“Not much farther,” Dominic calls, and I’m relieved to hear that this walk has taken something out of him. My limbs are shaking, but that could just be from the adrenaline of the last day.
We don’t stop until we reach the cabin. I didn’t even see it until I was on top of it. The logs are the same color as the trees, the windows dark and unassuming. We’re all out of breath, even Cameron, who seems as if he’s in the best shape of all of us. They drop their bags on the wooden porch, and Dominic does a quick loop around the house. I see windows, doors, woods that I can disappear into. No fence. No gate. No cliffs or steel cage or mile-long bridge.
I see chances, an opportunity for later. So when they sit down on the ledge of the wooden porch with smiles of relief, I do the same.
“We made it,” Casey says, that same expression of pure joy across her face.
Cameron smirks at her. “Of course we made it,” he replies.
I tilt my head back, with my eyes closed, and pretend not to notice Dominic’s shadow cross my face, or his steps as he settles in beside me.
“Did you know, Alina,” Dominic begins, “that people have stayed hidden in these woods for years?”
I stop smiling. My stomach clenches at the word “years.” I have already been waiting years. I cannot stand to wait another hour. But I’m also seized with the realization that I have nowhere to go. And the things I want—no, the thing I want—isn’t a location at all. June is still a chain around my ankle, shackling me to dark rooms and car trunks and hidden cabins.
“June disappeared in them. For over a year. Nobody found her,” I say.
Nobody found her until she made a mistake. Until she chose to come out of the woods. A huge, epic mistake.
“Did you also know,” he says, leaning back on his arms, “that you could wander the woods for weeks and never find your way out?” It’s like he can read my mind, or my fears, and give voice to them. “I’m not the enemy,” he says, but I’m not sure how he expects me to trust him yet again. “You’ll be safe with us.”
Every part of me wants to bite back with a sarcastic remark, something to wipe the smile off his face, to knock his ego or confidence, to gain a step forward, but instead I put the water bottle to my lips. Control my words, control the situation. I will speak only when the emotion has passed.
I swallow too much water, and it hurts going down, but it forces down the tension that has been clawing upward. “And if I ever do get lost,” I say, keeping my eyes fixed on Dominic’s mouth, “I’m grateful you shared the coordinates with me.” I’m trying not to smile, but I’m losing. I see Cameron over his shoulder, the surprised grin on his face.
Dom’s mouth tenses and he stands up, and for a second I wonder if he’s going to lean over and shake me, but instead he begins to laugh. “I can tell why people listened to you,” he says, like someone who has watched June’s movie way too many times. “I really can.” He stands and opens the front door, which apparently does not need a lock—my heart races to see—and he says, “Grab your stuff and come inside.”
I stop smiling when I walk inside. The cabin is equipped with a stash of water bottles, a long wooden counter, a wood-burning stove, and stacked cans of food. There are also bags of clothes, all the color of the woods—like we’re kids playing out some military mission. But then I remember that Dom and Casey were members of the National Guard, since that’s where my guards are pulled from. That they are old enough, and that they’re definitely trained.
I wonder how long we’re supposed to stay here. It doesn’t look like this place has electricity, but there must be, because there seems to be some sort of television screen.
I pretend not to notice the rope on the counter. But Casey finally sees it, and I sense her shoulders stiffen from across the room. I pretend not to hear the lock turn on the door—not to notice it’s a key instead of a latch system. Or that the windows are covered in meshed wire, nailed into the wood.
I pretend not to notice that I am being held against my will, once again.
There’s a brown sectional sofa, which looks as if it hasn’t been cleaned in a decade or longer. Cameron sinks into it, a cloud of dust rising up around him, and he coughs into his closed fist. There are three doors beyond this main room, one of which has rolled-up sleeping bags leaning against it. I’m hoping one of the others is a bathroom.
Casey picks through a bag of clothes, pulling out a pair of camouflage pants, which she frowns at. “Oh, good, just my style,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear. Her hair has a wave to it, I’m noticing now, that makes it look lighter than mine. And it falls in wisps from behind her ear, softening the sharp angles of her face. She throws a pair of clothes at me, gesturing toward the blood on my shirt. She wrinkles her nose as she does, reminding me of the expression Cameron makes.
I turn around, facing the wall—like Cameron or Casey might do—as I change from the black, blood-stained shirt to the forest-green T-shirt she’s thrown my way.
I don’t understand what they intend to do with me, and I don’t want to stick around to find out. I need to move. I need to get outside, and I need to disappear. These clothes—the way they’re made to blend in with the surroundings—will probably help.
“Where is this place?” I ask, as I slide my legs into the new pants. I pull the drawstring tight around my waist, and when I turn around, Dominic is the only one looking at me. He’s watching me as if he’s confused by me. Like I’m a puzzle he’s intent on solving.
“Nowhere,” Dominic says for the second time. “It’s nowhere, sweetheart.”
The fact that he calls me sweetheart makes me nervous. The fact that I am essentially locked in a room with him makes me nervous.
The presence of the rope and the wire makes me nervous.
The fact that I cannot orient myself, that I am not at an axis, that the world is moving and existing and changing without me at the center makes me feel small and insignificant and lost, and I recite the facts in my head to keep calm: There were thirty-two guards on the island, and I escaped.
Here, there are only three. There are only three. There are only three …
“Can’t say I’m a fan of this place,” Casey says, tossing the bag of clothes on the couch beside Cameron.
“It’s temporary,” Dominic says. Temporary. That can mean nearly anything. Days, months, years. Now that we know that the soul doesn’t die, it could also mean a lifetime.
June’s hiding was “temporary,” too. That’s what they call it on that one documentary. A year and a half, and then she came out and was killed.
Even now, nobody knows how June and Liam got in the database. Rumor has it that after they got inside, they set up a secondary shadow-database, one that copies directly from the original source, so they could have unlimited access to it at all times. Somewhere only June and Liam knew. That’s what people are worried about now. That I might somehow know how to find it again. That I might continue where June left off.
“Okay,” Cameron says, “then let’s get on with it.”
Dominic holds his arm out, gesturing toward the back room.
Casey skips ahead into the back room and says, “Give me ten minutes.”
Dominic nods and heads for the second closed door. He sends Cameron a look. “Watch her,” he says.
I catch the tail end of Cameron’s eye roll and find myself involuntarily smiling at him. He looks away first.
Well, I do have ten minutes. I open the kitchen drawers, one at a time, but they’re empty. Though the drawers are old and removable, and I bet I could pry a nail or two loose if I had a few minutes to myself. I slam them closed and run my fingers along the mesh wiring, pulling at it to see if it gives.
“What the hell are you doing?” Cameron asks.
“Looking around,” I say, not pausing.
I check under the brown couch, but the wooden legs seem to be firmly attached.