The house is empty. There goes the last hope for their grandfather being alive either, and anyway, there’s no way they wouldn’t have heard from him by now. Their aunt still might be, Leo supposes, but they both know well that woman will never agree to take them in.
“Did you eat much for lunch?” she asks, and when Zach still remains silent, she goes into the kitchen to slice up an orange; she’s hungry herself. When she picks up the knife, she can hear the voices of both her parents in her head, clear as day, always cut away from the body. She does so, cutting it into quarters as Zach watches, almost stonefaced. Leo can remember her father watching her do so, not two weeks after they got him back, only a year and a half ago.
They eat the orange in front of the TV, though the news really isn’t telling them much they don’t know already. When he’s done with his portions, Zach says quietly, “There aren’t going to be many oranges where we’re going, are there?”
“I don’t know,” says Leo, with perfect truth; she doesn’t really much about what happens when someone’s parents die in the modern day. “We’re going to have to do some research now, before they come for us. There are enough new orphans around right now it might take them a while to get to us, and we need to be ready when they do. We should also look in mom’s address book; I think she has the names of Pete’s old lawyers in there. Hopefully at least one of them is still alive, and they’ll be willing to help us out, make sure we’re not put anywhere where they’ll try to convert us.” That’s one danger she knows about.
One thing Leo Lieberman has become very aware of in the past few hours is that she’s been lucky enough to live in a world where most people haven’t cared that she’s Jewish. That’s already changed. Starting with when she and her classmates all started calling their parents, and one girl with a cross around her neck said sneeringly to her, “Don’t worry. I’m sure yours are still there.” She hopes that girl is hating herself for not being raptured.
Maybe Frank will come and take us away. Even as she thinks it, though, Leo knows that’s a bad idea. Even if he’s been a father already, and he’s been kind to them, his life is now probably too messed up for him to take care of them properly.
Zach’s next words are, “Do you think they can make sure they don’t separate us?” Leo’s never heard him look or sound like this, not even when he and their mother were being kidnapped.
“If it’s at all possible,” she says. When the tears finally appear in his eyes, she adds, “But even if they do, it might not be forever. When I’m eighteen, I’ll come looking for you, and I’ll do everything I can to find you.”
“But that’s five years away,” he cries. “And what if I’m forced to move far away from you? What if you’re not allowed to find out where I am?”
“Let’s see if that’s even possible or not.” That’s the only way anyone can help him. “We’ll use my StarkPad.” They turn the TV off and head up the stairs, their steps echoing through the only place either of them remembers living in, one they never thought they’d leave for years yet.
It’s only a week since she forbade him to set foot in her room until he apologized for something she can’t even remember right now, but neither of them says anything as they enter it together. She gets her tablet, and the two of them sit down on the bed together.
As she types in “New York orphan laws,” he asks, in that same voice from earlier, “Leo, are you scared?”
“Terrified,” she admits, even as she hits the Go button.