Soulprint

by Megan Miranda

  I see him then—through the trees. He’s crouched between two trunks, but he lets me see. I’m staring right at him. “They would die for each other,” he says. “That’s a bond that doesn’t end with one life.”

  And for the first time, I wonder. I wonder if he did fall for me, in that room, the moment before I hurt him. If he planned to one day come back for me, after he accessed June’s money.

  “Get in,” Casey says from the driver’s seat.

  “We’re not them,” I say, as I start backing into the open door.

  “We paid the price in one life,” he says, and he stands upright, steps around one trunk. “Don’t you think we’re owed this?” he calls.

  I’m at the car, and Cameron’s hand is on my waist, pulling me inside the back door. The gun is positioned over my shoulder, but I don’t think Cameron has a view of him.

  But Dominic must see, because he shrinks behind the nearest trunk. “Don’t you think you owe me that, Alina?”

  I back up into the seat, but still Cameron stays in the open door, gun positioned. He waits until the last second, until Casey has the car in gear, before sliding in behind me.

  She tears out of the woods, onto the dirt road that I didn’t see on the way in, and Cameron has the gun pointed out the window the whole time. Even minutes later, when we all know there’s no way Dom could’ve kept up, he won’t let go.

  I put my hand on his shoulder, but it’s like he doesn’t register me. I move it to his arm, his hand, and I pry his fingers back gently.

  He turns to face me, his lips parted, his pupils wide. He lets me take the gun from him. Every muscle is tense, and I don’t know how to make him relax. And I don’t know what to do with this gun. So I do what he did for me when we were in June’s hideaway. I lace my fingers with his for a second and squeeze before I let them drop.

  Cameron looks down at the gun between us, and he starts to breathe again.

  This gun is our protection, I know that. I know we didn’t escape without it. But I also don’t want to have the power to take anyone’s life. And I don’t want anyone else to have that power over me. I press the lever at the bottom of the gun, the bottom falling out, the bullets stacked inside in deceptive simplicity.

  I feel Cameron watching me, but I pretend I don’t notice because I don’t want him to tell me to stop. I roll down my window, holding the part of the gun with the bullets. And then I tip it over, letting them scatter across the road.

  And then it’s just me and Cameron and Casey, nothing between us but an empty gun, and I feel a calm settle over me—like when they used to administer the needle to me on the island. I settle back into my seat, but I can feel Cameron watching me still.

  His hand rests on the seat between us, where the empty gun remains.

  He stares at me as the trees blur behind him. “Who are you?” he whispers.

  I don’t know. I don’t know. But I’m finding out.

  I bring my hand down to his, and he doesn’t weave his fingers with mine, like he did earlier. But he doesn’t pull away either.

  “Cameron,” Casey says, in that secret language of theirs.

  His hand slides out from under mine. “Yeah?”

  “What … what do we do?” she asks. “Where do we go?”

  Casey keeps driving, her knuckles white on the wheel.

  “How do we stay hidden?” I add. I know they were counting on the money. That we needed it.

  Her eyes flick up in the rearview mirror, but she’s looking at her brother. Something passes silently between them.

  “What?” I ask, as he looks away. “What are you guys saying with your random eye-contact code?”

  He smiles at me, and I don’t think either of us expects it. He looks out the window again. “Casey’s saying, with her random eye-contact code, that this part would probably be my strength.”

  “Finding a place?” I ask.

  “Hiding,” he says.

  Chapter 15

  Casey keeps glancing at us in the rearview mirror, but Cameron is still staring out the window. “Can you think of anyone who would take us in? Keep quiet? Do you trust anyone?” Casey asks.

  “Casey, even if I did trust any of them—which I don’t—there’s not a single person who wouldn’t turn me in for a million dollars.”

  “Your parents?” I ask, and by the way Cameron’s mouth twists, I quickly realize that was the wrong thing to say.

  “Don’t think of people,” Cameron says. “They’re unpredictable.” He looks at me quickly, like it’s a bad thing.

  “Don’t lump all humanity into the category of Ella,” Casey says, ignoring him.

  But Cameron gives her a look. He leans his head back on the seat cushion. “The way to stay hidden is to not go anywhere you’d be expected. And to keep moving. Which means don’t think. Tell me, what do we need?”

  “Internet access,” Casey says without hesitation.

  “Who’s Ella?” I ask.

  “Ex-girlfriend. Spawn of Satan,” Casey says, but Cameron makes no indication that he’s heard either of us.

  “We also need food,” Cameron adds.

  “Running water would be awesome,” Casey says.

  And since I guess he’s not going to answer my Ella question, I switch gears. “Someplace deserted.”

  “It’s the summer,” Cameron says, and he’s nodding to himself. “We need,” he says, “a school.”

  I’ve never seen a school, other than on TV. My school has always been held remotely, on a television. I watch lectures streamed from colleges. I have a room full of textbooks. I take online tests and complete practice work with answers I can check against a key afterward. Technically, I’m homeschooled. Technically, I earned my high school diploma two years ago. Technically, I’m a sophomore in college.

  Not that I’ve ever been to one of those, either.

  “Keep to the back roads,” Cameron says as we approach an intersection.

  We pass a few stores as we keep to said back roads: country shops with small areas out front or to the side for parking—and I wonder if these, too, have video feed. “Head down, Alina,” he says, and I quickly listen, staring at the floor. “Just in case.”

  I don’t know if the periodic sound of helicopter blades in the distance is a normal occurrence, but it keeps my nerves on edge. From the way Cameron has his fists clenched in his lap, I’m guessing it’s doing the same to him.

  Casey turns the radio on, flipping from station to station, bypassing every song. After seven random turns on the road and what feels like an eternity of flipping stations, Casey lands on a news report.

  “… three days since the elaborate escape of Alina Chase from her protection detail. To recap, she is believed to be traveling with nineteen-year-old Casey London. It is not yet known how they are connected. Photos taken at the scene also show a media intern registered under an alias. Authorities believe that he is the eighteen-year-old brother of Casey, Cameron London, who has previously served time in a juvenile correction facility for auto theft and is currently wanted for questioning in the presumed death—” Cameron lunges forward between the front seats and jams the power button on the radio with the side of his fist.

  “Shit,” Cameron says, leaning back and resting his head on the seat.

  “What?” My throat constricts. “Questioning in a death?” My shoulder presses against the window, and he sighs, shaking his head, his eyes squeezed shut.

  “Presumed,” Casey mumbles.

  How can anyone trust anyone out here? I amend the picture of Cameron in my head. I imagine him walking down the hall of a jail, his wrists shackled in front of him as he keeps his head down. I imagine him stepping out into the sunshine and squinting against the glare, rubbing at his wrists, now free of handcuffs. I see Casey picking him up in her car. And then I imagine him taking a gun from the glove compartment and sliding it into the waistband of his pants, telling Casey to drop him at the corner …

  “Listen,” he says, “I didn’t.
It’s just for questioning. But the fact that I was already locked up for three months really doesn’t look good. And now I’m eighteen. Sorry, not gonna risk it.”

  I remember his arm, shaky with the gun. Unable to kill.

  “You wouldn’t …,” I say, and he tenses. I know he believes this is a weakness, but it’s not.

  “It doesn’t matter if I would or not,” he says. “The point is that I didn’t.”

  “Which you could’ve cleared up by heading in for questioning—” Casey says.

  “Don’t,” he says. “They’ve already made up their minds, what they think of me.”

  I stare at him, trying to see through him, trying to understand all the different versions of the boy in the seat beside me. The person who saved me but spent time locked up for crimes he does not deny. The person who couldn’t kill but who’s wanted for questioning in a presumed death.

  He frowns at me. “The way you’re looking at me pretty much says it all.”

  I have forgotten to hide my thoughts, and I’m scared at what he sees on my face. “I know what it’s like to be locked up,” I say. “To have people assume things about you. I wouldn’t risk it either.”

  His face relaxes, and so do his shoulders, his breathing, his posture. “So you see,” he says, “it’s not just the past life that can come back to haunt you. It’s the past in this life, too.”

  I cannot reconcile the two different Camerons in my imagination. Which version of him is the real one? What is the nature of his soul?

  I have aligned myself with people with their own questionable pasts. Is there anyone normal out there? Though I guess people wouldn’t feel the need to risk anything, let alone their lives, if they had something worth losing.

  I’m starting to feel nauseated, but I’m not sure whether it’s the unpredictability of the people around me, if it’s the feeling that I’ll never know them—which version of my imagination is the true one standing before me?—or whether it’s the motion sickness.

  “Pick a point in the distance,” Cameron says as I feel my skin turn clammy. He’s pointing through the front window. “Something stationary. Keep your eyes fixed on it. It’ll help.”

  I do. I watch the end of the road, the place where the dirt meets the sky, always somewhere out of our reach. And the world steadies. My stomach steadies. I close my eyes, and I hear my mother’s voice: Duérmete, mi niña, duérmete, mi amor …

  “Turn!” Cameron yells, and I jump. I lose the horizon, and my stomach lurches, instead noticing the white lines across the road, marking a school zone. “Drive past it,” he says. He’s leaning forward, between the front seats. “Don’t stare.”

  Casey drives past the long brick building way under the speed limit. “Looks deserted,” she says.

  “Yeah, well, it’s Sunday,” Cameron says.

  Casey turns down the next street, but it’s residential and there are kids playing in the front yard of two of the homes. We drive past, and the smallest boy stops jumping rope for a moment, following our path with his eyes. I keep my head down.

  “Do you hear that?” Casey asks. But all I hear are bells. I am not the danger. I am not the threat. I am the bell, tolling out its warning.

  “Yeah,” Cameron says. “Go right.”

  The bells sound like they’re getting closer, and then we pull into a packed church parking lot. And I am confused, because it’s currently full of cars and I remember reading about how the discovery of soul science conflicted with so many long-held religious beliefs. “What’s this used for now?” I ask.

  “Um, a church?” Cameron says. Casey turns off the engine, and we sit still, our breathing the only sound, watching for people in the parking lot before exiting the vehicle.

  “But there’s no …” I have Cameron’s full attention now. Casey turns to look at me, her head tilted to the side. “Heaven,” I finish. “Afterlife. Anything.”

  “Maybe not,” Cameron says, and he motions for us to duck down as someone walks across the lot, taking the steps up to the entrance two at a time, obviously running late. We rise when Cameron does.

  “How many generations are in the database, Alina?” Casey asks.

  I think about the computer printouts in June’s hideaway. The number of lives grouped together. “Three, four tops.”

  “And is every soul there?” she asks, but she obviously already knows the answer, because she answers it herself. “No. People could die out of the country.” Their souls reborn elsewhere. I wonder if one day, out of the blue, they will pack their bags and hop a plane, unsure why. I wonder if they will find a way back home.

  “And some parents never register their children,” she continues.

  “I know that,” I say. But the absence of one thing does not prove the existence of something else.

  “And do you know for a fact that the soul is what’s supposed to move on to heaven? That there’s not some other essence to you? Is what we know now everything we’ll ever know?” Casey asks.

  I hate feeling like I’m a step behind. Like there was something missing inside my mind, and now it’s struggling to make room for its possibility.

  “Is it possible there’s a heaven? Nirvana? An afterlife, besides on earth?” She shakes her head at me. “Faith doesn’t disappear, Alina. It just shifts. It adjusts to make room for the things we know, and the things we believe. Faith isn’t just something you have or don’t have.”

  This is easy for her to say, as someone who obviously has it.

  “Our grandmother went to church,” Cameron mumbles. He grins. “I’ve heard that speech more times than I can count.”

  “What about you?” I ask Cameron, who remained silent during Casey’s speech.

  He pauses before saying, “Can’t say I have faith in the same things my grandmother did.”

  They talk about her in the past tense, and I never hear him speak about their parents.

  “Your parents?” I ask, and from the look on his face, I immediately wish I could take it back.

  “Let’s go,” he says, before I can say anything else. Casey grabs the bag, and I hand her the useless gun, which she tosses inside with the computer equipment and June’s notebook. Once we’re out of the car, Cameron strips off his shirt and starts wiping down the inside of the doors, the steering wheel, the radio dial. Casey and I wait in the trees, tucked out of sight. Then he shuts each door and wipes the outside as well. He puts his shirt back on as he joins us in the trees on the edge of the lot, but not before I see the raised scar across the back of his shoulder. It’s whiter and rougher than the rest of his skin, and it still looks slightly pink down the center when the shadows shift and the sun hits it straight on.

  “Keep in the trees,” he whispers. The roads are lined with trees, but they back to more streets. We’re not in the safety of the woods any longer. We’re in a neighborhood, completely exposed.

  We stand out. We make people look. We’re still in hunting gear. And I’m bleeding. And we’re sweaty and gross. We eventually have to leave the protection of the trees to cross several streets, and Cameron sends us one at a time, waiting a few moments between each of us. I watch for cars and people, and I listen for the sound of helicopter blades, but we have very few options if someone stumbles upon us. Mostly, I stay low to the ground and hope for the best. It’s all I can do.

  Eventually we find ourselves behind the school, and I let myself relax for the moment. It’s less than a mile away from where we’ve left the car, and the parking lot is completely empty, from what we can see. The lights are off, and the doors are shut.

  Cameron tells us to wait behind the school, that he’s going to look for the easiest way inside. “There are probably security cameras in the halls,” he says. “And the doors will have alarms. But if we can get into the gym, we’ll have a lot of different exit strategies.”

  He stands, ready to leave, and says to Casey, “I need the gun.”

  “It’s empty,” I say.

  He holds his hands out, p
resses his lips together, and doesn’t meet my eyes. “It’s almost empty,” he says. “There should be one left in the chamber.”

  Casey hands it to him, and I don’t like the fact that he either needs it or intends to use it. I don’t like the fact that he knows how guns work, and that he didn’t tell me I was missing a bullet when I emptied it.

  I imagine Cameron holding a gun steady as he approaches a car on the street and telling a man to get out of the driver’s seat. I imagine him tossing the driver to the ground. Stealing his car. Racing as the police sirens follow him.

  “Don’t look at me like that.” He’s talking to me, but I don’t know what he means.

  “Like what?”

  “Like I’m a criminal.”

  Except he is. He’s wanted. We all are. “We’re all criminals,” I say. Casey laughs and Cameron kind of grunts before turning around and heading toward the building, gun in hand.

  While he’s gone, Casey says, “It’s not his fault. He and Ava kind of got sucked into a shitty group.”

  It still sounds kind of like his fault. A shitty group does not equal blackmail or coercion. A shitty group does not dictate your entire fate.

  “But you didn’t?” I ask.

  “I got accepted to a high-tech boarding school across town. The whole programming thing. I didn’t go to school with the same people. Not since middle school, anyway. I was only home on weekends, and in summers I’d take any internship I could find, just to get away from that house. It only got worse after our grandma died. God, I couldn’t wait to leave.” She pauses for a moment, lowers her voice. “When Ava disappeared … at first the cops didn’t even look too hard. ‘Oh, she ran away,’ they’d say. Or ‘She fell in with the wrong crowd.’ ” She turns to face me, her eyes wide and piercing. “But she was so close to getting out of there. We were going to get a place where we could go to school together after graduation, take Cameron with us. We had a plan—”

  The sound of a gunshot cuts her off, and we jump. My hand is on Casey’s arm. Her muscles are tense and frozen.