The Trust by Tom Dolby

and Phoebe watched the sea of red taillights ahead of them. She thought she might doze off, she was so exhausted, but she fought to keep her eyes open.
    “This is going to sound weird,” Nick said, “but do you think we would have ever met if it wasn’t for the Society?”
    “You tell me.”
    “I think we would have. I noticed you, that first day, when I handed you the flyer.”
    Phoebe laughed. “Yeah, right! Amidst the ten thousand other people you were inviting to your party.”
    “Do you think we would have met if we didn’t go to the same school?”
    “I think so,” Phoebe said.
    “Why’s that?”
    Phoebe took a deep breath. “Because I believe things happen for a reason. That certain things are, I don’t know, not necessarily predetermined, but if they’re meant to be, they’re meant to be.”
    “So would you say the same for the Society?”
    Phoebe looked out the window. Was it meant to be? If she could do it over again, would she have wished for none of it to happen? Or was it somehow part of a bigger picture?
    “I don’t know,” she said. “We might feel completely trapped right now, but I think there’s going to be a reason for all of this.”
    “You’ve certainly become very Zen about it,” Nick said.
    “Maybe it’s just getting off the island,” Phoebe said. “Getting away, especially with no one knowing where we are. Did you ever think about that? What if we turned around and started driving west, out of New York, across the country? Just got the hell out of here? Couldn’t we leave all this behind?”
    Nick frowned. “What about the others? And can you imagine leaving our lives here? Besides, what would we do? How would we live? I can’t just—I can’t just leave everything I’ve ever known behind me.” He gripped the steering wheel tightly.
    “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Phoebe said.
    He softened a bit. “No, it’s not that at all—you’re so damn smart. You’re the only person in my life who would ever even suggest that option. And it’s, like, by bringing it up, even if we never do it, just knowing that it’s there, that you thought it—it makes me feel like . . . I don’t know. It’s just cool.”
    Phoebe smiled. Nick had a habit, when he was bordering on something profound, of backing away from it. Tonight she didn’t want to push him.
    His face grew serious. “Anyway, we should think about what my grandfather said. Are you worried at all?”
    “What I want to understand,” Phoebe said, “is why would he decide to help us? Why would he go behind your father’s back?”
    Nick kept his eyes focused on the highway as he answered. “My grandfather and my father haven’t always gotten along. They hide it well, especially in front of strangers, but they’ve disagreed bitterly about a lot of things over the years. When he was a member in his early years, my father tried to rebel against the Society himself. And I think there’s something in my grandfather—it’s almost like regret. Why, I don’t exactly know.”
    Phoebe nodded.
    “All I know,” Nick said, “is that I don’t want my life to be like that.”
    “If your grandfather doesn’t believe in rebelling against the Society, why is he trying to help you do it?”
    “I don’t know exactly, but I’m not going to turn down the chance to make this right, to get us and the others out. I don’t know if we have any other option. We can’t work against them. We can’t skip the meetings. The police wouldn’t believe us, because we have no evidence. The only way to get out of it is to be officially released.”
    “Has anyone ever done that?” Phoebe asked. “They don’t exactly seem keen on letting anyone out.”
    “It’s not a question I want to pose to my father, not after what we saw on the island. I think we need to figure out this Palmer thing first.”
    When they arrived at the Bell family estate two hours later, it looked as if it had been shut down for the winter.