"Please," I say. I lean forward and put my hands on the back of her seat. "This is an emergency. We really could use your help. Can't you make an exception?"

Dot looks sideways at me. "I like your tone. And I would like to help you out, but if I don't follow company policy, I'm afraid I will be released, and this is all I have."

Seeing Dot respond to me, Kara leans forward too. "We'll make it worth it to you. Somehow," she says. She glances at me and adds a contrite "please." Her voice wobbles. I don't know if it is for effect or real desperation, but we are desperate.

"And your tone is improving," Dot says. "I will send another car for Customer Jafari. It will probably arrive before he even knows I am gone." Without any movement of her hands, the car makes a series of tones like a musical instrument, a message display reads ENGAGED, and we begin to ease forward. Dot raises her hands to what must be a steering bar. I look behind us and see Miesha coming out the front door. Hari is behind her.

"Hurry!" I say. And she does. Kara and I are thrown back in our seats. The gate is a half mile away, but we're there almost instantly. Dot slides her finger over a spot on the driving panel and the gate begins to move, but when it is only about halfway open, it begins to shut again.

"It's them. They're closing it," I say. "Go, Dot! Hurry before it shuts all the way!"

"The vehicle may incur damage if--"

"Screw the vehicle!" Kara says. "They want to kill us! Go!"

Dot makes the car move forward at incredible speed. The antique gate is what incurs the damage, iron bars flying off as we speed through it. Dot maintains her high speed for about two miles and then slows. "We will draw less attention if we proceed within the Norms. So, you're Escapees! What's it like?"

Escapees? Kara and I look at each other. "What do you mean?" I ask.

"Are you afraid?" Dot smiles like the thought exhilarates her.

"Yes, Dot, we're very afraid," I tell her.

She jumps on my answer. "But are you glad? Is it worth it?"

Her urgency makes me pause. Something doesn't seem right. "I don't know yet if--"

"Yes," Kara says firmly. "It's worth it. Every second. Every mile. Every risk. Being trapped is the same as no life at all. We were prisoners." Kara turns to look at me. "We've been prisoners for too long."

Dot nods and accelerates the car, seemingly pleased with this information. "Where to, Escapees?"

I look out at the countryside and then at Kara. This was not a well-thought-out plan. Where can we go?

"Boston," Kara says flatly. She stares straight ahead, ignoring me.

Her family, my family--they're not in Boston anymore. We both know that. What is there to go back to? It's the first time I have thought about descendants. Did my brother or sister have children? Neither was the type to settle down and have a family, but children may have happened anyway. Could I possibly have someone I am related to? A distant niece or nephew? Even a distant cousin? Someone who might help us?

And then I remember. There is someone in Boston. Someone we both know.

Jenna.

I look at the elegant line of Kara's jaw. She finally has what she wants--freedom from Gatsbro--but I think she still wants so much more, and the more is what frightens me. Her eyes are fixed on the road, and for once I wish I could see into her mind again, that I could control my wanderings there. What would I see now?

I want to go to Boston too, but I'm certain it's for different reasons. I want to see something familiar. Something from then. My street. My house. Even the market at the corner where my mother worked. And Jenna too. Even if she didn't help us before, maybe she would now. I think about her every day. The idea of seeing her again--

Jenna. Jenna. Jenna.

It's an unexpected angry beat in my head, and I'm not sure if it's coming from my own thoughts or somewhere else. Kara turns to look at me. Her eyebrows rise and her hand slides across the seat to lace with mine. She squeezes my fingers, a simple act, but it releases an explosion of feeling. When you have spent so many years without fingers, the smallest touch is something you can get lost in. I am easily lost in Kara again, returning her squeeze.

"Yes, Dot. Boston," I say.

Francis Street in Boston.

Chapter 13

Our house on Francis Street was a big move up for us. Before that we had lived in a cramped apartment in a bad neighborhood. I had shared a bedroom with my brother. Every memory of him is filled with slamming doors and yelling. He was wild and ran with a wild crowd. In that neighborhood that was all there was to run with. But when my sister was spotted running with a gang and the police showed up on our doorstep, that was when we moved. My brother moved in with friends and refused to come, and since he was almost eighteen, my parents didn't force him. For nearly two years we lived with my grandparents while my parents saved every penny for the house on Francis Street. It was a dump, but in a good area, and my uncles helped my dad gut it and make it livable. They made my sister help too, and she hated every minute of it. She wanted to be back with her friends in the old neighborhood.

I was spared from the scraping and hauling because I was "their student." They always said it just that way, their student, like I was the genius of their loins. I was the only one who excelled in school, and my parents held me up as proof that they had done right by at least one of their children. I was going to be a doctor, a senator, a scientist who found the cure for cancer--maybe all three. It didn't matter what, just something big. I could do anything, they said, I just needed to stay focused. I knew what that meant--not wild like my brother or sister. So I did stay focused, for them. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life anyway. It seemed wrong not to have a goal, so I let their goal be mine. And for a time, I even thrived on it.