Gemma thought that would be the end of that, but then Kristina turned to her.

“I know your dad can be difficult,” she said, making a weird face, as if the words were sour. “He’s made his mistakes, like everyone. But he’s a good man. Deep down, he is.”

Gemma nearly said, If you say so. But she swallowed back the words. No point in getting into an argument with her mom—not when, if everything went according to plan, there were so many arguments in her future.

Turn the page to continue reading Gemma’s story. Click here to read Chapter 5 of Lyra’s story.

SIX

GEMMA WAS ABSOLUTELY SURE THAT something would go wrong. Kristina would know something was the matter and refuse to go to her board meeting. Perv would show up at nine and the truth would come out and Gemma would be locked in her room until menopause.

She was a nervous wreck. She couldn’t imagine how thieves and murderers kept their cool. She could barely sneak out without her stomach liquefying.

But her mom just kissed Gemma’s cheek, as she always did, and promised to be home later for another Whole Foods and reality TV marathon. One good thing about being relatively friendless and a total Goody Two-shoes: no one ever expected you to do anything wrong. Gemma was suspicion-proof.

She packed her bag, unpacked it, realized she’d packed all the wrong things and far too many of them, and repacked. She was too nervous to sit at her laptop, although she did pull up the Haven Files again on her phone and swipe through the maps section, partially to reassure herself of its existence.

Perv showed up punctually, driving the same eggplant-colored minivan. This time, Rufus hauled himself to the door but let out only three restrained barks of welcome.

“Bye, Roo.” Gemma knelt down to hug her dog, taking comfort in his familiar smell. She knew she was being ridiculous—she was only going to be gone for a few days, maybe less if her mom got really aggressive and decided to fly down to Florida to get her—but she couldn’t help but feel she was leaving forever. And she was, in a sense. She was leaving her old self behind. She would no longer be Gemma-who-did-everything-right, who-listened-to-her-parents, Fragile Gemma of the Broken Body. She was Gemma-who-rode-with-strange-boys, Gemma-who-investigated-mysteries, Gemma-who-defied-parents-and-lied-to-best-friends.

Ninja Gemma.

“Ready to rock?” Perv asked, when she came outside with her backpack slung over one shoulder. Today he was wearing a green T-shirt that made his hair look even blonder and a pair of striped Bermuda shorts.

“Sure.” Gemma let Perv take the bag from her, though it wasn’t heavy, and sling it in the trunk. “How long is the drive, anyway?”

“Normally? Nine hours. When I’m behind the wheel?” Perv opened the door for her before she could do it for herself. He didn’t just talk quickly. He did everything quickly. If he were a comic book character, there would be little zoom-y lines drawn behind him. “A record eight hours and forty-five minutes. That’s with a standard three pee breaks. Fine. Four,” he said, when Gemma looked at him. “But don’t blame me if it throws our timing way off.”

All morning, Gemma waited for Perv to run out of things to say. She soon realized that it was a lost cause, as were her attempts to ignore him. Trying to ignore Perv was like standing in the middle of a highway, trying to ignore the eighteen-wheeler about to turn your brains into pancake batter.

A typical conversation with Perv went like this:

“Hey, check it out. A Hostess truck. Can you imagine pulling a heist on a cupcake truck? That’d be the most delicious crime ever. You’d be a national hero. One time when I was little I tried to make cupcakes by pouring pancake batter into actual cups—my mom’s china, to be exact. Turns out, interestingly, that china doesn’t do very well at high heat. You know what else doesn’t do well at high heat? Cell phones. Remind me to tell you about the time I accidentally microwaved my phone. . . .”

And on and on and on. Occasionally, he paused expectantly and waited for Gemma to say uh-huh or no way, or fired a series of rapid questions her way in an attempt to draw her out. For the most part, she responded in as few words as possible. She was too nervous to have a normal conversation, especially with Perv. She’d never been good with strangers and she had zero experience with boys, so the combination—boy and almost stranger—meant that her tongue felt as if it was wrestling itself every time she tried to speak. She was hoping he might take the hint and suggest they listen to music, or just leave her in peace.

No such luck.

“So your dad’s some big pharma guy, right?”

“Used to be.”

“I love saying the word pharma. Pharma. It sounds like a type of plant. Say it.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes. I’m driving. You’re here for my amusement. Humor me.”

“Pharma.”

“See? Totally a type of plant.”

They stopped just after noon at a rest stop in South Carolina that featured a Panera and a McDonald’s. As they were getting out of the car, Gemma made the mistake of calling Perv Perv—out loud.

“Seriously?” He made a face.

“Sorry.” Gemma felt immediately guilty. Perv was nice, and secretly she’d been flattered when April caught him staring at Gemma in the cafeteria, even if it was probably only because he had dirt in his eye or something. Nobody ever stared at her except in a horrified kind of way, as if her face was a graphic image of a car accident. And Pete was cute—in a very messy boy kind of way, but still, undeniably cute. And he was giving her a ride.