“Just trust me, it’ll be great.” That was the most he could offer them right now.

The trio hadn’t eaten much, and their pace was a little off. It took forever to make their way in. So when he finally saw the first scout high up in the split elm, Derrick was so relieved he cried out.

He broke into a jog, whistling and waving up to Manny, who gave the all clear signal from the branches.

“We’re here,” he called back. “We’re home!”

CHAPTER 29

IN THE PINES

French

I STAYED. WHICH MEANT THE MISSION WAS FULL steam ahead. Only now, I had a harder time imagining that there was a way out. I never should have come here, never should have put them at risk. Stupid. So stupid. Now that I knew Mitch had a tracker, one he was guarding with his life, I knew the bush would be lousy with Recruiters the moment he had an inkling I had told the group about our true identity. So I kept my mouth shut until I could figure out a way to get the tracker and slip away, leaving Mitch to the mercy of the forest and the wrath of Mellin.

There had always been a part of me that held out hope, ever since I could remember. Hope was a gift my mother had given me when I was little. It was a small gift at first, the way she always trailed off at the end of a sentence, like “Oh, you never know…” or “One day…”

From there, it built itself up like a sandcastle until I could live inside of it, even if the walls were a bit shifty. She let us dream without holding back. She refused to put boundaries on our plans. For a long time, I thought I would go to a real school one day…and I guess that one came true, in a way. But in my head, it was a good school for children, with colorful classrooms and nice teachers and long recesses. She would ask me to be more specific about my daydreams: “What’s your teacher’s name? How many swings are there on the playground? How high can you swing? Do your feet touch the tops of the trees?”

Hope is a wonderful thing until it becomes your downfall. And I was edging closer and closer to the fall with each and every step we took toward the train station where we would be whisked across the border to safety.

Mitch was in great spirits. Not only would he be bringing in the rogue Indians who had been causing so much chaos, but he would also almost-single-handedly uncover and tear down an entire refugee network. You couldn’t get bigger than that. He was moving fast through the bush; it was hard to even make out his limp at this pace. And he had questions.

“So, tell me about this girl.”