She didn’t move until she’d processed everything around her. They’d played this game when she was little, and practiced it when she was older. Both ways, so if anyone invaded their home while they were asleep, one could alert the other without alerting the bad guys. Tonight, though, there didn’t seem to be any. Van dozed back-to-back with Kelsey, and she could see two big lumps in the other bed that had to be Tom and Tyler. She shifted her focal point so her peripheral vision took over. Both men were breathing. She couldn’t see or sense anyone else in the room. She gave a tiny nod, and her mother removed her hand and bent over her ear. “Get your shoes on and come outside with me.” As silently as possible, Kelsey slipped her feet into her untied shoes—she’d been sleeping in her clothes, as they all had for the past couple of days—and followed her mother out the door. They moved away from the building, but when they didn’t stop in the shadows at the end as Kelsey expected, she grabbed her mother’s arm.
