Mary moves her sparkler back and forth, painting the night sky with glittering yellow and orange light. “How’s this?”
“Perfect!” Peter hops up and down. “Now you, now you,” he says to me, the shyness from earlier disappearing.
I wave my hand too, and the flames follow, sparks that die out so fast they are just fleeting bursts of color. I draw a heart in the air, watching as it slowly fades away.
Wes jogs back over to us, his long body framed by the lingering smoke. He is smiling, his hair flopping as he moves, and that’s when I notice that I haven’t seen him shake at all today. He has lost those razor sharp edges, lost that careful watchfulness, that feeling that he is both the hunter and the prey.
Just like the Bentleys, he is working on putting himself back together. Even though I pushed him away, even though the Project tried to break us both, he kept fighting. And now he is almost healed.
I’m the last piece, the only thing keeping him from being completely whole again.
When he is close enough, he circles and stands at my back. He laughs at something Peter says, but I can feel the way he resists coming any closer to me. I take a deep breath and then lean back, knowing he will be there to stop my fall.
He freezes when our bodies touch, and then his hands slide around my middle. The sparkler fizzles out in my hand, but that is when Dr. Bentley lights the end of a Roman candle, holding it at an angle, the end pointed above the treetops. Sparks fly out. I hear Peter squeal. There is a low booming sound and the firework shoots out of the stick and up in the air, a ball of light that arches over the sky, suspended for a moment like any other star, falling just as the next one moves to take its place.
Chapter 21
Wes holds the door open for me and I step into the shack. A sliver of moonlight falls in through the window, but it is not enough to light the dark space and I bump against the kitchen counter when I take a step forward.
“Hang on,” Wes says.
I hear him step in behind me, then watch the outline of his body as he moves around the room by instinct. He strikes a match, the sulfur hitting me even before he can light the few candles that rest on the table.
A faint glow spreads across the room, and I see his face now, half in shadow as he stands next to the bed.
It isn’t late, but I’m exhausted, the past week finally catching up to me. Time has been changing so rapidly. First it is evening, then afternoon, in the blink of an eye, and I am disoriented from traveling through time.
I glance down at the bed, which suddenly looks even narrower than it did this afternoon. Wes and I last slept near each other on a bed of moss, a clearing four times this size. I am suddenly awkward, gripping the fabric of my skirt in my hands, avoiding his gaze to stare at the splintered wooden floor.
“Lydia.”
At his serious tone, I turn to face him.
“We need to talk about this.” He reaches around and pulls out the folder that he tucked up under the back of his shirt, refusing to leave it in his house where someone could find it. He sets it on the table. I sink down into a wooden chair and rest my hand on the thick paper.
“You won’t run away with me, will you?” he asks.
I look up, willing him to understand. “There was a time I would have, but that was before I made the decision to end the Project. If we run, we’ll always be running. And I don’t think that’s what you want either, Wes. I saw how you were today, with the Bentleys. You’ve found something you’ve always been looking for.”
He watches me for a moment, then sighs and pulls out a chair, the wood scraping loudly against the floor. “Where do we start?”
I sit up straighter. “You’ll help me?”
“You’re right, Lydia.” He rests his hands on the table near mine. “I don’t want a life where I’m on the run forever, always wondering if they’re right behind me. And I won’t make you do this by yourself.”
I reach out and touch his palm. It’s just the slight pressure of my finger on his skin, but we both go still, staring down at our hands. “Thank you,” I whisper. “I didn’t want to do it alone.”
Wes clears his throat and sits back, breaking the contact. “LJ was right that the easiest solution is to get rid of Faust and the documents.”
I take his cue and carefully open the folder. “Which we can do by sending him back through time, and burning his files.”
He nods. “But now we have the TM to deal with. We’ll have to destroy that, too.”
“One of LJ’s suggestions is to blow it up, and I think that’s the best idea. If there’s even a trace of it left, then they might be able to rebuild it.”
Wes looks up at me. “Bombs are messy, Lydia.”
“But what else could work?”
He stares down at the pages, spreading them out until they fan across the table. After a minute he shakes his head. “You’re right. A bomb is the only way.”
“We could steal them from the Facility. They have a weapons room.”
“Or we could make our own. All we’d need are gunpowder, potassium nitrate, and charcoal. I’d rather have our own weapons than rely on theirs.”
I frown. “Could we even get those things in this era?”
“It’s easier now than it would have been in yours. We’ll have to go to East Hampton tomorrow, but it’s possible.”
I stand up from the table, almost afraid to say what I’m thinking. “If there’s an explosion, we need to talk about the consequences. The aftermath. What about the soldiers and scientists who work in the Facility? They could die.”
“The greater good?” He sounds like a recruit again, his voice blank, and I know we’re both thinking of our training, hearing that phrase over and over to justify what the Project does.
“Is this one of those lines?” I curl my fingers around the back of the chair. “One of those lines, that, if we cross it, we become like them, and there’s no going back?”
“That we’re even asking that question means we’re not like them.”
“Still . . .”
“The explosion doesn’t have to be large.” He leans back in his chair. “We can’t make more than a basic pipe bomb anyway, and it will be contained within the TM chamber. There might be injuries, but you have to remember that these soldiers are grown men. They know what Faust is doing with the kids. They’re not totally innocent.”
“But what about the kids? The recruits they’ve already started to train?” I picture the room of children, their vacant stares. “They didn’t choose to be there.”
Wes frowns. “We could try to get them out beforehand.”
“We don’t want to get caught, trying to move so many people before we can get rid of the TM. It’s too much of a risk.”
“We can’t just leave the kids in there. You know what the Project will do to them.”
I do know. If the Project were ever in serious risk, they would do anything to destroy all evidence of its existence—and that includes the people, recruits, children, and anyone else who might talk.
I lean forward against the back of the chair. Wes is right—we can’t leave the kids vulnerable in there. “There has to be a way to draw attention to the Project, fast enough so the Project can’t react, so that they can’t sweep it under the rug anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
I tilt my head in Wes’s direction. “How much do the officers on the army base at Camp Hero know about the Montauk Project?”
“Not much, I don’t think. Maybe some of the generals know right now, but probably not very many.”
“That’s our leverage. If we can draw enough people’s attention to the Facility, then no one will be able to cover it up . . .”
“. . . and other people will be there to rescue the children after the bomb goes off,” Wes finishes my thought.
“But we need to figure out how to get people to notice, and not just the soldiers at Camp Hero.”
Wes stands up from the table. “What are you thinkin
g? How would we do that?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know yet. I have to think about it. I’m just worried we don’t have enough time.”
“We’re not doing anything tonight.” He leans his side against the back of his chair so that we’re facing each other. “Tomorrow we’ll get the supplies to make the bombs, and we’ll finalize our plan. But we won’t be ready until tomorrow night at the earliest.”
I lift my hand and bite at my right thumbnail. I’ve never been a nail-biter, but I’ve also never been this anxious before. “Maybe it makes more sense to go during the day,” I say, thinking aloud. “To draw attention to ourselves.”
“The bombs will draw attention either way, but we need to make sure it’s the right attention.” His eyes sweep up my body, taking in the way I’m slumped over the chair. “Let’s talk about this tomorrow. You’re exhausted.”
I know I’m tired, but don’t feel it right now, especially not when Wes looks at me closely, and then over at the tiny bed.
“I can sleep on the floor,” he says softly.
“Wait.” I stand up fully, turning to face him. “I need to say something.”
“What is it, Lydia?”
I force myself to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
He raises his brows and takes a step forward, but I put my hand up to stop him. “I blamed you for everything that happened between us, and it wasn’t right. I should have trusted you enough to know that you wouldn’t betray me like that. I’m sorry that I doubted you for so long.”
“I’m sorry I lied.” He ignores my hand and steps closer until my palm is resting on his chest. I feel his heartbeat, steady and even. “About the mission, about Twenty-two. I thought that if I could shelter you from everything, it would show you I loved you. I didn’t know how to have the kind of relationship I wanted us to have.”
I look up at him. “But you do now. I watched you with Lucas and Mary. You have friends. You have a family.”
He puts his hand over mine and I feel the heat of it spread through my fingers. “I went to the Bentleys in the first place because I knew that the minute you came back, you’d want to see them, and I wanted to be a part of your life as much as I could. Living here, waiting, taught me that I can be happy, that I have the capacity for happiness.”
I lean into him. “Of course you do, Wes. You always did.”
But he shakes his head. “I thought they stole that from me. The only time I ever felt like I might be happy was when I was with you, and you were asking me question after question, being unpredictable in a way that threw me off balance. When I . . .” His voice lowers. “When I kissed you, I felt like maybe, maybe it could be within my grasp, if I worked hard enough to get it. But even then, we had the Project at our backs, the constant fear of being torn away from each other. I was lying to you every day, and I knew I was getting sicker. There was no time for happiness.”
“But now it’s different,” I whisper. “You look so healthy. You’re not even shaking anymore.”
“I feel stronger. I feel like I finally understand what time means, after they screwed with my head for so long. I needed to stop running, to just . . . stop for a while. I got that here. And now you’re here. That’s why I want to help you stop the Project. I want us to have a real life together.”
Wes has finally become the person I saw glimpses of from the very beginning. All I’ve ever wanted was to see him like this, to see what he would be like without the Project’s rigid control holding him back.
I move my hand away and he closes the gap between us. “I love you, Lydia,” he says softly.
I circle my arms around him and stand on my toes, trying to get closer. “I love you too.”
He leans forward and kisses me, just a brush of his lips against mine. “I won’t let you go.”
Our lips meet, for longer this time, but still slow. We break away only to lean in again, and I move my hands through the dark threads of his hair. He starts to walk me backward toward the bed and his fingers glide from my shoulders to my sides, to the front of my dress. I touch my tongue to his as he undoes a button, then another and another. My skin feels so fragile, like every brush of his hands will mark me, will leave an invisible bruise. He parts the fabric of my dress and I watch him pull back to look at me, hear the ragged breath he takes. I feel the mattress behind me, then beneath me. He moves his body over mine. My heart is beating so loudly that he places his hand on it, whispers, “Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not,” I answer. “Not anymore.” And I reach up to pull his weight down onto me.
We lie side by side beneath the blanket, only an inch of space between us. The candles have burned down low on the table. One flickers and then goes out, making it harder to see Wes’s face. But I don’t need the light to trace my finger over the dip below his cheekbones, the curve of his brow.
“I want to give you something,” he says. He lets go of my hand and stretches his arm over his head, reaching for a shelf that I didn’t notice before, tucked between the wall and the bed. He pulls out a small tin, the kind that holds mints or chewing tobacco. “Here.”
I take it from him and pry open the lid. Inside is his gold pocket watch, delicate leaves etched onto the surface.
I touch the smooth curve of it. “Are you sure you want me to have it again?”
He traces the edge too, his finger so much larger than mine, almost covering the locket entirely. “I’ve always wanted you to have it. I’m sorry I ever had to take it back.”
He pulls it up out of the tin and leans over to clasp it around my neck, his fingers lingering in my hair.
I start to move in closer to him, but I’m distracted as another candle sputters out, and the room grows darker. It must be midnight by now, or even later. The moon is hovering somewhere over the small cabin, no longer visible through the smudged glass.
“You haven’t slept in days, have you?” he asks.
I shake my head against the pillow.
“Sleep, Lydia.” He closes the tin and puts it back on the shelf. My eyes are half shut, the metal of the watch cool against my chest. In that heavy place right before sleep, I feel his lips against my forehead, his hand settling, warm and solid, over mine.
Chapter 22
The choppy waves beat against the sides of the boat as Wes pulls in his fishing net. I sit on a small wooden bench, watching the muscles in his back flex, his arms strain. With a grunt he yanks it over the edge and it drops to the bottom of the boat in a rush of salt water and green, twisting seaweed.
Fish are flopping back and forth inside the net, their tails caught in the coarse rope, iridescent scales reflecting the hazy morning sunlight. Wes is already kneeling, his dark pants wet at the knees, his shirt rolled up over his forearms. He sifts through the net, detangling the fins and ignoring their constant, churning movement. “You can help me throw back the ones that are too small.”
I am only a foot away from him on the bench, but I still crouch down, feeling the water soak into the cotton of my dress. Wes has opened the net and he hands me a fish, firmly caught in his grasp. I take it, unprepared for how slimy it is, how slippery, and it slides from my fingers back down to the floor. I laugh, chasing it with my hands across the wood as it tries to flop its way to freedom.
“There.” I finally catch it, tilting it up over the side of the boat and sending it back into the blue waves. “Be free.”
I look up, pushing my hair out of my eyes with my forearm. Wes is smiling at me, so widely that I see the dimple in his cheek. He leans over the fish and presses his mouth to mine.
It is a firm kiss, over in a second. “You’re here,” he says.
“You’re here,” I repeat.
I’m not naive enough to think it will last, this easy feeling. In a few hours we will go to East Hampton to buy supplies for the bombs, and later tonight, we will finalize our plan. I want to be in the Facility, destroying the Project, by tomorrow night at the latest. It doesn’t give us much time, and whene
ver I close my eyes I smell the bleach and battery acid from those endless white hallways.
I try not to think about it as I help Wes sort through the rest of the fish. The feed store where we’ll buy the potassium nitrate for the bombs isn’t open until noon, and Wes insisted he take me out on his boat first. I think he is worried this is the only chance we’ll have, that he wants to show me the life he’s built in case we fail tomorrow.
Wes puts the fish he’ll sell to Mr. Moriglioni in a deep metal bucket. I stare at their unseeing eyes, and I think of Tim and Wes catching the fish together in that small stream. Already it feels like so long ago, a different lifetime.
We are headed back to shore when I see a figure jumping up and down on the sand, her skirt flying up, her arms waving over her head. “That’ll be Mary.” Wes jerks his chin toward the beach. He is rowing the boat through the rough waves with quick, efficient movements. “She asked me when you were coming back every single day. Kept trying to get me to take her to Boston to visit you. I’m glad you showed up. I don’t think I could have lied to her for much longer.”
“That’s why you’re glad I showed up?” I ask.
He just grins at me, and I stare at his teeth, so white against his tan cheeks, his hair windswept and damp. Behind him I see that Mary is not alone on the shore—Lucas is leaning back against his jeep, and Peter is running along the water, kicking his legs into the surf and bending down to examine rocks and seashells.
I have no idea if we will succeed in stopping the Project. But on this boat, next to Wes, the waves rocking us from side to side, I feel something finally click into place. The Project spent months creating the jagged edges inside of me, chiseling and chiseling away at them until I was only broken pieces. It was just in the last week that I have started to put them back together. It began with Tim, who would not let me turn away from him, who knew that the only way we would survive was if we leaned on each other. But it was forgiving Wes that has made those edges soft again, and I feel like a piece of sea glass, battered on the shore, letting the steady rhythm of the water turn me smooth.
Find Me Where the Water Ends (So Close to You) Page 19
