“One.”
As if in direct proportion, my own anxiety skyrockets, heart racing, sweat collecting in crevices.I don’t want to do this anymore.I’ve changed my mind.I want to yell at the workers to stop, but when I open my mouth, no sound comes out.
“Now.”
Nothing happens. Time seems to stand still, locking us both in place.Hiswords come back to me, slithering through my veins.
You are nothing. You deserve nothing.
They root me in place, freezing my limbs.
And then a momentum propels us, coming, I realize, from Claire, who’s jumped, throwing us both from the plank.
And we’re falling.
Air rushes towards me faster than I’ve ever felt, so harsh it seems to be attacking my entire body, so fast it expels from my mind any thought of the words that had been racing through it moments before. I open my mouth once more, but the scream lies dormant.
And just when we’ve fallen for so long that I expect the bone-crunching contact of the water’s surface, the bungee cord immediately retracts, throwing Claire and I back up in the air with it. And that’s when I feel her. Solid, stronger than I expected.
After several more gut-wrenching jerks upwards, we come to rest, hanging upside down, Spider-Man style, mere feet away from the water’s surface.
A man pulls us, still shaking, into a small canoe-like boat and rows us the ten or so feet to land. Euphoria floods through me, accompanied by an all-consuming affection for Claire. When the boat strikes the hard earth, I’m on a high I’ve never felt before.
I scan the shore for Kyan, anticipating him to be waiting there for me, hopefully with a shot in hand. And then I see him. But itisn’t a shot he’s holding, and he isn’t looking at me. He isn’t looking at anyone. His eyes are closed and his lips…
His lips are squarely on Adrien’s.
Rage consumes me, a feeling I haven’t felt in years. Red obscures my vision, just as it did that night years ago in the car, and the anger eradicates the adrenaline high I felt only moments before.
Only one thing remains in my mind, an all-consuming, burning need. A desire for something I’ve only felt to this extent once before.
Revenge.
14
Claire
Now
“Shit.”
Ellery doesn’t usually swear. It was something I found so incongruous about her when we first met—her tough exterior, all heavy black eyeliner and facial piercings combined with her sweet, childlike personality. So I can tell now that something’s really wrong.
“There are wildfires in Northern New South Wales and the southern part of Queensland. Our flight back to Sydney has been cancelled. And so are the ones for tomorrow. The next one is Friday.”
Two days from now. The day I’m supposed to return to Chicago.
“Shit,” Declan chimes in. “Are there any other airports around?”
Ellery is already on it. “It looks like there’s one in Alice Springs, but that’s eight hours away. And”—her fingers dance across her phone’s keyboard—“yup, those flights are cancelled until Friday as well.”
Declan punches the steering wheel, hard. I jolt back, never having seen anger like that from him before.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “It’s just really inconvenient.”
I don’t say anything, but I agree, making a mental note to call the airline later to reschedule my flight.
The news must have reached the rest of our caravan because Kyan lifts his arm out the driver’s side window, signaling for us to pull over. Once we stop behind him, the others are out of their rental and next to our windows within seconds.
