Two Schools Out - Forever

100

That night we crashed in General Coffee State Park, not far from Douglas, Georgia. Fang and I scouted around for a few minutes and found a scooped-out indentation in the face of some limestone rock.

"Not as good as a cave, but decent," Fang said.

I looked at it and nodded. "This will keep us out of the wind, and it probably won't rain. Looks pretty clear." I turned to get the others, but Fang put his hand on my arm.

"You okay?" he asked. "What happened back there at Anne's?"

Just like that, it all came rushing back-my day. Being trapped in a school full of-enemies, teachers, Pruitt. Thinking Sam was an Eraser. Leaving Anne's house, knowing she was responsible for a lot of our situation.

Suddenly I was exhausted. "It was pretty much business as usual." Which was the sad truth.

"What's in Florida?" Fang asked. "Why does Angel want to go there?"

"I don't know. Maybe just Disney World?" I looked at him. "You think it's something else?"

He frowned, then shook his head. I noticed his hair was getting long again, growing out from his funky New York haircut. That seemed like a lifetime ago. "I don't know what to think," he said, "I'm tired of having to think about it, you know?"

"I totally know," I said, rubbing my temples. "Finding our parents, figuring out the whole whitecoat thing. Me saving the world, and so on. I'm tired of all of it."

Fang looked away for a moment. "I'm ready to forget all that stuff. Look what happened with Iggy. I don't even want to know at this point. I just want to quit running. I also miss having somewhere to make entries in the ol' blog. I really do."

"Let's think about it, think about how we can do it. From Florida, we'd be in a good place to head out over the ocean, find some deserted island somewhere. We could do some research." The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a great idea. We would be safe. We could rest. We could relax on a beach and eat coconuts, and Angel could talk fish into committing suicide for our dinner. It would be heaven.

And the fact that I was even entertaining this idea as a possibility only showed how pathetically desperate I was. And how out of touch with reality.