Izabel started to cry. “I didn’t think about that when I left the car.”

“I know.” He sat down beside her.

“I didn’t think about how our address was in there.” She was blabbering out the words now. “Or that he would take it.”

He put his arms around her and she broke into sobs.

“I messed up,” she said.

“But you saved that girl.”

“Oh god, the girl,” she said, nearly shrieking it.

“What?” he said.

“At the end of the interview with the police, I told them we would take her in.”

“You what?”

“I should have asked you first. It was instinct or impulse or something.”

“Jesus.”

“I’m sorry.”

He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t look mad. He looked at the corners of the room.

“She has no one,” Izabel said.

He shoved his hand down into the air. “I’m thinking.”

She waited. She knew not to push it.

    Chapter Fifteen

Kaito got a call from work. “I don’t have to go,” he said.

“It’s okay,” Izabel told him.

So he went into town, to an office that had the machine he needed for work. Izabel sat on Andy’s couch, in Andy’s living room. Andy was with the girls in Hestia’s room. Izabel could hear them playing a board game, something about getting owlets back to their nest before morning.

Izabel unlocked her tablet. She hadn’t touched a screen since being in the car last night. It made her feel sick touching it.

Cami ran out of the room and into the bathroom, smiling at Izabel as she passed her.

Izabel opened her app, tapped 2017 again, tapped About the Air.

Today, we are proud to launch the #ToxicNeighbor campaign, a Southwestern Pennsylvania citizen engagement campaign that aims to build a new generation of clean air activists while holding state elected officials and business leaders accountable for the development of a massive, polluting petrochemical plant in Beaver County.

Emissions from this plant will contain a toxic mix of pollutants–particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and volatile organic compounds such as acrolein, benzene, toluene and naphthalene–that exacerbate symptoms of asthma and cause cancer. It will be the largest source of volatile organic compounds in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Tell Governor Tom Wolf, state lawmakers, local officials, and Shell leadership that Shell Global is a #ToxicNeighbor that is not welcome in our region.

Let your voice be heard. Sign the petition, share it with your network, and join the conversation on social media. We need all hands on deck. And we need you to take action today. Members of Southwestern PA communities must band together and refuse to become the next Cancer Alley.