My little brother shook me awake at three in the morning and whispered, “We have to leave right now, or I think they’re going to k!ll us.”

Chapter 1

For a few seconds, I thought I was still dreaming.

Eli’s hand was clamped over my mouth, cold enough to make me flinch. He was thirteen, skinny and perpetually rumpled, the kind of kid who apologized to furniture after bumping into it. But that night there was something in his face I’d never seen before. Not panic. Panic would’ve been easier.

This was certainty.

“June,” he whispered, “don’t turn on the light.”

I pulled his hand away and glanced at the clock. 3:11 a.m. Tuesday. Outside, an October wind scraped dead leaves along the curb of the quiet Missouri subdivision where we’d been living for seven months.

I started to tell him he’d had a nightmare.

Then I saw the shoebox in his arms.

Inside were passports. Cash. Several driver’s licenses. A folded sheet of yellow legal paper lay on top.

Eli handed it to me.

Six names had been written in our mother’s tidy handwriting. Four had dates beside them that had already passed.

The fifth name was mine.

JUNE MARSH — FRIDAY.

Below mine:

ELI MARSH — AFTER CROSSING.

I read it twice.

“What is this?”

“They’re loading the car.”

“Who?”

“Mom and Dad.”

My stomach tightened. “Loading it for what?”

Eli looked toward my bedroom door.

“I went downstairs for water. The garage light was on. They didn’t know I was on the stairs.”

He swallowed.

“Mom was reading from a list. She said they’d ‘finish with the girl Friday.’ Then Dad said they should make it look like you ran away.”

I stared at him.

“No.”

“I heard them.”

“No, Eli.”

“He said teenagers disappear all the time and people eventually stop looking.”

“Stop.”

“And Mom said I could stay with them until they got across the border.”

His voice finally broke.

“Then she said they’d deal with me too.”

The room seemed to tip sideways.

There are things your mind refuses because accepting them would require rebuilding everything you know. Parents complained about dishes. Parents worried about your grades. Parents embarrassed you in grocery stores.

They didn’t discuss your death in the garage while loading luggage.

Except memories were already moving through me, fitting together in ways they never had before.

Six moves in eleven years.

Different states. Different houses. Once, a different last name.

No school. Mom taught us at the kitchen table because she said public schools were “a zoo.”

No relatives.

No childhood friends.

No baby pictures.

And last spring, I’d found a driver’s license with my mother’s photograph and another woman’s name. She’d laughed when I asked about it.

Two weeks later, we moved.

“Where did you get the box?”

“Garage workbench.”

“You just took it?”

“I thought if I took the passports, maybe they couldn’t leave.”

That was such an Eli answer that I nearly cried.

He shoved my backpack toward me.

“Please, June.”

For one terrible second, I wanted to march into the garage and demand an explanation. I wanted Dad to sigh, rub his forehead, and tell us we were idiots. I wanted Mom to make that exasperated little noise she made whenever we misunderstood something obvious.

Then I looked again at the paper.

Friday.

Three days.

I got dressed.

We packed almost nothing. My phone, charger, sweatshirt, $180 I’d saved from birthdays, two water bottles. Eli already had granola bars and the first-aid kit.

“You packed before you woke me?”

He nodded.

“How long were you standing there deciding whether to tell me?”

He wouldn’t answer.

That frightened me more than anything else.

The front door stuck in damp weather and made a loud cracking sound when it opened, so Eli led me to the laundry room. He’d already tested the window. He’d already found the loose section in the fence.

My little brother had planned an escape from our home while I slept.

I pushed him through first, then climbed after him, tearing my T-shirt on the latch. We crouched beside the house, pulling on our sneakers.

From inside came Mom’s laugh.

Soft. Ordinary.

A laugh I had heard thousands of times.

I think that was the moment childhood ended for me. Not when Eli woke me. Not when I saw my name on the list.

It ended when I heard my mother laugh and realized a familiar sound could belong to a stranger.

We slipped through the fence and walked.

At first, we didn’t run. Running attracted attention, and although neither of us said it, we were afraid headlights would appear behind us.

Three blocks became four.

Then we ran.

We cut through a playground, crossed an empty strip mall, and finally stopped beneath the awning of a closed dry cleaner.

Eli bent over, gasping.

“Where do we go?”

I had no answer.

We had no grandparents. No aunts or uncles. No neighbors we trusted. No teachers, coaches, pastors, or friends’ parents because our parents had built our lives so that no other adult knew us well enough to notice if we disappeared.

“We should call the police,” I said.

Eli shook his head.

“What if they call Mom and Dad?”

“We have evidence.”

“Of fake passports. Not murder.”

I hated that a thirteen-year-old was making sense.

Then I remembered the all-night diner near Interstate 70.

“Come on.”

The Golden Bell was half empty when we arrived around four. A trucker sat at the counter drinking coffee. A nurse in blue scrubs was eating eggs in a booth. The waitress’s name tag said MARLENE.

She looked at my torn shirt, then at Eli.

“Sit wherever you want, honey.”

Nothing more.

We took the booth farthest from the windows.

Under the table, Eli opened the shoebox.

In fluorescent light, it was worse.

Nine passports.

Four belonged to us, except they didn’t. Two showed my face under different names. Two showed Eli’s.

The other five belonged to our parents under different identities.

Then I unfolded the list again.

Four unfamiliar names.

Four dates already gone.

Us underneath.

“Eli.”

He was peeling the paper wrapper off a straw.

“How long have you known something was wrong?”

His fingers stopped.

“A while.”

“How long?”

“Since summer.”

He told me about a duffel bag in the crawlspace. Cash. A handgun. Disposable gloves. A notebook with names, addresses, and dollar amounts.

“I took pictures.”

“You what?”

“On my tablet.”

He pulled it from his backpack.

There were dozens.

Maybe hundreds.

“You’ve been doing this for months?”

“I thought maybe I was being stupid.”

“You’re thirteen.”

“I know.”

“You should’ve told me.”

“I was going to.”

“When?”

“When I knew you wouldn’t confront them.”

That shut me up.

Because he knew me.

I would have.

Marlene appeared with two waters and a plate of fries.

“We didn’t order these,” I said.

“I know.”

She glanced at Eli.

“Eat something.”

After she walked away, I took his hands.

“You saved us.”

His eyes filled.

“Don’t say that yet.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re not safe yet.”

I looked toward the dark windows.

Then I pulled out my phone and searched for the nearest FBI field office.

I called the after-hours number.

A man answered.

I walked near the restrooms so Eli wouldn’t hear how badly my voice was shaking.

“My name is June. I’m seventeen. My brother and I left home because we heard our parents talking about killing us.”

There was a pause.

“I know how that sounds,” I rushed on. “But we have passports. Fake ones. And money and a list of names with dates. Four dates already happened. Ours are next.”

The agent asked where we were.

Then he asked our last name.

“Marsh.”

Silence.

“June, are you at the Golden Bell off Exit 41?”

I hadn’t told him that.

My knees nearly gave out.

“How do you know that?”

“Stay inside.”

His voice had changed.

“Keep your brother with you. Stay away from the windows. Agents are coming.”

“What’s happening?”

“I’ll explain when you’re secure.”

“Do you know my parents?”

Another pause.

“Yes.”

I pressed the phone tighter against my ear.

“Who are they?”

But before he could answer, I looked through the diner window.

A dark SUV had just turned into the parking lot.

Our SUV.