Page 9 of The Lovely and the Lost

The three of us had hang-glided off the roof the next year.

“You’re not interrupting, Free.” I let the fabric fall from my hands and back down onto the bed. Silver was asleep at my feet. Without even thinking about it, I burrowed my toes underneath her body. “I was just packing.”

“Packing traditionally involves putting one or more items inside the bag,” Free pointed out.

“Second-story windows,” I countered, “are not traditionally considered doors.”

That got me a smile. “Su casa es mi casa,” Free said lazily. “And that bag is still empty.”

I had a go-bag for search and rescue—we all did—crammed with the supplies we might need to meet whatever challenge Cady decided to lay out on any given day. But packing my personal suitcase was harder.

“It’s not that I don’t want to go.” To anyone who didn’t know me, my voice might have sounded flat. “I’m glad we’re going. Cady will find this missing kid. Saskia and I will help.”

It was easier, sometimes, to communicate things that I had already thought.

“Of course you’ll help,” Free replied. “You were born for search and rescue. And I…” Free let her legs dangle down toward the roof outside my window. “I’ll be here all by my lonesome.”

Cady had asked her to look after the place while we were gone. Free probably would have preferred looking afterus.

Silver stirred at my feet. She stretched and made a loop around my legs. Finding me in one piece, she went to greet Free, then cycled back to my side. Free followed, and a moment later, she was sifting through the laundry on my desk.

“You’d tell me if these clothes weren’t clean, right?”

“They’re clean.”

“Pack this.” Free tossed a zip-up long-sleeved shirt in my general direction without so much as looking back. “And this.” The sweatshirt hit me square in the face.

I dodged the next projectile and began wrangling the clothes Free had picked out into my bag.

“Cady should have invited you to come with us.”

“Miscreants’ Creed,” Free countered. “Line seven. I solemnly vow to never sayshould.”

Cady had referred to us as miscreants so often growing up that the name had stuck. The Creed was ever-evolving, and Free was its self-appointed keeper.

The wordsoughtandrulewere also verboten.

“It would be better if you came with us,” I tried again.

Free spared me a brief but dazzling smile. “I happen to agree.” She made a trip to my closet and returned with three pairs of cargo pants and twice that number of all-weather shirts. “But I think it’s safe to say that Mama Bear has other things on her mind.”

Cady had said she was at about a six. I didn’t always get the full range of human emotion—especially other people’s—but I did knowfearandangerandwantandpain.

Cady wasn’t any better at admitting weakness than I was.

“No moping.” Free pitched a balled-up pair of socks at my face. “Need I remind you of the Miscreants’ Creed, line four?”

“Never look down?” I asked.

Free zipped the suitcase shut. “We were born ready,” she corrected. “You’re going to be just fine, Kira. AndI…” She paused for dramatic effect. “Well, like a good and proper Miscreant, I have some trouble to stir up. Take care of yourself, K.”

Free was already back out the window before I’d found the words to reply. “You too.”

Five hours later, I’d spent four hours too many in the car. I was restless, tense, and hungry—and we were almost there.

Not thatalmostortheremeant a thing to the part of me that equatedcarwithcage.

Breathe in. Breathe out.I counted back from one hundred, one number per breath.One hundred. Ninety-nine.I stared out the window as we drove up a winding mountain road. Spread out in the distance, I could see nothing but unvarnished wilderness. Something about the way the mountain range cut into the sky mademefeel vast, like the green of the trees and the crisp white snowcaps—the stone and dirt and water and air—were part of me.