The Dysasters (The Dysasters #1)(23)

8


TATE


“Okay, slow down. The left turn should be just around the next bend in the road,” Tate said, raising his hand and squinting against the setting sun. “Yeah, that’s it.” He pointed across the dash of the truck at a gravel-covered lane securely blocked by a wide, high iron gate. A fence fed into the gate—one of those big, black metal privacy fences. Tate estimated it must be at least eight feet high and it looked like it enclosed the property on the other side of the gate, too. That would be a bitch to climb over, he thought, noting the pointed black tops of the fence and imagining them snagging pants and flesh if anyone was stupid enough to try it.

Foster wearily put the truck into park. She stretched, yawning loudly, and then rubbed the back of her neck as she silently stared at the gate.

Tate’s gaze went from the barricade to Foster, and back to the barricade.

“Um, I know there’s no house number.” Tate paused and squinted, trying unsuccessfully to see down the shady little road. “Or even a house, but I swear this is the right place.”

“I believe you.” She turned and looked at him as she reached back behind the bench seat for the satchel she’d said had been her mom’s. “You’re the best navigator I’ve known. Way better than I am.”

“Hey, thanks! I’m good at directions. Real good. I don’t think I could get lost if I tried.” Tate smiled, though it felt odd—strained. Then he realized it was the first time he’d really smiled and felt, just for an instant, happy since the day before when a tornado and this girl had torn his life apart. Mom and Dad are dead. The thought caused him physical pain. His expression instantly sobered, which Foster, of course, didn’t notice.

“You’re welcome. And I’m serious.” She kept talking as she felt around in the bottom of the big satchel. “I’m crap at navigating. It would’ve been awful to try to find this place by myself, especially with cell service being out the entire trip.” Foster closed her eyes and smacked herself on her forehead. “Balls! I can’t believe I forgot. Where’s my phone?”

Tate glanced around the messy cab of the truck, kicking burger wrappers and empty cups aside. “Here it is.” He leaned down and pulled it from the sticky napkin sandwich that had formed around it.

“Thanks,” Foster said absently as she snatched the phone from him, working her sparkly cover off as she spoke quickly. “Good. Still no service. Okay, look through that glove box for something small and sharp—like a paper clip or a thumbtack.”

“Okay, no problem.” Tate popped open the glove box and pawed through the papers and old, discarded crap, trying to ignore how hot and sore the cut on his leg felt.

“Will this work?” He offered her the rusty paper clip that held the truck’s insurance paperwork together.

“Yep, it should.” Foster took it, stretched it open, and stuck the little end into a tiny hole along the side of her iPhone. A thing popped out, which she grabbed and then shoved in her pocket before she tossed the phone into the satchel and went back to searching the bottom of it.

“What’s that thing? The guts of the phone or whatever?”

She gave him a look like he’d asked her the stupidest question in the universe—but Tate was beginning to think that’s just pretty much how Foster looked all the time.

“It’s a SIM card, genius. Where have you been for, I don’t know, since 2000?”

“Hey, I have a phone. Well, I used to. It’s in my gym locker. I use it. I just don’t take it apart.”

“The failures of the public education system never cease to amaze me.” Foster shook her head. “Ah, here it is!”

Without saying anything else to him, Foster got out of the cab and went to the gate. With a resigned sigh, Tate followed her. She was holding a little leather pouch she’d finally found at the bottom of that satchel. It reminded Tate of what his g-pa called a coin purse, and he figured the key to the gate was inside. But instead of unlocking the gate Foster studied the ground around it until she found a fist-sized rock, which she picked up and carried to the stone pillar to the right of the gate. She reached into her pocket, took out the SIM card, held it against the pillar, and then with impressive dexterity, she smashed the rock against the card without also smashing her fingers.

Then she turned to face him.

“No cell phones unless we buy burners, and even then we need to be careful,” she said.

“But how are we supposed to call people?”

“We aren’t. You aren’t. Ever.” She turned her back to him and then went to a keypad he’d just noticed that was recessed into the brick column. She opened the coin purse–looking thing and pulled out a piece of paper, punching the numbers written there into the pad. There was the click sound of a release and the gate swung open.

“Good. That means we have electricity.” She spun around and headed back to the truck, but Tate didn’t move. “Hey,” she called as she opened the driver’s door. “Come on. This is the place.”

“I have someone I need to call.”

Foster frowned. “No. It’s not safe.”

“Why?”

“Because Cora said it’s not safe, and I trust her. Completely. Even though she’s dead. All of this”—she made a sweeping gesture at the land behind them—“was set up by Cora for me.” Foster hesitated and then corrected herself. “For us, actually. To keep us safe from the people who are chasing us.”