I take a deep breath and turn to face him, but he’s staring at my clenched fists, at the shard of glass sticking out.
“I don’t know,” I say. It’s the truth if he’s asking what I intended to do after I got out of his grip. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Step One: Break the hold. Step Two: To be determined. I’m losing a grip on myself the longer I spend away from the island. I swallow dry air and meet his eyes. “I don’t feel safe here.”
He looks at me like he knows, of course he knows, that I was going to cut him. He who has done nothing but help me. Who risked his life to remove the tracker from my rib, who dove into the ocean after me so I wouldn’t drown, who shared my air tank, my fear, my secrets. I betrayed him. I was planning to slice my way out of his hold, before I even thought of trying to ask him to stop. I am impulsive. I am driven by rage. I am nothing more than the person they believe me to be. Selfish and self-righteous. I am.
I want to apologize, to ask forgiveness, to take it back, as impossible as that seems. But words mean nothing. Action, everything.
I let the pieces fall to the floor in a tiny melody, in surrender, and all he does is bend down to clean them up, making me feel even worse.
“Why didn’t you tell?” I ask. It’s obvious that Casey wanted any information I had, and it’s obvious that he knew about the coordinates. I wonder if Dominic is right, if they really do care about what I say. But I think that was just Dom, twisting words, twisting me, to get the information he needed.
“Wasn’t mine to tell,” he says, still looking at the floor.
“What does she want from me?” I ask.
He pauses, the glass half in his palm, half on the wood floor. “Also not mine to tell,” he says.
He continues to pick up the pieces. “Then why are you here? What do you want?”
He doesn’t answer at first, staring at the floor, at the pieces of glass. And then at me. “I’m here because she’d do this anyway. I’m here because I’m scared to lose her.” He stands with the glass, and then he shocks me by coming closer. “I’m here because I have nowhere else to go.”
Closer still, and I feel a hand on my waist again. “I’m here because I would do anything for my sister,” he says, and now he’s whispering. “And I’m still here because I don’t see any other option.” I feel his fingers along the side of my pants, and I don’t know what to do. His fingers find the pocket, and I’m holding my breath, and I feel the shards of glass drop back inside my pocket. “This really wouldn’t have done anything to me. There were two other people in the room. You get that?” I nod, because I’m out of words. “I’d do anything for her. Do you understand?”
He backs away, and his words echo in a pattern in my head.
His sister.
Other option.
Do you understand?
He leaves me in the main room with the glass in my pocket, and he disappears into the bathroom.
Yes, I think. I understand.
People do stupid things for the people they love. My parents went to jail for me. Cameron is here, giving up his freedom, a dead man walking, as he said, for Casey. And I don’t even know what June did for Liam White, or what he did for her. But I do know it was stupid, since they both ended up dead.
I understand Cameron, and my body thrums with anticipation.
He’s handing me a code. Like the lines of DNA: Hi, Alina Chase.
I was always looking for messages. For code. I was always sending them out, waiting for someone to respond. So when Cameron tells me these things, with his careful, deliberate words, I understand. When he leaves the glass in my pocket, I understand.
He’s saying I may need it—I don’t feel safe, and I may need it. He’s not sure Dom will let me go after this. Use it wisely, he’s saying. Use it better.
I’m not sure if I should trust him. But there’s a chance that I can. When the time comes, the chance will have to be enough, because it’s all I have.
There’s a list in my head, a list I start making for when it’s time: a GPS, food, water, blankets … and then I stop myself. I amend it. You. Just you. You and out there, you will make it.
Of course you will.
Cameron makes a fire in the wood-burning stove, but it’s not for cooking. It’s for the heat. The mountains are cold at night, even in the summer. It crackles, and the heat comes off it in waves. I’ve never been so close to a fire this size, and the smell of it sets my nerves on edge. Everything has changed.
We eat directly from containers—dried, salted meat, trail mix, lukewarm beans. I’m not going to lie: it’s disgusting.
“This is gross,” Casey mumbles, and even Cameron seems to gag as he chews.
“It’s just temporary,” Dominic says, yet again.
The temporariness of this situation goes unspoken—it lasts until I lead them to the way to access the information inside the database again, and we each get what we came for.
“I’m just saying it wouldn’t have killed you to get some chips or bread or something …” She’s looking at Cameron when she says it, but Dominic is the one to slam the container he’s been eating from onto the ground.
He fixes his eyes on her. “Do you have any idea how many trips the equipment alone took me? Cameron and I had to carry it all in here. Piece by bulky freaking piece. For weeks. While you were getting fed in training and on duty, standing around, watching her. Did you see a grocery store on the hike in? Excuse me if I picked efficient.”
My spoon scrapes against the metal can. This is the first moment we’ve had to pause and catch our breath. The plan is fluid, and developing as we speak, and it’s finally something other than the steps they had laid out in front of them. This is the leap of faith they were taking: that they’d find something in me. And now they have, only it’s vague and insubstantial with no end point in sight. The tension crackles through the room along with the fire.
Cameron cracks his knuckles.
“Efficient,” Casey says. Then she laughs. “My appetite is efficiently gone,” she says, slamming the half-empty can on the ground and heading to the bathroom.
I finish my portion. I finish hers, too.
I’m not used to the sounds in here—the crackle of the fire and the humming of the computers. But the fire dies down and the computers are shut off as we move to the bedroom, and I’m not used to the sounds that remain either. The crickets. The wind. The way you can hear it coming through the trees before it reaches the house, pushing against the door and the mesh-wired windows.
The sleeping arrangements are much like the night before. Except now we’re in thick sleeping bags on the hard floor. We’re all piled in one room together again—the difference this time is that somebody stays up at all times. I’m not sure what it is they’re worried I might do, whether I’ll claw my way through the wood walls, whether I’ll smother them in their sleep, but it makes me think that this place isn’t as secure as the locked basement we were last in. Maybe they’re right to be cautious—I already have glass resting in my pocket. I’m unable to move because of it, but I feel safer keeping it there.
I hate June Calahan for what she allowed to happen back then and for what she allowed to happen to me now. This is what June wanted, after all. It’s what she believed. A dangerous soul is dangerous. It’s funny, I think, that she didn’t realize she’d be lumped into that category when all was said and done.
I want to stay up. I want to whisper to Cameron and listen, I want to watch Dominic and Casey and learn more. But mostly, I want to be ready. And so I sleep.