Return to Paradise

When I drop her off, her parents are waiting on the front porch. I watch as their expressions run the gamut from worried, to relieved, to furious, then some weird mixture of all of them. I stay in the truck, but her dad makes sure to shoot me a glare that tells me in no subtle way that he’s blaming me for whatever happened to his daughter. After all, I’m the party-loving ex they had to pry her away from over the summer to begin with. My chest falls a little. Maybe dropping her off wasn’t the best idea. Her cell phone’s gone. If I’m lucky, she’ll be able to keep her computer for “study purposes.” Otherwise, there’s no way the Harts are letting me see or talk to their daughter.

It’s late in the afternoon when I finally hear back from Dad, who’s been at work since he caught me in his office. He calls while I’m deep into researching a series of crop circles a few counties west of us, though I’m pretty sure that they’re just hoaxes and have nothing to do with actual aliens.

“Hi,” I say when I answer the phone. I’m not sure whether to expect to be yelled at or apologized to. Probably the first one.

Instead, I hear a long sigh on the other end of the line.

“Oh, thank God,” Dad says.

He sounds so relieved—what did he think had happened to me?

“What is it?” I ask.

“Where are you?”

“At home.”

“Good. Have you talked to Sarah?”

“Not since this morning.”

“Listen.” He pauses for a moment and then starts talking quieter. “Stay where you are. You can’t leave the house. I assume the agents took Sarah’s phone away from her for evidence, but if you can, get her a message telling her to stay put too. She’s a good girl. I always liked her. She shouldn’t be wrapped up in all this.”

“Dad, what’s going on?” My imagination is suddenly going wild and picturing Mogadorian ships landing all over Paradise—though I have no idea what they would even look like.

“I can’t really say. But something’s happened that’s causing the FBI to go crazy. It’s possible there might be one or two people we recently detained who are now unaccounted for. Seems like some weird stuff is going on over in Dumont where they were taken. I just want to make sure neither of you kids got any bright ideas of running away with your classmates if they wandered back through town.”

John and Sam. They’ve escaped.

That didn’t take long.

“I’ll stay here, Dad.”

Even as I say my good-byes, I’m on my computer, emailing Sarah.

Her response is an entire page of exclamation marks.

GUARD is the next person I contact. I’ve told him that one of my friends was brought in for questioning and that one of the Loric has been taken into custody. He’s happy to hear that John has escaped.

GUARD: AWESOME news. We need more good aliens out there.

JOLLYROGER182: DEF!

GUARD: I guess this means we know who the Feds are working for.

JOLLYROGER182: what do u mean?

GUARD: If the FBI was working with the Loric, he wouldn’t have had to escape, right?

I lean back in my chair. He’s right. Of course he’s right. If the FBI took John into custody and interrogated Sarah after the fact, they definitely aren’t working on our side.

JOLLYROGER182: shit

GUARD: You said it was Agent Purdy who was in on the investigation?

JOLLYROGER182: and some others. a woman named Walker too

GUARD: Sounds like it’s time for me to amp up my investigation into Purdy.

JOLLYROGER182: i thought u said u found everything you could

GUARD: There are other ways.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SARAH AND I GET OUR FIRST CHANCE TO TALK together at school the next day. The FBI—in a rare moment of kindness—didn’t inform Sarah’s parents about the events of Saturday night, so for all they knew, Sarah had just been out way past her curfew and got caught up in the attempt to catch wanted-criminal John Smith. As part of her punishment, she’s on a strict schedule: one that includes bus rides to and from Helena High and no more quality time with me. It’s a bummer, but it’ll pass.

I’m waiting near the entryway of the school pretending to be interested in reading a book for English class when she arrives. We lock eyes, and I motion my head towards the deserted hallway that leads to the back of the school’s auditorium.

“Hey,” she says. She seems in good spirits, which is a vast improvement over the last time we spoke.

“Hey yourself,” I say. “How you holding up?”

“I’m on complete parental lockdown right now, but other than that I’m okay.” She looks away from me. “No word from You Know Who.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that. From what I can gather, they made a clean getaway.” And then I realize what she means. John escaped but didn’t contact her. He didn’t come back for her. “Oh, but . . . I’m sure he’s thinking about you?”

It’s by far more of a question than a statement.

“It’s cool. I’ve had a lot of time to think it over while barricaded in my room. Of course he didn’t come for me. It’s not like I can just leave my family and go gallivanting across the world fighting aliens—or whatever it is he’s doing. And dropping by again to see me just puts me in danger. I’m sure when the time is right, he’ll come back for me.”

Great. It’s possible that a part of me was hoping that this whole “questioned by the FBI about my arrested boyfriend” thing would snap some sense into Sarah. Looks like I’ve got more waiting to do.