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.