It’s night by the time we near Lake Isabella. Not even early night. It’s late. Just after ten. My needs won’t wait until morning, though. I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I were forced to. Kyle doesn’t ask, either. He lets me navigate him directly to the address on the envelope.

The homes around here are rather random, and the roads are just as bad. We wind along a dirt road closer to the lake when we eventually spot a mailbox with the right numbers to match the address on my envelope.

“You think this is it?” Kyle asks as he pulls to a stop, his tires kicking up a cloud of dust that fogs our view of the small gray trailer about a hundred yards away.

I take a deep breath and blow it out, letting my lips make a flapping sound as I raise my shoulders.

“That didn’t sound confident,” Kyle laughs.

“It’s not,” I chuckle back.

Kyle eases his foot from the brake and the truck crawls closer, crunching along the ground underneath us. I turned the radio off about an hour ago. My nerves couldn’t handle sound any longer. Now, the sound of the tires rolling seems deafening.

Kyle stops about halfway between the mailbox and the mobile home, shifting to park and then turning the truck off. I flex my fingers then form a fist, trying to push feeling to the tips. My heart starts to pound loudly in my ears, and I swallow once because I’m starting to feel nauseous.

“I don’t see his van,” I say, pausing to stare at our destination for another minute. “There’s a ramp, though. The last time I saw Shawn, he was in a wheelchair. He would need a ramp.”

“Yeah…he would.” Kyle folds his arms over the steering wheel and leans forward, squinting. “There’s a light on; you can sorta see it through the blinds.”

I nod, my head shaking vigorously.

“We should go knock,” he says.

I nod again, but I don’t move. For almost a full minute before he opens his door and turns to me, Kyle lets me sit still, except for the trembling in my legs.

“I can do it. If you want.”

I shift to the side and meet his eyes, a voice inside of me screaming, “Yes, please!” I eventually shake my head, though. He can’t do it. This…it needs to be me. All of this needs to be me. This is my quest for answers, and I need to be the one marching toward the people who can answer my questions.

“Okay, but I’m coming with you. This is the kind of place where people have bodies preserved in freezers covered in weeds in the backyard,” he says as he steps from the truck, watching me and waiting for me to do the same.

“Encouraging,” I deadpan.

Kyle’s lips pucker a smirk.

One more breath, and I exit quickly, shutting the truck door before I have a chance to back out. I meet Kyle by the front of his truck, and without thinking we both link hands, his squeeze tight—reassuring. Our feet crunch along the loose gravel and dirt that lead us here, and we keep a slow but steady pace up the ramp until I’m faced with a vinyl-covered door. My eyes run along the NO SOLICITING sign taped above the chipped-gold doorknob, and I instantly concoct a lie in case whoever answers this door isn’t Shawn. We’ll say we were lost or that someone gave us the wrong address.

I look at Kyle and nod, my teeth clenched and my jaw locked with nerves as he nods back, raises his hand and knocks on the door. The knob jiggles when he does, and within a second or two I can feel the deck beneath us vibrate from movement inside the home.

My eyelids sweep closed, and I don’t let them open until I hear the door opening. When my eyes meet Shawn’s, I’m not sure if I should cry or scream. He doesn’t speak right away, but he leans his weight back into his chair, his head falling slightly to one side as his mouth curves into a slight grin.

“Josselyn.”

I’m rushed all at once with everything I’ve learned over the last forty hours. He’s said my name before—many times. He wrote my name to my mom. He fed me, clothed me, soothed me, watched over me. Why are he and I so intertwined? Why have I never known this connection?

“Can I come in?”

I feel Kyle’s hand let go of mine, but move to my lower back. As it does, Shawn’s attention flits to him.

“Shawn Stokes,” he says, reaching his palm for my friend.

Kyle looks to me first, and I nod. He lets his hand drop from my back and brings it to connect with Shawn’s, his eyes narrowed.

“Good to meet you, sir.”

Shawn’s mouth tugs up higher on one side as he chuckles at my protector. When he lets go from their shake, his hand moves to his right wheel, and he turns it enough to unblock his entrance.

“Come on in,” he says, holding his palm open and gesturing inside.

I pause for a second, and in my hesitation, Kyle’s hand returns to my back.

My eyes focus first on the brown sofa against the wall across from me. I head there quickly, my legs shaking. I sit down fast, leaving enough room for Kyle to sit by my side. Shawn reaches out and grabs a band on his door, pulling it closed, then smirks when he faces us.

“Sometimes I can’t reach the damn door to shut it. I believe you’d call that there one of those life hacks,” he says, laughing lightly. I join him for a second, but mostly from nerves.

Our eyes quickly settle on one another. How many times have I looked into these eyes as a baby? I study him as he studies me. While I explore his face for any trigger of a memory—other than the time I met him at the Stokes’s house—I feel as if he’s flooded with memories from looking at me. His eyes dazzle, slight wrinkles on the sides, his cheeks puffed out and pulled high with the smile that slowly forms on his mouth.

He looks away and pushes into his kitchen, pulling a few glasses from a drying rack on the counter. My gaze drifts.

“Can I get you guys something to drink? Juice? Or I have some tea. I don’t think I’ve got any soda, sorry.”

“I’ll take a water, thanks,” I say.

“Make it two,” Kyle adds.

My focus dances around the room. It’s a simple home—one main living space that consists of this couch, a television and a reading lamp, bleeding right into a kitchen area with a small card table pushed up against the wall. No chairs, and nothing on the floor except for a few plastic bins stacked near the television. A wide doorway to my left leads to what looks like his bedroom and probably bathroom. As for the floorplan, it’s essentially two squares attached by a door.

The walls, however, tell a much different story. They’re filled with organized clutter—glass cases mounted with comic books displayed, figurines lined on shelves, signed drawings framed and bunched together, superhero costumes pinned to the walls in the shape of the man or woman who they were probably made for.

I don’t stop darting my eyes around the room until Shawn is in front of me, holding out a glass of water.

“Thank you,” I say, taking it into both of my shaking hands. Unable to fight the urge, my eyes move back to the various displays. Shawn hands Kyle his water, which he removes from the cup holder affixed to the side of his chair, then twists so he’s sitting directly across from me. He follows my gaze to the wall of costumes, and begins to chuckle.

“It’s a hobby. I’ve been obsessed since I was a kid. When my dad died, I inherited his collection. Most of the costumes were his,” he says.

I nod slowly and pull my lips in, smiling, mostly to be polite. Shawn holds up a finger and moves over to the stack of bins, pulling the one on the top into his lap before pushing back to me. He starts to rifle through a few cards and small booklets, finally pulling out a wax envelope and handing it to me.

My brow bunches and I look to him for permission before opening it.

“Sure, go on. But just hold it by the edges,” he says.

With tentative fingers, I bend the flap and reach inside, pinching a piece of film reel. I hold it up to the light to see if I can make out the action happening in the four or five frames.

“They all look about the same. It’s a hiccup worth of twenty-millimeter from one of the first prints of The Shadow. I got that last week at an estate sale. That little piece right there is worth a couple thousand bucks.”

My fingers shake when he tells me that, so I work the strip back into the envelope and return it to him.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what The Shadow is,” I say, tucking my hands under my thighs to ease the trembling.

Shawn pulls the bin close to his stomach and curls his hands over the rim, shaking it with his laugh.

“No, I suppose young kids like you wouldn’t know anything about that,” he says, his eyes coming back to that comfortable rest on me again.

I look down to my lap and start to pick at the nail on my left thumb. Kyle slides his foot into mine, and I glance up at him to see him nod slightly.

“Something you come up here to talk about? The way I figure, you must have gone through a bit to find out where I live, maybe some trouble to get here, too, this late at night and all.” Shawn breaks our short silence. Kyle nods to me again.

I draw in a deep breath and leave my chest full as I turn back to our host. He knows what I’m here for. He knows everything I now know—I’m sure of it by the way he’s studying me. It’s like a force field has been removed.

“I found this…I was visiting my grandmother, and she gave me a few of my mom’s things,” I say, sitting up enough to slide the photo of him and me out of my back pocket.

His eyes warm and a tiny gasp escapes him, his smile growing fast as he takes the photo into his palms before removing a pair of glasses from his pocket and sliding them on his face.

“Would you look at that. There’s hair on my head,” he says, belly shaking again as his throat crackles with laughter. He turns his mouth into his sleeve to cough, but quickly returns to examining the photo.

My foot begins to tap the longer he stares at the pair of us without speaking, but I wait. He isn’t denying anything. He’s just not explaining.

“You were so small,” he finally says. My foot pauses with my toes in the air, heel to the floor. “Did you know you were born three weeks early?”

I blink once…twice.

“No,” I say.

“You were,” he says, glancing up at me over the rims of his glasses then down to the photo. He holds it for a few more seconds before giving it back. “You were this tiny little thing. Skinny arms and legs. You grew strong, though. It seems like it only took you days to make up what you were missing.”

Shawn’s eyes travel down to my leg then blink back to my face. He begins to nod slowly, I presume applauding how far I’ve come with my prosthetic and rehab. I am stronger. I’m stronger now than I ever was.

“You were our neighbor…that’s what Grace said.” My words are coming more easily, yet still not easy enough.

“I was. I probably should have said something when I saw you, but I don’t know…it didn’t seem like the time, and a person doesn’t really remember things from when they were two.”

His eyes linger on me when he’s done answering. Every time he stares, his mouth ticks up just a hint. It’s how I know we’re both playing a game. He’s trying to unearth exactly how much I know, or think I know, about Wes and what he can do, while I’m trying to find the right words to get the answers I need. The thing about games, though…I don’t lose them.

“You took care of Wes when I was little,” I say, sitting up a little taller. I see Kyle shift a bit in my periphery. He already knows these details. We talked about them as we left Tucson.

Shawn brings his hand up to his face, leaning his elbow on the arm of the chair and holding his knuckle against his bottom lip. His mouth twitches again on one side.

“You remember.”

I hold his stare for a few seconds, deciding whether it’s best to lie and say I do or stick with the truth. Eventually I shake my head no.

“I don’t,” I say. “I wish I did.”

His lips pucker, suppressing a chuckle that his body shakes with.

“You two have always had this…connection.”

I can feel the crease form between my brows when Shawn says this, and he holds up a finger, winking as he backs away and rolls down the hallway.

“I don’t think I trust this guy,” Kyle whispers as he leans into me.

“He knows something. Just play along,” I say back, my voice hushed.

I spend the next minute or two it takes Shawn to find whatever he’s looking for in the back room bouncing my left leg up and down. My right one hurts, and I haven’t stretched like I should, or like my body is used to, so I rub my thigh and press on my quad muscle with my thumbs.

“We need to get you home,” Kyle says, less quiet.

“We need to find Wes. That’s our priority,” I snap back, shutting my mouth when I hear Shawn approaching.

Kyle looks to our host then back to me, nudging me with his elbow until I meet his eyes. His brow lowers slightly, and his lips pinch at the corners, stretching his mouth into a tight, straight line. I shake him off. I know he’s worried about me, but this is more important. It just…is.

“I’m glad I kept this,” Shawn says, moving close to me again.

His thumb is marking a page inside a leather-bound photo album. He flips it open in his lap then turns it to face me. I recognize the bricks—the curve of the grass and line of rose bushes that still exist next door to my house. The grass has died some over the years, and the bushes bloom less, but it’s still the same.

“You were one, maybe just a little older,” he says. My hand moves in to the photo as I pull the book closer to me, my finger tracing the spot where the little boy’s hand is holding mine. “You’d just mastered walking, but that wasn’t enough for you,” Shawn chuckles. “You…you were born to run.”

My heart kicks at those words. As if it weren’t already, somehow the air inside this small space has grown thicker—the atmosphere more serious. I can hear Kyle’s heavy breathing. He’s skeptical. I’m not. And Shawn is right. I was born to run. I was also born to fight.

“How did Wes end up with you?” I ask, not able to take my eyes off the photo. Both of us barely a hair on our heads, Wes’s small hand is wrapped around mine, holding me steady as I walk toward a red wagon. I remember that wagon, yet this moment…I can’t find it inside. It’s gone.

“Not everyone is meant to be a parent,” Shawn says.

I breathe out a punctuated laugh.

“That’s true,” I say, running my fingertips over the photo one last time before giving the book to Kyle so he can see. “Some people can learn, though.”

“Not in Wes’s case,” Shawn says.

I pull my bottom lip between my teeth and hold it as my gaze moves back to Shawn. I think about the boy I remember—about Christopher. He’s gone through many sets of people not meant to be parents.

“Why didn’t you place him with Bruce earlier? Why go through so many foster homes first?” I ask, tucking my hands back under my thighs.

Shawn exhales as he leans back, weaving his fingers together and resting them on his bulging belly, the cream-colored T-shirt stretched tight around his frame and the denim button-down unable to close around his body.

“I hadn’t really thought of it. My brother and Maggie had never talked about wanting kids, and to be honest, we weren’t really close.”

His response surprises me. I don’t know him well, or his brother for that matter, but the few times I was with Wes’s family, they always seemed warm and kind. And I never heard anyone say anything bad about Shawn.

Except, of course, when Wes told me he was dead.

“You and Wes…” I begin, but stop. I don’t know how to ask him what happened, why Wes would say he was dead, especially when every fact I’ve learned so far seems to point to Shawn being the only constant person Wes could rely on until he was adopted. My usual directness feels like a misstep right now. I decide to take another approach.

“Why didn’t you just adopt him?” I ask. Shawn’s eyes haze just enough that I notice. A sort of darkness comes over him, and the way his mouth is caught somewhere between the straight line and a hint of a smile makes my arms and legs feel restless. I stand to give myself space, walking around the room to look at Shawn’s collection more closely.

“I kept him as long as I could,” he says once my back is to him. “But like I said—some people just aren’t meant to be parents.”

I twist and peer at him over my shoulder. His eyes are waiting for me.

“He wanted to stay with you,” I say.

Shawn nods, confirming what I’d always thought. Wes must resent him for putting him through those years with the foster families who were cruel to him.

I turn my focus back to the framed prints of rare comic books, some dated back to the fifties. I only look at them briefly though, closing my eyes and balling my hands into tight fists in my pockets. It’s why I came here. I have to ask.

“Is he staying here now?”

I don’t turn to see his response. Without looking, I know his eyes are hazed as they were before. I know the not-quite-there smile is on his lips. I know my friend is nervous for me, for us. I know that I’m only getting pieces—half-truths. But I also know he won’t lie. Not completely.

“He is.”

My eyes open, and the first thing I see are a pair of eyes on a damsel in distress. It’s a comic I don’t recognize—the hero only outlined in shadows, standing on top of a building while the woman is being dragged on her back by something evil holding her tightly around the wrists and dragging her along the ground below. Her eyes are blue. Her hair blonde. We’re glaring right at one another, only me…I’m real.

“He’s alive,” I say, my fists tighter in my pockets, my eyes unflinching on the drawing in front of me.

Shawn is quiet for several seconds, and eventually I have to turn around. My craving to see him, to see his expression, is too strong. The smile is waiting for me, and his eyes lock onto mine the moment our gazes connect. His head tilts to one side and his lips raise the tiniest bit more.

“Of course he is.” Shawn waits patiently for my next question, and I file through my options. I want to win this game. I need to come out of this with Wes. It’s not enough to just know that he’s safe. I need him—to be able to feel him, talk to him. I need the safety that comes with his arms around me. No matter how strong I am, I’m not strong enough.

I begin to open my mouth to speak when Shawn starts in before me.

“You were looking at that story. The one on the wall,” he says.

I shake my head and pull my brow in tight in frustration.

“Yeah, umm, I was, but…”

“That one’s mine,” he says.

I turn to look at it again, only glancing, then face him, folding my arms over my chest.

“It’s nice. Where’s Wes?” I’m done solving riddles.

“Look at it again,” he says, nodding to the wall behind me.

I sigh heavily, stomping my feet to turn and face the framed book again.

“The girl,” he says. My lips part and my pulse starts to race. “That’s you.”

My breathing picks up, and I’m not able to speak quickly enough to keep Kyle in his seat. He’s next to me in a fraction of a second, not looking at the image I’m staring at, but looking at me.

“Let’s go,” he whispers. I shake my head no, tiny movements, just for him.

I reach up and put my hand on the button to open the case, glancing over my shoulder.

“May I?” I ask, my fingers trembling along the glass covering.

“You may,” Shawn says.

I pull the book from the small clips holding it, but I keep my back to him, my reaction private as I look at the details of the drawing. The girl is maybe my age, perhaps a little older. She’s wearing a white dress with short sleeves, nothing I would normally wear, but her right leg is shaded differently, a curve rounded just below the knee. She has a prosthetic.

“When did you draw this?” I ask.

Shawn doesn’t answer, and the more time that passes, the harder the waves of nausea hit. My heart starts to flutter irregularly, and my hearing begins to fade in and out.

“Joss, you’re pale,” Kyle says, sliding an arm around me, holding me up on my weakening legs. He steadies me and guides me back to the couch, brushing the loose hairs from my face and tucking them behind my ears. My eyes struggle to focus on him.

“I’m going to get you more water,” he says, waiting until I offer a nod.

Kyle takes the glass from the sofa arm and walks into the kitchen, filling it quickly and rushing back to my side. I take it in two shaking hands and gulp nearly two-thirds of it down. I’ve never been one to panic. I’m not panicked now. But I think I am a little bit scared.

“I hadn’t seen you in years,” Shawn begins. I bring my eyes to his, forcing myself to look—to read him for signs, for any doubts or holes. “I’d gotten a call from Wes’s foster parents at the time that he was in the hospital, and things with him seemed strange.”

“The Woodmansees,” I hum.

“Yes,” he says.

“How…strange?” My words are slow, careful. I’m not sure if any of this is a trick, where truth ends and fiction begins.

“The doctors wanted to do some studies on him, because his brain was injured but not in the way it should have been. He had some short-term memory problems, but the place where he took the impact—from the accident…?”

I nod slowly to him.

“Wes should have had major loss of motor function. Instead, he barely had a bruise on his head.”

I nod again. I knew this. Even without Wes telling me these details, I always knew. He wasn’t hurt when he should have been. He’s never been hurt from the traumatic things he’s been through physically. He isn’t strange, he’s…

“That’s when I knew I had been right,” he says.

“Right…” I echo, my mouth growing sour. I swallow, hoping to ease the tightness in my throat, but it doesn’t help.

“I filed to take him back into my custody, to find him other arrangements, which is what the Woodmansees really wanted when they called. They didn’t want the responsibility. Wes lived with me for another short period—weeks, maybe a month. And that’s when I made that.” Shawn points to the book in my lap, and my eyes follow, looking back down at it.

“You drew me with one leg,” I say.

“I did,” he says. I look at him, the smile now gone. His eyes slanted, his fat cheeks drooping with the corners of his mouth. I hold his stare.

“I knew your story the moment I held you in my arms, your tiny fingers wrapping around one of mine and your blue eyes open on the sky. I swore to your mom that day that I would always protect you. One look and I knew you would need to be saved. But I was weak—my body would not hold up to time. You would need a hero.”

“Wesley,” I croak, looking back down at the art on the cover.

“Yes,” Shawn says.

I exhale heavily before looking Shawn in the eyes again. “Who is Wesley Stokes…really?”

The smirk begins to snake its way back along his lips and a breathy chuckle falls from his mouth. I’m not sure what I’m expecting to come from his mouth in response.

“You know exactly who he is, Josselyn,” he says, his brown, sunken eyes unrelenting with their hold on mine. I dare him back, holding the stare until I realize exactly what he’s saying without him finishing the word completely.

“Super…”

My head falls to the side and my mouth twists, one eye closing more than the other. I’m pretty sure Shawn is crazy. Not just wild with ideas, but legitimately and certifiable. Wes cannot stay here. I’m not sure how this book was made, or if he even drew it. Maybe it’s something he found that reminded him of me, or of Wes, but I’m done buying into this fantasy. I toss the book on the table and stand with Kyle by my side.

At first Shawn’s eyes look pained, and his mouth opens, gasping that I’d actually doubt him, but within seconds, he starts to laugh.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that literally. He’s not really some caped savior,” Shawn says.

I roll my eyes and laugh once, hard, as I walk across the room, getting myself closer to the door. Shawn turns, his gaze following me while I walk.

“Those guys are all fictional, genius fantasies dreamed up by artists better than me long ago. There’s a difference. Wes…he’s real,” Shawn says, and I pause because as much as I had just convinced myself that this was all a delusion, there’s truth in what Shawn just said. Wes is real.

“I want to see him,” I say, looking to the door, half expecting Wes to open it any moment.

“I’m not so sure he’ll come home knowing that you’re here,” Shawn says.

“Why?” I ask. “He misses me. He wants me to find him. He…he left me this.”

I pull the photo I took of the peonies from my back pocket and hold it out flat in my palm. Shawn’s eyes narrow on it, and his mouth curves on one side, which makes my chest beat with hope.

“Look, here,” I stammer, turning the photo in my palm to show him the words Wes wrote—a small note that promised he would be watching. Pushing the photo back in one pocket, I pull my phone from the other. I slide to my messages, to Wes’s number and the image he sent me of my photo and where to find it in the field. And then I unclick the case on my phone and pull out the delicate ticket I keep hidden behind my phone. That ticket, the same one I’d given Wes as a child, is what gave me faith in the first place and led me to meet Shawn at the Stokes house. It was the beginning of everything, the start of real hope.

He takes my phone in his hand, the same smirk on his face, only his lip twitches a little higher. I wonder if he’s proud Wes reached out to me, proud that his protégé doesn’t want to abandon the girl he’s supposed to save.

“Why would he send me these messages? Why would he lead me here if he didn’t want to see me? Why wouldn’t he just come home?” My palm trembles as I take my phone back from Shawn. His eyes crinkle at the sides as he looks at me, his head cocked to one side.

“Because he doesn’t want the story to end,” he says. I turn my head toward him, my chin falling to my chest. “My book. I wrote everything in there, and I haven’t been wrong yet.”

My eyes narrow, and after a few seconds I look back to the book on the table, the image suddenly more vivid and familiar. It’s me—someone is hurting me. It’s a moment that I have not yet lived. The very idea that Shawn knows exactly what’s going to happen to me, though, is too impossible.

I turn my focus back to Shawn.

“I write my own story,” I bite. “And tell Wes that I’m not leaving until he talks to me. I’ll wait outside.”

Kyle takes my hand as we leave, and I purposely slam the door closed behind us. I march to the truck, not letting go of my friend until I reach the handle of my door, and before I can push it down to open it, I fall apart.

“I got you,” Kyle says, his arms quick to hold me, turning me to face him so I can bury my face in his chest.

“I won’t leave until I see him, Kyle,” I say, my words a blubbering mess against my friend’s T-shirt. “That man…”

I start to shake my head, and Kyle holds me tighter.

“I know, Joss. This is fucked up. And I know. He’s just some crazy guy, who is messing with you…with Wes,” he says, his hand cupping my head to soothe me. I nod against him, agreeing.

“Wes has to come home with us,” I say.

“I know,” Kyle repeats. “He will. We’ll wait for him.”

I suck in air hard and fast, holding my breath and forcing the tears to stop. I push my palms into my eyes and let the air fall from my lungs, a fast rush through my mouth and nose. Nodding to my friend, I pull the truck handle and open the door, climbing in while Kyle waits at my side, his eyes studying me for any sign that I might lose it again.

“I’m good. I just needed to get that out. I’m…I’m good. Come sit with me,” I say.

He stares into my eyes for a few seconds to read me, to make sure I’m being honest.

“I swear,” I say, reaching up to press my hand flat on his chest.

Kyle grabs it and squeezes it tight, nodding and backing away to close my door. I watch him walk around his truck, and I count in my head just as I would when I had to survive one of my father’s drunken rants. I wait for the calm to wash over me as Kyle climbs inside and turns the key enough to kick on the radio. I roll my window down and look out at the stars, drawing in a deep breath in search of a familiar scent—wishing we were in the flower fields instead of here.

I wait to feel like I’m right, and Shawn is wrong.

But I never do. Not completely.

And that terrifies me, because…maybe I’m crazy, too.