In Time (The Darkest Minds, #1.5)(22)

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DELLA is younger than I expected, somehow. I guess I heard the words no kids and assumed that meant she was elderly, not someone who looks like she’s in her late forties. Her white sedan is the only car that pulls into the parking lot the whole time we’re sitting there, so it’s impossible to miss her, even before she drives straight for us.

Bryson pops his head up just as she parks right beside the passenger door. We’re set as far back away from the storefronts as the parking lot will let us be, but I know we’re going to have to make this quick. At best, someone will see us and hopefully think we’re exchanging drugs or some other illegal substance, not kids.

She’s wearing blue jeans and a brown T-shirt and all it takes is seeing that head of fire-red hair for her guarded expression to fall. The lady still has her looks—a nice smile, a warm, open face. She doesn’t look wrung-out the way my mom did. She’s standing there, her aviator sunglasses on, her sunny blond hair curling around her shoulders, and she has her hands on her hips.

“I’m sorry, Miss Della” are the first words that come out of Bryson’s mouth when he opens the door. “I’m so, so sorry.”

She doesn’t look like the lecturing type, but I have a feeling if he were her flesh and blood, he’d be on the receiving end of some serious ass-whopping. Instead, she just cocks her head to the side, gives a faint smile, and opens her arms to him. Bryson goes willingly, burying his face in her shoulder. He basically collapses against her. I only relax when I realize the open door is blocking him from view.

“Y’all had some day, huh?” She lifts her sunglasses as she looks from Zu to me. “You’re younger than I expected!”

I laugh.

“I have a son about your age,” she continues, blue eyes inspecting me. “This feels like a stunt he’d pull, so you’ll have to excuse me—I’m trying to fight the urge to lecture you about taking big risks like this.”

Weird. Bryson said she didn’t have any kids.

I shrug. “No risk, no reward, right?”

Her smile falls just that tiny bit.

“Oh—no, I mean, no I don’t mean it like that,” I say quickly. “It’s just, the world, you know? Nothing changes if you don’t take a risk.”

“That also sounds like him,” she says dryly. “Do me a favor and save your mama the heartbreak of joining up with the Children’s League to see that particular thought through.”

Della is illegally harboring kids in her own home. Of course her kid joins an underground group that seems hell-bent on making Gray’s life miserable. It lights a fire at the back of my mind, burning through all the other vague possibilities I’d been slowly working through. I want to ask her more about it—more about her son—but she turns her attention to Zu, who, I swear, has not blinked once the entire time she’s been watching her.

“Hi, hon, how are you doing?”

She manages a shy smile that Della returns twice over.

“I have that gas money,” she starts, shifting her gaze back to me. “Where are y’all headed? Do you need a place to stay for the night?”

“We’re going to California,” I tell her, ignoring Zu’s surprised expression as she whips her head around. Of course we’re going now. “Her uncle has a ranch out there I’m bringing her to. Then I’m going to see if I can find some work.”

“You got your papers all in order? A plan to cross the border?”

And just like that, my heart’s in the pit of my stomach. “What do you mean?”

Della’s expression softens, but there’s something sharp working behind her eyes. “It’s the whole mess with the Federal Coalition and the League—they’re based out of Los Angeles, so Gray’s been tightening border security in the hope he can starve them out by not letting imports or exports through. You need special permission from the government to cross state lines.”

Well…shit. I press my lips together, trying to fight back the sting of disappointment. I’m sure there’s another way in that doesn’t involve driving. Or walking a couple of hundred miles through the desert in the summer.

“Do you need to get there soon? Would you have any way of getting the paperwork for it?”

“I mean…I guess we could…” My mind is fumbling for a way we could possibly sneak into California. On the back of a semi-truck? Could I bribe someone?

“Well.” Della drags the word out, running a hand back through her hair. “I guess you’re in luck, hon. A little bit in luck, at least. I have papers you can use, but they might be more of hindrance—and you’re going to have to figure out a way to hide her as you cross.”

“Wait—wait—what?”

Della smiles. “My husband, he’s a special kind of mechanic. He works for one of the companies that maintains the canals and aqueducts that bring water out of the state, so he has paperwork to cross state lines. I think they’re just in the dash.…”

Such is the force of Della that I don’t even remember getting out of the truck and walking around to meet her in front of the sedan. She points out the two special foil stickers affixed to the window. “I can’t give you these, unfortunately, but if you hit the border around midnight, they have fewer soldiers posted and they’re far more likely to be lazy and just wave you through. If not, show them these papers.…” She leans in through the open window, pops the glove box, and hands me a neat bundle of papers. “The company is on the auto-approvals list. If they ask for an ID to match against the name on the paperwork…well, you’ll have to get a little creative or say a little prayer and floor it.”