Chapter Text
As the morning sun peeked above the low-growing prairie trees, bathing a tiny little East Texas town in pinkish orange light, it brushed across a shabby little roof of a shabby little house. At first blush, it was just another variation of all the other little houses on this side of the tracks, with peeling paint, a cracking driveway, and a cross hanging over the door.
This particular house was a little different from all the little cookie cutters, however. On its left side, underneath an old oak tree, there was a shabby little attachment to the shabby little house. One could win an Olympic gold medal in mental gymnastics if they were to confidently call this little annex a teenage girl’s bedroom. It was more like an uninsulated box attached to the house with nothing but grit, spit, caulk, and a few nails. The flimsy door made of particle wood wasn’t even the right size for the doorway. The only window was a simple pane of glass stuck in a hole in the wall with some caulk. The walls weren’t much more than varnished drywall, and the floor was an uneven slab of cement covered by an ugly rug. The room had no closet, just a twin size bed holding a bundle of blankets and blonde hair, a short bookshelf that doubled as a side table, and a dresser.
On top of the little bookshelf, beside a dusty old lamp, sat a record player. Well, it wasn’t an actual record player. It was a little Bluetooth stereo clock. Its crappy little speaker crackled to life right when it was supposed to, drawing music like lifeblood from the beat-up little iPod plugged into its auxiliary jack.
Amaya’s day began, as every day, with her mother’s voice in her ear. It was just a recording, but as she drifted out of sleep to the soft rock song, it was almost like her mama was there to say ‘good morning.’ She reveled in the music for ninety more seconds, a soft hum reverberating in her throat to harmonize with the melody.
BANGBANGBANGBANG!
Suddenly, the door almost flew off its hinges (which wouldn’t have been hard, she was certain they were rusty when the door was put in). From the other side, a very angry voice bellowed:
“Amaya! Turn that unholy racket off!”
The pile of blankets on the bed depressed as its singular occupant let out a long sigh. A pale hand, graceful and begrudging, reached out of the blanket pile to hit the ‘pause’ button on the radio. Then, the blankets peeled back, and Amaya sat up. She stretched her arms, peeled back her tangled curtain of honey blonde bedhead, and smiled down at her little stereo with bleary steel-blue eyes.
“G’mornin’, Mama,” she greeted.
Her radio alarm was as much of a racket as the man trying to break her bedroom door down was her father. Meaning, of course, that neither was accurate in the slightest, but Jon sure wanted it to be. It fit his perfect little family story better.
The reason that Amaya greeted her radio in the morning as if greeting her mother, was because it was all she had of her at the moment. The “family” Amaya lived with—related to her only very loosely, through cousins and twice-removeds and other such concepts she didn’t quite understand—was supposedly the only family that social services could find that was “suitable” to care for a fifteen-year-old girl.
What that really meant was they looked good on paper. Amaya would have preferred to stay with her great-grandmother, but to the government legal machine, a 96-year-old woman who lived by herself was “not fit”. In reality, Amaya’s MawMaw Carrie could’ve wrestled a grizzly bear and choked it out with her walker; nothing could’ve killed that woman if she wasn’t ready to go. And Jon Faygle, Amaya’s mother’s second cousin twice removed or whatever, was a hardcore evangelical who called things “demonic” or “sinful” when he didn’t like them, burdened his exhausted wife with all the domestic labor and never allowed her a moment of peace, and practically encouraged his three sons to torment his foster daughter because he disapproved of her mother’s “lifestyle”.
Yeah, stand-up guy.
The social worker that placed Amaya with them promised it was temporary, promised that she would have scheduled, supervised visits with her mother, and promised that once her mother “cleaned up her act”, Amaya could go home. But all of those promises were made to a 10-year-old girl. Amaya was fifteen now, the social worker had been a ghost for the past three years, and she was entirely certain these people were not going to let her see her mother ever again.
But she had hope. It was tiny, a bright little ember among the ash, but it burned steady.
Once she was on her feet for the day, the first order of business was packing. It was summer, after all, and vacations were among the incredibly shallow pool of things the Faygles didn’t think were sinful. Somewhere out there, there might’ve been some who’d turn their noses up at the idea of a three-hour road trip for a four-day vacation in Dallas, but Amaya was not one of them. She grew up close to the city, and the prospect of seeing her home again after all these years would certainly be worth the three hours she’d have to spend crammed into a station wagon with her insane foster family.
As she was deciding between two shirts, the sun glancing through the window caught on her bracelet, and she had to smile. It wasn’t anything special or expensive—just a worn, old elastic string of yellow citrine beads—but it was her most prized possession. It always looked so pretty, glimmering in the sunlight, and something about the glow made her feel safe. Like the tune of an old lullaby her mom used to sing for her.
“Hush, now love,” she sang the lyrics softly to herself, rolling one of the beads between her fingers, “It’ll all be okay…”
Music had always been this core part of her. She didn’t have the words to describe it at the time, but when she sang, she felt invincible. The songs filled her with a kind of warm glow, starting in her chest and radiating outward, filling the air and affecting everything around her. Amaya Wolfe was made for music, and music was made for her.
And maybe it was just the way people didn’t expect someone to start randomly singing out of nowhere, but throughout her life, whenever she hummed her mother’s lullaby, she was safe. It always worked without fail. Bullies, creeps, her crazy foster family (all of whom pretty much fit into those previous categories), they all left her alone. Even just humming the lullaby did the trick.
Like magic.
So even as she sat hunkered down in the back of the station wagon, shut into her own little luggage fort (probably because the car didn’t have enough seats and she needed to hide from the cops, but she didn’t care, she had a luggage fort), the music blaring through her headphones offered her the escape she needed. With Jon blasting the Christian Gospel station, Sara staring blankly out the window, and three rowdy gremlins in the backseat, Amaya was afforded the exact amount of neglect she desperately wanted. She could even pretend to be an only child again. It was her own personal safe haven (plus, luggage fort?).
This family always ignored her unless they wanted to preach to her. Repentance, original sin, immortal souls, blah blah blah. Well, Amaya had a brain of her own. Sure, she wasn’t the best in school—and being ADHD didn’t help—but that didn’t mean she couldn’t think for herself. With all the cultural religions in the world, it wouldn’t make sense that there was only one god; or that there was only one “right” way to live. And if that god tells you that you’re horrible and wicked straight out of the womb, is that god really all that good?
And sure, she was a rockstar’s daughter. Rebellion ran in her blood. But she refused to believe the crap Jon always screamed at her. He wanted her to pray for her soul? Fine. This song would be her prayer, sung quietly to herself, so that any divine being could hear it and save her soul from these closed-minded people:
“I’ll spread my wings and I’ll learn how to fly,”
“I’ll do what it takes, till I touch the sky…”
She peeked out of her little luggage fort as the sun winked at her through the dark-tinted glass of the car’s window. Were they listening? The other gods? She hoped so. That glow in her chest was strong, and getting stronger. She fidgeted with her bracelet as she put even more feeling into the next lyrics:
“And I’ll make a wish, take a chance, make a change…”
“And breakaway…”
✸ ✸ ✸
Amaya didn’t remember closing her eyes, but she must have fallen asleep at some point, because when she opened them, a different song was playing in her headphones. She peeked out of her luggage fort just in time to see the Dallas city skyline sprawling before them. She grinned as the car sped past Reunion Tower, the House of Blues, the Perot Museum, and the familiar skyscrapers of downtown.
Home. She was home.
She expected them to pull up to some mid-level hotel—the kind that had thin comforters, thinner walls, and somehow always almost smelled of cigarettes. Those places that boast ‘It’s like your home away from home!’ and then decorate the beige-brown walls with weird, soulless art that always looks like a machine painted it.
Instead of the hotel, they pulled up alongside the Dallas Museum of Art. Amaya sat up and pulled out her headphones as Jon turned into the parking garage. “Aren’t we going to the hotel first?”
The question had barely made it out of her mouth before Drew, her eldest foster brother, groaned dramatically. “See? I told you she wasn’t listening!”
“Yeah, we heard you the first million times,” Mark pointed out. He was a middle child and… he certainly looked like it.
“I wanna go to the hotel!” Adam, the youngest, whined. He was missing one of his front teeth, and he liked to grin like he swallowed it on purpose. “Why do we have to go to the stupid art museum?!”
“We are going to the art museum,” Jon said pointedly, “because we can’t check into the hotel until three o’clock! And this is the one thing your mother wanted to see here this week, so we’re going and I don’t want to hear more complaining!”
Amaya checked the time on her iPod: 1:42 PM. A little over an hour until check in, that was convenient. How thoughtful of him, to indulge what his wife wanted to do for an hour. Amaya wondered, bitterly, if he planned it that way on purpose.
Now, Jon was easy to hate. He was consistently and loudly a bad person. But Sarah… She was a little more complicated. Admittedly, Amaya expected her to be just like Jon when she first moved in (and Sarah’s behavior leant itself to that line of thinking). But lately, she wasn’t so sure. In the past year or so, Sarah seemed a lot warmer than she had before. She took Amaya shopping for nicer clothes, offered to style her hair for school functions (and the church functions Amaya reluctantly had to go to), and helped her with her makeup.
Along the way, Amaya started realizing that Sarah was just as trapped in this life as she was at the moment. Amaya knew since she was little that life was more than this weird, (hypocritical) evangelical lifestyle wasn’t the only way to be, but Sarah, who was raised in it and married Jon at 19, seemed to think she had no other option. Maybe, Amaya thought, maybe if she could be free of the oppressive piety, maybe we could get along better…
Now, Amaya would never in a million years consider her a motherly figure; she already had a mom. But she definitely preferred to walk with Sarah as the family wandered through the museum. Jon was impatient, walking along as if he were serving out a prison sentence. He kept trying to wrangle the boys, giving them poisonous looks and pushing them around, but all three of them seemed to be possessed by the vengeful spirits of deranged circus monkeys.
As all six of them made their way up the stairs from the European Art exhibit, Mark and Adam got into a shoving match. It wasn’t the nicest thing to think, but some dark little part of Amaya wanted them to fall, and maybe suffer the consequences of their actions for the first time in their lives.
She almost got her wish, too. As they were passing the lion dog statues that guarded the entrance to the Asian art exhibit—and the boys were sniggering at the statues’ testicles—a lady was exiting the exhibit. Amaya stopped to stare at her involuntarily.
Up until that point in her life, she’d never seen a fat woman so gorgeous. She had a sort of timeless beauty in her short little black dress, matching sun hat, and a sheer kimono that billowed out behind her. Her skin, soft and pale as it rolled and curved, was dotted with moles and freckles, and she wore them like an Old Hollywood actress. Glossy red curls stuck out from beneath her hat, bouncing around her round cheeks as she stepped with more confidence than Amaya had ever seen. She walked as if the ground itself existed only to kiss her feet.
Amaya twisted her shirt in her hands as the lady passed her. She was about to open her mouth to tell her she was beautiful, but she stopped cold as Mark and Adam began making snorting noises. Amaya whirled around, and the boys both had their fingers on the tips of their noses, pushing them up to imitate pigs as they snorted at the beautiful lady.
Just another day with the Faygles. If Amaya called them out now, she knew she’d be the one to get in trouble. Still, she wanted nothing more than to clock both of them for thinking it was okay to disrespect this gorgeous woman in public and within her earshot. She hated fighting, but she hated disrespectful bullies even more.
It wasn’t a secret that Amaya was a fat girl too. Her mother always taught her to love herself no matter what; she never wanted her to be ashamed of her body. She just wished her mom had told her that the rest of the world was far crueler to bigger bodies—and with impunity, too. It was just… normal, and if you pushed back against it, you were the problem. It wasn’t fair.
But then, retribution.
The lady turned around and glared at the two boys, completely unafraid of their juvenile teasing. She ascended the steps toward them again, and Amaya delighted in seeing a tiny moment of panic in their eyes as consequence finally caught up to them. She didn’t say anything to them, just passed her gaze to Sarah and Jon. Sarah immediately jumped into action.
“Boys!” Sarah snapped, moving over to mitigate the damage by grabbing both their wrists and removing their fingers from their noses. “That’s enough!” She turned back to the lady, trying her best to look apologetic. “I am so sorry, ma’am.”
The lady looked over her sunglasses at Sarah, and gave her a scrutinizing once-over. “Might do well to teach your boys some manners when addressing a lady, before someone else does.” She didn’t wait for Sarah to reply, just turned back around and strutted toward the stairs again. On her way, when she passed Amaya, she winked from behind her sunglasses and gently touched the girl’s arm. “‘Scuse me, gorgeous.”
Amaya stood there in awe for a minute as the lady descended the stairs and vanished around the corner. She was vaguely aware of Jon and Sarah arguing behind her, but she couldn’t possibly care at the moment. A beautiful big lady, completely sure of herself, had called her gorgeous. She who stood there in her ratty old AC/DC t-shirt, her shorts that rolled up her thighs and gave her some bad chub rub, and her hi-top sneakers that were falling apart. Gorgeous. Amaya wanted to be like that lady someday.
“Don’t yell at them, Sarah, they’re just joking around,” Jon was saying behind her. “If that woman can’t take a joke—”
Amaya glanced over as his voice died in his throat, just in time to see the venomous look Sarah was giving him. Amaya hid a smug smile. Good. She hoped he felt like an idiot.
“Jon, they are roughhousing and acting like animals in the middle of an art museum,” Sarah said firmly. “I will not be kicked out of the one thing I wanted to do this week.”
Jon rolled his eyes and turned to the boys. He briefly admonished them (only for the roughhousing, of course, not the vile jokes), then he corralled the little tasmanian devils back down the stairs and announced he was taking them to the cafe and gift shop.
“Lord, give me strength,” Sarah sighed once they were gone. She led the way into the Asian exhibit, only to find the nearest bench to sit down. Amaya sat down next to her.
After an awkward moment of silence, Sarah admitted: “I always wanted a daughter, you know.”
Amaya shuffled her feet and didn’t look at her. “Yeah…?”
Sarah nodded. “Mhm. I prayed and prayed each time I got pregnant that I could have a pretty little girl to take care of. But I guess…” She sighed again, and Amaya swore she could see the weight of the world resting on her shoulders. “I guess Jon prayed a little louder.”
There was so much to unpack there. Poor Sarah. Amaya stared at the marker drawings on her shoes, folding her arms on top of her knees. The only thing she could think of to say was, “Y’know… they’re like that to me too. All the time.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Sarah said defeatedly, “I try my best, but… boys don’t listen like us girls do.”
Gender is a construct, Sarah, they shouldn’t be held to different standards. Amaya bit her lip. She got where Sarah’s heart was at, though, so she kept that thought to herself.
“Despite what anyone says,” Sarah continued, “I think your mom was lucky to have you.”
That certainly was a surprise; she’d never heard anything like that from Sarah. She looked up at her, curious. “Really…?”
Her foster mother smiled. “Of course, sweetie—look at you! Pretty blue eyes, gorgeous blonde hair, perfect complexion at fifteen… but even besides your looks,” she waved her hand, dismissing the first part of her statement. She looked absolutely sincere as she looked down at Amaya. “You’re bright, you’re talented, you’re kind…” Suddenly, her eyes filled with a bittersweet pain. “I would’ve loved to have had a daughter like you.”
Amaya could only look at her sadly. What was she supposed to say to this poor woman? She wasn’t her mother, and Amaya didn’t want her to be, but she sure made this foster thing a little more bearable. But how does one even phrase that? ’You make this horrible thing I’m forced to endure a little less bad?’
Finally, Sarah sighed again and dug into her purse. “You know what… I need a break.” When she pulled her hand out, she extended it to Amaya, offering her the keys to the station wagon. “Amaya, honey, could you go to the car and get me my book?”
Amaya, despite her confusion, took the keys. “Yeah, but… why? Aren’t we leaving in an hour anyway?”
“I’ll take every moment of peace I can get.” She had a habit of unknowingly saying the saddest things Amaya had ever heard with a smile. She felt so bad for her. “You don’t have to hurry back.”
That was all she said, but there was a mutual agreement that passed in the silence: this was a break for the both of them. Amaya respected her a little more for that. On her way back down to the first floor, she passed the Greek and Roman art section and paused. She figured it might be a fine enough detour, so she went to wander through the statues and pottery for a few minutes.
She always loved the old stories that came from Greek Mythology. Her mother used to read out of this old book of myths for her, until she was old enough to read them on her own. Not always bedtime stories for kids, but somehow, Amaya never got tired of hearing them over and over. Orpheus splitting the earth with his songs to get his love back from the land of the dead, Daedalus and Icarus building wings of wax to escape their imprisonment… gods and monsters, and best of all, heroes.
Unfortunately, Amaya didn’t get the chance to appreciate the exhibit like she wanted to. The sound of squeaking sneakers took her attention away from the art, and not a moment after she turned her head, someone slammed into her. She was stunned for a second as she got a face full of pink flannel shirt, and then she was on the floor.
The guy that slammed into her shouted something that definitely wasn’t in English, and somehow—she had no idea exactly how, but somehow— she knew he was swearing in Greek. Not just Greek, either; Ancient Greek. But she wrote it off as shock, because seconds later he backed off her, held out his hand, and repeated what he’d said in English:
“Holy shit, I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”
Once she was on her feet, that was when she finally laid eyes on him. He was tall and tan, with glossy black hair like a K-pop idol and huge brown puppy dog eyes that pulled her in. Despite the fact that he looked like he’d just stepped out of a modeling shoot, she guessed he was about her age. When he smiled and tilted his head a little, she realized he was still waiting for an answer.
“Fine,” she squeaked, before clearing her throat and trying again: “Yeah, I’m okay.”
Just then, two more teenagers came barreling around the corner: a short girl with curly brown hair braided into two messy pigtails, wearing cargo shorts and a sleeveless cutout shirt, and another tall guy with sandy blonde hair in a white t-shirt and tan shorts. All three of them carried backpacks—which made them look like they were shooting some Indiana Jones reboot—but that wasn’t the weirdest bit. Both the boys had swords strapped to their waists. Amaya wondered for a second how they got those past the front door security. The boy in the white shirt was holding a scroll; an old roll of parchment capped with bronze on either end. He also looked a little miffed that Pink Flannel Guy was helping Amaya up.
“Dude, let’s move!” White Shirt barked.
Cargo Shorts Girl looked back over her shoulder and added: “Run now, flirt with random mortals later, Romeo!”
Mortal? Amaya wondered if she should be offended, but she was just a little too weirded out. “Only flirting happening here was my butt with the floor just now…” she said, looking at the three of them suspiciously. “Why are y’all running through an art museum?”
Pink Flannel gave her a sheepish smile. “Sorry, no time to chat. Really sorry I knocked you over, but—”
There was another clattering of footsteps, like a couple more people were running through the exhibit as well. A gruff voice shouted: “They went that way!”
“Five-O!” Cargo Shorts hissed, shoving White Shirt farther into the exhibit. “Hide, now!”
Without even thinking, Amaya looked around and noticed an adjoining hallway that was cordoned off with yellow tape. Probably a construction area for a new exhibit, but there was a perfectly hidden spot behind a wall just beyond the steps. Amaya gestured wildly for the three of them to move that way. “Over there! Go!” She whispered.
They all gave her weird looks, but not one of them objected. They all ducked under the tape and unceremoniously crammed themselves into the little alcove. Amaya turned around to face the nearest statue just in time for two security guards to round the corner, huffing and puffing. She feigned surprise, stepping back with her hands up in defense.
“Whoa,” she joked, “I wasn’t that close to the statue, I swear.”
“Miss,” one guard asked between heavy breaths, “did you see three teenagers run through here?”
She chuffed. “You mean the jerks that nearly knocked me over? Yeah, they went back around that way.” She pointed toward the opposite end of the exhibit from where they were hiding. “Y’all just let people run around like that in an art museum? I’m trying to enjoy my afternoon here.”
“Stay there!” the guard ordered as his partner took off in the direction she’d pointed. “We’re gonna need a statement from you!” Amaya only gave them an exasperated shrug as they both bumbled off in the wrong direction.
She turned back around, fully intending to give those three the all-clear, and she nearly jumped out of her skin when White Shirt Guy seemed to just appear behind her. She hadn’t even heard his footsteps—how’d he get over there so fast? His deep blue eyes considered her for a second, intrigued.
“Why’d you do that?”
Amaya shrugged, trying her best to ignore the increasing weirdness about this whole situation. “General dislike of law enforcement? I dunno, felt like the right thing to do.” She noticed he was still carrying the scroll, and quickly swiped it while he was still studying her. “What is this thing? You guys robbing the museum or something?”
“Hey—” White Shirt hissed, trying to reach over her to get it back. “We’re just borrowing, it doesn’t belong to the museum! Give it back.”
Amaya held it out of his reach as his friends joined them. “Tell me what it is and I will.”
“Not to break up whatever cutesy Hollywood shit’s happening here,” Cargo Shorts said, looking around nervously, “but those guards aren’t gonna be fooled forever. We gotta hoof it before you-know-who realizes her scroll is gone.”
“So you are stealing it. What, does it have a treasure map on the back or something?” Amaya snorted, looking down at the supposed artifact in her hands. The more she looked, however, the more it didn’t seem like a simple roll of paper. It felt like paper, but the parchment almost looked like it was glowing with a soft, golden light. It even appeared to be humming, vibrating at just the smallest perceptible wavelength. But that was impossible… wasn’t it?
“Ethan,” White Shirt shot his friend a look, then jerked his head at Amaya. “You wanna, maybe…?”
This was getting more bizarre by the second. Amaya eyed Pink Flannel— Ethan— suspiciously as he stepped up with a smile on his face. She turned her body away from him, holding the scroll in the crook of her arm. That was a smile that wanted something, usually worn on the faces of the boys at school before they said something nasty to her. She didn’t trust pretty boys like that for nothing.
“Hey, so—” Ethan said, holding out his hand. “We really need that scroll. Can you please hand it over?”
Something was weird about his voice. Suddenly, it sounded like they were in an echo chamber, like his words reverberated around her ears. His voice was like honey, soothing and sweet, like an old friend she could trust. Her hand almost started buzzing, like her whole arm wanted to hand over the scroll. Her instincts, however, were screaming at her. She pulled her hand back even farther, and stepped away from him.
“What was that?!” She demanded. “What’d you do to your voice?”
The other three shared a mutual look of shock and confusion. Then, Ethan turned back to smile at Amaya again, this time a little more trepidatious.
“Uh… what’s your name?”
“Amaya.” She answered, not entirely sure she should have.
“Amaya, nice to meet you, I’m Ethan,” he set his hand on his chest, then gestured to the other two. “This is Luke and Bella. Thank you very much for helping us out despite me knocking you over, but we really don’t have a lot of time, and I really need you to give me that scroll. Now, please.”
Her head went fuzzy again, and it felt like honey was pouring all over her. The air felt thick and it was hard to think for a split second. Still, she shook it off and started backing up even more, toward the entrance to the exhibit. She pointed at Ethan, accusing, “You’re doing it again! How’re you doing that?!”
“Guys, the scroll,” Bella cut in, pointing at the artifact.
Amaya held it out, and she could’ve sworn she was hallucinating. As she held it, it buzzed and shone like a vibrating glow stick. What the hell was happening?! Was this a toy? A prop? Why would this be here, in an art museum? And why would they be stealing it?! Amaya had a million questions and absolutely no time to ask them.
“What is happening?!” Amaya cried out.
“Clio knows we have it, we’re out of time.” Luke pushed Ethan aside and stepped up to Amaya. Then, as if this already bizarre encounter couldn’t get any weirder, he focused intensely on her and snapped his fingers. For a second, it looked like a ripple went out from his hand, like the air itself had wrinkling waves.
“You have our scroll,” he said, his voice echoed just like Ethan’s had. “Please give it back and forget you ever saw us here.”
Amaya looked at him like he’d just tried to convince her the sky was purple. “What the hell is wrong with you people?! Can someone please tell me what’s going on?!”
Instead of answering her, Luke looked angry and confused at his own hand. “Why in Hades didn’t that work?!” Then, he glared at Amaya and got in her face. “Give it to me!”
“No!” Amaya retorted, holding the scroll away from him and pushing on his chest. “Not until y’all explain all this! Who are you people?!”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Bella shoved Luke aside to face Amaya, holding up her hands in surrender. “Look, we can explain, okay? Just not here! We get out of here, away from the guards, we explain everything, you give us the scroll, and we all part ways peacefully. Sound good?”
She knew she didn’t have more than a couple seconds to think about it, so it was a good thing her mind usually moved at a million miles an hour. Every single moment of this felt weird, and most likely dangerous, but… something about it felt familiar somehow. Like that feeling you get when you smell something particular that brings up a very specific memory from your childhood. Maybe not a specific event, but the fuzzy feeling that makes you remember a place or a person. The only issue with that was she had no memories to go on; there was just a warm glow in her gut telling her that these people were familiar, like she was supposed to know them, even if they’d never met.
Or maybe, she was just so desperate to escape her bleak living situation that she was willing to walk off with complete strangers who seemed to be entirely unreal. That might have been a more realistic justification for the completely impulsive thing she did next.
She held up the keys to the Faygle family station wagon. “I have a car.”