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"They could have been there for a while," I said, just as we found the highway again It was eon the people that lived there Maybe that really was East River…"

Or it was just a trap, for kids looking for the real East River

Liaainst his pal cracks in the windshield cut up his reflection He pushed thethe wind to whistle through the bullet hole "Just keep your eyes open and letsuspect"

Define suspect The rows of shuttered houses? A shot-up minivan?

"I knee should have waited until it was dark," Chubs said, tapping his fingers against the passenger seat"I knew it If those caot the license plate nu"

"I’ll take care of the plates," Lia, only resting his head against the

"Should I be looking for PSFs?" I asked, as we drove over another railroad track

"Worse" Chubs sighed "Skip tracers Bounty hunters"

"The PSFs are stretched pretty thin, by all accounts," Liam explained "Same with the National Guard and what’s left of the local police I don’t know that they’d send a unit all the way out here on a tip And unless they just so happen to have a resident bounty hunter in this neck of the woods, we’re going to be fine"

Those were famous last words if I had ever heard the in a kid is ten thousand dollars" Chubs twisted around to look at oing to be fine"

I heard a train in the distance, its horn so similar to the ones that had passed by Thur hs and squeeze my eyes shut until the nausea passed I didn’t even realize the conversation had rolled on without me until I heard Liam ask, "You okay, Green?"

I reached up and wipedif the wetness there was fro it I didn’t say anything as I crawled to the rear seat I didn’t jump into their conversation about where they would need to look next for East River, though I wanted to There were hundreds, thousands, millions of places the Slip Kid could have set up camp, and I wanted to help them puzzle it out I wanted to be part of it

But I couldn’t ask, and I needed to stop lying to myself Because every second I stayed with them was another chance for them to discover that skip tracers and PSFs weren’t the realin their backseat

For once, the music was off

It was the silence from the speakers that unnerved me, more than the deserted roads or the empty shells of repossessed houses Lia around the abandoned sas level, fiddling with the turn signal, fingers dancing on the steering wheel At one point, his eyes flashed toward mine in the rearview e in my stoer and run it down the length of my open palm