en got dressed.

Quietly, even though the other bed in the hospital room wasn’t occupied—probably because, even though the people here were nice, they didn’t want him to get any of his gay on another patient.

Like it might be contagious.

The night nurse—Sherry—had just been in to check both his blood pressure and his blood sugar levels, and he was fine. She’d tiptoed away, and he’d led her to believe that he hadn’t even fully woken up when she’d pricked his finger.

Even though he’d been lying here, waiting for her to do her thing.

Now he moved toward the door, peeking through it and down the hall toward the nurses’ station. There was a woman sitting there—her blond hair was gleaming in the overhead light as she focused all of her attention on the desk in front of her.

The hallway was otherwise empty.

He’d have to crawl past her, silently on his hands and knees, because there was only one way in or out of this ward. It was good that it was set up this way—it kept him safe from any unauthorized visits from Greg or Ivette.

But right now it wasn’t the unauthorized visits he was afraid of.

No, it was the impending authorized visit tomorrow morning that scared the crap out of him. Because what if he did everything he could do, and he still lost the fight? What if he and Danny and Eden called CPS and requested their help, and they turned around and decided that, no, Crossroads was a school, and his parents had the right to send him to whatever school they wanted.

He couldn’t go back there. He’d end up like poor Peter Sinclair.

So he crept out of his room and into the hallway while the nurse’s head was still down. And he got onto his hands and knees and crawled.

It was a piece of cake—to sneak past her like that. He’d spent years perfecting his technique, moving silently, invisibly, as he avoided Greg and his mother. He’d entered and exited his house through his bedroom window so often, it felt almost strange walking in through a door.

This wasn’t even half as hard as that, because he knew if he got caught, the nurse wouldn’t hit him.

But he couldn’t get caught, so he held his breath as he moved past the desk and headed toward the elevators—toward the freedom that was just around the corner.

Danny’s cell phone rang in the darkness, and Jenn sat up as he rolled over and grabbed it.

“It’s Zanella,” he said. He punched TALK and spoke into the phone. “What’s wrong now?” And apparently something was wrong, because he almost immediately added, “Shit!”

Jenn switched on the lamp on the bedside table as Dan swung his legs out of bed and pushed himself painfully to his feet. “Hang on, I’ll look.”

But Jenn was capable of moving much more quickly, and she beat him over to the bedroom door. “Look for what?” she asked, even as she did a quick scan of the living room. It was empty.

“Eden and Izzy went to the hospital to check on Ben, and he’s gone,” Dan said tightly as he followed her out.

“Oh, my God,” she said, turning on the kitchen light. The bathroom was empty, too. “He’s not here.”

“Eden’s ready to go to war with Greg,” Dan reported, “but the nursing staff are swearing up and down and sideways that he didn’t come back to the hospital. They’re checking security tape right now. Izzy thinks Ben might’ve self-released—snuck out.” He took the various locks off the apartment door and opened it, looking out into the courtyard. “He’s definitely not here,” he told Izzy.

“But if he did leave the hospital,” Jenn pointed out, “under his own steam, wouldn’t he come here? It’s hard to believe he wouldn’t. He’s going to need insulin, and it’s here, in the fridge. Does Eden know if he has a key? Was the one Neesha used an extra, or …?”

Danny asked, via Izzy, and came back with, “Eden says there were only two keys to the apartment. The second was hidden down in the courtyard.”

Dan had that key right now. Jenn followed him back into the bedroom, where he searched the pockets of the pants he’d been wearing yesterday as she quickly got dressed and unplugged her cell phone from its charger. When he found the key, she took it from him. “I’ll put this back downstairs,” she said. “In case Ben comes and looks for it while we’re out looking for him.”

“We should start by renting another car,” Dan was already telling Izzy as he nodded at Jenn. “But I agree completely. When we go to Greg’s, we go together. Tell Eden that’s nonnegotiable. Now that we know he’s got a weapon, we have to make sure he doesn’t have it in his possession when we—Yeah, yeah, I’m with you.” He paused. “No, she still hasn’t called me back. Trust me, I would’ve called you right away if Ivette had been in touch.”

Jenn left the door open a crack as she went outside and down the stairs to the courtyard.

The air was hot and still and the night seemed to settle around her like a too-warm blanket. Nothing blew, nothing shifted, nothing moved.

It wasn’t the first ceramic pot beneath which Eden and Ben had hidden their spare key, and it wasn’t the second one, either. It was the one all the way over in the corner, in the shadows. Jenn headed swiftly toward it, well aware that Danny was going to be impatient. As tired as they both were, he was going to want to be ready to head out, to go looking for Ben as soon as Izzy and Eden came back from the hospital.

She had to dash back upstairs and wash her face and find a ponytail holder and maybe her baseball cap. She should go through Eden’s kitchen cabinets and refrigerator, too, looking for something for Danny to eat. To properly heal, he needed plenty of both rest and protein, and right now he was getting neither.

She also wanted to search the cabinets to see if Eden had one of those padded cooler bags, so they could bring some of Ben’s insulin in the car. From what she understood, strenuous physical activity—like hiking home from the hospital in this heat—would screw up Ben’s usual schedule when it came to his insulin levels. And as for the added stress?

Kids with diabetes did best, Jenn had read, when their lives were free from intense stress of any kind.

She lifted the pot and slipped the key beneath and turned to go back to the elevators when—dear God!—there was someone, a man, standing right there in the shadows, blocking her path.

She jumped back and squeaked and had her cell phone open and about to dial for help with one hand, the other drawn back, about to swing and defend herself when the man said, “Jenn?” and she realized it wasn’t a man, it was Ben.

It was Ben, and instead of dialing 9-1-1, she quickly dialed Eden’s cell number, because Izzy was probably still on with Dan. “Thank God,” she told him. “We were just about to launch a citywide hunt for you, starting by kicking down Greg’s front door. Do you have any idea how worried we were about you …?”

On the other end of the phone, Eden picked up. “Jenn?”

“We found him,” Jenn told her as she reclaimed the key and pulled Ben with her into the better lit part of the courtyard. “Or rather he found us. Ben’s here, he’s safe.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” Eden breathed.

Ben, meanwhile, had crumbled. And even though he was nearly as tall as Danny, he was still just a kid. Because unlike his older brother and sister, who’d no doubt spent years learning to keep their emotions safely out of sight, he didn’t even try to fight it—he just let go and started to cry.

“I’ll call you back,” Jenn said to Eden, and hung up her phone.

“I’m so sorry,” Ben told Jenn as he looked at her, his thin face pinched, his blue eyes intense despite being flooded by tears. “I just couldn’t go back to Crossroads. I’d rather die.”

“No, honey,” Jenn said, wrapping her arms around him, her heart in her throat. “Don’t say that, Ben. You don’t mean it.”

“But I do,” he said, with a quiet certainty that frightened her. “I should’ve just let Greg shoot me when he was waving that gun around …”

“You did the right thing,” she told him, holding him even tighter. “When a crazy man has a gun, you do what he says. Believe me, I’ve been there, too—I know what it’s like, and it’s not easy. But you take it one minute at a time, one breath at a time, because it’s going to end. Everything bad always, eventually ends. But not if you die. If you die, it’s over.”

He pulled back to look at her, to wipe his nose on his sleeve. “But maybe it’s better—for everyone if—”

Oh God. “How could it be better?” she asked him sharply, because damn it, he was really scaring her.

“Easier,” he said. “I meant easier.”

“Not for Dan,” she told him, absolutely. “And not for me, having to stand at his side as we bury you? You honestly think that’s easier?”

He’d flinched at her insistence at making sure he understood what he was saying. Suicide wasn’t a painless oblivion. There was an afterward—as family and friends tried to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives.

“I’m just … I’m never going to change,” he told her in a voice that was so quiet she almost didn’t hear him. “I’m never going to be the son that my mother wants.”

“Well then, fuck her!” Jenn said, and he looked up in shock at the violence of her words. “She’s been a shitty mother anyway. Not just to you, but to Danny and Eden, too. Probably Sandy as well, but I’ve never met her, so … But you know, I used to think it was weird, the way you all call her Ivette, but I get it now, I do. She’s not your mother, Ben. You know who your real mother is? Eden is. And Danny is, too. So if it comes down to some crap Ivette tells you versus the truth from Eden and Dan, what are you doing listening to Ivette?”

Ben just shook his head.

“Who are you going to believe?” Jenn asked him again. “Are you going to believe Ivette—who’s just echoing what stupid, ignorant Greg says—or are you going to believe Danny and Eden and Izzy and me? And the billions of other people in the world who also know—beyond the shadow of a doubt—that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you, that you are exactly as you were meant to be, and that a world without you in it would be a much sadder, darker place.”

He was silent for several long moments. But then he said, “I just don’t get why she doesn’t love me.”

“She’s broken,” Jenn told him quietly. “Some people are just … broken. It’s definitely not you, kid. Because I just met you, and I already love you.” She held out her hand to him. “So come on. Let’s go inside and let your brother know that you’re safe. We’ve got to figure out what to do next. The staff at the hospital are probably freaking out.”

“Let’s just go to San Diego,” Ben said as he took her hand and walked with her toward the elevators. “Ivette and Greg’ll eventually forget I was ever there. Kind of the way they did after Eden left. Ivette actually got in touch with her by e-mail and told her not to come back.”

“Well, that’s one way to do it,” Jenn told him. “I’m not sure it’s the right way, but that’s one of the things we’re going to figure out. But this I promise you: we’re not letting you go back to live with that awful man, and we’re not letting you go back to Crossroads.”

Ben nodded, but she could tell that he still didn’t completely believe her.