After the End(65)

“I thought maybe you had come to apologize,” I say.

“For what?” she asks, putting her hands on her hips indignantly.

“For drugging me and then forcing me to talk while I was in a drug-haze..”

“What about the fact that you were going to hand me over to your father?” she asks, and her voice is tinged with anger.

“I would like to explain that to you,” I say, and taking her hand, pull her closer. Her skin is warm, and I find my gaze pulled down to her mouth before skipping back up to her eyes. I lick my lips and try to focus. “Juneau . . . the reason I’m still here and not already back in L.A. is that I want to take you to my father so that he can see you’re not the person he’s looking for.”

“I’m not going anywhere that will keep me from finding my family,” she begins, slipping her hand out from mine. But then, seeing how earnest I am, she concedes. “Okay. Explain.”

“My dad owns a pharmaceutical company,” I begin. “There’s this new drug he wants to get his hands on—I mean, buy. But the guy he was doing business with disappeared. He heard that for some reason you were the key to getting the formula.”

“Me?” she asks, astonished.

“My description was a seventeen-year-old girl from Alaska, around five foot five, with long black hair and eye jewelry in the form of a star.”

“That sounds like me,” she admits. “But I don’t know anything about a drug. My people don’t even use medicine. All we had was a first-aid tent for cuts and broken bones.”

I know she’s telling the truth. Her confused reaction isn’t feigned. “I told him he had made a mistake, but he wouldn’t believe me. He sent some men to find you—the guys who were following you in Seattle. I saw them driving around yesterday. They’re here in Salt Lake City keeping a lookout for you now.”

“So if you know I’m not the one he’s looking for, why are you so eager to prove it to your dad?”

“I’ve been in his bad books since I got kicked out of school. I think the fact that I went to such lengths to find you, and prove that his sources were wrong about you, would redeem me. But I’m not going to force you to go with me if you don’t want to. And I’m not going to turn you over to his men, either.”

She waits, thinking before she answers. “Miles, I will go with you to see your father if you go first with me to find my parents. I can’t find them without you.”

“Why? What do I have to do with it? Did I say that while I was fortune-telling?” I can’t help a note of bitterness from creeping into my words.

“No,” she says, and her mouth quirks up in a smile. “What would you say if I told you it was revealed to me by some hundred-year-old possum bones?”

“I’d say it sounds just like you. And that’s fine: I’m ready to accept anything you tell me, as long as you don’t do anything to me without my knowledge. And as long as you don’t steal my car.”

Her grin is huge until she reins it in, opting for a closed-lipped smile. She holds out her hand.

“And that would be my cue,” comes a voice from the truck. A woman with a mane of red curly hair steps out of the cab and walks toward us. “I’m Tallie,” she says.

“Miles,” I respond, and she takes the hand that Juneau’s just let go of and shakes it heartily.

“Enchanted,” she says, and turns to Juneau. “So you’re good?” she asks, and something passes between them that tells me they’ve done some major talking over the last few days. Juneau nods at her. “Thanks for everything,” she says.

Tallie hands Juneau her pack. “If you ever need me, you know where to find me,” she says. “Just make sure you keep it a secret.”

Juneau smiles. “Of course.”

They hug briefly, and Tallie heads back to the pickup and drives off into the night. Juneau and I stand there, neither knowing what to say.

“You look . . . different,” I say.

She looks down. “These are Tallie’s clothes. She forced me to wear them.”

“She forced you?”

“She hid my boy clothes and said I could either wear hers or go naked,” Juneau says, looking embarrassed.

It’s not like she’s wearing a dress. She just has on a pair of black jeans and a red V-neck shirt. But for once they actually fit. Juneau’s not skinny, and you wouldn’t exactly say muscular. But something in between. She’s so much shorter than me that I could easily pick her up. Of course, I refrain since I don’t feel like being punched.