She blinked, intrigued. “Really?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t see the video,” Enzo said. “Enough people filmed it.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been living in a small room for the last two months. I haven’t seen a lot of news.”
“Once we get to the warehouse district,” Enzo said, “try to lift the car off the ground and see how that goes.”
Blue leaned back in her chair with a thud. “You’re about to be seriously disappointed in my abilities.”
The buildings outside seemed to loom over them, pushing in toward the street. Enzo’s gaze constantly swept the area, checking for signs of trouble. “The walls are covered with electrified razor wire, but it may be possible to scale them. Could you use your telekinesis to make some sort of ladder over the wall without touching it?”
“Maybe,” Blue said. “Like, if there’s a truck unloading ladders or something.” She twisted in her seat to see Charity. “I need more information about what I’m supposed to do.”
“We’re staying in the car,” Charity said. She wouldn’t abandon her father. Besides, she’d seen the car in the background during the vision with her mother.
Blue sighed and turned back around. “I can’t lift a car.”
No one said anything else for several minutes. Charity checked on her father repeatedly. No change. Streets went by, people and stores went in and out of focus. Everything seemed to be going too slowly. Charity constantly strained to hear the sound of sirens, a sound that meant the police had located them and were closing in.
Finally, they reached the warehouse district. The buildings all looked the same—huge rectangles plopped onto the pavement without a thought of aesthetics. Workers stood in front of a few of them, unloading semi-trucks.
“We need to look for Lemon Street,” Charity said.
They drove through an intersection. Neither sign said Lemon. How long would they have to aimlessly drive around?
“Try lifting the car,” Enzo told Blue. “See if you can lift it an inch or two.”
“I’m trying right now,” she said. “I still hear pavement.”
“Keep trying.”
Blue shut her eyes and grimaced. The first aid kit lifted into the air, as did a water bottle that had been in the side compartment. The car remained firmly on the ground.
They drove down one street, then another. They turned and came back the other way. One building replaced the next.
“I can’t do it,” Blue said. “And the police will find us, and you’re going to blame me because I can’t lift a freaking car.”
Enzo batted the drifting water bottle away. “Maybe you just need to believe in yourself more.”
“I do believe in myself,” she snapped. “I’m a big believer in me. In fact, I’m my number one fan. Telling myself I can do it won’t make it happen.”
A crash sounded in the distance, the screech of metal hitting something. The first aid kit and water bottle dropped to the ground. “What was that?” Blue asked.
Enzo’s head swiveled back and forth. “I don’t know. It might not have anything to do with us.”
Everything seemed normal. They kept driving and silently searching. Perhaps no one wanted to ask the obvious question—what did they do if they couldn’t find Lemon Street?
Could Charity have misinterpreted the vision’s timing? Perhaps what she’d seen referenced an event on a street in another city. Maybe the group was supposed to have left this city by one of the main exits and found Lemon Street somewhere else. Charity might have told them to do the wrong thing. She was a novice at all of this.
Two more minutes went by.
Then she spotted the sign. It stood close to the edge of one of the larger warehouses and had been bent back, making it unreadable until the car neared it. “There’s Lemon Street—to the right.”
Enzo turned the car that way. Once they faced that direction, the crashing sound they’d heard earlier made sense. Down at the end of the street, an armored semi-truck with a crumpled front parked not far from a large hole in the city wall.
Two men hefted a ramp toward the back of the truck to unload it. Another man stood by the cab, yelling at the driver and waving in the hole’s direction. Chunks of cinderblock lay in a pile of rubble behind the hole. A strip of razor wire dangled down over the opening, swaying either from the impact or from the wind.
If they could make it over the rubble, they could drive through the hole.