“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 over 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.
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.