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“Thanks, Slim,” the vendor called to him. “I appreciate you coming out on a holiday.”

“No problem. It’s on my way. Going up to Lackawanna for the fireworks tonight.”

“Hey.” Mairin nudged Denise. “We should see if that guy’ll give us a lift.”

“What? Are you crazy?”

“Crazy enough to ask him. Keep watch for me and make sure the nuns aren’t looking.” She marched over to the deliveryman. “Hey, mister. Think you could give me and my friends a ride to Franklin Street in Buffalo?” According to Denise, the YWCA there was cheap and didn’t ask too many questions.

He scratched his head, stepped back, and looked her up and down, taking in the drab laundry uniform and her wild red curls.

He had sharp eyes and an angular face with a slight shadow of a beard. “Now, why would I do that?”

“We just need a ride, is all.” When she glanced over her shoulder, she noticed that the other girls were keeping their distance.

Chickens, she thought.

The Sunbeam driver focused on her, then did a double take. He looked at Mairin in a way she didn’t like. The way Colm looked

at her when he wasn’t supposed to. No, that was just her imagination, Mairin told herself. This guy was her ticket out of

here.

If it feels wrong, it is wrong . Liam’s words came back to her.

The man hooked a thumb into his belt loop and jerked his head toward the van. “Well now, maybe I got room for you in the truck,

girlie,” he said. “Climb on in.”

Behind her, Mairin heard footsteps, and turned to see Helen making a beeline for her. “Oh, no, you don’t.” Helen grabbed her

hand and hauled her back. “Never mind,” she said to the driver. “My friend made a mistake.”

“I’ll say.” The guy curled his lip and shook his head.

Mairin tried to pull away, but Helen hung on tight. “What the—”

“Bad idea,” said Helen.

“I’ll say,” Odessa muttered behind her. “What the heck were you thinking, Mairin?”

That I’d do anything to get away, Mairin thought. Anything.

On the way back to the Good Shepherd, Mairin leaned her head against the window of the bus, watching the cars flow by like

ripples in a river. She had scanned for chances to escape out in the air with all the noise and life and freedom—but she’d

found nothing. Feeling defeated, she pressed her eyes shut, wishing she could be anywhere else. She would not survive in this

place. She would not. Stewing with frustration, she opened her eyes and watched the busy traffic pushing down the expressway.

By now, she knew escape wasn’t so simple. She didn’t want to wind up in a situation like the one with the bread truck driver.

The others chatted away, ignoring the intermittent shushings by Sister Rotrude or Sister Theresa or one of the consecrates

who didn’t seem to do anything but obey orders. “Pipe down back there,” roared Sister Rotrude. “And get back in your seats.”

The girls scattered, flinging themselves into their seats. Mairin brooded out the window some more. As the bus exited the

expressway, a panel van caught her eye. It was a tall white truck, shiny clean, with a logo featuring a still life of a cornucopia

with abundant vegetables and fruits spilling out. Then she noticed the company name and slogan on the delivery van— Flynn Gallagher Gourmet Produce. Fresh from Farm to Table .

She sat straight up in her seat. Flynn Gallagher.

The truck was stopped in a line of traffic at a stoplight. She recognized Flynn in the driver’s seat. He sat with his wrist

draped over the steering wheel and his elbow cocked out the open window.

“Flynn,” she said under her breath. “You did it, Flynn. Took over Fiorelli’s truck. Just like you said you would.”

Her mind shut off as a jolt of pure instinct possessed her. She lunged to the back of the bus and grabbed the red lever marked

Emergency Exit. A loud bell sounded, and the bus lurched, then rumbled to a stop. Some of the startled girls screeched in

confusion as Mairin wrestled with the emergency door. It was stuck. It wouldn’t budge.

She pictured herself rolling into the road from the moving bus, leaving her friends behind, maybe getting run over. No. She

would run for freedom, and Flynn would pick her up. Her efforts grew more frantic as Sister Rotrude charged down the aisle

toward her, but the door held fast. The nun grabbed the back of her jumper and hauled her away from the door. Then she shoved

Mairin toward the front of the bus.

“You get in that seat and don’t move ,” she said, her voice cutting like a knife. Then she turned to encompass the other dumbfounded girls with a fierce glare.

“Drive on, Sister Theresa. Ruth has made yet another grave mistake.”

The whole failed incident had lasted less than a minute.

Mairin knew her impulse would cost her dearly.

What was she thinking? She wasn’t thinking.

What would she have done, anyway? Jumped into the delivery truck with Flynn Gallagher.

.. and then what? He would have freaked out and made her go home and then her mom would have forced her to go back to the laundry.

What a dumb, stupid impulse. When would she ever learn?

She did learn a couple of things. One—the emergency escape of the bus didn’t work, which was probably illegal. And two—Flynn’s

phone number was on the side of the van: FR2–3858.

Mairin came back from solitary at lights-out, having spent the rest of the day in darkness and without supper. She trudged

up the dank iron stairs and entered the dormitory, and one of the laywomen closed and locked the gate.

When the bars to the dormitory clanged behind her, she found some of the others clustered around Angela’s bed. Tired, hungry,

and angry, she was surprised to see so many girls still awake, whispering and buzzing.

“What happened?” she asked, feeling a chill crawl across her skin.

“Another nightmare,” Helen whispered.

Mairin rushed over to Angela. Lately, she woke up screaming or crying nearly every night. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” Mairin

whispered. “I wish I knew how to help.”

“I don’t know how much longer I can last in this place,” Angela said, rocking back and forth on the bed.

Mairin gave her friend a hug as she looked around at the girls in the dorm unit. All of them rallied around Angela. They rallied

around one another. By now, they had become more than just fellow inmates. They were friends, in the truest and deepest sense.

It was startling to realize how much she’d come to care about them. She wanted to help Angela try to forget the baby ordeal,

and she wanted to keep her friend safe from Gilroy’s attacks. Wanted Helen to find her parents again, wanted to see Odessa

move to California. She hoped for a better life for Denise, Janice, and Kay.

“You guys,” she said, “I want you to know—when I first got to this place, I didn’t expect to make friends. But now... well,

now I know that I couldn’t have survived this long without you.”

“Oh, Mairin. You were so angry when you first got here,” Angela said.

“Yeah, I was kinda scared of you,” Kay added softly.

“We all need each other,” Odessa whispered, “and that’s a fact.”

“I have something to ask you guys,” Mairin said, her heart pounding as she motioned them to gather close.

“Ask away,” said Odessa.

“I’ve been trying my darnedest to find a way out of here.”

“We noticed,” said Janice.

“I know it’s possible to escape. I just know it. But I keep getting caught. I hate myself for failing. I just hate myself.

So I’ve been thinking. Maybe I keep failing because I’ve been trying to do it alone.”

“You’re strong,” Janice said. “One of these days, you’ll make it.”

“It’s not enough to be strong. I need a better plan. And...” She looked around the circle of faces. “I need your help.

I need a team.”

“And you want us to be the team.” Denise sat back and folded her arms in front of her.

“Not just for me,” Mairin said, her voice thickening with emotion. “This place is killing us. We all need to get away from

here before something even worse happens.” She studied Angela’s thin, tense face in the dim light, then grabbed her friend’s

hand. “I want to help you more than I want to help myself.”

A single tear slipped down Angela’s cheek. “You’re right,” she whispered. “This place is killing me.” Then she dashed the tear away. “I’m in.”

“What are you on about?” Janice asked. “You’re going to get us all in trouble.”

“Don’t you want to get away from this place?” Mairin asked.

“And do what, exactly?” asked Janice. “We got no place to go. Nobody to look after us.”

“Haven’t you been listening? The YWCA on Franklin—”

“Costs money,” Denise pointed out.

“It sounds too crazy,” Janice said. “It’ll never work. Instead of one girl getting caught, you’ll get us all caught.”

“Not if we work as a team,” Mairin insisted.

“Hey, maybe you can stomach the closet,” Janice said. “But not me. I like you, Mairin, even though you’re scary sometimes. But I think it’s

too risky.”

Helen’s chin jutted out in resolute fashion. “I disagree. Mairin, you’ve been right all along. We can’t stay here any longer. We have to get out.”

“Yeah, we have to go,” Denise agreed, surprising Mairin. She was seated at the end of Angela’s bed, gently patting the other

girl’s ankle.

“We have to go,” Angela echoed, her voice still raspy. Maybe she’d hurt her vocal cords, screaming from nightmares.

“We’ll find a way out of here, I swear,” Helen whispered, joining them on the other side of the bed.

Mairin felt a rush of emotion so powerful it confused her, made her almost light-headed. Rage at what had happened to Angela.

Relief that the other girls were with her at last.

“We’re going,” she said. “Together.”

“We have to do it right this time,” Helen said.

Mairin nodded. “Exactly. It’s going to work this time. We’ll work as a team.”

“But how?” Denise asked. “How are all of us going to disappear without getting caught?”

“And once we’re out, then what?” Janice asked.

“Then we’re screwed,” Denise said grudgingly.

“What do you mean?” Mairin bristled.