The Rules for Breaking by Ashley Elston

anyway.
    It shouldn’t be this easy to leave everything behind.

Rules for disappearing
by Witness Protection prisoner #18A7R04M:
    Do not join clubs, dance line, or any other really fun organized group at school….
    New rule by Anna Boyd:
    Okay, maybe that’s not such a bad rule after all…even if the bitchy cheerleader isn’t that bitchy anymore—that doesn’t mean you want to be best friends.
    Williams is finding that it’s a little harder to get things done when he can’t (or won’t) use the resources normally available to him.
    Because we’re off the books on this, there is some debate on how to get us to Arkansas. Agent Williams is dying to go after this Daniel Sanders guy but doesn’t trust us to leave town by ourselves.
    We wait for Ethan at the farm. The Landry’s farm is outside of town in a remote area. The land around here is flat, nothing but crop fields, with very few trees. If someone was following us, it would be very hard for them to remain unseen.
    Ethan, Emma, and their parents pull up next to us.
    What in the hell? I thought it would just be Ethan going with us to Arkansas.
    The men shake hands while Ethan heads to where Teeny and I are sitting in Agent Williams’s Suburban. Emma and her mom haven’t gotten out of the vehicle.
    I open the door and I know I look confused.
    “The whole family is coming with us.” Ethan rolls his eyes and says, “Dad said he’s been meaning to work on our camp and this is a perfect time to do that and wouldn’t it be nice to hang out there as a family.”
    Right.
    “I really think the fact that Thomas was in your driveway, going through your truck, freaked your mom and dad out and he wants to get y’all out of town, too.”
    Emma and I have been getting along lately, but I don’t know if we can survive being holed up together in some remote backwoods hunting camp.
    Agent Williams finally decides that he and Agent Parker will follow us to the state line, make sure no one’s tailing us, then let us continue on our way alone.
    As we load our bags into the back cargo area of Ethan’s dad’s SUV, it’s kind of embarrassing how much space I’m taking up with my bag. I refused to leave all my stuff behind, so instead of packing a lot of clothes, I grabbed every memento I’ve saved over the past couple of months in Natchitoches. No matter how many times Agent Williams says we’ll be back, I have a hard time believing him.
    Mr. Landry and Ethan throw several guns and plenty of ammo in the back of their SUV, including the small one I fired, and just like that we’re off.
    We’re crammed in this SUV like sardines. Dad and Mr. Landry are up front, dissecting the last few days. Emma and her mom have the two captain seats in the middle and Ethan, Teeny, and I are squished into the back row.
    “At least we’re not in that stupid van this time,” Teeny says. “I felt like we were convicts or something riding around in that thing.”
    “Ben was supposed to pick me up after lunch to go to a movie,” Emma says to no one in general.
    Mrs. Landry pats her arm. “That’s why you sent him that text, sweetie.”
    “He’ll never believe I’m going to the camp willingly.”
    She mumbles to herself and digs through her bag. Her mom gives her a wide berth.
    Teeny curls up on my other side to read and Ethan seems lost in thought as he stares out of the window.
    Agent Williams left us about an hour back and, admittedly, I’ve been scanning the road behind us ever since.
    Everything that has happened over the past week or so has stumped me. I can’t figure out why Thomas would give me my journal back then break into our house. Is there something else we’re missing? Did he only want me to have it back if I didn’t tell anyone about it?
    The hardest part of trying to figure Thomas out is trying to reconcile the difference in how he was when I thought he was an agent and what I learned about him in Arizona. How did I completely fall for the “nice agent