drink beer all my life, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him day drinking like this. Or even actually drunk. So I head upstairs to put my stuff away and check in on what I’ve missed online during the drive home from Helena while trying to figure out why the FBI might have taken over the police station. The logical part of me says that it’s just because John’s escaped and they’re concerned he’s going to come back here, but there’s also a nagging thought in the back of my mind: Does this have anything to do with the fact that I was digging around at the Goodes’ today? Is this another FBI warning—one more subtle than a car trying to run me off the road but definitely more personal?

I shake my head. This has got to be about the search for John and Six. That’s what I have to believe.

I’m bummed Sarah’s not online to chat with. I want to tell her about these new developments, but now that her cell is gone and her parents are wardens of the landline, the internet’s my only way of communicating with her. When I see she’s not there, I email her, telling her I’ve got some news she’ll want to hear but don’t actually mention anything specific.

Later that night—when my dad has passed out watching reruns in the recliner downstairs—I get a text from a weird number I don’t recognize:

Hi. Have you heard of any sightings of John?

I guess Sarah got a new phone after all. Hopefully a burner. I text her back: