The Awakening by K. E. Ganshert Page A

the leftover food in our bags and waits by the window, staring out into the darkness.
    My palms have turned clammy, my fingers cold. I wring them as I pace back and forth in the small room, hoping the red jasper stone on Luka’s hemp bracelet works. Hoping it will protect us from all the things that go bump in the night. On this night in particular, when a whole lot of things could go bump.
    Luka shifts the blind. “She’s here.”
    Headlights do not cut through the parking lot. When we spoke with Leela on the phone, Luka told her to cut them before pulling in. He takes my hand, his grip steady and sure, and we step out into the chilly nighttime air. Our breath escapes in tiny, white puffs. Everything in me wants to sprint, but Luka sets a calm pace. A non-rushed, unsuspicious, maddening stroll. When we finally get to Leela’s car and climb into the backseat, nobody speaks. I think we’re all shocked that our plan worked. At least so far.
    Luka breaks the silence first. “Nobody followed you?”
    Leela shakes her head, her knuckles whitening as she grips the steering wheel at ten and two.
    “Do you think anybody suspected anything?”
    She shakes her head again.
    I exhale my pent-up breath, then inhale deeply, hoping to still my nerves. Her car smells like sugar cookies. This is Leela’s favorite smell. For Christmas, I bought her a small box of sugar cookie-scented car air fresheners. One dangles now from her rearview mirror. Our eyes meet in the reflection. There are a million things I want to say, a million apologies I want to make, but they all get stuck in my throat.
    “Your hair,” she says.
    I touch it self-consciously. I forgot how different I must look.
    “It looks amazing!”
    My smile is uncontainable. So is Leela’s. The wall between us crumbles. Despite everything—the immense danger we find ourselves in, all the unknowns before us—I am happy. I have my best friend back, even if only for a little while.
    Luka pulls me down with him in the seat, to the height of small children. Between the dark and our hunched frames, nobody would suspect two teenagers in the back seat. “Make sure to go the speed limit. Not too fast or too slow.”
    Her hands tremble as she shifts the car into drive. Bits of gravel crunch beneath the tires. Every loud pop makes her flinch.
    “Why don’t you tell us how it went.” Luka knows Leela better than I’ve given him credit for. If anything will set my jumpy friend at ease, talking is it.
    She releases a shaky breath and dives in. “Great. Better than great, actually. I cut up an onion in my car before I went inside the station. You know, to make my eyes all watery. I’ve always been really sensitive with onions.”
    A fresh wave of affection swells inside my throat.
    “By the time I stepped inside, tears were already streaming down my cheeks, and as soon as I sat down in my uncle’s office, I burst into sobs. I’d say I deserve an Academy Award, but I was so nervous and worked up at that point that it wasn’t really hard to break down. I was legitimately sobbing.”
    There is something so safe about hearing Leela’s familiar chatter from the front seat, even if it’s about something as crazy as this.
    “I told him that I was afraid to tell the truth when the police first interrogated me, but I might know where you went. That’s when I explained about your grandmother and how you were always talking about her and how scared I was that you were going to try and find her and that something bad would happen to you.”
    We were hoping this bit about my grandmother would serve two purposes—give Leela a reason for showing up at the station and throw the police off our scent. The story will be made extra believable if the authorities put two and two together and figure out that Luka and I broke into Shady Wood last week. The nurse we tied up and stuffed in the supply closet had to have reported the incident by now. “Do you think he believed you?”
    “I think so.