“Um…yeah. A town called Tipwich.”

“All right, I’m from Colchester, and that’s a stone’s damn throw! My family holidayed in Tipwich once. Seaside village. Aw, I miss the seaside…” Briggs’s crinkled eyes drift, lost in some beautiful, watery memory, but then a memory of my own sweeps over me: Dad’s Tipwich home lies along a rocky shoreline where waves chop against a massive lighthouse. A boardwalk overflows with a promenade of taffy shops and hundreds of different places to eat (Ambrose only has the one pizza joint). Before my dad screwed up our family, we’d constantly fly to Tipwich. Dad took me rowing and sailing; he taught me knot-tying and navigation. Life had variety then. Mom and Dad were already separated but didn’t scream at each other as much—or at me—and for a few years, things were just…special. Then my grandma died, Dad ditched us, Mom went hyper-Jesus nuclear, and I’ve been staring at cornfields ever since.

“So, Connor, when’s the last time you saw the water?” Briggs asks, as if he could hear my nostalgic thoughts. It’s impossible, but…something in Briggs’s voice relaxes me. He has Dad’s accent.

“It’s been a long time,” I admit.

A warm, gum-chewing grin spreads across my kidnapper’s face. “Well…you’re in luck.”

The moment I’ve been waiting for, the moment Briggs drops his tense, watchful guard over me, never arrives. After another hour, the van dumps us off at O’Hare Airport, just outside Chicago. A plane. They’re planning on flying me somewhere. Briggs hums cheerfully, but always trots a few inches behind, his hands—as toughened as coils of shipping rope—never farther than a single grab away from my neck.

I can’t get on a plane with these people.

At some point in the chaos of the airport, I’ll duck away and scream my head off until security swarms all over this British bastard.

What’ll happen then? I catch a ride home, back to my mom, the person who planned for Briggs to fly me somewhere? What if she just tries again?

Briggs, his team, and I wade through O’Hare’s packed, early morning security line until finally reaching TSA. My nerve never shows up. I could run, but my brain is too agile at gazing into the future, a gift and burden belonging to all anxious people. Mom would try again. Or Briggs would inform the police that my mother asked him to bring me here, and a simple phone call would confirm this. Then there’s the vague possibility that this really is nothing more than a bougie boot camp (one that’s a bit overzealous), I make a big, gay, embarrassing federal case out of it, and the only one who ends up in trouble is me.

Now isn’t the right time, and once again, I defeat myself.

Briggs approaches the TSA agent and flashes my passport—a picture of a ten-year-old with round, smiling cheeks, looking nothing like me now: shitty postured and frowning, with cheeks already scruffy from a day of no shaving. Briggs’s coworkers—short, scowling men who keep tossing me sideways glares—load their bags onto the X-ray belt while Briggs empties his pockets. Once Briggs pours his wallet and change into a plastic basin, he carefully removes a stick that looks like an all-black Pez dispenser.