"We thought we might talk to your parents," Kaitlyn said delicately. "If we go to our own parents they'll find us, you see. And our parents wouldn't understand."
Tony shook his head. He stared out the window into a neat backyard as if thinking. At last he said, "Don't wait for my parents. It'll only upset them."
"But—"
"Come on outside."
Kaitlyn and the others exchanged looks. The web was as blank with surprise as their faces. They followed.
The backyard was filled with dormant rosebushes. There was an extension of the driveway behind an iron gate. On the driveway was a silver-blue van.
"Hey, that's the van from the Institute," Lewis said.
Tony had stopped and was regarding it with folded arms. He shook his head. "No, it's Marisol's. It was hers. It is hers." He stood for a moment, shaking his head as if trying to figure this out, then turned abruptly to Kait. "You take it."
"What?"
"I'll get some stuff—sleeping bags and things. We've got an old tent in the garage."
Kaitlyn was overwhelmed. "But—"
"You need stuff for a trip, right? Otherwise you're going to die out there. You're never going to make it." He shook off Kaitlyn's reaching hand and backed up, but he met her eyes. His voice was almost a growl. "And you're going to fight him, the bastard that hurt Marisol. Nobody else is. Nobody else can, because you need magic to fight magic. You take the van."
His eyes were Marisol's eyes, too, Kaitlyn realized. Rich brown almost the color of his hair. She could feel her own eyes filling, but she held his gaze. "Thank you," she said softly.
And we'll do whatever we can to get them to help Marisol, she thought. She knew the others could hear her, but it was really a private promise.
"We better get you out of here before my mom gets back," Tony said. He took Rob and Lewis into the garage. Kait, Anna, and Gabriel examined the van.
"It's perfect," Kaitlyn whispered, looking around the inside. She'd ridden in it before, to and from school, but she'd never really looked at it. To her eyes now, there seemed to be square miles of room. There were two bucket seats in front and two long bench seats in back, with lots of space between them.
There still seemed to be miles of room once Tony piled in blankets, sleeping bags, and pillows. Riches untold, Kaitlyn thought, fingering a thick down-filled comforter. He even took Gabriel and Rob back into the house and lent them spare clothes. Finally he put groceries from the refrigerator into a paper bag.
"It won't last long with five of you, but it's something," he said.
"Thank you," Kait said again as they got ready to leave. Rob was in the driver's seat; Gabriel in the other front bucket seat. Anna and Lewis were in the bench seat behind them. Kaitlyn had ended up in the rear bench seat—too far from Rob, but no matter. They'd change places later.
"You just get Zetes, right?" Tony said, then slid the door of the van shut.
We're going to try, Kaitlyn thought. She waved as Rob backed out of the driveway.
"Keep going down this street and I'll tell you how to get back on Highway 880," Lewis said. He was studying a map of California that Tony had supplied. When they were on the highway, he changed it for a map of the United States.
"Well, we've got clothes, we've got food, and we've got sleeping gear. And we certainly have transport," Rob said, settling back in his bucket seat and running a caressing hand over the steering wheel. "Now—exactly where are we going?"
Chapter 5
"Let's just get out of California as fast as possible," Gabriel said. Rob wouldn't agree.
"We ought to think about this before we just start driving blindly. We're looking for a beach, right? There are a lot of beaches in California—"
"But we know it's not in California," Kait interrupted. "Anna and I know that. We're sure." In front of her, Anna was nodding.
"And we've got to get out of this state," Gabriel said. "This is where the cops will be looking for us. Once we're in Oregon we can relax a little."
Kaitlyn was afraid Rob would argue just for the sake of arguing with Gabriel—she wasn't sure how things stood between them just now—but he just shrugged and said, "Okay, then," peaceably.
Lewis rattled the map. "The fastest way is to go up Interstate 5," he said. "I'll tell you how to get there. We still won't make it to Oregon before dark."
"We can change drivers every few hours," Kaitlyn said. "Oh, and everybody, try and look like you're on a field trip or something, at least until one o'clock or so. People might think it's strange for a bunch of teenagers to be riding around in a van during school hours."
The country kept changing as they drove. At first it was beige and flat, with scrubby grass and an occasional gray-purple bush beside the road. As they got farther north it became more hilly, with trees that were either bare or dusty green. Kait watched it all with an artist's eye and eventually picked up her sketchpad.
It felt like a long while since she'd had time to draw. It had only been twenty-four hours, since yesterday's art studio class—but her entire life of yesterday felt years away. The oil pastels spread smoothly onto the fine-toothed paper, and Kaitlyn felt herself relax. She needed this.
She blocked out the shape of the distant hills with side strokes of the pastel stick, catching an impression of them before the scene changed. That's what she liked about pastels—you could work fast on a burst of inspiration. She filled the hills in with loose, vigorous strokes, and the picture was done in minutes.
That was practice. Now turn the page. Reach for cool colors—pale blue and icy mauve. Maybe acid green and blue-purple, too.
A picture was coming alive under her fingers without her conscious intent.
Kaitlyn was used to letting her fingers go at moments like this, while her mind simply drifted. Right now her mind had drifted to thoughts of Gabriel.
She was going to have to talk with him, and soon. As soon as she could find any privacy. Something serious was wrong. She had to find out what it was…
With a shock Kaitlyn recognized what she'd drawn on the sketch pad.
Gabriel. Not the stark black-and-white portrait she'd always imagined, but a form arising out of a dense network of colored lines. It was unmistakably Gabriel…