Milos put his hand up and silenced him, then he knelt down to Allie, who still wept. “I think … we need … to consider … “He spoke slowly, measuring each word like the tick of a metronome, “… that maybe … Mikey took his coin … and got where he was going.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” said Allie. “No. He wouldn’t just leave without saying good-bye.”

“Maybe he did not mean to,” suggested Milos.

“Yeah, yeah—maybe he took the coin out just to look at it,” said Squirrel, “but once that tunnel opens, there’s nothing you can do.”

Allie still wasn’t ready to believe it. “There’s got to be another explanation.”

Then, after a long silence, Milos said, “Then we will wait.”

And so they waited till noon. They waited till sunset. They waited through a second night. Mikey still hadn’t returned, and Allie had to face the very real possibility that he never would.

When the sun peeked over the eastern horizon the next morning, Milos finally said, “Come; I said I would get you to Memphis and I will.”

Allie shook her head. “I’m not going. I’m staying here.”

“Let her stay,” said Squirrel. “It’s not our problem.”

“Shut up!” snapped Milos.

Allie closed her eyes. Things had not gone the way she had planned. In that way Everlost was no different than the living world.

“You must let it go,” Milos pleaded with her. “You must get to Memphis.”

“Why? Why does it matter?”

Milos sighed. “Because … there are things I have not told you.”

Allie looked at him, a bit disgusted. “More lessons?”

He shook his head, and spoke in a calm, resigned voice. “No lessons. Because there are some things every skinjacker must learn for themselves. In this I can’t help you. I can only point you in the right direction.”

Allie wondered if he was just being enigmatic to distract her from thoughts of Mikey or if there was something he was truly hinting at. Either way, Milos was right—she had to move on, because if she stayed here, she would surely let herself sink to the center of the earth.

“All right,” she said calmly. “All right, then.” She stood, and gathered what fortitude she could. “Without Mikey, we don’t have to walk.” She looked at the cars whizzing past on the highway. “We can skinjack a family already driving to Memphis, and be there in two hours.”

And she hoped that the farther away from here she got, the less it would hurt.

Getting to Memphis took a bit longer than two hours—but not much. First they had to find a car with four passengers at a nearby rest stop, making sure they were heading to or at least passing through Memphis.

Then there was the argument with Moose and Squirrel about how to do it—fully jack the fleshies, or merely hide within them, behind their consciousness, hitching a ride.