IF YOU WANT to blow something up, it’s really easy. At least that’s what Gabe always told me. He’d said any materials you could possibly need could be found easily. The only trick was making sure the government didn’t find out about your activities and add you to some watch list.
So far, so good, as far as I knew.
But knowing how the government operated these days, I wouldn’t be surprised if I were arrested and charged as an accomplice to some ridiculous, made-up crime.
“Are you sure this is safe?” I asked.
“Of course it is.” Gabe glanced over his shoulder at me and winked before turning back to his work. After a brief moment, he stood up and walked over to me. “Do you honestly think I’d drag you all the way out here to blow you to smithereens?”
I cringed. I couldn’t help but think he’d have the perfect opportunity if that was his plan. No one else around for miles. The sound would echo across the valley down below, but it would be impossible to pinpoint the origin. “Actually, I was just worried about the outcome if things go south.”
“You know Dad taught me everything I know, right? Can’t be too careful.”
He had a point. I sighed and gripped the handle on the fire extinguisher from my fire watch station thirty feet away.
“Besides, if anyone’s going to get hurt, it’s going to be me.”
That’s what I was most afraid of, but to say that out loud felt like crossing an invisible line. So, I closed my eyes and sucked in a breath instead. What if he got hurt? What if he miscalculated and the explosion was bigger than it was supposed to be? What if it blew his legs or arms off? And right before his parents were taking off on a work trip.
“Relax, will you?”
I let out the breath and opened my eyes.
“It’s going to be okay, Emme. I promise.”
And of course he was right. Just like he had been the last five times he had brought me with him on his chemical experiments. When the bomb exploded, the aluminum can flew ten feet straight up in the air and then fell back down to the ground.
Gabe whooped and hollered while I closed my eyes and shook my head.
Boys. What was with their love for blowing stuff up?
I hosed the area down with the fire extinguisher and then helped him gather up his supplies. “You know, there’s no way you could twist my arm into coming along if you didn’t review recipes with your dad first.”
Gabe’s smile faded. He curled his fingers gently around my arm, his fingertips sending shivers up my flesh and down my spine.
I held my breath and waited for him to say something. Or was it that I wanted him to do something?
But then he spoke.
“Why won’t you call him ‘Dad’?” His voice was soft and low.
I held his gaze for a brief moment longer and then looked away before tears welled up in my eyes and my throat tightened again. “You know why,” I replied, my voice hoarse.
My heart was threatening to burst out of my chest and the tears won. I broke free from his grasp, then quickly shoved the rest of the supplies into the duffel bag and hauled it to the trunk of the car.
Gabe sighed. I heard his footsteps behind me crunching on the gravel driveway. “I’m sorry.” He leaned his hip against the rear of the car and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “It’s just that you’re as much a part of the family as I am.”
I stared down at the trunk, feeling helpless against the swimming tears that spilled out onto my hands. I tried to wipe them away with the back of my hand but my face was still wet.
In our silence, as the tears kept spilling out and I kept trying to wipe them away, I imagined him watching me with that worried look on his face. The worried look he always got whenever my heart was breaking. But I couldn’t bring myself to look up and meet his gaze. Not this time.
I heard him sigh again and then he draped his jacket over my shoulders, his hands lingering for a moment, before heading up the porch steps.
Through the blur of tears, I watched him disappear into the cabin. I pulled his jacket tighter around me and stared out over the hillside. Barely visible and far off into the horizon was Washington, D.C., what was once the nation’s capital.
After a few minutes, the screen door creaked open.
“We should go.”
I nodded, still staring toward the east.
“I lost cell service.”
I sighed then, pulling my gaze away from the darkening horizon, and turned to Gabe. He was looking up at his phone as he held it high over his head.
“Time for a new phone,” I said weakly.
“No way. I just got this thing a year ago.”
I turned back to the horizon. I thought about what it was like behind the walls. Was the government right? Did the criminals really kill each other off when left to fend for themselves in an abandoned area? Left with dwindling food supplies and forced to raid former residences and commercial buildings? Was my parents’ killer there?
Gabe touched my arm. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“You think they’ll ever catch the guy who did it? After all this time?” I watched his face for a second and then turned back to stare out toward the east. “The reporter didn’t seem too confident.”
“What does that reporter know anyway? Just a sorry loser, if you ask me.”
Gabe always had a way of putting things in perspective for me.
“But he talked to the police chief.”
He grabbed my shoulders and turned me around to face him. His face was close to mine. “That guy knows next to nothing about the case. He’s just trying to entertain the masses.”
“But he has a point. They were murdered twelve years ago,” I replied. “How could the police possibly come up with new evidence to convict a killer after all this time?”
Gabe shook his head and sighed. “Maybe the detectives know more than they’re telling us.”
“It’s not fair. The guy is probably roaming free while my parents are dead.”
“Who’s to say he isn’t already there?” Gabe asked, pointing toward the east. “He’s probably done other horrible things. Maybe he got caught. Or who knows, maybe he’s dead.”
“Maybe he’s been dead for years.”
“Exactly.”
That was supposed to help me feel better, but I still felt numb. If only the reporter didn’t come on the air every year to discuss the anniversary of my parents’ murder, maybe I’d be able to recover.
It wasn’t like the police were making any progress. And if they were, they weren’t telling me about it. Or maybe they were telling Gabe’s parents, my legal guardians, since I was still under age. Maybe they didn’t want me to worry.
“Come on,” Gabe said. “It’s getting late.”
