“You’re still in love with him,” Finn finally says, calmly. I wish he would yell at me or shake me. It would be easier to take than him sounding so weary. So sad.
“Finn—”
“I knew it,” he says. “I should have always known it, and maybe I did, but when I saw you with him in that hotel room, the way you held on to him . . .” He traces his fingers across the thin scar on the back of his right hand, a nervous habit. He got it while changing a flat somewhere in South Carolina. It would’ve healed properly if he’d gone to a doctor to get it stitched up, but he didn’t want to slow us down. “I know loving someone doesn’t ever completely go away, but it’s hard for me. I see the way Marina is with him, and it still tears me up inside. I can’t take it from you, too. I can’t always be the consolation prize for you, Em. I just—I love you too much.”
I’m a fish on dry land, gawping and gasping.
“I know you care about me or whatever,” he continues, “but if you’re still in love with James, I need to know. I deserve that much.”
“Finn—” I say, reaching for him.
I don’t get to finish the sentence. The pulling starts behind my navel, and I’m overwhelmed by terror. Not this again. I don’t want to relive another moment. But I have no choice; I’m swept up by the tide and thrown back with such force that the world blurs around me.
I open my eyes, not realizing I’d closed them. I’m sitting on the back porch of the house in West Virginia, looking out over the mountains in the distance, which are black silhouettes against the slate-gray sky. Everyone else is inside, arguing around the dining room table. Again.
The door behind me slides open, but I don’t bother turning around. I know, maybe from the way the air around me changes, who it is. Finn sits down on the steps next to me.
“You okay?”
I nod. “Just needed a break from all the screaming.”
“No kidding.”
“Have they decided when to go public yet?”
“Maybe in another few hours.”
I glance back at the group around the table, Jonas at the head. We met Jonas a few months ago when the three of us were being smuggled across state lines by the same trucker, and we’ve been with him ever since. He was a demolitions expert the FBI brought in to consult on the evidence from the Philadelphia bombings, but he decided he needed to get out of Pennsylvania when he discovered military-grade explosives deep in the crater at the Sunoco refinery. With what we knew plus what he knew, we began to piece together what’s really been happening in the country these past three years. The bombings, the mysterious deaths, the sudden about-faces by politicians and military leaders: they all lead back to Cassandra.
Then we met Rina, and Sahid, and a handful of others. Rina owns this house deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, miles from the nearest neighbor, and we’ve been here for weeks, digging into the SIA and pooling our information. There’s a faction of the government responsible for what’s happening, and we think we can prove it.
If we could only agree on how.
“Do you think it’ll make any difference?” I say. “Going public with what we know?”
“Probably not,” Finn says, “but we’ve got to try.”
“I don’t understand why he’d want this.” I lean my head against a post. “He wanted to make things better. Does he really think bombs and checkpoints and mass arrests are better?”
“I’m not sure we’ll ever understand.” I see him studying me. “You look tired.”
“I am.” I rub my dry eyes. “I haven’t slept in two days. For such a little woman, Jocelyn snores like you wouldn’t believe.”
He grins and wiggles his eyebrows at me. “You can always come share my bed.”
I roll my eyes and push his shoulder, but it’s not like we’ve never done it. There was the first truck that took us out of D.C., hidden behind a pallet of cereal boxes. It was the dead of winter, and we huddled together for warmth during the ten-hour drive south. Then there were a half a dozen gross little motels with only one bed where I took pity on him and didn’t make him sleep on the floor, even when he offered. And the last time, when we were crashing with a friend of Rina’s and ended up sharing the pullout, I woke up in the middle of the night with Finn’s arm slung around my waist and his lips grazing the back of my neck, and I didn’t move. Just stared into the darkness, pulse racing, hoping he wouldn’t wake up.
“You’ll probably snore worse,” I say.
“Probably. You want to switch beds? Jocelyn won’t bother me.”
I shake my head, and the ends of my new, shorter hair brush my cheek. I do it again.
“Feel weird?” he asks.
“Yeah. I can’t believe I did it.” I was looking in the mirror yesterday morning and suddenly couldn’t stand the sight of myself, so unchanged on the outside when I felt so different on the inside. I found the shears behind the bathroom mirror and began to hack, feeling oddly satisfied as the hair pooled in the sink and at my feet, discarded remnants of my old life. “I must look kind of crazy.”
Finn touches the edge of my hair, rubbing the strands between his thumb and forefinger. “I like it. It suits you.”
I feel the warmth of his breath on my face as he says the words. When did he get so close? His knee is touching mine, and his knuckles are brushing my neck as he touches my hair.
“Em?” he says.
I can’t quite meet his gaze. “Yeah?”
“I’m really glad you don’t hate me anymore,” he says, “’cause I can’t imagine doing this without you.”
“I never hated you.”
His face brightens. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He leans toward me, closing the inches between us, and my mind sort of—stops. All I can think is Finn Abbott is about to kiss me. And I’m about to let him.
A sharp crack rips through the air. Finn and I whip our heads toward the house and see bodies dressed in black pouring in through the front door, which hangs awkwardly on its hinges, the jam splintered. They raise guns and shout.
“FBI!”
“Oh God,” I say, feeling every ounce of strength seep out of me. “He’s found us.”
Finn pulls me, limp and unresisting, to my feet and pushes me down the porch steps. “Run! Get out of here!”
“Come with me!” I say. Inside, the SWAT team is forcing our friends to their knees and sweeping the rest of the house. They’ll be on us in seconds.
“Go!” Finn hisses. He walks back into the house, his hands held up in surrender, to give me precious seconds to get away.
I turn and run blindly for the woods. I make it less than twenty feet before a hand reaches out of the darkness and grabs me. The house is surrounded; I never had a chance. My captor yanks my hands behind my back and cuffs them, and he drags me, slipping and stumbling, toward the front yard. Finn, Jonas, and the others are kneeling in the mud, and Finn winces when he sees me. One of the officers hauls him to his feet.
“What are you doing?” I say. “Where are you taking him?”
“Em, it’s okay!” he says.
“Finn!”
They drag him into the darkness, away from the rest of us.
“Finn!” I scream. There are heavy hands on my shoulders, and I struggle against them.
“Em, wake up!” Finn yells as they drag him away. I see his lips moving, but the words make no sense. The hands shake me.
“No,” I sob. “Stop!”
Finn is shoved into the back of a van, and he’s gone, but I still hear his voice. “Em, it’s okay! Open your eyes.”
I blink. The hands on me are gentle and warm. I blink again, and this time the mud and the mountains dissolve. I realize I’m inside the Honda, safe, four years in the past. Finn is hovering over me, one hand on my face, his eyes wide.
“Hey,” he says softly. “You back?”
“Yeah.” I sit up shakily. My tongue is dry and tacky, so I reach for my coffee cup, but it’s gone stone cold.
&
nbsp; “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” Finn says. He sits back and pushes a shaking hand through his hair. “You were gone a long time. I thought—”
“It’s okay, I’m here,” I say, putting a hand on his knee. I glance at the clock on the dash. I was out for over half an hour. “Jesus.”
“What did you see?”
The memory rolls over me, so fresh I can still smell the wet grass and automotive fumes. I wrap my arms around Finn’s neck and try to shake the image of him being dragged away from me, dig my fingers into his skin to reassure myself he’s really here.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I love you, Finn, and I hate myself for not saying it until now.”
He seems to have caught my trembling, and he places a sweet, shaky kiss to my lips. “I think I can forgive you.”
I hug him again, holding on to him until our breathing aligns, but the peace it brings me is short lived. My worries creep back in, the way the cold creeps into the car when the heater isn’t blasting. I keep seeing him being dragged away. Me powerless to stop it.
“But . . .” I say.
Finn sighs. “But.”
“I do still have feelings for James,” I say. “It’s too easy to remember the girl I was when I loved him. I don’t know if I can do it. I know I should, but so far . . .”
“I’ve been selfish, letting you take responsibility for pulling the trigger.” He tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “The truth is, I kind of love that you can’t do it. That’s who you are, Em. If it were easy for you, you’d be no better than him.”
“But Marina,” I say. “And Finn. They’ll suffer if we fail.”
“We’ll think of something.” He presses a kiss to my forehead, then my eyebrow and my cheek, each one warmer and more lingering than the last. “And we won’t give up.”
“Finn . . .” I whisper, my body growing heavy as his lips continue to move across my face.
“We’ve already lost them.” The languid kiss he leaves at the corner of my mouth sends a shiver up my spine. “Pointless to try to catch up. We should get some rest.”
“Rest,” I murmur.
He kisses me, finally, on the lips, pulling the breath out of me until I’m gasping and dizzy. He pulls away and slides the car into drive. With one hand, he takes my own, lacing our fingers together, and with the other, he steers us toward a motel across the street.
Twenty-Five
Marina
We arrive at James’s house as daylight is beginning to turn the edge of the sky pink and orange. It’s hard to believe it’s only been two days. The world’s been so flipped on its head that day is night to me, my eyelids growing heavier as the sun comes up.
I catch a glimpse of my house as James pulls into the garage. The lights are off, and there’s no car outside. Maybe my parents are already gone. I’m not sure if the hollowness I feel is relief or disappointment.
I shove Finn awake in the backseat, and we stagger out of the car while James is already unlocking the door to his house. He doesn’t seem sleepy at all, like he’s fueled by something purer and more primal.
“He okay, you think?” Finn asks as he climbs out of the car.
I sigh. “I don’t know. He was saying some weird stuff while you were out.”
“Oh, uh.” Finn looks at the ground. “Really?”
I narrow my eyes at him. He was asleep, wasn’t he? He glances back at me, unmistakably guilty, and I smack him. “You’re terrible!”
He rubs his arm. “Your talking woke me up! Believe me, that was the last conversation I wanted to eavesdrop on.”
He walks past me into the house, and I frown at his back before following him. Inside, James is moving from room to room, shutting all of the curtains so that not a crack of daylight comes through. He passes me on his way from the living room to the dining room and throws the lock and dead bolt on the front door on his way.
“Everything all right?” I say.
“It’s going to be fine. I’ve just got to . . . make some calls. So just make yourselves at home.”
“Now that you mention it”—Finn scratches his fingers through his unwashed hair—“I could use a shower.”
I try to smile. “I’ll say.”
“Ha-ha.”
“You can use the first guest bathroom,” James says. “There’s shampoo under the sink, and you can borrow clothes out of my closet.”
Finn nods and heads upstairs.
“Do you mind if I lie down in the blue room?” I ask. “I don’t want to go home right now.”
“Sure.”
I turn to trudge up the stairs, and James comes with me. Halfway up he loops an arm around my waist, and I lean into him.
“Tired?” he says.
I nod and look at him out of the corner of my eye. He’s acting surprisingly normal, the frantic curtain-closing aside. Nate is gone, but James isn’t crying or pacing or pulling out his hair. He looks focused. Energized.
“You should get some rest, too,” I say. It can’t last. This is some weird James-style denial that will only make the breakdown that much worse.
“I will.”
We walk together toward the blue room, which I’ve always thought of as mine. I’m sure I’ve spent more nights in the mahogany bed with the blue damask comforter than anyone else. I pause only to toe off my shoes before collapsing face-first onto the mattress.
“Are there fresh sheets?” James asks, as if that matters.
“I don’t care.” I crack one eye open and see James closing the curtains with the same care he did downstairs. I roll over and shimmy myself under the comforter. “They’re clean.”
“Good.” He sits down beside me and pulls the covers up to my chin, tucking them around me like I’m a little girl.
“Thanks, Mom,” I say. “So, who are you going to call?”
“Dr. Feinberg. I want to find out if he gave my notes to Nate. Plus, there are some . . . other things I need to talk to him about.”
“Okay,” I say, not knowing how else to respond.
“And I’m going to call Bob Nolan at the FBI. I don’t want Richter working on Nate’s case. If Nolan sees the stuff we found, maybe he’ll do something about it.”
I run a hand down his arm. “I hope you’re right.”
“I hope so, too. In any event, nothing should happen for a few hours, so get some sleep.”
He leans down and kisses my forehead, and the moment lingers. He pulls away slightly, like he’s realized what he’s doing, and our breath mingles for the space of three shallow breaths before his lips sink onto mine.
His lips move against mine once, slowly, but other than that we’re both still, our lips just pressed against each other. It probably seems peaceful from the outside, but my insides are rioting. Something strange happens in my chest, like my heart breaking open and spilling heat into my body, tingling through my limbs. I want to move, open my lips or touch his face, but I’m frozen.
Then James puts his hand on my chin and tilts it toward him, deepening the kiss, and I crash through my paralysis. I’ve figured it out, why I couldn’t take all of Sophie and Tamsin’s seduction advice. It’s because I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to seduce James, to trick him and his hormones into wanting me. I wanted him to want me all on his own. Like this.
I run my hands up his broad back and into his hair, on the opposite side from his stitches, and make a mess of it the way I’ve imagined doing so many times. Nate’s dead and I’m leaving, and all I want is to drown myself in this moment until I’ve crowded out everything else. James picks up on my urgency, and his gentleness slips away, becomes fumbling hands and messier kisses. He pulls at my sweater, fingers curling in the hem.
“Is this okay?” he whispers.
“Shut up.” I press the words against his lips and drag his shirt over his head. Mine quickly follows, and then there’s skin on skin and the world narrows to the places where we touch. I strain toward him and pull him closer, back into a kiss, wanting to disappe
ar under the weight and heat of his body on top of mine.
James turns his head away from me. “Sorry. Sorry. I shouldn’t have.”
“What?” I whisper.
He stands and gathers his discarded shirt and shoes. I sit up, crossing my arms over my chest. “James—”
“Sorry,” he says, not looking at me.
And then he’s gone.
Em
I wake, squinting into the light. I’m not sure where I am, but the thought doesn’t bring panic like it should. I try to shift away from the sun and realize there’s someone beside me. My cheek is resting on Finn’s bare chest, which rises and falls with his breath, the quiet thump of his heart in my ear.
Oh yeah. Rest.
The motel room is tiny, with peeling paint and a carpet that would cause my mother to drop dead on the spot, but the mattress is soft and the sheets are clean and cool. The person beside me isn’t half bad, either. I have no desire to ever get out of this bed. The world can go to hell outside our locked door; I’m not leaving.
Finn lifts a hand and runs it through my hair, his touch featherlight and gentle. I close my eyes and enjoy the tingle his fingers send through my scalp. When he kisses the top of my head, I look up at him and smile.
He narrows his eyes at me. “I thought you were asleep.”
“So that’s why you were being so sweet.”
“I don’t know about that. . . .” He kisses me, and maybe I should be self-conscious about my unwashed hair and unbrushed teeth, but I’m not. Not now.
“This was a good idea,” he whispers, “if I do say so myself.”
“Yeah.” I sigh as the cold air comes creeping in again. “But—”
“No! Not yet. No buts yet.” He kisses me silent. “Let’s at least eat our complimentary continental breakfast first.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s afternoon.”
He glances at the clock on the bedside table. “Damn, cheated! Oh well, we’ll have to find something else to do instead.”