“What should we do with the boards?” I ask, speaking low.
“Bring them back to camp, then return them to the rental place tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
We’re both whispering, but our voices seem loud to me. There’s no one around to hear us, but we can’t take the risk our voices carry.
“One of us will come back for hers, I guess,” I say.
“If you take my paddle, I can carry both.”
We climb out of the water. I help JJ put a board under each arm, then pick up my own board and our paddles. I can barely carry one board; I don’t know how she handles two.
“You got all that?” she asks. “We can make two trips.”
“I think I’m okay.”
I start to walk up the hill. This is the worst part, but I grit it out. I get to the top and find the path as my eyes adjust to the dark. I can see lights up ahead: car headlights, or maybe it’s from camper vans. I can smell the smoke from a campfire and the most amazing smell of frying meat. It makes me woozy, but I keep walking. It’s about five hundred steps, and I start counting down— five hundred steps. I can do this.
I get to the first felled tree and almost start to weep. I forgot about the trees. I cut into the woods to get around it and get snagged on a branch. I tug myself free and find the path again. 450 steps now. 449. 448. 447 . . . My foot snags on a root, and I fall to the ground with a great clatter. Equipment splays out around me. I can’t even tell if I’m injured. I simply feel broken.
“You okay?” JJ asks quietly.
“I’m okay,” I say, but I’m not. The day has finally caught up to me. Everything that happened. Everything we did.
Jessie is dead, she’s dead, and I killed her.
My God, I actually killed her.
I let out a great choking sob, and I hear a clatter and JJ’s on the ground next to me, her arms around me, one warm and one steel. I sob into her shoulder.
“We did it,” I say. “We did it.”
“Shhh, come on, don’t lose the plot now.”
“It feels like I’m falling apart.”
She leans back and looks me in the eye. “That’s a normal reaction. But we’ve got a long way to go yet tonight. So, I’m going to need you to buck up, take a deep breath, and dig in.”
“Does that work in combat situations?” I say through something between a sob and a laugh.
“Sometimes. A lot of people in my unit have some pretty serious problems.”
“PTSD?”
“For starters. I lost an arm, but they’ve never gotten back to normal.”
I almost sob again. “What’s normal?”
“Fuck if I know. But that doesn’t change the fact that we’ve got to get up and get back to camp.” She stands but I don’t move. She reaches out a hand to me. “On your feet, soldier.”
I slap my hand into hers, and together we get me up to a standing position.
“I think you might want to take less equipment this time,” JJ says. “And come back for the rest.”
“Good idea.”
I reach down and pick up the paddles. There’s blood oozing from the wounds on my knees.
“Don’t look,” JJ says. “Eyes front.”
I obey.
“Now, march!”
Chapter 34
The Greatest Sin
Tanya didn’t take the news of Kiki’s death well. They’d kept in touch sporadically since Kiki had left the LOT. I hadn’t realized, but that wasn’t the biggest secret I’d learn that day.
I told them all in the kitchen. My parents, my aunt and uncle, the other adults who’d joined them in this splinter cell, and Serene. The kitchen was painted a faded yellow, and the white paint on the ceiling was peeling and cracked. This was quite some paradise they’d built for themselves.
Before I spoke, the kitchen was full of buzzy energy, everyone talking and asking questions and muttering. Everyone except for Serene. Like her name, she was a calm little girl; she might’ve looked like me, but she resembled Kiki in temperament.
After I gave them the news, Tanya sat there in shock, her face white, then buried her head in her hands on the battered kitchen table. My uncle Tom placed his hand on her back, rubbing at her neck while large tears ran slowly down his face. No one else said anything. They all just stared at me as if keeping silent would contain the truth to that room and make it reversible. Then I realized that they were simply reverting to their original programming, performing the Silence Ritual, which was how you honored the dead, according to Todd. You didn’t speak about them or remember their life or toast and tell stories. You held your tongue, sometimes for days, and when you could speak again it was as if they were never there. Only Todd got the special treatment of a funeral, I realized.
Only Todd was allowed to be treated like a regular human being.
“What’s wrong with you people?” I yelled. “Todd’s been dead for years, and you’re still, what? Living the life? This is so pathetic. I mean, how many days of silence is Kiki going to get? Or will it only be hours? And then it’ll be lunchtime, and someone will be hungry, and you’ll make a sandwich, right, Tom? That was always your job, and you’ll ask about wheat or rye and that will be it. She’ll be gone. She’ll be gone forever.”
I broke down then. I didn’t want these people to see my weakness, but there wasn’t any helping it. Kiki was dead and it was my fault, and sitting there in that small re-creation of the LOT was my punishment for all of it. How long was I going to have to sit there, I wanted to know, until it was okay for me to leave and never look back?
Then a strange thing happened. Serene came and stood next to me, slipping her small hand into mine, and patting me on the back the way Tom was caressing Tanya. I was both repulsed and comforted by it, but I didn’t know how to make it stop.
And then my mother spoke.
“Was it in Ohio?” she asked, breaking the spell.
I pulled my hand gently from Serene’s and patted her on the head. She smiled at me and ran back to my mother.
“Jessica?” my mother prompted.
“Yes.”
“Why did she go there? She never said.”
“She was taking a year away. I think she found New York overwhelming.”
“You never should’ve brought her there,” Tanya said, raising her head and speaking through clenched teeth. They were yellowed and crooked from years of no dental care, but she still resembled Kiki enough to make looking at her hurt. They had the same eyes, the same innate wish to please.
I rocked back on the creaky wooden chair I was sitting on.
“You don’t think I feel guilty enough already? But honestly, you’ve got some nerve pointing fingers. She would’ve been fine there if it weren’t for all of you.”
Tanya looked down at her hands. There was dirt caked under her fingernails. She’d been weeding the garden that morning, she’d said when I first arrived, and had just made tea. The pot had gone cool now.
I banged my hand on the table. “I mean it. How can any of you stand to live with what you did?”
“Jess . . . ,” my father warned. He, of all of them, was the most like a stranger to me. He’d been Todd’s right-hand financial man, always tucked away in Todd’s study in the big house with the only computer on the property. We learned after Todd died that he was managing Todd’s investments, and he was good at it. Very good. It was mainly because of him that there’d been so much money to distribute to the survivors. My dad had a knack for making well-timed stock purchases in all the companies Todd used to rail against, Apple and Microsoft and Shell and Monsanto—names we didn’t even understand most of the time. I never saw a Mac or an iPhone or any kind of technology at all except for the brief moments we spent in town, until Liam rescued me. But my dad knew. While Todd was predicting the downfall of civilization, that moment we were planning and digging for, my dad was making Todd rich. For what, was never clear.
“Don’t speak to me,” I said to him. “Not now. Not when you never b
othered to before.”
“I don’t think that’s fair,” my mother said. “We—”
“You did your best? No. No, no, no, no, no. Do not even fucking start with that today. Your best would’ve been not to join up with Todd in the first place. Your best would’ve been to leave when you had a kid or when Todd decided that we all had to live away from our parents and become little soldiers of the apocalypse. Your best would’ve been to tell Todd no when he decided I was going to build that cabin on my own where he was going to—”
“Stop!” my mother yelled. “Not in front of Serene.”
I looked away from my mother and at Serene. She was pressed against my mother’s side, and she had a small smirk on her face, like she was enjoying the drama. I felt a bolt of rage go through me. Why the hell did she get the innocent childhood? Why did she have to be shielded? But no, that was jealousy. My parents suddenly caring about the welfare of a child who wasn’t me. It wasn’t her fault they chose her over their own flesh and blood. It wasn’t my fault, either, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it now. There was no way to turn back the clock and bring my childhood back.
So instead, I stood, turned on my heel, and stormed out of the kitchen.
At least I could leave on my terms, if nothing else.
The rest of the night in Jackson is a bit of a blur. When you’re done in with exhaustion, it’s easy to lose track of time. Thank God JJ’s there to keep me on track.
The first thing we do when we get back to camp is eat. I don’t think I can, but JJ makes some pasta and sauce and orders me to eat it, and I do. I also down two glasses of water, only then realizing how dehydrated I am.
“What now?” I ask after I finish a second bowl of pasta. My stomach’s still unstable, but I feel more focused.
JJ keeps her voice low. There isn’t anyone in the campsites on either side of us, but voices carry in the night. “Get some of her clothes out of her tent, take them up to the showers with you, and get cleaned up.”
“But I have to pay the attendant. What if she remembers me?”
“We’re not hiding that we’re here, remember? And you’ve got to get cleaned up, dress in her clothes, et cetera, so you can take her car back to the airport.”
The thought of putting on Jessie’s clothes almost makes the pasta come up. “Yeah, okay. What are you going to do?”
“I’ll clean up and then get some stuff together here. When you get back, you’ll drive her car to the airport.” She hands me her laptop bag.
“What’s this for?”
“Use the Wi-Fi up at the showers to book her on one of the morning flights. Whatever you can get. Use her Molly credit cards and ID.”
“But they’ll know she didn’t take the flight. They can check the manifest.”
“It will look like she’s trying to hide where she’s going. That’s what’s important.”
“When do we have the fight?”
“When you get back.”
I breathe in and out slowly. I’m bone weary.
“You up for this?” JJ asks.
“I wish we could do this tomorrow.”
“I know. Too risky. Go now, you’ll feel better after a shower.”
I go into Jessie’s tent and riffle through her clothes until I find something that will fit me. I’m not going to wear her underwear or bra; that’s too gross. But there’s a sweatshirt and jeans that look like I can wear. And when I reach right to the bottom of her bag, I come up with something else.
I leave the tent.
“Hey, check this out.” I hold it up. It’s a black wig, probably the same one she wore when she met me.
“Perfect.”
“She has a ton of makeup in there too. And what looks like colored contacts.”
“Stands to reason.”
“I’m not going to fool anyone, though.”
“You don’t have to. You just have to look enough the part for the cursory look the tape from the airport cameras is going to get, if any.”
“Right.”
“We can do this.”
“We are doing this.”
JJ nods. I put everything I found in a pack and sling JJ’s laptop bag over my shoulder. I decide to drive to the showers, which are near the entrance to the park, a ten-minute walk away; they’re closing in twenty minutes and I don’t want to miss my shot.
When I get there, I hand the sleepy woman behind the counter six bucks and ask for two towels. There’s no one else in there except for a young girl watching her laundry spin in the laundry room.
I go into one of the shower stalls and peel my clothes off, then step into the spray. Everything stings, but I make sure to wash my cuts and bruises carefully with soap and shampoo my hair twice. I would love to stay in there forever, but we’re on the clock.
I get out and dry myself, then slip into Jessie’s clothes. I catch a whiff of her perfume, a distant echo of something expensive. I comb my hair and tie it back in a tight bun like a ballerina, then slip the wig on. When I emerge from the enclosure and check myself in the mirror, I look like someone else. Something about the cut of the wig transforms my face from its normal rounded proportions to one with angles. I’m not Jessie, but I’m not me either.
After checking for cameras, I stuff my clothes in the large garbage can in the bathroom, then sit on the bench outside so I can use the Wi-Fi on JJ’s computer. There’s a selection of morning flights with seats. One to LA. One to Salt Lake City. One to Minneapolis. I choose the last one. I enter her Molly information. I check her into her flight, then close everything up. When I pull back into our camping spot, JJ’s sitting at the picnic table. She’s packed Jessie’s suitcase and it’s sitting next to her. She’s changed into all black, including a knit cap. She’s almost invisible.
“Where’s the phone?” she asks.
“I’ve got it. She had two. That’s how she sent herself that text in the airport, pretending to be Jessica Two.”
“You should take the SIM card out now on the one with her banking info. Give the other one to the police.”
“I’ve got to back it up to my laptop first. So we don’t lose access.”
“How long will that take?”
“A few minutes.”
I get my computer out of my tent. One of Liam’s seminefarious contacts/friends showed me how to clone a phone’s contents a few years ago. You never know when you’re going to need to know how to do that, apparently.
I boot up the program he installed for me and connect her phone to the laptop. I put in her password to unlock it. The transfer happens quickly.
“We might as well fight while we do this,” JJ says.
I touch my hair. “How do you like the look?”
“It’ll do.”
“Well, fuck you!” I say loudly. JJ starts, then realizes I’ve slipped into character. “I don’t owe you any explanations for anything!”
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
“I can talk however I want. What I don’t have to do is sit around and listen to your baseless accusations!”
“Hey!” someone yells from a tent a few spaces over. “Some of us are trying to sleep here!”
“And some of us have young children!” comes from the other side of the road.
I try not to laugh.
“Aw, fuck off or I’ll make you regret it,” JJ says.
I shake my head and whisper, “We don’t want them coming out of the tent.”
“Don’t worry, they won’t.”
My computer beeps; the transfer’s complete. I untether it and take the SIM card out of the phone.
“You should just shut your mouth, JJ! And you, too, Jessica! I was better off before I met either of you!”
“That’s a laugh! You fucking thief.”
“I don’t need to stand around and take this.”
“Oh yeah? What are you going to do about it?”
“You’ll see.”
I stand and stomp over to the car, grabbing the suitcas
e from the table.
“Where are you going?”
“None of your business! Just leave me alone!”
“Yeah,” shouts one of the tent dwellers. “Leave her alone!”
I get into Jessie’s rental and start up the engine. I rev it once, loudly, then drive off down the road.
I roll down the windows and jack up the radio. George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90” is playing.
It seems fitting somehow.
Chapter 35
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
The next morning, I rectify something I forgot to do last night as soon as possible. I call Liam.
It’s seven mountain time when I call, which makes it nine in New York. I’ve had about an hour of broken sleep. Though the airport isn’t far, I almost drove off the road on the way there last night because I thought there was a bison in front of me. I was imagining it; it was only a shadow. But, after that, I drove slowly until I got to the airport, parking Jessie’s car in the lot and leaving her suitcase in the back. I left the keys inside, wiping them and the steering wheel off as best I could with a piece of cloth and some rubbing alcohol I got out of the first-aid kit. It didn’t matter if I left some traces of me in the car; I’d been in it for legitimate reasons. We wanted to give the impression that she was covering her tracks in a hurry, not actually erase any sign of her.
Although there was a place to drop off keys when you returned a car off-hours, I didn’t want to get too close to the terminal, or to the cameras I knew were hanging from the ceiling above every entrance. So, I left the keys on the seat in plain sight; maybe some kid would get a joyride. More likely, in this honest western town, someone would report it before we went to the cops. I left her suitcase in the trunk.
Then I turned and started to walk out of the deserted parking lot. There were no flights coming in or out at that hour, nearly midnight, and with the moonlit mountains behind it, the airport looked like a film set.
The airport road was similarly deserted, and way creepier. On either side was a split rail fence and pastures. I could see the outline of some large animals and hear them as they expelled their breath and called to one another gently. I was hoping for cows, but these probably were the bison I thought I was going to hit on the road. The fence looked more like a suggestion than a real barrier, and every step I took sounded like thunder. I was thoroughly freaked out and almost running by the time I got to the main road where JJ was waiting for me in the Jeep. We drove in silence back to the camp, and though I was exhausted beyond anything I’d ever felt before, I couldn’t settle into sleep once we crawled into the tent.
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