Chapter 26: The Broken Pieces

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Miles drove his little red car with white knuckles, his hands gripping the steering wheel with fear. "I can get you two close," he said, surveying the road, "but not close enough."

He had taken the back roads to avoid the chaos of the Traveler's Bureau, but we snuck fleeting glances whenever the roads connected to the main street. Sage uniforms crammed the streets. Most, if not all, of the police force was diligently working to figure out what had happened. Some carried guns. I tore my eyes away from their weapons to focus on my friends: Miles may have been driving, but Lily sat in the passenger seat by his side, calmer than ever. Apparently, adrenaline didn't phase her.

"Where are you two going?" I asked.

Earlier, we had come to the agreement that no one could stay at my house. It wasn't safe, not anymore. Even Lyn had fled, taking Falo to the hospital with her for an extra overnight shift, leaving the four of us—including an overly silent Noah—to our own means. I had decided to go with Noah. Lily and Miles, though, unexpectedly had their own problems.

"Home," they answered in unison.

"Our mom lied for Lyn," Miles explained, "but she's mad." Ms. Beckett knew something now.

"We'll come up with some excuse," Lily added. "I have volunteer work at the institute anyway." She made the correctional home for troubled girls sound like an intellectual retreat.

"And I might go into work," Miles mumbled. The Traveler's Bureau wasn't as destroyed as the record's building, but it was damaged, and it needed everyone's help to get it back and running at full capacity again. "They want to interview us anyway."

"Another interview?" I asked, waiting for clarification that he wouldn't get hurt again. He just nodded in response. He didn't know.

No one spoke a word about Broden. We were doing this without him, and there wasn't anything we could do about that. We couldn't help him. We didn't even know where he was. All we could do was move forward with the plan, hoping that Broden would be safe—and alive.

Knowing that we were only yards away from his house was unsettling. His parents hadn't even called me, something they always did when Broden got into trouble, and I didn't take it as a good sign. Even worse, if we were near Broden's house, we were near Noah's childhood home.

"Here." Miles' voice was barely audible as he parked against a curb.

Noah, without thanking him, got out of the car. I didn't follow him immediately. Lily met eyes with me in the rearview mirror, her brown eyes darkening against her white hair. I recognized the look. She wanted me to be careful; she wanted me to stay away from Noah.

I looked away and locked on Noah's blond hair as if it were a beacon. I followed him, only hearing Miles' car squeal away. Before I could look back, the twins were gone. We knew we might get caught. The house seemed too obvious, but we walked toward it anyway. I didn't bother looking at the other homes. I didn't know which one was his. They all looked the same—tan, huge, empty.

Noah didn't talk, and we didn't walk very far until we were at the end of a short, curved driveway of a light blue house. The shutters were pearl-white, and delicate purple flowers lined every window. Sitting in the middle of the circular driveway was a small fountain, trickling water away as if the owners still lived within the walls. The grass was recently cut. Noah's abandoned childhood home didn't look abandoned at all.

"Please tell me someone new doesn't live here," I muttered.

"No one does," he said it matter-of-factly, but didn't explain how the house was clean. Someone must have been taking care of it.

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