He sounds a million years old. Worn-out. Sick of running. This time I don’t stop myself. I put my arms around him and nudge my face into his sweatshirt, which smells of soap and chalky pastels. His hood falls back to his neck. His skin is warm. And then we are hugging and kissing and crying too. We are mouths and hands and touch. But mostly we’re holding each other, under the swarm of summer stars, on this thin spit of land at the very end of America, because we are all we have.

Chapter Sixteen

“You need to leave,” Lidia tells me in the morning.

Carlos and I had fallen asleep in our clothes but I woke early in a panic. Last night came rushing back to me: the policemen, Carlos’s shoulders bowed, his face pale and frightened. I can’t hide anymore. We can’t hide. I called Lidia and blurted out the truth: We weren’t with my uncle. He signed the guardianship form but he left the country. We’ve been working on the Cape. She was furious, saying how dangerous and illegal this was, that I’d put her in a terrible spot as our mother’s attorney. “I could wring your neck, Rania,” she said. “Leave,” she repeats. “Now.”

“But where?” I look around our room—our beach bag, the squashed chip bags, Carlos’s drawings and backpack splayed open with his sketch pad. He’s left to do his breakfast shift. Kamal is still a sleeping lump in the bed. I think about all the people who have helped us here—Doris, Dimitri and the folks who work at the restaurant, Marge in P-town.

“Look. Do you understand how lucky you were? You say that immigration was poking around?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sure Carlos is in some kind of database. They just don’t have the resources to connect to that. But you won’t always be that lucky.”

“You talk about him as if he’s a criminal! He’s just a kid. Like me!”

“Rania. Do you have any idea what’s going on out there? They’ve got ICE officers showing up at the shelter.” Her voice cracks. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“You have to help us,” I beg. “I’m scared.”

“You should have been scared before.” She says sternly, “You need to come back to New York.”

“No.”

“Rania—”

“We can’t. They’ll put us in the shelter.”

I hear her sigh on the other end. Sunlight is starting to seep through the blinds. Kamal stirs. “Okay, look. There’s this group I’ve heard of. In southern Vermont. They’re not quite set up for situations like this, but I can talk to them.”

“Please,” I beg.