“To buy myself some time. To catch him off guard.” I don’t pause. The words pour out of me, and I don’t know what he’ll do with them.
He nods to himself, like yes, that seems like me, and my heart sinks. “Dominic said you don’t do things without a reason.”
“Seems like a good idea to have a reason for things.”
“You want me to kiss you?” he asks. Cameron kills me with his honesty. With the way he challenges me to be honest with him, as well.
I squeeze me eyes shut and almost deny it, but stop myself. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“I thought you wanted to,” I say, evading the question.
He half laughs. “Yeah, which is why I’m asking. The thing is, I have a terrible history with girls I like betraying me. So I’m feeling just the slightest bit cautious.” I assume he’s talking about this Ella person, but the only thing I notice is the whole “girls I like” part, and that I’m included in this category.
I look away, trying not to smile, then face him again. “I have no idea why I’m doing this.”
“That really doesn’t sound anything like you. Do better than that, Alina.” He leans back on his arms, and he watches my face as I answer.
I shrug with one shoulder. And I tell him the thing I was thinking, but didn’t say, back in the cafeteria. “Because I think you’re incredible. Because I want you to.”
And that’s all it takes. He leans forward and pulls my hat off, my ponytail now undone. He puts both hands on each side of my face, and his kiss is soft—softer than I expected. I don’t know what to do exactly, as my only experience before this was a fake kiss and I wasn’t thinking so much about the kiss as I was about the next step. But now I am lost in this moment, and this one only. He’s breathing me in, somehow, but he’s going slow, like he’s waiting for a sign from me, but I can’t move. And I can’t get him to move any closer.
I’m resting on my elbows and I have no idea how to move without us both toppling over, without ruining this. So I stay perfectly still, with his hands on my face, and his lips barely pressing on my own. I should probably do something. But I’m frozen, because there are a thousand different possibilities suddenly before me.
Like that moment when we left the underground for the rest of the world, that new and terrifying possibility of something more. It’s all I wanted, and now it’s right here, right in front of me. Suddenly, I have it: somebody who doesn’t see me as June—I am free of her. And now I’m just Alina Chase, and I don’t know if that’s good enough. How frightening that big expanse of freedom can be when you finally get there.
He pulls back, resting his forehead against mine, and it leaves me wanting and wanting and pushing up on my hands and leaning closer for more. He puts a hand on the back of my head then, and he gives me exactly what I’m asking for, coming closer.
I stop thinking. I know nothing.
Except this: with his hands tangled in my hair, and his weight on top of mine, I have never felt so free.
And then the door opens.
“Oh, ick.”
Chapter 18
“Stop.” casey holds a hand out. “Rewind. Undo. Cameron, a word?”
Cameron pulls back in record speed, his hand dropping from my hair, his body shifting to the other side of the mat.
“Find anything?” he asks, acting like nothing has happened, nothing has changed. Like the whole world hasn’t shifted in some way.
My body still feels charged—I can’t shift back like Cameron has just done. I feel like the room is moving.
Casey stands with her hands on her hips. “This”—she points at Cameron, then me, then him again—“isn’t happening.”
“Like I said,” he says, shrugging with one shoulder, “find anything?” I can’t tell whether his shrug means okay sure, nothing will happen or hey, that was nothing anyway or I’m ignoring you. There’s so much I don’t know about him still. The last moment has made me feel like I know both everything and nothing about him. That he’s telling me something and yet showing me how much more there’s still to know. The world balancing on a point, and he is at the center.
“Cameron,” she says.
“Casey,” he says.
She gestures to the doors behind her.
He sighs and shrugs again, but he follows her out into the hallway. Great. I flip onto my back again, and I try to switch my mind like Cameron has done. I think of the data, the names, the science, the starred numbers. But they float through my mind with no purpose, deemed unimportant by the current state of events.
I can hear them arguing, because as one voice raises, the other raises higher, until they’re almost yelling. “Casey, get a grip!”
“No, you get a grip!”
Ugh.
And then the door flies open, and someone sounds out of breath. I don’t dare move. They pace around the room, and finally, when I can’t stand it anymore, I ask, “Did you find anything about Ivory Street?”
Casey huffs, and I can’t tell whether she’s mad at me or him or the entire situation we’re stuck in. “As a matter of fact, yes,” she says. “I’ve found out she’s unlisted. But her name was on a paper published two years ago, which is promising.”
“How is that promising?”
“Well I was hoping she’s not dead, seeing as this was seventeen years ago … but no worries, she’s fifty-five and alive and well.” She pulls out a folded-up sheet of paper. “Here she is. At some political fund-raiser.” The picture is grainy and black-and-white, and from the distance, I can’t make out her features. “And while I don’t have a contact for her personally, I do have the location for her lab.”
I walk toward them, focusing on Casey, trying to ignore Cameron standing there completely perfect in my peripheral vision.
“So we just show up?” I ask.
“No,” Cameron says. “We go there to find her. And then we follow. Where is it?”
“Five-or six-hour drive, maybe more. I don’t know,” Casey says.
“Okay. Should we leave tonight?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “I need to get a car first.”
“We have a car,” I say.
“A different one,” he says.
I feel like I’m keeping a mental tally of crimes, but I don’t have any better options. We don’t have any money—or access to any money without someone noticing. I hope the end justifies the means. I hope I am forgiven. I hope there’s something at the end of all this that makes these wrongs worth the price.
June, I hope you’re worth it.
And I swear I can hear her, as she whispers in my ear like an echo: I hope you’re worth it.
Cameron is tasked with creating some sort of meal from the things we’ve found in the cafeteria, and Casey picks a uniform from the pile and heads toward the girls’ locker room. I start to help him, but Casey stops at the door and calls to me. “Come with me, Alina.” I glance at Cameron, but he’s ignoring me. “Cameron says I need to check your stitches, anyway.” I start blushing again, remembering how I blushed back then. His hand on my stomach. His knuckles trailing against my skin. His kiss.
Casey walks into a shower and pulls the curtain shut behind her. She hands me her clothes through the side of the curtain, and I stand there, completely useless. The water turns on, and the steam drifts from her stall. “Oh, my God, this feels so good,” she says. Maybe she does want to check out my stitches, but it’s obvious that mostly she wants to keep me from Cameron.
“So listen, Alina,” she says, over the sound of running water. “We need to have a talk.” Okay, so I was wrong. Not only does she want to keep me from him, apparently we need to talk about it. I think about slinking away. I wonder if she’ll even notice. But in the end, I stand there holding her clothes, because I do owe her this. I do.
“Okay,” I say.
“I think you’re … Well, you’re you. And I like you. And obviously he likes you. And I think you like us?”