“What the hell happened to you?” she said.

I told her. Mom sucked her cigarette and shook, she was so angry.

“I ought to go over and kick those kids’ asses right now,” she said. “And kick their parents’ asses too.”

I’d never seen Mom so mad before. I wondered if she actually would go over there and start throwing punches. Yeah, like that would help me make friends.

“It’s not their fault,” I said. “I had a vision that this would happen, and I went anyway.”

Mom whirled around, glaring at me.

“What did you just say?”

I sat there in silence, looking back at her, praying that this time she’d finally believe me.

“You want the real truth, Lee?” said Mom. She got right down in my face, her breath all cigarette-stained and beery, and stared me dead in the eyes. “If you let somebody do something like that to you, then you probably deserved it.”

She sauntered off to her room and slammed the door shut.

I gave up trying to make friends after that. I also spent my days afterward taking my visions pretty damn seriously. Even if they didn’t come true every time, the kind of misery that happened when I didn’t obey them was too much to bear. I still didn’t know whether my visions came from God or my own psychotic brain or if there were aliens beaming them directly into my skull.

But I couldn’t ignore them anymore.

Dinner passed without much happening. We worked, we ate, and we were exhausted. Murphy and I staggered up to bed and slumped down in our bunks.

“This whole thing is weird,” said Murphy.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“I mean Grandma. I mean this sheriff guy. Like, where is Horace already? Did he just forget about us? I figured he would have been here by now, trying to get us back for knocking him out and stealing his car.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to get caught,” I said. “Maybe he’s just happy with whatever money he’s already gotten from the trust.”

“Do you seriously think that?”

“No,” I said. “But do you have any better ideas? Maybe Sheriff Bearden is right. Maybe he hightailed it after we escaped.”

Murphy snorted.

“Fat chance of that. And I’ll tell you another thing, I don’t trust that fucking sheriff. Not one bit.”

“What is your problem, Murphy?” I said.

“What? I don’t have any problem.”

“Yes, you do. I mean, it doesn’t seem like you like this place much.”

“Forgive me for missing our mom and our old life and all our friends,” she said. “You know, I haven’t even so much as texted another human being since we left. I bet all my friends think I’m dead.”

“At least you have friends to miss you,” I said. “I don’t have anybody.”

Murphy softened a little at that.

“You have me,” she said. “Always. And I’m sorry I’m being a dick right now. It’s just that something feels off about this place. The Farm, I mean. I wish we had decent cell phone reception. I’d google the shit out of it.”