I was sitting in the shadows under the street sign when an ancient-looking Honda Civic pulled up next to the curb. Once the car shuddered off, Kason climbed out of the driver’s side and made his way toward me—slowly, cautiously, as if I might spook if he moved too fast. He was wearing his cargo shorts and—you guessed it—his shirt was announcing that WE ARE HAPPY CAMPERS. Even as broken as I was, seeing him sparked something inside me to life.
“Hey, Jenna.” Understanding was warm in his voice. He sat on the curb next to me and studied my face. “You okay?”
I shook my head.
“Yeah.” He sighed. “I thought this might—well, I was afraid things wouldn’t go the way you hoped.”
I stared down at the asphalt. Of course he’d seen this coming. I should have. I should have never been hopefully naive enough to assume that belonging always came with blood.
“So I thought I’d rent a car—” he nodded at the Civic—“and hang out here for a few days if I needed to. Just to, you know, make sure you were okay.”
A few days? He’d been willing to wait that long? “But—what about the others? They didn’t—”
He shrugged. “Jaz tried to convince Blake to wait. They went on without me.”
Something twisted sharp in my stomach. “Kason—the eclipse.”
He glanced away, shook his head.
“But you have to see it!”
“No. I really don’t. Right now—” He gave me that far-seeing look. “Right now I need to be with you. You need a—a friend.” He shrugged again. “I can be that for you.”
A friend. After I’d thrown his heart back at him, after I’d accused him of the same cowardice I’d shown the whole trip, he was still willing to be my friend.
And somehow, then, I started to cry again. The despair draped over me, heavy and dark, and all the ways I’d been wrong and all the broken roads I’d followed and all the things that I had never expected were swelling in my chest.
And then in the midst of my tears, I felt his fingers slip into mine. Silent. Warm. Strong. Holding my hand, holding my heart, holding me to make sure I didn’t fall apart, that I didn’t crumble right there on the Nevada sidewalk.
“Hold on.” His words were a breath next to my ear. “It’s okay.”
Nothing is okay, I wanted to cry.
“Jenna?”
“Yes?” I was too dreary to say more.
“Will you let me take you somewhere? Please. There’s something you need to see.”
#
Kason drove steadily east of Blakely, his hands firm on the wheel and his face set with enough confidence to save us both. I just slumped in the seat. I didn’t know where he was taking me, but it didn’t matter. There was nothing that could fix what had happened.
I watched the lights streak by, the false blaring neons of this region of gamblers. I’d bet it all and lost. I’d chased what I thought was light, and it was only cheap neon that drowned out the true singing stars.
But Kason was leaving the glittering lights behind. Slowly, slowly, the city was fading, the lights blurring into the glow of urban sprawl in the rearview mirror. And then we were on open highway, and the lights were condensed to pockets at gas stations and motels.
Still Kason kept driving, forging forward along the highway until he turned off onto a side road and followed a series of country roads. Once we were at what appeared to be the intersection of nowhere and nothing, he pulled over and cut the motor. “Here we are.”
“Where?” All I could see was a single night watcher, glowing faintly beside an old barn a field away.
“In the dark.” His tone was matter-of-fact.
In the dark, yes, but why? The last thing I needed was more darkness.
“All right.” He ducked out of the car, then came around and opened my door like the gentleman he was. “Come see this.”
The air was cool and sharply dry—desert air, with the faint scents of rock and earth and wind. But dark. So dark.
“Look up.” Kason wasn’t touching me, but he was standing electrically close.
I looked up. And there it was, all over again. The giant unrolling panorama of the stars, just as we’d seen together in Magdalena.
“Do you see the lines of light?”
“No.” My throat tightened with the ache of the word. “I want to.”
“I know.” Even in the dark, I recognized the shape of his gesture. He was adjusting his glasses, getting ready to help. “Okay. Look straight ahead, right over the trees there. Do you see the Big Dipper?”
I forced myself to see. To not just look at the whirling randomness of individual stars, but to search for shapes, for stories. And then—“I see it.”
“Great! Okay, now follow those two stars at the edge.” His finger traced a trajectory. “You know what those are called?”
“No.”
“The Guardians of the Pole. Because they point to Polaris. Find the line. Follow it. Where do you land?”
I could do this. I took a steadying breath and followed the invisible line that Kason had drawn, straight to a single star that burned with blue flame. “The bright star?”
“Uh huh. That’s Polaris. The North Star.” He shifted position next to me. “You know something? If we had a time-lapse camera with a stabilizer—which I do, at home—”
Of course he did, and for the first time, a smile tugged at me.
“—then we would see that all the stars appear to orbit around Polaris.” He swept his arm across the sky. “Because of Earth’s rotation, they’ll look like they’re spinning, sort of like a wheel. But in the center of that wheel—” He paused. “The North Star. It doesn’t move.”
Something unclenched inside me, ever so slightly, at his words.
“And so, when things are very dark—find the light that doesn’t move.” He glanced to our left, nodded at the glow on the horizon. “See over there? The moon will rise soon.”
Quiet settled between us. The silence of the night and the stars. I kept my eyes on that unchanging light that stood in the utter north.
“That’s why I like UFOs.”
I couldn’t follow his train of thought, but it didn’t matter. “How come?”
“Because.” He shrugged. “It’s true, you know? Someone is always coming to find us.”
The words rolled around in my heart. I looked up at the unrolling sky. Once I’d been afraid it held too much. Now I was only terrified it didn’t hold enough.
But Kason had come. Kason had found me.
“My father doesn’t want me.” The words surprised even me by coming out.
Kason shifted slightly. “Maybe he doesn’t know yet what he wants.”
“He’s known about me for nine years.” Gran’s words whispered around the edges of my thoughts. I told him not to see you, and he listened. That’s when I knew…
For the first time I realized what she’d been trying to say.
“I think, sometimes, that people forget to look up.” Kason’s voice was soft. “And when you look at the ground long enough, pretty soon you don’t remember anything different.”
“My father is a pastor.” I looked up at the stars that I could no longer believe were random, the ones that Kason believed had been hand-placed in the sky. “He should know about looking up.”
“Pastors are people. And people forget. Only God can spin the stars.” His hand came to my shoulder. Warm. Comforting. Steady. “Don’t get God mixed up with the people who talk about Him.”
I thought of my father, playing politics to stay in his plastic pulpit. Of Gran’s TV preachers hollering about Hell. Of the guy on the street corner spelling out the gospel with tacos.
And then I looked at the sky higher than I could understand.
“You don’t have to have your father, Jenna.” Kason’s voice was quiet. “You don’t need him to complete your story.”
I shook my head. “I’ve never belonged anywhere, Kason. I never will.”
On the horizon, the edge of the moon was just pulling over the rim of the earth.
“Belonging takes work.” His voice was soft in the night. “It’s not something you find. It’s something you create.”
Jaz had said the same thing. But I shook my head. “I don’t know how.”
He was quiet for just a moment. “Jenna, what you said to me before you left—about me not telling you everything—”
My face flashed hot. “I know, I shouldn’t have—”
“No, it’s okay.” He turned to face me, the faint glow of the rising moon giving me just enough light to see the resolve on his face. He began methodically rolling up his T-shirt sleeve. “Look.”
I wasn’t expecting what I saw. Across Kason’s shoulder was the deep trench of a ragged scar. Pale skin stretched taut and sunken along his arm. But inside the scar was—something else. I leaned closer, and then I realized.
His Gemini tattoo.
There it was. The purple ink just like Jaz’s. The lines precise between the stars.
“Kason—”
He kept his eyes on the scar instead of me. “My mother’s boyfriend. Slashed me with a knife when I was five years old. It took major surgery to save my arm.”
The image jarred against everything I thought I’d known about their childhood. I shook my head. “Wait—but your parents—”
“Jaz and I are adopted.”
The surprise sank like shock waves into me.
He kept going, his voice calm. “Our mother was—well, she had a talent for picking the wrong men, I guess. We went into foster care after the knife incident. Lived in and out of foster homes till we were eight, and then our parents adopted us.”
I couldn’t take my eyes from the scar. From the wound Kason carried. Yet through it all, he still believed with unshaken faith in the lines of light.
“We dealt with it in our own ways.” He rolled his sleeve back down. “Jaz—uh, she struggled with anxiety a lot. She still does.” He hesitated. “That’s why she came on this trip.”
Jaz, anxious? I shook my head. “What do you mean?”
“She has a chance for an incredible internship, but it’s going to require her to leave home, and she wasn’t sure she could do that. This trip was her chance to prove to herself that—” He sighed. “Well, that she was going to be okay.”
Jaz, always strong and sure as bedrock. Why had I never wondered if there were fault lines beneath her smile? “I—I didn’t know.” But I should have. I should have looked beneath, the way she’d taught me to do.
The ghost of a smile flitted over his face. “She doesn’t like a lot of people knowing. But she would be okay with me telling you. She loves you, Jenna.”
“I love her too.” My throat tightened. The whole trip, Jaz had shielded me even while she fought her own silent ghosts. I looked at Kason. “What about you? How did you deal with it?”
“Not in the best way, I guess.” He squinted at the sky. “I sort of—I think I sort of pulled back from people. Never let myself get too close.” His eyes found mine. “But, I think I’m starting to learn that—well, none of us is outside the pattern. None of us is alone. If we don’t draw the lines—we break the constellation. And I still believe that even after everything—” his smile caught the strengthening moonlight—“the constellation is a lot more beautiful than we can believe.”
The moon was quiveringly close to full. I leaned closer to Kason and felt his arm tuck reassuringly around my shoulders. Again I felt his gravity field, the tidal tug of him sweeping me off balance. But even more, I could feel the calm steadiness of the light he held. The light he reflected in the darkest nights.
“How did you—” So much I wanted to ask. “How do you do it?”
“Because I believe in the light that does not move.” His voice was forged in faith. “And it is that light that draws my lines.”
I looked up, past the wisely watching moon, back at all those stars. The stars that were counted only by God, the lines that were drawn by bigger hands than mine. I could not force the pattern, could not choose the constellations that shaped across my sky.
But I could follow the light.
I took a deep breath. “Kason—”
My phone jangled suddenly, shattering the sacredness of the moment. Who would be calling me now? I fumbled it out of my pocket and then blinked. “Kason, it’s Jaz.” I swiped to answer. “Hello?”
“Jenna!” Jaz sounded far closer to frantic than I’d ever heard her. “Did Kason find you?”
“Yes, he’s here.” I quickly put the phone on speaker. “Do you need to talk to him?”
“I need both of you back here now.” Jaz’s voice was sharp, rushed.
“What’s happened?”
Kason leaned closer. “Where are you?”
“Sacramento.” Jaz groaned. “I don’t know what’s going on. It’s a long story, but Brooklyn got really sick, and we had to stop, and then she went to the doctor, and now she and Blake had a big fight, and we can’t find her anywhere. She’s just gone. She’s not answering her phone, and nobody can find her.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
“Just that. Disappeared.” Jaz’s words were hanging close to hysteria. “We’ve been looking—trying—”
“What about Blake?”
“Blake says—” Jaz hesitated for just a second. “Blake says he doesn’t know. But—I think he does.”
The alarm beat sharp in my heart. “Okay.” I glanced at Kason, waiting for his nod. “Jaz, we’ll be there as soon as we can.”
#
Sacramento was two hours and forty-seven minutes from Blakely. At least that’s what my GPS said. Kason kept us just under the speed limit, tension tightening his face the whole time. I understood why his knuckles were white on the wheel. If we’d reached a situation that even Jaz couldn’t handle, we were all in big trouble.
Where could Brooklyn have gone? All the little things I’d noticed tugged at the corners of my thoughts. The way she’d seemed tired. The way she’d talked about her sister, about making mistakes. The way she hadn’t eaten her burger, the way she’d looked at Blake before saying anything. All of those had meant something. But what?
I sighed. “Kason?”
“Yeah?”
“Brooklyn’s been acting weird.”
“Uh huh.” He tilted his head. “I noticed she was quieter. I thought there was maybe some tension between her and Blake.”
I thought again about that night I’d witnessed their argument in Amarillo. “I think there is. But I think it’s more than that.”
He frowned. “Do you think she’s sick? Like, really sick?”
“I—I don’t know.” Uneasiness tightened inside my stomach. “Where could she have gone? She doesn’t know anyone around here, does she?”
“Not that she’s ever said.”
“Why would she leave without saying something to somebody?”
Kason shrugged. “I guess first we have to find her. And then we can ask.”
He was right, of course. But still, the longer we drove, the more the urgency doubled down on me. And from the number of times I caught Kason glancing at the dashboard clock, he felt the same way.
Who knew I’d be racing through the night to help Brooklyn, of all people? Maybe Kason was right. Maybe the lines of light had drawn in ways I hadn’t even realized.
I called Jaz back twice—once to check for any updates, and once right after we crossed the California border to get directions to the RV park. Tension strained her words each time. When we finally careened into the Stone Hollow RV Park in the namesake town of Adam’s dragon, I can’t explain how relieved I was to see the RV. Right down to the phony dog sticker on the door.
But I couldn’t waste time basking in the homecoming feeling, because Jaz was waiting for us outside. “Jenna!” She raced to the passenger door as soon as I stepped out of the car and grabbed me in a desperately tight hug. And for the first time, I realized that maybe she was holding onto me just as much for her sake as mine.
“I was worried about you.” Her words were muffled against my shoulder.
How many times had Jaz worried and never told? I squeezed her tighter, this braver-than-I-knew girl who’d taught me about crystals and the fire they hold. “It’s okay. I’m back.”
She nodded against my shoulder. Then she drew back with a deep breath. “Okay.” And just like that, she’d pulled back to her normal self, alertness snapping beneath her expression. “So, we’ve got to find Brooklyn.”
Kason, too, was wearing that probing look. “Tell us exactly what happened.”
“So, after you left this morning—” she glanced at Kason—“we only made it this far. Blake had expected to reach Big Sur today, but we got stuck in construction, and then we took the wrong exit during the detour, and—well, just about everything went wrong today. Adam even forgot his sunglasses at our fuel stop, and we had to turn around. Then in the afternoon, Brooklyn started getting sick. I mean, I know she gets carsick, but this was way worse. I tried to help her, but—well, finally I convinced Blake we had to stop. So, we found this urgent care place, and she was in there forever, and Blake finally went in after her. Then they both came out and were acting really weird, I mean, both upset or something, and they stood in the parking lot and had some kind of argument or something. Then they got back in the RV, and Blake said we were stopping at this RV park, and neither of them said another word all the way here.” She stopped for what seemed like her first breath since launching into the story. “And then, once we got here, I went for a walk. When I came back, Brooklyn was gone, and Blake was saying she’d just left.”
I shook my head. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.” She narrowed her eyes. “Now, he’s got to know more than that.”
I had to agree. “What were they fighting over in the parking lot?”
“That’s what I want to know.” Jaz spread her hands. “I can’t get anything out of Blake. He just says she’s not coming back and he wants us to keep driving. Keep driving! Can you believe it? I mean, wherever she went, she didn’t even take her luggage with her. We can’t just up and leave until she comes back or we hear from her or something.”
Kason was rubbing his chin. “I guess you’ve tried calling her.”
“Only about a dozen times. It goes straight to voicemail, doesn’t even ring, so I think her phone is turned off or something. I’ve sent tons of texts too, but I don’t think they’re being delivered.”
The more I heard, the sharper the urgency became. Something was very wrong. “What about her family? Have you tried to contact them?”
Jaz hesitated. “I didn’t want to, at first, because I didn’t know if she’d be okay with—well, you know. But once I finally decided we needed to, I learned that apparently nobody has her parents’ numbers.”
“Not even Blake?”
Jaz bit her lip. “He says no.”
Not very likely. I spun toward the RV before I could talk myself out of it. “I’m going to go ask him.”
Inside the RV, Adam was huddled on the couch, clutching his dragon. His face brightened slightly when he saw me. “Hey! Jenna!”
“Hey, Adam.”
Blake was in the driver’s seat, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He glanced up. “Jenna, you’re back.”
“Yeah. I am.” No point in chitchat. “What’s going on with Brooklyn?”
He shrugged, his expression suspiciously smooth. “Honestly, I think she just got tired of traveling and wanted to go back home.”
Go home? I studied him. “She said that? That she was going home?”
“Oh. Yeah.” He shrugged again. “Something like that.”
Well, he hadn’t mentioned that to Jaz. What was going on beneath that artificial calm? “So—she hadn’t mentioned going home to me.”
“Oh, I’m not surprised. She’s been unhappy with the whole trip since we left Ohio. Always complaining.” He pulled his face into a disappointed expression. “Here I thought I was doing something good, you know? Something she’d like. But if she wants to leave—” resentment brittled his tone—“fine.”
Before we left Mount Victory, I would have believed him. I would have seen him as the nobly injured good guy and Brooklyn as the snobby diva. But a lot had happened since then. I’d seen Blake drive fast. And I’d seen Brooklyn cry.
I set my jaw. “So what about her luggage?”
“What about it?”
“If she was going home, why didn’t she take her stuff?”
“Oh—uh—” For a moment, he looked caught. But only for a moment. “I don’t know. I don’t think she was really thinking straight. She was—really upset when she left.”
“Upset over what?”
His expression was growing warier. “We had a disagreement.”
The edge to his words warned me not to keep pushing, but I didn’t care. “A disagreement about what?”
“It had to do with—our relationship.” His face was starting to turn red. “Look, that’s personal, okay?”
And getting clues was more important than preserving his ego. “Blake, I know, but it might be important to know if—”
“Listen to me!” And just like that, his mask slipped. He jerked to his feet, a vein throbbing in his neck. “She just left, okay? She got mad at me over—something, and she got upset, and she said she was done with the trip. She said something about going home. I don’t know why she left her luggage, but I haven’t known what was going on with her since we left Ohio. All you need to know—” he jabbed a finger at me—“is she’s gone and we need to move on with this trip. I didn’t plan for us to—”
“But, Blake—”
He cursed suddenly, roughly, and stepped toward me. “Stay out of this!”
I stumbled backwards so fast I almost fell. For just a second, I understood what had been in Brooklyn’s eyes when she looked at Blake.
“Whoa, man!” Adam scrambled off the couch, still clutching Sacramento, and shook his head at Blake. “Dude, you need to calm down.”
Blake blinked, and I could see the fight fading. He took a shuddering breath and ran a shaking hand through his hair. He glanced at me with a look that could have been guilt. Then he turned suddenly and rushed out of the RV.
Adam stared after him. “Wow. I’ve seen him get mad, but never—like that.”
I hadn’t either. But I bet Brooklyn had.
“Adam?” An idea was rising. It was crazy and reckless, but they say all’s fair in love and war, and I had the hunch this was both.
“Yeah?”
This was the gamble. Either he’d stand by his best friend, or what he’d just witnessed had shaken him enough that he’d help me. “Where’s Blake’s phone?”
It took just a moment before his eyes widened in sudden realization. “You mean—“
“I don’t trust Blake, Adam.” I knew I was asking a big question. “I think Brooklyn needs our help. I want to see if she’s tried to contact Blake.”
Adam shifted. “Jenna—I don’t know—“
“Adam.” The seconds were slipping by. “What about your brother? What would Rob do?”
The struggle in his eyes shifted into a decision. He straightened his shoulders. “I’m going outside. But while I’m gone, you might want to look in the pocket on the side of the driver’s seat. Also, his birthday is October 18.”
“Thank you, Adam. Really.”
He shrugged on his way out the door. “Rob always tries to help people.”
I understood the part about Blake’s birthday once his phone asked me for a passcode. 1018. An easy code to guess, really. Guys that lie should have a harder passcode. Especially guys whose last text to their girlfriend was as explosive as this one.
Go on home and take care of this and don’t tell anyone.
The text had been read thirty minutes ago. On a whim, I searched his contacts for Brooklyn’s last name. Surely he had her parents…
Only one name came up besides hers. Brandi Simmons.
Brandi. Recognition clicked. Brooklyn’s sister. The one she’d talked about during the henna.
I added Brandi’s contact to my own phone, then locked Blake’s phone and slid it back into the seat pocket. Whatever was going on here was much bigger than a lovers’ quarrel, and the queasy feeling in my stomach was clenching tighter. I punched Brandi’s number and waited.
“Hello?” Brandi’s voice reminded me of Sophie.
“Hey, Brandi.” I cleared my throat. “This is Jenna Monroe. I—I was on the road trip with your sister Brooklyn.”
“Do you know where she is?”
I blinked. How did Brandi know what was going on? “Where—“
“She texted me thirty minutes ago and told me she was at the bus station waiting to catch a bus back home.” Brandi’s voice was quivering. “She won’t tell me any more than that. Do you know if she’s okay?”
“I think she might be in some trouble.” Trouble that looked like a man who couldn’t make music.
“What can I do?” Her voice trembled harder. “I tried to call her back, but I can’t get her to answer.”
“Her phone is turned off.” At least I hoped that was the problem.
“I’m so glad you called. I’ve been frantic, worrying about her. Why wouldn’t she tell me any more about what’s going on?”
I thought back to Brooklyn’s words. “Maybe she doesn’t want to disappoint you.”
Brandi made a soft sound of disbelief. “She’s always been that way, but—she’s my sister. If she’s in trouble—“ She was sniffling now. “I just want to help her.”
“I know.” But I didn’t think Brooklyn did.
“So—will you find her?”
How many bus stations were there in Sacramento? It didn’t matter. “Yes.” I held onto the hope I could keep that promise.
“So you’re—you’re her friend, you said?”
“Yes.” I glanced out the window. The moon was high now. Achingly close to full. “I am her friend.”