He stares at Casey. Then at me. The panic in his eyes, the answer. His silence, the answer.
“No,” she says. Then she turns to me, her breath coming in a panic. “Where would he put it? Where’s the tracker?”
I feel sick, and I have no answer. “Take it out. Take it out,” she says.
It could be on the underside of any of those four ribs. Under muscle, under cartilage. His scar is at least five times the length of my own, and I am imagining five times the damage, five times the pain, five times the blood.
“I don’t … I don’t know.”
I passed out when Cameron removed mine. I choked on a scream and passed out, and Cameron knew exactly where to look, what to do.
“Pack the bag back up,” Cameron says, in a voice eerily low. Casey looks confused but places everything back inside—June’s notebook, the studies, the hard drives—her hands shaking. “Now pick it up,” he says to me, and I do, the fabric hanging limply over my shoulder, hoping this is part of some master plan that I don’t understand that will save us all.
Now what? I think. I look at Cameron. Now what?
“Now go,” he says.
Casey puts her hand to her mouth. “I’m not leaving you here while—”
“I’m sure he hasn’t come here unarmed,” Cameron says. “If he gets to us, he can use us to get into the database. And if he gets in the database—he can’t. You can’t let him.”
He’s right, of course. Even if I can prove the study wrong—that we are not bound to past criminal nature—still, this information in the wrong hands is terrifying. What of the people who seek revenge? Nothing good can come from this information being public. This information is dangerous. Ivory was right: it’s power. In the wrong hands, it’s destruction.
The door at the far end of the hall shakes as someone pulls against the lock. Dominic has made it into the building, and has followed us this far. Casey chokes on a sob, because she knows. We have to go.
He takes a deep breath. “Now give me the gun,” he says.
And suddenly I have this image: It’s Christmas Day, and it’s starting to snow …
No. Not again. Not. Again.
I have a grip on the bag, but Casey pulls it off my shoulder, hands him the gun, mumbling a string of curses under her breath, and she places it in his hand. She raises her eyes and says, “I’ll come back for you. I promise.”
He looks at her, nods slightly. Then he looks away. “Take everything,” he says to her. “Don’t leave it with me. And Casey? Be fast. Get what we came for, and then you and Alina get the hell out of here. Promise me.”
She doesn’t say a thing, but her eyes say everything in the moment before she runs toward the door at the far end of the hall, where Dominic is not. She’s waiting for me, but her hand is already on the metal bar, ready to make a run for it. She’s crying without making a sound. She is so strong.
Cameron turns to me, but I’m shaking, the fake tooth with the blade in the palm of my hand. Something that saved me. His freedom for mine. The whole world in a balance. The only weapon he has left, other than his fists, other than the empty gun, is this tiny blade.
My freedom for his.
“I’m sorry, Alina,” he says, as if this is somehow his fault.
“Don’t,” I say.
I kiss him for all I’m worth. “I’m sorry,” I whisper as I back away, the warmth from him fading quickly.
He shakes his head. “It’s okay. This was all for nothing if he finds you.”
And I think, It’s all for nothing if I leave you.
And so I kiss him one last time, and I push the button on the blade, so it is now twice the length. I shut my eyes, and I lean my forehead against his, and I ask for strength. I contort my face into calm and brave before I open my eyes again. I hold up the blade, watch as his eyes go wide.
“Try not to scream,” I say.
Chapter 25
“No,” he says, his hand around my wrist.
“Run,” I say to Casey. “Run now. I’ll get it out of him, I promise.”
I hear the door open, but it doesn’t close. She’s watching us both, and then she looks straight at me, straight into me and says, “I know you will.” The door closes, and then it’s just us in this empty hall, and silence—Dominic has left the door, but he’ll be back. He’ll be back with a way in next time. We need to be fast.
“You have to go. There’s no time,” he says. “It’s okay, Alina.”
There’s nothing okay about him and Dominic and an empty gun. There’s nothing okay about leaving him behind.
June left Liam. She left him. I could never do that. I’m not her. This means more than the truth. He means more than the truth.
“Then lie down and stop wasting time,” I say. “Because I’m not leaving you. You’re coming with me.”
“The database. The proof—”
“I don’t care,” I say. But that’s not exactly true. It’s more that there are degrees of caring, and degrees of truth, and what you want and what you need are very rarely the same thing.
“And when I pass out and you have to escape and I’m a sitting duck with no gun? And he can use me as leverage against Casey? Against you? What then?”
I don’t know.
“You’re going to have to trust me, Cameron.”
His eyes are still wide, but he lies back. I press my lips to his one last time as I straddle his chest. “Well, I guess there are worse ways to go,” he says, trying to laugh.
“Do me a favor?” I say. He cocks his head to the side, and something inside me splits in two. “Please don’t pass out.” He nods, a promise we both know he has no control over. “Now flip,” I say, and he twists on the hard ground from his back to his stomach.
Then there is nothing between me and the long, white scar. I can feel his ribs, directly below. Dominic must’ve placed it along the scar somewhere. I try to channel Cameron when he did this for me. His calm, steady breath. His calm, steady hand. Impersonal. Efficient. But as I bring the sharp point of the blade to his flesh, this noise escapes his throat, and all I can think is Cameron.
I press down, and his body stiffens. I try not to think as I push down at the top of the scar, until I feel some resistance under the skin, as his whole body twitches, tenses—but my vision goes a little blurry. The blood starts coming then, and it comes fast, and I realize that I will need to be fast. Faster. Before there’s too much blood, before there’s too much pain.
One shaky breath.
One steady hand.
Go.
I move the blade in a quick stroke down the length of the scar, deep enough to find a hidden tracker. And at first Cameron must be trying not to hurt me, but he gives in, digging his fingers into my legs on either side of him, leaving bruises, I’m sure.
There are tears streaking down from the corner of his eye, along his nose, to the concrete floor beneath him. And there are tears clouding my own vision as well. “Almost, Cameron,” I say. And then I dig my finger inside his back, and I press it down onto his rib, feeling along the edge, and he screams. “Oh, God, I’m sorry.”
It’s not on the first rib, not that I can tell—just bone and tendon and muscle, all soft along the smooth surface. But my hands are covered in blood, and Cameron’s back looks like he’s just been stabbed, because he has.
I bite down on my lip to keep from crying, and I picture a spot in the distance to stop the nausea, like Cameron taught me. And I keep my eyes closed as I run my finger along the second rib.