I’m panicking, and the words are flowing from my mouth, unchecked. I have no control over the situation, and I can’t see beyond the four doors of this car. I can’t even imagine a place where I will be safe.
“Get where?” I ask, but I know the answer. Cameron catches my eye in the mirror, because we all know the options on the table. If we’re going forward, if we’re not throwing in the towel and trying to disappear with absolutely nothing, we’re going to find Ivory Street. I have no idea what June wanted her for, but I know she saw the same thing I did—her name on all these articles. Maybe Casey is right—maybe this is how they got into the database. Maybe Ivory Street will have the answers we need. June went to her, I’m sure of it. And now, so will we.
And then what? I want to ask. But I know the plan. There is none.
I can’t let myself think past the next step. There’s nowhere else to go.
Our main problem comes not in the form of a search helicopter, which apparently stayed near the school, but three hours later in the form of a nearly empty gas tank. “It’s safer to just get another car,” Cameron says.
“Of course, because we’re on a goddamn crime spree! It’s like the Cameron London show—how many crimes can you commit in five days?” Casey responds, her hands flailing in the air as she speaks.
“Casey, what do you want me to do? Pull up to the gas station with no money, fill up the tank in view of the cameras, and drive away, leaving them a map of where we’ve been? What the hell are we supposed to do?” He pulls the car off the highway, and we take the ramp.
“It makes us look bad,” she says. “Like we’re just a bunch of criminals. That we didn’t do it for a good reason.”
“We didn’t,” he says, and he calmly puts the blinker on at the stoplight.
“I did it for Ava. And for you,” she says, but he spins on her.
“You did it for me? Are you sure? Did you really? Or did you just … want an excuse? Because this, what we’re doing, doesn’t make me seem like anything other than what everyone already thinks. That I’m a criminal. It’s just an excuse and you know it.”
She leans back but doesn’t respond.
“Maybe you’re wrong to have so much faith in me, Casey,” he says. “Maybe I’m nothing more than what everyone already assumes.”
“You’re not,” she says. And I silently agree.
True to his word, Cameron is good at staying hidden. He drives the car far off the main roads. There doesn’t seem to be much off the exit other than a truck stop, a gas station, and a convenience store. He bypasses all of these and takes a few turns until the straight roads turn curvy. We idle for a moment in front of a sign announcing a community with home sites available. He rolls down the windows, and I hear the sound of construction, of vehicles. “What time is it?” he asks.
Casey checks her watch. “Just after three.”
He starts driving again, turning into the neighborhood, but we don’t go far. The gas gauge hovers dangerously close to zero. “We’ll never make it to Ivory Street’s office before it closes for the day anyway. And this is as perfect as it gets.”
There’s a dirt road off to the side that leads to a dead end, around the bend of the road. There are home sites listed on signs stuck into packed dirt with the number to call for more information. But the sites are still filled with trees for now, backing into the woods. He pulls the car off the dirt road around the bend, hidden from the street unless someone turns down this dead-end road. “Now what?” I ask.
“Cross your fingers that nobody comes down here,” he says. “And cross your fingers they don’t see us when they leave in a few hours.”
Casey quickly exits the car and walks a few paces into the woods. She leans back against a tree, leans her head against the bark as well. I go to follow, but Cameron says, “Leave her. Give her a few minutes.” So I close the door again, and I crack my knuckles against my legs.
The car is off, and the heat automatically starts to settle in, like a thickness to the air, but it’s more than the heat. It’s the tension of being alone with him again. Of not knowing where we stand. “We’re going to asphyxiate in here,” I say.
He unbuckles his seat belt and stretches, smiling at me in the rearview mirror. “Imagine the headlines. ‘Alina Chase Found Dead in Hot Car.’ Watch how I can spin this.” Then he holds up a pointer finger. “ ‘Wanted Criminal Holds Hostage in Car in Apparent Murder-Suicide.’ ” Another finger: “ ‘Accidental Death while Hiding from Authorities: Alina Chase and Accomplice Fall Asleep and Forget to Crack the Window.’ ”
“I don’t like that one,” I say. “We sound stupid.”
He puts up a third finger. “ ‘Foul Play Suspected in Hot-Car Death. Bodies Moved Postmortem.’ ” He turns to face me. “I mean, technically, we could suffocate anywhere …”
I grin. “I’m suffocating now,” I say.
“I’m just getting started. That’s just the news reports on the first day. Soon we can get into conspiracies. The government found us, staged our deaths, and is currently holding the soul of Alina Chase in an undisclosed location. Or a horde of angry citizens takes their revenge.” I cringe, because it feels a little too close to the justification for keeping me on the island. Cameron’s smile stretches wider. “Or aliens.”
I laugh. “That one will never hold up. Nothing to back it up.”
He shrugs. “You can do anything you want with facts, make up any story to fit. Truth is in the eye of the beholder.”
“I thought that was beauty,” I say.
“Both. People see you a certain way, and it’s so easy to believe it. To believe that’s all of you.”
I imagine he’s talking about his own past, but it could also be mine. And I hate that his smile is gone. I want it back.
“Or,” I say, “this was all an elaborate ruse by Alina Chase. The body isn’t even hers. Whereabouts unknown.” I lean my head back.
“Alina Chase, you continue to surprise me. Who knew you were such a sucker for the happy ending?”
Our eyes meet in the mirror. “This was all part of my plan, you see,” I say. “Didn’t you get my subliminal messages, leading us to this very spot?”
He actually laughs, and in some corner of my brain, I know that this is not a normal conversation. That talking about methods of death and our own inevitable demise is not typically a reason for laughter. And yet, here we are. “Do I survive the ruse?”
“Of course,” I say.
“How generous of you. Where do you go then?”
And this is when the conversation turns dangerous, because suddenly it’s straddling that line between fiction and hope, and hope is something I cannot afford right now. Something clamps down on my heart. “To the land of dreams,” I say, trying to be ironic. But Cameron frowns, and Casey knocks on the window.
“You guys are going to asphyxiate.”
And then the moment is broken. I laugh as Casey walks away.
When we exit the car, we follow Casey into the woods. The sound of the construction vehicles makes me nervous—there are people too close, or we are too close. But nobody seems aware of our existence. I ask for Casey’s bag, putting aside the empty gun and hard drives to get to the articles and June’s notebook again. Cameron and Casey talk strategy for tonight, in hushed voices that still carry on the wind. Cameron needs to figure out directions, and he’s sure there will be Internet access somewhere on the premises. He’s also convinced there will be a place for us to sleep. Casey wants to know where he’ll get another car, but he says she worries too much about the details.