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 did 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.”