Page 72 of Dotted Lines (Runaway 5)

Clara’s nervous energy was palpable, growing with every block. Maybe August felt it too because he put his game down.

“Where are we going?” he asked, his eyes tracking my every turn of the wheel.

“To a place where Karson and I used to li—visit. A place we used to visit when we were younger.”

“As kids?”

“No.” She glanced behind us, giving him a soft smile. “Not as kids.”

Adults would have called us kids. To August, a kid was probably someone his age. And the moment we’d run away, we’d stopped being kids.

“Is it a playground?”

“It’s the junkyard.”

“Oooh.” He nodded. “With the broken stuff.”

“With the broken stuff,” she whispered.

Beyond the worry in her expression there was pain. Pain for the loss of her parents. Pain for the life she and Aria had lived.

Pain from being part of the broken.

The moment I pulled onto the road, Clara wrapped her arms around her middle, sitting stiff and rigid. Her eyes darted everywhere, taking it all in. “It looks different.”

“The developer,” I explained.

Gone were the other run down homes on this deserted road. No more fences to contain barking dogs. No more overgrown bushes. The street we’d traversed countless times was now a collection of barren lots. There was a spec home in the middle of construction, the crew pounding at nails on the roof. Side streets were being added to separate the land into square blocks.

A blank slate.

And at the end, the place we’d called home.

“I wondered if this road would ever change,” Clara said. “There were days when I wished it would be swallowed in an earthquake. Others when I hoped it looked exactly the same just in case I ever needed it again.”

I lifted a hand from the wheel, wanting to take hers, but I stopped myself and raked that hand through my hair instead.

Then, before either of us was ready, we were there.

The grasses around the junkyard’s fence were as thick and unruly as ever. It looked unchanged from the day I’d left it behind. My heartbeat pounded in my ears as I slowed. Clara had her hand on the door, gripping it tight, like she wanted to keep it closed.

I did a quick U-turn so we could park on the same side of the street. Then I stopped us in front of the gate and put the Cadillac in park.

Clara stared out her window, seeing past the rusted chain and padlock to the mess beyond.

“We—”

She was out of the car before I could tell her we didn’t have to go in.

I stayed in my seat and looked back at August.

His eyes were glued to the window. To his mother. “What’s she doing?”

“Just looking.”

Clara walked to the gate. She put her hands to the chain link, her fingers splaying between the holes. She stood there, her spine straight. Then she shoved away, and as quickly as she’d gotten out of the car, she was back in it, shaking her head. “This was a bad idea. I can’t . . .”

“It’s okay. Let’s go to the hotel.”