I listen for June, for a moment, with the insane hope that she will know how to get me out of here. But there is nothing. The only one standing here is me.
And so I throw her. I glance at Cameron for the briefest moment the instant before I do it, and it’s like we communicate by instinct. I twist my arms out and to the side so she falls to the ground, out from under my grip, just as Cameron runs at Dominic. Dominic pulls the trigger once, and I feel the hot sting on the side of my waist where Casey was once standing, an instant before I hear the sound of the bullet firing. I turn back around and he moves his gun toward Casey again, but Cameron tackles him to the ground as the shot goes off.
I don’t have time to look. I can move, so I must be okay. Casey is moving, so she must be okay.
She scrambles along the ground for her pack of electronics. She’s barely got a grip on one of the green arm straps when I pull her to standing, and I drag her. She’s screaming. She’s screaming for her brother, and he needs our help, but I am not that brave. Not when there’s a gun and it was pointed at my head. Not when faced with my suddenly very real mortality. Not anymore. I keep dragging her, as her feet kick up dirt, her heels digging in, until we are at the tree line. I turn, for a heartbeat, and I see Cameron pull himself to standing. The gun is in his hand and he points it at Dominic, who is facedown on the dirt but pushing himself up.
Cameron plants his feet. Holds his arm to steady himself. He waits. I wait. There’s a tremor that runs through him. And in the moment when he’s paused, a thousand thoughts run through my head: Do it. Don’t do it. Run. Runrunrun.
He drops his arm and runs toward us.
I pull at Casey’s shirt, and she’s on her feet again. I start running before he reaches us, because he’s faster and I’m hurt. I can feel it now, not as a sharp pain, but as a dull ache, like I am racing myself. How far can I get before it slows me, until I am caught? I feel the stitch in my side, the muscle tensing, and I bend over and run with my hand pressed into my side. It slows me down, but I keep moving.
Cameron catches up, the gun still swinging in his hand as he runs, and he grabs my elbow and pulls me along, following Casey. We run at a full-out sprint, tearing through the brush, until the seconds become minutes, and the minutes become a tangible distance. Eventually I hear a faint rumbling, and at first I think it’s thunder, but then I think my mind is playing tricks on me, because it doesn’t stop. Instead, it gets louder. Casey skids to a stop at the edge of something. I fear we’re trapped. But then the rumbling in my ears grows even louder, and Casey gestures to what waits before her: a river. It leads somewhere. It has to.
I tell my feet to keep moving, but my breath hitches as I run toward her, and I hate that I need to be dragged again. Cameron lets go of me when we get to the river because the path is too narrow along the edge, but at least it’s mostly hidden, mostly protected, our sounds muffled by the moving water.
It occurs to me they could leave me here. I am nothing to them. I held Casey hostage and lost them God knows what, and Cameron has the gun. I am the weak link. I’m slowing them down. Casey nods at us and hits the path, moving fast, and Cameron pushes me in front of him. “Just keep moving,” he says. “Don’t think. Move.”
So I stop thinking.
I move.
I keep moving.
Without speaking, we forge a path along this ledge, the three of us, heading downstream with the water.
I don’t stop until the river stops, catapulting over the edge of a cliff into a waterfall, a lake stretching endlessly into the distance.
And then I can’t start again. My legs are weak and spent and useless. I imagine being thrown off a cliff again, but that doesn’t seem to be the plan. Cameron grabs my arm and we climb down the side, rock by rock, inch by inch, clinging to the slick rocks and the jutting roots and each other, wordlessly. It’s slow going. It’s even slower because of me.
I am weak, because as I cling to the rocks, or to Casey’s arm, or to Cameron’s leg, I wish for the island. I wish for my bed and the four walls and the window with the perfect angle to the sky. I wish for safety and routine and predictability. I wish for a shot of pain medicine when I’m hurt and my hot shower and my computer full of information. I wish for cliffs and restricted airspace where no one can reach me. Where no one can hurt me.
I wish all these things until we are at the bottom, at the lake, and I sit with my forehead pressed to the rough bark of a tree, and Casey is pacing with her hands on top of her head, staring out at the water. I wish all these things until Cameron settles in next to me, and one of his arms circles behind my back, and he says, “Hey. You did it.”
And then I am weak because I want him to stay with me, with an arm around me, indefinitely. And I almost ask him not to go when he disentangles from my pathetic grip to go check on his sister. Instead I say, “I think he shot me,” which is true, but it also makes him stay.
“Casey,” he calls, gesturing to the hand I have pressed into my side.
Casey is not entirely gentle when she lifts the bottom of my shirt to check. She pokes at me, runs my shirt across the blood in a harsh swipe, and I bite back the yelp. “Just grazed you,” she says, dropping it back down. “Burns worse than it really is. Nothing that can’t wait.”
“Case,” Cameron says.
“What?” She’s got her hands on her hips. “What is possibly okay about this situation right now? We are so screwed!”
“He’s a freaking psychopath. He had a gun,” he says.
“It wasn’t safe with him. He was going to shoot you,” I add. “I didn’t think he would do that. I just wanted to leave.”
She points at me as she leans toward Cameron. “She backed him into a corner.” And then she subconsciously rubs her hand against her neck, where there’s a tiny prick of blood, from me.
“I told her to do it,” he says, which isn’t entirely the truth, but it makes me feel like I am suddenly not completely alone for the first time ever.
“You’re an idiot,” she says. “Ever think of talking to me about this first? God.” She rubs at her neck again, and he grabs her arm.
“Tell me you didn’t know,” he says.
“That he’s Liam White? Are you kidding me?” she continues.
“You promised me you checked him out,” Cameron says, but he’s not yelling. He’s eerily calm. He’s doing that thing that I do when I want to hide how I feel. Hiding everything under a sedate indifference.
“I did,” she says. “He was exactly who he said he was. A past guard, removed after an incident with the assignment, but somehow still in contact with her. He said she was the only way in. The rest—who he was?—that’s privacy law, national security, and you know I can’t hack that. It’s the whole reason we’re here. He didn’t tell me. I didn’t know. I swear.”
My identity was the only one sought. I am their only mistake.
Something twitches in his jaw, and then his face is calm again. “What’s done is done,” he says.
“What now?” she whispers, resting her forehead on his shoulder. I wish I had this type of comfort with anyone. That you can take comfort in a beat from the contact, draw strength from it, even when you’re fighting. “What the hell do we do now?”
“Hey,” he says. “I’m sorry. You’re okay. We made it.”
She pulls her head up, ruffles Cameron’s hair once, even though he’s taller than she is, and takes a step back. “Of course we made it.”
There’s no sign of Dominic. I think this is good news, but Casey thinks it’s bad. Very, very bad.
“He could turn us in,” she says. “He could call that number and there’ll be helicopters searching the area in no time.”
“No, he wouldn’t do that, right? Not after everything he’s done. We’d turn him in too,” I say.
She shakes her head. “I don’t know what he wants. Whether it’s the information in the database or just the money associated with you …”
“You don’t know? Then how d
id you end up working together?”
“I didn’t even know him,” she says adamantly, like a defense. “Not in person, anyway. Just online. He … saw me, I guess you could say. Where I shouldn’t be.”
“Hackers,” Cameron whispers. “They were both hackers.”
Casey looks around, searching for something. A solution, possibly. Dominic, maybe. “Anyway, we were both trying—and failing—to get into the database. There are a lot of people who try. But it’s safe to say we were the most … determined. He came to me with a deal I couldn’t turn down. But I didn’t realize …”
“That he was a freaking psychopath?” Cameron cuts in.
She narrows her eyes but doesn’t disagree. “Does it really hurt?” she asks, glancing down at my waist.
“Nothing that can’t wait,” I respond. She grins an apology.
“Anyway, he had the resources. And all the information on you. He was much, much closer than I’d ever get alone. And it was obvious he was extremely dedicated. He was playing the long game. I only met him in person right before I joined the guard.”
“And you still did it?” I say. “You still went along with it, even after you met him?”
“God, Alina, don’t you see? The things I was doing … they’re not exactly legal. He had evidence I had hacked into the security surrounding you. He could’ve turned me in. He was in the system …” I think of his hands over my keyboard, and wonder what he was up to back then. “He kind of … trapped me there,” she says.
“Me? Why were you looking at me? What the hell did I have to do with anything?”
But she doesn’t answer. She continues, “I joined the guard on a false identity. I hacked into government files. For me and for my brother. And Dom knew. He knew who I was. And …” Her eyes watered. “I still wanted it. So bad. I just didn’t realize … everything that came with it.”
She didn’t realize he was Liam White and we were replaying history, and now they were a part of it. That whatever they wanted came at the price of their identity. Forever.
“I’m sorry,” Cameron says, and I can’t figure out why he’s apologizing for anything. I’m the one who held glass to his sister’s neck, I’m the reason they’re in this situation at all. But he’s not talking to me. “I couldn’t do it,” he says—his arms are shaking, and maybe not from the adrenaline. He still has a death grip on the gun, like he’s still debating, still at war with himself.
He couldn’t go through with it. He said he would do anything for his sister, but that’s not exactly true. She doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but I do.
He couldn’t shoot Dominic, couldn’t kill him so that we’d be free of danger, and he thinks that makes him weak. But I think it makes him perfect.
“It was the right choice,” I say.
He shakes his head. “He could tell them where we are. Right now. For the money. It’s better than nothing. And you’re right, we’ll never make it out in time.”
I smile because he’s wrong. “No. No, he’s coming for me.”
“How do you know?” he asks.
Because I am the missing puzzle piece of his past, and he is mine. And there’s something there—some answer, something unfinished. The puzzle pieces are in motion, spread across the surface of a table, and every one of them is in play now, leading us to something. Because he’s playing the long game, and now, so am I. “Because it’s what I would do,” I whisper.
“He doesn’t have a phone,” Casey says. “Or a gun now.”
“Just a GPS,” Cameron says. “And the car waiting in the woods.”
We’re armed with the same information right now. But there’s only one car.
We must all realize this at the same time, because we start pacing, even though we’re exhausted. “We need to get out of here,” I say.
I think back to everything I learned about the mountains—that they formed when the tectonic plates pushed together, that they span the coast from north to south, that if we keep heading east—if we manage to hold a straight course—we’ll eventually reach civilization.
I’m thinking too big, because Casey says, “This lake stretches around to the other side, that’s where we came in.” And I am in awe of her again. So is Cameron. We stare at her.
“What? I didn’t come into this blind,” Casey says. “I did my research, too. I knew there was a river, and that it would lead us back. And I know that right now we’re less than a mile from the road.”
I want to hug her. I do. “He knows we’re going for the car, right?” I say.
“It would be stupid not to,” Cameron says. “We have nothing to live off of out here. So it’s either the cabin or the car.”
“Shit, I can’t believe we left everything just sitting out in the open. I’ve got the computer stuff,” she rifles around in her pack, “and June’s notebook … but he still got the address, and all that information.” Casey says. “This notebook means something to you?” she asks.
“It doesn’t mean anything to me,” I say. “I was telling the truth. I hate math.”
They look at me like I am a stranger, which I guess I am.
“You can’t suck at math,” Casey says.
I don’t. I just don’t spend much time with it. “I never wanted to learn it. The name that looked like an address, on the other hand, with the numbers? That I remember.”
“The name?” Casey asks.
“224081. Dash. Ivory Street. Dash. Edmond. Ivory Street is a person.”
Casey lets out a surprised laugh. “What about Edmond? Is that where she lives?”
“Maybe,” I say. I clear my throat. “How fast is Dominic?”
“Faster than us,” Cameron says, and I know he’s referring to the fact that I am injured and possibly slowing them down, once again.
But we’re already moving as we discuss whether we have a shot. It’s the only option. We have to do it.
Dominic isn’t at the car. Not that we can tell. We’re still hiding in the trees, trying to get a clear look without revealing ourselves. My heart is beating so hard I’m sure it will give us away.
“Do you have the key?” I ask.
Casey presses her lips together. “We have Cameron,” she says.
Something in his jaw twitches, but he doesn’t acknowledge her. He’s still watching the spot where the car sits, just off the road. “I wish it was in the clearing,” he says. “So we could see anything coming.”
“We go together,” Casey says.
“No. I’ll check it out first.” He puts the gun in Casey’s hands. “Don’t give it up.”
“Right. Okay,” she says, and she crouches down next to me, aiming the gun in the direction of the car. She keeps her eyes on the trees surrounding him, and I do the same. “Alina,” she whispers, “please tell me you know how to use this gun.”
I have absolutely no idea how to use a gun. “Point and shoot?” I whisper back.
Her arm is shaking, and she uses her other hand to steady the gun. “I guess that’ll have to work.”
Cameron moves silently. Perfectly. He’s there in no time at all, pulling on the handle once, but the door doesn’t give. He looks around the ground, picks up a rock, and hurls it into the back passenger window. The sound makes me jump. Or maybe it’s the speed at which his arm moves—the damage he created with his bare hands.
He swipes the glass away with his elbow and unlocks the door. He disappears inside, and a few moments later, I hear the engine start to catch.
Casey lets out a small laugh, then refocuses on the trees. “He’s never going to let me live this down. The thing I gave him hell about is the thing that’s about to get us out of this place.”
“He’s done this before?” I ask.
Her jaw tenses. “Allegedly.”
“Did he get in trouble?”
A pause. “You could say that.”
I try to amend this picture of Cameron in my head: not a kid casually walking down the halls of school, his backpack slung ove
r his shoulder. Not the image of him running out the door with half a bagel in his mouth. Instead I imagine a boy who lurks in the shadow of a building, waiting for his opportunity to take something that does not belong to him. I imagine deliberate steps, determined eyes, his elbow in a car window with the alarm going off, sirens in the distance as he callously drives away.
“Is he dangerous?” I ask, even though I don’t believe he is. I turn my head to find Casey staring at me.
“Funny,” she says, “he asked the same thing about you.”
The leaves rustle behind us, and Casey spins around, pointing the gun at the trees. She moves it side to side, but we see nothing. I hold my breath, like that might help her.
She puts her arm out, pushing me back by the shoulder. “Come on,” she says, and she starts walking backward, slowly.
The engine catches, and the car rumbles to life, but we hear a sound in the brush to our left and we spin in that direction, as Casey points the gun.
A hand grabs my arm, and I scream at the same time Casey jumps, but then we hear Cameron. “Get in the car,” he says, and the three of us scramble backward together.
I’m at the car, stepping in the glass, when I hear my name. I can’t see Dom, but he’s out there. Casey’s trying to push me into the car, but I’m searching for a view of him. “Alina,” he calls again. “You’re never going to be free like this and you know it. June and Liam left this for us. They left us a way in for a reason. It’s worth a lot. You could use that information, you know, to make people help you. You could use it to start a new life.”
I don’t even know what I would do with one now. I don’t even know what that means. If maybe freedom isn’t a place at all, or even a state of being to achieve, but something else altogether.
Cameron takes the gun from Casey and holds his arm out, moving the gun across the perimeter. But Dom’s voice keeps moving, keeping its distance.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask. “You don’t have to do this,” I yell. “We can all walk away. Right now.” The words sound like lies, even to me.
Soulprint Page 14
