Chapter 10
Two days later, the legal paperwork was temporarily sorted through Vance’s emergency filings, and Alejandro had cleared his schedule for an entire week. He rented a sturdy, black SUV, packing the back with groceries, heavy blankets, and extra supplies. They were driving north, away from the glittering skyscrapers of the city, heading toward the rugged, wooded country where Leo had spent his early childhood. Maya sat in the back seat between a booster seat and a pile of duffel bags, her nose buried in a sketchbook, occasionally leaning over to point out cows or old barns passing by the window. Leo sat in the front passenger seat, wearing his new flannel shirt and sturdy boots, his thumb continuously tracing the edge of the silver pendant hidden inside his pocket. As the paved highway slowly degraded into a winding two-lane blacktop flanked by towering pines and granite outcrops, the landscape grew wilder and increasingly desolate. Alejandro gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles whitening slightly as familiar landmarks began to emerge through the windshield—a rusted diner with a faded neon sign, a crooked wooden bridge crossing a rushing black creek, the turnoff for County Road 4. The ghosts of his past were no longer abstract concepts; they were lining the edges of the road, watching him pass. He glanced sideways at Leo, who was staring intently out the window, his posture tense and watchful. "Do you remember this part, Leo?" Alejandro asked quietly, his voice competing with the hum of the tires on the asphalt. Leo nodded once, his eyes fixed on a fork in the road where a weathered mailbox leaned dangerously to one side. "That's where we walked," the boy said softly. "The truck picked us up right by the big mailbox with the yellow flag." Alejandro felt a heavy knot twist in his gut. He pressed down gently on the accelerator, steering the SUV up the unpaved gravel drive that led deep into the whispering pine forest, toward a cabin that held the answers he was both desperate to find and terrified to face.
