“Okay, how ’bout this? Here.” Finn knelt and slid a long scrap of wood toward me on the floor. “If any of this starts to feel creepy or dangerous, you can beat me with that and make your escape. Only, I’d consider it a personal favor if you’d avoid the face,” he said with a crooked grin that was probably supposed to look disarming. And almost did.

“All of this feels dangerous and creepy.”

“I know. But if it gets any worse, you can…take a swing.” He mimed swinging a baseball bat, and when my expression didn’t change, his grin faded. “Okay, look. It’s dinnertime and I’m starving, so I’m going to make some soup. If you’re hungry, or if you want to hear what I know about all this—and about your family—I’ll be over there.”

My chest ached at the thought of my sister, and the possibility of getting answers was more than I could resist. Still, I didn’t know him, and I had no evidence that anything he’d said so far was true. Though it all made a certain kind of strange sense.

When I didn’t respond, Finn turned and picked his way through scraps of paper, assorted packing materials, and machine parts toward what was obviously his base of operations. Whatever those operations were.

After a minute of watching him, trying to plan my next move, I scouted out the other exit he’d mentioned, then threw my satchel over one shoulder and squatted to pick up the wooden board. Then I followed him. I was armed—kind of—and had the nearest exit in full view, and I was wanted for matricide. What did I have to lose?

Chapter Eight

The closer I got to his makeshift campsite, the more of it came into focus in the near dark. He had a two-burner camp stove with a dented pot on each burner, and a small stockpile of canned goods lined against the wall behind it. Three regular bed pillows were arranged in an arc around the front of the stove, like cushions, and in the middle sat a battery-powered camping lantern. As I picked my way through the junk cluttering the warehouse floor, Finn turned on the lantern, which threw a soft circle of light over the immediate area and cast the rest of the warehouse in deep shadows.

Several blankets were folded next to the double row of cans, and when I sank onto the pillow across from his, he reached over and tossed me one.

“Thanks.” I sniffed, and when I smelled neither filth nor mold, I unfolded the blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders. “So, what? Home is anywhere you can safely warm up a can of soup?”

“In the traditional sense, yes. In the more esoteric sense?” He hesitated, then frowned. “Yes to that one too.”