The Release

This oversight would not go over well.

From downstairs, Maxine blew a whistle. It was a rape whistle that she had acquired while taking a community self-defense class; Maxine wore it around her neck for protection in public and as a parenting tool; the shrill peal was a non-negotiable call to her side. Some of her friends mocked the whistle, but no one could deny its effectiveness. Lucy tromped down the steps, depositing her half-empty bag on the landing with a pout.

Maxine paced in front of her children, as they lined up, leaning, slouching—each possessing varying degrees of excitement about their travel day. She carried a clipboard mod-podged with scrapbook paper. Some craft site on the Internet had turned their mother into a maniac, especially when she had access to hot-glue and an entire bookshelf dedicated to scrapbooking paper. She tapped a purple pen against her personalized travel list—printed freshly that morning, adorned with a stick figure version of their family in the top left corner.

“Anti-nausea pill time,” she a

Her father had stressed repeatedly that the vaccines and pills for the trip were important and that they would be facilitated without complaint. “No child is coming home with typhoid or yellow fever. God forbid you get bitten by some rabies infected wild boar,” their mother had added. Monroe and Malcolm took great interest in the promise of wild boars on the islands.

In general, their father’s disdain for illness of any kind had become a family joke. Maxine was the cleaner of vomit, the giver of medicine, the filler of humidifiers in the middle of the night. Their father worked on the effects of communicable diseases on living tissue—and his work had created a monster; he would visibly bristle at people who coughed and sneezed in public; he refused to shake hands and he applied hand-sanitizer by the buckets. Even though he could bring up disgusting tales of gelatinous tissue in jars and oozing boils growing on lab rats at the di

Maxine checked off the first item on her list and continued. “Let’s do a carry-on check.”

Ethan flipped his phone open, glowered at the screen, and with flying thumbs sent off a text and shoved it back into his pocket.

“A

Ethan rolled his eyes in response.

“You should just dump her,” Lucy said. “Then go hook up with an island girl without regret.”

He turned to his sister, seeking solidarity. “She’s threatening to break up with me because she thinks I had time to show up to the school today to say goodbye but chose not to.”

“Has she never met Mom? Ridiculous.”

On cue, Maxine was in front of Lucy, bending down for her bag. “Thirty hours, Lucy. We won’t land in the Seychelles for thirty hours. We’re staying overnight in Dubai tonight. And all you want to bring is two books and a notebook? Wait. Wait. Where’s your homework?”

Lucy grimaced. She had noticed. In less than ten seconds.

Maxine’s eyes flashed. “Oh...don’t even tell me.”

“It was an accident. I was sidetracked. Animals were dying Mom.”

Her mother ignored the last part and raised her purple pen to Lucy’s chest. “This was a condition of the trip...a condition I made with your teachers, with your dad,” her voice began to rise. “I said to each of them that you would arrive back to school with your work completed, not in a state-of-completion. Com-plee-ted.” She glanced at her watch and swore loudly. “Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes Lucy until our limo to the airport arrives.” She glanced at Ethan and then turned back to Lucy, the wheels visibly churning. She swore again, then sighed, defeated and agitated.

“I can take her,” Ethan offered, keys already in his hands. “Five minutes there. Five minutes to her locker. Five minutes home. I won’t even shut off the car. We’ll be back with time to spare.”

Without hesitation, Maxine pointed to the door, as if it were the offer she was hoping for—the saving grace. “Fifteen minutes or I’ll kill a kitten for every minute you’re late.”

Lucy paused, “A worthy threat if all the kittens weren’t already dead.”

“Are kittens dead now too? I haven’t been paying attention because I have been getting ready for a trip. I will kill something. Be sure of it.”

“We don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Ethan added.

Maxine’s eyes narrowed. “You will be back in fifteen minutes or will wish you were dead. So help me God.”

Like a flash the two oldest King children flew out of the house—speeding down the road with manic intensity, focused on their goal and their timeframe, and fully unaware that the world was collapsing all around them.

CHAPTER THREE

Ethan pulled his refurbished 1962 Ford Fairlane up through a small gravel driveway hidden between the Pacific Lake High School’s football field and the metal shop. The car bounced along, navigating the narrow stretch—the main building of the school extending out in all its beige and brown glory.

They were headed to their secret entrance—a forgotten door hidden behind overgrown trees and shrubs that led to a small staircase that opened up to a supply closet next to the defunct swimming pool. Since the pool had been closed down years ago due to budget cuts and the doors only locked from the outside, it was the perfect way to sneak into the building after the doors had been locked after the first period tone.

Their campus was a closed campus. The main entrance and two sets of double doors leading to a turnaround stayed open during the day with a security guard watching as students and visitors filed through metal detectors. It seemed like an u

With Spencer came a high-tech camera system and intricate new security policy and a heavy duty key system that made getting in and out of the high school a challenge only James Bond could conquer.

Ethan’s promise that Lucy would be “in and out” in five minutes was hindered by the closed-campus, the small army of security perso

If Lucy was caught roaming the halls without a note, she’d be relegated to In-School Suspension. Security was trained to ignore teenagers’ myriad excuses; so ru