Jim Ellison did not hurry toward them.
That was the first thing Olu noticed.
Everyone else in the pickup area moved like the airport was pushing them from behind. Drivers waved signs. Families dragged suitcases toward curbs. Airport workers shouted at cars that stopped too long. A woman in a black coat ran with one shoe half-off, yelling into her phone. The whole place was motion, noise, exhaust, rolling wheels, and doors opening and closing.
Jim stood still.
The dark blue van waited behind him, its engine running. White vapor coughed from the exhaust pipe and disappeared into the cold air. The van was old but not broken. Scratches ran along the side panel. One back window had been covered from the inside with something dark.
Olu saw that and could not stop looking at it.
Covered windows.
Like the dream.
His mother's hand tightened around his.
Jim lowered the cardboard sign.
AFOLAYAN.
The letters were thick and uneven, like he had written them in a hurry. Or like he did not care if they looked right.
Fade walked forward first.
Not far.
Just enough to show he was still the father. Still the man in front. Still the person who would speak for them before anyone else could.
"Mr. Ellison?" Fade asked.
Jim's smile widened.
"That's me."
His voice was rougher than Olu expected. Not loud. Not yet. But it had weight in it, like gravel inside a metal bucket.
Fade adjusted his glasses. "I am Fade Afolayan. This is my wife, Lola. Our son, Olu."
Jim looked at Lola.
Then at Olu.
He held Olu's gaze for a second too long.
"Long flight, huh?"
Fade gave a polite laugh. "Very long."
"Y'all look beat."
Lola said nothing.
Jim looked at the single suitcase. "That it?"
"One bag was delayed," Fade said.
Jim snorted. "Airlines."
He said the word like it explained everything wrong with the world.
Fade nodded too quickly. "Yes. They said they will deliver it."
"To the house?"
"Yes."
Jim shrugged. "Long as they find it."
Lola's eyes sharpened. "Is the address difficult to find?"
Jim looked at her again.
For the first time, his smile changed.
Not gone.
Just thinner.
"Ma'am, most places are difficult to find if you don't know where you're going."
Fade cleared his throat. "James said you know the route."
"I know it."
"And Martha is there?"
"She'll be there."
"That is not what I asked," Lola said.
A taxi horn blared behind them.
An airport worker in a reflective jacket waved angrily at a black SUV. "Move it! You can't park here!"
The SUV driver shouted something back.
Nobody cared about the Afolayans.
Nobody cared that Lola had not moved.
Jim scratched the side of his jaw. His hands were large enough that the motion looked heavy. The knuckles were red from the cold. There was a scar across one thumb. Not a clean scar. A torn one.
"Martha had something come up," Jim said. "She told me to bring you in. That's all I know."
Lola stared at him.
Fade turned slightly toward her. "We should get out of the cold."
"No," Lola said. "We should call James again."
Jim gave a small laugh.
Olu did not like it.
It was not amusement. Not really.
It sounded like a man hearing a child ask whether rain needed permission to fall.
"Signal's bad out here," Jim said.
"We are at an airport," Lola said.
Jim pointed toward the building with the folded cardboard sign. "You're welcome to head back in and try."
Fade looked at the sliding doors behind them.
For one moment, Olu thought they might do it.
Go back inside.
Find another officer. Another desk. Another line. Another system. Maybe a system could protect them from a man like Jim. Maybe paperwork could fight whatever this was.
Then a gust of wind came hard across the pickup lane.
It cut through Olu's jacket and found the sweat cooling under his shirt. He shivered.
Lola felt it.
Fade saw it.
Jim saw it too.
"Road's long," Jim said. "And I ain't waiting on weather."
There it was.
Not a threat.
Not exactly.
But something in the sentence closed around them.
Fade inhaled through his nose. "How far is the residence?"
"Couple hours."
"James said one hour and forty minutes."
Jim looked at him.
Fade's face tightened, as if he realized too late that correcting Jim might not help.
Jim lifted one shoulder. "Then James can drive next time."
The airport worker shouted again. Cars honked. A bus hissed as its doors opened. The cold kept pushing at them.
Fade looked at Lola.
Lola looked at Olu.
Olu wanted to tell her no.
He wanted to say the van was wrong. Jim was wrong. The covered window was wrong. The silence inside his head was wrong.
But when he reached for the feeling, there was nothing.
The Guide did not answer.
It did not pull.
It did not warn.
It was like asking a question into a room where everyone had already left.
"Mummy," he whispered.
Her face changed.
Only a little.
Enough.
"What?" she asked.
He looked at Jim.
Jim was watching them.
Olu swallowed.
"I don't know."
That was the truth.
It was also useless.
Lola breathed out slowly. Then she looked at Fade.
"We sit together," she said.
Fade nodded. "Of course."
"I keep Olu with me."
"Yes."
"We do not sleep."
Fade's mouth opened, but no argument came.
Jim clapped his hands once.
The sound made Olu flinch.
"All right then," Jim said. "Let's load up."
He reached for the suitcase.
Fade moved to take it first. "I can carry it."
Jim grabbed the handle anyway.
For a second, both men held it.
Fade did not let go.
Jim looked down at Fade's hand.
Then back at Fade's face.
Nothing moved except the vapor from the van exhaust.
Olu felt Lola's hand tighten again.
Fade let go.
Jim lifted the suitcase like it weighed nothing and swung it toward the back of the van. The movement was too casual. Too strong. The suitcase hit the rear floor with a hard thud.
Lola's mouth tightened.
"There are breakable things inside," she said.
Jim slammed the back door shut.
"Not anymore."
Fade froze.
Jim smiled again, like he had made a joke.
Nobody laughed.
The van's side door opened with a rough metallic slide.
Inside, the air smelled like old vinyl, gasoline, damp fabric, and something sour underneath. There were three rows of seats. The middle row had gray covers. The back row was folded down. A toolbox sat near the rear, strapped in place with a bungee cord.
Olu noticed the straps first.
Then the floor.
It had been cleaned recently.
Not well enough.
A dark stain marked the groove where the rubber mat met the metal frame. It could have been oil. It could have been mud. It could have been anything.
His mind made it red.
Fade climbed in first and checked the seats, as if the inspection meant something. Lola followed, keeping Olu in front of her. Jim stood beside the door, blocking part of the cold light with his body.
Olu placed one foot on the van step.
The metal edge was sharp beneath his shoe.
His other foot slipped.
He caught himself against the door frame, but his shin scraped hard along the exposed metal near the seat track.
Pain flashed up his leg.
He sucked in a breath.
Lola turned immediately. "Olu?"
"I'm fine."
"Let me see."
"I'm fine."
He climbed in quickly before she could stop him.
The scrape burned.
He sat beside the window in the middle row. Lola sat next to him and reached for his pant leg.
"Olu."
"Not now," he whispered.
Her eyes narrowed.
He looked toward Jim.
Jim was still outside, speaking to Fade about tolls or roads or something that did not matter. But his head turned slightly. Like he could hear them.
Lola followed Olu's look.
Then she stopped.
Fade got into the front passenger seat.
Jim slid the side door shut.
The sound was heavy.
Final.
The van sealed around them.
For one second, Olu could not breathe.
Not because of the air.
Because of the door.
It had closed, and the airport was outside now. The lights, the people, the officers, the signs, the lines, the woman at the baggage desk who did not care. All of it was outside.
He had hated the airport.
Now he missed it.
Jim climbed into the driver's seat. The van dipped under his weight.
"Seat belts," he said.
Fade reached for his.
Lola helped Olu with his, though he knew how to do it himself.
Her hand brushed his shin.
He flinched.
She looked down.
A thin line of blood had soaked through the fabric near his lower leg.
"Olu," she whispered.
"I said I'm fine."
"That is blood."
Jim's eyes lifted to the rearview mirror.
Not long.
A glance.
But Olu saw it.
Fade turned in his seat. "What happened?"
"He scraped his leg," Lola said.
"Badly?"
"No," Olu said.
Lola did not answer.
Jim pulled away from the curb before anyone could say more.
The van merged into airport traffic with a hard jerk. Olu grabbed the seat in front of him. Lola put one arm across his chest, not trusting the seat belt alone.
"Careful," Fade said.
Jim looked at the road. "You want careful, you picked the wrong city."
Outside, New York opened in pieces.
Ramps.
Signs.
Concrete barriers.
Yellow taxis.
Buses with advertisements for Broadway shows and cancer hospitals and a phone company promising connection everywhere.
A plane lifted into the gray sky behind them.
Olu watched it climb until the van turned and the airport disappeared behind a wall of traffic.
For a little while, nobody spoke.
The silence did not feel peaceful.
It felt occupied.
Jim drove with one hand on the wheel. The other rested near the gear shift. His fingers tapped once, twice, then stopped. He did not turn on the radio.
That made the sounds inside the van too clear.
The engine.
The tires.
Fade's breathing.
Lola's bracelet clicking softly against the seat belt when the van hit uneven road.
Olu's own pulse.
He looked down at his shin.
The fabric had stuck slightly to the cut. It hurt less now.
Too less.
He knew that was not right.
He slid one finger under the edge of his pant leg and lifted.
The scrape had been long. He had felt it tear skin. He had seen blood through the fabric.
Now the line on his shin was closing.
Not gone.
Not yet.
But the bleeding had stopped. The skin around it looked pink and tight, as if hours had passed instead of minutes.
His stomach turned.
He pulled the pant leg down.
Lola saw his face.
"What is it?" she asked quietly.
"Nothing."
"Do not lie to me."
He looked at her.
The words came up, then died.
What could he say?
My body is fixing itself.
My finger did it too.
I think something is wrong with me.
I think something is wrong with him.
I think something is wrong with all of this.
Jim's eyes lifted to the mirror again.
Olu looked away.
The van left the airport roads and joined a wider highway. Signs flashed by too fast for him to read all of them.
QUEENS.
BROOKLYN.
MANHATTAN.
LONG ISLAND.
A billboard showed a smiling family holding keys in front of a new house.
START AGAIN WITH NEW HORIZONS.
Olu sat up straighter.
The billboard passed.
"Daddy," he said.
Fade turned. "Yes?"
"I saw New Horizons."
Fade looked out the windshield. "Where?"
"Billboard."
Jim snorted.
Fade glanced at him. "You know it?"
"Seen the signs."
"That is good, then."
Jim did not answer.
Lola looked at the side of Fade's face.
"Why is that good?"
Fade seemed tired of questions. "Because it means they are real."
"Bad things can buy billboards," Lola said.
Jim laughed.
This time, it was louder.
Fade looked uncomfortable.
Lola stared at the back of Jim's head.
"You find that funny?" she asked.
Jim kept his eyes on the road. "Ma'am, I've lived here all my life. If bad things couldn't buy billboards, half the highway would be empty."
Lola did not blink.
Fade looked down at his phone.
"No signal?" Lola asked.
"One bar."
"Call James."
"I will."
"Now."
Fade called.
The phone rang through the van's speakers because it had connected to nothing and everything at once for one strange second. Then the call failed.
Fade tried again.
Call failed.
Jim changed lanes.
"You'll get better signal later," he said.
"When?" Lola asked.
"When we're closer."
"To the residence?"
"To where the towers are."
"That does not make sense," Lola said.
Jim's mouth moved in the mirror.
A smile.
"Lots of things don't."
Olu looked out the window.
New York was not what he had expected.
Not yet.
He saw pieces of it through traffic. Brick buildings. Graffiti. Overpasses. Steam rising from somewhere underground. A train flashing between structures. People walking fast with their heads down. Shops with metal grates. A man selling something from a cart near an intersection. A woman pushing a stroller while arguing into her phone.
It was alive.
Not like Lagos.
But alive.
Then the highway lifted, curved, and pulled them away.
Buildings spread out.
Then thinned.
The city became warehouses, gas stations, fences, lots filled with trucks, low hotels near exits, signs for food, fuel, storage, and car insurance.
Everything had a sign.
Everything wanted money.
Fade seemed to calm a little as they drove. Maybe roads comforted him because roads had direction. Maybe he was forcing himself to believe movement meant progress.
He turned toward Jim. "How long have you and Martha worked with New Horizons?"
Jim scratched his jaw again. "Long enough."
"What kind of intake issue delayed her?"
"Don't know."
"She did not say?"
"Nope."
Fade waited.
Jim did not fill the silence.
Lola leaned back slowly.
Olu knew that look. His mother had stopped asking questions out loud. That did not mean she had stopped asking them.
It meant she was saving them.
Jim turned onto another highway.
The van rocked as it climbed the ramp.
Olu's shin throbbed once.
Then the throbbing faded.
He could feel the skin under his pants pulling itself together. Not with hands. Not exactly. More like heat stitching from the inside.
He pressed his lips together.
Healing should have felt good.
It did not.
It felt like his body had made a decision without him.
Lola reached down and placed her hand over his.
Not on the wound.
On his hand.
A warning.
A comfort.
Both.
Jim reached toward the dashboard and finally turned on the radio.
Static burst through.
Then a man's voice.
"…continued debate over federal funding for mutant impact response programs after last week's incident in Westchester County. Local officials declined to confirm whether the Xavier Institute was involved…"
Jim changed the station.
Country music filled the van.
Fade looked toward the radio, then away.
Olu stared at the back of Jim's head.
Westchester.
Xavier.
The words meant nothing to him.
But something in the air changed when he heard them.
A small pressure.
Not like James's name.
Not like Jim's silence.
This was different.
Far away.
A signal too distant to read.
Then it was gone under guitar and a man singing about a river.
Jim tapped the steering wheel to the beat.
His hands were too calm.
Olu looked at the covered back window again.
There was a seam where the black material had been taped from inside. A small corner had peeled loose. Gray daylight tried to enter and failed.
He wanted to ask why it was covered.
He did not.
Instead, he asked himself a quieter question.
Is Jim safe?
Nothing.
The blank place stayed blank.
He tried again.
Are we safe?
Nothing.
The van kept moving.
Lola shifted beside him. Her shoulder brushed his.
Fade checked his phone again.
Jim drove.
Outside, the city loosened its grip.
The roads widened. Trees appeared in broken lines beyond the guardrails. The buildings lowered. The sky looked bigger and colder.
Jim spoke suddenly.
"First time in America?"
Fade turned. "Yes."
"All of you?"
"Yes."
Jim's eyes flicked to the mirror. "No family here?"
Fade hesitated.
Lola answered. "We have contacts."
Jim nodded slowly. "Contacts."
Fade gave her a look.
Lola ignored it.
Jim kept driving. "Anybody expecting you tonight besides James and Martha?"
The question entered the van and sat there.
Fade's hand tightened around his phone.
Lola's voice was flat. "Why?"
Jim shrugged. "Just making conversation."
"No," Lola said. "You are asking who knows where we are."
Fade turned fully now. "Lola."
Jim laughed again.
Not loud this time.
"Your wife's sharp."
"She is tired," Fade said.
"I am sharp," Lola said.
Jim's eyes met hers in the mirror.
For a second, his face lost the friendly roughness.
Only a second.
Then it came back.
"Yes, ma'am," he said.
The van changed lanes.
Olu watched the road signs.
He tried to memorize them.
Exit numbers.
Town names.
Gas stations.
Anything.
His father had once told him that being lost was not the same as being helpless. If you could remember where you had been, you could sometimes find where you were.
So Olu remembered.
A green sign for a bridge.
A red sign for a diner.
A white church steeple in the distance.
A billboard for a company called Damage Control with a phone number and the words CLEANUP. REPAIR. RESTORATION.
A truck with RAND printed on the side.
A rest stop sign.
A water tower painted pale blue.
Jim noticed.
Of course he noticed.
"Boy always this quiet?"
Fade glanced back. "Olu is observant."
"That right?"
Olu said nothing.
Jim's eyes found him in the mirror.
"What you observing?"
Lola answered before Olu could.
"The road."
Jim smiled. "Smart kid."
Olu did not feel smart.
He felt trapped in a moving room.
The airport was gone.
The city was thinning.
James was not answering.
Martha was waiting somewhere ahead.
Jim had their suitcase.
Their second bag was lost.
His shin had stopped hurting.
And the Guide was silent.
The van passed the rest stop without turning.
Fade leaned forward. "Should we not stop? Maybe use the restroom, get food, call James again?"
Jim shook his head. "Better places up ahead."
"How far?"
"Not far."
Lola looked out the window.
Olu followed her gaze.
The rest stop disappeared behind them.
People were there.
Lights.
Stores.
Bathrooms.
Other cars.
Witnesses.
Then it was gone.
Jim turned the music up a little.
Not enough to be rude.
Enough to make conversation harder.
Fade sat back.
Lola's hand closed around Olu's again.
Olu looked down at his leg one more time.
He could not help it.
He lifted the fabric just enough to see.
The scrape was almost gone.
A faint pink line remained against his dark skin.
No blood.
No torn skin.
No proof.
His breath caught.
Lola saw.
Her eyes widened slightly.
Then she looked at the mirror.
Jim was watching.
Olu dropped the pant leg.
Too late.
Jim's gaze stayed on him for another second.
Then the man looked back at the road.
His smile returned slowly.
"Well," Jim said, almost to himself.
Fade frowned. "What?"
Jim shook his head. "Nothing."
But it was not nothing.
Olu knew it.
Lola knew it.
Maybe Fade knew it too, but he was still trying not to know too much at once.
The highway stretched ahead.
Gray sky.
Black road.
Bare trees.
The van carried them farther from the airport, farther from signs anyone could understand, farther from the version of America Fade had promised at the dining table in Lagos.
Olu pressed his healed finger into his healed shin until it hurt.
He needed something to hurt normally.
He looked out the window and asked the silence one more question.
Where are we going?
For a moment, there was nothing.
Then the glass caught a reflection from a passing road sign.
The letters appeared backward in the window.
Not the whole sign.
Just one word.
HOLLOW.
Olu turned fast, trying to see the sign properly.
Too late.
The van had already passed it.
Jim took the next exit.
Trees rose on both sides of the road.
The city disappeared behind them like a door closing without sound.