“Daniel!” she yells. He jumps, sitting up quickly and rushing to her side.

“What? Are you okay?” He reaches her with three long strides and grabs her shoulders, letting go when she winces.

“The watch,” she says, holding up her hand. It continues flashing and buzzing, and Daniel grabs her wrist and hand, watching the pattern. “It just started,” she explains.

Daniel stays quiet, eyes glued to the screen. It keeps going for a minute before it stays black.

“What—”

“Shh,” Daniel cuts her off, never pulling his eyes from the watch. Then, after ten seconds of silence, it gives a high pitch ding and “5:00 p.m.” flashes on the screen and instantly disappears. Daniel lets go of Lynell’s arm and looks at her, a smile spreading across his face. “It’s Zach,” he says.

Lynell stares at him. “Are you sure?”

He nods. “Unless someone else figured out our code.” He takes the watch off Lynell’s wrist and pulls it on his own. “The three colors stand for location, safety, and success. Back in the day, it was more for fun, so the last color was just to communicate if the prank had been pulled off. White means yes, black means no. I’m not sure what he means in this situation, but I’m going to guess that he succeeded in helping us escape? Or maybe in killing Eric. I’m not sure, but it was white and that’s encouraging.”

“What about the black and red?” Lynell asks.

“We had a ton of potential meeting locations and we assigned a color to each one. Black is this little warehouse off Forney Street. It used to be a women’s clothing store, but it closed about five years ago. I have no idea if it’s still empty or not.”

“How far away is it?”

Daniel frowns, eyebrows scrunching together in thought. “Probably twenty miles.”

“We don’t have a car.”

“We can take the bus. Or I might remember how to hotwire a car.” Lynell raises her eyebrows at him and Daniel shrugs. “Zach and I got into a lot of trouble. He hated his life with his dad and wanted to be the idiot he never got to be as a teenager and I—” Daniel clears his throat and stops talking. Lynell imagines he probably wanted to do anything, no matter how reckless, to get his mind off all he’d lost.

“Right, okay,” Lynell says, saving him from having to finish the sentence. “So, that explains the black and white. What about the red? Doesn’t sound good.”

Daniel shakes his head. “It’s not. Red is the most severe form of danger. We never used it. Back then it pretty much meant, ‘Dad found out, he’s pissed, we’re both dead.’ If he ever sent a red, it basically meant to stay away until Zach could calm down his dad. Now, it could mean anything. I think he’s just trying to tell me it’s dangerous. To be careful.”

Lynell frowns. “Of course, it’s dangerous. Does he think I don’t know that?”