Chapter 10: Earth

John finally stands up and brushes off his jeans, even though they’re already immaculate. “Well, see you around, I hope.”

I roll my eyes, but I can’t stop the smile. “Maybe so.”

After he’s gone from my line of sight, I walk to the bus stop, waving at Jesse as I pass his crew.

“See you soon.” He wipes his forehead before he waves, smearing dirt from his eyebrow to his hairline.

While I wait for the bus, I consider throwing John’s business card in the trashcan right next to me. We’ve got enough weird things going on. If Paul relents and gives that guy my information. . . well. The address on my fake ID isn’t correct in any case. But it still makes me nervous. For instance, our lease was taken under our fake names: Alice and Jordan Walker. If someone was resourceful enough, they might put our name with our address.

Plus, Jesse’s almost nineteen, but his ID says he’s twenty-seven. He could maybe pass for a young twenty, but there’s no way anyone will believe he’s twenty-seven. They don’t check that stuff for a yard crew, but a real office job would be different. He’d need a better ID, and I just gave John his assumed name, making any sort of upgrade like that. . .complicated.

Ultimately, though, I hang on to the card. We’ve had enough of our dreams crushed by other people—enough of our choices taken away. I won’t make my brother’s decisions for him, even if I think it might be for our own good. Jesse can puzzle over the possible solutions to this stuff himself. I stick the card in my bag.

The worst thing about this particular bus stop at this time of day is that it’s in full sun—no shade at all. Unsurprising with my luck, but I wait for more than half an hour for the dumb bus I need to show up. By the time it rumbles around the corner, I’ve pitted out the armpits on my shirt. Ah, the indignity of public transit in Houston. People complain that the bus smells funny, as if it’s the fault of the unwashed masses who use them. I often wonder whether any funky smell is a function of patrons being stuck waiting on buses in the heat. I’m walking up the steps when Jesse jogs up behind me.

“Hey!” I say.

“We finished early.”

“That’s good,” I say.

“Which means I won’t get quite as many hours.” Jesse shrugs. “But that’s fine.”

I sit down on a bench and slide all the way over. Jesse drops in next to me. “Speaking of hours, I tried to tell you earlier, before you white-knighted on me.”

“What?” He turns toward me, his eyes calm.

I grit my teeth. “I got fired.”

“Wait, so some guy you saw in Terra last night croaks at your restaurant, and then you get fired? Why? For talking to him?” The righteous indignation in Jesse’s voice warms my heart.

I shake my head. “Ramon caught me leaving with a box of food I didn’t pay for.”

Jesse’s eyes widen. “So that’s why you didn’t bring me anything to eat today.”

“Sorry.”

He laughs and something inside my chest eases. If he’s laughing, he’s not mad, and if he’s not mad, I’m okay.

“And.” I whip John’s card out of my bag. “Here. That tech guy wanted me to give you this. He wants to have Jordan Walker in for an interview.”

Jesse’s eyes light up in a way I haven’t seen in a very, very long time.

My heart constricts. “I’m not sure that it’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“You’d have to give him your ID,” I whisper. “And it’s a real desk job. You do not look older than twenty.”

Jesse rubs the scruff on his chin that’s still awkwardly irregular. “I may have a work-around for that.”

My eyebrows climb.

“I’ve been playing around with this for a while. I think I can change the date.”

I hiss, “Are you talking about hacking into the DMV?”

He shrugs. “It’s not like government systems are super high tech. Their encryption—”

“That’s a felony!”

“So is using fake IDs,” Jesse points out.

“Except if you take a job you care about, you’re stuck. You can’t just change out your entire identity at some future date, and you may be eighteen, but I’m not yet.”

“If you think that’s true—if you believe that you have a record back home—then you can’t ever go back to your real name.”

“But you can.”

“You stole a thousand bucks when we ran. If you can’t be Alora Benson again, then I can't be Jesse Benson, either. Not in a year, not ever. Unless.”

“Unless what?” I shouldn’t be so desperate to get my name back, but for some reason, I am. Maybe when you have almost nothing, your name feels like a lot.

He shakes his head. “You were never tried, much less convicted. Maybe they dropped those charges years ago. I really doubt they’re still looking for you. But if we’re worried, that’s even more reason for us to make these IDs into something we can use forever.”

I want to believe that everything is fine. I want my life to be normal now, or in six months when I turn eighteen, or even in a year or two. Heck, I'd be fine if I knew things would be normal in five years. At least that's a timeframe, and I can count down patiently. But it's not that simple. “He found us in California,” I say.

Jesse leans back against the bench and sighs. “It was too expensive to live there, anyway.”

I snort. “It really was. We could barely afford a hot dog, much less an apartment. Arizona was cheaper.”

“It shouldn't cost anything to live on the surface of the sun. They should've paid us to live there.”

“He found us there, too, J.” I shiver. It's almost ninety degrees outside today, and the bus air conditioner can’t keep up. I’m not shivering because I’m cold. “We can't take any chances.”

“I never saw him in California. Or Phoenix.”

I huff. “Well, I did.”

He nods. “And when you saw him, we ran. Every time.”

“Which is the only reason he didn't haul us back to Washington by our ears and toss me in julie and you in another group home.”

“Maybe.” Jesse shrugs. “But I can’t be hauled back anymore. I’m an adult.”

“I’m not, and Declan Rosenbaum is still looking for us, Jesse. He never stopped. You know that.”

“It's been almost three years, Alora. That's a long time. I doubt Washington’s still paying a social worker to hunt us down that long after we ran—they aren’t bounty hunters. Besides, if they do find you, I can tell any judge in America that I’ll be your guardian. The worst is past us.”

“You think they’d let the kid who ran away with me be my guardian?” I shoot off the bench. “I saw him, Jesse, and he saw me, too, only a year ago. Two years after we left, two years after I stole that money. I think it’s wishful thinking that he’d drop it between then and now, after coming so close to catching us.”

Jesse's blue eyes hold my gaze for a moment. “I agreed with you at the time, and I’ve never complained about having to run. But I’m eighteen, and you will be soon. Plus, I like it here. We haven't seen any evidence of Declan, and I’m confident that we won't. We're safe.” He puts his hand over mine. “Alice Walker is safe.”

“That’s probably true. I'm just stressed, okay?”

“I know you are.” Jesse pats my hand. “I know.”

I lean back against the bus bench and close my eyes. “The problem with assuming we’re fine is that by the time we find out we aren't, it's too late to do anything.” I close my eyes and think about the day we escaped three years ago. We had no plan, no idea what we were doing, and I was only fourteen. We shouldn't have stolen that cash, but I didn't know how else we'd be able to afford to go anywhere.

I can't be stupid and risk getting caught, not again. Stupid makes you desperate. Terra may not be real—it may all be a dream—but my danger here on Earth is most definitely real.