I threw off my blankets and grabbed clothes from the floor—jeans, sweatshirt, sneakers—while my brain tried to process what don’t trust your mother could possibly mean. Mom was downstairs in the living room where I’d left her an hour ago, watching a crime documentary and drinking wine like she did most nights. Normal suburban behavior. Nothing threatening, nothing suspicious—except Dad wouldn’t send this message without reason, and the specificity of grab your sister suggested immediate danger, not paranoid delusion.
I shoved my feet into sneakers and grabbed my backpack, dumping out textbooks and replacing them with my laptop, phone charger, and the emergency cash I’d kept hidden in my desk drawer since I was fifteen—three hundred dollars in twenties that I’d never been able to explain the impulse behind, the same way you can’t explain why you check for exits in a restaurant or why you memorize the license plates of cars parked outside your house. Some part of me had always been preparing for something I couldn’t name. That part was awake now and running the show.
My sister Becca was twelve and slept like the dead, buried under blankets with just her dark hair visible. Waking her quietly would be nearly impossible, but waking her loudly would alert Mom downstairs.
I knelt beside her bed and pressed my hand over her mouth before shaking her shoulder. Her eyes flew open in panic, and I felt her try to scream against my palm.
I put my finger to my lips and whispered directly into her ear. “Dad sent an emergency message. We need to leave right now without Mom knowing. I’ll explain everything once we’re safe. Trust me.”
Becca’s eyes were huge—the particular hugeness of a twelve-year-old whose world has just tilted without warning—but she nodded against my hand. I released her and she sat up, reaching for her glasses on the nightstand with the automatic precision of a girl who can’t see beyond arm’s length without them.
