But finally the hall dumped them into a lobby, and then they were through the revolving doors and out into the dark.

The cold was shocking. The wind cut right through her sweatshirt and wrapped a hand around her lungs. The sky was clear. The glare of the hospital complex couldn’t quite obscure a smattering of stars. Dea wrapped her arms around her chest, inhaling clean, sharp air, watching her breath condense in clouds. It felt like a long, long time since she had been outside. She still half expected an explosion of shouting to begin at any minute, hands to materialize from the dark and grab her.

But they made it to Connor’s car without trouble. He’d parked at the edge of the parking lot, in a dark wedge of space between streetlamps. As always, the car smelled like gum and old wood shavings, and once they were inside—with the rest of the world locked out, pressed and flattened behind walls of glass—it finally hit Dea that they had done it. She was out. She should have felt triumphant but she was overcome with exhaustion. Her whole body was numb with cold. They had studied shock in Health Ed, and she was pretty sure that her uncontrollable shivering, plus the way her thoughts kept bouncing off each other like deranged rubber balls, meant she had it.

Connor punched on the heat, and wordlessly passed her a blanket from the backseat.

“All right,” he said. “Talk.”

“Not here.” She heard the wail of an approaching siren and tensed; but it was only an ambulance, pulling into the ER.

“Dea . . .” His hands tightened on the wheel. For a second, she was terrified he would order her out of the car.

“I promise, I’ll explain everything. I swear. But we’re not safe here.”

He exhaled—a long, heavy breath. “Where do you want to go?”

She shook her head. She was out and free and she had nowhere to go. She couldn’t go to Gollum’s—it was the first place the cops would look, and besides, Gollum was already covering for Connor. She had no money. No ID. No living relatives that she knew of. She wished, now, that she’d risked pocketing her cell phone and some cash from her purse. At least if she had money, she could get a motel room or buy a plane ticket somewhere.

She thought of the envelope full of rolls of twenty- and fifty-dollar bills, stuffed into the soft interior lining of the passenger seat in the VW.

“My car,” she said. “I need to get into my car.”

Connor stared at her. “Your car is totaled, Dea.” She was surprised that he sounded angry. “You nearly killed yourself. Remember?”

“I wasn’t trying to—” She broke off. There was no point in trying to explain what had happened; it would have to wait until they were somewhere safe. Somewhere else. Instead she said, “I really wrecked it? Bad?”

“You drove straight into a tree,” Connor said, as if she were an idiot. “They had to pull you out. The hood folded up like an accordion—that’s what my uncle said. It’s probably scrap by now. Demo’d.” She looked at him blankly and he said. “Demolished.”

She thought of two thousand dollars, shredded underneath the metal teeth of a giant machine. She needed that money.

“We have to check,” she said. “We have to make sure. Maybe they haven’t . . . demo’d it yet.” Seized by sudden inspiration, she said, “It’s evidence, isn’t it? It’s evidence of a crime.”

“What are you talking about?” Connor said.

“That was my mom’s car. And the police think she’s on the run. So they might keep the car, right?” The more she talked, the more it sounded possible. “Maybe—maybe they think the car is a clue. Or—or like proof that she was doing bad stuff. She probably stole that car.” Dea knew for a fact that she hadn’t, but she needed to make Connor say yes; she needed to convince him to keep helping her.

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.” He yanked the key out of the ignition, cutting off the engine.

Dea took a long breath. “Okay, look. There’s money in that car. I need it. I have nowhere to go. If I get caught, I’ll get thrown back in there.” She jerked her head toward the hospital, looming toward the sky like a vast white wave tunneling toward them. “Everyone thinks I’m crazy, but I’m not. They think my mom ran away, but she didn’t. You’re the only one who can help me. Will you help me?”

For a long time, he just looked at her. Then he turned the ignition back on and put the car in drive.

Dea had crashed somewhere on the border of Marborough and the flat run of land on the western side of it. There was only one tow company she knew of: Sanderson’s, which was actually in Pellston. Mark Sanderson was in Dea’s grade, and rumor had it he sometimes lent out cars to his friends for drag racing. If your car went to Sanderson’s, there was no telling what it would look like when it came out.

They drove to Pellston in silence, with black space hurtling past them. Connor had obviously given up trying to get Dea to talk. There were things she almost asked him—not even about Kate Patinsky and whether she was still bugging Connor’s family for information, or what people were saying about Dea at school—but normal, everyday things. It would make her feel real, like the same old Dea, and not like somebody just returned from a spaceship.

She couldn’t believe that only a couple of months earlier she’d taken Connor on a tour, pointed out the mini-mart and the mega-mart, complained that nothing ever happened and that Fielding must be the most boring town in America. She would give anything to go back to being bored.

Dea had driven past Sanderson’s Tow and Impound lot plenty of times but never paid it much attention. It was bigger than she’d remembered, a large lot encircled with a high fence and illuminated with large floodlights. In contrast to the surrounding darkness, it looked like the set of a movie, and the rows and rows of cars, lit up from above, were like carefully arranged toys.

The gate at the entrance was closed. A laminated sign instructed them to buzz. Connor did. A second later, a skinny guy with a shaved head and tattoos crawling up his neck all the way to his jaw materialized and unlatched the gate, which was encircled with a padlock. He waved them in. He had the glitter-bright eyes and sunken face of a junkie. Still, she saw a resemblance to Mark. So: maybe his older brother.

Connor pulled up to the office, a tin-sided booth no bigger than a janitor’s closet. Inside of it, a guy with a wide sprawl of a nose was leaning on a desk, watching something on a minuscule TV. He, too, had Mark’s face but much fatter, as though someone had taken an air pump to his head.

“So what’s the plan?” she said. But Connor was already getting out of the car. She climbed out after him, ignoring the temporary wave of dizziness that overtook her.

“What are you doing?” he whispered, glaring at her. They were standing on either side of the hood, facing off. “Get back in the car.”

The tattooed guy had shut the gate behind them. He shook a cigarette out of a pack and stood smoking, watching them from a distance.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Dea spoke softly, so Mark’s brother wouldn’t hear. “I’m coming with you.”

“Let me handle it,” Connor said. He started walking toward the office.

She hesitated. She’d been assuming she could just weave her way among the cars, looking for the VW. Still she would need fifteen minutes at least—more, given how weak she felt—and Mark’s brother wasn’t taking his eyes off her. But she was sick of sitting around and waiting; she’d been sitting around, waiting, for days.

So she followed Connor, limping a little. As soon as she got some cash, she was going to buy a real pair of shoes. She was going to need to walk a dream soon, too. Her heart was twitching like a dying insect.

She caught Connor as he reached the office. He shot her a dirty look but didn’t say anything. It was too late to order her into the car, anyway. Mr. Sanderson was already leaning forward.