All Good Children - Catherine Austen [73]
She wipes her face and walks over, rests a hand on my arm. “They’re not going to let him go, Max, and taking him without permission is kidnapping.”
I rip my arm away. “Man, you’re such a liar! You’re going back on this now?”
“No. I’m just worried. Our races won’t play out well at the border.”
She’s right. No one would blink an eye at a white family taking a black kid out of the country. But there’s no way the border guards will let someone as black as Mom smuggle a white ultimate away forever. “Did you tell Rebecca we’re bringing him?” I ask.
“Yes. And if we stay with her, under her last name, Arlington might not find us for a while.”
“You think he’ll try to find us in Canada?”
“We’re kidnapping his child, Max.”
There’s a knock at the door. We both jump. I figure the room is under surveillance and the word kidnapping alerted the cops.
“It’s eight o’clock at night,” Mom mutters as she goes to the door. I crouch behind her, tiptoeing in my own home.
In the hallway, Dallas waits with a backpack on one shoulder and his RIG in hand. “I’m informing the community about the benefits of our New Education Support Treatment,” he says. He chews a bit, and I pull him inside.
Mom pats his arm. “Oh my god, you’re good at that. We were just talking about you.”
“I know. I had my ear pressed to the door.”
“What if the camera saw you do that?” I snap.
He shrugs. “The zombies do it all the time. It’s part of their training.”
“Could you really hear us?” Mom asks.
“Just the odd word. I’m sorry about Ally.”
“We should have left sooner,” Mom says. “At least you two are still okay.”
Dallas waits for her to shut her bedroom door before he heads toward the living-room couch. “I just came to give you this,” he tells me. He unzips his pack and lifts out a blue-flowered pillowcase so full and heavy that the seams stretch tight. He sets it on my lap.
I peek inside—pearls, gold chains, earrings, coins, bundles of paper money. “Jesus, Dallas, is this real?”
He nods. “Austin’s been stealing from our parents and their friends since he was little.”
I jiggle the contents. “What’s it for?”
“For the car, of course.”
“I told you. We’re trading the apartment for the car.”
“Then it’s for gas and food and somewhere to stay when you get there.”
“When we get there.”
He shrugs.
“Don’t start that again,” I say. “You can see your parents when you’re an adult.”
“It’s not that. They don’t even like me.” He brushes his bangs from his eyes and tries to smile. “I just don’t think I can go. What if it’s all a spill-zone up there? Or what if there’s no work and we end up living in the car? Can we even go to school there? What if they ship us back? Or what if we get killed in Freaktown?”
“It’s a lot closer than Mexico. And safer.” I try to lighten his mood by asking, “Who would you rather be killed by? A bunch of freaks or a bunch of Mexican drug lords?”
He scratches his head. “I’ve never been good at decisions.”
“We’ll be fine, Dallas. The timing is perfect. School’s out on Friday. Mom has the weekend off. You can tell your parents you’re Christmas shopping. No one will look for us all day. We’ll be over the border before they know we’re gone.”
He nods, but his heart’s not in it.
“Mom can probably get you that passport with the name Connors.”
He snickers. “I’m a bit pale for your family.”
“Then we’ll hide you in the trunk,” I snap.
“And what if they look?” he snaps back. “You’ve got this one chance, Max. You can’t do anything illegal or they won’t let you out.”
“It’s not illegal to leave.”
“I heard that word.”
“What word?”
“Kidnapping.” He stands and brushes off his pants. “It won’t be easy getting me out of here. Even you guys alone might have problems. Your Mom’s a lot darker than you. They might think she’s taking her kids away from her husband.”
“We have his death certificate and all our documents.”
“You can’t take the chance of getting caught for kidnapping.”
“We are not leaving you.”
“I’ll have another chance, Max. My family has money. I’m almost sixteen. By summer I could have my own car. I can drive myself across the border.