Enders(41)

He shook his head. Hyden glanced at me.

“His old house,” I said.

Hyden nodded. “You guys were neighbors.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But we didn’t really spend time—”

“We didn’t hang out together,” Michael said.

Hyden nodded. “I get it.”

We drove in silence for a few more blocks. I pointed to the right. “That’s it.”

He pulled up in front of my house. Strangling the barren rosebushes was a haphazard wire fence that wrapped around the perimeter.

My mother’s prized roses were dead, the bushes just thorny skeletons reaching out for someone to save them, someone who never came.

I had to swallow what would have been too many tears. Michael reached forward from the backseat and squeezed my shoulder.

“Ready?” he said.

I took a deep breath. “Let’s go.” I put my hand on the car door handle.

“Wait,” Hyden said.

“Why?”

He held up a gas mask for me. He tossed one back to Michael.

The idea of wearing a mask like that in my house made me sick. “I’m not wearing that. It’s my home.” This was the place where I’d had sleepovers with my best friends. Baked brownies. Had pizza night every Friday. Not a place for gas masks.

“It might be dangerous. If not the spore residue, the chemicals that were sprayed after,” he said.

Michael fiddled with his mask strap. “He’s right.”

Hyden tossed him gloves.

“I don’t care.” I opened the door and got out while they were putting the gear on.

Hyden and Michael followed me out of the car. Hyden quickly got to work using a wire cutter to get through the fence. Michael looked up and down the street, always on the watch for unfriendlies. But there was no sign of life, not even a squirrel.

As we walked up the path, I felt my pace slow to a crawl. My home. We’d played in this yard, and it had been full of life and laughter. Now it was deadly quiet. The lush green lawn where my dad would play ball with Tyler was now brittle yellow weeds.

We stood at the front door. Planks of wood had been hammered across the middle of the door. Condemned was splashed across the planks in paint as red as blood. A cheerful tune broke the silence, startling the guys. It was my mother’s small framed holo, activated by our presence. She used to change this with the seasons, and this one had a picture of us—Dad, her, Tyler, and me—smiling, holding a big cardboard heart. At the end of the short tune we all said, “Welcome.”

A little of the red paint had splattered on the corner of the solar frame.

My legs felt weak.

Michael looked at me. “Want it?”

I nodded. He took a penknife from his pocket and pried off the frame. “Here.”

I slipped it into my purse.

Hyden rolled down his sleeves to cover his arms all the way to his gloves.

“You should do the same,” he said. “What’s the best way in?”

I led them around to the back door. The backyard looked like a graveyard with brown grass and Tyler’s toys lying on their sides—a small bike, a broken metal robot. We went to the back door and I waved my hand over the pad.

It didn’t open.

“It won’t work without electricity,” Hyden said.

Michael used his knife to trip the lock. Hyden pried open the door with the help of the wire cutter. Together they got it open.

Inside, it was dark. It was as it was when we’d left it, the day Tyler and I had to run from the marshals. The sun fought to pierce the drawn curtains, casting a dark yellow light on our belongings. We needed handlites, but we didn’t wear them anymore.

Michael pulled back one of the curtains in the kitchen. “Where do you want to start?”

“In my father’s office,” I said.

I pushed aside my temptation to grab every sentimental object in the house: the last sweater my mother was knitting, the last book my father was reading, a mold of Tyler’s old baby shoes, and my last good report card stuck on the refrigerator. But we had to focus. We pored through my dad’s papers, his file system. Hyden picked up my dad’s airscreen.

“It’s dead. I’ll have to charge it,” Hyden said.

I waved my hand. “Just take it.”

We spent longer in his office than Hyden wanted us to, going through boxes and drawers. We didn’t find anything that would give us any clues to where he might be—if he was still alive.

We were almost ready to leave. I had filled a box with a few mementos and was trying to decide whether I should also bring one of my dad’s physical file folders. Hyden watched over my shoulder as I flipped through the small pieces of paper and business cards it held.

“Wait. Stop,” he said.