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AFTER SEEING MYSELF ON THE NEWS, branded as an arsonist and a mass-murderer and worst of all, a high school student, my curiosity got the best of me. I finally caved in and Googled it, and the results are promising: The death penalty is legal in New Hampshire. And, I mean, I kind of sort of maybe burned down a (supposed) cancer research center and killed a heck of a lot of people, give or take a few, I doubt they'll go easy on me. Also, interestingly enough, although lethal injection is the primary means of death, they still hang people. Personally, I think I'd go with the latter option. It's got so much more pizzazz than lethal injection, you know? Maybe it'll be a public execution. Maybe we'll set off fireworks during it and air it on national television. That'd be a real show.
Assuming, of course, we can actually get things sorted out. Assuming, of course, they realize that the responsibility was all on me and Atlas was simply my innocent chauffeur.
However, Atlas's mom, Eva, and my dad have different plans for us. They work together to formulate the most effective plan to keep us out of prison. It's very simple, very effective, and so boring. It lacks that little extra something, you know? In fact, all it includes is stealing a car, driving to the coast, then stealing a boat, somehow figuring out how exactly to work a boat and traveling all the way up to New Brunswick once we do, where one of Atlas's cousins, a university student living in Quebec, will pick us up and transport us to the home of a friend of his, where we'll be harbored until the media dies down and it's safe for us to come home.
(I doubt that it'll be soon. We've been the top news story of the day, and we've even made it to social media. Thank God, you can always count on social media to call out those in power's bullshit: Twitter accounts and Instagramers and Tumblr bloggers everywhere are digging into Atlas and my pasts and calling for an equal treatment of us. We even have hashtags. Personally, although the reasoning behind it makes me sick, I'm in love with all the attention. Atlas, on the other hand, can't stand it.)
B to the o to the r-i-n-g.
However, Dad and Eva's plan and my dreams of a particularly exciting public execution die out the instant that my dad gets a call from none other than Bianca Mendoza. As he answers it, a lot of children, also known as Atlas, Thea, Rachel, Atlas's little brother, Archie, and I (Atlas's older sister, April, is off at SNHU studying mechanical engineering) all stand awkwardly in the Villa's foyer, struggling under the weight of all of the stuff that we'd packed for our journey, listening as he nods and hm-mhs and eventually hangs up on her.
"Change of plans, kiddos," he slides his phone back into his pocket. "We're not going to Quebec."
"What?" Atlas asks, staring at him. "Why not?"
"Aw, but I wanna go!" Archie complains, digging his toes into the carpet.
"Bianca just called me and, apperently, she sorted everything out with the police," Dad explains. "They're no longer framing the two of you: She convinced them that it was a gas explosion that caused the fire. You two were just going in to visit your sick relative."
