Levi’s face changed.
He looked young then.
Very young.
“He told me never to search Ohio,” he whispered.
I went still.
I had not told him where we were from.
“Ohio?” I repeated.
He nodded.
“My dad said there were names and places I should never type into a search bar. Ohio was one of them. Whitaker was another.”
The air seemed to thin around me.
“What happened?” I asked.
Levi shook his head.
“I don’t know all of it.”
“Tell me what you do know.”
He glanced back at the grocery store, where two employees were now standing near the automatic doors, watching us from a distance.
“I need to tell my manager I’m leaving,” he said, his voice shaking.
He pulled out his phone and typed with trembling thumbs.
